In honor of hurricane season...

A neat link. Found it during Ike.

http://www.tropicwx.com/

I'm home!

Got home on Friday in time to pick up Anna from school. She was very surprised to see me and I got great hugs! She took some time to show me some of the stuff she made at school that day and kinda talked about what she'd been up to. I think it was her way of "catching up". :) She declared she missed me, yay!

And all that wonderful sweetness lasted about an hour...then we got home and for some reason she started asking for her paci. Out of nowhere. In fact, wait, it started before we got into the car. Apparently one of her classmates still uses a paci, and Anna wanted one too! Anna still uses her paci for bed. That's the rule and she's been fine with that. Now suddenly this other kid has one all the time I guess and she wants one too. Hardeeharhar, No.

We got over THAT discussion (if-you-want-your-paci-then-go-to-bed) and moved on to the "I want to sleep in YOUR bed" request. Or should I say DEMAND. So now I get the clue as to where she's been sleeping some of the time I've been gone. Sorry kid, that's MY bed. I love you and I love sharing a bed with you on travel, but let's not get into any nasty habits. Your room is cozy and comfy, and warm (even though I get that it's all the way upstairs by yourself and I won't think about that as long as you won't). Your room is yours, and mine is mine and so no, you can't sleep in my bed. You can sleep in my bed only when mommy's not home. She asks: "Are you staying home?" She missed me an hour ago but now she'd like me to get lost again.

My "No" prompted a tantrum and this was only 6:00pm. She had flashed forward to sleeping arrangements and we were barely through dinner. By the time it was all over I don't even know what she was tantruming over. But I think the welcome home period was over soon enough and she was pushing me with her recently-acquired oppositional behavior that Paul had told me was going on. By the time Paul got home that night, I was exhausted, my body thought it was 3am, and I let him deal with the bedtime madness (by all rights, they created together while I was gone). I was in bed by 8pm.

Anyway, the perfectly sweet and agreeable Anna disappeared somewhere between Minnesota and Germany in the midst of routine shake-ups galore. Birthday parties, skipping school for baseball games, a visit to the swamp camp, going to friends' houses in the evenings. All recipes for a great summer and a 3yr old who realizes that skipping school and staying up late can be fun.

And so the battle with getting her to school. This weekend she asked each time she woke up if she had to go to school. (Isn't she a little too young to start THIS fight?). No, it's a weekend. This morning, though I wasn't home bc of boot camp and a meeting, Paul said she put on a good tantrum about not wanting to go. He finally coaxed her into the car. Before Minnesota, she loved going to school. It doesn't help that the new classroom is just not her old classroom and her favorite teachers and friends aren't there either. The new ones are great and fun but just different. And even in the classroom there's been teacher turn over due to illness and vacation. It's just summer. Period.

Tomorrow starts my standard task of getting her to school in the morning again. We'll see if she gives me the same crap she's been dishing Paul (I expect so) and if so I will have to revert back to the days when she was 2 and fighting everything then. We had epic battles, just she and I, and although she is bigger and louder now, and gets much more pissed off, we'll just have to battle it out. I'll leave ample time in my morning schedule for the battles.

Boarding the final flight home!

Leaving Amsterdam airport now, hoping to land in time for me to pick up Anna-Marie from school :)

What a trip! Now, just an 11 hour flight ahead. Here we go!

Germany

Well I broke almost every nail dragging the big-ass red suitcase all over Italy, Switzerland, and Germany yesterday. I guess that's why people backpack across Europe instead of "big-ass red suitcase" across Europe. After I got off the 12 hour train ride I had the urge to sing "It's a small world afterall."

Right now I'm at an authentic beer tavern. The German equivalent of BJ's. They brought me their house brewed beer (let's face it, I don't know what beer to order at home much less Germany's house of beers). She asked if I'd prefer cloudy or clear. Hmmmm, what do YOU like? Well cloudy it is! And in fact, it is darned good. I thought most beer is bitter but this one is not. Eiher it's cause it's Germany or it's cause I just don't know beer. I also have in front of me a big plate of pretzel-crusted meatloaf with potatoes and sauerkraut. Yeeeaaaahhhh baby. It's darned good but I can't keep up with Germany's portion size. Woe is me. And by the way what's he fuss about sauerkraut? It's my first time trying it and it's awesome! Must be the American hotdog stands' sauerkraut sucks.

And my hotel...holy cow! Staying at the Kameha Grand and Lordy! It was just built in Novemeber right on the Rhine river. So my floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the river. The entire room has different lights controlled by a swichboard b the door. The floor in the bathroom is heated. The blinds are controlled by buttons. The bathroom is all glass but for the WC (toilet room). The sink is some weird flat contraption whose drain I haven't found yet. The bed is heavenly and there's a black screen as my headboard and at night you can turn on the "moon lamp" and a full moon appears on my headboard! Perfect for the space geek like me! He entire hotel looks like a glass spaceship. It's ultra-modern and the hallways are all RED. Floors, doors, walls,ceilings. The breakfast buffet is amazing and the staff there is insanely helpful. Little details...like tonight when I got in from work they brought my bag upstairs to my room and told a cab driver to bring me to
this restaurant. Then they proceeded to order me a lighter blanket since I was just a little hot last night. Also apparently they have every pillow available so just ask. Also as part of nightly turn down service they put out a little mat by my bed with slippers! My room overlooks the Rhine but also one of only 4 UN buildings in the world. This morning my 4 mile run was along the Rhine river where I watched boat cruises, kids playing on the banks, and people cycling. The temp must have only been in the 60's and everythig is so green! Bonn is a neat little city, reminds me of a German Ft Collins :)

Today I went to the German Space Agency (DLR) in Koln (Cologne). The meetings were fascinating discussions of a materials science experiment on ISS that uses microgravity to better understand the solidification process of alloys. In a nutshell, it could lead to the improvement of metal alloy production on Earth. Really much was over my head but I hung in there!

Well my battery on the iPhone is getting dangerously low so I'd better put this away and order my fried apples and ice cream!
:)

My job kicks ass. Tell your kids to go to college. Or at least do what they love.

One last mad dash for trains

Ok Imade it to the train to Bonn! This is the final train, over 5hrs ride. I only had 11 minutes to get to this one but I figured out how to look up platform info while I was on the last train so I knew Exactly where to hustle to! Gotta love 3G!!!
The last ride was straight through the Swiss Alps in Switzerland. And OMG it was beautiful! Huge mountains, tiny Swiss villages in the valleys, blue clear streams you can see straight to the bottom even from the train. Towering rocks and waterfalls and rolling greenery and Swiss churches and Swiss clock towers. Just like every Disney movie you've seen :)

Totally glad I did the train instead of the plane. Wow!!

Big ass luggage

Note to self: replace that big ass red suitcase with a big ass suit
case with wheels that has multidirectional wheels. Sometimes you need
to go sideways.

Milan to Zurich

Holy crap I just ran my ass of from train 1 to train 2, taking out
many Europeans who weren't paying attention to where they were
walking. Well they kinda deserved it. Or maybe I'm just being
American. Or worse, Texan. Yeehaw!

I think my suit case must be 60lbs now.

On the train I asked the steward where the WC is. He didn't know what
I was saying. Me: restroom? Him: Ah you speak English (pity) do you
speak French? Me: Ah yes! La toilette? Oui!!!

Strange but dang I fel more at he than I have alll week! I can do
French. On to Zurich.

So long Italy

I'm sitting at the train station waiting to go to Milan, then switch trains again in Zurich before the last long ride to Bonn, Germany where I'll be spending the week. Half the trip is over!

Venice yesterday was wet! It rained but people just got out their umbrellas and rolled up their pants. I also took my shoes off because I had my nice runners on and at some points the water got calf deep! The thing is with a rain like yesterday (on/off heavy/light) all day, Venice floods. Like people were playing in it having the best time, taking pictures of the City of Water...in water. Shops that were busy with tourists just a few minutes earlier were closed up as the water rose. Others started pumping out water to stay open. Tourists loved it. Locals were like...whatever.

I have the coolest pictures of the flooding and I'll post them maybe tonight but I did put some on Facebook. I thought it might suck to be rained on in Venice but actually it made all the tourists so happy to take pics and play in it. Complete strangers were having fun with each other. Gondolas started running again towards the end of the day. I didn't ride in one; I wanted to save that for Paul and Anna. There was otherwise plenty of walking and ezploring to do. I'm glad it rained...what a neat way to see Venice!

I walked around for about 8 hours, buying crap for people (wait I think the correct term is souvenirs!).

Note to future self: when returning to Venice, pack light. Everyone has to haul their crap down those tiny "streets" (there are no cars). The "streets" are either waterways or alleys, some only a little wider than you. Most speak English and also you can bet a fellow American tourist is just a few steps away from you if you need directions or advice in English.

I went in to St Mark's basillica, saw his tomb and the treasury. Didn't go inside Doge's palace. I just didn't want to spend my time in lines to get in. It was weird wandering around completely by myself. It was a little freeing but also it's a wide world of choices and nothing happens unless I make the call. No one else to consider, no one to bounce ideas off of or tall plans through. Not a bad thing, just different. Simon Says GO. Stop. Go over that bridge. Go get that neat looking panini. Go inside THAT shop. Go back to the hotel. Skip dinner (gasp!) Go to bed. You get the idea...

Or again maybe I'm just rambling.

I'm on the train now. I have Internet capability on my iPhone now and there's a plug right here at my seat so I'm all set for Milan!

I've learned that on long days with no power, just turn off data roaming and 3G and the battery will last almost 2 days. Or more. Just lasts much longer!

Ok, time to look out the windows!

Venice is wet

I am laughing at this attempt at a "quick" tour of Venice. I have a
large suit case and a carry on and it's a pain in the butt (I expected
it) and I think the rain makes it heavier :)I wrapped all my clothes
in plastic back at Trieste. People are super helpful here, and the
gentlemen have offered to help carry my luggage up and down stairs or
the train. My instinct is to say NO thanks, I GOT this! But I think
that would be rude and unnecessarily time consuming for all so I have
obliged.

The toilet cost me .80 euros and I'm thankful I've been doing my wall
squat bc the seat was gross. :)

The train ride was neat! The boat taxi was cold and wet bc I chose to
hang outside so I can see everything. After I got settled on the boat
and calmed my brain a bit I looked around and thought: heh, they were
right, water everywhere.

I am wet and windblown but the rain is easing. I think it will rain
all day but it's OK by me. Not many people get to see Venice in the
rain. And I am all by myself, with only me to take care of so who
cares if I get wet?

My hotel is in San Marcos square. Not sure what that really means yet
but right now I'm waiting to eat lunch. Passing on the wine.

I'm on a train going somewhere

Hoping it's Venice like it's supposed to be! And it's going to rain
hard all day. Venice: the city of water! Wet is wet.

Happy father's day!

Bye bye Trieste

OK I am pretty sure I'm gaining a good bit of my weight back. It's definitely due to the freaking way I've been eating, my screwed up biological clock, and the lack of running capability here (no treadmill). The streets are too crowded and weird to run. I can't take another minute of Italy simply because soon I won't be able to fit into the clothes I brought with me.

OK maybe it's not THAT bad but I am pretty sure I am undoing about 1 month's worth of weight loss in just one week. That's the sucky part about being a slow loser. I am hoping I can make up for some of it in Germany. Let's face it, I don't think I like German food (hell I don't really know) and my hotel has a fitness room. So no excuses, I can bust it out next week. Especially since I will have a little less committed schedule. The few rounds of the boot camp-derived exercise sessions I've done in my hotel room just isn't enough to battle the calroies I've no doubt taken in.

But tomorrow's Venice, a 2 hour train ride from here. I will be staying at Hotel Luna Baglioni, the oldest hotel in Venice, right on San Marco's square. Once it housed Templar Knights passing through during the Crusades. I am hoping to learn some fabulous history. As for my train ride, Rail Euro screwed up and never sent me my train passes so now I have to piece meal my train trip from Venice to Bonn, Germany on Monday. Wish me luck, considering I've only ever ridden an Amtrak in the US! People have been giving me tips on how to do it all so I'm hoping for the best.

NASA screwed up on my iPhone and never gave me international roaming for data. So I've had no iPhone capability like email or internet the last few days, other than phone calls (yay for that at least). They're trying to resolve the problem but it's one troubleshoot after another and hopefully it'll get fixed soon.

In the meantime I found a little "farmacia" that sold me some all natural "Digestivo Antonetto", finally. Apparently the sign for "heartburn" is universal ;) Actually as soon as I cut out the wine, the heartburn went away. Noted. Didn't need the calories anyway. And I'm WINED out. Then I realized in my haste to get on the plane here I forgot to pack enough hairspray. So back to the Farmacia, where they gave me "All Natural" hairspray. Really? How in the world can hairspray be "natural"? Isn't it required to be a chemical mess? The first ingredient is still alcohol. There seems to be pictures of plants all over the bottle but I can't see it in the list of ingredients.

The cool thing is that most of the stuff the Farmacias sell here are "all natural". How easy it is to walk into a pharmacy here and get something that's all natural, and likely to work, without any research. There's a Farmacia everywhere you look. It's as easy as eating pasta for dinner, then walking across the canal to eat pizza. Which I did one night. (Oh the weight gain).

Today was the last day of the conference. It was an entire day of exercise countermeasures for use in space. Ironically, they talked about Paul's exercise device as one that's under evaluation for future exploration class missions. Talk about feeling weird?! So I took a photo of that slide for him :)

Yesterday they took us on a bus tour all around Trieste, and we went to the castle of Maximillian, who lived here with his young wify Charlotte until he went over to become the emporer of Mexico. Then in a revolt of which I don't remember, the Mexican's (Republicans) overthrew him and executed him. His wife had fled, came back to the castle, went nuts, and then moved out 9 months later. It was my first visit to a real castle, though its only purpose was luxury living and not defense. I am told it was small in comparison to other European castles. Then for lunch we went up to a vineyard and had a freaking feast of fantastic local cuising. No pasta here, it was cured meats and spreads and wine of all types. Water flavored with rosemary, mint, lemon, and something that looked like little weeds but tasted really good. Then dessert and finally real schnapps. PEOPLE. These things were in little shot glasses and it was like drinking Chloraseptic. Just a taste numbed the tongue! I couldn't do it. None of us could, except one JSC researcher who slammed TWO then talked me into it once we got outside of the building. I buckled to peer pressure, feeling like if I was gonna puke, at least it was outside :) I slammed two not even a spinning head came from that horrid moonshine! Thankfully, because I did preface the shots with the fact that I did realize that the last place to get drunk was in front of my NASA peers, which included the deputy division chief of a Life Sciences division at JSC and the head of the Human Research Program. And oh yeah, a couple of guys from Headquarters. But we all had so much fun on the tour, it was great to get to know each of them personally. I had only heard of them through their research or through emails, etc. They really were down to Earth. And I learned TONS from talking to them.

With all of the craziness of travel going on tomorrow and the wacked out time difference, I suspect I am totally going to forget Father's day. SO HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! And sorry in advance if I'm a loser.

Paul and Anna are at his parents' camp for the weekend. He says she's being a little bratty and just oppositional. It's included Time Outs and it started the morning before they left to go to the camp. I hope she straightens up. I know she really wanted to go and has been asking to go for WEEKS and it's nothing we'd even put into her head or mentioned. One look at peanuts and she starts asking about Papa (he shares his nuts with her). It sounded ike other than her bratty attitude (good timing, baby, make us look like we're raising a spoiled brat who needs a good beating), she's having fun.

Anyway, I guess I'd better go do some exercise, then pack and get ready for the travel tomorrow. Without having data and who knows about internet till I get to my next hotel room in Venice, who knows when I'll post again.

I did get a lot of pictures posted to Facebook and Twitter before I lost data. As soon as I get it back, I'll post more.

Good night!

All done with my 10 minute International Spotlight!

Ding, all done! My presentation at the Life in Space for Life on Earth is all done! It went well but dang, 10 min goes by so darned fast when it's your turn up there. Now the world's space agencies are better informed about the microbiological studies and advancements we've made on ISS. yippie!

I saw some familiar old faces in the crowd, and afterwards, several of those faces came over to say how proud they were of me going from X (their lab, whatever as a student) to Y ("look at you now!"). I do think it must be weird for anyone who's worked with me in my former life either when I was a student or when I was an engineer just recently to see me wear grown up clothes and use big, smart-sounding words while throwing in some agency-level blah-de-blah too. I have come to realize that the role I'm in right now is full of agency-level "stuff" I had NO IDEA even existed when I was an engineer, just keeping my head down to stay on schedule/budget/solve technical issues for spaceflight hardware. It's definitely eye-opening and I am soooo happy to have been an engineer first because now it helps to make sense of the work I'm doing now. I have some really useful insight in situations where I think I need to speak up on behalf of the process I knew as an engineer. Most folks at the agency level have also been engineers, or scientists, or whatever, too but maybe they've been out of it for so long that they forget or don't want to speak up for some reason. As the new kid, I can say "forgive me for asking a stupid question, or proposing a route that sounds silly, but..." and then I can put it out on the table the most obvious stupid things. Which sometimes helps.

Or maybe I'm rambling.

Anyway my work in Italy is almost done! Tomorrow's a field trip to tour the city and then Saturday is an Exercise Countermeasures workshop which should be interesting at the least. Since that's definitely part of my past, I've already run into people I first met over 10 years ago, as well as the big name scientists I cited in my master's thesis.

Things are good on the home front. I call at least twice a day. Yesterday I poorly miscalculated the time difference and called Paul at 3am! Har-de-har-har. Oops! The only problem Paul has is that Anna has started screaming her head off, terribly, when he drops her off at school. The week before I left she was doing fine adjusting to a new classroom with new teachers but it was going well. One day last week Nanna let her stay home to play, and now I'm gone and the result of the whole shake-up is a 3-year old screaming while attached to her daddy as he tries to leave in the morning. Yesterday I talked to her teacher who says she stops the screaming when Paul leaves, and participates in all the activities through the day. But during downtime and transition between activities, she "whimpers" (no tears) and asks when is Daddy coming to pick her up. I suspect things might be helped if she were at least in the same classroom as her best friend, but since the school didn't set up her class that way (now I think what BASTARDS) I can't even use that to soothe her. Bleh. We've tried to reason with her and get her to "not cry" ahead of time but no joy. Hopefully things will settle with her soon.

Well, off to exercise. Since there's no gym here I've set up a work-out schedule based on our boot camp exercises, in 1-minute intervals. I set the timer on my Ipod so the alarm sounds like I've hit the jackpot :) It's a motivator.

Follow my Twitter account for photos and updates on the spot. You
don't have to join. Just click on my stream onthe right aide of my
blog. Since I'm awake when you're not for part of my day, I post while
you're sleeping.

Eventually I will post the same pics here but it's not as easy so it
may be awhile.

Not sure how I can have heartburn at night: the food here doesn't seen
as greasy as American! I guess it's just different. Need antacido. I
went out on my own into the real world today in search of Tums. I
didn't find it. My translator said "antacido". The clerk seemed like
he hadn't heard the word. "How about Tums"? No. Apparently indigestion
is an American problem?

It's mild but it's noticeable at night while I'm sleeping. Well, last.
Night was a 4 HOUR dinner with 5 courses. That's 1.25 courses per
hour. It was s.l.o.w. I couldn't talk to the nice couple next to us
for another second. We started out talking about his experiment on ISS
that investigates blood flow in the brain, and ended up talking about
how they juggle 5 kids. By the end of the night my head hurt and my
shoulders/neck were tight. It takes so much energy from me to be
social. I'd be happy sitting quietly at the table staring at everyone
if it weren't an akward thing to do at a function like that.

I stayed up till 2am and slept till 10am. What?! My body had no idea
what time it was anyway. But it apparently was aware that I ate 5
courses in the hours before I lay horizontal :) One of this courses
was octopus or something with tentacles. I am more willing to try
strange food when in the environment. It wasn't bad! Added it to the
list of snails and raw scallops in France. By the way this food is
better than France :)

Trieste, Day 1.5

Today two shots of the little espresso cups they have at the conference kept me awake during a crash at around 3:13pm (about 9:15am my body's time). The meetings were very productive. Two days ago I was talking to farmers at the largest grown-up science fair in the midwest, and today I'm talking to international heads of ISS science programs about space experiments. Neato.

Lunch was gnocci with tomato sauce and cheese (AMAZING) and tonight was a trio of eggplant parmesean, asparagus crepe, and ravioli. Not to forget the tiramesu (sp?) that is the best in the whole wide world. I mean, it's ITALY and all. Holy cow I am totally going to have to run every morning here. And since it's light at 4:45am, and my body's confused as hell anyway, meh, why not? Till I'm exhausted, anyway. I was born to eat this food.

Good night!

Trieste Tidbits

Last night I had my first Italian meal. Granted it was from the hotel but dang it, it was GOOD. Potatoe and cheese "cake", pasta with fresh veggies, and fried chicken with lemon sauce. The American women at the table gave me their last glass of the best red wine on their menu (here's to TJ! ;) ). I watched the sun go down (finally, at almost 10pm) and the moon come up over the ocean as I indulged!

The sun came up around 4:45am here. Good grief, not much time for darkness.

Anyway, on to breakfast and the conference, day 1. My body is wondering why I'm up, showered, and abouot to eat at midnight.