Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
When Lisa decided to take a quick holiday to the UK, we set about planning an itinerary to squeeze in as many of the sights as we could. After watching the Henley Boat Races, we set off to London. On Monday, we made it to a few of the tourist sites, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, and the Embankment walk. Tuesday, we enjoyed a run through Hyde Park and the Buckingham Palace gardens before searching out a couple of museums. We visited the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. This gem began as John Hunter‘s collection of anatomical and zoological specimens, and now showcases a wealth of information on the development of surgical technique from crude beginnings to its modern form. Our next stop was the Museum of London, which chronicles the city from before the Roman Londinium through its role as imperial capital and on to its global place today. After an evening show on the West End, we boarded the Caledonian Sleeper Train to Edinburgh.
This was my first trip to Scotland since I was a toddler. The visit, though short, was sweet. We toured the very imposing Edinburgh Castle and visited the National Museum of Scotland. On Thursday, we took a bus tour of the city and then wandered around the Scottish Parliament building and the Royal Mile. Finally, we got back on the train to Oxford (via London). Back in the City of Dreaming Spires, Lisa tried her (surprisingly adept) hand at punting before heading back to Philadelphia.
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After living across the Atlantic for a couple of years, I’ve really enjoyed being a bit closer to home in 2013. And at no time of year is this more special than during the holidays, when my brother and sister came home from Durham. It was fantastic to have the family together sharing stories about our respective years’ adventures.
After Christmas, I set out to the Florida Keys on a New Year’s trip with some scuba divers from Penn State and the University of Maryland. I had attended this annual trip regularly before moving overseas, and after a few years absent, it was great to be back. We had a chance to dive The Eagle wreck off Key Largo, enjoyed New Years festivities on Duval Street in Key West, and generally enjoyed a bit of the break from the mid-Atlantic winter. On the way back north, Lisa and I visited Robert is Here, a combination fruit stand and petting farm, and then stopped in North Carolina where she interviewed at UNC and I finished my instrument flight rating.
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On Friday, I took Step 2 CK, an 8-hour multiple choice exam that is part of the US medical licensing process. Lisa, with whom I had shared many a practice question session, took her test on Wednesday and was interviewing for an internship in Chicago on Friday, so we decided to celebrate by spending the weekend in the Windy City.
We started Saturday by wandering the downtown area. We made it to Millennium Park and saw The Bean, which has been my favorite sculpture since I first encountered it almost ten years ago. After getting our fill of the leguminous wonder, we went for a run along the Lakefront Trail. Saturday night, we had a fantastic dinner at 312 Chicago and then walked over to the Oriental Theatre to see the touring production of Wicked. The show was very impressive; an extremely strong cast really put their hearts into the performance.
On Sunday, we wandered some more, revisited The Bean, and had brunch at Wildberry before Lisa flew off for her next interview in St. Louis. I set out for the Ravenswood neighborhood where I saw Nick, one of my best friends from high school, and met his wife Amanda. We spent the evening playing board games and talking about old and new times over Kyrgyz food.
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Almost midway through my DPhil stint in Maryland, I took a short visit to Oxford to check in with my collaborators there, discuss progress to the thesis, and retrieve some data. Of course, the trip also allowed a bit of time for a few adventures. I caught a bit of Summer Eights (and dinner!), the Communist Bop, saw Wicked with Erin, did a bit of punting and croquet, properly celebrated Susan and Matt’s engagement, and said hello and goodbye to quite a few friends.
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For the New Year, Bill and I traveled to visit our cousin Carmie and her husband, who live in the Veneto region of Italy. We flew into Venice and spent a couple of days exploring St. Mark’s Square and other beauties of the City of Bridges before meeting up with Carmie and Matthew. Together, we traveled to their lovely house in Vicenza. On the 29th, we explored a Christmas market in the scenic Asiago. On the 30th, Matthew and I ran the Maratonina della Città Murata, a half-marathon in Cittadella. (Bill and Carmie ran the 6k course.) For New Years Eve, we explored the local Vicenza region, and then flew back to Oxford on New Years Day.
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A few of the NIH OxCam students decided to take a long weekend in the Cinque Terre region of the Italian Riviera. After flying into the Pisa airport (and taking the requisite funny pictures of the Leaning Tower), we traveled on to our seaside flat in Riomaggiore. On Saturday, we rented some kayaks to explore the local coastline, and I took a scuba dive, seeing an octopus, a Moray eel, beautiful jellyfish, and a few barracuda. On Sunday, we took the train to Monterosso and hiked back to Riomaggiore through the Cinque Terre National Park. The journey was about 11 miles up and down the seaside ridges, made a bit more difficult by the detour around landslide-damaged trails between Corniglia and Manarola.
Update: Now includes pictures from Michael Tee’s camera! Click for more!
The first week of May, I traveled with several lab-mates to Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain for the 2012 International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging. The conference had a fantastic array of talks, and I presented a paper on using a modified Hough transform to initialize a left ventricle myocardium segmentation in 3-d echocardiograms.
In Barcelona, we also got a little time to explore. We visited the Sagrada Família, saw quite a bit of Gaudí architecture, wandered in La Rambla, and enjoyed the Barceloneta beach.
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This spring, I took a quick trip back to the NIH to work out the details of my return to the NHLBI. While I was home, I also stopped by Duke to meet with a few of the MSTP advisors and visit with friends.
My brother (also a DukeMed student) was playing in his intramural basketball final on Coach K Court at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, one of the more famous American college basketball venues.
Back in the Washington DC area, I went with my parents to visit the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center. The Center is a huge hanger on the grounds of Washington Dulles International Airport and holds an SR-71 Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay, and countless other aerospace treasures. From its early canvas airplanes to small satellites, advanced military and civillian craft, and some gems of general aviation, the museum was quite a place.
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This year’s search for a Christmas market resulted in a spontaneous train journey to Cardiff, Wales. The market, while not overly exciting, did have some delicious German sausages and mulled wine. The real treat of the day was Cardiff Castle, built as a Victorian mansion over a Norman castle over a Roman fort. We had perfect castling weather — light rain and strong gusting winds — that made leaning out of tower windows all the more exciting.
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This weekend, I went to visit a friend in Paris. I’d never been to the city before, and took the time to see quite a few obligatory tourist sites: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge, etc. Between visiting landmarks and exploring the Parisian streets, the weekend was one of sidewalk cafés and chance meetings of new friends.
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Duke University
Natl Inst of Health
Oxford University