Day 263

It has been a beautiful, sunny weekend in IC- about time considering all of the rain and storms we’ve had recently! Despite having been out partying Friday night (and not getting to bed til’ way past four am), I needed to be up relatively early to head into the lab. Because I left early Friday evening to pop home and get ready for J’s graduation party (more on this, below), I didn’t get chance to finish everything at work that I wanted to and as such popped in this morning to inject some frog eggs with some RNAs and grow up some plated bacterial colonies in the incubators.  After a few hours I decided it was time to go and enjoy the heat, first with a jog and a swim and then a salad and some sunbathing in one of the downtown parks. All in all, a relaxing Saturday that has been very much overdue in the excitement of the last few week or so!

Woo! Congrats, J!

Yum! Fruit salad in the sun at the park!

So, as mentionned above, my good friend J graduated from UIowa with her Bsc in Chemistry this weekend- so, of course, we had to party! We started the night with her family, our lab and all of her roomates and friends at Brix Wine and Cheese Bar having a civilised catch-up, taking plenty of photos and enjoying the company. It was so, so lovely yo see J's parents, sister and uncle again after staying with them in Nashville last November, especially since I don't know when we will see one another again! I had the fortune to meet J's much talked about best friend from Kansas City, who was an absolute blast, as well as, her freshman roomate and her boyfriend, who I had weirdly so much in common with and were so, so sweet! Afterwards, we headed back to J's where she opened some presents and we did a bit of pre-drinking, before saying goodnight to her family and heading out to the bars. As always, we had a fab night- ended perfectly by drunk-food pizza and cupcakes!

Sunday followed in a similarly chilled fashion, I ran some errands (groceries, cleaning, laundry) and then met my Boss’s super-sweet and lovely wife, P, and baby-B for brunch at the quaint, vinatge-chic Leaf Kitchen! We headed back to theirs and Baby-B and I entertained ourselves by baking some sugar cookies and rainbow cupcakes whilst my boss spent time working on some important grant applications that are due in the near future. I had lots of fun borrowing a child to play with for the afternoon- definitely the best way to do it!

Last week was work’s Frontiers in Membrane Protein Structural Dynamics conference in Chicago, which my boss asked me to tag along to- and, of course, there was no way I was passing up a road-trip to the Windy City with my lab buddies. And, gosh, was I so glad they invited me! We had an absolute blast!

My boss, our post-doc and another PI from the Mol. Phys. department picked me and our lab’s lovely grad student-soon-to-be-post-roc, S, at 8.00am on the Wednesday morning (with some freshly-baked fruit scones I’d concocted to fuel our trip) in a HUGE Chevrolet Suburban- literally so big that my 6’ 4’’ boss had whole row of seats to stretch out in and there was even a table in between the driver’s and front passenger’s seats.

Fruit Scones for the trip!

Okay, so I might not have understood 80% of the seminars that we attended (Which, admittedly, was still only about 50% of the seminars we were supposed to since the weather was beautifully scorching hot and my boss insisted we instead spend the time drinking cocktails and exploring the city…no complaints here!)… but honestly, just being surrounded by professionals at the forefront of their research careers was an invaluable experience. I was lucky enough to have to opportunity to meet the German collaborators and, more specifically, the actual grad student from Berlin who I have been sending tRNA reaction products to for the last couple of months. He was really nice and I loved being able to put a face to the mysterious scientist working so many thousands of miles away!

Anyway, aside from the work portion of our trip, food, drink and tourism definitely took up the majority of our time. We drove the Hilton, Chicago and decided that we’d leave parking the beast to the hotel’s valet staff, checked in to our rooms, and S and I immediately set off to sight-see and take plenty of snaps before the key-note began that evening. 

First we headed just across the Michigan Ave. to Grant Park to see the Buckingham fountains, followed by a brief photo-op beside Lake Michigan and a short stroll north to Millennium Park to see the Cloud Gate sculpture. S and I walked as far up Magnificent Mile as we could, of course detouring to Nordstrom’s and Macy’s along the way, before we gave into our rumbling stomachs and succumbed to the temptations of Chicago’s traditional Deep-dish at Gino’s Original Pizza. 

Millenium Park, Anish Kapoor's 'Cloud Gate'

Deep Dish!

The following day, upon strong encouragement from my boss and his good friend and a colleague of ours from the lab across the corridor, S and I joined them for drinks in the 30 degree sunshine, ice-cream on the lake-front and a leisurely stroll around the city’s aquarium and downtown area. After a shower and another couple of drinks at the hotel, we met up with my supervising post-doc and our german collaborator to head out for dinner. We walked to a highly recommended restaurant called ‘The Publican’ and, through shear serendipity, arrived just at the right time to walk straight to the last available table at this very, very popular and super-busy restaurant. 

Out for drinks in the sun, I, of course, had a Pimms!

I could honestly sit here and write a good couple thousand words about the meal we ate, but I’m just going to stick with the fundamental fact: This meal was the probably one of the best I have ever eaten, anywhere in the world. The food is served family-style and the service was impeccable. I recommend this restaurant to anyone who’s ever anywhere near downtown Chicago- specifically try their pickles and charcuterie plate, followed by the bread and butter pudding, but you honestly wouldn’t be going wrong with anything on the menu at this beautiful place! 

Amazing food at The Publican

Bread pudding with salted caramel ice cream and chocolate mousse cake with butter toffee and goat's milk ice cream

After our meal, we headed a couple of blocks to a popular bar, ‘Au Chevalle,’ for my colleague’s very much endorsed ‘pickleback’- a shot of whisky followed by a shot of homemade pickle juice. You might think this sounds disgusting- but let me assure you of just how wrong you’d be! I had two and would have definitely gone for numbers three and four had I not needed to be up at 7am the following morning for the rest of the conference! 

Not content with the sightseeing packed days I’d already enjoyed, I skipped the Friday second session of talks and lunch, to do a little shopping and squeeze in a brief visit to the impressionism and 18th/19th century exhibits at the Chicago Art Institute- of course making sure I was back in time to cheer on my PI as he presented the work he’s been doing in our lab to the consortium on friday afternoon! That evening, a whole group of us- all of the UIowa cohort, our german colleagues and various Big Names in Biophysics, went for food and drinks at ‘The Gage’ on Michigan. Again, an excellent choice! I enjoyed an elderflower and tequila conceal, a juicy burger with curry-gravy fries and couldn’t help but steal some of my boss’s fried pickles (my absolute FAVOURITE american food) and duck confit poutine. 

S and I on a Friday night in downtown Chicago.

Such a great food weekend! As nice as Iowa City is- I’d definitely move to Chicago in a heartbeat; for the food, for the shopping, for the atmosphere and entertainment. I loved being able to wander the city on my own, and basically cement what, over the week, had blossomed into a true love affair with the Midwest capital. So much so, in fact, that I woke up early Saturday morning to have a final few hours alone in the city before driving the four hours back to IC. 

The week of work between Chicago and this weekend was definitely one of the busiest since I’ve been back from my birthday trip- and as such, I was really, really happy to get a surprise package from home containing lots of foods that I have been missing and the McBusted T-Shirt that they had bought me as a souvenir from the concert a couple of weeks ago! It felt so good to just have that little bit of contact from home, and made me realise how excited I am to get back to normal in a few months time (no matter how sad I’ll be to be leaving the US)!

My plans for the upcoming week include hot yoga and sushi with my friend, A, on wednesday and getting back into healthy food ways and exercising ready for the oncoming Holiday Of A Lifetime in only 54 days!!!

Okay, bedtime for me- need to be in the lab bright and early in the morning ready to measure some oocyte currents!

love love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx