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!