Cauliflower Pastries

I read through some scientific papers and prepared myself for the bioinformatics meeting.
For the meeting, everyone brought in cookies, and then we talked about a paper that we had to read. One professor had prepared a presentation about it.

For lunch, I went to a coffee shop with Mel, a girl from the lab. We ate a "cauliflower pastry." At first, I thought it just looked like a cauliflower, but there was actually real cauliflower inside. It tasted delicious!

Mel gave me some tips on living in Auckland. She also suggested I change the SIM card in my cell phone to a cheap, prepaid New Zealand one, move into a new (cheaper) apartment, and buy an old car for $500.

I don't know about the car, but later that day, I went to the Vodafone store to buy a SIM card. I got one, but it doesn't seem to like my phone :( I heard sometimes American cell phone providers "lock" their phones so that customers can only use special SIM cards. I need to go back to the store tomorrow, to find out.

Then, I met up with Jess and Alana to go for bread, dips and wine to another little cafe. Seriously, the amount of coffee shops other than Starbucks (which they have here, too) is out of proportions!

Finally, I went out to eat dinner with Lulu and some of her friends. We went to an Indian place and I got "aloo mattar," which is potatoes and peas, and some naan. Everyone tried a different dish, so we all shared.
After that, we went to play pool. I am still horribly untalented when it comes to pool, but we had a lot of fun anyways.
We also looked at the casino in downtown Auckland. "Looked" because I forgot my passport to prove that I am over 20 years old...

Auckland

Yes, that's right, somewhere, I lost a day... :)

The flight was pretty tolerable. They didn't fill the whole plane, so as soon as we were up in the air, the flight attendants told us we could move around and get new seats.

My assigned seat was next to an elderly Mexican couple, but then I moved farther back and got a whole row of three seats all to myself. Later, I realized I should've gone for the four-seat rows... that way I would have been able to stretch out my legs across all four seats. Oh, well, I'll know better next time!
We got some dinner, and then the flight attendants turned off the lights - "sleep people, sleep."
Lucky me, I had gotten a sleeping mask and some ear plugs for horrendous amounts of money in the duty free shop earlier, because they don't seem to be handing those out to passengers anymore! So I plugged my own gear in and went to sleep.

I don't really remember how much I slept, but I did get to watch two movies at some point :D
12 hours and 20 minutes later, we landed in Auckland!

Everything went well, until I went to retrieve my luggage. My candy almost got me into trouble, because a police dog smelled it! I had to open my bag, and the police officer drew strange marks on my arrival card... When the next airport official saw the marks on my card, I needed to explain the whole story over again, and open my bag once more. Oh, boy, if I had known this, I would've eaten all the candy on the plane!

I did make it through customs in the end - just to realize, that I had no clue whatsoever, what this girl "Jess" looked like, or if she had remembered to pick me up today! (I meant to write her a reminder email, but I forgot, because I had such an unstable internet situation over the past few days)

Luckily I didn't need to wait long. After a few minutes, I saw a random girl that didn't have any luggage and seemed to look for someone. Bingo - that was Jess! *sigh of relief*

Jess took me to her car and she drove me to her place first, so that I could take a hot shower (thank you - I needed that!).
Jess lives in a cute little apartment, and she usually walks the 25 minutes to the Uni (say: "you-nee", not "college"!).

Even though 1.3 million people (of the 4.1 million total in NZ) live in Auckland, it didn't seem like there were a lot of people when we were driving through. Maybe they were all hiding in the office buildings, or they hadn't woken up yet (quite possible, it was just 6:30, 7ish in the morning).

Driving on the "other" side of the road confuses me, though. It started with me trying to get into the wrong side of the car, and I keep on looking on the wrong side of the road first, when trying to cross the street... ouch, that could end up badly!

Also, New Zealanders have special words, that I now need to learn.
"Uni" instead of "college" was one of them. Also, I don't want to look for "trash cans;" instead, I need to look out for "rubbish bins." Finally, I won't be going "hiking" on the weekend. I will go "tramping" instead.

In general, though, the New Zealanders are easy to understand, if they don't talk too fast.

After I took my shower, Jess drove us to the Bioinformatics Centre (notice the spelling there!) of the university. The university is made up of several campuses, but the Thomas Building that houses the Bioinformatics Centre is on the "City Campus." (The name "City Campus" probably comes from the fact that it is about 5 minutes on foot from downtown Auckland.)

Once inside, I got to meet some of the other Bioinformatics students working in the labs. A few of the girls go and get coffee in the morning first (Jess needed it... by now, she was yawning loudly as we walked along!). When I told them that I drink more tea than coffee, they all seemed rather startled. Apparently, not drinking coffee in the morning to wake up counts as a mild felony in NZ *haha*
Either way, we went to a little coffee shop to get coffee/tea.

Back at the lab, more and more people seemed to stop by randomly. I don't remember all their names, especially since most seem to have more or less arbitrary nicknames, but I think I'll get the hang of it soon.

I also got the chance to meet with one of my mentors, Prof. Paul Rainey. He is really nice, and listening to him, you can tell that he is passionate about his research. Prof. Allen Rodrigo, my other mentor, is not back from his sabbatical yet. But we want to try to organize a video conference meeting to talk about things to get me started.

I also got a computer. It's new and still very shiny, and it runs both Linux and Windows.
The sad, sad, sad part about the computer is that internet is not free. No, I need to pay for every megabyte of data I load (although I might get lucky and get subsidized internet, since I will be working in the lab).

This is the point where I realize how much I rely on internet... I think, I need to google some free wi-fi hotspots in Auckland for my laptop... as soon as I have access again...!

Another student in the lab, Steven, showed me around downtown Auckland a little bit. I found the WestPac Bank, which works together with my American Bank, so I don't have to pay fees if I use my debit card with their ATM to withdraw cash - good to know!
Then I got some Indian food (yay for chicken biryani and naan!) for lunch.



Later that day, Jess drove my luggage and me to the Railway Campus, where I had reserved a room.

The room is gigantic and huge! I have a king size bed, a couch, a chair, and a coffee table, a desk with another chair, a book shelf, a wardrobe, a kitchenette with a fridge, electric kettle (yay!!), and a toaster, and a bathroom with shower, sink, towel heater (nice!), and a toilet. To top it all off: there is a housekeeping service that comes once a week to clean everything and replace the linens.

What on earth am I supposed to do with this room? It is really big, and I was totally prepared to live with less. And I really know how to clean my own bathroom... Maybe I can "downgrade" and save some money.

After I threw all my stuff in my room (that's right, I didn't unpack anything!), I went off to explore downtown Auckland a little bit.
I needed to look for some food and kitchen items, and an adapter to convert my American plugs to New Zealand format.

Luckily, I found this place called "The Warehouse." It's like the Christmas Tree Store, just without the christmas decoration stuff. But it has everything else, including Kinder Schokolade! (which I didn't buy... yet)

I did find an adapter, and some other stuff. Then, I explored the little mall that is attached to the store. There were some clothing stores, food and jewlery places, and a souvenir shop with expensive little gadgets. Not too useful, overall (besides The Warehouse), but nice to look at.
Then I continued towards the "Foodtown" supermarket. This one seems to be a little expensive but I did need to get some food, and it is really close to the Railway Campus.

There is also an Asian food market! They had nice looking fruit, so I think I need to go back there again, as well.

Finally, I realized that my cell phone does seem to work here. But don't call me yet, I need to figure out, if I can even afford these international rates!

So, it's 8 pm, and I am finally a little tired. People expected me to be tired all day, but somehow, I was too excited to be thinking about snoozing!

Oh, well, off to bed :)

Heading to the Airport

Yay, I'm flying to Auckland today!

I did a load of laundry and packed up all my stuff. My suitcase is still too heavy... well, they won't charge me for the extra two pounds, I hope!

Dad and I wanted some extra time to look around L.A., so we left San Diego around 1 pm, even though my flight doesn't leave until 10:30 pm.

We found the airport, and I checked in my luggage early. Then we drove to Malibu... what a disappointment - the whole area looks rather crappy! We didn't see Jennifer Aniston or any other famous person that supposedly lives there, but I saw a papparazzi with a huge camera :)

Then, we got some dinner at Islands, a Hawaian themed restaurant chain and continued our drive back towards L.A. We drove down Sunset Boulevard, and looked at Bel Air and Beverly Hills. We also saw the Hollywood letters up in the mountains!

Now, I'm sitting at the airport. I tried to get an internet connection, but I need to pay T-mobile to get it!! What is that supposed to mean??! Instead of paying for internet, I went to the duty-free store and spent my money on a Wired magazine and some candy...

Sunburns...

Today, we went to San Diego to see the beach!
We drove down La Jolla Shores to a cliff. You can climb down the cliff until you get to the beach. The water was kind of cold, but there were a few brave surfers paddeling around (they wore wetsuits, though).
We also walked around in La Jolla a little bit. La Jolla is the rich area in San Diego, so there are a lot of fancy houses to look at.

We continued our trip to Mission Beach. Mission Beach is a long sort of peninsula that pokes out into San Diego bay. It seems to be a student hang out, with lots of bars, many small houses that can be rented as vacation homes, lots of little stores and even a small amusement park with a rollercoaster!
We got some lunch at a little place called Olive Cafe, and then we got some ice cream close to the beach.
Even though the water was cold, a lot of little kids were playing in it. There were also many more surfers out, trying to catch some waves. Most of the people though take a six pack of beer to the beach (due to some obscure law, you are allowed to drink alcohol on the beach) and lay in the sun.


After we walked around Mission Beach a little bit, we got back in the car and drove across a long bridge to Coronado Island. The island is home to 26,600 people (or at least, that's what the sign said), but it is most famous for the "Hotel Del Coronado," sometimes just called "The Del," where the movie "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe was filmed.
We (and a lot of other tourists!) looked at the hotel, poked into the coffee shop and the ice cream place, and the mini shopping mall that is located in the basement (really expensive... don't shop there!).
The hotel is built right next to the beach, so of course we went down to the water, too (third beach today *haha*). The sand contains tiny pebbles of pyrite ("fools' gold"), so the whole beach has a golden glow to it - pretty!
After a cup of tea at the coffee place (at the recommendation of Prof. Murphy!), we headed back home.
Now I have a slight sunburn... :(

Shopping in San Diego

Today, Dad started ripping out sideboards of two of the smaller bedrooms in the house. Then we cleaned the rooms a little bit, and vacuumed the last pits of random dust and plaster. The rooms look really bare now, but they are pretty much ready for the hardwood floors!

Then, we went shopping for some food. We got fresh fruit and veggies, and we also got another tomato plant, and a little chives plant. We also went to Lowes to look for some more mesh wire to protect the tomato plants, because every night, rabbits come into our backyard and eat the leaves. Now, the plants are thorougly fenced in...

Next to Lowes is IKEA. That is a cool store - I really like their furniture. But they also sell Swedish food there, and they have a little restaurant. We got lunch there (very reasonably priced!).

In the evening, Dad and I went hiking to Mission Trails Park. The park is really close to the house, and there are a lot of trails to choose from. We hiked up several of the mountains, and the sights were amazing!

Exploring Tierrasanta

Today, Dad went to work in the morning, so I went off for a little walk on my own. I walked to one of the little strip malls close by (~20 minutes), but it turned out that I was up way to early, and there were few open stores (silly jet lag...). I looked around for a bit, looked at the library (also closed... haha!) and walked back to the house. This time, I walked through the canyon!


It's only a little bit more than a mile of little paths that lead through the canyon. The vegetation is amazing! There were these cactus plants, taller than me, and a lot of palm trees that were at least 15 feet tall. I also saw some rabbits and a lizard of some sort. I did not see the rattle snakes (it is advised to take a walking stick into the canyon so that you can defend yourself against rattle snakes... I didn't have a stick, so maybe it's a good thing that I didn't see any snakes!). There was also a little stream flowing through the canyon, but there wasn't much water left. It looked like it was going to dry up completely soon, when it gets warmer.

Bye, bye Boston!

Yawn... I left Boston early at 8:30 this morning.
Everything went pretty smoothly, from taking the Woburn Logan Express bus to the airport, to checking in at the terminal, and the security gate didn't beep at me once... L.A. here I come!

The flight wasn't terribly interesting. I got a nosebleed as soon as I got on the plane, though, which probably grossed out everyone sitting around me... (sorry, guys!) But it did stop after a while, and then I just read a little bit in my new book, watch "Bridge to Terebithia," and chat with the friendly elderly lady next to me.

I also got to see the Grand Canyon. Man, that looked amazing! I think I know where I need to stop by next summer!

Sad, sad, but they don't serve food anymore on these "short" 6 hour flights. I took a bottle of water, a piece of pita bread with hummus, some peppers, and an apple with me. I'm not sure if that's allowed, or not, but no one complained/noticed.

L.A. looks really different from Boston and the New England area! (I have never been there, so this is all new and exotic for me) The houses are surrounded by palm trees and most of them have red roofs! The roads are kinda crappy, though.

I took the "FlyAway Bus" to Union Station, to catch my train to San Diego. Wow, Union Station is such a nice train station! It's huge, but really clean :) Also, the train I took was very modern -- not at all what I am used to (same company, but the Downeaster is so outdated compared to this... also, they have a singing train conductor, who likes to announce the next station in a tenor-pitched singing voice...!)

Now I also know why they call this train route the "scenic route." We drove by the sea and the beach, and a lot of smaller looking villages, with the cutest houses!

Now, I'm a little exhausted, though. The day started at 5 this morning, and I got to San Diego at 8pm (Boston time).

Weird - how come I didn't get lost once?!!