Paris (or that time I ate lots of croissants)

I spent the past weekend in Paris! One of my friends from high school is studying abroad in Dublin so we met up with each other in Paris.  In the span of 3 days we walked over 35 miles… The first day she and I went to this area called Opera (their Academy of Music is located here and the building itself is very historic), Notre Dame,  Arc de Triumph, Montmarte, Moulin Rouge and Eiffel Tower. We spent the next day at Versailles and the following day at the Louvre. In all, Paris is a very pretty city, with lots of yummy food.  The croissants really did taste that much better as did the cheese. I am a huge fan of cheese so being in Paris with a cheese shop every couple of blocks was a dream. Sadly, Versailles was a little disappointing. At this point in my travels I have seen many palaces and Versailles was always the one hyped up as “the most extravagant" one.  However, to my surprise, many of the things there were fake or reproductions. Upon first glance of the palace you think “wow look at all that gold”, however when you look closer you see that it is gold paint not actual gold. A lot of the marble was also painted and was not actual marble. This was something that surprised me a lot. However the hall of mirrors did live up to the hype and was beautiful to walk down. The Louvre was also extremely neat because I was finally standing in front of the Mona Lisa in person. Yes it was much smaller and crowded by tons of tourists, but it was still amazing to see in person.

Me in front of Eiffel Tower

Hall of Mirrors at Versailles 

Moulin Rouge

Cheesey Croissants 

The Louvre Pyramid

View of Paris from the top of Arc de Triumph

Last week at lab I finished all my behavioral tests in the morning and then sacrificed my mice in the afternoon. While this was a little sad I was excited to finally be collecting the brains to analyze. This week in lab is my last so I am spending a lot of time staining all my tissue, running immunohistochemistry and analyzing it all. I have a lot to do and not much time to do it in but I am excited to see what the results will show. I still can’t believe that this is my tenth and final week here at the lab. While it will be sad to say goodbye to everyone, I am so grateful to have been able to spend time in this lab. After this workweek ends I will be taking an extended vacation to Switzerland to visit a family friend, so I am looking forward to more cheese (and finally cooler weather).