I finally made it back to the lovely corn desert of Illinois after several weeks of traveling abroad. So let's recap!
1 - I think I like airline food. No seriously, I'm horrified myself. But the dinners you get on overseas flights are sorta cool. You get your main dish in its own handy little compartment, then a little compartamentalized salad, and a roll with butter, and crackers and cheese and always some little dessert. It's really quite lovely. It's like the bento box of the skies. Maybe it's just because I like organization, but something about the little dishes I find very satisfying.
2 - So the whole point of me going over to Europe was to attend this conference (The Fisheries Society of the British Isles annual meeting) at the University of Leicester. The conference's theme this year was Sticklebacks, so obviously I had to go and because it's very applicable to what I do - I was able to secure funding to basically pay for all my travel. BUT the really cool part is that Alex was ALSO able to secure funding to travel in Europe as well. He studies art history, specifically French Medieval manuscripts (really old smelly books) and so got money from his department to go to all the old classy liberries in England and France.
Now we have recipe for fun: Kate + Alex + Europe = FUN!
3 - Conference: The conference was super cool! It was all stickleback people so I was basically able to meet and schmooze with just about every single big name in the field. AND they seemed very excited about the stuff I'm doing (I mean honestly, talking about animal personality is just something almost anyone can relate to) AND to make it even better, I won First Place Poster Prize! Woo! I was very surprised and very proud of myself.
4 - After the conference I returned to London and was able to meet up with Alex for a few days. We stayed in Camden which is like the cool, young, punk borough of London. We were even able to make some new friends!
We went to the Borough Market, which is this huge open air food market. Just lots of cheese and bread and meat and olives and cakes and delicious! I also went to the Portobello Road market which is in Notting Hill (I looked for the house with the blue door, but could not find it). This market is all funky jewelery and vintage clothing so I was able to buy this really unique vintage ring.
5 - GERMANY! So then Alex left to go look at books in Paris and I flew over to Germany to meet up with two friends in Regensburg. My friends Todd and Sarah (from U of I) went to Germany last year because Todd got a post-doc there. I stayed with them for 4 days and we ate more schnitzel (which I didn't even really think was a real thing - but it is!) and drank more beer than I thought possible. I even saw a guy wearing a real live lederhosen. Just because he wanted too. The city is one of the few that wasn't destroyed in WWII so the architecture is gorgeous and old and really cool. Here, I was able to pick up my newest pair of ridiculous sunglasses
6 - After Germany, I flew over to Paris to meet up with Alex again. We were only going to be here for one night, so I figured we should just do the romantic tourist thing and go make out underneath the Eiffel Tower. But instead, as we're waiting in a bar to get dinner, who walks in, but our buddy Dorsch (also from U of I). He got a job at the American U of Paris last year and is now over there teaching economics. So we said hi and he immediately tells us that he made a 5 kg lasagna and seeing as he's leaving to come back to the US the next day, we just had to come over and help him eat it. So we did! He lives in this adorable little apartment on the top floor of a classically Parisian building. So 5 kilos of pasta and 4 bottles of wine later, we never made it to the Eiffel Tower. But I think we had more fun anyways =)
7 - Whew this is a long story, bear with me. So after our drunken night in Paris, Alex and I went and picked up our rental car. We decided instead of taking a train to our next destination, we would rather drive - so we did! Our next stop was Valencia Spain, so we had two days to get from Paris to Perpignan, which essentially means we drove across the entire country of France! Below you can see our route.
The first day we drove from Paris to Dijon. Dijon is a super cool city and I really liked it there. We were able to find a cheap little hotel right in the center of the city and so we were walking distance from everywhere. They have this really old, really bizarre church (It's also called Notre Dame). It's weird because even though it's gothic, the facade (front) of the church is square as opposed to the usual rounded pointy arches you see (or at least this is what my art history boyfriend tells me). We also got some mustard. Of course.
So after Dijon, we then had to continue to drive south to Perpignan which is right on the border with Spain. If anyone ever gets an opportunity to go somewhere and really wants to see a country, I'd highly recommend renting a car. It wasn't super expensive and it allows for so much more freedom than taking a train or flight or whatever. We made sure to avoid the highways and we were able to take country roads through all these little towns and have picnics whenever we wanted. It was really a great experience. Just make sure you know how to drive stick. And manuever traffic circles, dear god they love their traffic circles.
8 - Okay we're getting there! Next stop - VALENCIA! We were going here because Alex's buddy Fernando is originally from Valencia and Fernando offered to let us stay at his apartment while we were there. But first, let me tell you about our sighting on the train
That's right boys and girls, it's a Man Purse. Let me first describe the dude: Classic Euro Douchebag. He had his nose pierced. He wore baggy sweatpants. He wore a tight black tee. He listened to Sean Paul on his ipod way too loud. And. He wore a bedazzled black man purse. What a gem!
Anyway. We finally made it to Valencia and Fernando failed to tell us that his apartment is basically AWESOME! He lives exactly 1/2 block off the main plaza of the town. It'd be like staying a block away from Times Square in NYC. So it was incredibly convenient because we could just walk everywhere and anywhere.
While we were there, we were lucky enough to meet up with my friend Kelly (who was doing an internship in Spain for the summer) and her bro, AJ. It was very cool to be able to hang out with them for two nights. We drank wine on the balcony, went to the beach (where we looked at old topless ladies), and ate lots of good food!
After Kelly and AJ left, we mostly went around with Fernando and his gf Marta. It was great having local guides. They were able to show us all the cool places to drink and eat and go. We went to the Zoo one day and to these weird futuristic musuems another.
We also partake in the classic Spanish drinking traditions. Fernando took us around to all these different bars our last night. Apparently what you do is only get one or two drinks and one small plate of food per bar and then move on. So we did! We ate some delicious sardines and calamari and cured pork and fried fish.
And then, we came home.
