Welcome to my world

Since returning from Lugano, I have immersed myself in the lab monotony I call my life. Well it isn’t that bad I guess. I am enjoying the productivity. I have 5 multiplexes of msat primers to run on all my samples and I am just about done with the first one and started the second today. Each one should take less than a week if no problems arise. Then Filipe gets back on the 3rd and I will start analyzing the data under his advise, getting as much done as possible before the end of September. Oh yeah, did I tell you? I am staying a few weeks extra, cutting my stay on the EC short. This may also allow me to squeeze in some more traveling in Europe (my new favorite tract of land – yeah, I think I love the whole damn thing, well maybe save certain eating establishments in Spain).

Anyway, this is what I have been doing the past two straight days:

It’s a chromatogram of 5 dna loci (locations along the genome) for one individual I collected in 2006. I have 200 individuals so I will have 5 pictures like this for each individual to analyze. It could be much worse actually, I have fewer samples than most geneticists I know. The different colors are the loci and there are either 1 or 2 peaks for that loci depending on if the individual is heterozygous or homozygous. I chose this one because it is really clean and very clearly shows this individual is heterozygous for 4 of the loci since you can see two red peaks, two blue peaks and so on. That means its parents were different from each other for those loci, got it? Sorry, but you have to suffer too…just a bit.

I have been having some fun too though. For instance, yesterday was a Catholic holiday celebrating some assumptions made by the virgin (not sure what assumptions she made, but I am almost positive they had nothing to do with the risk factors involved in using the rhythm method). Anyway, everything was closed in town, presumably so that all religiously minded Portuguese would be able to gather in the north under the pouring rain, singing and waving white handkerchiefs…at least, that is what it looked like on tv. Licinia and I took this chaste opportunity to visit Vila Real de Santo Antonio just on the border of Spain where, at the end of a long winding walk through the pines is a really nice beach. It was the perfect Wednesday. The mega-cool bonus was that Vila Real is probably one of the most pleasant towns I have been in, like a little Lisbon with very old beautiful buildings lining a wide river overlooking Spanish border towns. After the beach we strolled around and then feasted on grilled sardines, which has fast become my staple food item. I am even getting good at filleting them in a way that reduces the number of bones that will line my esophagus for hours.

I think this weekend we will head to Sagres on the southwestern tip of Portugal for some hiking...oh, and there’s that surfing championship happening too. Something to rid my brain of multicolored lines!

More on the real land of milk and honey

I am on my way back to Faro now. My visit to Lugano was perfect. We did none of the things I thought we would, save visiting my old dorm, but I would not change a thing. Mostly every night I stayed up with someone until 3-5am talking and sipping wine. We had so so much to discuss after all these years, spouses to get to know and new wines to try. I do not have the energy to give many details right now, these I will share in person for sure, but I wanted to show you some pictures. Generally, these are of the views from Arianna and Ryad's place, the double rainbow, around Lugano, panino stand, the lido bar, Arianna's best sofia lauren, making pancakes, Alfredo's arrival and the martini bar, Arianna and Ryad's new tree, Locarno film festival, thermal baths somewhere in german switzerland (I never did get to look at that map), Arianna's pool, dorm Giardino, dinner at Christina and Jake's and our reunion with Prof. McCormick at a grotto near Franklin. The more artistic shots were taken by Matteo, Arianna's talented cousin (I simply provided the machinery).

I will say that my two night stopover in Madrid was quite nice, except for the windowless dingy hostal room. I visited the Museo del Prado where I was able to experience Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights (Beautiful is not really the word, but it is amazing to stare at and has got to be evidence that LSD was in fact invented by a Hoffmann precursor sometime in the late 15th century...it is filled with 70s style pink spaceships and other structures straight out of Sleeper). The Prado also has a great Goya collection from his black period, portrayals of country life in gray, black and brown each with something white in the center which gives every piece a feeling of infinite darkness surrounding some small hope...at least that is what I saw :) Also I caught the Van Gough exhibit at the Thyssen museum showing the 70+ pieces he produced during the last 70 days of his life...amazing. Afterwards I walked around the Gran Via and Puerta del Sol areas and then met Asun, a post doc I know from Faro, for drinks and pinchos.

My plane leaves in 2 hours, I need to buy sunglasses, and although there are things I do not want to leave, I think I am ready to get back to Faro and become a grad student again....

Swiss teaser

I am really sorry to do this to you but I just cannot resist. This is my view as I write this entry:

I have been in Lugano Switzerland since last Wednesday. I did my freshman year of college here at Franklin and have spent the past 4 straight days hanging out with old friends who I have not seen in 14 years! Everyone has gone back to work today so I am hanging out at Christina's house that she and her husband are house-sitting in the hills above the town. I am currently contemplating the fact that I could do some work on my laptop poolside, make some graphs or something...or just lay by the pool. What would you do in my situation? Exactly. I think I remember being a graduate student once.... (Matt, I promise I will get that draft to you soon :)

I will write the full report on my Swiss adventures next week as I still have a few days here so stay tuned. However, I will leave you with a few select photos from the past week.