Happy Thanksgiving

So here I am! Writing after only being back from my newest adventure for 2 weeks.

Before I get in to my travels, happy Thanksgiving everyone and Fight On Trojans, beat the irish and the bruins. And Got Ducks, never thought I would say that, beat the beavers.

Now onto my trip, I went to Lisbon, Portugal for 11 days for the European Public Health Association Annual Meeting and then for a course on Multilevel Modeling, a stats course. Both the course and the conference were great, although I think that I appreciated the course a bit more as I got to learn new things and it was more hands on. The conference was a bit different than what we typically get in the US as there were many more ceremonies and in some cases the rigorousness of the studies are not a strong, but that may be due to the newness of many of the studies here in Europe, and especially in Southern and Eastern Europe.

So I had a weekend in between the two events were two of my co-workers and I walked around and then at night we went out with others for dinner. On Saturday we walked up to the castle which has a great view of the city, right picture and then walked around the city. The left picture shows an old fashioned tram and in the background is the castle on the hill. Lisbon is known as the city with seven hills and I think that the castle is on the tallest one.



One thing that you cannot see from these pictures is that many of the buildings are very run down and empty. This is due to multiple factors. Firstly, there has been a migration of people from the city to the suburbs. Secondly the laws regarding upkeep of buildings seems to be very lax or not enforced and there is a lot of graffiti everywhere and many of the windows are boarded up. Finally, Lisbon appears to be much older than other European cities, I think that this is in part to their lack of involvement in WWII and so therefor they had less damage and did not have to rebuild.

We also went to Sintra, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site 18km north of Lisbon. It is a very beautiful city and there is a marked difference in the pace of life, here are a couple of pictures.



Finally I am going to add a couple extra pictures of the Belem Tower and a few miscellaneous pictures of Lisboa, I hope you enjoy them.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Love,

Cara

Happy Birthday to...

Well this was supposed to be a birthday blog for myself (July) and then I was going to try to post on my youngest brother's birthday (12th September) so now, tomorrow is my mom's birthday and so I am posting in her honor as I would not be here without her. Happy birthday Mommy, I love you!

Okay, so what has been going on here? Well, for starters, I went to Paris and Lyon for my birthday, last weekend in July. When I was in Paris last time, I did not make it to the Louvre, crazy I know, so to make up for it, I went for 6 hours this time. First, it is huge. I was there for 6 hours and while I got to see the major pieces of art, I would not recommend trying to see everything at once. Because it is so big, it hardly seemed to be crowded, of course there were crowds around the La Joconde (Mona Lisa) and the Venus de Milo but the rest of the art was pretty clear. Now I may be the only person to ever say this, but...the Mona Lisa was actually bigger than I thought it would be. All you normally hear is the opposite, but because I went expecting a small piece of art, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was bigger. Another thing is that pictures were allowed which is somewhat unusual. So here are some pictures, of course I am sure you have seen a picture of the actual painting, but this is more to show you the room it is in and give you an idea of what you see when you walk in. So it is mounted on a wall near the back of this really big room and there is about a 5-10 foot "buffer" area. As you can see on the right, it is behind a piece of glass which the other pieces were not.

While it was nice to see it, I have to say that I am a sculpture person. I just marvel at how someone can look at a piece of marble and come up with what they do. I was going to go to other museums while I was there, but I OD'ed at the Louvre and so I spent the time touring other parts of Paris. Plus I did not want to stay inside all day as it was not raining and I needed all the sun I could get before coming back to Glasgow.

I was also in Paris for the end of the Tour de France, which was really cool. I went to the Champs Elysees and got to see the riders pass us by. I was able to get up to the road, as I was alone, there were many, many people there. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea:

So after my time in Paris, I went to Lyon and visited a co-worker and his partner who are from that part of France. I had a great time and it was really hot there, so I got to experience the French heat. That part of the country was really beautiful and I got to see my first nuclear power plant. Now I know we have many in the US and either I have passed them an not known what they were, or I have never passed one before. But now I know what to look for. I also went to a medieval city. Here are some pictures:

I also got to try frog legs and while I get why people say it tastes like chicken, I think they are more of a cross between chicken and a type of white fish. Either way, they were really good and I would not be opposed to having them again. I also got to experience a true 3 hour French dinner. I stayed with my co-worker's partner's family and on my last day there they had a guests and a really good dinner. I could not believe how much food there was, and how many courses. I would love to do that again as well, but I am not sure I could do it more than once a year, talk about rich and fattening!

Anyway, my time in France was excellent. I think that I will try to tackle Italy next. But before I go, I am going to Lisbon, Portugal for 2 weeks for a conference and a statistical course. I am really looking forward to that. I will post pictures of that when I get back, hopefully before Christmas.

Other than that, FOOTBALL IS HERE! I am so excited and I have seen both games and I have to say, that I am so happy we beat the buckeyes, finally we can put them to rest. So far I am really impressed with our team and I hope that we can continue. Also for you bruins, HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, 59-0, HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

I hope that all is well with you and I hope to see or talk to you soon.

Cheers and BEAT THE BEAVERS,

Cara

Still Alive!

So it has been over 7 months since my last post. I would like to say that I have been having tons of fun, but in all honesty, I have been to lazy to import my pictures from my camera and update. I have been to a few cool places since my last blog...and I have pictures to prove it.

Most of you who read this know that I went to LA in April. At the end of May I went to Malmo, Sweden for a conference. Malmo is right across the water from Copenhagen, so I spent a day walking around Copenhagen. Malmo was beautiful, it seemed to be a pretty small city so it was easily walkable and the people were very nice. Here are a few pictures of Malmo:




And here are a few of Copenhagen, but first, an semi-interesting fact of the day. While I was in walking through the city with a colleague, I mentioned that I did not know anything about Denmark except for Hamlet and pastries. However I had forgotten about Hans Christian Andersen. One of Copenhagen's most famous statues is of the little mermaid, which is also one of H.C. Andersen's famous works. So here is a picture of the statue as well as some other interesting pictures. Funny enough the first thing we saw when we got into the city was a Scottish bagpipe band so of course I had to include that picture.




Finally, here are a few pictures of when I went to Loch Katrine, about 1 hour north of Glasgow. I went with some co-workers and their family. We biked from one pier around to the other pier, about 13 miles and then took the boat back. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun. These pictures help prove that it does not always rain in Scotland!





Well, those are my adventures for now. I hope to have a few more before the summer is out and I will try my hardest not to wait 7 more months until posting. I hope that these pictures provide some incentive to come out and visit me. For those of you who don't know, my contract has been extended through November 2009 so that gives you more time to plan and come out.

Until next time...

Cheers,

Cara