Rendevous in Florence/Siena

Florence (top right) Siena (top left & bottom right)


Friday after work I grabbed the earliest plane possible and hightailed it to Siena. I will not be able to make it to the Palio or to the big party on July 4th so I wanted to visit a really good friend of mine (Saranya) before I left for Romania. The first day we went to Florence and the following we stayed in Siena. She told me that the weather has been rainy and cloudy since the program begin. Perhaps I brought it with me from Rome but it was hot! It seems that 5 minutes after getting out of the shower I start sweating. I can not imagine what it is going to be like in August. This is a picture from the bell tower on the main square of Siena, Piazza il campo. The going up the 400 steps are quite an adventure since it is this tiny staircase made for midgets so you must be bent over to not hit your head on the ceiling. It was amazing though and for the first time you get a glimpsed of the Tuscany countryside. Every day I pass here, the more I am convinced that I do not want to leave. We also went to the Duomo which you can see as the large white and black structure here. There is an interesting story behind its construction. It was started in 8th century and continued intermedently until the time of Pope Pius the third. However, it is awkward looking for three reasons. There was some technical issues with the structural plans, the war between Siena and Florence left them devastated financially, and during one of its phases of construction a third of the population was lost to the plague. As you see it was similar in style (on the outside at least) to the Duomo in Florence as they were trying to outdo each other. I think it is better off because Florence spent all its money on the size and its outside while the one in Siena is smaller but absolutely amazing on the inside. Everyone was gearing up for the Palio so the 17 contratas could be seen wearing there scarves with their own symbols and mascots plus some even had there flags out so that the streets were decorated. Plus some times if you were lucky you could here whole contratas marching and drumming and singing down the streets practicing. It was a huge spectacle. One surprise was the music festival in Siena on saturday night. It was then that I discovered that the italians do not dance and they prefer to sing in English to ("imitate american music") So besides on RA1, the italian TV channel 1. It is very hard to find music in italian.

In Florence we went to Il Duome, Baptistry, Palazzo Pitti (the second palace of the Medici family), Giardino di Boboli, Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria as well as part of Palazzo Vecchio. It was impossible to see it all all. Florence is a place that you need at least two days to see. I will say that I have spoiled with all the public fountains in Rome. Water was very expensive there.

I will have to write more about it later and post some pictures of the view from where I work. Right now I must get ready for the Vienna Opera House. I am going to see Don Carlo with Said Saab (one of my best friends) at 7!

Nagoya Visit

Sorry i didn't finish my last post. Later that day we had a barbecue at the institute. Very nice, with a very wide variety of foods, especially since there are several vegetarians in the group. Prof. Morokuma did quiet a bit of cooking, and when he wasn't cooking he still hovered around to oversee the proceedings, just like a good research director should.
This week i'm in Nagoya. I got to take a bullet train from Kyoto which fun. It wasn't a Maglev like i hoped, but still a very enjoyable and smooth ride. I've always had a strange fascination with taking trains as a mode of transportation. I'm working with Dr. Stephan Irle, who used to work at Emory as one of Prof. Morokuma's postdocs, at Nagoya University. While we were in Nagoya, we visited with Prof. Shinohara, who performs many of the experimental analogs of our research. He and his researchers actually make the fullerenes and carbonanotubes that we simulate. So that was quite a treat, actually getting to see the reactions in person. Prof Shinohara keeps a jar in his office full of C60 powder (about 4 lbs of it) which is still quite expensive. I also got to see many of the purification apparatus that they used (ie. HPLC) and electron microscopes and mass spectrometers that the use to investigate the products of their reactions.
Things are so far much quieter than in Kyoto. Admittedly, I haven't strayed very far from the campus, but since i don't have a bicycle here, and i'm trying to conserve money, i really don't feel like going to far. The university is very interesting though. The pathway that i take on my way to our lab passes right by the bioagricultural research areas. There are gardens where they test and grow genetically altered plant life. There is also a more disturbing aviary where they are testing genetically modified birds. I'm not sure of the breed or the genders, but as near as i can tell from the bird calls, they are drunk roosters dying of bronchitis. They crow at all hours of the day and their calls just sound raspy. Weird.
Oh, just as another example of strange Japanese twists on a Western staple, I encountered the most technologically advanced toilet i've ever seen. It has a self heating seat, bidet, and flush sound producer (for some reason). Oh what a strange land.

Some lab news

So I had to sacrifice two rats yesterday. One was my rat with the assymetrical head, who is not participating in the study for his deformities. The other is a rat we have come to call Mr. Crazy, so now you know why he is not participating in the study. They are in rat heaven now.

Daniele wants to do another experiment that combines the paradigms of self-administration and conditioned place preference. He still has to build the cages, but we might be doing surgery on another 20 rats later this week when we get the stereotaxy equipment back. I'm not sure if he is joking when he says I'm going to do at least a few on my own.

The current experiment with the self-administration is going very well. We all work as a team, as me and another person (usually Michele) go in the morning to the rat room and connect the catheter on the heads of the home group to the spring. This allows them to get used to the sensation of being connected to the spring. Four hours later the experiment begins after we connect the novel group to the springs and put them in the experiment chambers. Right now, the rats are in the "training" phase as they learn to associate bar press for drug. Today is the last day of training, and they will have two "wash-out" days to disassociate the alternation of heroin and amphetamine. Then the choice experiments will begin, where they get to choose between the two drugs.

In other news, I got to hang out with Adriana last night while she was between trips. We went to a Spanish/Latin-America place wayyyyyy south of the city. It was kind of a hassle to get back, and actually it was a lot of hassle to get there too since the metro closed on us. It was a ton of fun since our friends knew how to salsa (or merengue?) and were good teachers. Sadly Adriana leaves for Vienna this morning and I don't know if I will get to see her on Sunday before she leaves for Romania. It's hard to believe it's almost been a month since she's been here!!! That means I've been here for seven weeks!!!! I am very very opposed to going home right now. There is just so much to see...

I figured out why they stare!

I figured out why they stare!
THEY'RE JEALOUS OF MY RACK!


Now I might not have much to brag about back in the States, but here in Asia, I'm totally stacked! Rivaled only by pregnant women and nursing mothers, I've moved up to double cup status. Like a double B. (do they even have BB?) I think I feel a little pain in my lower back. It's hard carrying all this around.

This just came to me one day as I was walking down the street after work to get dinner and this girl was staring at me. Now people stare all the time but for some reason that day as I gave her the look-down with my squinty "I'm tired of people staring at me like I'm a monster-" eye (sometimes I get feisty) it occurred to me that I've changed stations in life. I might be considered gigantic and relatively fat, but with that status, I can also for the first time look down on those with less chest with a slight eye of pity--you might call it an "awwwww...I used to be you in my life in the US but I'M on top now MWAHAHAHA" look. (Life has taught me to be so cruel) But I must revel in this moment! It might never pass me by again!



It brought my crazy-ness to a whole new level. There was some semi hysterical "wow I can't believe I just thought this you're so special" laughing, accompanied with some doubled over foot stomping and, I'll admit, even a little knee slapping. It was such a random (and if you've ever seen me in real life you know) absurd thought and I was in the middle of being frustrated, irritated and hungry and it all came out so quickly in a moment of disbelief and hysteria.Well, now that I've once again shared too much information, let me talk about less superficial topics.



Oh! And let me tell you, flip flops and socks are totally acceptable here. I have seen so many combinations of socks/panty hose/flip flops, I've almost stopped thinking it it looks bad. I should try to take some pictures.



I met a racist dog on the streets of Bangkok. There are tons of stray dogs and cats but oddly they never approach people and you never hear barking (occassional howling at night as they get in touch with their inner wolf, but absolutely NO barking). So not only was it strange that this dog started barking, but I noticed of all the passer-bys on the street right next to me, he choose to accost me and start jumping around and making a fuss. People looked at me with horror stricken faces like, "Oh my gosh! What did you do?!!?! That dog is barking!! Get away. GET AWAY!" Times haven't changed a bit. Of all those Asian people he singled me out. He didn't judge me on the content of my character at all..only on the color of my skin. Ok...kind of dramatic. But seriuosly dog's don't do that here. They don't even beg for food...perhaps this was not a sign of racism, but it was still highly unusual.Lastly, they don't eat cheese! I was devastated. But I guess it will give my body a good break from dairy so I can hit it hard when I get back to campus. I'm having pizza tonight and I am SO excited! They also don't eat bread so it'll be a nice reminder of what that tastes like too.

Some pictures

This little guy escorted me to dinner one night. Some lady tried to lure him away with kissing noises but I shot daggers at her with my eyes. He was so cute!

This is some of that delicious pineapple I've been talking about!

Here I am at the market wearing a Vietnamese style hat : ) Dang, I have a lot of teeth
My roommate's mentor took us out to eat. The meal was GREAT! So colorful

And my favorite...can you guess what theses are....

Tongues!!!!

And the dog days of summer arrive...

It's seriously getting very very hot in Rome, and we don't have air conditioner in my apartment. I've been relying on a table-top fan. My roommate reassured me that it doesn't get hotter than this before August, and I'm hoping she's right. It's amazing how spoiled we are by air conditioner.

In other news, Italy lost the EuroCup match against Spain last night during penalty kicks after a half hour of overtime. Afterwards, the town had "the atmosphere of a funeral," as a friend said.

During the day yesterday, I went with a friend on an 8-hour trek through Rome. There were some specific sights I wanted to see, and I got to see all of them except a church that didn't open until 6 PM, how strange. I even got to see a chapel with all of its decorations made from the bones of some 4,000 monks and soil from Jerusalem. I was told that during the 1800s, when the chapel was built, Europe was in tumultous times and the art had some macabre tendencies. However, photography was not allowed for various reasons. In some decorations, scapulae were used to make wings, and two sacral bones framed by metatarsals made hourglasses. Even parietal bones were used as the "dishes" of a balance. It's amazing how short people used to be. My friend told me that one theory says "older" civilizations such as Italy or China have "less fear of predators" so they don't need much physical size and can conserve energy. When I mentioned that Italians who grow up in Norway are huge, I was told that it fit into the theory. How strange.

We went to the top of a hill and looked through a keyhole to see a garden walkway that perfectly framed St. Peter's of the Vatican.

I also got to see a church on the Forum that was built on top of three Roman temples from the 3rd-2nd century BC. We got to go underneath the church and see the Roman foundations and pilars. Another church had the tomb of Alexander Mancini, the famous painter. One church even had the original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

And yes, I found the church (which has banned the filming of Angels & Demons inside of it for good reason), which has the Bernini statue "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa." I have always wanted to see this statue in person, and it was every bit as beautiful as I imagined it. My picture does not do it justice! Kind of like the time I tried to take a good picture of the Pieta...

The church was pretty gorgeous too. You know what they say, "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it."

I am just completely amazed at how beautiful and richly decorated everything is. Even the "shabbier" (read non-Baroque) church have breath-taking mosaics and paintings.

In lab news, I am still working with Daniele and Michele C on the self-administration choice project. My rat is still alive, great success! There is also talk of a lab trip to Ariccia this week, I'm excited.

Posting Posts

like a million new posts on Japan trip...

Could someone who is an admin on the conference create a bloglist in the right taskbar and just add mine to it? (Constantly posting just to say I have a new post seems pointless)

-Hope all is well!

Tim Soo

Blogging

tasooey.blogspot.com

night time adventures...

A couple more days

tasooey.blogspot.com

a couple more posts.

some of the posts are less sciency.. but hey it's a blog.

-tim soo

Outside of America, there is only ONE sport

I just wanted to share with everyone my experience with soccer. I was actually getting ready to go to bed when bull horns started going off outside, along with some rallying and screaming. It turned out that the EuroCup match between Italy and France was beginning. My friends on a nearby balcony invited me and Eleonora to watch the game with them, so I did.

I can only say WOW. Granted that this was an important game, since Italy would be going home if it lost, but I was completely taken aback at just how enthusiastic everyone was. They were all screaming at the TV, anything from "Mamma Mia!" to "You're paid to kick the ball into the goal so why can't you kick the ball into the goal!?!?!?!" Each goal was followed by fireworks and more horn noises and of course, screaming and yelling. Each crucial moment in the game was accompanied by loud outbursts and swearing. Someone told me that it is no longer allowed to sell beer at the soccer stadia because too much violence would ensue.

For your viewing pleasure, I took a video of the noise in the central courtyard of my block after Italy won the game. Keep in mind that there was very little alcohol involved, at least at the apartment of my friends. There was singing, yelling, whistling, fireworks, horns, pots and pans being beaten, toilet paper streamers thrown, etc. The video is only two and a half minutes but this went on for at least half an hour. Talk about team spirit.

This post should go before the last one.

http://tasooey.blogspot.com/2008/06/japan-ahoy.html

Sorry, I've moved on.

So I am posting in way too many blogs so to save time, I just created my own to document my trip to Japan. I'll just be sending the link to here everytime I post. :)

http://tasooey.blogspot.com/2008/06/first-full-day.html

Life is slowly settling into a grind here. I've finally gotten my hands on a bicycle which improves my range of travel considerably. Unfortunately, since i haven't ridden a bike in about 10 years, i still feel pretty unstable on it. There have been crashes, which i'm not proud of.
Food is pretty similar here as to what it is in america. They have all the same brand names, of course most everything is in japanese. The one major exception i've seen to this so far is wine and spirits, which are often completely in english (thank God). Oh, and for the record, seeing a Budweiser beer can in Japanese has got to be the funniest thing i've ever seen.
Unfortunately, i have a group meeting in just a minute, so i have to run, but i'll post more later today.

the lab, tatoos and other misc. things

Excuse any typos in advance!


So I know I just posted (that was last week's news anyway : 0) but I thought I'd say a bit about my research. I'm working on the heme synthesis project trying to knock out three genes in the pathway. We're doing that by constructing three plasmids that we hope will undergo homologous recomb. (inserting a selectable marker) so we can see the effects.
It's challenging but I really like it and I've learned a lot! Plasmids are fickle things, I'll have you know. We've got four of the six pieces we need to put onto the plasmids but the last two don't have sticky ends so we're having trouble getting them onto the plasmids in the correct orientation. (We've got to clone the six inserts into cloning plasmids first and then put them on the transfection plasmids in pairs =ing three plasmids!)

I found a church in downtown Bangkok that I'm also really excited about. The pastor and his wife and some band members took me to the Filipino Embassy for the Filipino Independence day celebration. I saw some native dancing and had a few snacks. I also met this old..ahem...elderly guy who--Lord knows why he thought this--for some reason thought that I might find him attractive and that I might go home with him. I didn't really know how to let him down kindly so I just told him about Jesus and left it at that...Let's just say it was a day of adventure LOL

Oh and I mentioned to the pastor that I really wanted to get my tatoo in Thailand but probably wouldn't because it might be less sanitary. He pulled up his pant leg and showed me his--what did he call it--leg cap or something like that. His entire leg is tatted up. From ankle to mid thigh. He said he goes to a guy that is very clean and reliable. This is was NOT good news because now I have no excuse not to get it!! But I'll try my best to refrain.

Oh and the mango is going out of season, which is terribly sad. I feel a tear in my eye now. But the pinapple and watermellon remain so I'm recovering quickly.
I've found a new phenomena: sliced, buttered/sugared bread! Thai people don't eat bread with their meals....ever. But they sell individually wrapped slices of buttered bread at 7-Eleven for only 5 baht. Plus they sell lots of donuts 12฿ and DQ blizzards for 2o฿ ( .64 cents). I might actually be a size XL when I come back! Oh, and they fry 80% of the meat. Doubly wammy.

The food is great though!!! Smaller portions than we're used to in the US. It's sad how you really think you need all that food just because you're used to eating it. I found you actually need much less to be full. Lunch can be any type of noodles with some vegetables, or some fried pork and carrots and spinach-like-greens on a bed of rice or fried rice with pork and egg and vegetables in it. I eat lots and lots of rice. I think I could plant a small rice field with all the rice that gets stuck in my teeth after lunch lol

oh! My friend and I got our first Thai massage last Friday. Five dollars and eighty cents...one hour. THAT'S what I'm talkin about! We're gonna hit a Thai spa next so we can get the whole package--foot massage, oil massage, face scrub...the works!

Well...my plasmid is almost finished digesting so I'm off! It's so nice to read everyone's posts--granted like 12 at a time since I keep forgetting about the blog but I'm glad everyone seems to be doing well : 0)

This one is mainly observations about differences between Thai and American culture:People stare. I mean STARE….I have NEVER been stared at so hard in all my life and I’ve been black for quite some time now. I wish I could describe it…it’s just so intense to have 20 to 40 people just staring…expressionless…not moving…at first I was a little offended. But after I went home I realized that Asia isn’t like the US or Europe where there is some level of diversity. There are Asians and there are other types of Asians and occasional white people. I can live with the staring because I don’t know if many people in my province (or anywhere outside of Bangkok) have actually ever seen a black person in real life. This makes it more acceptable and I’ll pretend that explains it all! (which honestly it probably does anyway)

They drive SO crazy here! And no one wears seat belts. In fact, most cars don’t have them. We rode in taxi once that actually had seat belts and we got all excited but realized that the clip wasn’t in the seat so they were useless. They tailgate FURIOUSLY. Like a few inches between each car and OMG talk about dangerous passing…it’s such an adventure to fly down the express way with no seat belt going 85 miles an hour with a driver who is counting money and handing back tickets. I pray….and pray. It’s a lot of fun though after the first time. It brings whole new meaning to living life on the edge : )

Even though they drive on the left (steering wheel on the right), no one walks on the left. I realized how organized the US is even though most of us never realize it. It’s pretty much standard to walk on the right because we drive on the right (actually I don’t know why but they match up) but here, there is no “side of the road” when walking but there are an enormous amount of people so everyone just walks where they want to and you end up in abig jangled mass of people all passing and pushing…it’s very different.

Also, there is so much STUFF…everywhere. I think what most Americans would call “cluttered” this culture calls variety and options! There is an amazing capacity to pack in vendors and hundreds of boxes of shoes and dozens and dozens of bags, hundreds of statues, thousands of pairs of earring, scores of scarves, DVDs, wallets, furniture, live animals…all under a blanket of colorful umbrellas. Americans like their space….that’s what it is. I don’t think as a general rule the country likes to see too much stuff in one place. But here it’s like an explosion of colors and sounds—people playing drums, singing, playing guitars, radios playing all different kinds of music. There is so much going on. I love it!! You might be able to find something comparable to it in New York but that’s as close a comparison as I can think of….I tried to capture it in pictures but it’s hard to fit it all in one shot.

There is absolutely no PDA. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone kiss or sit on someone else’s lap (besides girls in crowded buses/skytrain cars). Very few couples hold hands and the majority that do don’t actually hold hands…they more link a few fingers or maybe one person holds just one finger of the other person in their palm. T

here is very little trash or graffiti and I have never seen any piece of money on the ground. I keep looking harder and harder to find even one baht (that’s how I notice all the people with missing toes : ) but no…nothing. With so many people it’s remarkably clean…there aren’t even that many gum stains on the ground!

I’m not sure but I think it’s socially acceptable to pick your nose in public. I think I’m going to pick it up while I’m here. (haha at my little pun) I mean why not! Socially acceptable just means you don’t do something just because other people don’t do it. When other people do it, it’s acceptable! Oh!

And (I was waiting for more evidence before I let this one out of the bag) people definitely not only have their cell phones on during meetings they ANSWER them. A couple people have answered their phones during presentations since I’ve been here! How different from the complete embarrassment American’s make you feel if your’s goes off in a meeting or classroom or quite place.

Getting Ready

So I'm leaving for Japan soon... PLEASE stay tuned to make sure I'm alive. :-) If only I spoke Japanese...

Tim Soo

Lab News

I finally have sometime to tell you about where I work.

Tivoli is a small town about a hour away from Rome on bus. It is situated on top a hill (very picturesque. Next time I will pull out my camera so yall can see it. The most visited thing is actually Villa Adriana which I think is very cool. The entire lab came to get me from the station the first time I made the trip out there. Little did I know that we were on the way to an excavation. We arrived at a 13th century building that has gone through several remoldeling over the years. What they were unearthing at the time was an elevator shaft. They date the remains back to the 2nd WW but the issue was that at the time the building functioned as a hospital for the elderly and what they were finding were the remains of children. On top of it all was that the few skulls that had already emerged showed signs of fatal traumas including bullet holes and knife gashes. Not a bad introduction to my new job. As it turns out what I am going to be looking at wont take me the whole time. From what I can see I should have a few more days after I finish. So they have invited me to help on the site. I am so excited! I cant wait! The only issue is that no one really speaks english in the lab.

It has been a huge asset to know spanish and it is the only way I have been getting by. The more I hear though, the easier it gets. Not to mention, the Argentinian person I work with has been helping translate whenever I go out to like the supermarket and stuff like that. In the lab, it is mostly my very broken italian and we sort of get by. There are 18 people total but normally only 4 are in the office as the rest are at the excavation.

The specimens that I am looking at are from 417 AD Roman and consist of about 54 individuals that were in a mass grave. They are believed to be commoners because of enviroment in which they were found and the high incidence of disease. They have a little of everything from leprosy, tuberculosis, trepanematosis, brucello, etc. It has been amazing to handle this bones. Another problem is that they were not buried with any kind of separation or method of identifying what belongs to whom. So each piece is treated separately which complicates things immensely. I have worked it out transportation for the rest of the time here. There is a girl that also works there who lives near la Sapienza so in the mornings I meet her outside the front entrance and she has a car that she uses to get there. There is a toll that we have been trading off everyday. They have a huge collection of which I am seeing a tiny portion. Apperantly they publish 4 or 5 articles a year which I can understand since they get new material almost everyday and they are the only ones in that specific area. On my first day, I was given a copy of their newest book to give as a present for George and here the stories of how they know each other etc.

Besides work, this week (please see Wenjie's post) I basically went with Wenjie's friends and her throughout Rome and Ostea. Sunday I had to take a break solely bc of my feet. They look and feel like they went through a tree chucker so I just did some things around the house, clean, and fixed my computer up a little to give my feet a break. But, now I am back and ready to start again. Until later....peace.

Rome was built in a day...clearly not!

Wow it's amazing how much of Rome I can see in a week!

The Ara Pacis museum. As you can see I had some issues with shooting perfectly horizontally. I was holding an audioguide and a purse and a map for the audioguide.

Like I posted last week Adriana and I went to see the Ara Pacis. I forgot to mention that we also went to a gorgeous church with the heart of Saint Charles in the back altar! Since I am not Catholic, I found the custom of relics very fascinating.

On Wednesday, one of my best friends from middle school arrived with her boyfriend, and they stayed with me for a few days. We went to Campo di Fiori, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navonna at night.

On Friday Adriana and I went to an enormous church called Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary the Greatest?). Since I was wearing a sundress, I had prepared a sweater. For Adriana, who was wearing a tank top, they had a basket of shawls made of a mesh material (kind of like dryer sheets without the oil). This church had a lot of Bernini sculptures and even had a chapel dedicated to Bernini's tomb! It also contained the Borghese chapel with the really famous icon of Mary and infant Jesus. The basilica was covered in golden mosaics and under the altar was a recreation of the Holy Crib containing pieces of the original manger.

Long colonade along the central knave of Santa Maria Maggiore

Bernini's tomb in his chapel. There were also popes buried there too.

Ceiling of the chapel of St. Matthew. The painting in the middle seems illuminated because it is in front of a window.

Friday night Eleonora made dinner for all of us. Europe is a really different world without air conditioning. She made this cold rice dish because traditionally, no one wants to eat pasta in the summer. I never thought of this. She also said that people generally lose weight during the warm season that is approaching.

On Saturday we went to Ostia Antica! This is officially my favorite place in all of Italy! Ostia was an ancient port city of Rome, because it was wedged between the River Tiber and the sea. However, the coastline and the riverbed positions have both moved since then, so an entire abandoned ancient city remains. We begain in a necropolis, because according to Roman tradition bodies could not be buried within city walls. At one point I found some hidden stairs that led to a huge crypt with slots in the ground for burying bodies.

Here is a mausoleum with cubbies in the walls to hold funeral urns full of ashes. There were also lots of tombs and sarcophogi laying around.

There was a very well-preserved amphitheatre, which marked the ~1/10 mark of the complex, but we had already spent about 2-3 hours exploring everything.

There was an extraordinary number of baths, each with a beautiful mosaic of tiles on the ground. This one is from the Baths of Neptune, so you can see the sea motif. Except the sea horses (hippocamps), sea cows, sea lions, sea goats (capricorns), etc actually have the head and body of that animal and a long squiggly fish tail instead of resembling the actual sea creatures.

There were many well-preserved frescoes, including this one of women above another set of baths. It also has a lobster and a sea serpent.

It was so fascinating because it was really the ruins of an entire city and we were all free to explore. Even though Adriana bough a guide book which made finding things a little bit easier (not really), we found a lot of stuff on our own which made it 100x more rewarding. There were the remains of houses and you could still see a well in the center and a statue in a niche in the wall. You could also see pools for collecting rainwater in other houses. The forum and capitolium were also well preserved. However the most well-preserved rooms and interesting-looking underground passages were gated and impossible to pass without a key, much to our disappointment. There was a synagogue on the very, very outskirts of the city. It was so far away that we couldn't get there because of the waist high grass.

There were several underground passageways and tunnels that could only be found if you saw the right stairways. Underground could only be navigated with some crawling and jumping in addition to walking. From the height of the lintels and the tunnels, we got a good idea of just how much shorter the ancient Romans were. This statue was at the end of a tunnel that we accidentally discovered. Just imagine how excited we were! There were also additional passageways beyond but gated (see picture).

It really made me realize just how much history is in Rome. Whatever is in Ostia Antica is also underneath Rome, and more! You just can't see it. Every time a new highway or metro station (gasp!) is being built. They have to stop just about every few hours to let the archeologists have a turn.

My friends left on Sunday morning, and Sunday turned out to be another beautiful day. I had made friends with one of my neighbors who has a balcony close to ours. On Sunday some of his friends and he and I went to Villa Borghese, which is a huge piece of green land belonging to the Borghese family and now is a public park. We rented a riscio max, or a pedal cart for four people, and went around the park. There was a gorgeous little lake in the middle with turtles and ducks. I have a feeling that next week we will be going to the lake.

On the way home we passed through some nearby sights, including the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon. I really never get tired of the Pantheon! We saw a calendar in a shop called "Calendario Romano," the spread of which included the top 12 most attractive priests in Rome. It really made me think who was the intended audience/consumer for this calendar. Was it serious? And in addition to that, who decided to make this calendar?

In lab news, the rats have officially had enough recovery time. I have been flushing my rat's catheter with the anticoagulant heparin every day, and he is doing well. Today we begin the experiments by teaching the rats to associate amphetamine with one lever. Tomorrow they will get heroin with the other lever.

...And that's the way the cookie crumbles. Wendy out.

Life in the OC

Yes, even in Deutschland we have the OC. There's plenty of drama, except its mostly kept to frustration with synthesis and chem draw. I've been here for over a month and I've made a lot of progress. I've already synthesized my first flavins, just like what I presented in class, and we're seeing what new ones we can make. We haven't worked with thioureas yet or tested anything with hv.

Soccer or Fussball is in full swing. We even watched one of the German games together as a lab group, which is about 20+ people. The Germans or actually most Europeans really get into the game. My dorm posts daily viewings of the games and you get to see all of the exchange students fromthe Erasmus program (their study abroad in Europe).

Last week I went "castle seeing" with a couple of other DAAD students at Uni Regensburg. We also went to see the Dachau Concentration camp, which was really fascinating but very sad. This weekend I went to see the Black Forest on the border of France and Germany. I stayed at a town called Baden Baden, known for its famous springs. Schwarzwald (or Black Forest) is very pretty and I recommend it when you're in Germany next time. Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. The fussball match above is of my fellow lab mate and PhD student, Stefan, scoring a goal against fellow group mate and PhD student, Hary (HAR-EE). The group gets along very well as indicated by our group outings (football matches, dodgeball, bbq's, and occasional pub crawls.)

In this photo, my group is watching the Croatia/Germany game. Unfortunately, the Croatians won 2-1 but the party went on. We're watching the game on projector from the group kitchen.

Here is my flavin I retrieved from the column. They glow a bright yellow because of fluorescence, one of the flavins unique properties. I will show more pictures of my lab in the next post.This is the Black Forest (Schwarzwald auf Deutsch) . This picture was taken on top of a mountain where these "paragliders" (or at least that is what they're called) took off. The town of Baden Baden is down below and France is off in the horizon to the right.

Bis naechstes Blog

Auf Wiedersehen,

Miguel

Adjusting to new lifestyle

So far life in Japan is pretty interesting. I made it safely into through Shang Hai to Osaka Japan. I was supposed to have a reservation with a shuttle company that would take me to my apartment in Kyoto, but apparently the reservation got lost in translation. Thankfully i was able to contact Prof. Morokuma who explained the situation to the people at the desk and they put me on a shuttle to Kyoto, so everything worked out well.
There have certainly been some new things to adjust too, the first obviously being the time change (13 hours ahead of Atlanta time). I'm still adjusting, but i'm getting closer to normality. The first few days i was waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Amazing, i was actually the first one to work everyday this week. Anyone who knows me knows that that is an amazing feat for me to be up an about voluntarily.
The language barrier is definitely there, but i'm doing pretty well in getting by. Most people know a little broken english so i can at least get across my intentions in public. Thankfully, everyone at the office speaks english, so there's no difficulty there. One thing i am definitely having trouble adjusting to is bowing. Anyone who serves you, either cashier, secretary, or driver bows to you. Of course, i want to bow back but i'm often caught off guard and end up just nodding my head instead of a full bow. I can see why many companies have etiquette classes to teach their employees to bow effectively.
The food here isn't much different from back in america, with a few exceptions. They have many of the same brand names and everything is labeled with either english or illustrations in addition to the standard japanese. However, there are some jarring differences. No matter how hard i try, i can't get over seeing squid and octopus on display at the grocery store. Seafood is more prevalent, which doesn't bother me, but so is shellfish, which i don't eat. And the first thing i noticed about Kyoto's streets (besides driving in opposites directions) is that there seems to be vending machines on every corner. The sell sodas, canned coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. While i was on the plane ride, a line from a Bob Dylan song about travel abroad kept running through my head: "Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola." He obviously had not been to Japan when he wrote that. I've just as many Coke products and vending machines here as i ever saw at Emory, maybe even more.
Well, this is getting a little long, so i'll finish up. I'll upload some pictures when i get a chance. Hope everyone else is having good time abroad

a couple of updates

I dont have much time left at my cyber cafe but here goes...
You have already read what i did this weekend for the most part from Wenjie s post so it is easy to be at the - i love rome, i wish i could move here phase. I talked to my proffesor over the weekend to double check the plans for monday and as it turns out, he was in a motorcycle accident over the weekend so i will have to wait until wed to go to tivoli. I have talked to the other professor there and exchanged information in the case that i get lost. i cant wait to see the collection. i will get back to you about how it goes. the train does not get back until 8 pm so at least it will be a productive day. I dont know how many individuals there are plus I will need a photocopier of all the data sheets that I will be using. From what I understand though, it is a collection from about 1480 and italian. There are a couple of people working on it so i hope they will be able to clue me in on the history a little better. My taste buds are very happy as well. i have never seen so many cuts of meat (or different types of meat) and trying to find fruit and vegetables is also a new experience. i cant wait to have access to the internet so i can post pictures but until then...i think wenjies posts are more than detailed about what we are up to. I see her everyday for a couple of hours to get in our - exercise...aka walk around rome for a couple of hours. i hope everyone is doing well back in atlanta. CIAO!

AGR

Roman Holiday

So this week has been a busy one, and I wanted to give everyone a few updates.

Eleonora's mother's cousin's family from Colorado were in town last week. Eleonora's mother is an Italian American from New York, but currently lives in Contursi in Salerno province. They are therefore also related to the Rosapepe family, a cousin of Eleonora's mother also lives in Rome. Since they don't know English and the Rosapep family from America doesn't know Italian, Eleonora was asked to translate and I got to tag along.

Enyo Augenti, husband to Maria Luisa (Rosapepe), is something of an aficionado for ancient Rome. He has written several books, two of which on the Colosseum and Roman women are very famous and used in classrooms all over the world. He was very kind to take us all over Rome and show us sites while telling us stories and exciting explanations.

This is the remains of the first wall of the Republic of Rome (before Octavian made it into an Empire). You can imagine it is very, very, very old. It was discovered by a man who had been contracted to build streets in this area. He found the wall but continued his blasting anyway, so he was jailed.

We walked around a lot of places, and at one point we passed a large shop that sold pope clothes. I got pretty excited even though I probably will never get to wear them. In fact I think it's more like definitely instead of probably. And each one costs about 400 euro.

Enyo (on the very right in the picture) told us that the morning gladiatorial fights were mostly for people who had received the death penalty. They got to fight against animals. Or, two were pitted against each other but only one had a sword. When one died, he was replaced with a newcomer, who now had the only sword. In the afternoons were the fights for the "real" gladiators. Slaves had to constantly provoke the gladiators to fight against each other because they were usually very good friends. Gladiators could ask for grace if they were about to be killed, and the crowd/emperor could decide with their thumbs. In the Colosseum there is an entrance just for the emperor, and also a service entrance, like when someone needed to bring in elephants or tigers.

There is another metro stop being built right next to the Colosseum, perhaps for another metro line. The progress is very slow because...ho hum each centimeter they dig up includes archeological finds!

Enyo and Maria Luisa have a really nice apartment near Via Veneto, which is the Roman equivalent of Rodeo Drive. They have a study full of books, and on the wall is a picture of Enyo's father shaking hands with Mussolini. There are also three different family crests on the wall. It must be so amazing to have so much family history.

Enyo and Maria Luisa also had Eleonora and I over for dinner one night with the Rosapep family as well as another family. It was delicious, as most meals are, and I really enjoyed the dinner. The other family was half British, so we had plenty of English-Italian dialogue as well as translators for the meal.

In my lab, we finally got to start on the surgeries on Thursday (even though they were slotted to start on Monday). They took three whole days but now 36 rats have either a single or a double catheter. Only one rat died of a reaction to the anesthetic. It was hard for me because I was always scared that the rats were not completely anesthetized and could feel pain. I was always asking Michele C to give more anesthetic (not to the one that died bc it was the first one of the day) if I felt like they were reacting to the movements. But he reassured me that they were mostly reflexes and the rats were very heavily anesthetized.

I watched a lot of surgeries over the three days, and I finally got to do my own this morning. It was fantastic enough, though I really applaude Daniele for having the patience to teach me. He refused to do anything for me and would only show me the motions so I could learn. I had a lot of issues mount the rat on the stereotaxy thing, because the head must be immobile during surgery to create minimal tearing of tissue. The eyes start blinking as a reflex if you hit the sweet spot in the ear, which I initially mistook for a sign of wakefulness.

The complete surgery, which I did by myself this morning, consists of first shaving the animal's hear and right chest. Then the rat's head is mounted and an incision made on the cranium. Four holes in a small rectangle are poked in the cranium just deep enough not to puncture the meninges and a screw is inserted in each one. Then the rat is laid on its back and another incision is made above his right breastbone or maybe collarbone, and a clamp is used to pick out a section of flesh. After making sure there are no other branches between that section of the vein and the heart, the vein is isolated from surrounding flesh, slightly nicked, and then inserted with the catheter. This is all very hard because the vein is very tiny, and since I was taking so long my vein was collapsed. After the catheter is fixed to the vein with some knots, a hole in the fasciae is made by by tunneling a blunt stick under the rats skin to the hole at the top of the cranium. The catheter is threaded through and reconnected, the chest incision stitched up, and the rat again mounted on the stereotaxy. After arranging the position of the catheter on top of the head, dental molding gum is prepared and used to glue the position of the catheter between the four screws. Finally two more stitches close up skin of the head around the catheter. The rat is then placed in cage with a little warming device underneath until it wakes up from the anesthetic.

This weekend Adriana and I went out to a great place in an area called Trastevere, known for its nightlife. At one point in the night, we had an "Aha!" moment. You see, the Tiber River is actually called the Tevere, and this place was "beyond the Tiber" since it was on the opposite bank of the rest of Rome and on the same side as the Vatican. We met a lot of really nice people, including this British girl named Jen who lived really close to me, so we got to walk home together.

Sunday afternoon we went to walk around and see some sights such as the Ara Pacis. Before we got caught in torrential rain, we actually ran into a lot of popular places by accident. We ran into Piazza Navonna, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, Hadrian's Temple, the first wall of the Republic, and at one point saw St. Peter's in the near distance. However toward the end of the night we were soaking wet and worried about our mobile electronic devices, so everything was not so fun. Finally the rain stopped and we managed to get home safely, without the help of public transportation.

Until next time...arriverderci! And I am very glad to see that I now have some blogging competitors.

Apologies and Updates

I have another 17 minutes before my internet cafe money runs out. So I'll make the most of it.

Basically, I'm really sorry that I have posted near to nothing on this board. But I have a valid excuse. Basically, my power adapter melted within 3 days before I could get internet in my room. I asked several electronic stores for a replacement and they all said "Nein" or " Nächste Woche vielleicht" (next week perhaps). And I asked in German. My parents sent one which was supposed to get in by a week but it never came. A week after it came I finally got word of it but its stuck somewhere in customs. I finally found a power adaptor. Following that came the internet crisis. Unlike Emory, which has a seemingly simple process for obtaining the Internet, Uni Regensburg drags you through a 5 step paper work process which comes to the excruciating finally of typing in my extremely long 9 -10 digit IP.

BUT ANYWAYS. That has been the small negatives and everything else is AUSGEZEICHNET (excellent).

First Weekend:
City tour (saturday)
Walhalla (pronounced Valhalla) the Parthenon of Germany

Second Weekend:
Befreiungshalle (Freedom hall commemorating victories against Napoleon)
Schulerloch: Cave system in Bavaria
Weltenburg (Oldest Monastic Brewery) Basically where the Monks got their party on and played a lot of bier pong.

Third Weekend: (Loads of Fun. I took two days off for this one. I met with fellow Emory Slovak Matej Varga in Vienna and we travelled around)
Vienna(really pretty city)
Bratislava, Slovakia (very historic)
Road trip to Hungary!!! Budapest ranks as a top city in my opinion. Better than Madrid and comparable to Paris.

Hungarians have a crazy language that belongs to some Finnish subgroup

Fourth Weekend:
-Chem Party. Ya, I think the Uni Regensburg chem club raises a lot of money. Particularly for partying and alcohol. Im sorry but their Chem Party, (and this is just chem), rocked Dooleys Ball. At least in my opinion.
-Linderhof and Neuschwanstein: Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Very pretty but at least he didnt starve his people like Louis XVI did over there in Paris
-Konzentrationslager Dachau. The beginning of the Nazi nightmare. The Alpha of the concentration camp system. A very solemn place. Ironically it was a much prettier day than Linderhof.

The Lab:

My supervisor, Robert Lechner, is quite possibly the coolest guy I could have worked with in Germany. He's very lax and I'm learning a lot. I've been synthesizing flavins this entire time. I now have a main starting flavin from which I can create new flavins (ones that havent been created yet) . We tried to make new ones with Grignard agents and Lithium but it didnt work as in theory. Doing synthesis is a lot harder than doing it on paper.

Oh, and I DETEST running columns.

The labs P.I. , Burkhard König, is a cool guy but I don't see him that much. The other grad students (about 20, its a really big group, everything is bigger (sometimes better) in Germany) are really cool as well. They're very social and we've had barbeques, afternoon pickup Fußball games (soccer for those that dont know), and we even started our own IM Dodgeball tournament. Of course they play it the german way. And these events are usually accompanied by beer drinking. Prost! (cheers) I can resist the offer to smoke (europeans, at least young people, smoke a lot) but its hard not to join my fellow German comrads for a bier or two.

I've made friends with my Barcelonan neighbor down the hall, who speaks fluent german in addition to English, Castellano y Catalan. My fellow Czech lab mate lives next to me as well. He's doing a similar IRES program but a Czech version you could say. He's from Prague or Praha and is an undergrad as well.

Hopefully, with internet in the next few days, I can compete with Wendy and post some pictures. I hope this makes up for a long drought of posts

Servus von Regensburg,
Miguel

Settling In

I have had a productive couple of days. yay!

First of all, I moved into an apartment yesterday! It is incredibly international. There are people from Argentina, Cuba, France, Ukraine,and one Italian. It is close to Piazza Bologna (about 10 minutes and not far from the second mayor train station, Tiburtina). Yesterday the only people in the apartment were an italian and a yugoslavian and let's just say their english is very broken. However, it was a lot of fun to play charades and practice by broken italian as well. Eventually they got it and actually the more I hear it the more I can reproduce. Maybe I will learn it to a decent degree before I leave. Romanian, however, I heard is a hard languange but they speak much better english than the italians. Anyway, it is close to the University (about a 20 minute walk)and Wenjie also lives nearby. I am surrounded by students so at least in that sense it is a little more familiar. My main concern is that it does not have internet access and like Wenjie said , we have been seriously spoiled at Emory for having internet at all hours of the night. Even you want to go to an internet point, they typically close around 9 so it is impossible the countless hours that I am used to.

Two days ago I have talked to a profesor (Alfredo Coppa) at La Sapienza who knows George. Even better, his english is the best I had heard in Rome besides the tourists since I have been here. He has been a huge help in helping me to contact the right people to find the collection I wanted to look at. We were at it for over two hours in his office while his students were taking exams. However, as we were talking he mentioned a collection that he has in the nearby town of Tivoli. (about 30 km away which by the way has a beautiful villa called Villa Adriana) On monday he will be accompaning me to Tivoli to start working. I will be having more direct communication with Dr Mauro Rubini. It would have been today but it will be raining so most likely the people that we need to see in Tivoli will not come in to work. Wouldn't it be nice if I could base my going to class or work on whether I considered it good weather or not. Today there is a bus strike so many students will not be able to reach the school. Typically professors cancel classes. However, from what I could understand the student knew of the strike a week in advance which to me sounds a little fishy.

Two days ago, Wenjie got tickets to go to the Forum/Palatine/Colosseum. It was amazing! I was speechless. I think I could easily go back a couple of more times and find something I had missed from the time before. I tried to imagine as we walked along how it must have look a couple of thousand years ago. Not to mention we were walking on the roof and since the whole complex is still being excavated there is still much more that found buried beneath it. It was an anthropologists dream! By the time we arrived we could not get any audio tours and they make it very inconvient to locate. It cannot be efficient for business. This was the only thing that annoyed me I think of the whole day. My goal is that next time I go I will have to get one so I have a more in depth explanation of the place.

For all of you that have not heard of MBTs - look them up! The shoes are fabulous. They are based on the stride of the Masai people. They have saved my knees and my lower back the last few days. However, I have one complaint. The streets in Rome are not flat. I know that it is the city of the seven hills. But, I am constantly tripping over myself! I put my regular tennis shoes on just to see the difference and within a half hour my back was hurting so from now on I am going to wear the MBTs. They are getting dirty though. Rome is not the cleanest place I have ever seen. I think that in a lot of ways it still reminds me of Maracaibo. The condition of everything I mean. There are beautiful buildings ancient, old, and new (but still old) but they are covered in soot. You should look into the condition of Napoli at the moment aperantly they have not had garbage removal services working for some time and there are just piles of garbage lining the street due to bad politics. I do hope it gets corrected since I was planning on going there with a friend of mine and Said Saab later on. Also, I have been told that it is a damaging there image when typically the people are very nice and its a lovely place to see.

The only other thing I will say is... Italian guys do not understand the concept of NO but as long as you keep at it with a stern look they eventually go away.

... a little about Roma

Hello everyone,

As you know, I arrived! My first impression of the ride from the airport to Rome was of the slums near my hometown in Venezuela but of course that all changed once we finally got inside. It was a bit overwhelming. I feel like trekked through the entire city twice over with Wenjie and was exhausted by nine o'clock. My feet were killing me toward the end and on top of having got about 4 hours of sleep on a time difference, it might have been the jet lag that slowed me down. However, I slept like a baby and was sad to hear my alarm at 8 am this morning. I found my favorite view of the city so far. The Palatine hill which Wenjie posted. The picture does not do it justice. Anyway, I have two goals for today since I do not start work yet. I am to get a SIM card and get an apartment. Currently, I am having problems with both of these and luck is not on my side today. I hope to have pictures up soon but though we saw a lot of things yesterday, my camera died as soon as I turned it on. The hostel is very convinient and though I heard that it dangerous, I have not seen any suspicious behavior (at least not more than in any other part of Rome).
One thing about the Romans that I noticed immediately. They try incredibly hard to help despite the language barrier. One time I could not bring myself to correct this woman that was trying to give directions for someplace I knew was less than two blocks away. I finally figured out (after I was lost again) that her -right- was actually - go straight- and her -left- was actually a - right. However, if you want to meet cute guys this is perfect. You just go up to them and ask for directions and its not lying! because most of the time you really are lost! I hope that tomorrow the sights of the city become more familiar. Since there are no skyscrapers like in Atlanta to guide you, all the buildings and streets (the ones that didnt have a very recognizable monument or famous fountain) ALL LOOK THE SAME! As for food, I think my mind prepared itself for the change even before I came here. For a girl (or a guy for that matter), I eat a decent amount. But, knowing the portions are smaller and more expensive I started getting full on small amounts. Thank goodness because I do not know if it would be affordable to live here otherwise. The pizza of all kinds are fabulous!

Who's the giant, fat black girl on campus?

This is often what I see on people’s faces as I walk through the campus of Tammasat University to get my dinner at one of the “food courts”. I only say fat because of my shopping experience last weekend. Hundreds, I mean hundreds of hundreds of really cute shoes around every corner at this enormous mall-like place. What do I hear half the time for my size (which is comparable to a size 8.5 mind you) “No. No biggah…no biggah” Basically, we don’t have your size Bigfoot! And my favorite thing of all….Just GUESS what size skirt I am by Thailand sizes? I just laughed and laughed in my little dressing corner as I tried it on. Do I LOOK like an XL to you? I find it very humorous.

Also, while standing on the sky train I realized I could see straight from one car to the next because I was head and shoulders over most people LOLOh, and, I can’t wear like 2/3 of the clothes I brought. This is the only thing I can really complain about lol. The skirts are tighter than they generally wear (they wear more flowy skirts) and the shirts are "professional sleeveless attire", which they don’t wear either. Other than clothing fiascos, though, everything is great!

The mango is just about to go out of season and it is SO ripe and delicious! They serve an entire, cut mango over sticky rice (VERY different from normal rice because it’s cooked with coconut milk for a lot longer so it’s really soft and sweet. But it's a natural sweet, not like candy sweet. Too good to describe but I have pictures! It’s less than a dollar for me so I’m going to get it everyday until it goes out of season : ) And the pineapple is AMAZING! I know I’m not supposed to be eating peeled fruit...I tried to abstain….like…a week almost. Besides, my immune system is extremely resilient. All those snacks I ate from between the couch cushions, or the food I ate off the floor or the food I salvaged by digging out the mold made me immune to whatever sickness you're supposed to get from eating peeled fruit! I'm in heaven : )

Eve of Departure

Well, I leave tomorrow, and i'll admit that i'm pretty damn nervous. Among other things, i have 18 hours of flight tomorrow. I won't be getting into my hostel until sometime after midnight local time. Can't really think of much else to say right now except reiterate my anxiety. I've been out of the country for extended periods before, but now i'm basically going alone to a country completely unknown to me. I'll fill you in on progress during the next 48 hours.