7. Visit my Love in America!!

It is so sunny in Palo Alto! If you go out without sunglasses you will come home with a headache from too much squinting. Coming from Berlin winter, where sunrise was 8:30am and sunset was 4:00pm (and I work from 8 until 5), it was a very welcome change! They definitely still had shorter days, and it could get pretty cold in the shade, so you could kind of tell it was winter, but it was just so lovely! Of course there were other things that made it lovely - seeing my Love in his regular habitat, seeing where he lives, works, and plays was good, and now that I am back in Berlin I find it easier to picture what he is doing when my mind wanders to wonder what he is doing, a regular occurrence for me!

I briefly got to meet my Love’s flat mate before he flew to Canada to see his girlfriend, and to my horror I had my very first experience of long-distance relationship jealousy:
My Love got home from work, started making dinner for the three of us, they chatted about buying their first car together, and then put the x-files on while we ate dinner, and my Love said “This is pretty much what we do every night here” and my brain went ‘Why are you living our life with someone else?’, when I picture our life-after-Ph.D. (does it exist?) I picture us living pretty much that life exactly, so it is hard to see him doing it with someone else- silly I know! I absolutely love that he gets on so well with his new flat mate and that they will soon have a car for fun weekend adventures, I just wish I could share his daily life with him. Our time will come!

My American experience was very interesting, I didn’t have any expectations that I was aware of, but once I was there I realised that I had built up a rather unfavourable image of Americans, and I was pleasantly surprised with the type of people I came across in California. The only excuse I have for my previous ignorance /prejudice towards Americans is poor marketing on their part and my lack of curiosity for finding out more about the USA. The image of Americans that is projected to the rest of the world (in my experience) is those reality shows where people are fight over possessions, or food, or fame. Add to that their reputation for fast food and obesity and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Thankfully Palo Alto seems to be nothing like the image I unknowingly had in my head of America. So I walked away feeling slightly sheepish regarding my prejudgment of the American people, and feeling like -should the opportunity arise- it would be a pretty fantastic place to live! So I’m sorry America, I was a bit ignorant before I met you, but I would like to be friends now please!

We did several of the ‘must-do’s in San Francisco, but still left some things for my July 4th trip :)
Mostly I just spent the days working on my Ph.D. readings and my evenings being with my Love, pretending that it was our real lives and not just a holiday. I spent a day or four looking up the possibilities of transferring to Berkley or one of the Universities in the area, but the timeline of applications etc. would mean I would be heading over there in about 2 years, and as I am already almost a year into my Ph.D. here I would be almost finished by that time anyway (all going well …).
So when all of our scheming to get me to move to Palo Alto had failed I sat packing my suitcase the night before I had to leave. My Love heard me sniffling from the other room and came in to be with me in my pathetic state, he just held me while I told him what a fantastic man he is, how important it has been for me to move to Europe on my own and gain my independence, and how grateful I am that he understands how much I need this. 

It was lovely, America is lovely, and being with my Love was lovely. I am very much looking forward to next time!

PHOTOS:

I smuggled this deer head into the country because my Love had fallen in love with it when he came to Berlin - and I even managed to keep it a secret! (I’m terrible at surprising people - who can hold in the excitement?!) Also there are our Christmas decorations from giantmicrobes.com I was SO EXCITED to open them!

Our Nerd-mas tree with our decorations from giantmicrobes.com we were very happy with our tiny tree, we also made pumpkin pie from a can, it wasn’t a raging success :/ will have to do it properly next time!

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, pretty!



The Golden Gate Bridge!



Hoppers Hands are just beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, for runners to high-five as they turn around, with little dog paws at the bottom so that dogs can high-five too! Too cute!



Hemp Plus Granola! What a way to start the day!



The tram conductor turning the tram around manually in San Francisco!



A late night trip to Google to see their cool statues! They were hard to photograph in the dark, but they were so cool!



And Google campus HQ!

10. Take a foreign cooking class

This was a rather unexpected thing that we ticked off my list - but it is one of my favourites so far! :) My Love, my parents, and I all attended a cooking class in Palo Alto! It was called the ‘Date Night: Italian Feast’ cooking class held at the Sur La Table store, and we made the following:

     Arugula and Fennel Salad with Blood Orange Dressing

     Osso Buco with Citrus-Herb Gremolata served with Creamy Parmesan Polenta

     Mascarpone Semifreddo with Caramelized Apples

*drool* I am salivating just remembering it! It was so much fun, we learned about the different types of utensils and kitchenware we were using, I even picked up some awesome tips for egg whites which will hopefully help with my Pavlova technique! They are:

•     When making meringue (or pavlova one assumes) to get more volume just leave the egg whites out over night before you start working with them - she explained how that works, I might find out why and update this later


•     The alcohol content in vanilla essence can have a negative effect on the crust of your meringue (again; or pavlova one assumes) - to ensure that you have a delicious crunchy crust use vanilla paste instead!

It was SO much fun and I learned so much. It did, however, increase my lusting after a stand-mixer, not even bringing into the equation how much cheaper Kitchenaid stand mixers are in America than they are in New Zealand! *wimper* …. my time for a stand mixer will come, I hope!

The course was fantastic and you walk away with an awesome experience under your belt as well as a booklet with the recipes you used. Also that store is HEAVEN for any foodies, we spent a half hour wandering around the store before our cooking was served up for dinner, and my goodness! Every 30 seconds I had found something new I wanted to buy, unfortunately three of our party were about to fly away so there was not nearly enough suitcase space for all of the things we wanted. I bought my Love a nice sharp kitchen knife after doing battle with the ones in his kitchen for the previous week or so. Even my Dad (Dr. “glacé-cherries-would-go-great-in-an-omelette”) had a good time, and learned some new tips and tricks that might re-spark his culinary talents (he’s not bad - just out of practise I think), but that remains to be seen.

I think I will do another one when I am heading back for the fourth of July. I spent two days after the class just trawling through the cooking classes and stumbled across their Culinary Vacations, where you pay XXXX amount of dollars and it covers hotels and cooking classes and tastings in New York, or London, or a few other places (airfares not included), they are VERY expensive for our budget, but my goodness, a girl can dream!

I will take more pictures of our creations next time, it completely slipped my mind!

18. Go to the Berlin Christmas Markets

Before it is too far after Christmas, I should probably update you on the first of my 25 before 25 tasks that I ticked off over holidays; I went to the Berlin Christmas markets!

I went to some in Potsdam with some colleagues from work, where I saw the most fantastic salami selection I have ever seen in my life! They had some salami that had been rolled in chilli flakes, some that had been rolled in fried onions, and a few other coatings too! It was awesome - I taste tested the chilli one, that was probably a mistake, but my tongue has recovered now!
I also went to my local market; the Schloss Charlottenburg Christmas markets, where I bought some Christmas decorations for my sisters and my Mum. I drank some glüwhein and also some Christmas beer - which didn't taste particularly Christmassy to be honest - it just tasted like beer, but it was still good beer. 

They had the most fantastic food stall where there was some kind of fish set up over the fire, it smelled delicious, and I was very tempted to try some if the line hadn't been quite so long!

I also went to Alexanderplatz and had a quick wander through the stalls, it’s hard to pick a favourite because they are all so similar, but I think a mixture of the Potsdam and Schloss Charlottenburg markets would have nailed it, mainly for the salami and the fish!

The Christmas bonus for me was going to the Potsdam markets with my workmates, the lack of socialising with colleagues threw me a bit when I first moved to Berlin from Dunedin - where we went out for a beer every Friday and my supervisor bought the first round. Here they mostly do their socialising in their lunch breaks, and my German isn't nearly good enough to understand them yet, especially when there are a few different conversations going on around the table! So it was nice to get to hang out with them outside of the Laboratory setting and they worked hard at speaking English to me, teaching me a few of the German Christmas traditions and asking me about Christmas in New Zealand.

I spent my Christmas in California where you couldn't really tell it was winter, so I am yet to have my first ‘White Christmas’ - something to look forward to for next year perhaps!

Graduation 2013

I have now ticked number 11 off my 25 before 25 list :) We graduated :) Huzzah! I now have ‘BA, MSc’ following my name and my Love has ‘BSc, MSc, PhD’! It was so nice to see the family again.  I went to most of my favourite local eateries, and we got to drink wine from our favourite kiwi vineyard :) so it was an awesome trip home.

I am now holidaying at Stanford, my Love doesn’t get as much time off as I do, but he will take Christmas day off to spend with me :) I am strangely feeling more at home here than I do in Berlin, and I am not really looking forward to leaving, but I guess my Ph.D. won’t finish itself.

Autumn 2013

AUTUMN IS HERE!! And they have actual orange pumpkins in this hemisphere!!!! I just have to carve a jack-o-lantern before Halloween :) maybe this weekend!

A mild allergy to bananas and Molecular Biology

So my whole life I told all of the adults at my school camps that I was allergic to bananas because I could not stand the taste - they made me want to puke, just the smell of them was enough *wrinklesupnose* but I also spent a lot of time being jealous that people got to peel them - it just looked like SO much fun! (don’t even ask, I was a weird child)
Recently having finally admitted what an awesome snack bananas are I decided to try and get over my dislike, so I bought 4 and vowed to get through them all! I ate the first one and it was awful, bleugh, and weirdly afterward I had really itchy ear canals - most annoying itch ever! The next night I had another banana, this one wasn’t so bad, but it still wasn’t good, that night I also had itchy ear canals and my mouth felt funny. The third night I ate another one and it was okay - followed again by itchy ear canals and itchy entire inside of my mouth. This was actually the first night I made the connection that the itchy ears/face might be being caused by the banana-eating! Turns out I have a mild allergy after all! - most boring story ever, but I do love suddenly being surprised by new information about myself.

I have also come to realise that my assumption that I would be able to pick up PhD Level Molecular Biology on the fly was poorly thought through, this is certainly challenging! And now I’m at the 5-6 months stage where I don’t have the “new-girl” excuse anymore - time to buckle down/nut up and just do it! It is terrifying to realise that at the end of this month I will be at the 6 month mark - one sixth of the way to the estimated finish line (which they STRONGLY encourage you to make) - I sincerely hope my rate of productivity increases exponentially rather than linearly .. otherwise it will be a short thesis!

YAWN such tired

September 2013

Well!! September was a rough one, so I just need to give a quick nod to the things that got me through! My life motto in hard times is “It could always be worse” and if you can't think of a way in which it could be worse then you have a pretty lame imagination, so you should probably work on that.

Music has always been a bit of a life vest for me and this past month was no exception, but it took me a wee while to find the right music to get me through it, because, you know when you feel like you're fighting a battle on your own - if you listen to happy upbeat music sometimes you can feel like it’s mocking you, but if you listen to sad music it doesn't cheer you up any! So When Cee Lo Green started playing, though he does have some happy songs he also has some that actually aren't all that cheery but still have a really upbeat melody and rhythm which don't particularly match each other, so you get the happy upbeat mood of the music without the “My life is great - sucks to be you” lyrics, which was the perfect combination for me! I also listened to a bunch of Kanye West and Kate Nash (also caught her live this month for the first time which was a dream come true! But more on that later!)

September wasn't really that bad but it was so so so stressful that I was overtired and emotional the whole time and just felt like I wasn't getting a break! But then I did get a break :) and I have officially passed my 6-month trial period for my PhD! So they are going to keep me on! I had an unexpected move, as the woman who was subletting to me decided she didn't want to keep renting her flat so gave me 4 weeks notice to find somewhere else to live! Which she was well within her rights to do, but I still felt like it was a dick move, I'm sure I would feel differently if our roles were switched (I’m trying really hard to be understanding here!).

Otherwise I am feeling very far away from home and wishing I could be in NZ for the arrival of my first ever niece/nephew! I’m terrified of small humans but holy crapsticks am I excited about this one!!!!!!! I just have to work really hard to not buy him/her a baby lab coat and plush soft toy neuron, I’m just so excited to meet him/her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


My Love is now in America, it was so lovely to have him here for August, and the time difference with America and our hectic schedules make talking every day a challenge! But unexpectedly the main issue has been the crappy internet connection in Palo Alto! Did not see that coming!

I have started running again after all the moving and PhD stress calmed down, and though my running distance is a bit pitiful, I am just aiming to get out as much as I can and not beat myself up over distances, even once around the block is better than nothing - and once I'm in the gear and on the pavement I always feel like running further than I thought I would :) so that’s good!

Also I've picked up meditating, just doing it by myself for now, as one of my biggest issues is actually my rumination/inner voice/impostor syndrome/self doubt and so just being able to quieten my mind is a skill that I think is worth cultivating! And to be honest some days I last 2 minutes of just focusing on my breathing before my brain gets bored and I can't help but let my mind wander, so on those days I go by the ‘as long as it is a positive thought - it’s okay!’ rule, which has been interesting in itself!

Breaking Bad finished, and it was amazing, it is one of the most beautifully written/directed/produced/cast piece of work I have ever seen. I feel like they should make some sort of education ‘Chemistry with Heisenberg’ either series or audio text book or something. But I think that is just me wishing it wasn't over - having said that I think it ended at the right time and in the right way - so I also wouldn't change it to have it drag on!

I love Kate Nash, I saw her live :) that was just one of those things that when I was at the very bottom of New Zealand I honestly didn't think I would ever be able to do, so it was just such a blessing, I felt like I was floating home afterwards, Berlin seems to be the city where my dreams are becoming reality :)

Alright - enough rambling, goals for the next wee while are to get out and meet some people, I have made 3 friends since I moved to Berlin and my hermit lifestyle isn't helping so … we will see how that goes!