August: In a blog post

The beginning of August held Pride, a celebration event that the LGBT community of Brighton and Hove puts on. Its is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in England and its a great event. Ben and I went to see the parade throughout the town:

The restaurant Pie Society had a cute sign outside of their shop for the event. Unfortunately, we were too far back in the crowd for my phone to get any good pictures of the floats.

We also continued our weekend walks in Wild Park. Originally, I had found a Stanmer Park walking group. As Ben and I were waiting at the meeting point, we realized that everyone arriving was quite elderly. Apparently, what I had found was a walking society for the elderly to keep them active. I did not know this, as it did not explicitly say. So instead, Ben and I found a walking trail for Wild Park, which is right next to Stanmer Park, and we went through a little walk in the woods. It was beautiful, although I wish we had gone earlier in the year when the bluebells were in bloom.

The weekend after, we went on more walks- but this time in Chichester and Arundel! So far, I would recommend Arundel as THE city to go to in England. It is the American's idea of what England is meant to be- a tiny city with beautiful countryside and a big castle hanging over the town.

And our final adventure of August was going up to London to see the West End show Wicked! It was my first West End show and I LOVE LOVE LOVED it!!!
... Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, I have no pictures of this.

I had continued my very good routine of lifting and running, sticking to both of my programs really well. The running, especially, was a big deal to me. I've never been much of a runner and so it was very exciting for me to slowly be working my way up to a 5k run. Hopefully within 30 minutes as well! By the end of August, Ben and I were running a little over 3k and slowly increasing the distance weekly. The last week of August, the gym shut down for refurbishments. I wasn't too happy about this, as there is always a concern that I'll fall out of routine and not be able to get back into it. But more on that in Septembers update...

I had of course been chugging along with the research as well. The biggest project I had in August was to clean out the molecular lab. It was ridiculous, if I'm being honest. I was the first to properly clean out the lab since at least 2002. But I found stuff from as early as 1994. But my cleaning spree was fruitful! I found many antibodies and other consumable items that could provide very useful for someone in the lab. Besides that, I all but finished my molecular pathway work and kept working along on my APP cloning work.

Oktoberfest!

As many of you know, I went off to Oktoberfest for some epic German adventures. It was my first time in Germany and I loved it!

We did a road trip, since the flights were over 200 pounds each when we were looking to book in early March. On the way there, we split the driving over two days and stopped over in the Black Forest.

We stayed in a tiny town with a waterfall only 1.5 km away. It was beautiful and now I am determined to go on a camping/ hiking trip throughout the Black Forest at some point.

We then headed down to Munich; sad to leave the beautiful forest surroundings but excited to start the Oktoberfest fun! After we got to our camping hostel and pitched our tents, we headed out for a little history before starting the celebrations. Dachau concentration camp is just outside of Munich and we went for a visit. It was obviously a very sad  experience, but I am very glad that we went.

After the dose of history, we went to the wiesen for our first beers:

The next day, we went on a walking tour of Munich. And then headed off to the wiesen at night for more Oktoberfest celebrations.

We got our lederhosen and dirndls and spent the last two days of Munich at the Oktoberfest, in the tents. The first day we were in Lowenbrau and the second we were in Augustiner.

After Munich, we went off and stopped over in Cologne before the long drive back home. I LOVED Cologne! And ate the biggest schnitzel of my life...

Overall, I loved it. Every city we went to. And the German people are some of the nicest I've ever met. I can't wait to go back to that beautiful country!