Hurling and International Feast!

ALRIGHTY so a few exciting things have been happening in Cork, Ireland this week. First off, our house is now complete with all the engineering students from different areas participating in this Tyndall internship. Everyone has bonded pretty quickly and it already feels like we have formed a temporary summer family with dinners at night and trips around town. There are 2 Irish guys, one from Dublin and one from Wexford, as well as a student from Kazakhstan. There are a total of 5 American students now--the three of us from Notre Dame and two others from the University of California Santa Barbara.
Last Sunday we went to a hurling match which was a physical, fast-paced, and high scoring game---the perfect combination for an exciting sport! The weather even held up with some sun and warm weather. It was a very pleasant Sunday afternoon. The game was in a 50,000 person stadium and it was packed with passionate fans of Cork (red and navy blue) vs. Tipperary (royal blue and yellow) in the Semi-Final game of the Munster Championship. The neat thing about Hurling is that you can only play for the county team that you grew up in so a lot of the town knows the players personally and they are truly playing for their home. The loyalty and camaraderie of the system only added to the atmosphere of waving county flags and wholehearted singing of fight songs.

 Second (and most definitely my favorite) was an International Potluck Dinner between the 20 international students in the complex I'm living in. The menu included a mouth-watering-Thanksgiving-worthy buffet of the following dishes:
Italian pizza and gnocci                                
French crepes
Spanish tortillas          
Polish potato cakes         
Kazakhstan soup
Irish shepherds pie, potatoes, coffee, black pudding and sausages
Hawaiian sushi, American hot dogs, Southern sweet potato casserole, California quesadillas, and Apple pie

the Irish man and his potatoes

we assumed this position for about an hour just trying everything!

Hawaiian sushi---you would have loved it Logan

the focused look of a French chef making crepes

our lovely Italian friends

 And believe me, I was hurting after because I had at least two of everything! 




Oh and I suppose there's this thing called work that consumes most of the week days. The internship has been going well and I'm learning a good bit. At this point I'm looking at data from babies in the NICU who had seizures and were administered drugs for those seizures. Because the neurotransmitters in a baby's brain are changing their function rapidly so that they have different affects over the course of a 24-hour period, administering different drugs at different times to stop the seizures is a relatively imprecise and blind practice at the moment. The long-term goal of the research group is to create a software program that will be able to not only indicate when a seizure is occurring, but also alert the doctor to when the best time for administering a drug is. So that information has been of interest to me more than the past couple of weeks that were more engineer-heavy.


Today as part of the internship program we took a tour of the photonics fabrication lab at Tyndall. This is pretty much an accurate portrayal of how we looked for a few hours:

Despite the incredible attractiveness of these outfits, I think I fancy more of a scrubs kind of lifestyle. But that knowledge in itself has made this experience a wonderful one because I now know for sure clinical medicine rather than lab research is what I want to do with my interest in science. I'm still enjoying the work side and once again it's amazing how connected engineering and medicine is these days...countless projects going on at the moment to improve the accuracy of healthcare tools and diagnostics...it's incredible.






Next up for my summer agenda is visiting Morgan in Italy next weekend and then a trip to Paris and Bordeaux the weekend after that. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!

Enotria: Land of Wine.... TUSCANY!

Tuscany... beautiful, beautiful Tuscany! I am obsessed with this part of Italia.. actually, who am I kidding.. I am obsessed with ALL of Italy! It is amazing to me that each part of the country can have it's own special claim to fame. And the Tuscans can certainly claim the wine!
Maybe it's the fact that they served us Nutella Pizza at dinner (Hayley... I'm hoping you try this and become an expert at it!) or maybe it's the fields and fields of lovely sunflowers, possibly the memories shared with newly acquired friends at wine tasting did it, or even more--the beaches and coastal towns contained in the Tuscan boarders on the Mediterranean ... whatever it was, Tuscany will always hold a special spot in my heart! I hope to return as soon as I possibly can!

Balcony at the resort in Tuscany

Land surrounding the resort

It was such a beautiful place!

Tuscan sunflowers. Officially my favorite!

Bread and realllll olive oil straight from the trees of  Tuscany with every meal... Makes me a happy little traveler!

Faimly style dinner in Tuscany
So the courses in Italy are as such:
1.) BREAD!
2.) Anti-pasti (hope I'm spelling that correctly)
3.) Salad
4.) Entree
5.) Dessert
Every meal took no less than 2 hours... especially when wine was involved. I see why in Italy food and together-ness is enough of a reason to celebrate. Oh yes, and we never ate before 9pm.. always finished late

NUTELLA PIZZA!!!!!!!!

Spaghetti for main course!

Bolgheri vineyards

Anti-pasti with wine

Melon, honey, and cheese

Brushetta

Concluding our wine tour and tasting!

"creepy Italian trees" - Under the Tuscan Sun

Amore Amore!

Tomato, Basil, Mozzarella...ROMA!

Alright all my family travelers.. Let me know if you remember any of these beautiful sites from your Italian adventures! Rome is like no other place I have ever experienced, it is breathtaking and intimate and filled with busy streets and fast moving (and talking) Italians, yet has a calming effect in the small flower-filled cafe's found in the backstreets of Rome. Although I should have taken notes in order to remember the names of each place (because my Italian is non-exisent), here is my first day experience through pictures...

The first fountain next to our hotel

At this point I thought this is the most beautiful thing I've seen... little did I know

Everything is big big big

English Catholic church in Rome (masses said in English every Sunday)

Vespa's are quite plentiful in Italy

The fountains all had drinkable water, and it was an extremely hot day so we utilized them a lot! 

My favorite parts of Rome were the small cafe's and restaurants that were hiding among the incredible structures that Rome had to offer.

Trevi fountain. 

First gelato experience, very exciting!

Kiwi and Strawberry

The Pantheon

Old Rome was built 45 feet below where the streets sit today

Also serves  as a church

The columns are an art in themselves

Obsessed with the doors and small details

Vespa in action! 

Ancient Roman condominium 

Capitol Hill

Ancient Roman ruins

Fruit stands

That cannot be real!

Finally, the Coliseum!

Incredible!

There is my introduction to Rome and Italy! Miss everyone, hope y'all enjoyed!