Hi guys!

The photos above are from a mountain hiking trip last weekend. We went over to Grouse Mountain, one of the more popular hiking spots in Vancouver. We spent about an hour hiking (it was pretty challenging) and then took a ride to the top of the mountain. The views speak for themselves...

This is my last week in Vancouver, which is slowly getting to me because overall, I had such a good time here. I thought I'd make this post about what I enjoyed here, and which parts weren't my favorite.

Best parts of this trip:

*Dr. Williams is hands down in the top 10 kindest people I've ever met. He's such a supportive mentor, which is important to me because it motivates me to work better. Having his guidance throughout this project is a big part of why I felt confident to take it on. He also invites his students for dinner parties at his house... how awesome is that? I definitely felt very welcome in this lab.

*Branching out from my field of study (neuroscience) into physiology *and* doing research in another city took some time for me to get used to, but it's really made me think about what I want to study in graduate school and later in life. I'm getting ever closer to pinning down exactly what I'm passionate about. Isn't that really the most important thing?

*Vancouver is a beautiful city, and I'm glad I chose to come here. It's definitely worth visiting for anybody. I'm also really glad I was able to have my boyfriend stay with me this summer. I've had a bit of a tough year last year, and I think that being surrounded by great scenery and social support helped me be more optimistic again.

Not-so-great parts of this trip:

*Vancouver's prices are truly enormous. This applies to groceries ($100/week if you never go out... and I go out quite a bit), housing (I paid $600/mo for a place that in the US wouldn't be worth it), and running shoes ($90-110 in the US, $130-180 here). I never became comfortable about this, and it really sucks because it's something I couldn't/can't change. Lets just say the IRES award was more than appreciated, haha. I might have had empty pockets by now otherwise.

*There is lots of peculiar behavior everywhere. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but there are people who talk to buses and to open air, people wearing lamps as hats, etc. It's very weird and disturbing.

*Homelessness is a big issue in Vancouver... there is a part of town (right on the edge of downtown) where 4-6 blocks are just completely occupied with homeless people, some of who do drugs in plain sight. It's a concerning sight to see.

--

That's it for now! Off to do the final stretch. :)

July, July, Julyyy

Hello all!

It has been some time since the last post, but as my time in Ecuador is nearing to an end of sorts I feel like I'm going to leave this country kicking, screaming, and crying like a little baby. We'll see what happens in the next two weeks of my stay, whether the cards will turn and I'll somehow have a stroke of bad luck or I'll just keep falling harder for this marvelous country.

In terms of lab work, we came back from our last and final trip to the field. Usually, I'm not super emotional, but I ended up crying when I left Borbón. It was kind of like my body had no option other than release some burst of emotion and tears seemed to be the first response. Other than the emotional departure, we've been in the lab everyday (as usual) and we will be ready to extract the DNA and have everything ready to bring back to the states by August 4th. This means that I'll have about 10 days to do some fun traveling!

Tentative travel plans include:

1) Beaching it up the entire time

2) Going to the Amazon and hiking for 4-5 days
3) Staying in Quito and indulging in the dance life.
4) Going to Baños, which is like a mini-Amazon. haha.

Right now I'm leaning towards the Amazon since it's about a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Some fun things I've done so far areee:

Drinking hot chocolate and eating pastries at Cafe Modelo, which is the oldest cafe shop in all of Quito:

Went to the Museum Yaku (i.e. museum of water) with a bubble room and all sorts of fun water gadgets to teach kids about ocean currents, 3 phases of matter, a photo exhibit and moreee.

You could draw on reusable paper using a paintbrush and water. We represented our environmental love:

They had cool projections of large bodies of water too:

We also went for a steep hike at Quilotoa (a famous/still active volcano). It was super chilly:

We had a day off of work so we went to the beach, but it was cloudy and rainy...still Atacames was a ton of fun, eating fresh fruits, making sand mermaids and laying out on hammocks. :)

Here is another typical dish we would eat for breakfast (desayuno continental). It includes patacones (double fried plantains), scrambled eggs, blackberry milkshake, and tea or coffee. Yes, you can't avoid the weight gaining with a breakfast like that...

Until later, hope you enjoy the pictures and the glimpse into my Ecuadorian life. It's amazing! Oh, I also saw Transformers 3 in spanish, without subtitles...wooo! Hmm, I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my time here working hard, dancing, running/taking advantage of the altitude, and enjoying the scenery. Hope you're all having a blast too!

Long Time No See

Apologies, Apologies

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts. Traveling, work, and procrastination can be quite harmful. With that said, NFL lockout is OVER! Go RAVENS!

Stockholm. Went to the land of awesome Swedes late June. It was really nice.. small, but nice. One of my favorite places thus far. People are much more outgoing than Finns.

Swedish Royal Guards > British Royal Guards

Did you know that Sweden has the best economy in Europe? Too bad it was a little expensive..

Much better than IKEA Swedish meatballs. If you have time, check out this video. Hilarious.

I'm on a boat. And pointing.

My future summer house.

4th of July BBQ. Well, the people left at the end. From left to right: Finnish flatmate (stalker look), American girl from Notre Dame, French flatmate, Icelandic ex-flatmate (awesome bro), Indian labmate, me, Italian labmate, Finnish labmate, Finnish dude

Finland has more lakes than people.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the lake.

Beautiful, natural sauna in the woods with no electricity. Everyone was naked.. well, expect me. A towel covering my prized possessions is the farthest I went.

Told ya.. no electricity at all. Sauna, swim, sauna, swim, sauna, swim... then bathe in this bucket. With temperatures over 90 Celcius, I thought I was in Hotlanta! =P

Enough fun...

Work!

Ups and downs. All the recordings are done, coding is done, but figuring out the coding is a slap in my face. Also had to redo initial pre-analysis about three times because I forgot to do certain steps, but that's all okay because we're on track to get some good data soon. Really cool techniques and analyses done here. Excited to tell you guys in more detail and also inform my lab back home!

So I haven't posted in a while because....

A) I'm been busy with lab work

B) I don't feel like it

C) I don't want my $500 when we get back to Emory

D) I am too cool for blogs

E) I've been traveling

You're right! I've been traveling! Sneak preview of what's to come in the next few days/week:

You can say that I gained a little weight while in Europe

Moment of silence of those who lost their lives in Norway. There's quite a concern in Finland regarding dangers of these right-winged radicals due to increased popularity of conservative, Nationalistic ideals bringing Finland back to pre-EU, pre-immigration thinkings. Scary.

The home stretch

7/29/2011

Well I’m here at the end of my trip procrastinating writing my paper on the research I’ve done :x I’m a bit nervous to go home though, I’ve gotten so comfortable living here that it’s like the reverse of what I felt before coming here, strange how things have switched!

This week has been crazy weather wise though! On Sunday and Monday there was a snow storm, and people here called it the “snowpocalypse” just like at home because Dunedin completely shut down! Most professors couldn’t even get into work so most work and classes were canceled, just not for me :x I gave a presentation on Monday on the work I do back at Emory to the members of the department that happened to make it in that day (a whopping 4 people :p) and it went really well! By Tuesday though, it was raining and the snow was gone, and by Thursday the temp was in the 50’s!

Last weekend I went to another Red Card party though … and those can be terrifying! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but Red Cards are where each flatmate in a college flat gets one day a semester to make all the rules, and the rest of the flatties have to follow them (and oftentimes their friends as well, which is how I keep getting pulled in!) – some of the stories I’ve heard though make the American Greek system hazing stories look like nothing! For this red card though, teams of a flatmate and nonflatmate in team colors (dressed in crazy outfits) with their face painted and with fake tattoos on it, were blindfolded and then dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and we had to find our way back without asking for directions, hitching a ride, or using GPS, and while completing a list of crazy scavenger hunt tasks! Luckily, my partner is the girl I went to Milford with, so she happened to have a map and I had a compass on me, so we were all good :D We came in second though, losing to 2 Kiwis who are geography majors, so it was legit. The scavenger hunt tasks were nuts though and included things like proposing to strangers, kissing strangers (though it didn’t say we couldn’t on the cheek! :x), doing handstands and planking in weird places, etc. On the bright side though, since it’s a cultural game/activity, just approaching random people and saying you are on a red card instantly makes the person smile and they know what you are talking about (and why you are dressed like a crazy person asking for help with really weird things) and are always willing to help! Even some family with 2 small kids while waiting to cross the street at a light helped us with one of our tasks haha. All in all, this red card was a blast! And everyone made it back to the flat safely, so no worries :D

I really hate Kiwi television though … commercials said that Captain America comes out here on the 30th … it came out yesterday! THEY LIED! I’m very upset  Had to find out that I missed the premier when I came into the lab T.T

Well, I think I should stop procrastinating now and actually write my paper :x

Europe:)

Hi!

These past couple of weeks have been absolutely fantastic. Right before I went on my 11 day Western Europe trip, my FRAP assays started to work:) YAY!! I was getting a bit disheartened there. I've also been working on them this week, and the new parameters that I have set have seemed to keep on working, so I'm happy.

This weekend was the first weekend that I've been in Dublin since the first week I arrived, so it has been nice to just relax. I went to St. Steven's Green (this beautiful park) for 4 hours and just hung out and read the 6th Harry Potter. Reading the 6th book just made everything a lot better because it is my most favorite of the HP books. I also scowered a lot of Indian/Middle Eastern shops in search for cardamom, pisacchios, almonds, walnuts, and cashews. I'm making baklava and barfi (this Eastern Indian dessert. It's quite yummy). I've finally accepted that I will have to pay many, many Euros for only 250g of pistacchios. Good news is, though, that I already found my rose water. I didn't end up buying any cashews, so I think I'm going to go back to this one store and get them so I can make cashew barfi; it's Pratima's (my roommate) favorite.

The Europe trip was absolutely amazing. Brittany and I had so much fun. We really, really enjoyed ourselves. Paris was by far my favorite city, followed by Rome. I would put up pictures, but then I'd have to choose from 2,000....and I just really don't feel like doing that right now. Some pictures will come up soon, so no worries. I think I'll just put up a few per city so I don't bore you.

We got to see some really cool places like the colosseum, Roman forum, the Vatican museum & Sistine Chapel, Eiffel tower (of course), Louvre, Versailles, Notre Dame, Gaudi architecture in Barcelona, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and much much more. I was so tired when we got back! On Wednesday, I just had to leave work early....I couldn't concentrate. I came back and took a 2.5 hour nap. It was quite nice:)

So I sent in my medical school application. I already got back 3 secondaries. YAY! I sent in one, and I'm waiting for the career center to send me back my critiqued essays so that I can send in the other two. I have to say: the document critique service at the career center is a God send. I don't know what I would do without it!

I'm still waiting on crosses to end so that I can finally get into the nitty gritty work on my long term habituation project. It's a bit annoying, really, just sitting around waiting for virgins to eclose. I decided to stop staring at them because I decided that when I do, they refuse to eclose at all. It's like they know I'm wanting them for scientific purposes...it's their way of rebelling.

Well, tonight is game night! Mariapia brought home like 10 scones (one being raspberry, might I add), 5 croissants, 2 baguettes, and 3 different loafs of bread, one being walnut raisin. I was talking to my sister yesterday and she was like are you sad that this summer is coming to and end soon, and I said, "No, I really have lived my life here to the fullest and have taken full advantage of my time here, so I have no regrets or sadness."

All in all, this is the best summer of my life, and I still have 3 weeks to go!

Life is fast-paced, every day.
Let it hit you, come what may.

WiFi is still not working at my home.
This time, thought I'd post in a "poem".

Therefore posting pictures is a problem.
But it's alright since I'm not close to stardom.

Yet I can still share my experience in life.
Maximize peace, get rid of the strife.

Yay, other Emory students are now in Oxford!
But I barely ever see them so it's a little awkward.

Finally got a breakthrough in my research...
funny how it can start by praying in a church.

Finally narrowed it down to two specific fields:
laughter & network analysis - it's sealed.

Now the data's rollin' in like a basketball;
barely keepin' up, soon it'll be the Fall.

These SNA maps I'm churning out are pretty cool.
Can't wait to see if they apply and work for school.

FB, PR, CSEC got me zoomin' round the digital world.
It's fun when you try - go ahead and take it for a whirl.

Onto Laughter Yoga & a little bit of Gibberish.
Taste left over in your mouth is sorta like licorice.

Big world doesn't wanna fit until my little research box,
yet the minor findings can provide big shocks.

Funny how we as humans can collaborate:
just offer your gift and leave room to reciprocate.

Keep movin' on up to bigger and better;
just drop all chains and let go of every fetter.

But don't forget to stop and smell the roses
Cuz the frustration of life often opposes.

To family, friends, supporters & whoever reads this:
please pray that I would not go amiss.

Because I'm following some good leads, on the way to success.
Now it's time to crank out some work in excess!

Hi guys, I haven't posted in a while. Work has gotten really busy so I've been taking whatever free time I have to just relax. Everything with my project and birds is going OK! Monitoring more than twenty nests daily (that's 7 days a week!) isn't easy but I'm really liking my work. Zebra finches breed and grow so quickly, and I'm enjoying the fast pace. It's amazing to see them grow. :)

Here's a variety of birds for ya:

14 days

10 days

7 days

9 days

As for exploring Vancouver, we spent some time recently in Stanley Park, the beach, eating out (finally... I was starting to feel like a hermit. I love going to restaurants).

Our living situation never ceases to be extremely awkward. Per my mother's advice, I'm never living in a house with landlords again. Quite frankly they are some of the least considerate people I've met (barely any heat when it was freezing here, loud parties until ~2-3 AM, some of our laundry was ruined b/c they left a freakin' crayon in the dryer). We only have about three weeks left to live here so I guess we're just bearing with it. It's not too bad, just very awkward. I'm still enjoying my time here... especially when I'm out of the house haha.

In good news, I've started up running again at my usual mileage after about a month of being in chronic pain since I've moved here. I really don't know what caused it (change of climate/terrain?) and I can't go to a doctor here since I'm an international (and I admit it, I know everything a doctor will tell me anyway, which is usually to just "quit"). Anyway, things are improving for me somewhat, although now I'm taking it day-by-day with the physical activity instead of following a plan 100%.

We still plan to do some things here before this trip is over: visit UBC, hike, and probably do some other stuff. I'll update soon!

EPICNESSSSSSSSSS

July 12, 2011

Soo I realized I haven’t actually posted in a while! Sorry about that! Things have been pretty busy here for me so I will start with the fact that a couple weeks ago ….

I SAW JANE GOODALL!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most famous primatologist alive!!!!!!!! She was here giving a lecture at the University of Otago, and I had tickets to see her lecture in the second auditorium, since the first was sold out only to VIP guests … grr … BUT! While there were like, 7 different lecture halls it was being streamed in (many were high school students and younger) but the one I was in was pretty much all the academics at the University who REALLY wanted to see her and aren’t a VIP guest (apparently one of the VIP guests was Lucy Lawless …. Yea … Xena was here to see a lecture and have dinner with Jane Goodall …talk about random!) we got a special treat! She came into our lecture hall at the end of her talk and gave us the Q and A session! It was pretty awesome, especially since she responded to the welcome Maori chant with a chimpanzee greeting call :D



Then it was some more work work work, and I got a flatmate finally (the house is no longer to myself) but who is really nice and interesting. She’s a lawyer from Argentina who pretty much hated her job and took off to NZ for the past year to work. Her mom went to the University of Chicago though and so her brother and sister were born there, and her mom is a PhD and professor of geography (though focuses more on ethnogeography) – so at least my one flatmate is awesome!

My advisor and half the lab during this time have been at a conference in Samoa, and just got back). Before they took off though, I went to the Staff club (a room on the top floor of one of the University buildings turned into a bar/lounge for staff members) with some of the girls from the lab, and I got to meet some of the archaeologists here – and see the division! It’s crazy! In classes, I have been taught that in other countries, archaeologists are not considered anthropologists and that they are separate fields, while in the States, archaeology is considered a part of anthropology and everything is holistic. I actually got to not only meet archaeologists, who are in a completely separate department from mine and on the other side of town here, but I also somehow ended up hearing and somewhat involved in an argument between archaeology vs. bioanthropology! Apparently the archaeologists get pissed at bioanthropologists on digs since they think that the bioanth people think that they can excavate better than the archaeologists, even though that’s the job of the archaeologist – and the bioanthropologists don’t think this, but they do think they can excavate human remains better and that is what they are there for on digs and the archaeologists need to learn from them and stop interfering since they mess it up – commonly I hear in my lab when bags are horribly mislabeled and messed up from collections “silly archaeologists” and they are the go to to blame for poor recovery of human remains :x Both sides have good points, but everything works so much better when it’s holistic! I never knew that the divide was this real, the dig team I’m on with Dr. Stutz is so international, with his wife from Sweden and the third P.I. a German from University College London who now works in Qatar and Copenhagen, even though Liv Stutz’s training would technically be in archaeology, her specialty is human burials and burial practices, so it is all combined, and Aaron Stutz is focused more on archaeology as well, but he is a physical anthropologist – so it’s all weird to me to see this! But very cool, and the biggest culture shock I’ve had, since it’s career culture shock, and anthropology is such an international field, that I never expected to find this!

While my advisor was in Samoa, I took one of the weekends and went to see Milford Sound with one of my friends here – and we hitchhiked there and back! Milford is on the other side of the country (about 5-6 hours away) on the other coast, and taking a bus would have been really REALLY expensive (we took a bus from Te Anau, where we were staying, into the sound, and it cost 45$ one way, for the shortest leg of the trip which was only 1.5 hours …) but don’t worry, I didn’t die and I researched it first! Hitchhiking in New Zealand is very common practice apparently, and the girl I was with had hitchhiked across the entire country by herself a few months ago, and some of the girls in my lab have done it solo as well (so with a partner it was even more ok) and we met some really cool people that way! The first woman who drove us stopped by this beach called Gemstone Beach, which has had sapphires and rubies wash up on it even! The rocks there were gorgeous and the place looked like it came straight out of a painting, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen! And one of the couples who drove us on the way back were coming from a vintage American car rally, so they were driving a car from the 50’s or 60’s made by General Motors (my great-grandfather at this time was head of their styling division under Harvey Earl, so there’s a good chance that he designed the car we were in!). We also met this one guy who came to NZ on holiday from England 10 years ago … he never went back haha! While it was nerve racking at first realizing I was actually hitchhiking, once we were picked up by the first woman (Renee), all that fear subsided, the people in this country, which I had already noticed, are EXTREMELY friendly and being driven around by locals, they told us a lot about the area which we would never have heard about otherwise – it was very similar to my experience hiring Bedouin in Petra with horses instead of a tour guide, it was way cheaper and they knew everything there was and more than the tour guides and were super friendly! It was definitely the experience of a lifetime … especially because I will NEVER hitchhike at home!! :D Also, we were camping outside in a tent in below freezing weather … and considering I hate the cold, that is also something I will probably never do again, though I had a blast (and was only 2 nights thankfully)!

Since I got back, some of the people in the lab have gone to other islands for excavations and other lab work, I’ve managed to finish the data collection part of my project, been invited to an “epic sexy Christmas dance party” and yes, it was all out Christmas decorated in July, and last night I got to go to the clinic to take radiographs of some of the bones I’m looking at to check for lesions, so I’ll be learning how to use X-rays for learning more about remains!

So once again, sorry that this post is more like 5 posts put together! Enjoy the pictures below, they basically speak for themselves :D


Dunedin Midwinter Festival - Celebrating the Longest Night of the Year


Dunedin Midwinter Festival


Henry, a 200+ year old Tuatara (these reptiles went extinct along with the dinosaurs everywhere except in NZ!) - at a museum our first ride to Milford dropped us off at while she had to run some errands in that particular town



Gemstone Beach - when we were there (and it didn't get captured in the picture), there was a lot of mist in the distance that the sun made golden since it was setting that made the place look eeriely unreal


Location used in filming Lord of the Rings



On the way to Milford Sound


Mirror Lakes


Mirror Lakes


Stream - water was extremely blue from coming down from the glacier


Glacier




On the way to Milford


Wild Kea Bird (type of parrot)


On the way to Milford


Milford Sound


Mitre Peak - Milford Sound


Waterfall at Milford Sound


Milford Sound

Two down...two to go

Ah yes, we have finally come back from the field for the second time. Let me explain, briefly how this whole project works. We are looking at antibiotic resistance in surfaces, soil, and water samples in chicken-raising and non-chicken raising households. We isolate our samples (technique depends on sample type) onto chromocult (CC), which is a specific media for E. coli. Then we isolate the bacteria from CC and plate onto MacConkey agar to verify the bacteria is Lactose+. Afterwards, we re-plate the bacteria onto CC to have a third and final phenotypic verification of E. coli. Then we begin with our antibiograms to test for antibiotic susceptibility, save the bacteria in a brain heart infusion + glycerol solution, freeze 'em, and wait until about the first week of August when we will perform DNA extractions on approximately 1000-1500 samples to take back with us to the USA (fingers crossed!).

This time in the field we faced a number of problems, but thankfully we overcame them:

1) We were out of water for most of the time we were in the project house so we took bucket baths with dirty water...at least we were cleaner than how we started.

2) All of our household water samples and river samples had too much bacterial growth (of various types) so in order to get E. coli specifically, we had to re-isolate every single water sample. This actually backtracked us since we had planned on moving to the second verification step (MacConkey agar), but couldn't since we needed more specificity.

3) The intensity of our chicken farms are not as high as we thought they were. Apparently, all of the chickens in the chicken coops have been dying out and is significantly impacting our 'casas con pollos' quota.

4) We realized that one of our villages actually has little to no chicken-raising activity and like mindful scientists, we decided to change our village (Valdez) to target another community (Punta de Piedra) that could probably provide a larger sample size.

5) A lot of the time we spend hours working that we forget to eat dinner or skip lunch...BAD FOR OUR METABOLISM. We're trying to make a more conscious effort to eat on time. It's really tough because all of the microbio work is so repetitive and tedious. Half the time we can't talk to each other or else we contaminate our materials (certain agars are easily contaminated).

6) Haven't really overcome this, but I'm pretty sure I'm well over 400 bites of various flies (chiggers, black flies, fleas, and mosquitoes). Yep, I stopped counting.

Here's the plexy glass cámara, which is the 'sterile' environment we keep when we're in the field. It's interesting because ALL of the insects are bonkers for the Chromocult agar so we double parafilm our plates, put them in plastic bags, and rubber band them to prevent any form of contamination.

Membrane filtration in the field!

Surface sampling using a moistened swab.

Water sampling using a whirl-pak bag.

Soil sampling-- We take six scoops of soil and create two pools.

Plating on to MacConkey!

View of Borbón from the EcoDess project house.

Now for the interesting stories....Well unfortunately, I am moving out of my host family because they decided to change everything they said before and charge $200 for 15 days, even when we were away in the field, and are now asking for more. In essence, they were going back on their word...something that really surprised me and took me a bit off-guard especially since they recently bought a new puppy, renovating the bathroom, and in the process of installing an electric fence to add to the in-house security alarm, outdoor security alarm and 3 locked doors (can someone say 'paranoid?'). Now, I'll be moving in with Karla Vasco (for freeee), the other microbiologist who has been helping us tremendously on correcting our Spanish, different streaking techniques, making media, and really everything and more that I never got from Intro to Microbio lab at Emory. This is the real deal because we work from scratch day in and day out...putting in about 9-10 hours a day in the university lab and 15-16 hours a day in the field. Honestly, I'm a little tired and I feel like I can't catch a break. Luckily, we will be getting this friday off in the afternoon and evening--a solid 7 hours to hang out in Quito and see my friends that I initially made at the beginning of this trip. Free time is a luxury. haha.

Actually another Emory student will be visiting Quito soon so that'll be fun to look forward too! Working on orientation business is definitely fun too, but I'm hoping people will respond to my emails and I can move forward with my ideas and plans!

This post sounds a litttle depressing, but really I'm enjoying myself here...just need a little breather and to see more people other than my lovely partner. After it all I'm still crazy for this country: music, dance, culture, you name it and I'm dreaming about it. It all feels so right, almost perfect. Bizarre, right? I never would've thought I had the patience to do microbio work, but I've been learning so much and I'm hoping to run the DNA samples when I get back to the States (or something of that sort). In the meantime, I'm packing my things for the field once again! Chao!

P.S. As for the fruits, I'm definitely getting all my vitamins in when I'm out in the field:

Getting in my dose of vitamin C. In one of our houses we sampled from the mother took us to her orchard and gave us super, fresh oranges.

This was the stickest fruit I've ever had...can't remember the name...but it was only $0.25.

Anonas have a texture like passion fruit and mango combined, but it tastes like a mango and pear combined. Best. fruit. ever.

Edelay is my PI's god-daughter, and clearly enjoying her coconut water.

Here is one piece of Guaba, which looks and tastes like organic cotton candy. Qué rico! Until next time!