Peru - Day 6

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Horseback-Riding in the Cusco area....

At 8am, we met our guide, Gabriel. He was cool, with a big ol' cowboy hat, with great English! (Apparently, he worked for a cruise line for about 5 years. I think it was Royal Caribbean.). He was great! Very knowledgeable, educated, and knew all about the ruins... Apparently, if you want to be a tour guide, they have special classes, and he's taken 2 years of it! He really knows his stuff. I'd highly recommend him to anyone who wants to do the Machu Picchu thing next!! (Just let me know, I have his business card)

So Gabriel took us to 4 of the local ruins: Q'enqo, Tambomachay, Pukapukara, and Sacsayhuaman (sounds like Sexy Woman).

At this point, my memory card was completely full, so all the pictures here are from Neill. I haven't gotten them all from him yet, so these are only a few. Eventually, I'll post the rest up here when I get them...

Picture with someone dresses as a priest to the Sun God (I think?) at Q'enqo

Getting our horses (my guy was Alisan). That's Gabriel on the left.
Dave and Sampa
Neill was with Anteras
Um, they really liked to eat the grass...

Oh, and Alisan ALWAYS wanted to be in front.
Dave at Pukapukara
Riding through the amazingly beautiful valleys (away from the cars and their smog!)


Sexy Woman! Oops, I mean Sacsayhuaman!

Neill, me, and superstar guide Gabriel
Neill, Dave, and me
Grrrr
Petting an alpaca! So cute!

And 5 hours later, our tour was done! Yup, 5 hours! For only $30 (per person)!

Gabriel was awesome. He took us to a local dealer to buy some high quality authentic 100% alpaca sweaters. Those are the things to get when you're in Peru! Alpaca wool is extremely soft and warm... We also found out that Peruvian excavators (sp?) are working hard at digging up new ruins every day. Apparently, the government spends a lot of this project. They even found mummies a week earlier! A first!

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This was definitely our favorite day! We got to see lots of sites, ride horses (first time for me!), AND not have to overuse our leg muscles (no stairs!!!). The scenery was AMAZING... I would highly recommend this!!!

Peru - Day 7 - heading home!

Friday, March 23, 2007

Another crazy day of flying!

We headed out of Cusco at 8am. Got into Lima an hour later and went to Miraflores. We originally planned on spending the day in Lima and head out tomorrow.

However, we were all exhausted from our trip and ready to go home. Also, Neill caught something the day before and was feeling pretty ill, so we decided to head back a day early.

We caught the 3:30pm flight to Panama, and was back in the States by 12:30am! After an hour or so of getting through customs and picking up our luggage, we finally go to our car before 2am... I think we were back in San Diego by 4am.

Whew, what a tiring day.... It was nice to be back home.

Super corn nuts purchased in the Cusco airport

a teaser

I'm a wee bit behind on posting... but we just got back from a trip to Peru! I've got tons of beautiful pictures and our friend Neill has even more (which I gotta get my hands on).

Here are a couple to give you a flavor of our past week:

Cusco

On our way to the Sacred Valley
Machu Picchu
Llama
View of Machu Picchu from Waynapicchu
More to come!!!

CHOP!

My donation to Locks of Love....

My last NYC games

After 6.5 years of NYC pick-up and league games, some pictures from my last games:

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Turf field at Riverside Park (UWS near 100th St)

March 3, 2007

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Venu, Shah, Paul, John, some guy whose name I forgot, Sarah, Adam, Hunt's leg

Hunt, Eric, Aru, Adam
Friends!

Aru

Adam, Shah, Me, Hunt
Sarah, Paul, Eric, Denis .

Roosevelt Island

March 11, 2007

The Tram heading to Roosevelt Island

Can you see people playing???
Manhattan from Roosevelt Island (pics from Garland)

Pics from Eric

Me, Paul (Ugh, I need to seriously work on my throwing stance) Paul, Me (But I look better defending)
Where am I running to?
New girl Chris, one of my Stuy friends Garland, and Me

Bye bye...

Wide Load

An Extra Wide Door somewhere on the UES...

Dave vs Door

Um, I'm trying to illustrate how I would take up the width of that door. It came out kinda kooky...

I'm done!

Finally!

March 8th, 2007

After ~5.5 years, it was time... On March 8th (my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!), I presented and defended my thesis. Whew!

The title of my thesis was TBCE and Regulation of Microtubule Dynamics: Insights from Autosomal Recessive Kenny-Caffey Syndrome. The seminar was at 1:30pm with the defense following. I was EXTREMELY nervous as the room I picked was packed full of people! Yikes!... I had a strategy -- picking a room in an obscure building (Atran Building) and not advertising my seminar. Hence, I was hoping for a nice small cozy group of friends... My plan backfired as I found out later, the department sent an announcement that morning about my seminar... And then many of my classmates showed up which I was not expecting. Very flattering AND nerve-wracking at the same time...

George introducing me (Notice my committee in the first 2 rows)

Starting the seminar

The seminar definitely was not one of my best oral presentations. I had a difficult time getting in the groove as every time I looked out into the audience, I was shocked by the number of people, and whatever I planned to say next flew out of my mind.... Eeek!...

Anyways, after it was over, I was looking forward to the oral defense with my committee. That went really well! And after a brief 45 minutes, it was over... Time for celebration! (Heather did a wonderful job of preparing a post-exam champagne fest, dinner, and a gathering for drinks!)

3 of 4 members of my committee hanging out at the post-pain party (+ Sarah and friend, Heather, and Ektor)

One of my committee members says there's a tradition that people who successfully complete their defense have to leave their mark at their institution. We were wary of doing this in the newly renovated Atran building, but what the heck, it's tradition, no? Besides, Bruce was out of town, so he won't know. :) ha ha...

George loosening up the cork for me

POP!

My mark (it's actually the little brown smudge next to the big line, right side)
Luciana, Dave, Me, Heather, Maria, Christine
What in the world was Maria and Christine doing?
Melanie and Cheryl

Dinner at Carmine's
Dave, Me, Mel's head, Becky
Kelvin, Ektor, Heather (pooh, missing Christine in this pic)
Maria, Becky, Tuba, Shruti, Avnish's arm, Me, + Cheryl's fingers

Waiters brought out a tiramisu singing "Congratulations to you" to the "Happy Birthday" tune. I laughed so hard (see my big mouth), I almost died. The best was when another waiter ran over to join in the song and started singing "Happy Birthday" and made a big ol' mess of the song. Ha ha ha, hilarious!

(Me, Cheryl, Maria, Becky)

My Ex-Aron-Hall-roomies. Great girls.

Tuba, Me, and Shruti

Since dinner was with a small group of good friends, we followed it with a gathering at a cozy bar/lounge in order to celebrate with more Sinai and Ultimate friends! (I don't have many pics, but here are the few that I do have)

Gathering at The Ginger Man

One more Ex-Aron-Hall-roomie! (Me and Angila) Eric, Cheryl, Maria, Becky, Audrey
Eric, Aru, Brant, Me, Adam

Whew, I'm exhausted!

The Perfect Testimonial

From my Friendster page.... A testimonial from Dave (February 20,2005):

With pleasure and honor I tell you about the many hats of Melissa: a scientist, artist, and athlete well-balanced into one. Just peruse her lab notes and you'll value the precision with which she thinks about molecular cell biology. Her trophies from volleyball courts and Ultimate fields show that she can tumble, Advil, dirt, and snow with the best of them. She performed on stage with piano, violin, and viola. She lives a metrocard-sleepless NYC life, with a blue-skied-mountain-ocean SD attitude: connected by a gold frequent-flyer card. She can shoulder a couch on rollerblades in one moment, and rock-a-by fussy nephews the next. She has muddied through 2 Hi-Tec Races, 2 Colorado summits, and plenty presentations at national science meetings. Her friends say she's easy to talk with; a confidant for so many secrets. Her family says she's the glue and phone that connects them. Her husband says shes' the heart that beats in his chest. You are the model Renaissance woman.