meet my lab mates : www.quantelab.org

Wednesday was my first full day in lab. I wasn’t super productive, I read a lot of papers and drank a lot of coffee. It seems like every time someone in my lab is thirsty they all rally for coffee. Our kitchen/breakroom has 4 fancyschmancy coffee makers that brew amazing, strong coffee, the kind I can only drink once a week! Upon suggestion from Steffen, I bought some tea bags so I can still socialize but not consume so much coffee.

Thursday was similar to Wednesday…more reading and we had our Journal Club meeting. I will be presenting at next week’s JC…woo hoo! I packed a sandwich lunch since I was being careful with my money and ate with my lab mates outdoors at the Mensa, (like a cafeteria/ common eating area), the weather was fantastic!
After lunch, Moritz, the MD/PhD student in my lab, told me they were going to be practicing crypt culturing and that a mouse needed to be sacrificed and that since I was the newbie, I’d be sacing it. I honestly thought he was joking. I had never before worked with animals and at UCD prior to even looking at a mouse you have to take a bunch of animal handling/ safety courses. So it came as a surprise when he actually handed me the jar with isofluran to place the mouse in to put it to sleep. But I got it together and opened the mouse cage, picked up one of the two females in there by her tail, and popped her into the jar and sealed the lid, waited 5 mins and fished her out. She was fast asleep and Moritz showed me how to proceed. By the end of it he made sure I actually did the sacrificing. To be honest, I had thought about this moment a lot since the day I agreed to be a part of this program and project, I wasn’t sure if I would be squeamish or scared or an emotional basket case. But I followed instructions and had no emotional attachment what so ever. Which I am thankful for; it would be a shame if I couldn’t see past the fact that they are cute, furry balls, because they are bred to serve a purpose. A purpose which involves improving our understanding of diseases and finding ways to improve and save lives and thats all it is.
Moritz then dissected the mouse and gave me a crash course on mouse physiology. He and Andreas then further dissected the small intestine, large intestine and colon for the crypt culturing they were working on.
Friday, the boss was out, and since I wasn’t being productive in lab, I ran some errands and ended up reading in the Englischer Garten for 4 hours while the weather was magnificent. However I spent too much time in the sun and came home and passed out from a headache. I woke up at 8pm, watched a movie and fell back asleep.

River Isar

My view in the Englischer Garten

I was so excited about my Bionade...until I realized I did not have a bottle opener.

or Belfortstrasse…the ß = ss, make sure the house number is after the street and the zip code is before the city.

Tschuuuuuuusss!

Munich on a beautiful, sunny day!

Rathhaus, Marienplatz

Marienplatz

Theatinerkirche, Odeonsplatz

surfing the Eisbach

she was better than the boys!

A week ago, at this time, I was en route to the airport, dreading saying goodbye to my family and friends and tonight I’m in my Ikea bed, in Munich.

Lindsay and I arrived into Munich from Zurich at around 8pm, we got our luggage (4 large suitcases, one check in and 2 backpacks) fairly fast and went to make a phone call. Backstory…my mom cancelled my US phone since my contract was up at the end of August so I was phone-less and my French-landlord kept insisting that I call from Zurich and Munich airport so he could be waiting with the keys. Needless to say, I failed at using the Swiss and German pay phones and lost about 3 euro in the process – there are too many codes (country/ region/ cell/landline) for me to understand.

I digress…so we decide to skip the call and just surprise him. We get on the SBahn, its now 9:30pm, and head into Munich. I must say, Lindsay and I were super efficient at getting the 5 bags in and out of the train! The train ride is usually 45mins but this time there was a random stop for about 15mins which didn’t help given that we were tired and hungry.

Once at the Ostbahnhof (my train station) we grabbed some pizza and wheeled the 5 suitcases down the cobble stone to my apartment, about 200m away (I’m working on using the metric system). My landlord, Benoit, was home and helped up with the bags. We also go to meet Lancelot, my French roommate until December. Benoit gave us a tour, some do’s and don’ts and headed home.

My room was kinda bare…except for the closet, a metal shelving unit, futon/bed and a square table with 4 chairs. Quite a random assortment. For pics, see Lindsay’s G+ album or her soon to come Facebook album. Oh and the white carpet which is more beige now with random stains and is actually more like felt than carpet.

We ate our pizza and got ready for bed. I woke up at 4am, as usual jet lag kicked in…Lindz was passed out. We woke up and head to my lab. Lindz got to see the Klinikum and meet my PI Michael. I had to pick up my signed contract and it was a chance to show her where I would be working. Then we headed out to Marienplatz to get a bank appointment and then get registered…the registration office apparently is closed on Mittwoch (Wednesdays) WTF?!

So, we walked around the city, checked out Oedeonsplatz, Freunen kirche and viktualien markt. We bought dips and cheese filled veggies and marinated mushrooms and bread at viktualien markt-a large open air market with amazing food. After lunch we did a little grocery shopping and headed to Augustiner Restaurant…but we accidentally ended up at the Augustiner Beirgarten and had to head back towards the restaurant. Dinner was great! We each enjoyed 2 delicious Augustiner Edlestoff hells and a lot of sausage and meat!

The next day we woke up early to catch the train to Neuschwanstein. We got to the Hauptbanhof and had to run to catch our train because I was paranoid we would miss it…we got there with a few minutes to spare. The train ride was long and rather uneventful, but the scenery was pretty…typical Bavarian countryside. Lindsay dozed off and I had to wake her up to show her castle off in the distance…once we reached Füssen it was raining and we caught the bus to the castle.

Lindsay and I weren’t about to partake in the 30min up hill walk, so instead we got lunch and decided on taking the bus. We had wiener schnitzel mit pommesfrites and Weißewurst mit senf and a pretzel. Weisßwurst is white sausage, a Munich speciality made fresh everyday out of pork, it is accompanied with sweet mustard and a pretzel.

We then took a bus packed full of Asian tourists, who Ooooed together at the castle. We view the castle from Marienbrücke, Mary’s bridge, which straddled two hill slopes under a large gorge. Our tour guide was an interesting woman with the strangest accent. Following the castle we went to check out Alpensee, the lake next to the castle. Its a beautiful, clear water lake. There was a pair of swans and their ugly ducking. The mama swan spotted a dog and defensively hissed at the little pup….it was quite entertaining. We ended up stopping for tea and stuffing our faces with pastries before passing out on the train back to Munich.

The next day, Friday, I woke up at the crack of dawn to head down to the local city office to register. I made sure to be there at 7:30 and was done in a few minutes…I am now officially a resident of Munich…ich bin win Münchner means I am a Müncher! We walked around the city and head to Schloß Nymphenberg. This is a sprawling palace with beautiful gardens. We walked around the gardens pretending we owned the place, wishing our ladies in waiting would usher us to a tea table so we could nibble on delicious pastries. We then walked halfway home, got döner kebab and lamachun as a late lunch early dinner and bummed around and watched a movie while we waited for Steffen to come.

Once he arrived we invited Lancelot out with us to the HofBräuhaus. We managed to get seated pretty quickly and enjoyed our beer. Lindsay and I were pretty drunk pretty fast Then we headed to Sausalitos for cocktails and dancing and had a blast. We got home around 2:30am and crashed. We all woke up early, to make sure Lindz got to the airport on time…we were all hungover.

It wasn’t until I watched her walk past security that it really hit me…the last part of “home” was gone. I had such an amazing time with Lindsay and I’m and so very grateful that she was able to help me with this new chapter of my life…I’m truly lucky to have a friend like her!

It was also wonderful to have Steffen with me after Lindsay left. We took the train back to Munich and met up with Andi and his girlfriend Svea. We got froyo! its popular here too…a small surprise from Steffen to remind me of home We took our froyo to the Englischer Garten and sat long the Eisbach, a narrow stream that runs thru the gardens. The weather had been perfect and people were floating down the stream….i really wanted to jump in but we didn’t have bathing suits. We could have gone naked but….


We came home and cooked dinner and ate outside on my teenie balcony. We had rice and chicken and veggies. I was in charge of the rice and managed to screw it up…we still ate it, Steffen didn’t make fun of it because he new I would start crying at my inability to cook rice.

After dinner we were hanging out in bed bc my roommate had friends over and they were watching a movie in the living room and I wasn’t interested. We were waiting for Andi to call us to make plans for the evening, but we both passed out and woke up three hours later…looked at each other with the ” lets just go back to sleep” look and called it a night.

Sunday was Steffen’s last day in Munich and we borrowed Andi’s car to go shopping at Ikea…several hours later we made it out with a car full of stuff. Poor Steffen had to pay the bill bc apparently Ikea doesn’t accept credit cards, what would I do without him! We got home and started assembling things and took down the dreadful lace curtains with cats on them…uggghh! still makes me shudder thinking of them. Steffen almost tore down the wall but thats another story.

We were supposed to float down the Eisbach after Ikea but the trip and assembling took much longer than we had planned. We dropped off Andi’s car and headed to the train station. Steffen left and it was the best goodbye we’ve had! It feels great knowing that we get to see each other in 3 weeks!

Monday morning I was up super early and decided to do some laundry…I managed with previous instructions from Steffen and then hung my clothes out to dry. Made breakfast and headed to lab..there was nothing there for me to do so I headed back home, read some papers, worked on my manuscript and made lunch. Then I opened up a bank account and attended an interesting seminar that might lead to an amazing collaboration at Harvard…might…fingers crossed.

Today is Tuesday and I just got back from Freising. I have to attend seminars in Freising every other week and this time the presenter was from the same University that Carolyn, my UCD PI was previously from! such a small world! There was beer after the seminar and I had some and now I’m tuckered out!

That in a nutshell…a rather long winded nutshell, was my first week in München!

I’m living my dream and couldn’t be happier! ( or poorer !)

My time in Manipal has been wonderful, aside from eating delicious seafood and my Nana’s cooking, I also indulged myself with Christmas Kuswar (traditional Mangalorean/ Goan Christmas sweets).  Sooo yummy! While in Manipal I also attended one of my Nana’s uncle’s son’s 3rd son’s wedding, confused? so was I.  My Nana’s is related to half the town thru blood or marriage and gets invited to too many weddings. So  I went with her and her 2 best friends (Joyce, her sister-in-law and Cynthia, her cousin). I swear these three old ladies do everything together! The three of them are widows now and basically attend weddings, christenings, 1st holy communions and other events together. They LOVE  jewelery and silk sarees and gossip. The wedding was a lot of fun and I got to meet some distant relatives I didn’t know of.

Attending the wedding with the 3 old ladies started the discussion and questioning of when I would be getting married…this lasted the entire car ride home and then at home my Nana started it up with my Aunt and it continued for the next few days.

I also had a chance to visit the orphanage that my Grandpa was so fond of. We couldn’t stay as long because Tami wasn’t feeling well ( she was sick the day before from traveling). While leaving one of the boys (about 14 or 15 years old) kept smiling at me, so I smiled back and said bye, that made his day and he followed us out to our car and was blowing me kisses as we left…sooo sweet!

The next day I woke up at 5am for my train to Goa. My tummy didn’t feel too good that morning but I attributed it to waking up early. I ended up feeling worse on the train and puked my brains out during the 4 hour trip to Goa. While pulling into the train station, standing up by the door, I puked again, in front of a ton of people…thank goodness I had a couple of ziploc bags handy. Luckily as soon as I got off the train I saw my friends and felt much better. We drove home and had a typical homecooked Goan meal with lots of fried fish and fish curry. It was delicious! After that we drove around town and visited our elementary school where we were best friends from Kindergarten to 6th grade. Then we headed to Dona Paula, and visited my old house.  I felt fine the entire time and even took a nap that evening. But when I woke up I didn’t feel too hot and was sick for the rest of the night. I felt soooo bad that my friends had to put up with me and puking, but seemed to be just fine the next day. We were supposed to go parasailing  but I was still kinda weak and woozy still so instead we went to the open market and enjoyed drinking tender coconut water!

Together again at our old school, 13years later!

The next day was my friend’s sisters engagement party. It was sooooo fun! It started with a traditional Goan blessing and then their friends surprised them with a Goan brass band! and they had a 20 min long fireworks display!!! it was crazy! The open bar was great and the live band and dj were awesome…they played bialas(Konkani songs traditionally played at Goan and Mangalorean parties) We danced and partied till 3am and then I had to be up by 6am to head to the train station.

The journey back home was fine but I was exhausted so I napped and then we headed to church for midnight mass. It was so nice to be in India for Christmas after so long! After service we met up with Aunts and Uncles for cake and coffee and then headed home for presents!

Today we had a huge feast and some of my cousins friends from college who couldn’t go home for the holidays because of the distance joined us for lunch. It was a lot of fun and now I’m stuffed.

I have to pack now…I leave for Germany tomorrow!

Miss you all and wish you all a Merry Merry Christmas!

Since my last post, I’ve managed to eat more and gain 5 lbs in a week…quite impressive, no?  My last few days in B’lore were spent lounging with my cousins and the little babies. Since my trip was so short I didn’t feel it necessary to indulge in a lot of shopping or site seeing. Instead we did a lot of laid back hanging out with the babies…got spit up on and pee-ed on a lot! but loved every moment of it!!!!

We had a little BBQ for my birthday at my Grandma’s house and my cousin baked me a wonderful and delicious chocolate cake which Leah( the 2year insisted on decorating with M&Ms).

Leah and me

I did manage to do some shopping. Bangalore has your modern day malls and upscale stores, but theres a special area called “Commercial Street”, its less than a 1/2mile long and is home to well over a thousand small shops. When we (my cousins and I) were little and would visit B’lore over summer vacation my mom and aunts would brings us here to shop for hours! It has changed over the years… now its more crowded and dirty, but it still has it alluring charm.

Commercial Street

So on a sunny and warm afternoon my cousin Melinda took me out to practice my bargaining skills. She’s a pro at it.  Bargaining is a part of the shopping process here. It is a way of life and can be very exciting and rewarding. So I had a few items on my list…I needed a couple of authentic souvenirs and decided to stop at a “Kashmiri handicrafts emporium”, Kashmir is India’s most northern state and is well know for their beautiful Pashmina shawls, which was on my list.

So before entering I practiced my best Indian accent, if the salesmen hear a hint of an accent they will take you for a ride!  We enter and pretend like we are really not interested in anything in particular, instead we browse and ask how much random things are…then cooly, we decide to ask about the shawls. Immediately they know thats what we’ve come for and they get excited. Within seconds they’ve unwrapped and opened up over 50 different colors and styles of shawls. Their initial price quote is  absurdly high and we begin to banter about how unreasonable  the price is…if they don’t come down to a price you think is fair its time to walk away, now if they really want your business they will persuade you to stay and negotiate until everyone is satisfied. This didn’t happen at the first store, the second store or the third store.  Well over 100 unraveled shawls and scarves later we managed to come an agreement over a soft and gorgeous burnt orange Pashmina, around 1200Ruprees ( $25 ) less than the initial quoted price of around $100.   Meli thought I was pretty good for being a coconut![ brown on the outside, white on the inside]

On  Tuesday, I visited my Uncle Philip, he is my dad’s older brother, the second oldest out of 7 kids. He is a retired Major of the Indian Army, has an enormous belly, a drinking problem and always thinks he is right about everything…needless to say, he is quite entertaining. We visited him at home (his wife is in Australia with my cousin at the moment and so he was home alone). Almost all the homes here are gated, my uncle has made a giant board with his name and info and visiting hours and proudly displays it on his gate…who the heck has visiting hours when they are retired and just hanging out at home! So we drop by his house at around 11:30 in the morning and he’s already on his 3rd drink of the day. He wanted to take us out for lunch and so after much debate we settle on a Chinese restaurant near by. I also forgot to mention that he likes to carry around a bottle of his beverage of choice when he leaves home.

Lunch was pleasant enough, he rambled about things he, my dad and their siblings did in their childhood, it was precious and hilarious because he was a little tipsy. The food was good too, most Chinese restaurants in India cater to the spicy palate, so the food is a fusion of Indian and Chinese flavors, quite interesting and delicious! After lunch, as he was getting into the car to be driven home, he noticed a bunch of people crowding across the street. Ofcourse he couldn’t just mind his own business, so he waddled over and started making a scene and adding to the ruckus! He tried to settle the fight and once he was satisfied with his work he returned to the car, meanwhile the rest of us were cracking up in the car.

On my last day in Bangalore my Aunt Asunta made amazing home-made samosas! She is a character as well, Shes like a Tasmanian devil in the kitchen, creating a huge mess, dropping pots and pans but she always makes the best meals ever!! I also had sausages for lunch! Bangalore is know for their spicy black pepper sausages and so we indulged for lunch and the sausage jokes continued!

After a tearful goodbye with my Grandma ( I call her Amma) we headed to the airport. Leah enjoyed the airplanes and we tried to recreate the popular “stinky face” the last time I saw her.  Leaving was bittersweet and I can’t wait to go back!

Woke up early this morning and was served a delicious breakfast of Dosas (I didn’t take pics but check out the Google image so you will know what I’m talking about)

Dosa

After breakfast, I helped my Uncle set up Christmas decorations, the nativity set and the tree…only to find out that he couldn’t remember where he put the screws to the tree stand, so we put that off for the day and I decided to visit my cousin and spend time with the babies.

My cousin lives a ways away and so my Aunt’s driver drove me there. I decided to film a bit of the madness that is driving in India. No cows on the street, but still chaotic. I swear, if you can drive in India, then you can safely drive blind folded anywhere else in the world!

Got to my cousin’s house and played with the babies. She has 2 little girls…Leah who is 2 and is a little princess and Sarah who is only 8 months but will kick your ass if she doesn’t get what she wants, when she wants it.

BABIES:

For lunch my cousins and I went out to eat a Thali meal…Thali means large plate and is traditionally served on a banana leaf. Similar to the “Bean Girl” at Cattleman’s, waiters come around with large pots of food [rice, curries and a variety of vegetable and meat dishes] and serve you until you tell them to stop. Its a buffet where you don’t have to get up for seconds or thirds. Almost each region/ state of India has its own unique type of Thali, this afternoon we had an Andhra style Thali, they are know for the delicious vegetarian dishes and are renowned for being outrageously spicy! It was crazy spicy going in and scary spicy coming outtttt! Its like a cleanse for your digestive system, but sooooo yummy!

Thali

3 helpings and an hour later, we rolled out and headed home. I spent the rest of the day hanging out and dressing up Leah in ridiculous outfits.

I came back to my Grandma’s in the evening and helped serve her dinner. I plated her meal and before I could hand it to her she blurts out ” Where’s my booze?!” I look over at my uncle in disbelief only to find out that my 85 year old Grandmother downs Johnny Walker with dinner every night. When I asked her why, she said “why not? it helps me fall asleep.” What a woman!

So that was basically my day, I might go shopping tomorrow…or just eat some more…

Got there only to find out my first flight, SMF to SFO was delayed and that all the international passengers were being shuttled to SFO, but they needed to have at least 7 people before we could leave. 4 people and 40minutes later we took off in a minivan.

Once at SFO, I check in only to find out that my hand carry is 14kg instead of 8kg and freak out because my checked in piece just barely made the weight limit. But I got lucky because I purchased my ticket in mid November before the 1 bag rule and was able to check it in without having to shell out monies. Once that was taken care off I decided it would be best to pee before I went through security (in case there was a long line, you all know how tiny and unpredictable my bladder is). So I did my business, washed my hands, used one of those cool Dyson hand dryers and headed over.

The line moved fairly smoothly and soon it was my turn to be scanned. I eagerly hopped into the machine, spread my arms and legs and flashed a big smile ( I thought it would be nice to smile at the person who got to check out my X-ray).  And of course I  triggered something to cause 2 guards to escort me over to the chemical analysis station. There a plump Asian lady tested my palms and while waiting for the machine to out put its reading, proceeded to yell at me for reaching over to my bag to put my passport away. 5 seconds later the screen flashes ” POSITIVE FOR EXPLOSIVES.”  My immediate  reaction was to giggle, probably not the best thing to do, because before I knew it, I was being rubbed down with test strips for further chemical analysis. A rather large, grumpy man took my passport and tickets and went into room, while I was escorted into another room only to be patted down EVERYWHERE by the plump Asian woman while another lady watched on. Sadly that was the most action I’ve had in a while.

After our little threesome I was told I could put my shoes back on and grab my bags. Turns out it was most likely the glycerol in the hand soap from the bathroom that tested positive.  But I’m sure I’m on file for it. Take away lesson : Hold it in!

So off I went to my gate only to find that my flight was delayed by over an hour. Fine, there was 45 mins of free internet and I could kill some time that way…not so, turns out when my stuff was being checked out by TSA my laptop automatically logged on and used my free time. So instead I people watched, which was just as fun and I made a little friend. A 14month old German baby named Carl Henry. He smiled at me and it was love at first sight.  Soon it was time to board and we were sadly separated. I ended up with a great isle seat with no one in the 2 seats between me and the next isle and was sooo thrilled to be able to stretch my legs out and relax. Less than a minute later a flight attendant approached me and asks if I would be so kind to give up my seat for a passenger with an injured foot. Dang it!! How can you say no to that?! So after take off I get switched to my me seat…turns out fate reunited little Carl Henry and me! we sat next to each other and had a wonderful time, except for when he would not stop crying in the middle of the night. I don’t blame him, those baby bassinets look miserably uncomfortable.

The flight went well, but the delay meant I only had 15 minutes to clear security before my next flight began boarding. I said Auf Wiedersehen to my sweet little German friend and ran off to security. Cursing all the while because my bladder was sooo full but was too scared to go to the bathroom for fear of being singled out again. As usual there was a ridiculously long line for security and I had to talk my way into skipping to the front, yes, I was that girl.

I got to my gate only to find out that my flight delayed. So I decided to try to talk my way out of my middle seat into an isle seat. Nothing seemed to phase the lady at the counter…not even my unpredictable bladder issues. While I was waiting I got to talk to Steffen, which was great! The last flight was fine except I felt bad of the poor guy with the isle seat who got stuck next to me. I felt super dehydrated that day and downed a ton of water, needless to say there were a lot of potty breaks. 8.5 long hours later we landed in Bangalore!

My cousins picked me up and we drove home to see the babies!

You guys and Ryan, David, Erin, Kayla and Denise made my day soooo special! I can’t wait to document adventures with  my awesome flipcam! I love you guys and can’t wait to see your cute faces in 2011!