Since Sal's foray in hospital things have been a bit quiet. We had been expecting Chris to visit, but due to problems with visas that may not be happening, which is disappointing. The good news is that we finally got the car! It still has some things to sort out with the dealer but other than that it is great to be mobile.
We got our new computer going and online which should make life easier. We even got the choice of stealing our neighbor’s wireless internet, although our consciences got the better of us. The legal connection is a bit dodgy though so our attempts to skype the family back home have proved disastrous. If anyone knows how to improve the quality of a skype call please tell us.
I started my volunteer work in the laboratories at Duke today. It is a bit intimidating being back in a laboratory. I did enjoy my 50/50 office and field job at the Dept for Environment and Conservation. Instead of worrying about jammed printers and being run over by tractors I need start worrying about pipetting 4 µl instead of 5 µl (dear family, 1 µl = 1 millionth of a liter) and not poisoning myself with ethidium bromide.
I spent my first day volunteering at Seeds (I mentioned this in a previous blog, but it is a community garden in Durham). It is a very interesting place, extremely starved of funds but extremely well organized and well run. The staff range from warm and friendly to excruciatingly shy. It was good to get my hands in dirt and to do some manual labor. The staff also gave me the names of some shops where ‘poorer people’ shop, which should be a nice change from faceless megastores.
Sal in the new car.
One of the gardens at Seeds.
Just to prove it happened, here is Sal in hospital. The other person is our wonderful Mexican neighbor Fernando who drove us there. 
1 comment:
Hi Nic, Sal,
Good to hear you're settling in, and coming to terms with the serving sizes, liquor availability and car culture.
So as it turns out there will be no trip to the US. Ever. Which suits me. I don't think the following website actually exists, but it's worth a try. I'm sure I'm not the first person to desire such a website.
At least I can go skiing this weekend in Whistler with my friends in the lab. I'll ensure lots of pictures are taken! Meantime I'm expressing protein in 400 ml cultures of bacteria ("Hey Carsten, dare you to drink it! Don't worry, it's got antibiotics... no wait, it's resistant!!"). And so forth.
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