It's probably time for me to actually write this blog post. I've had pictures sitting in a draft for a week now, but haven't actually written anything. Oops.
First things first, the defence was successful and I managed to walk away with this fancy piece of paper that proclaims I have a masters degree.
Which means the mission of the last 2 years of my life was achieved. Wooooo!
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To celebrate this momentous occasion, we went on the first real holiday I've had since starting grad school. It's one thing to travel, but as a grad student, there's always the shadow of school and research hanging over your head.
It took about 10 days for the whole 'I'm done and graduated and don't have anything I have to get back to' thing to sink it.
So we headed to Tuscany and met up with my sister and proceeded to have a wonderful time drinking wine, wandering the country side, and riding some really, really nice carbon bikes. We took an insane number of pictures, a smattering of which are as follows:
The Steiner girls like to play. The shit-eating grin is due to the forgotten pleasures of a really nice carbon fibre road bike (I am so getting one when we're back in Alaska). Also, playgrounds in the middle of the Tuscan country side are kinda fantastic.
The view of San Gimignano from the top of a tower |
This pose seems to be really popular. |
The graffiti on the do not enter signs in Florence was awesome |
As nerdy engineers, Ev and I enjoyed the architecture in Florence. Not such a fan of the city itself - it was crowded and touristy. But what else is new.
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Rach left us in Florence and we continued to Croatia for some beaches and rock climbing. It's been almost a year since Ev and I climbed on some real rock. I gotta say, there's nothing quite like it. To beat the heat (and people), we got up at the buttcrack of dawn and were at the crag before 6am.
The 5am wakeup call was a bit much for Dad. |
There was a hike, and naturally, Ev had to find the tallest point around.
A day trip to Krka National Park was awesome. The waterfalls are epic, and we got to go swimming, which, given the whole 35 degree C heat, was magical.
And the state of the concrete was... abysmal. Rebar should not be able to be used as a hanger. Ev was very adamant about this.
Croatia is beautiful. Lots of mountains and rock and beaches for swimming.
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The parents have now been put on a plane home and Ev and I are in the process of cleaning and packing up our stuff. We seem to have done a pretty good job of not accumulating a bunch of stuff in the 2 years we've been in Europe, which is kind of impressive. Soon we'll be heading back to Alaska and the whole 'responsible adult' thing.
Well, maybe not 'adult'.
Or 'responsible'.
Heh.