well, not really. i kind of get it. but not totally. anyhow, as i said in my last post, i am in minneapolis at the university of minnesota this week. i am supposed to be learning all about human embryonic stem cells, how to grow them, how to turn them into various other cell types. and also about ips cells and how to make them. is it possible to learn all of this in just 3 days? of course not. but hopefully i'll leave here knowing enough to not completely f*ck things up! oh, and back to being confused again, for some reason i keep thinking i am in wisconsin. i want to go there someday. apparently they eat a lot of cheese there. apparently there is a special technique used for eating cheese curd where you 'squeak' it between your back teeth. i do not even pretend to understand this, but i do wonder what cheese curd tastes like and if i would like it.
i am also fortunate enough to be traveling when the swine flu s*it hits the proverbial fan. i thought someone on one of my flights here had tuberculosis, but now i think it must have been the swine flu. there's going to be a pandemic, if you haven't heard. SNOUTBREAK '09!!! hopefully i won't be bringing the swine flu home with me back to pittsburgh on friday.
so about my trip ... i flew (almost typed flu! freudian slip!) here on monday morning via detroit. on the flight from pittsburgh to detroit, i had the worst possible seat on the plane. it was a window seat in the very last row of the plane. only there was no window because the engine was directly beside me. the flight was completely full, and there was a man who was literally about 6'5 and 350 pounds in the center seat next to me. crazy. needless to say it was a tight squeeze, but it went quickly enough. i had about 10 minutes after we landed to transfer to my connecting flight, and made it with time to spare thanks to some help from peter who provided me with the gate number that the northwest associate was too busy to look up. here is me getting ready to board my flight:
my seat was way in the back again, but there were a lot of empty seats so i got to sit in an aisle seat with no one next to me. much comfier! i landed in minneapolis:
then caught a shuttle to my hotel. we drove through downtown where i took an inadvertent photo of a comcast sign:
we crossed the mississippi very near where the bridge had collapsed a couple years back:
after i checked into my hotel, i went for a walk to check things out and find something for lunch. i wandered into the hong kong noodle house and had an amazingly yummy and cheap lunch. i later found out that this is one of the best places for lunch nearby, so i definitely got lucky with my choice!
the minneapolis film festival is going on this week, but sadly i'm not going to have a chance to catch any films.
they're building a really nice new football stadium for the golden gophers (tee hee) to play in. i think it won't be ready until 2010.
i stopped into the lab at the stem cell institute to meet some of the people there and pick up my materials for the class, and then went back to my room to rest. i was pooped from getting up early for my flight and trying not to breathe the tuberculosis/swine flu contaminated airplane air. there is a full length mirror across from one of the beds and for some reason i decided it was a good time for a selfie or two.
i wandered around for a bit more after skyping with peter and erik (it was SO nice to get to see and talk to them! i am really missing my guys), saw a beautiful sunset and grabbed a salad from the leaning tower of pizza.
it's just about midnight now, or actually it's almost 11pm. but i am totally scompered from all of the chaos of the past few days. i'll have to finish this another time. tschau!
1 comment:
It's nice to see and hear about where you are. I like the sunset pics, you have a knack for them. We love you, we miss you, and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow afternoon!
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