Let the Vacation Begin

We arrived in Munich last night and started out by having some "wurst" and beer for dinner at the Viktualienmarket Beer Garden.

This morning we took a walking tour around the Old Center. We ate lunch at the "world's most famous beer hall," the Hofbrauhaus.

Nick is having a Weiss beer, which is a wheat beer, and I am having a Radler, which is half lemon-lime soda, half beer.

In the afternoon we went to the Alte Pinakothek ("Old Art Gallery")--the main attractions for me were paintings by Albrecht Durer, Raphael, and Rubens.

The ice cream in Munich is DIVINE and relatively cheap at 1 Euro/scoop.

Hotel Atlanta offers an excellent location for an excellent price. However, our very private bathroom is across the hall from our room.

Tomorrow we are traveling to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.

There likely will be no more posts until we make it to Prague on Thursday night, as internet here is neither free nor consistent.

Eber at El Hogar

In early May another group of MathWorkers traveled to Honduras to help out at El Hogar de Amor y Esperanza (the Home of Love and Hope). Unfortunately, I was not a part of this third team. Still, you can read about their experiences and see many photos of the kids on the blog they maintained during the trip. Jason kindly hand delivered my letter to Eber, and even took a photo of Eber with the letter!

It is such a joy to go through the many photographs the team captured and to see how much the children I have met have grown and how happy they seem.

Two Milestones In One Week

Last week we celebrated two important milestones, Nick’s dissertation defense and our 5th wedding anniversary. It was a mere coincidence that Nick’s defense was scheduled for the same week as our wedding anniversary. Yet there is a definite connection between Nick entering a PhD program, and our wedding.

Nick and I met in Seattle. First we became friends, and then we fell in love. When Nick was accepted into the PhD program at Harvard, we decided to move to Boston together, though I had to delay my move a little because of my job.

In August of 2002, we sent most of our belongings to Boston and traveled to Moscow for a few days of vacation. At the end of our stay in Moscow Nick proposed, making our return flight across the ocean ever so sweet. We flew to New York, from where Nick went directly to Boston to start his PhD program, and I returned to Seattle to live with Nick’s parents. By the time we got married in June of 2004, we were happily settled together in Boston.

We moved to Boston because of Nick’s PhD program. While I am certain that Nick and I would have gotten engaged and married sooner or later, I also believe that Nick’s move to Boston might have brought about our engagement a little sooner. Now Nick has received his degree, and so far we have spent out entire married lives together in Boston.

Nick Earned His PhD

Today Nick successfully defended his dissertation!!!


The defense consisted of two parts. First Nick took about an hour to present his research and results. The presentation was public, so I was able to go watch! Then he was whisked away into a different room where he had to respond to a variety of questions on the subject of his dissertation from the examination committee. He emerged almost 2 hours later tired, but happy--the examination went well, and now he is done! The lab prepared a few snacks, champagne was served, and Nick's professor made a toast. Later Nick and I went out to dinner to celebrate.

Big Milestone For Nick

Last night Nick finished writing his dissertation, and today he distributed copies of it to the members of his defense committee. Of course, he is not quite done yet. Nick will defend his dissertation, Spatial Integration of Motion Signals in Macaque MT, on Tuesday, June 16th. For now I am just hoping that most of the late nights in the lab are over.

For those of you like me, who do not know what Macaque MT is... MT stands for "middle temporal", and it is a specific visual area of the brain.

Boston: Getting into the Details

After 5 weeks of complete immersion in Boston’s history and architecture, I have passed the written and the oral exams to become a Boston By Foot guide. Now I can concentrate on learning my tour. And by “my tour” I mean the Victorian Back Bay tour, which I signed up to give for the first time on June 7th.

I have been enjoying looking through old photographs of Boston uploaded by the Boston Public Library. The Trinity Church in Copley Square was completed in 1877, but at the time it did not look the same as we know it today. The following photos show Trinity Church before the western porch was added in 1897. At the time, the towers above the western entrance were also replaced. In these photographs you can see the church with the original entrance towers.

Stereograph of Trinity Church taken circa 1875

This stereograph of Trinity Church is not dated, but I dare to guess that it was also taken circa 1875

This photo of Trinity Church was taken in August, 1888, and there are no towers above the western entrance.

Trinity Church today as seen on a postcard

Taking a Break with Maru The Cat

Maru the cat is obsessed with boxes. In fact he is creating quite a frenzy on YouTube. And we are obsessed with Maru.

Here is some Maru cuteness for all you cat lovers out there.