We're back from our Honeymoon!

Yes, I'm sure you faithful readers (all 4 of you) have been wondering what happened on the honeymoon cruise. I'll eventually post a brief blow-by-blow of each travel day, but for now, you'll have to sift through the pictures yourselves on flickr. Here's a new link to the photostream (if this still doesn't link to the new honeymoon sets, let me know). I've also broken down the pictures as follows:
Honeymoon Highlights (for those of you who aren't photomaniacs like me)
Mykonos/Delos
Kusadasi/Ephesus, Turkey
Rhodes, Greece
Limassol, Cyprus
Cairo, Egypt
Athens, Greece
Naples, Italy
Rome, Italy
Ship fun

I'm almost finished titling the pictures...should be finished by Monday.

Some teasers for you all:

Happy Wedding Stéphanie & Manu!

Saturday was Stéphanie & Manu's civil wedding... definitely a swiss wedding with all of the paperwork involved! It was very formal and quite quick. Afterward, we went to Stéphanie's parents' house for an apero.

-All of us in the Mayor's chamber, with the happy couple & their witnesses in front

- Stephanie signing the official document to be legally tied to Manu forever!!

-The happy couple outside the town hall after the ceremony

Sunday night was Jen's make-up birthday dinner party. Lots of people were out of town on her real birthday, so in order to celebrate her 32nd birthday, she decided to host a Twice as Sweet Party (get it 2 x 16???). Anyway, we all dressed up like we were 16...the boys didn't look much different than what they wear now....hmmm..... I didn't really have the proper wardrobe to dress as I did when I was 16, but I did find an old sports outfit from volleyball and even found my old Sports Walkman! I have no idea why it's in Switzerland, but I found it in the back of my nightstand a couple weeks ago and it didn't even have a tape in it! It was a good prop, though!

-group shot

-me & Joe
For more pictures, here's the link to my flickr photostream.

Jen's Birthday, Edelweiss & Marmots!

Happy Birthday Jen!

-yes, we're dancing....it was late!

Of course, like normal, we were at the Great Escape for Jen's 23rd birthday, the 1st of 2 birthday parties that Jen will have since a lot of people were out of town this past weekend. We had lots of fun and Jen even went into the Ripponne fountain and broke her toe!! See here for all the fun!

Saturday, Joe & I just hung out at home and relaxed/did laundry. Sunday, Jen & I headed up to Rochers de Naye, a mountain above Montreux, even though she had a broken pinky toe. I've been trying to go up there since June, but the weather has been a pain when trying to get up there on free weekends to take pictures of the Edelweiss at the Alpine Garden. Finally, even though the weather wasn't great, we headed up 2000 meters so that I could take pictures of Edelweiss that Margaret Wilson can use to finally paint our wedding present from Jess & Tom Wilson. They've all been very patiently waiting for me to get these pictures. Now that I have over 100 pictures of the chinese & swiss varieties of Edelweiss, I need to sort through them to send to Margaret. Of course, the swiss edelweiss was difficult to get to, so I was completely splayed out on the wall trying to take the pictures. Jen took pictures of me taking pictures...when I get it from her I'll put it up!

-Swiss edelweiss

And a lucky treat for us, all the marmots in Marmot Paradis were out to play when I finished taking pictures of the Edelweiss! They even ran down to the fence... probably looking for food. One lady next to me petted their noses, but once I saw their bit teeth, I decided that I didn't want to lose a finger to a marmot attack!

-trying not to get my fingers chewed off

-it was super cloudy and started raining just as I took this picture... isn't he cute!!

And here are all the pictures from our trip to Rochers de Naye.

Happy Birthday Roberto!
I mean... Dr. Roberto!!

My 100th blog!! Ethnic food, bachelorette party & hiking

What a busy weekend! Friday afternoon, Joe, Jen, Adrian and I went to the Olympic Museum (the IOC headquarters are in Lausanne) to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Afterwards, we tried out an Afghani restaurant in a neighboring town. It was really good!

Saturday was Stéphanie's bachelorette party, which, in french, is called the 'Enterrement de vie de jeune fille', which literally translates to the 'burial of the life of a young girl'. We had a blast! Stéph's high school friends planned a great day. I made her a 'Miss Bachelorette' sash to wear all day. I also made her a 'pocket-Maya-the bee' because Maya wasn't able to attend the bachelorette party.

-modeling her sash, necklace and portable Maya

We then went on a boat cruise around lake Geneva, ending up in Montreux for dinner at an Iranian restuarant. But, before we got to Montreux, Stéphanie had two tasks to complete.

1. Asking someone on the boat, but not one of the girls, to buy her an ice cream.

-what a great reaction!

2. Stéphanie had to ask the boat's captain if she could blow the horn on the boat. So, after sending a message to the boat's captain, he allowed us up to the bridge! In exchange for blowing the boat horn, the captain put Stéphanie to work, making her count the number of passengers getting off and on the boat.

-with the captain

After we got to Montreux, we went to dinner at one of Stéphanie's favorite restaurants where we gave her a 'survival kit' for marriage that Alexandra put together. You can check out the rest of the photos here!

On Sunday I went hiking with Jen and Adrian. Joe's knee still hurts, so he didn't come along. We hiked up to the Jura ridge, to the top of Le Chasseron, starting in La Combaz & finishing in Ste Croix. It was about 2.5 hours or so to the top, where we lunched with a view of the Alps!

-whole range of the Alps... Jungfrau in left side, Mont Blanc on right side

-the Mont Blanc

We also got to walk through lots of fields of cows.... one was wearing the loudest bell I've ever heard... I don't know how she hasn't gone deaf. I decided that it must be the pregnancy bell because she was huuuuuuge. You can see pictures of the cows, and other pictures from the hike on flickr.

fancy dinner

The long August 1st weekend was a well spent weekend of relaxation. I was planning to head up to the botanical garden Friday to take advantage of the holiday, except that it rained all day and was chilly. Instead Jen and I went to lunch and then I headed into work for a few hours since we ate nearby. And since it rained all day long, we decided not to venture out to watch the fireworks that night, but got to see some of Renens fireworks from our balcony. Saturday we had planned a group trip to Bern for a nice dinner, but by the time we figure out exactly who was going and called to make a reservation they were completely booked!! So Joe, Adrian and I scoured the internet and guide books looking for a suitable replacement somewhere around Lausanne and settled on a fancy restaurant in St. Saphorin, one of the small villages nestled in the vineyards of the Lavaux. Luckily they had room for 7 people and so we all dressed up and headed to St. Saphorin's for our very first dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant! Of course, we stopped by the town's very own caveau before dinner.

-Jacqui & I all dressed up on one of the quaint little streets of St. Saphorin

-Adrian in front of the Auberge de l'Onde... we ate on the 3rd floor.

Dinner was delicious and the desserts were amazing. I looked up the dessert chef and found that he has a blog and blogged about making the dessert that I had. Check it out!
It's all in french, so here's a picture for the not-so-adventurous types. Also, other photos are on Flickr... scroll down to find a link to all pictures... you should all know the drill by now!!

-mmm.....A rose flavored macaron and wild strawberries and sorbet

-Joe and I waiting for the train back to Lausanne

work and fun stuff!

All last week I was attending/working at the FENS forum, the big european neuroscience meeting that happens every 2 years. This time, we were (un)lucky enough to have it in Geneva. It was nice to be helping out at the student social night, Jump the FENS (get it... fence), and it's information booth during the meeting. It was nice to hide out since I really don't like big meeting. Unfortunately for me, I had to commute everyday from Lausanne, so I didn't get to stay late at the Jump the FENS, which was held at the UN's private beach 3 nights of the conference. Here's a picture of the last night, when it finally stopped raining and the sun came out!

-view of the Mont Blanc (yes that white blob is the tallest mountain in europe) over Lake Geneva with a nearly full moon in the sky.

Friday night, Melody hosted a barbeque at her new, not quite so finished, lake (Geneva) front house....which is big and awesome! I can't wait to see it all finished. Once the sun was nearly down, Jacqui, Jen and I climbed down her dirt hill to the lake and went swimming... okay, i just waded around in the lake, which was really warm, and took pictures. It was awesome because the full moon was rising over the mountains through the clouds. I took a bunch of pictures of it while in the lake, but they all came out blurry because the lake movement moved me around too much. So here's one of the moon from the shore, after the boring swiss neighbors yelled at us for making too much noise.

-moon rising over the Alps & Lake Geneva

wow, that looks like crap.... here are some other fun pics from the day and all of the pictures can be found by clicking here!

-View from Melody's kitchen

-View of picnic fun from the upstairs balcony-Jen & I swimming

A week of weirdness

So this week was a bit weird, in that it felt like I had virtually nothing to do, even though I accomplished a few important things. But after the fast-paced few weeks I've had (wedding, private defense, Joe's parents, both of our public defenses), getting back to a 'normal' not so busy schedule has been nice.
I put together my poster for the FENS meeting that starts this weekend in Geneva. Every 2 years, the european neuroscience community has a meeting... of course this year it's in Geneva, so I don't get to go on a fun trip and must commute everyday to the convention center. I also submitted my first manuscript with my GABAB data. We'll see if it gets accepted to the journal for review. If it does, great! If not, we'll have to rewrite and resubmit to another journal.

I also got to play around with my wedding pictures and am starting to pick out my favorite pictures to put in an album. I want to make a massive album of pictures from the official photographer as well as pictures taken by friends and family. So if there are any of you out there with wedding pictures, please send me some so that I may include them in the album.... I'm so sad because I don't have pictures with a lot of my friends, especially those that didn't come down to the bar after the reception finished up.

I was also able to chill out Tuesday afternoon to go see The Incredible Hulk with Joe and Adrian and Thursday after work I went climbing with Stephan and Kristen for the first time since March. It was great to be outside climbing again. I almost forgot how much fun it is! I didn't get to use my new rope yet, but I finally got to use my new daisy chain and carabiners that I bought when we were home for Christmas.

So, this weekend and next week I'll be attending the FENS meeting and Joe decided to go up to Norway again to work on his collaboration with the lab up in Bergen since I'll be busy all hours of the day with the conference. That's all for now!

Wedding pictures have arrived!

Finally, after weeks of waiting (3 weeks longer than he originally promised...grrr) the pictures arrived! There are some really great pictures and I'm currently picking out my favorites to put in my album. Here are a couple!

-my favorite

-picking a bug out of my veil

-For the garter toss

For those of you who aren't photo-maniacs like I am (thank you Roberto for that classification ;), I have put some of my favorite/obligatory wedding photos into a smaller set.

For anybody willing to waste time looking through all the official wedding photos (there are 400), here are the links to those two set:
Set #1
Set #2

And for the ambitious procrastinator looking to waste an entire afternoon, here's the link to my flickr photostream where all all the other wedding pictures from my friends, and all other non-wedding related photos can be found if you organize by "sets". My friend Phil took some great pictures, so you'll want to check out 'wedding pics from Phil'.

I graduated!!

I'm now a Dr!! woo hoo!! Does that mean I have to change the title of my blog? hmmm....

My presentation went well. Everybody said I did a good job even though I felt as if it was going horribly while I was giving the talk.... it was so weird actually having to present in front of all my friends since it was basically the first time they'd ever heard me give a presentation... it was a bit surreal. At one point I looked at Joe, who was staring at me in this creepy way (like Witek for those who know him), which of course made me laugh and not want to turn to the audience at all. Of course, Joe was staring at me like that to get me to talk more to the audience, but of course, it had the opposite effect. I suppose we need to work on our nonverbal communication skills ;)

I also received awesome gifts from my colleagues and friends. I got a travel book from a friend of mine, and then my friends at EPFL and my colleagues at work chipped-in and got me my very own climbing rope!! I can't wait to try it out, though carrying it myself may prove difficult. I also got two beautiful bunches of flowers! Aren't they pretty! (Yes they're in the same vase because I don't own 2!)

-mixed flower bouquet from Jen & Adrian and I don't know who else

-lillies from Ulrike, Marzia and I think Jeff....

Anyway, the last week and half have been insane. Joe's parents came to visit us and to attend Joe's public defense. We did the sites of Switzerland for a couple days, then were off to Paris and Krakow and then back to Lausanne for Joe thesis defense, all in 4 days! I'm still in the process of posting pictures of everything on flickr.... just follow the link to all pictures in a previous post, and once i'm done posting the pictures, i'll post more specific links.

Happy Birthday Adrian!

Saturday was Adrian's 30th birthday and we had a nice relaxing time by the lake.


The weather was exceptional and it wasn't too hazy, so I was able to get some nice shots of the mountains.

And there were a bunch of ducks sunning themselves on the rocks in the marina... here's one of the pretty ones!

I passed!!

My private thesis exam is finally over! My last major hurdle is my public thesis talk. The professors picked the 4th of July at 4pm as the date of my public talk... the president of my committee thought it would be so fitting that the American girl presents on an American holiday. Do I have to wear a flag?

Since I was so busy preparing before my talk last week, I didn't get a chance to post the pictures from our fun night at the caveau in Lutry and then afterwards downtown. Here's the link to the set from Lutry and a link to see all my pictures.

-Joe comparing the ferret-like animal on the bottle to the stuffed one in the caveau

-fun with distortions in the wine glass

A couple weekends ago Joe and I bought some edelweiss for our planters. For our wedding present, Jess and Tom are going to have Tom's sister paint us our very own edelweiss! Tom's sister's paintings are awesome and I'm so excited to get my own... but she can't paint it until I get her some good pictures of edelweiss. I need to get a couple pictures out in nature (too difficult to find) or at a botanical rock garden (unfortunately the closest one is still closed because our weather has been so cold the last few months that there's still snow covering the plants!), but I decided to buy my own plant just in case I don't get any good pictures at the garden.

-Here's one of the flowers on our balcony.

Carolyn is mad at Flickr!!

So, long story short... Flickr has changed how the guest passes work. That is, all the links to my photos in this blog now only link to the specific set of private photos and no longer give you access to all of my private photos....grrr!!! I can, however, give you the link to all of my photos, which means, that now you must do a bit more work on your end to find the photos that you're looking for. So after you click this link you'll have to search for the photos more specifically under "Sets." For example, if you want to see "Wedding pics from Phil"... follow the link, and then click on Sets, and then the Set named "Wedding pics from Phil". Voila! Or, you can register on Flickr and become my friend and then you'll have access to see all of my pictures without referring to any links at all....I'll let you decide :)

Holy crap, it's June!!

Yes, May was chock full of events and now it's over :( so sad.... but luckily I remembered to take lots of photos, as always. Links to the flickr photos are in blue... enjoy!!

Event 5/9: my bachelorette party in Lausanne. Thank you Jen, Jacqui, Kristen & Sachiko for such a fun night. (And thank you Mrs. Shields!)

-Kristen, me & Sachiko at Pur for dinner

Event 5/13: Joe's private thesis defense

-Stephan, Iraklis & Joe celebrating

Event 5/14: mail my thesis to my committee

Event 5/15: fly to USA

Event 5/17: bridal shower & bachelorette party in Pittsburgh

-opening presents....I like to put things on my head

-Rachel, Linda, Stéphanie, & me at Tusca for dinner

Event 5/24: our wedding!! I created a collection on flickr of pictures from friends and family. Just click on "Our wedding festivities" to see more pictures!

-our name in lights!

-popcorn toss!

Event 5/27: interview & fly back to Switzerland
Event 5/29: our wedding in the Daily Item Newspaper

Now I must get back to work preparing for my thesis defense presentation and finishing my second manuscript.... agh... so much to do in 2 weeks!!

Busy, busy, busy.......

Oh my goodness! Life/work has been absolutely jam-packed with way too much stuff to do this past month. Between birthday parties, thesis deadlines, wedding planning, trip planning, moving home, applying for jobs, etc. we've been swamped and therefore I haven't had much time to blog. Needless to say, I won't have much time to blog between now and my thesis deadline (May 9th) to discuss the mundane goings on my stressful last 3 weeks as a PhD student. But, I did have time a few weeks ago to post the pictures from Joe's Birthday party on Flickr, though they are lacking titles which will probably remain nameless, that is unless I decide to procrastinate writing my thesis (like I'm doing right now by writing this).

I don't have any pictures to show you since Joe's Birthday party, but here's a picture from my thesis... yes, it is a real human brain.

Happy 29th Birthday Joe!!

I don't have time to write anything now... but here are a couple fun things from last night....

-Guinness through a straw

-single patty Greatest burger

-arm wrestling with Sandeep

-dancing with me!

-Happy Birthday cheers to Joe!

beautiful weekend

This weekend was absolutely beautiful and sunny. Joe and I had a lazy day Saturday after having a late dinner at Melody's house Friday night. We went to the market to buy stuff to grill. Nothing like cooking out in March! And then after we finished all of our neighborhood grocery shopping we headed down to the park to get some sun. Joe read while I walked around and took pictures of the spring flowers with the big bad Sony now that I know how to use the manual setting!

- honeybee in a daffodil
-grape hyacinth (these will be in my bouquet)

On Sunday, I stayed home and cleaned the apartment and did laundry like usual. And then I made a new found recipe in one of my Jamie Oliver cookbooks for poussins (small hen chickens) with roasted potatoes and then I also made spinach.

-Mmmm....it was messy to eat but really yummy!