Buenos Aires! Part 1

We had a great trip to Argentina (albeit it was a brief trip).  Our flight from Houston to BA was cancelled on Thursday (after a 2 hour delay, and 2 hours sitting on the plane at the gate).  We had to deplane and wait in a line for an hour to get our hotel, taxi, food vouchers, then wait in a line for a taxi at 2:30 am.  We got to our hotel and got a few hours of sleep and then went back to the airport to get on a 2pm flight which got us into BA at 2am Saturday.  Long story short-we lost a day.

The flight was long but uneventful.  When we arrived at 2 am in a country where we don't speak their language, we weren't sure what we were going to do/how we were going to get to the hotel.  Luckily, just outside of customs and still inside the airport was a registered taxi stand where we could get a safe ride to the city.  We fell asleep very easily and woke up a few hours later to an amazing breakfast at the hotel.  Next, we met up with Mike's colleagues and took a taxi to a giant park on the northern side of the city.  The weather was perfect, about 60 degrees, and we explored a rose garden, walked past the polo fields and found our way to a Japanese garden.  It was very cool to just be walking around experiencing the city like someone who lived there.  Lots of people out running, walking, roller blading.  Also lot of dogs!  Everywhere!  but not wild dogs-these were well-loved members of the family playing fetch or doing agility trials or just out for a stroll.

After 3 hours of walking around we found an italian restaurant for lunch.  I had a great empanada and pizza and of course we had Argentinian wine!  I found out that there are a lot of people of Italian decent  in BA which made a lot of sense as we ended up eating at a lot of really good Italian restaurants.

Rose Garden

Rose Garden

Some large statue in the middle of the street.

In the Japanese Garden

More Japanese garden

Statue of Eva Peron

Hilton Head, SC

We had a great time at Hilton Head last week.  Mike and I stayed at the Marriott Resort and Spa and were upgraded to a top floor ocean front room. It was so nice to wake up in the front, open the sliding door and sit on our patio, drinking coffee, and watching the ocean.

We were pretty lazy (which was awesome) and spent most of our mornings/early afternoon on the beach and then had lunch at the poolside restaurant. Afterwards we took a nap and then spent another 2 hours at the beach before heading to dinner.

There were a few exceptions.  One day we rented bikes and biked 8 miles to the other side of the island and had lunch, then biked home (and took a nap).  Another day we went to the outlets in the afternoon (no nap!) and two mornings we went kayaking for 2 hours.

Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures-but here are a few. It sure was nice to have Mike all to myself for 7 whole days!

Summer is almost over already!

First day back at work is September 8th with classes starting September 14th.  Only 4 weeks left of summer :(

I spent way to much time at work this summer, usually being there from 9 am-4-4:30pm with a few Fridays off.  My measly stipend for doing research with students just doesn't cut it.  But no point dwelling on that.  I'm focusing on the next 4 weeks when I have no students and no classes to prep.

First order of business: Get paper back to PostDoc Advisor for look through before resubmission. (and a few western blots to run too).

Second: Vacation with Mike.  7 days, no work, just the two of us!  Can't wait!

Third: finish house projects, including scheduling a tree trimmer and driveway seal coater and painting the porch railings.

Fourth: Quality time with Cali because soon my MWF are going to be ridiculously long.

I hope you all enjoyed your summer!