When the family visits, we go to Scotland and Paris

The end of May brought not only  my quarter life crisis, but also a visit from my family. We packed their time here FULL of stuff to see and do.

Adventures started quite quickly, with a weekend trip to Scotland. Unfortunately, I was HORRIBLY sick the night before our flight out and for the first day in Scotland. I'm honestly shocked that I even made it there. But anyway.... I missed the day in Edinburgh. Which was a total bummer, because they did a walking tour of the town and a night time walking tour of all the murder/dark history of the town. Both of which I still desperately want to do. I was also hoping to hike up to Arthur's Seat, but I guess I'll just have to go back! The second day, we stopped at Stirling Castle:

And it was glorious.
On the way up to our stop in Perth, we went by William Wallace's monument:

Unfortunately the monument was closed by the time we got there, so its yet another place I'll have to go back and see while on my next trip to Scotland!
Once we got into Perth and settled, we explored a bit of Perthsire's natural beauty.
The next day we headed east to St. Andrews, but not before stopping off at Queen's View.

Oh man do I love Scotland :)
We hit some Eastern cities, eventually stopping in St. Andrews

We headed back to England after St. Andrews and in just a few short days, had a 3-day long stint in Paris. This trip encompassed my birthday, which was amazing! Some of the highlights shown below include L'Orangerie and D'Orsay Impressionist amazingness, views from Montparnasse, and Sacre Coeur:

I love this city SO MUCH!!!

Again, we headed back to England. And a few highlights that we showed the family included:

Herstmonceux Castle

A trip to London to see The Lion King:

(there was much excitement)


Some cider tasting at the Pork and Cider Festival, put on by our local pub

And even more cider tasting at Middle Farm, selling some of Sussex's best local ciders

It was an INTENSE few days, but it was great. So much to see, so little time.

April to mid-May 2014

April and May were crazy busy for work, as the end of my thesis-related research is in sight and I was hoping to be done with everything before my family came to visit in mid-May (which will be in the next blog post, so keep an eye out for that!). I didn't quite finish by then, but am about 5 experiments away and am designing some new experiments with an emphasis on the publishing aspect of the experiments as opposed to the thesis aspect (because I won't need to put these experiments into my thesis).
Research was insane these months, but I was also putting a lot of time into tutoring and demonstrating for the university (I am writing this in June, when teaching is all over and it is SO nice to have that little break from the teaching!). I also was working in collaboration with a friend and colleague who is a fabulous electrophysiologist- and because of his great work, we have now been able to elevate the paper I've been working on to a much better level. Also, the Athena Swan committee that I have been helping work on (a group helping to promote women in science) officially submitted out application for a Bronze Award and we will hopefully hear back soon on if we were successful! So the not-directly-research-related but still work-related things kept me crazy busy as well.
But enough with the boring work-related chat, let's get on to the interesting things I've gotten up to in April and the first half of May:

Ben and I saw the London Philharmonic Orchestra play along to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie in the Royal Albert Hall. It was absolutely AMAZING and I would really like to see an orchestra perform again at some point (especially the London Philharmonic!). We also went by Portobello Road before heading to the Royal Albert.

We then took a last-minute trip to Northern Wales in the Snowdonia and Anglesey areas. It was absolutely amazing and I would recommend to ANYONE to visit Wales.

For three days straight in May, we were at The Great Escape festival (Europe's best festival for new music) and kept ourselves booked with shows from about mid-day to 10 or 11 at night. Here were some of our highlights:

Kimberly Anne (who we saw last year at TGE2013 and loved, and then again at a concert earlier this year)

Hudson Taylor. A new find, but a very good gig! It was especially nice to see these guys in the venue where they were playing- a purpose-built bar in the middle of Old Steine that is up for the summer.

Saint Raymond. These guys were definitely one of my top favorites for the whole festival. And it was one of my last times at The Blind Tiger before they were sadly shut down.

Hozier. Another of my favorites of the whole festival. Absolutely amazing and blues-y.

Kaiser Chiefs. These guys are obviously well-known, but they were a secret show that only a few people at TGE2014 were able to go to. So we got up early to wait in line and get our tickets. We also got to the venue early and were able to meet the lead singer, Ricky Wilson.

New Dessert Blues. We didn't get to see these guys in an actual venue, but luckily they had a pop-up outside performance near the Bandstand.

Amber Run. Sadly, we were only able to hear the last half of their gig and had to lean in through the doorway because they were so popular. But that just tells you how good they are.

Eliza and the Bear (who we saw last year at TGE2013 and loved, then again twice at concerts early this year and late last year). I think these guys continue to be Ben's favorite.

Dry the River. They filled a HUGE room and were a great wind-down to a very full day.

Von Hertzen Brothers. These guys reminded me of Guns and Roses, they put on a really good show.

Satellite Stories. We saw these guys twice this day, actually, but really enjoyed them so didn't mind seeing them twice.

Honestly, we were a little let down with the festival on the final day (Saturday). The festival sells extra single-day tickets for the Saturday and so when it got to the last day, EVERYTHING was full to capacity and it was near impossible to see bands we wanted to see. Even smaller bands that usually wouldn't have filled a room were at capacity hours before their set started, which is ridiculous. Luckily, we were able to see a few gigs that day.

The family got in not long after The Great Escape was over, so I didn't have time to get up to much else before then. I will fill you in on that in the next blog post!