i'm back in a dorm room!

Hello from Colby College! I'm stuck in this beautiful dorm room for the next few days while I'm attending a conference. It's severely lacking of any wall decorations and is kinda creeping me out.

Note the fan... so of course, there's no air conditioning. And also my lovely nightstand, aka my small suitcase. I'll survive, but it's still a bit strange to walk into the bathroom this morning and the vice-chair of the meeting is standing there in her panties and a tshirt... and you're talking to her.
So, other than the half-naked vice-chair this morning, I met a couple of nice people last night that do electrophysiology.... they're going to teach me all about it today at the poster session since I usually zone out whenever it's mentioned and really don't understand it all that well. They're all only post-docs, so no job offers as of yet. But my poster session is tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes... I'll keep you all posted!

Roberto's going away party...

Last night a bunch of us got together at the Great Escape, of course, for Roberto's going away party. He's heading to Yale University in the United States (yes the Yale) to do his post-doc for a couple of years. It's very strange to think of life in Lausanne without Roberto because I met him right after I moved here. I don't know what we're going to do without Roberto at the Diablerets conference this year! Good luck Roberto!

-Roberto before beer
-Roberto after people started buying him drinks

In other news, I'm busy preparing for my conference next week in freaking Colby College. I'll be living in a dorm room for 5 days... yes, that means showering in a dorm bathroom.... argh, anybody still have their shower caddy that I can borrow? Colby College is also in the middle of Maine, so I'm basically stuck there with strangers. Hopefully they're not as dorky as most scientists and I can find somebody to pal around with. After the conference I'll be heading home for a few days and then back here to keep working!

super-fun weekend!

So after a long week at home every night being sick, we finally went out Friday night to Lutry and then up to the Fête de la Cité in the Old Town part of Lausanne. Lutry was fun as usual while I listened to 'the council' debate current events in both world and local EPFL politics.... of course this is only tolerable after we've opened the 2nd bottle of wine. Usually we take a bottle to go and sit out by the lake to watch the sun set, but we forgot disposable cups and so we just bought ice cream instead. Then we went up to Old Town and got to check out Sai's new apartment. As you can see, the view from his old apartment and the new apartment aren't quite equal, but the new place, while a glorified dorm room, is in a great part of town and doesn't have a bad view either.

-the council

-ice cream by the lake

-Sai's old apartment view

-Sai's new apartment view with the festival in full swing...he also has a view of the mountains off to the left

On Sunday, Joe and I headed out to Parc Aventure and had a lot of fun on the ropes course there. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check it out here. Watch out for the 'Presentation' page... it has a commercial (of course in french) that you can't turn off. We did 3 courses (green, red & blue) and I jumped off a rope swing, did zip lines, and a bunch of other crazy challenging stuff. I totally got rope burned and bruised up, but it was well worth it... next time i'll be wearing long sleeves. I got a couple of pictures, but by then end when we did the cool stuff, I was too tired to deal with not dropping the camera off the platforms.

-me on the tight rope

-Joe in the wooden tubes to start the red course

-Joe the monkey

Being sick sucks....

Joe & I are both sick...boo hoo. We were supposed to go hiking on Sunday, something that I would have given me a nice story to post about, but when we woke up on Sunday, Joe was severely ill and I was just starting to have some tightness in my chest. Luckily he got sick first this time, sparing me from hearing how I got him sick, thank goodness for that. Instead, he's about 1-2 days ahead of me in the illness so now I know what to expect. I've been sick plenty of times in this country, so we have a nice stock of Dayquil and Nyquil. It's so strange because there are so many drug companies here, but they do not sell equivalent cocktail cold medications in Switzerland. People here either just ride it out or they take lots of herbal remedies. I am definitely a poster child for how Americans like to take pills to treat everything!

Jacqui & Dan are engaged!

Congratulations you guys! Dan proposed via Mac (the monstrous german shepard) on Monday... how cute!

In other news, I've been adding more pictures to my flickr site, finally. Here's a guest pass to Joe's Bday pics, and I think that you can click on 'Sets' near the top of the page to look at my other sets of pictures... if not, let me know and I'll add more links.....

Jay's going away weekend!

So Jay is moving on to bigger and better things, namely the next 8 years to do his MD-PhD in Seattle. But before he left this morning, we had fun at the caveau in Lutry on Friday and grilling by the lake on Sunday.

-folks at the caveau

-tasting the special chinese wine that Lirong bought for him.... so nasty!
-hanging out by the lake....
-Sai, like usual, passes out after eating....

Stoli had puppies!

Allison's golden retriever, Stoli, had puppies over the weekend! She had 4 girls and a boy....aren't they cute!

busy busy week!

What a crazy week! Monday-Wednesday I was in an all-day class.... quite intense, but really interesting. The professor is from Harvard and was an excellent teacher, well worth giving up 3 days of sitting at my computer...... Tuesday night was Adrian's birthday celebration dinner at a tapas restaurantin town, his real birthday was the same day as Mark's defense last week so we had to delay things for a bit. The food was good, but for some reason, the waiter decided that he'd only speak to Joe's summer student in broken/bad spanish instead of speaking french with one of the many fluent frenchies at the table.... very bizarre. Last night Joe made mini-burgers for me and 'the boys.' They were mini because I came home with the wrong sized buns.... they were out of the normal sized ones by the time I got to the store!! But they turned out great and we got to hear all about Stephan's trip to Texas/Mexico. Of course, here are some pics from this past week....

-Full bellies at the tapas place....Sai what are you doing?

-A rainbow over Lausanne from our kitchen balcony on Monday night....

Dr. Mark's thesis defense

Yesterday was Mark's Thesis defense. He is officially a doctor, how exciting! Joe, Mark and Sai all moved over here together from Northwestern in January 2004 and Mark's the first of Melody's students to graduate from EPFL. Of course the lab couldn't let Mark defend his thesis without a little fanfare, so they all dressed up in labcoats and presented a 'mortar board' to him and put together a hysterical slideshow of pictures from the past 3 years. Our camera is in it's death throws, so only a couple pictures came out from last night....
-The first time the entire Swartz lab has ever worn labcoats....
-Melody introducing Mark to the audience, as well as some little known facts about Kansas...

Jason & Jen's visit!

they came, they went and they left a wake of disaster in their path....just kidding. We had a great time hanging out with Jason and Jen. It's the first time that the 4 of us have really gotten a chance to hang out and get to know each other more than just a couple hours at family events and it was great! Saturday we introduced them to the caveau in Lutry, of course. Pascal gave us a wonderful selection of red wines to taste and add to our list of wines tasted there. Then we took a bottle out to the lake to enjoy the sunset.

Sunday we went up to Interlaken, the Schilthorn, and Bern.
-on one of the 4 cable cars to get to the top of the Schilthorn.

-On top of the Schilthorn with the Jungfraujoch behind us.
-Relaxing on the train on the way home.

Monday Jason and Jen walked around the city in the morning while Joe and I were at work. I met them for lunch and then the 4 of us took a boat trip down the the Chateau de Chillon in Montreaux. It was such a beautiful day to be out on the water.
And then Joe introduced them to Satellite before we went home and I made fondue for dinner. Then they were off to Italy to continue their 2 week European excursions. Hopefully I'll find time to post pictures from the past 2 months soon....

I'm so sick of the microscope!

So this morning I spent 2 1/2 hours on the microscope taking pictures, which doesn't seem too long until you realize that you back is all scrunched funny from it and you've taken 208 pictures. So, in an effort to procrastinate assembling my 208 images, I thought I would update here and let everyone know that I feel like a hunchback.

This weekend was Stéphanie's birthday barbeque by the lake and we had wonderfully warm weather... the best in the 3 years that I've been going to her Bday barbeque. Joe joined me after a while, he had another Bday party to attend, so I was forced to speak french until he arrived. That's not entirely true, but I did speak quite a bit of french with some dude named Pierre who loved the States but refused to speak English- go figure. Sunday I had a nice and relaxing day doing laundry and vacuuming, like usual. And after dinner, Joe and I went on an exploratory walk in a neighborhood near ours and I found an Italian ice cream shop attached to a pizza parlor. I was so excited! I even got a waffle cone! It wasn't freshly made, but considering I found ice cream that wasn't Movenpick and actually tasted like ice cream, I was ecstatic! So, soon, when the weather is not threatening a downpour, as it has for the past 2 weeks straight, we'll head over there with the gang, and get some pizza and ice cream on the terrace.

This weekend, Joe's cousin, Jason, and his wife, Jen, are coming to visit! We have no idea what we're going to do while they're here, but I'm sure we'll figure something out once they arrive Saturday afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes!

French class is over!

So yesterday was my last day of french class for the year, which ended with an exam. I didn't study for the exam this time, so we'll see how well I could conjugate the subjunctive verbs when I pick up my test next week. In other news, this week was quite busy with work stuff. I finally met with my advisor after not seeing her for a couple of weeks. And now, of course I have lots of things to accomplish by the end of the month. Hopefully I can get it all done!

In regards to fun things we did this past week....The Beer festival was a lot of fun this past weekend. Thankfully the weather cooperated better than last year and we had a great time down by the lake. Monday night we finally watched the Robin Williams stand-up DVD that Stephan was always talking about... it was very, very funny and not for the easily offended. My sides hurt from laughing so much. Dance class was fun this week, but I found out that there are no organized classes in July and August! And I was just getting all limber again.... well, I guess I will have to drag Joe out to go hiking more this summer so that I can stay in shape until classes start again in September. And last night we had a little girl's night at the caveau in Lutry. We were quite boring last night since we all went home after the caveau closed, but we're looking forward to Stéphanie's birthday party this Saturday night by the lake. It's always a good time with the Swiss girls... and boys, too. Not much planned for next week, but Joe's cousin, Jason, and his wife, Jen, come on Saturday to stay with us for a couple of days before they go to Italy. It'll be great fun having them around!

Jess and Tom visit!

Jess and Tom have come and gone. I can't believe that they're already back in the states since we've been planning their visit for months now. Anyway, we had a good time despite the fact that Jess got a cold and conjunctivitis (aka pink eye). Friday we went up to the Schilthorn, one of the biggest mountains in Switzerland and had dinner in Bern. Saturday we went up to Zurich for an afternoon of designer shopping, well just browsing... I touched a 1500 franc purse at Chanel! That's more than my rent for a month! It was fun to finally walk into all the über expensive stores, but a bit depressing since I couldn't afford anything. But I'm saving up for my graduation item, which I haven't chosen yet, but I should have a nice pot by this time next year to choose a reasonable purse at this crazily expensive stores. Sunday we went and saw Pirates III and had dinner at our favorite restaurant/bar, of course, the Great Escape. I'll post pictures once I get them off of Joe's computer. Our camera is in it's death throws and so I need to get the pictures from Jess and Tom's camera, which are on Joe's computer.

Jess and I at Schilthorn.

Jess and Tom at Schilthorn.

Anyway, tonight is the long awaited Lausanne beer festival! We've been 'saving up' all week to go out tonight on the opening night. We've behaved, drinking wise, all week so tonight we can drink at the British tent like real Brits.... that would be lots of beer in a little amount of time. Alrighty, off to do some work before leaving for the festival!

pizza pizza!

Yes, it's a picture of a pizza. My parents and I ordered pizza one night while I was in the states and this is what we got when we order a half-bacon, half-pepperoni pizza. So if you look closely, you can see that the pepperoni and bacon are ON THE SAME SIDE! Just thought I'd share :)

Stuff....

Hello everybody! Yes, I know it's been nearly 2 weeks since I last updated, and those 2 weeks have gone by very fast. It took a few days to get acclimated to working again and then I started taking ballet class one night a week and hanging out with the boys almost every other night of the week. It's really fun to be dancing again, even though my legs are in shock from not doing ballet for 14 years! But, it's coming back faster than I expected, and that's good news! The allergies are also a little better, now that a lot of the trees have bloomed.... not so much pollen in the air now, plus it's been raining off and on for the past two weeks. We had an awesome thunderstorm last night while the boys were over for a barbecue dinner at our place. Of course, Joe insisted that the storm was going to 'just miss us,' but instead it started raining and he got soaking wet while trying to salvage the meat and veggies. And thanks to the violent winds, all of the soot from the grill blew into the kitchen and turned my newly-Cinderella-style-cleaned kitchen floor into a mud pit. So Joe cleaned it up with the boys while enjoying a few beers while I was in the living room preparing my slides for the Progress Report I gave to the department this morning. It went well, other than two of the professors (of course the microbiologists!) interrupted me and asked me to explain some MRI data of my advisor's that I inserted. It was supposed to to help explain why I'm doing my project and not turn into a focal point, but at least I now know that I have to work on explaining it better.
So now, I'm taking my time in the lab and can't wait for Jess and Tom's arrival on Thursday. It'll be so fun to have them around all weekend!

Trip home: Part 5, Jess, Tom & Ethan

The morning after the wedding, Joe & I met Jess, Tom and Ethan at Perkin's for some brunch. Ethan is so cute! Check out these pics:

Trip home: Part 4, wedding day!

On Saturday, Jenny, Jillian and I woke up early to be at the hair salon at 8am so that we had time for all 7 girls to get their hair done. Then we headed to the church around lunch time, ate lunch and got ready for pictures. Everything happened so fast, and the next thing we knew, we were in the limo bus on our way for more pictures and then to the reception. It was a really fun day and I'll post all of the good pictures on flickr when I have time. But for now, here are some of the fun ones from the wedding:
-Me and Joe
-Rick & Jenny in the limo bus

-Goofy girls pic with Rick
-Joe & Jenny dancing with crazy Uncle Ed

Trip home: Part 3, rehearsal!

Thursday and Friday, Joe and I drove around looking for churches and places to get our photos taken. We think we've found one, but we'll let you know when it's all official. Friday night we had the wedding rehearsal at the church and then drove to Rick's aunt Jayne's house for the luau rehearsal dinner. The food was good and then we drove home to find that poor Jimmy had diarrhea all over Mrs. R's beige living room carpet... I took a pictures, but I'll spare all of you from the horrible sight... luckily you didn't get to smell it.

-Most of the girls at the church
Andy (Rick's brother), Rick & Joe at the church

Jenny & Rick's cake
-Jenny & Rick handing out presents

Trip home: Part 2, pre-wedding fun

After Pittsburgh, I met up with Joe at his sister Jenny's house before we drove up to Milton for her wedding. We all tried on our wedding outfits at the bridal shop... here are some lovely photos of us goofing off!
-Joe's dad

Joe wishing he could wear a hat in the wedding and doing a jig
-Jenny's wedding outfit ;)
Then, Thursday night, Joe, Jenny, Mrs. R and I went to the new mexican restuarant in town and they had a live Mariachi band playing. Mrs. R said that Jenny was getting married on Saturday and so the guys came over, discussed what they were going to play for a few seconds, and broke out in 'Happy Birthday' Mariachi style... I took a video, which is hysterical, but you'll have to enjoy the photo until you visit us (or Mrs. R) to watch the video!

Trip home: Part 1 of many

Pittsburgh was a lot of fun. I got to see lots of people and I even found my wedding dress... now I just have to order it. I definitely bought way too many clothes and shoes while I was home, but I never buy anything here (they don't carry my shoes size here!), so I guess it's not that bad ;) and now some pictures:
-Me, Andy, Rachel & Linda out for a drink
-David, Madeline, & Eva
-My big and hairy brother