Barcelona, where I wore forks and fell for Gaudí

This past weekend, I flew to Barcelona. When I walked through the airport gates on Friday afternoon, I heard “¡Hola!” from a remarkably familiar voice and shouted back “Ciao!” as I spotted Nina Chen. Nina and I have planned a few adventures across Europe this fall. This weekend was an excellent choice as Barcelona was decidedly one of the most interesting and beautiful cities I’ve seen so far. It is very artsy, trendy, and modern, and it tops the list along with Prague (and Paris, but that goes without saying) of cities to which I must return.

Friday night, after staking out our hostel (which was absolutely beautiful but off in the woods on the side of a mountain), we got dinner in el Gòtic, the Gothic Quarter, and gelato along Las Ramblas, a very wide street with a central walkway boasting all sorts of distractions for those amused by bright colors and small animals. We returned home that night to discover that the “10-person mixed-gender” room for which we’d paid, which actually only had four beds, was all our own for the night. Alone in the room, we laughed so much as we got ready for bed that anyone walking past probably got at least a bit curious as to what might have been happening behind our closed door.

On Saturday morning, we returned to Las Ramblas to appreciate the Mercat de Sant Josep, or la Boqueria, in all its glory. There were stands with all sorts of food in every color, shape, and smell. My personal favorite was the fruit drinks because of the option to have coconut mixed with just about any other flavor. Coconut (and pumpkin, but you don’t see that so much here in Europe) are my two favorite flavors and/or scents of just about anything. After an hour or two spent drooling over counters, we wandered through the Gothic Quarter, ate lunch on the cathedral steps, and meandered down the Moll de la Fusta, a palm tree lined street on the edge of the port. The cloudless day was so bright and warm that I wouldn’t have minded jumping in after one of the schools of fish we admired. During the afternoon, we strolled through the Ciutat Vella, the Old City. I admired all sorts of interesting shops and artists displaying their work on the street. I was so impressed by one who twisted forks into jewelry that I bought a ring and a necklace from him. The necklace holds a very pretty Moroccan stone with the fossilized imprint of a shell.

After a stop at the Parc de la Ciutadella for a brief afternoon siesta, we walked up past the Arc de Triomf (did you know Spain has one of those, too?) and traveled along Passeig de Gràcia, a street filled with shops I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford. It was along this street that we found our first work by Gaudí, the Casa Batlló. It was love at first sight. This man must have been brilliant or insane, perhaps both. The front of this building was far from flat. The windows had unusual shapes and the balconies had round, flowing railings. Best of all, the entire façade was covered in a pastel mosaic. Passeig de Gràcia also boasts the Casa Milà, otherwise known as La Pedrera, another work by Gaudí. (That’s the photo to the left.) Though not nearly as colorful, it too lacked any flat surfaces along it façade and simply fascinated me. We hiked across Barcelona to reach the Sagrada Família, a giant church which remains under construction to this day, Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece. The building won’t be complete until 2026, 100 years after the architect’s death.

On Sunday, we had the bright idea to visit the Castell Montjuic, a fortification on the top of a large hill in the southeast part of Barcelona right by the sea. The Castell was pretty and gave an awesome view over the harbor, but the hike there was fairly time consuming. On the way up we passed the Palau Nacional (home of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, another reason to return to Barcelona), several parks, some pieces of modern art, and the Olympic Stadium. By the time we reached the top it was time for a nap, so right there on the castle walls on the edge of a very steep cliff, we baked in the sun... literally. The sun managed to get through my leggings and turn one of my thighs a nice shade of red, and I came home with an unintended tan! On the way back down the hill, as luck would have it, Nina and I stumbled across a ropes playground. Sure, there were two kids already playing on it, but that left plenty of room for us…

That evening we found a place to eat outside on a corner of one of those very wide roads in the city center and enjoyed a three-course meal. We returned to the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas to kill time before Nina had to leave for her evening flight. Afterward, I did a bit of shopping and headed over to la Barceloneta, the small part of town on the other side of the port. From there I meandered over to the beach Platja Sant Sebastià for some late night splashing through the waves. I ended up going a bit more into the sea than I’d intended, but it was well worth the fun. Just imagine running through the ocean after 10pm in late October! That night at my hostel, I met some nice French people from Lille with whom I was able to practice speaking for a few hours. All in all, it turned out to be quite a memorable evening and a wonderful weekend.

Festival della Creatività

This afternoon at about 3:30pm I had to swing by the Cisanello hospital to pick up some supplies from that lab. I noticed a sign as I was walking into lab advertising the Festival della Creatività, the Festival of Creativity, starting today in Florence. I hadn’t been to Florence in a while, which seems like a crime when having the luxury to live so nearby, so what the heck? By 6:30 I was on a train headed to Florence after a mad dash through Pisa since I had been, as usual, running late.

At the festival I wandered through various displays of artwork, cultural dancing, and culinary delights. I eventually bought a glass of sangria and settled down to enjoy a classical baritone singer accompanied by a piano. The lyrics of his songs were printed in Italian on a pamphlet, but these were only translations as he was singing in English. His songs were poems from Robert Louis Stevenson put to music. It felt surreal to at once follow such moving music in both English and Italian.

Shifting from one extreme to another, I left the concert to be drawn into an African samba performance. The group paraded around the festival grounds in Fortezza da Basso and drew a large crowd. As the music resonated through my chest cavity on this warm Tuscan evening, I realized this had to be one of the best Thursday nights I’d ever spend as an MIT student.

On the train ride home, I began reading Tre Metri Sopra il Cielo. It’s a light read, but perfect for someone just learning the language. When I arrived at the Pisa train station it had begun to rain, so I tucked my book under my jeans jacket, put in my iPod earbuds, and headed home. I walked through the rain with my first Italian novel clutched tightly to my chest, lulled by the music of soft, late-night Italian conversations drifting between my favorite lyrics; there was nowhere else I would have rather been.

A Lab Update

Things are going pretty well in lab these days. There’s nothing too thrilling but there’s a lot of work to be done and that in itself is satisfying. The project has taken a focus in the use of chemoattractants encapsulated in microspheres for the direction of neuronal growth in vitro. I’ve been busy doing literature searches, data analysis, and presentation work this week in order to summarize everything we’ve done thus far concerning microsphere drug release properties. We recently began working with the cells (finally!), introducing them to plates with adhered microspheres. However, we haven’t had too much luck getting them to grow with semaphorin, our chemoattractant of choice.

These days, I work almost exclusively at the Scuola Normale Superiore in the NEST lab. Technically, I’m a student in the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna ARTS lab because this is where the professor who is formally sponsoring me works, but I have not even stepped foot inside that building since the beginning of July. Often times, in the morning, I’ll spend an hour or so at the CRIM lab in the Cisanello hospital in the outskirts of Pisa before going to NEST. I don’t like the CRIM lab so much. We have a trailer with only a few rooms and less than ten people who work there regularly. Such an isolated environment does not permit an influx of exciting new ideas and perspectives.

NEST is great because it’s tucked away in a tiny piazza but it is right in the center of Pisa. At lunch sometimes I go out with people, but more often I prefer to be by myself. I like to wander through Pisa and go to a local park (featured in this entry's pictures) where I spend time on the swings if it isn’t raining (as it is today). Maybe that's crazy, but it makes me smile. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of my shadow in my heels on a swing made for people far smaller than me and I just burst out laughing. Anyway, I had to at least try to share the image with you.

I enjoy the environment here at the Scuola Normale Superiore (or simply "la Normale"). The facilities are sparkling new, I have my own desk space, and there are plenty of chances for me to converse with people in both Italian and French which of course thrills me to pieces. When I’m stuck at my computer, as I am today, I slip off my shoes and sit contentedly at my desk with my earbuds on, pleased that I keep my briefcase stocked with a large, fuzzy pair of bright blue socks with those no-slip grips on the bottom. So now, back to work!

Grad School Hunting

I’ve been talking for a couple of years about possibly going to grad school in Europe. I’m having a wonderful time here and I’d like to stay overseas at least a few more years. After an exhaustive search for interesting PhD programs, here are the schools I am most seriously considering:

• Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

• Eldgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland

• Ecole des Neurosciences de Paris (a new, collaborative, international PhD program), Paris, France

• Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy

I enjoyed my weekend in London this fall, but I realized when I was there that that was all I wanted it to be: just a weekend, a nice little break when I could slip back into my native tongue. Really, I adore the challenge of living in another language. I would like to live outside the English-speaking world until I no longer need to operate in English to express myself to the fullest extent.

More updates to come as the application process progresses!

Protests in Pisa

During the past couple of weeks, Pisa has been pretty crazy. There have been major student protests through the streets because of the Italian Decree Law 112/08. This decree law was passed by the Italian executive branch and must be approved by the legislative branch by the end of the year in order for it to go into permanent effect. The law will cut back on already severely limited research funding, dismiss many untenured faculty, and restrict many elementary education programs. I could go on: the law has many bad implications for a country that is already seeing a mass exodus of intellectuals as there are not enough positions for researchers in the country. An editorial about this was just published in Nature this week: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/455835b.html#top

Sheets painted in statements of protest against the decree law decorate the whole city of Pisa. In fact, as I'm writing, Claudia and Danilo are busy in our apartment painting another sign to hang up. Students have been staging all-night sit-ins in university buildings; I went to one last Thursday. Parents have been bringing their elementary-age children out to the protests. Thousands of people have been filling piazzas in Pisa, and this is just one Italian city.

Interestingly, many of these images of student protest are not reaching the media because the Italian President, Silvio Berlusconi, is a major media tycoon in Italy. In an effort to get the word out, Danilo and his friends are setting up a website. I’ve offered to help edit the English translation, so in some small way I’m showing my solidarity with the students of Pisa. It’s an exciting time to be here, but it makes me really sad for my Italian friends. I’ve chosen to research outside of my home country; this certainly was not forced upon me. Many Italians find themselves forced to choose between their home and their research. I never imagined that in a country in western Europe, a part of the world considered to be so modern and “civilized," citizens would be facing troubles like this.

Lucca by Night

Last night, after a long day in lab, a friend and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Lucca. This medieval town is fairly nearby Pisa, but much wealthier. It is well-known for its high-end boutiques and the large wall which encloses the town. People can actually walk (as we did) and even bike atop the city’s wall! The city lived up to its quaint reputation. It was particularly picturesque by night, with the light of the moon framing the buildings. This first picture you see is of the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro. The next building featured is the Duomo di San Martino (Saint Martin’s Cathedral). Sadly, I didn’t get to catch a glimpse inside. The disadvantage of touring a city at night is that all of the treasures within the beautiful walls remain hidden despite their tantalizing proximity.

Lucca was home to Giacomo Puccini, composer of many great operas including La Bohème. Though the artist passed on over eighty years ago (he died in 1924), he lives on in the heart of the city which has posters of him on nearly every block. Lucca was also the setting of a particularly famous, award-winning (comic) Italian film from the 1980’s, Il Marchese del Grillo. Perhaps this is a useless tidbit of information, but supposedly anyone who knows anything about Italian culture has seen this film, so it’s worth stashing in your store of random trivia.

The Lucca Film Festival has been happening this week. This actually prompted our visit, but after we arrived in Lucca we learned that the next film wouldn’t be starting until midnight, and given the early morning I had ahead of me, we topped the night off with a set of gin and tonics at a very classy bar.

Tree Climbing, Photo Shoots, and Tea Galore: London, Take Two

Friday afternoon, I skipped out of lab a bit early, happy to have successfully completed my first data analysis presentation. Soon I was on a plane and headed to visit Nina Chen, one of my best friends from my second high school. As luck would have it, she happens to be studying abroad with NYU in London this fall. I couldn’t resist but to share this image with you as I flew off once more from my new home. I love this little town.

I arrived in England prepared for an arctic climate. Perhaps Italy has been spoiling me a bit. Donning my scarf and two jackets, I met Nina Chen at Baker Street and we proceeded to catch the next (100% genuine) double-decker bus! It was actually my first time riding one of these in London. We had a lot of catching up to do and, thrilled by the speed with which I could suddenly communicate, I’m afraid I may have talked Nina’s ear off. After dropping my things at her place, we took a small tour of London: Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, several shops, a tea café, many random streets, and the inside of a very pleasant pub.

The next morning, Nina brought me to a nearby restaurant where I finally had my first sampling of a full English breakfast. It was a fun experience, but I seriously wondered what the English had been up to while the French and Italians were developing their cuisines. I mean, honestly, they’re only a channel away from France. What happened? We spent the rest of the day wandering through London. A major part of the afternoon was devoted to Camden Market, where Nina taught me the art of haggling. In the end I came out with a new fall coat and a cute set of heels which, even given the pound to euro conversion rate, were very decently priced. That night we treated ourselves to curry at a Nepalese restaurant and I was thoroughly grateful to all the Indians who decided to immigrate and introduce their cuisine to Britain.

On Sunday, we set out as a more determined set of tourists. We bought ourselves some tea and lunch to eat on the go. (I got a lamb and mint sandwich which was delicious!) As we headed onward, we stumbled across the London Craft Fair and peeked in through all the windows without bothering to pay the entrance fee. We ended up back in Trafalgar Square where we ate our lunch sitting on the side of a monument. We then climbed the famous lion statues. After this, we went over to Regent’s Park, of which Nina is particularly fond because of all the flowers. There are also some beautiful black swans in the lakes in this park. As it was a sunny day in London, everyone imaginable seemed to have decided to spend their afternoon in the park, but we still managed to have some fun. The lawns were covered in "Keep off the Grass" signs, but it turns out the people of London are selectively illiterate. Since my eyes looked remarkably blue this afternoon as my pupils were not dilated for once (there is an odd genetic quirk in my mother’s family: our eyes respond well to sunlight, but are absurdly dilated in dull and artificial lighting), we decided the occasion called for a photo shoot.

And then, unable to resist, I climbed a tree. So did Nina… kind of. We turned out to be quite the trend-setters: as soon as I jumped down from the tree, several girls latched out to other branches to try their hand at tree-climbing. It was definitely amusing and, seeing as I didn't break my neck and no London security came out of the woodworks to deport us, a good time was had by all.

As the day progressed, we eventually had to abandon our future careers as models and photographers if we wanted to get any afternoon tea. We visited the grounds of the Kensington Palace where we went to the Orangery restaurant. Walking around the palace, I was excited to see my initials (ER) painted in gold all over the place. The queen might also have those initials, but that doesn't mean that my initials aren't still all over the royal grounds. At the restaurant, we each got a scone with clotted cream. We split a plate of tea sandwiches and a raspberry meringue topped with a divine dairy product somewhere between ice cream, butter, and whipped cream; it’s more likely than not illegal in the US, officially because of Pasteurization laws and in practice because it’s too delicious to be found on the other side of the Atlantic.

The night turned out to be a bit more exciting than planned when we failed to locate my bus stop in time. A few international calls and some hurried travel through the tube got us to Victoria Station, from which point I was fortunately able to catch a train just after midnight to the airport. I spent an interesting night sleeping in a train, outside the security check-point, then on a few benches, and finally stretched across three seats on a plane. However, I’m proud to say I made it to lab only an hour and a half later than any normal Monday morning!

NEST Laboratory Inauguration

I have been working in one lab at the Cisanello hospital (in the outskirts of Pisa) and a second lab called NEST, the National Enterprise for NanoScience and NanoTechnology. The latter is a part of the physics department in the Scuola Normale Superiore. Although I’ve been working there since July, NEST didn’t officially open until today. There was high security at the inauguration and some of the politicians scheduled to come chose to cancel to avoid the protests in Pisa. As the Scuola Normale Superiore thrives on funding from the European Union, Italy continues to cut back on state funding for scientific research in light of the global economic crisis as well as long-term economic woes. Recent cut-backs affecting all levels of the Italian education system are causing a lot of unrest amongst university students. One of my friends from the University of Pisa is still unsure as to what he will be able to do after graduating in March because he does not know if the programs that interest him will even have the funds needed to take on any new students. I can’t help but feel a bit guilty that amidst the struggle young Italians face in finding funding for research, I’ve arrived in their country and contented myself with ample funding and a comfortable position in two of their labs. I am all the more grateful for the opportunity to work in this brand-new, lovely facility.

Delightfully symbolic of the relation between innovation and tradition in Italy, NEST is entirely hidden from public view, tucked behind an old church in the small Piazza San Silvestro. Actually, one would never guess that anything was hidden through the back gate in the church parking lot unless explicitly told to pass through those doors and look for the small NEST sign. It seems wonderfully Italian to take this academic gem and hide it away in the backyard of an aging architectural beauty in a state of mild disrepair.

An Accidental Afternoon in Siena

Claudia, Danilo, and I set out today to visit the small medieval town of San Gimignano. However, there was a slight change of plans. We missed our train from Pisa, but there was another in only a half hour. We then nearly missed our stop while on the train, and after switching trains almost forgot to watch for our stop again. Despite it all, we made it within just one twenty-minute bus ride from San Gimignano. We purchased our tickets, boarded the bus, and were all set. We enjoyed the beautiful countryside as we sat side by side, sharing earbuds and listening to each other’s iPods. Things started getting fishy when the bus seemed to be taking a lot longer than twenty minutes, but eventually we made it to town. Well, a town. Siena, to be specific. Oops.

I’d been hoping to visit Siena this fall, so this wasn’t really a bad thing. The town is quite picturesque. Each contrade, or city ward, is decorated in its own flags and appropriately colored lampposts. Siena is famous for the Palio di Siena, a bi-annual horse race that takes place in the town center, the Piazza del Campo, in which ten of the seventeen contrade each select one horse to represent them. Even though no races will be happening again until next July, nearly half the postcards for sale in Siena feature this event, so it must be quite important.

This next photo needs a bit of an explanation: Facebook has only recently hit the social scene in Italy. Danilo and Claudia only joined a couple of weeks ago, and are continually amazed by the new things they are learning. A few days ago, they discovered that it was possible to marry someone on Facebook, so Danilo decided that we should do just that. In order to make it official, of course, we needed a proposal, complete with pictures. So here you have it!

Siena was equipped, as all Italian cities, with a wealth of art, architecture, and gelati. I’m unsure with what church or other building this fresco is associated, but I can’t resist sharing such a beautiful work. And moving from one divine scene to another, did I mention that I’m not sure how I’m going to survive in the US after over six months living off Italian food?

The Piazza del Campo was alive not only with tourists, but with many locals not attending the soccer match against Rome. It was cute to see how people came to the town center to sit and relax almost as if it were a city park. After a bit of wandering through the city and checking out the stores, we arrived at Siena’s duomo, or cathedral. As usual, my jaw dropped. The building was made of beautifully colored stone which makes the cathedral still look vibrant hundreds of years after its construction, a phenomenon I haven’t seen in other European countries. The sculptures across the facade—lions, horses, angels, and other creatures—were incredibly detailed, each one a masterpiece in and of itself. The columns were intricately carved. I could have stared at it all day, but time was running out. On our way back to the bus stop, we made some time for Nannini, a famous pasticceria, or pastry shop.

Back in Pisa, I couldn’t help but laugh as I followed Claudia on my bike. I realized that, but for this wonderful opportunity, I would be spending my Sunday night in Boston, tooling away on the p-sets I’d punted all weekend. Instead, I found myself here on a Sunday night biking through the dimly-lit streets of Pisa towards an apartment in view of the Leaning Tower that would soon be filled with the smells of amazing Italian home cooking and the sounds of my friends’ jovial voices. I can still hardly believe I’m here and that this is all real.

The strangest part about this whole day occurred late in the evening as I was working on my gown for Senior Ball at MIT. (More details on this to come!) It hit me that this is precisely where I want to be. Choosing to return to Europe for graduate school would require constant effort to maintain my relationships back in the US and would sometimes involve feelings of total isolation. These feelings become particularly acute, for instance, when slowly losing a loved one overseas. One can’t just take a drive to give someone a final hug or meet up with family for support. One may not be able to communicate the full range emotions that are hard enough to express in a native language. All I could do was turn on my skype webcam and try to reach out across an ocean to a person I loved dearly as she lay there in her deathbed, unable even to hold her head up long enough to tell me she loved me.

However, despite it all, I won't be ready to leave in three months. I love the challenge of living fully in another language, the ease of traveling between major cities, the daily pleasure of amazing cuisine, and the wealth of art, history, and culture around each corner. Still, these are just external artifacts of a warm, welcoming culture which has quickly come to feel like home. There is still so much left to learn and experience. And for lack of a better ability to rationalize it, something here just feels right.

An Evening of Americana

After much anticipation, my friends and I began going through my American treats. The Starbucks mugs were an instant hit, though I’m not sure my friends actually understand they’re made to serve a purpose. Still, the novelty of the item seems to please them thoroughly. The Reese’s peanut butter cups were also met with approval. I brought them to explain why I named my orange cat Reese and to show my friends one of the many wonderful uses for peanut butter in the United States. Although I’m generally a health food junkie and don’t like soda, root beer is an exception. However, I’ve discovered that this is one of the only ways in which the European diet lets me down: root beer is not sold on this continent. Unable to resist the thought of a root beer float with real Italian vanilla gelato, I had to bring some soda back with me. Curious, my friends agreed to try it. They were forewarned that root beer might be an acquired taste. (I also brought some cream soda as an emergency back up, as this is another exclusively American soda but has a more generic, sweet taste.) They were not nearly as pleased with the root beer as I was, but interestingly enough, they all felt like they’d tasted it before. As the three Sicilians sat around the table, they sipped the beverage and threw out guesses as to what flavor it might have. They pretty quickly honed in on the medicine cabinet, but still couldn’t quite put their finger on it. Bemused, I eventually offered a suggestion I’d heard from another European I knew who’d recently tried root beer for the first time. That did the trick and pretty quickly, they figured it out. Apparently there’s some sort of mouthwash sold in Italy which tastes just like root beer. It’s too bad for them that the taste has been spoiled by a dental hygiene product, but personally I’m looking forward to figuring out just where I can purchase this mouthwash! After we’d finished off the dessert, we shared some children’s games with each other and somehow, one thing led to another and we stumbled across the perfect ritual for our fraternity. So we dimmed the lights, set the stage, and began our Pi Delta Pi initiation. Now it’s official: I have a real Italian (Greek) family.