Highlands tour: 1 bus + 1 boat = 1 day?

Morning cup o' Joe.

I have a really hard time making Blogger post these images in an orderly fashion, so bear with me! I made it to the bus pickup location this morning at 7:30, about 30 minutes before departure time... and I was alone. The bus showed up about 7:55, we loaded and departed. It was pretty easy. The interesting part is that Rabbie's isn't the only bus company that departs from that location. There are at least about 3 other companies that leave from there too. The first stop was about an hour into the bus tour at Loch Lomand (at a cafe a little further down than the lookout at which I stopped with Dr. Rattray). To the right (I hope) is me standing with my morning Joe.

Underexposure!

Over the next several hours, we crossed over into the Highlands. Immediate the landscape was more hilly and had some really amazing views. Unfortunately, the fog was a bit thick, so I had trouble getting my camera to have the same output as my eye was able to do. I got a few laughs from my awkward unfamiliarity with my camera. It's been too long since I went out to take some artsy photos, so the image to the right should be my underexposed image of a small Ben (hill) with added mystery from the strange exposure. I actually am a big fan of underexposing images with the sun in frame. Lens flare is something I actively try to capture. Call me crazy.

My welcome to Glencoe.

As we kept driving, we happened upon a fantastic Monroe (tall peak) guarding Glencoe (valley of the Coe?). I had a little heads up for this shot, since Rakesh had informed me of its presence yesterday at cricket. We kept travelling on and the tour guide/driver told us stories of great battles and massacres that had occured in this very valley. One of which was the massacre of the McDonalds (not the clown). Apparently they did not swear fealty to the King of Scotland who ordered their execution. I can't remember the clan that came down, was offered food and shelter due to terrible weather, and three weeks later killed 27 people in their sleep and left the 300some left to starve or die of exposure. Apparently 3 of those were sisters and it is said that these sisters are represented by three peaks just north of the site of the massacre. Sad story, but AMAZING scenery.

Left: The Three Sisters

Wee beach.

After continuing to drive, we came across many more interesting sights. I don't remember now where this beach was, but it was a nice little snapshot (yay aperture priority mode). We stopped for lunch in Fort Augusta, which had a multistep lock to assist boats in making it all the way through the Great Glen. No boats were going through today, but it was interesting nonetheless I stopped in a pub and ordered a takeaway fish and chips. I’m going to miss fish and chips when I get back to Boston… It was delicious, as fried food tends to be, but the chips still tasted like potatoes instead of the normal mushy fried material that you get at fast food places.

Ahh, lunch.

Actual lunch.

I need to run and eat dinner before all the kitchens close, but here are the last three images that I’ll talk about at a later time. Enjoy!

Across Loch Ness.

Urquhart Castle

Leaving Loch Ness.  Where was Nessie?

In the lab...

So we're having a hard time getting bands out of the primers I designed.  Today I ran a PCR trying to get the primer to work on several samples, but the resulted electrophoresis gel didn't show any bands, save for one of them.  That one showed at least two bands!  Sigh...  Also, the fish don't want to lay eggs these days, so there still isn't a spawn available for me to use.

Data is starting to be produced from the zebrafish trials.  I switched software distributions.  The free one seems to have more plugins and can do what I want it to. :)

I played cricket for the first time today.  Well, it is an adapted form of cricket so that fewer people can play.  My baseball skills came into play, but I kept hitting the ball too hard.  Cricket is more strategy since the ball can be hit literally anyway.  No foul balls?!  Crazy.  I like it a lot though, so I may look for somewhere to play in the US!

Tomorrow is my bus tour through the Highlands.  Look forward to a lot of pictures!

Public transport and Glengoyne

Across the road from Glengoyne

It is amazing to me how far out the public transport will bring passengers.  Perhaps I'm just amazed because I've never taken the MBTA out past Medford, but today I rode a bus through the countryside..  A public transport bus...  It was amazing!  I was fairly amazed at how far out we went when I went for paintball last week, but this seemed to be even farther.  It might be because we had to walk another mile and a half to the paintball place while this bus dropped us off right across the street.

Signage outside Glengoyne

Distillery from the road.

The white buildings are very visible from the road, although there is a sharp turn nearby in the road that makes it harder to see.  This distillery originally had it's own malting floor as well.  I think the tour guide said they don't do it at all anymore, but its quite common in Islay to have a backup supply in case there's bad weather or something and malted barley is hard to get shipped there.

Me with the stills.

The distillery has one large distillation pot for the first wash which brings the alcohol percentage from the 8% fermented wort to 25% forming the "wine", I think.  Or at least something about wine...  This is then split between the two distillers on the right of this image.  The entire production of Glengoyne, therefore, comes from these three stills.  It's pretty amazing, considering they can make 1 million liters per year.  The tour guide did bring up the amazing fact that some grain distilleries can produce 1 million liters in 3 days...  Apparently at Glengoyne , the actual distillation rate is the slowest of any Scotch whiskey.  This should lead to mellow flavors with little or no off-flavors from the malt itself.  The tour guide also said he had tried the pure, unaged stuff and said he was surprised how sweet/alcoholic, but unharsh the flavor was.  It is clear when it comes from the stills, but picks up all its character from the wood in the casks it which it is aged.  You can tell that by looking at whiskeys of different ages.  The oldest being the darkest in color.
Another interesting point is that Glengoyne no longer gets all of its water from this little brook behind the property.  They actually pump water in from a reservoir on the other side of the hill, but still use this water supply for some cooling and final dillution when filling the casks.

Old water source.

The first dram.

I had to get back for a teleconference, so I didn't have time to spend any money in the store, but I had a chance to sample the 17 y/o.  It's fantastic!  If you want a mellow dessert Scotch, this one is great.  Even one of the PhD students who came with me thought the 17 year was good.. and she made a (barely noticeable) horrible face at the 10 year! haha! Sorry Victoria!

A backlog...

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't been posting much text lately.  This will be a mondo catch-up session..

Friday, I collected some of the Zebrafish for a 3 dpf measurement.  It is difficult to separate them from their egg envelope, so it took me a little bit to get that all done and the photographs taken.  The rest of the day I spent pretty much finalizing my presentation for the Wednesday seminar.  After work, I got thoroughly engrossed in Ancestry.com.  I mapped out a bunch of my family tree and found out what the surnames of my Scottish relatives were.

On Saturday, I traveled to Edinburgh (pronounced burra*, not like my last name).  There, I visited the Edinburgh castle.  I rented an audio tour thingy and walked around and in every building I could throughout the whole castle.  It's actually much different than I was expecting, I guess.  There are a bunch of independent buildings inside.  What is fascinating to me about this is that the Japanese castles are much more fortified and seem to be more like one structure.  Having only seen those, I was intrigued by the medieval castle design at Edinburgh (see previous posts for photos).  I then had time to tour around Old Edinburgh - saw a really interesting old building that I think is a church?  Really cool little alleyways and shops all over the place.  New town was much different.  Seemed to be more on a grid and seem to be more commercial -- at least in the areas I was walking around in.  I was able to grab a few souvenirs.  Shops started to close pretty early, so I headed back to Glasgow after a quick lunch and a last look around.

Sunday, I went out to paintball with a bunch of PhD students.  Between being pelted by a lot of paintballs and tripping on logs when trying to perform advanced aerial acrobatics for improved positioning, I had a lot of fun!  If it were a little less expensive, I might consider going again haha!  I suppose that's true of any hobby.  I then proceeded to sleep a ton.  Shooting people with paint is hard work, apparently.

Today, I collected the rest of the Zebrafish we started last week and took photos, finalized my powerpoint, prepared the primers for testing for purity and effectiveness.  Tomorrow, we'll run the gels to find out if it works.  We'll also set up another trial with different experimental conditions!  One more day to my talk on Wednesday!  73 slides in 50 minutes.  New world record?

iPod photos: more detail tomorrow

Summit approach to the Cobbler.

Sheep!

Post summit Cobbler.

Glasgow

Edinburgh pub.

Edinburgh photo highlights

 I need to head to bed, but here are some photo highlights from Edinburgh.  Details to come tomorrow!

Long night of noise, long day at the computer.

Well.. apparently there was a party upstairs last night until 4:00am.  It was quite difficult to get up this morning.  So far it's quite silent around here now.  Hopefully they're all partied out for the time being!  Upon arriving to the lab, I ran up to the lab taught by Dr. Rattray.  I met several of the undergraduates who came across to the US.  It was fun to speak with them and learn a bit about how they enjoyed the US.  I also advertised my talk and apparently a bunch of the undergrads are going to come.

For the rest of the day, I worked on my talk, checked on the zebrafish, ate lunch with the other PhD students, got the slide count up to 58, and then went out for a few brews with a big gang of the PhD students to "the Butterfly and the Pig" and had some bangers and mash for dinner.  The pub is supposed to be one of the places to go in Glasgow too.  Wahoo!  Perhaps I'll have some time to go to Edinburgh this weekend?

I also got two of girls did their "American" accent.  Which was basically Valley Girl, hahahaha..  It was awesome.

Dr. Gartland, Student talk, Primer design

Today went by quickly!  I first worked on some last minute details for stuff I left unfinished in Boston.  At 10:30 I met with Dr. Kevin Gartland, who lead the charge from the Scotland side for this exchange.  He is an extremely friendly fellow who had loads to suggest as far as things to do.  He is very helpful and apparently soon to be on the way to Boston!  I then, after grabbing a quick bit of food, met with some other graduate students in the "PhD room" and chatted up a bit.

Afterwards, I attended a student talk.  Retrovirus gene transplants into pig genome?  Needless to say, this chemist was a bit lost on purpose, but it was explained later.  Apparently pig organs are being considered (or maybe are already being used) for human xenotransplantation and having these viruses encoded in the pig genome may have detrimental effects if the genes were switch on.  Makes sense!  Afterwards, I worked for a while on the talk I will give to the department next week.  I intend to discuss all of my research experience starting from my lowly undergraduate days of TLC plates, etc.

Later on in the day Rakesh helped to explain and then helped to design primers for zebrafish work.  Needless to say, it has been a long time since freshman biology and tangentially applicable organic chemistry.  I remembered some of it from seminars at Arkansas State University when I went to a lot of molecular biology talks, but recalling and then using to design something was... difficult!  Thanks to Rakesh for helping!  We managed to finish up before 5:30, so Rakesh, Sri, and I went to the movie theatre where I used my pay-as-you-go phone to take advantage of a buy 1 get 1 free deal that is on every Wednesday.  Rakesh has a pass to go to unlimited movies for the month, so between the three of us, we only paid £5.70.  Quite a good deal for three to go.  We saw John Carter......  Because this isn't intended to be a movie review forum, I won't go into details other than the following:

At least the pod racer scene was cool.  No wait.

Trial experiments!

Well, I have a trial in the works!  We are doing a quick and dirty exposure and I'll be measuring some structures.  Some interesting results may come from this!

Anyway, >100 zebrafish eggs were spawned and fertilized around noon today.  Rakesh collected them and brought them back to the lab where we selected 40 for my trials.  A good first run, I think.  I also ran PCR on a couple samples for beta-actin expression.  Not sure what this is all about, but it was a trial for me to get my feet wet on the molecular side.  Moral of the story, I'm kinda bad at squirting blue liquid into a semi-invisible hole in an electrophoresis gel.  Results came back well though.  Not sure if they were expecting that or not...

I also did my first loads of laundry across the court.  Hard to believe that is news after the hundreds of loads washed at Luther College in machines that look strikingly identical.  The good news is that none of my clothes are now pink or tiny.  It helps that I own about zero red clothes.

Also found out today that my UMass ID will get me into the movie theatre for £4.50, so I'm going to go with some of the other labbies tomorrow.  Also, my pay-as-you-go cell phone is on a network that offers a buy 1 get 1 free ticket sale on Wednesdays.  Not sure if this also works with student discount.. We will see, I suppose!  Apparently Glasgow also has comedy weeks(?) starting Thursday, so I've been invited to that along with other grad students.  My social calendar seems more full than at home!

I also mentioned that it was St. Patrick's Day on Saturday to Dr. Rattray who then seemed to think it was no big deal.  It must not be in Scotland, which makes sense, but with Ireland being so close, I figured there would be more craziness than that.  I might have to find out how I can get across the gap for that day. :)

My lungs are small?

So I went in to the hospital today (adventure one).  First on the list of fun things, I had to find out what bus to take.  Dr. Shu had an email from a lady at the hospital describing what bus(es) to take to get to Victoria Infirmary, and to proceed to floor two from a specific entrance.  For my expanded 22 step process of leaving the lab for my lung work and returning to the lab afterwards, proceed to the following instruction set.


1) Go to the bus station and find bus schedules.
2) Ask information desk where I pick up each of the buses that were options.
3) Go back to the schedule board to find the bus that is apparently more convenient.
4) Return to the lab where Dr. Shu told me to take one of the other buses initially suggested, but then get confused where to find the bus.
5) Receive helpful advice from other graduate students in the lab that, indeed, the info desk lady was right and to pick up the other bus right outside of the cinema by the KFC.
6) Find no KFC near the cinema.
7) Walk down the street marked by the info desk lady to find the stop I needed (4 blocks).
8) Buy a round trip ticket on the bus (£1.8).
9) Explain that I needed a round trip ticket.
10) Buy a new round trip ticket that is ACTUALLY a round trip ticket (+£1.2).
11) Wait anxiously because I needed to wait for 12 stops instead of the two marked in the schedule.
12) Get lost in the hospital because someone thought I said Occupational Therapy, not Occupational Health (which are surprising far apart).
13) Check in and fill in outpatient paperwork.
14) Take breath tests to check for lung function.
15) Be complimented on my ability to produce slow regular air on command (trumpet).
16) Be confused on why I have so little lung function when exhaling sharply.
17) Be seen by a different staff member who uses a different testing tool to find that I am actually producing 650 L/min (normal 27 y/o man at 6' tall: 520-620 L/min).
18) Be more confused when electronic instrument says 371 L/min, but they believe that one instead and suggest a full physical in 6 weeks.
19) Be relieved when they say that 3 weeks is unnecessary and that they don't have any reason to believe something is wrong (?!?!?).
20) Wait anxiously at the bus stop hoping I'm standing on the correct side of the road (lol).
21) Hand return ticket to grumpy driver, get a return punch (in the ticket, not the face).
22) Get off four stops too early and walk 0.6 mi, not so bad.


Fun stuff. :)  My pictures and videos are AGAIN on the iPod and I am having a hard time being able to send emails and Apple won't let me sync photos.


P.S.  They sent me a do-it-yourself tester and I just registered 700L/min three times (??!).

Hike!

I finally got outside for a while.  It was sort of rainy the whole time with some patches of amazing sunshine and vibrant countryside.  I'm afraid my pictures on the camera won't do it justice and the iPod photos/videos are being stubborn and won't come off the device.  Anyway.. Dr. Julie Rattray and her partner Ronnie picked me up from the dormitories this morning at 9:00.  We drove up past several Lochs (no, not the famous one with the monster in it).  We jumped out at one and I took the first picture here.

The second picture is of a salt Loch that goes all the way out to the ocean.  The hike started out with a few brisk switchbacks.  These switchbacks then met up with an old jeep road and quickly straightened out for a while for a easy ascent for about 600 meters.  Ronnie's GPS was handy at telling us how far up we had gone.  Total ascent for the climb was around 1000 meters, total distance around 8 miles, done in about four hours!

The low parts of the hike ended up being a well beaten path with some large stones and gravel.  Higher up, stone slabs were cut into steps and made for a relatively easy ascent, if not taxing for climbing more stairs than I could count.   Dr. Rattray and Ronnie told me about how the Scottish Forestry division had been culturing pine here since the 1950s (I think?) and that they plant and clearcut every so often.  I could see the remnants of the old pines in downed trees left to rot and old stumps greater than 2ft in diameter.

Once we got higher up, the trees disappeared and were replaced with thick grassy areas with small shrubs.  Apparently, treeline is very low altitude in Scotland even though things were already starting to green up.  Large slab faces required some scrambling, but it wasn't until after we reached the summit and began coming down the other side that real scrambling began.

Well, those pictures and video are on the iPod, which I will try to get uploaded as soon as I figure out where free WiFi will allow me to email them to myself...  This last picture is on the way back on Loch Lomand.  Cool tree.

Making soup tomorrow.  Check out my grocery store bounty!  I'll be able to make soup about four times, I think!

So I was going to go to the movies tonight, but I realized I misread the listings and I was uninterested in everything that was playing, basically.  It was going to end up about $12.50 after exchange rate, so I decided to pass on The Phantom Menace-3D!!!!!!.  No thanks, George.

Two oops in one day..

So, figured out how to get a bus ticket today, but then had to print it out...  Luckily Rakesh was in the lab (see previous posts) and got it printed out for me, but not in time for the last bus!  Bahh..  Sooo.. I ended up walking around Glasgow, but of course forgot my camera and iPod, so no video evidence.  I guess I'll just need 1000s of words to paint you a picture of what I experienced today.

First off, there are TONS of pizza places in Glasgow.  It's amazing how many restaurants are bar/grille/pizzeria...  Also, apparently nobody eats at 4pm.  I'm VERY surprised at that (drips sarcasm).  I also can't seem to find things that I start off to find.  After figuring out that I took a wrong turn on my way to the "Butterfly and Pig", I ended up ducking in at an Italian place, "O'Sole Mio" eating probably the most delicious bruschetta I've ever had.  This was followed with an equally delicious mushroom cream sauce bowtie pasta.  I also got a cafe latte to cap it off for only 14£.  I am still quite full!

Before my 4:30pm dinner, however, I ran across two separate bagpipe players.  One had a rhythm section to back him up in a rather marching band style bagpiping adventure.  The other was merely playing by himself on a side street.  Also ran into a marionette and his puppeteer and a human "statue" that was incredibly still and realistic.

One thing to also note is that there are two MAJOR shopping streets that I've somehow meandered onto. The first, I have bought groceries and looked in windows, is Sauchiehall St.  It is very easy to get to from campus.  Looking back at my maps in the Fodor's guide, it looks like it was Buchanan St., which appears to border the Merchant City and City Center?  Tons of places to shop, including familiar places like Nike, Urban Outfitters, Timberland, etc, as well as the unfamiliar (at least to me) places like American Apparel, USC, and other places I don't remember.  Apparently, the largest collection of jewelry stores* in the UK is also off Buchanan street in the Argyle Arcade.  *Sorry friends, I did not go inside.  I also poked my head in a spirits store ("Good Spirits") and found >50 malts available, including many I remember Dr. Alan Christian discussing with me.  I didn't buy any, but it was very interesting to speak with the owner about his collection.

Well, I think I'll go back out and see what else is going on in this city.  Tomorrow, I will be sure to remember my camera and take lots of photos for you to view!

Oops!

Turns out the Glasgow sightseeing bus sells out in March!  I guess I'll go tomorrow.

I'm off to experience some Scottish cuisine and perhaps visit the shopping mall since it's usually closed by the time I get back out of my room at night.  Pictures/descriptions to come!

Full work day!

Today I got up at a reasonable time, worked a reasonable amount of time, had lunch at a reasonable time, worked another reasonable amount of time, got coffee at a reasonable hour, and then took an unreasonable amount of photos of my temporary labmates and faculty advisor.  I'm still learning names, so you must forgive me... 

Today I was able to pull some zebrafish larvae out of their egg sacks and photograph their otoliths!  It's amazing how soon the otoliths are clearly visible.  I won't give too much information away on how we were able to do this, since this is a public forum, but there is some cool stuff going on!  Dr. Shu and I will be working together for the three weeks to figure out a collaborative project to extend my research to the molecular level at the same time as extending his to the macro level.  My research into the morphology of my samples may prove to be another proxy for normal development and/or show compensation for any number of genetic variables.

Next week I will give a lecture/seminar to the department and graduate students.  Apparently there are usually two speakers on Wednesdays, but since none were scheduled, I will have the whole hour to discuss at length issues of ocean acidification, various organismal response and specifically, my project.  I'm looking forward to meeting more of the faculty and perhaps fostering further collaborative efforts.  It would be pretty cool if discussions during or afterwards lead to more connections between GCU and UMass-Boston.

On a social note, Rakesh (pictured in the upper right) asked me to come out to play paintball with him and some other graduate students next Sunday.  I, of course, agreed!  On a trip of firsts (first time in Europe, first time in Ireland, first time in Scotland, first time using molecular biological tools, first time living on my own in a foreign country, first time disseminating UK currency, etc), I never imagined paintball would be added to that list.  I hear it can be a bit painful.  Possibly not more so than digging a hard hit in volleyball, but maybe?  Tomorrow, I will take the Glasgow tourist bus around and see what this city has to say for itself. :)

Nice to meet you!

Today, I visited a microbiology lab for nursing majors and met some of the PhD students who assist in the lab.  Two of them talked to me at length about Scotland, the US, the education system, television, shopping, etc.  One thing I left with was this sense of respect for the US - or at least wonder!  One of the students had never been to the US but is planning a trip in October.  She spoke of her trip starting in Los Vegas, travelling to the west coast and driving from San Francisco to San Diego and back to Vegas.  It was interesting to me to hear perspectives on US tourism and shopping from these two.

The education systems of the US and Scotland (and maybe the UK in general) seem to have similarities but are also quite different, or at least seems that way when speaking with these students from Glasgow.  Apparently "college" as we put it in the US means something else.  Apparently here degree awarding institutions are always Universities whereas colleges give certifications.  A tad different, but made for some interesting conversation!  It was difficult to describe how a degree awarding college is different than a degree awarding university.  From what I understand, it's mostly how the school is organized.  I'll have to research this more.

The Scottish youth also seem to have a great interest in US television.  The two graduate students spoke a bit about their television interests citing several shows that I haven't seen any of...  But, apparently "Downton Abbey" is also popular in the UK as well.  It was described as "brilliant".

Also, Caledonia, according to Wikipedia (which is okay to site since this isn't a peer reviewed article?) is the old latin name the Romans gave what is now Scotland.  So I must be staying in the Scottish Court apartments!  Now that either means there are Scottish courtyards, or I am staying with Scottish nobility.  Hmm...

Reverse jetlag?

I think my several naps yesterday have resulted in reverse jetlag. It's 3:45AM and I woke up naturally. Shouldn't I be staying up until 3 and waking up late? Haha..

The Wifi keeps dropping me.. Hopefully that gets fixed today.

I'm looking forward to my first full day here. I will visit a first year lecture/lab section this morning. I'm excited to see what it's like to be an undergraduate in Scotland!

More to come!

First afternoon perspectives!

Dr. Xinhua Shu met me at the airport and wisked me away to the shuttle bus to campus. He certainly is a fast walker! After a brief trip through Glasgow, we arrived at the bus depot located across the street from the University. Very convenient! Xinhua took me around campus to the apartments, helped me get signed in and showed me to my room. He insisted that I take a small nap and meet him at 1PM (roughly 8AM Eastern!). I unpacked my suitcase, unpacked the included items, which were numerous (kitchen essentials, bedding, towels, etc.), and attempted to find internet. Unfortunately for me, there is VERY spotty WiFi in here, allowing me to do short, low-bandwidth activities. Fortunately for me, that meant I had little else to do but take the requested nap! I slept for about 2 hours, then got up and readied myself for a full afternoon.

GCU is great! It appears as though every building is attached with a walkway of some kind, allowing students/faculty/staff/general public to pass through any building on campus without being exposed to the elements. Today it has been beautifully sunny, followed by bouts of drizzle, downpours, sleet, and snow! What a wildly variable afternoon of weather! It's currently cloudy again and threatening more rain.. Good time to curl up in bed and read about of fiction to keep myself going until a respectable bedtime! I feel like I pulled an all-nighter (and basically have).

Xinhua showed me around campus and around the shopping district nearby. Looks like I'll be able to buy stuff with absolutely no problem as my bank is also located on campus. Santander always seems to pop up in favorable locations!

After showing me around the labs and introducing me to various folks, Xinhua and I discussed some possible research plans. Before I get started on those, however, I need to have some sort of lung scan? That will take place Monday. Xinhua mentioned why this was a necessity, but I seem to have forgotten the reasons. I'll blame jetlag for that one.

The coordinator of my visit and perhaps self-proclaimed social director of my visit, Dr. Julie Rattray, discussed possible non-work related trips and helped figure out some last details. I received my stipend and am now back in my room waiting for dinner time. I'll likely get something light and crash early. Stories of haggis and whatnot will have to wait for another day. :)

From the airplane!

Aer Lingus is amazing! Not only am I not hitting my knees on the chair in front of me, I have an extra chair next to me, the crew is most helpful and respectful, but I do have one complaint... They offer too much coffee. I am wide awake and it is 3:40am. Oh well... I guess I'll keep reading.

6:20am
Safe in Dublin! Looks like I'm going to take a bus to the airplane to Glasgow. Did not expect that! At least they have a bus. Haha! Terrible photo, I know. :)

At the airport!

Well.. at Boston Logan International Airport, the international security checkpoint goes WAY faster than the domestic. I arrived a little more than 3 hours early, as is suggested by literally every website/literature about international travel... Got through security and to my gate in about 20 minutes. I am now only 2.5 hours early, but originally got here with slightly more than 3 hours to spare. Now, I'm not suggesting that any of you show up later than me, just in case there's a rush or a problem, but rather to brag about my relative ease at the airport! Not always the case. I bet my karma for saying that will send me on a rather laborious customs visit while in the Dublin airport...

The nice thing about the international terminal is that it is bristling with power connections. I'm getting some good work done!

Getting ready...

Hi all and welcome to my UMass-Boston Graduate Exchange experience blog.

In case this is the first blog by me you've seen, I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I am a doctoral candidate with the Environmental, Earth, and Ocean Sciences department at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. My chief research interests lie in fish inner ear development, most notably the otolith or ear stone, with respect to changing environmental conditions. This may incorporate metal signatures, stable isotopic composition, or various morphological or mineralogical features.

I was selected to participate in the UMB-GCU exchange program due to my experience with otolith morphology/mineralogy to pair with a researcher at GCU doing molecular work on zebrafish. Zebrafish are a model species for experimentation since the entire genome has been mapped and that there are a multitude of genetic strains available for a broad range of biomedical research. My goals there include setting up future collaborations as well as to participate in cultural exchanges. I will be recording observations regarding the differences and similarities to my experiences in the US at UMass-Boston. As a special bonus, I may also incorporate some blogging regarding weekend activities as well! I am told there may be a ticket to a football match while I'm there!

I'll be leaving tomorrow at 6:15PM EST. My tickets are printed, most of my clothes are packed... now it's time to find space for my table tennis racquet.

Please feel free over the duration of my trip to make comments or particular requests for information! This is as much for you, my followers, as it is for me!