Changes in Latitudes

A week before Christmas I flew into Mexico City to meet Marius and his family for our nearly three week excursion through southern Mexico. We spent our first three days in Mexico City, and were led by a guide the whole trip. We began with a tour of the historical area of the city, which included the Metropolitan Cathedral, remains of ruins under the city, and the museum of archaeology for a brief history lesson of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. [Inside the Metropolitan Cathedral] [Mexico City] We had one free day to do explore on our own, but we opted for a tour of Taxco. Taxco is known for its silver mines. We expected a guide of the silver mining process, but instead were told to put on hard hats, listen to the man tap on different cups for us to guess which was the purest silver, and ended up taking a shot of tequila. Their show room was full of salesmen and more offers of tequila. When we finally got into the town of Taxo, we felt taken back by about 50 years. Most...

2014 was kicked off with a snorkel trip with Marius, his parents and his sister (Katrine), followed by a 2-dive scuba trip with Katrine the next day. The visibility was awesome and the variety of marine life that I had not yet seen in the wild was remarkable!  [One of the best pictures from the GoPro] [Marius] Marius was supposed to go diving with us, but he woke up feeling ill. Katrine and I had two dives. The first one was around 19 m depth at an area called Tortugas. In the first five minutes once we had descended, we spotted two bull sharks! There were also multiple sea turtles; I think they were hawksbill or green sea turtles. I couldn't see the difference. Green and spotted moray eels were also a highlight! The second dive was around 12 m, much more shallow, and mainly reef fish and sea turtles. Spotted a few lion fish - invasive and poisonous! After the dive I bought the video that the dive shop's videographer made, but I have uploaded my footage from my ...

So, it's been a long time since I last posted. In November Marius and I were trying to sort out my visa when we found out that since my student visa expired, I was supposed to be back in the US for a 90 day "quarantine period". It came as a big shock and surprise. I arrived in time for Thanksgiving in Connecticut - my first Thanksgiving stateside since 2008! I'm spending most of my time at home searching for a job. I had an interview on Thanksgiving day with a lab in Bergen, and they ended up choosing me for the position; however, they had to change their mind a couple of days later because of my visa situation. It was upsetting, but at least now I know I can land a job! Even though I wasn't home for Christmas time I got to help pick out our tree (which was from Home Depot this year) and be with Mom for her birthday. I went to Mexico for 20 days with Marius' family for Christmas time...will post about that after.

This weekend I earned my dry suit certificate. Dry suit diving proved to be quite a challenge, and I definitely need more practice. There seemed to be so many things going on! Marius and I took the course together out in an area slightly west of Bergen city center called Laksevåg (Salmon Bay) with Nemo Classic Diving. The course consisted of: A couple hours of theory: our instructor went through the manual with us and showed us the different exposure suits. Then 2 dives. The first dive was on Saturday, and the primary purpose was to get us used to diving in the dry suit. I was given a dry suit that turned out to be one size too big! I was getting air leaking out of my neck and water seeping in towards my chest. Every time I would add air into my suit it would escape through my head and then suddenly I found myself either rapidly sinking or shooting up to the surface! Marius and the other girl in our group had a great dive, meanwhile I was bobbing from 10 m depth to the surface. Wa...

A rather delayed post of my last day in Iceland - sorry about that. Well, Marius and I were staying at a hostel that was not optimal for our trip, called Capital Inn, located 30 mins outside of town (by foot). And our room smelled soooo bad because the other two guesrs in our room had drank alcohol the night before so the B.O. was TERRIBLE! So we got up relatively early on Sunday and brought our things to the city to have breakfast where we had eaten dinner a couple night before called Glætan - not the best food, but a good value and atmosphere.  We knew we wanted to squeeze in the Blue Lagoon before we left and it turned out that the bus only goes from the Lagoon to the airport twice a day: noon and 2pm. But we were still going to do it even though we only got lne hour there. It was a bit hectic but we made it and got relaxed once we entered the water. It was definitely a place we will have to visit again! So a tip for anyone going to Iceland and want to squeeze in the Blue Lagoon...

Saturday (the 28th), I took Marius for a day trip for an early birthday present. It was an 11 hour excursion which included a soak in a hot spring, some waterfalls, and a hike on a glacier. The guide had some intersting stories and we even saw the infamous volcano that erupted in 2010 (and nearly ruined our Thailand trip).  It was a pricey trip, but for me it was worth it since our guide could tell us more about the eruption and the glacier, as well as some Icelandic history. Oh and a big thing to mention - the weather was FANTASTIC! --> a geyser on the way to the hot spring --> he was excited to warm up in the river --> the glacier we walked on; looked dirty due to all of the ash

Long day of talks, some very interesting an others not really my interest, but Marius arrived Thursday night. My talk was on Friday, the last day of the conference. I was nervous because the room was massive. I tried to keep it shorter than 15 minutes for any questions but there were none. Another recent Master grad also wasn't asked questions, so we believe the older guys perhaps didn't want to scare us -- and it was also the last day of the conference.  The weather was very nice on Friday, so Marius and I walked around the coty a little bit before the log walk to a hostel I booked for the weekend. Glad I took part in the conference as it was a valuable experience and was able to make some contacts at NOAA. I was also told that my talk was a highlight for one pf the sessions :)