Blog resurrected & my Coatepec office

Things have obviously been pretty crazy since I've last blogged about anything (back in October!) and I had to put the blog on a little hiatus to take care of home and work things. Since then, Carlos and I have settled into Mexican life, visited Portland (OR) for a conference and to see Mom and Dad, visited LA and Lancaster (CA) to see Shannon and BJ for Thanksgiving, and completed projects around the house to really settle into life here. We are also getting ready for another international trip (in a week)--we are traveling to Costa Rica to start new field projects and keep old ones running in La Selva. We will be gone for a little over a month and after that, Carlos continues on to Washington, DC solo to process samples for the lab, and I return to Xalapa to keep working.

Over our Christmas break (we stayed local this year, which was a nice break from all the recent crazy travel!), Carlos was busy trying out our power tools and he constructed a cool trestle A-frame table for my office--it is amazing! We also installed some asymmetrical shelves and I think everything is really coming together. We still go to the INECOL office most days, but it is nice to have a comfortable, nicely-decorated space to work in at home too. Plus, the office also doubles as our yoga room!

A bit of Australia

Continuing with the backlog of trips, Carlos and I were in Cairns, Australia from 17-26 July. We were there mostly to attend the annual ATBC (Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation) meeting and a post-conference field workshop in the Daintree Rainforest. I haven't downloaded and organized all of my photos from the trip yet, but I thought I could post a few pictures here with short descriptions so you can get an impression of our trip. I really want to go back to Australia one of these days--it was an amazing place (though extremely expensive!) with so much to see and do.

Australian Brush Turkey (Alectura lathami) I ran into on the James Cook University Campus:

Some of the picturesque buildings on the James Cook U campus:

A massive amount of wallabies getting ready to sleep for the evening:

More wallabies grazing, looking at us, and getting ready for bed:

The ATBC 2014 Council (a really great group of people):

I tried it, but really did not like Vegemite:

Giant fig tree in the city (Cairns) that served as a flying fox nursery--they were so cool and very, very squeaky:

Close-up of some of the hanging flying-foxes--so cool!:

Tasty honeycomb latte at breakfast one morning:

Equally-delicious ham and egg sandwich for breakfast:

ATBC-SECSCI (Student and Early Career SCIentist) Chapter meeting that I organized during the conference:

My drink of choice in Australia--ginger beer (not alcoholic):

Me, my mentor Pierre-Michel Forget, and SCRAT (scatter-hoarding rat):

Me eating some very tasty ramen (we went back for lunch twice!):

Wonderfully-cloudy view from one of the balconies in our hotel/apartment:

 

This was a really wonderful and productive trip! ATBC was one of the best I've ever been to (next year it's in Honolulu, HI) and visiting the Australian Tropics was a chance of a lifetime--we'll be back!

WDW Sisters’ Trip II -- Day 8 (final)

For the final day of our epic Sisters’ WDW trip II (9 November 2013), Shannon and I had big ambitions to start the day early and stay out late. We started off by taking the 7:30 am bus from our hotel to Hollywood Studios where we stood in line for a little bit before heading off with most of the crowd towards Toy Story Midway Mania. This ride is pretty fun, but intense if you are trying to get a high score!

Next we backtracked to the Tower of Terror. I noticed on this ride that when you finish falling and the elevator reaches the ground floor, if you look behind the car there are lots of props from Twilight Zone episodes (the ventriloquist dummy was especially creepy-looking). After Tower of Terror, we had breakfast at the Starring Rolls café, where I had an éclair and iced coffee. 

Shannon and I next took a tour on the Great Movie Ride (fortunately the ceiling alien didn’t drool on Shannon again!). From here we took a ride on Star Tours before wandering around the Streets of America again—we were on a mission to find the famous purple cat (a Halloween decoration hidden amongst all of the Christmas lights) and baby Sinclair from the Dinosaurs TV show. We were successful in finding both of them!

We took another break by touring around the One Man’s Dream exhibit before foraging for some lunch at the Backlot Express (I had a tasty cheeseburger, water, and pumpkin cupcake for dessert). At this point, we decided to head back to the hotel to recharge, have some tea in our refillable mugs, and nap before the night ahead.

We took a bus to EPCOT around 4:15 pm and promptly rode Spaceship Earth. We seem to really like the easy-going slow rides because we next visited the Living with the Land ride before heading back out to the craziness of the Food and Wine Festival. We drank some delicious fresh watermelon juice from the Terra booth and enjoyed another silky coconut ice from China. 

Like our last Sisters’ Trip two years ago, our final dinner was at Teppan Edo (which Shannon and I both love)—I had scallops, noodles, rice, green tea, and green tea soft serve ice cream! We burned off some dinner calories by wandering around World Showcase before meandering back to Future World to ride Spaceship Earth for the last time. From there we planned to visit the last park of the trip: Magic Kingdom.

We traveled via monorail to the Magic Kingdom and walked over to Tomorrowland to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride and the Peoplemover. We took a spin on the Tea Cups and rode the Little Mermaid ride. Next up, we visited the Haunted Mansion, followed by a popcorn break.

Next we wanted to ride some of the mountains. First up was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad followed by Splash Mountain (we got pretty soaked by those dumb water cannons!). We relaxed by visiting the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jingle Cruise (the décor of the Jungle Cruise was recently changed to fit a Christmas theme and I was really glad that we got to experience this—the skippers all wore Santa hats too!).

We shared one final Dole Whip before making our way back to Main Street to wander the souvenir shops before catching our bus back to Coronado Springs—we were in the parks until 1 am!

Shannon and I had a really great time on this trip and I was really glad that we had the chance to see some things that we had never seen before in WDW (Osborne Lights—though not turned on!, Jingle Cruise, Food and Wine Festival, MK castle cloaked in X-mas lights). Although the Food and Wine Festival was really fun, I don’t think I would visit again during this time of year—the crowds are just too intense and there are far too many drunk people around. I think Shannon and I agree that we would return during the same time of year that we visited on our last trip: mid-September. Although it is a little warmer than in early November, the crowds are some of the lowest of the year so the experience is a little more relaxing (and you just hop onto any ride that you want!). It’s almost been a year since this trip—sorry for the long break in posts...I still have to post about Australia and more México stuff. Shannon, when should we plan our next Disney trip? Hehehehe