First adventures in Faro, Portugal

I am finally settled in Portugal. This city is very beautiful and mixes old with modern. See my pics here: http://convoluta.ucdavis.edu/lauragallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album29

Everyone speaks english extremely well with slang included so it is very easy to get on, however I am learning a bit of portugese. There are also a lot of spanish students who do not speak portugese and only a little english so I am getting better at spanish which is nice. The only thing, to say "nice to meet you" it is muito prazer but I was saying muito prezzo the whole first week which I think may mean "very expensive".....sort of embarrassing. hopefully my professor did not think I was hitting on her!

I am living in a residence hall downtown with 6 college age romanian girls. They are very nice and cook all day long and giggle incessantly. There is also a tanzanian and a spanish woman who is a biochemist in my department. The residence is about a 10 minute drive but a 40 minute bus ride to campus so it takes me a while to get to work every day. But this situation will likely be short-lived as I met a guy last night at a local sardine festival (celebrating saint john) who is moving to Lagos (resorty beach area) for the summer and needs someone to live in his apartment. Only about $250 a month with a tennis court and polished granite everything. It is a 20 minute walk to campus and I think closer to the beach and airport. I am going to look at it once more today and then decide but I think it sounds like a great deal.

Oh, and there are two extra beds for visitors!!!!!

The sardine festival was amazing. An entire festival devoted to small smelly fish, all provided for free by the mayor as a celebration of an anniversary, cannot remember which. They give you a whole plate of grilled sardines and some bread and you peel off the flesh and lay it on the bread then eat it as an open faced sandwich.
http://convoluta.ucdavis.edu/lauragallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album31&page=9
So good, but this morning I woke up smelling like sardines and grill smoke with a giant bright pink balloon of a great white shark in my room that was clearly an impulse buy.....

The work has been going well so far but I will start running my samples tomorrow with the microsatellites and we will see how well they work. I have high hopes though. Filipe, the post-doc I work with here, has all these ideas for collaborating which I hope we have time to get to. It does make me feel like a part of the lab though! I am giving a talk on my research on Tuesday so it will be nice to let everyone know what I do.