I'm here for 2 weeks for the Jackson Lab mammalian genetics class, almost done w/ the first week, we do have lectures tomorrow (Saturday), boo! I'm here w/ another postdoc from my program. So far the class is not really for us, it's mostly MDs and mostly genetics people which I am not. Today's lectures were actually the best for me to follow, more background and clinical relevance versus the specific, too-detailed work from the presenters' own labs that I have no basis to really understand.

I thought I would like Bar Harbor but I can't say I'm very thrilled w/ it. My hotel is a disaster, the Bar Harbor Regency. The website makes it look all resorty when it is nothing like that. The staff is bad, I witnessed the crow old lady bartender that spends half her year in Florida yelling at the young kid waiters and watched them cower from her, later only to have the young waitresses come tell the crow what the boys were saying to fuel the drama. This bartender was yelling and giving attitude to customers that were ordering from her as well. Wireless isn't working, cell phone service only outside, rooms moldy, smelly, more bad service for what I think is a discounted rate for the conference of about $160 per night. I should have stayed in a nice bed n breakfast for the same rate.

Businesses in town aren't much better. A bunch of reject kids it seems doing these service jobs crappily. The kid that made our smoothies I hope was high and not just dumb. We got fudge at a place that we had to return because it was so dry and brittle and the guy tried to tell us it was okay. I had to return my crab-stuffed haddock another day because it was cold in the middle and the sauce tasted 'funny' in one area. That woman was nice about it though.

Yesterday was a good day here in that respect. I found out Aunt Margaret died yesterday morning. She was 85 and living in a rehab place, awful quality of life, she had told my Aunt last week she wanted to jump out the window, so it's good she died, it was just bad because she was awake and had a heart attack and was DNR so the nurses just watched her die. Doesn't sound pleasant. Also, my dad's dog has renal insufficiency and it's pretty serious and I called the vet to talk to him and told my dad he should move his dog to an emergency clinic but he didn't want to insult the doctor basically by removing his dog. Hope Bailey doesn't die because of this.

Anyway all that is crappy news but then last night we went back to Acadia and I ran on the Ocean Trail. It was so awesome, along the ocean, sometimes on crazy rocks and through the best scenery. Trail running is a better workout than regular running and I never do it, especially on such awesome trails. After that we ate at the Jordan Pond Restaurant. Best service and food I've had so far. Only $25 for popover, soup or salad, entree, and dessert. Food was all good, totally recommend. If I could run on those trails and eat there a lot maybe I could live here and work at Jackson. Good biking here too, road and mountain. I'd just stay away from the little town probably and potentially go more crazy.

i'm in sydney waiting to leave for san fran. took a flight from the sunshine coast this morning to sydney. db saw me off. it's nice here that you can actually wait w/ someone at the airport. so many things to find out when i get home: did i win the rice cooker?, what's up w/ the yankees?, did my beaky miss me and how is she on the drugs, will she behave when i leave her home alone for the first time on friday when i go to work?, what's the weather been like?, what are my girls up to? and my boys? and my tv shows, my blog, my apt., my job, my running, etc etc etc. please don't overwhelm me, i could be very fragile, though i feel very dangerous and powerful, haha! be careful!! i bite...HARD and enjoy every bite :0) i know you're all dying to have me back, aren't you?? until then, good day! (mate)

Gotta go home tomorrow. Bullshit! I don't really want to go home, though I miss my Beaky Woo and my friends. In the last few days I've kinda turned into a beach bum. I've always hated the fucking beach w/ the tanning and wearing a suit but I decided to try and not care and deal w/ life in a bikini at the beach w/ a boy no less. I've survived! and could do it everyday now. I'll definitely miss the beach I've been going to the last few days. Also today I went to the Australia Zoo, the one the Irwins run. It was awesome! Very hands on. I hate going to the zoo and not being able to touch anything. Today I had my fill of kangaroos to feed. They were just lounging around and you could just approach them and pet them like lazy dogs. It was the best! I also got to touch a koala, I'd rather cuddle w/ it but I didn't go to the cuddle place, the koala sanctuary, so I just got to touch a couple on the butt. I also got to feed goats and elephants. I do have pictures as proof of this all. I just had a really good 'new to me' candy too. Licorice bullets, chocolate covered black licorice, kinda like good n plenty but w/ chocolate. If I would have discovered them sooner... Maybe I can pick some up tomorrow at the airport. I have a flight in the morning from the Sunshine Coast to Sydney, then Sydney to San Francisco, and San Fran to Boston. I land in Boston Wed. 10:30pm ready for work Thurs. morning, yuck! I'll have so much to catch up on at work it's gonna suck. I have lots more to share but i'll try to do that once I get back to Boston and need to relive the tales so I don't feel so shitty about being back in reality.

Flew to Cairns for a bit and the made it to the rainforest and then flew to Brisbane and on to the Sunshine Coast. gotta get to the beach been online too long checking all the bills and emails. see ya thursday. boo!

just a quick post. it's monday morning here, 5:30am. i couldn't get back to sleep. now i feel tired though. had a crazy fun weekend going out both friday and saturday night. lots of fun people, drinks and music! i still haven't really recovered. not sure what the plan is but i think we're leaving this hotel today. not sure where we're going. haven't had much of a plan but rj has pretty much been in charge. hope he doesn't mind. i have plenty of details but i'm using the hotel computer and someone else needs it.

see ya

rr just moved too so the server was down for a bit while he was moving all the stuff.

i have a good weekend update from last weekend but no time to write it now.

anyway, made it to sydney okay though i almost missed my flight from boston to san francisco because they bumped me up 3 hrs and didn't tell me. the flight there was worse than the flight to sydney for some reason. i took xanax, ambien and vodka but still didn't sleep through. just a little sleep. found rj at the airport and we've managed over 24 hrs together so far. we'll see how long it lasts.

so far so good. we went running at 6am this morning. i never get up that early! now we're just walking around in sweaty running clothes and trying to stay in the sun.

cleo i hope you're being good for janet and annie!!!

This time I was getting on the T at South Station and I had my CharlieCard. It has a monthly pass on it. When I swiped it the door wouldn't open and said 'Smart Cards Only' so I tried again and it said 'See Agent.' Then I moved to a different turnstile and it opened but instead of using my monthly pass it took $1.70 off the balance I had on the card. I had some money on it already for when people came to visit and it stole my money. I don't want to pay any extra for the crappy T. So now I'm on the phone w/ customer service. I had to explain the story, give my address and CharlieCard #. My cell phone is so shitty while I was on hold after giving most of the info, my phone turned off. Luckily it came right back on and I had to call back and speak to someone else and give the rest of the info. So I'm supposed to get a refund. My reference # is 393528 and it'll take 4-6 weeks to process. If I don't hear anything in that time I have to call back w/ the reference #. Stay tuned...

Guess I can start the countdown. A 2 week vacation. I've never gone on a vacation for so long, let alone out of N. America. I'm finally going to use my passport!!!

I'm not sure if I'm ready to go but I'm going anyway.

I had to give a presentation last Friday to my group so this conference I'm going to in October and it was kinda brutal. I have lots of work to correct the presentation so I wanted to go on vacation worry-free but I'm not sure if that'll happen. At least I have the rest of this week and 2 weeks when I get back before the conference. I'm trying to get more results from this experiment and it keeps getting messed up. I'm hoping the latest one I've set up is okay.

I'm leaving Friday night from Boston, flying Icelandair so stop over in Iceland and then to Paris. I've never flow this long before and I used to work myself into tears when I flew because I'd get so freaked out about crashing. Hopefully I'll be okay. I'll be drinking some alcohol I'm sure. I'm going w/ Jen and James, my married friends. I went to vet school w/ Jen and they happened to move to Maine after vet school, and they even lived in France for a year, so I'm kinda looking to James to help w/ the communication. I took 2 semesters of French in college but I took several years of Spanish in middle and high school so my Spanish is much better. Sometimes if I try to speak French I mistakenly throw some Spanish in there, oops.

So we'll get to Paris on Saturday and stay until Thursday when Jen and James fly back and I take the train down south to Orange to meet my Mom and Stepdad. They're also leaving this Friday but flying into Barcelona and then driving to the south of France and staying 2 weeks and then driving back to Spain and staying another week. I wanted to do the Spain part too but w/ this conference I chickened out and shortened my trip. So I'll meet my Mom in Orange and stay w/ them in Faucon until Saturday when we then drive to Poilhes, also in the south of France. Then I'll stay there until I leave on Friday, taking the train from Beziers back to Paris where I'll stay for one more night all by myself and then fly back to Boston on Saturday the 29th.

Have planned a little for the Paris part but nothing for the rest. I'm counting on Mom to have a plan. The rugby world cup is going on in and around Paris which might be cool to follow, I used to play rugby, and there's the Festival d'automne which is going on the whole time I'm there. I have to see the major sites of course but I don't want to do too many museums. There's a free tour that my friends recommended so that's on the list.

I'm not bringing my laptop or cell phone or anything except my new camera so no way of communicating back home really. If I find internet somewhere I can always try to post something.