Swiss trip recap

Yes, I should have done this last week, but I was busy with hiring hangup stuff (I should be officially offered my job this week) and apartment hunting (we'll know by Friday where we'll be moving to in August).

Tuesday: We arrived in mid-afternoon and I immediately perked up from our overnight flight when I saw the Jet d'Eau in Geneva as we were landing. It was absolutely georgeous and clear out when we arrived...one of those rare crystal clear May days in Lausanne. We went directly to EPFL and then spent a couple hours hanging out at Melody's house. We then went directly to Lutry with our luggage (thanks to traffic)! I asked if we could leave our suitcases in the caveau while we went out to the lake with a couple bottles of wine...of course, it was no problem. We then hung out in the caveau until it closed and headed to GE for a late late dinner...yeah for yummy salads!!

-Melody and Jeff's awesome house, finally all finished and landscaped

-View of the Alps from the beach in front of the house

-Joe along the lake in Lutry

-The vineyards
-GE

Wednesday: We slept in a bit, I went grocery shopping, and then I went up to the DBCM to have lunch with my old lunchmates. It was great to eat at the Italian place again and take a long leisurely lunch in the park. Then I hung out with Stéphanie & Tristan all afternoon...we played a bit in the apartment, and then we went to pick up her wedding dress! Afterwards, we picked up Joe & Manu at EPFL and headed to Stéphanie and Manu's for dinner.

-The lunch gang

-Stéphanie & Tristan playing in his room

-Riding in the backseat with Tristan

-View from their apartment...I just realized this was the last time I will ever be in there!

Thursday: Was a swiss holiday, so I demanded that Adrian, Jen and Jacqui go hiking, but nothing too long or far away or too difficult...see, not too demanding ;) One of Jen's friends, Suzanna, and her boyfriend, Ben, also joined us on our medium 2.5h hike on 1h by train away from Lausanne to hike along the Gorge du Trient. Of course we went the wrong way and ended up under the Pissevache waterfall. Once we realized we were going in the complete opposite direction, we turned around, backtracked to Vernayaz and headed up a trail. It had lots of switchbacks and around switchback #18 I about died. Every part of my body hurt and I realized that I'm in terrible shape. Around this time, Jen realized that we were on the wrong path and instead of going up 500m, we were going up ~800m. We had beautiful weather, so I couldn't complain too much ;) We eventually hit a small town, Salvan, and took a break for lunch, where I nursed my poor feet and applied bandaids. We then headed from Salvan down the path we were supposed to have taken up the town. In the end, because we got lost, we were gone much longer than expected, so I ran running home to clean up after the hike to meet Dragana for a drink and then dinner with Stéphanie & the girls for a sort of bachelorette dinner.

-The Pissevache (peeing cow) waterfall in the Valais

-crap, we're on the wrong trail!

-View from one of the 37 switchbacks

-Snail on a wall

-Lunch break in Salvan

Friday: We slept in a lot, after being up super late for the 3rd night in a row. I then headed up to the DBCM to have lunch with Natalie and Jyoti again. It was so nice to have lunch with them again. I really miss hanging out with them... Martha Stewart is no substitute! I then hung out in the DBCM for the afternoon trying to straighten-out the lovely discovery that HR at UTSouthwestern was not happy with my foreign PhD and I now had to get it certified. I also spent an hour with Sandoval and Yannick, working on questions about my photos that the reviewers asked about and I couldn't answer without access to the microscope and my original files. We now have answers! I then headed to EPFL and on to Melody and Jeff's house, where they graciously invited us and the lab over for a barbeque (see Kris Allen entry for photos).

Saturday: Stéphanie & Manu's wedding day!! I already blogged a bit about it, and I'll write more soon!

Guess who we ran into on our trip to Switzerland?!?!

American Idol winner Kris Allen!!!!

-Here is with with me & Joe

-Here he is with Jacqui

-Here he is with a new love interest.....ooooohhhhh!!!!

-and here he is totally drunk!

Thanks for being such a good sport, Michael!!

Switzerland!!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I attempted to upload a video a couple weeks ago and it didn't work, and then I never posted about other stuff.

Anywho, Joe and I were in Switzerland last week!! It was an awesome change from Dallas. The main purpose was to attend Stéphanie and Manu's wedding, but Joe also went to finish up some projects and papers with Melody and the old lab. Poor Joe went to work everyday while I was out and about seeing people, eating leisurly lunches, hiking, and hanging out with friends. I'll post more pictures soon, but for now, I'll post some of the pictures I took as the unofficial photographer for the wedding festivites. I got to hang out with Stéphanie the whole morning and helped her get ready that morning. So far, I've only processed pictures in Photoshop from getting ready in the morning. I posted a few of my favorites below. As I continue processing photos from thoughout the wedding day, I'll post more!

-the dress

-all ready!

-in the garden at her parent's house

-bouquet flowers

San Antonio here we come!!

Last Friday, Joe and I drove down to Austin, switched from our non-AC car into Sai's AC car, and then drove down to San Antonio, where Jen and Susan were attending a biomaterials conference. Jen and Susan snagged me a ticket to the conference dinner Friday night at the Texas Cultural Institute, ripe with cowboys and sheriffs.

-Jen getting lasso-ed on our way in

-we each danced with the sheriff...notice how excited the profs look at the table on the right....silly scientists

We then found the boys along the river walk, talking science even after 2 pitchers of margaritas, and hung out along the river walk. Saturday morning, the girls were in and out of the hotel room (we crashed in their room for the weekend...thanks ladies!) and then we all went to lunch along the river walk.

I then dragged Joe over to the Alamo again so that I could get a picture out front with a blue sky since it was raining the first time we were there.


Saturday night, Joe and I had dinner with all of the Texas Bendles. It was great seeing everybody again. Joe and I visited in the fall of 2003, and since then, there are 2 new children and the little ones from 2003 are already 7 and 10!

-Maddy, Aunt Patsy & newbie, Abigail

Joe's birthday! Sai visits!

Sai drove up from Austin to hang out with us for Joe's 30th birthday and Easter. We went out to a wine bar and then dinner on Friday night after Sai arrived. We then came home and played on our new Wii.

-eating nachos

-the monkey I bought for Joe to hold his bday balloons

Saturday we went to the 6th floor museum and walked around the grassy noll. After growing up listening to all these conspiracy theories that the shot was impossible from the window of the book depository, it was amazing to look out the window and make my own judgement, which is that anybody with some competancy at shooting would have no trouble shooting that short distance to the car. The museum was quite informative and done very well. I definitely recommend any future visitors to check it out if they're into history.

-the book depository, on the left

-close up of the window

-Sai listening to some of the conspiracy theorists

-Joe standing behind the fence on the grassy knoll

-reflection of the grassy knoll and Dealy Plaza in Joe's glasses

Jason & Rhian's wedding

Joe and I flew to Philly last weekend for Jason and Rhian's wedding. We've decided, after flying via Houston and being delayed, that it's worth paying more to fly directly to where you're going. Other than the delay, we had a great time at the wedding, well, the reception was awesome.... sitting through a sexist catholic wedding mass, wasn't so much fun. The priest totally dissed any married couple that didn't have a church based wedding!!

Anywho, here are some pictures from the wedding. Hopefully I'll get all of the pictures post-processed and up on flickr at some point in the next few months.

-Rhian coming down the aisle with her awesome Welsh dad...could her smile be any bigger!

-exchanging rings

-Jason & Rhian in the receiving line

-at the reception

-Joe & I at the reception

-Jason dancing with grandma

The Big Three-O!!!

Thank you to everybody who sent me birthday wishes, cards and presents!! It was so good to hear from everybody. I had a fun day. Spent the morning relaxing after Joe made me breakfast in bed.

Then I went shopping at Banana Republic for a dress to wear to Jason & Rhian's wedding. I swear I tried on 40 dresses and the last dress I put on was perfect.

Then Joe took me to dinner at a french/italian restaurant. it was really good and I can't wait to go back soon!!

-my cards and delphiniums

-on the phone with Linda after dinner

St Patrick's Day, Dallas style

We decided to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade over the weekend so we could check out a different area of the city since we've been complaining about how much Dallas sucks. The parade was a bit weak, but the various floats were entertaining. This was my favorite float because it has nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day:


We then walked a couple blocks down to the block party where the streets are blocked off and had a good time drinking beer on the street. On the way there, we saw this guy and his green Swiss Mountain Dog.



At the block party, the only place selling Guinness was a bar, and they wouldn't let you leave the premises with beers purchased there.... only cheap beer was being sold on the streets of Greenville Ave.... it seemed wrong that Joe was drink Dos XX at a St. Patrick's Day bash. At least he wasn't one of the many drinking margarita's!!

The people, at least, were all dressed up and it was fun to be around people our age. Here's a shot of the crowd listening to the band.

and us!:

visiting with Sai in Austin!

Joe and I made a relatively impromptu decision to drive the 3 hours down to Austin over the weekend to get out of Dallas and visit Sai. Austin, with it's walkability and rolling hills, was a welcome change to the concrete wasteland of Dallas. On Saturday afternoon we drove around UT's campus and then out to a restaurant/bar called Oasis. It was a really awesome location outside of Austin overlooking Lake Travis, but it gave me the feeling that I was on a cruise ship.


Sai then made us an Indian dinner and then we went out for the night with a guy (who's studying at UT) we met in Switzerland while he was working in Melody's lab for a study-abroad-like summer intership.

-Brandon, Sai & Joe

On our drive back to Dallas, we passed this awesome truck. If you can't read what the back of the truck says, click on the picture for a larger view.


Who knew there are racing pigs?!

Some apartment updates!

We've been slowly making improvements to the apartment decor over the last few weeks as the necessity arises.

First, we bought curtains for our bedroom:
Then we finally got a coupon to Bed Bath & Beyond in the Sunday paper and so we could finally buy a cover for our sofa. It's hard to spend money on temporary things, but the apartment looks much homier with the new couch cover and pillows:

And lastly, we found a coat rack to hang by the front door. I also finally got around to hanging up the Welcome sign my mom bought for me to hang in our new apartment:
That's all for now!