Newark, Delaware

I was back in the States, this past weekend, visiting the University of Delaware. It was extremely considerate of them to pay for my flight all the way back to the USA and I really liked the department. MSE has a brand new beautiful building and lots of new equipment to use - everything I can imagine that I would need. The students and Professors were friendly and the research was really interesting. I was also very impressed by the IEC. My only wish is that I could have more information about Georgia Tech. I've e-mailed a few professors, but I just don't get a good sense of what the school is all about. I like that Delaware is a small, newer department. At Michigan I often felt like a small fish in a big pond - at the same time gold fish grow to fill their containers, whenever I visited a little pond, having grown up at UM, I felt like a big fish.

It wasn't until my visit this weekend that I noticed some of the differences between the US and UK. The first thing I noticed was how much more friendly people are in the US. It could be a big city thing in London, but ten minutes after getting off of the plane several people had stuck up small talk with me. An astronomer from CalTech reminded me to grill the graduate students when the professor wasn't around, and the ladies at the hotel were adorable! The hotels in the states are also much much nicer. So are ladies rooms in restaurants and cafes. Most cafes in London don't even have them and if they do they are cold, lack toilet paper and are rather less than clean. There is better public transport in London and everything doesn't look the same like it does in the states. Diet cokes tastes better in America but chocolate is better in the UK. I almost had reverse culture shock being back "home" for a few days. I am quite glad to be back in London.

This last trip I took got up my courage to finally plan my journey for spring break. I will be traveling with a class mate Beth to Germany and Poland. I got the global train pass and will take a detour back to London through Austria, France and possibly the Czech republic. Beth is flying straight back from Berlin, but I'm going to head out on my own for about a week. I've got a friend in Paris I think I'm going to visit also, but I haven't made plans other than to work out the first week and get my train ticket. If I end up going back early I can use the days on my train pass for up to two months. I've been traveling a lot but I'm getting used to finding my way around and making due.

Speaking of DUE I have a few assignments whose due dates are loomin gso I will be off to finish those!