Travels never blogged: Part 5: Odense, Denmark

Part two of the course was in Odense. We did some science-y things at Syddansk Universitet (University of Southern Denmark). And then we had a day off. Up to this point, it has mostly been 10-14 hour days of MATLAB and microphones. So hooray for day off.

I wandered around town with my classmates.

There was a market

There was a lovely picnic in the park:

Wooden boats by the park

In case you can't tell, that horse is spraying water out of its nostrils

We went to the zoo. There were manatees eating. Adorable.

This was followed by an Adventure that I unfortunately have no photos of.

Travels never blogged: Part 4: Søgaardlejren, Denmark

So on to Denmark! And science! The course was terribly helpful. And taught by just brilliant people. It mostly consisted of 1) Convert ALL the dB to SPL 2) Calibrate ALL the things 3) Look at ALL the harbor porpoises. Just look at them. They are adorable. I flew into Copenhagen. It was lovely. I was there only briefly (overnight on each end). And I spent my brief time there sleeping and finding a laundromat. Note: Laundromat was in red light district--even more depressing at 9AM.
The first part of the class was in Søgaardlejren. It was on a "base" for the Danish equivalent of the National Guard. 

We stayed here:

  

One of the many paths

We did lots of recordings of bats that were hunting over the lake

  

I wandered around here

And may I add: Thatched roof!

Travels never blogged: Part 3: Rome, Italy

I did most of Rome by myself. I was with my friends for one afternoon and evening then the following day and morning by myself. It was wonderful. Except for the part where my camera died in the Vatican. Alas. Did I buy a disposable camera? Yes I did.

We will start with the token shot of the Coliseum.

Here's the some of the view from the ruins nearby:

The building with the sculpture on top is an museum I didn't have time for

And the actual ruins:

Mosaic floor.

This may have been part of the Forum. Darn ambiguous signage.

Trajan's Column:

And here's some from the Vatican before camera battery death
Peacocks:

Top of St. Peter's from the courtyard with neat sculpture thing:

Sometimes even the Pope just wants the kids to stay off his lawn:

Travels never blogged: Part 2: Venice, Italy

Oh my goodness, Venice. Be still my heart. The water, the buildings, San Marco's (and square), and, of course, all the lions.

This was the view from our hostel.

Taking photos of other people's balconies is normal behavior, especially leaning out your hostel window. Totally normal.

 Here's San Marco's cathedral:

A few from San Marco's square:

Part of a clock tower. Lions everywhere

I'm a little obsessed with this boat.

 View from one of the many bridges

Rialto Bridge at night. You can't tell from this photo, but there is pretty much no room to walk up those steps because there's so many people on it.

And this view is why:

Travels never blogged: Part 1: Florence & Siena, Italy

Things I haven't done: Blogged about Europe.
I took a course in Denmark last summer. Conveniently, a dear friend and her cousin and another person we know were planning to go to Italy. Even better, it was planned for right before class started! We traipsed around Florence, Siena (an unfortunately short day trip), Venice, and Rome.
Il Duomo:

 Snack time

 Views from the Uffizi art museum:

We went to the Galileo museum. They have a few of his fingers in there. The guards were right there, too close for picture-taking/rule-breaking.
Inside the Galileo museum:

Microscopes!

Telescopes!

Chemistry glassware

Periodic table

It's hard to see in this photo, but there's stairs on the outside of the tower. Upper left side. If I was all right with getting arrested, I would have tried to get up there.

And here's some from Siena:

Florence is a beautiful city at night, but no good photos to share. The bus ride out to Siena went through lovely Tuscan countryside (bus pictures just don't turn out well).

To console you, here's the sign for Dante's family church (well, his church before the city exiled him). 

There was lots of food, primarily gelato and espresso--as we all know, the two major food groups. The major victory was using my rather mediocre Spanish to get one of my fellow travelers antihistamine cream. There was wandering somewhat aimlessly---the best way to go.

More chronicling of a vacation that happened over a year ago to come.

I have apparently gone basically an entire year without posting anything. I know this disappoints all 3 of you who read this. As I am stuck at home waiting for a repair person to set up and the only work I can do is read articles, I'm going to do this instead. And then get back to reading those articles, I promise.
What have I been doing instead of blogging you may ask. The answer (which is the answer to most questions that people ask me) is "science." Science, in my case, mostly comes down to 1 experiment day followed by about a week of waiting for the results. Obviously, while waiting I read, analyze, and write. And get distracted by things like entire NOVA episodes about cuttlefish camouflage.
Now that I've advanced to candidacy (I would say ABD, but I feel like having all these papers to get out negates that), it really is more like a regular job. I don't have to come home and study. I often read a paper or do some writing at home, but I don't have classwork hanging over my head all the time.
So, obviously, I've taken up some hobbies. There may be posts about this in the future if I ever think about photographing the process like Jessie. The main ones are roasting my own coffee. I'm doing more large knitting projects, mostly baby blankets for what seems like 1/3 of my female friends. In this case, large doesn't mean complicated. I am trying more complicated things, mostly perfecting mittens. I've tried some cheese making and yarn dying. And, while I've always loved reading, I'm doing a lot more of it for fun since I'm not so sick of all printed words from class and qualifying exams.

Here's to updating and documenting.

The proposal

No, not that kind.
The time has come to begin writing my dissertation proposal. It is, in fact, open in another window right now. I have 3 parts to said proposal each with multiple specific aims. And I've all ready pulled the reference section from everything else I've written, so I won't have to search through so much crap on EndNote/Papers2. I even have a working title. I can cannibalize a lot of the details from a "grant proposal" that I wrote for a class, and hopefully turn this into a NRSA soon.
Now to explaining the my life's work and overcoming writer's block.

Let there be peace. Let it begin with me.

Cherry Blossom Festival