I do believe I have put this post off for far too long.
Here’s the scoop. I’m going to Europe. Right? You knew that.
K.
I’m leaving in a week. Whoa. I’m so not ready…lots to do. I was up until midnight last night trying to get organized. Don’t get me wrong – I’m excited, but I wish all the planning and the work would do itself so I could relax, not gonna lie.
In case you didn’t know the deets on this adventure, lemme fill ya in. I’m an NSF Fellow (apparently I’m supposed to tell people that because “when you tell people you’re an NSF Fellow, people listen” or at least that is what they have been telling us lately…so listen up! Heh, I kid.) and international travel is a part of the grant. This means that my trip to Europe is PIF. You know what that means right? Paid In Full. Hot dog. They’re paying for my flights, lodging, and food. Cool beans.
I have gathered lots of travel books from a friend. I put together a binder of all the information about travel and places I’m staying – it is an attempt for me to stay organized. I labelled it “Emily’s European Adventure 2011” as you can see in the picture and yes, I do own a label maker. It is the best thing ever. EVER.
You should know that I am a little OCD…kind of…no, I AM an organized neat freak, aka OC. Obsessive Compulsive. I leave off the D because it’s not a disorder – it keeps things in my life happy. Everything in its place, neatly filed and organized. Oh, and clean. Nothing disorderly about that.
Anyway, the binder is full of flight info for each place I’m going, lodging info, directions, lists of places I want to see that have been suggested to me by friends, family, and friends-of-friends. If any of you are reading this, thank you! And there is an entire tab just for the University of Surrey. I’m still not entirely sure what it is I will be doing there, for sure continuing my current research, but I was hoping to get in on some of the cool things they have going on there. Unfortunately, the month of July is considered a holiday month for England, so I don’t think many people will be around. I certainly hope this is true so that their fluids seminars are not very populated this month. Why do I care about how many people show up to their monthly fluids seminar? I got this email the other day:
No last names allowed. |
I knew they wanted me to give a “brief talk,” as they put it, to a couple of the professors – but this email was sent to the entire department. Speaker – 2 is a Ph.D. guy talking about flow separation control using synthetic jet actuators. Huh?! No pressure or anything. Emily, you got this.
And so my European vacation looks a little something like this.
- University of Surrey/Guildford, UK
- Munich, Germany
- B&B in Swords, Ireland
- Cork, Ireland
- Cobh, Ireland
- Kinsale, Ireland
- Dublin, Ireland
- London, UK
England |
Germany |
Ireland |
My mom, me, and grandma at the Denver symphony a little over a year ago. |
Since I’ll be busy next week with the workshop again and practicing my presentation so it is flawless, I’m taking advantage of the weekend and getting money where it needs to go (lots of souvenirs to be bought!), suitcase shopping (I need a new one), and I got a mani/pedi because I felt that it would be a nice treat for my vacation. So my priorities are slightly off, what’s new? NBD. Next week I will be down to business.