Science Geek Camp!

Yes, I'm here.  In Maine beginning my week-long adventure in what one of my cohorts here called "science geek camp" while at dinner last night.  She is right, but that's okay, I'm going to enjoy it anyway.  I started off very early at the airport yesterday in PHL, and luckily so.  The security lines were a bit longer than I thought they would be.  Checking in was a breeze, took me 5 min, but then I waited another 45 to get my carry-on's and me checked over for actual passage into the terminal.  But all was good, got my shoes back on and headed off to my gate.  BTW, the terminal with the US Air section in PHL doesn't have much to offer in healthy food, lots of typical fast foods but nothing really on this side of yummy.  Ah well.

Got on that flight to Boston and found some yummy food, and some dark chocolate covered raisins (okay not exactly healthy but they are tasty!).  Our plane has some maintenance issues, and we ended up having to wait 45 min for a new plane to arrive for us.  Which made us 1 hour late to Bar Harbor.  I spent the time reading my book and trying to relax in a very uncomfortable airport chair.  Then I headed out to the tarmac when it was time to load to our prop plane and head to the island.  I haven't been on a prop plane in years!  Probably since the last time I was heading up to Halifax, Nova Scotia!  Wow.  Still loud and rumble-y, but a thrill to ride in!

We got to Bar Harbor 50 min later, covered in fog. Lots and lots of fog!  I found our taxi, bags, and the other group of people I was meeting to head to the workshop at the lab.  A short ride later and a bit of confusion w/the driver (still not sure on that one) we were greeted with "you're walking the wrong way."  Okay.  This place is beautiful, but confusing, green trees everywhere, little paths, and lots of building with little signs.  We got to our location, picked up our room assignments and headed off in our different directions.  I found mine, a small room that is rather large for a cabin of sorts, with a shared bathroom next door to me, but the beds reminded me immediately of research ships (hello Atlantis, RV Cape Henlopen??)  After making it up, raising the thermostat from 58 to 70 and hoping I wouldn't freeze, I went to dinner.

Dinner was good, salad, pasta salad and corn. (Okay they forgot the vegetarians...) If you were not a vegetarian you also got roast beef, a hunk of some other meat and I think a pork loin. I don't know exactly, I know there were 3 other meats at the end of the table, but I typically do not take notice.  After dinner we guessed where we were going and guessed right! Yay! and got to the wine and cheese party.  Here we got our huge 3-ring binder, name badges and found out our schedule for the week.  Lots to do, lots to learn.  My little desk will come in handy.

Finally after the little get-together party, I headed back to my room, did my nightly things, wrapped up my unpacking that I hadn't finished earlier and said good night to my sweetie.  It was early but so time for sleep.  I think about 10 of us did the same thing, as I saw us headed off into our rooms with the mission of a pillow and blanket!  So how was the temperature by the time I reached my room?  Still creeping up, it still hadn't reached a warm temp, I was hoping for, but enough that I could crawl under my covers and not succumb to hypothermia! :)

Yay!  Oh, and of course I realized this morning, I forgot my transfer cable for my images, so all my pics will be relying on my cell phone for this one guys.  Oh well.  Hopefully they will be pretty good.  I'll do my best and we'll see how it goes today.  From the schedule, we have stuff planned until 11:00 pm, yes, 11:00 pm.  I will be a very tired camper but I'm sure I will have fun playing with all the microscopes today! See I told you it was geek camp!
Happy Day to you!

Leaving Italy

And it is done. Vacation is over, the fun and relaxation of Sorrento, the ease of shopping, the quaint side street restaurants, the smell of leather shops, the spice shops, the hunt for silk scarves (found a beautiful red one!), and the casual walks along the cobble streets are done.  Sigh.  Back on the train, back to Rome for one more night. A walk through the streets, enjoying my home away from the US, realizing that I feel so beyond comfortable here that it is difficult to leave.  I wish I could grab my darling, hop on the plane and come here and not leave.  The culture, the atmosphere, the weather, the sea, the proximity to history, and the amazing world that just is, I love it.  Maybe a retirement location?  Who knew this Irish-Czech/Galician-English-Iroquois woman would feel most comfortable in Italy... I've been to Ireland, I loved it too, I've been to the Czech Republic and actually did not feel at home at all, but rather more of an outsider for some reason, and I've yet to actually be in England any place other than Heathrow airport....(that doesn't count) But then again the second most comfortable place I've been has been Berlin, Germany.  Italy, Germany, not Czech, not France (god no!), not the Netherlands, or even Ireland.  I've enjoyed many other countries too, but anyway.  I digress.  The point of this whole thing was that I love Italy, and I will miss it, but I will be back, but I will not wait 10 years again like the last time.  I realize that this is too long to wait to be in a place I love so much.  Ciao, but not for long Italia! Ciao Bella!

Leaving the airport, over the Mediterranean Sea...

And off to Sorrento and Pompeii

And after our days in Rome, touring the Italian version of Manhattan (I LOVE this place!!!!), we hop on the train and head out to down to the Amalfi Coast to Sorrento.  We have to switch trains in Napoli.  This is where I discover that the Jersey Shore is not original.  Nope. There is an entire city, in Italy, existing of the same thing....  At the train station, all I saw was bedazzed jeans, 4 inch spiked heels, skinny jeans, low rise skinny jeans, crop tops, hoop earings, big hair, lots of make up, long red finger nails, and chain wallets....  Yep, the Jersey Shore in Italy.  Sigh.  We escaped, I mean left, Napoli on the next train and headed off to our final destination... Sorrento. We arrived, and after an extensive search and a nearly 1.5 or 2 mile walk, we found our hotel.  Our beautiful, wonderful, large room, deep bathtub, tile floor, airy huge room hotel. :-)  Yay!!!  And then after a quick change we did what was absolutely necessary.... Walk to the Mediterranean Sea!  This is were we saw the edge of Europe, the beauty of family fishing, the romantic hillside world and the place that will forever remain as a peaceful thought in my mind.  We found a nice restaurant, which was built out onto a pier stretching over the Mediterranean Sea.  As we sat there, eating dinner, watching the sun set, sipping our wine..... I realized how wonderful this moment really was.  Mental snapshot!

We also took a day and went to Pompeii.  Unfortunately, it was raining, off and on and with a lot of cloud cover.  Our trip up to Mt. Vesuvius was canceled, it was cloud covered and I'm sure pouring rain.  Our walk through Pompeii consisted of several escapes into ancient ruins to hide from downpours.  At one point we hid in an ancient fast-food restaurant, and decided this was the perfect place to eat our snacks. Ironic.  It was an amazing place to be, but there was a lingering thought in my mind too. .. .. ...  This place was destroyed and all the people died within about 3 minutes when the noxious gases escaped from the volcano, then buried under the ash, then lava.  No time to escape or think.  The volcano is still active and has a huge plume of lava that stretches out for miles, even out under the Mediterranean Sea... And.. I.... am... standing.... here....   Luckily, it did not erupt, and we survived. Yay.  But it was a bit of a thought.....

Free Lemoncello with dinner, you can see the Med Sea from our table

Admiring the sunset in Sorrento

Me loving where I am!

Shopping Day!!!

The lemons in Sorrento are huge

In Pompeii, the amazing place, between rain storms

Pompeii, the jacket I had to buy because it was so cold due to the rain.

the joys of the Amalfi Coast in photos...

Welcome to Italy!

We're Here! (or rather were there....)

Running through the streets of Rome... to see the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Vatican City, St. Peter's, Vatican Museum, Castel Sant'Angelo, Campo di Fiorni, Parthenon, Villa Borgehese, various Piazza's, and Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps to name a few....

On the train from the airport to Roma Termini

Inside the Colosseum

Leo's Mom outside the Colosseum

St. Peter's in Vatican City

The view from the top of Castel Sant'Angelo

Trevi Fountain after we tossed our coins in there!

The best meal in the world at La Carbonara!

A pictoral of our days in Rome.... :-)

Very late entries from Italy

Yes, I know, I've been back from Italy for a little while now and I never had an actual chance while I was there to post.  To be honest, I was enjoying my days too much to take time out, find a small internet store and pay 1E for 15 min to sit and try to figure out the Italian keyboard and type up the day's events.  I don't apologize for that, instead, I went to the cafe next to it and ordered a latte and a croissant.... :-)  A much better bargain for my Euros and time well spent.

But I do need to include what transpired, or at least a bit of what the trip was like.  Right?  Yes.  Well, I can begin by the night before I left, May 8th.  I called Ms. Kitty and chatted with her for a while.  We reminisced about our trip to Belfast and that we really, really needed to get together and have a bit of relaxation and fun again.  My honey was off at a bachelor party in AC, he texted me to tell me he had won a bit of $$, yay!  Then I did my 400th check of the suitcase to make sure I had everything packed, the house was clean and all that fun stuff.

I got up the next morning, 6:30 am (ya'll who know how much I'm such a morning person will know how well that went over with me.....) but my awesome man got us together, carried my suitcase down two large flights of stairs and to the car, then off to pick up Leo's Mom.  Gathered her up, and headed off to the Newark, NJ airport... nap time in the car for the travelers! Got to the airport, said our bye-byes and headed in for the fun check-in.  Luckily it wasn't so bad and we got to our gate pretty quickly, but realized that, um, there was no food there in our gate area.  So we had to leave the gate area, go get food and then go back through security again.  All for the love of real food! Silly airport setups!

We got onto our plane fine, and into Toronto, our layover, without any issue. Once in Canada, Leo's Mom exchanged some USD for some Euros, but the exchange lady messed up and gave her Canadian coins... Why???  We weren't sticking around Canada if we were getting Euros woman!! Sheesh.  Oh and btw, thanx to Greece we spent more $$ on this trip than necessary. Gee thanx! Grrrr.  We did a little shopping, found some water, and unfortunately for me, I ended up with a severe migraine. Most likely due to a combination of the air-pressure and the intense light coming through the all-window terminal in Toronto.  I took my Imitrex and draped my sweater over my head to block out the light, while trying to let the meds take effect.  Luckily by the time boarding was ready for out flight, my brain had started to cooperate.

We were a little late on the plane.  The pilot had informed us that due to the problems with the Iceland volcano (still) we would be diverted further up over the Arctic to avoid the ash.  It made us land 2 hours later than our original time.  I slept for quite a while on the flight over, and was lucky in my dinner too.  I had requested a veggie meal, but the coach class meal was made with curry, me & curry do not get along..... I had to give it back to the flight attendant. She was very kind about it, and a little while later came back to ask if I would like a cheese ravioli instead, someone had passed on that dish.  Sure!  When she brought it to me, it was in a real dish, with metal silver ware, and tasted excellent! It was obviously from either business or first class.  Yummy.

And then we see the sight of the Mediterranian Sea.... And the pilot says... prepare for landing...

Updates to the page

So the page was in need of a serious update, and since I haven't blogged in ages, it was an excuse to pop back in and fix it up. Hopefully this will breath new life into it. Plus I'm getting ready to take off soon for a trip abroad so I need to dust off the pages and get it ready for my daily blogging adventures. :-) I'd type more, but sometimes I think I would type too much and get myself into trouble, revealing too much information and annoying people with things that are trivial to others but important to me. I think most people understand what I mean. Anyway, the page is freshened, has a new look and I'll do my best to try to update with new items on my way. This is my latest purchase it is for my trip, so I don't burn out my camera batteries and my cell phone when I recharge them. Hopefully it works well, unfortunately I won't be able to tell until I get there! yay. Only 16 more days to go til I fly away for a lovely trip away! :-)