All things French

From hiking in the Alps and Bastille Day to Tour de France, I am taking full advantage of all that is out there without even having to leave my own backyard of Lyon. But I also know that there is no way I can leave France before seeing Paris, so I hopped on a high-speed train last weekend and spent an extended weekend in the city of love.

How can I forget the ever exciting things going on in the lab though - unfortunately, a lot of it is too exciting (and unpublished) to put on a public blog according to my PI but I can definitely give you a quick glimpse of what I've been working on. 

Rouge Ponceau.

This is an image of my Rouge Ponceau, an early indicator of whether or not my Western blot is working or not. Western blots are used to look for specific proteins in different tissue types. We are looking for specific brain proteins that are integral for functional purposes. Want to hear the full story? You will just have to wait and visit my poster this fall at Emory!

Mont Blanc (White Mountain) in Switzerland.

I found out that my PIs are avid hikers and they invited me to join them on a hike through the Swiss Alps with some other labbies. We went up nearly 1000m in elevation to get to the summit, navigating through many steep drops into the abyss. Some parts were so steep that there were chains to hold on to in case you took a wrong step. Since it was my first time, my PI used fancy rock climbing equipment to rope us together in case something happened. But alas, we made it to the summit and even saw some mountain goats on the way down. It hurt my legs to go down stairs the next couple of days, but it was so worth it.

Tour de France float.

What impeccable timing that the Tour de France would pass through Lyon this year the day before Bastille Day, the independence day of France? I went with a labmate to see the cyclists zoom by the streets of downtown Lyon, so fast it was hard to to take pictures! But at least there was a mini-parade about an hour before the racers arrive, where the sponsors on floats threw free stuff at the crowd. Sound familar? Luckily I've had 3 years experience at Emory so far so I came prepared. 

Happy Bastille Day! July 14th, 2013.

I actually got to see 2 night of fireworks, because our house is in Vileurbanne, a small suburb of Lyon that does its own fireworks display the day before Lyon. They really put on a show - complete with American oldies music and even starting out with MLK's "I have a dream" speech. If you look closely, you can see a small castle-looking thing to the left of the fireworks. This is a very famous church in Lyon called the Basillica of Notre Dame de Fouviere (not to be confused with the Notre Dame de Paris - pictures of that next week!), dedicated to the Virgin Mary who saved the town from a cholera epidemic in 1823. This is the same church from my very first post in this summer, quelle coincidence!

Gotta go finish up these Western blots but stayed tuned for more adventures in Paris and Geneva (I am going to tour CERN, so excited!).

Until next time!