When you are supposed to take a shower....

..... but there is thunder outside and you don’t want to get zapped through the showerhead - well then you have to find something else to do right?Such as keeping up complaining about this stupid apartment complex which feels more like a stuffy toaster oven. Never ever in my life have I had to cool down a cup of camomile tea in order to avoid sweating like a 🐷 before going to bed:

Can’t wait to move into that house in Doylestown! And speaking of Doylestown I went there for a wonderful dinner last night . I got there early (so I avoided traffic) and bought tickets for the trans bridge bus, which has service directly to Manhattan✌🏻 (guess what plans I have this weekend?) and then I hung out at Starbucks for a bit on their giant outdoor space. Everything is posh in Doylestown apparently

I even got to browse a second hand book store with an amazing selection of books for a very good price. Among other books I got this one for Luca, which I really hope he will like:

Otherwise I have mainly been working. And I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how to make sure I don’t run myself dry. One very important thing, that has finally dawned on me, is that I can’t expect to constantly be on top of things in this job - and that this is OK. And I have been trying to be better at closing down my computer and go home at a designated time.

And I think I will end this blogpost with a little piece of nerdy art from the hallways at work: “the joy and heartbreak of drug development revealed by positron emission tomography images of A2a receptors in the brain”:

You are very welcome😏

Weekeeeeeend

What a week! I have to admit that I am on the brink of exhaustion. I am 4 months into this new job of mine and things are moving! Fast! When you are in academia and people talk about industry jobs they always talk about how fast moving things are, and well I get it now. It’s like everything hits you from all sides all the time and up until now I have gladly absorbed everything coming my way, but I can certainly sense that I will need to learn to handle this. ASAP. Luckily I have really awesome colleagues who knows how to do this and will take the time to share their experience.

As I write this I am in the airport. Quite a bit early as my brain stopped functioning and I decided to just get to the airport and avoid the worst of rush hour traffic. This has given me the time to walk all the way to the other end of the airport for this:

Nomnomnom.

I can’t wait to be back in Ann Arbor and hang out with all my favorite family members. 2 legged and 4 legged

And this time it feels SO good to know that I have secured us a house in Pennsylvania. So from August and beyond we will be Doylestowners (or whatever you might call that) as we are going to live right here:

In a beautiful new house that even allows for a dog tenant. It is a townhome style house with a court yard in the back and plenty of green areas (and sidewalks. Ladies and gentleman - there are sidewalks in Doylestown🥳).In addition the school district is awesome and it is a really nice town. Teresa and I have been there and she has approved the posh high school (from the outside)

Things are beginning to fall into place and even though there are still a lot of things that needs to be settled a home is no longer on that list❤️

Goat yoga and other Philly adventures

Today at 8:09 AM

I have had a visitor this weekend, who happens to be one of my favorite people from Ann Arbor. And part of the game plan for the weekend was to do goat yoga as Tammy is a lover of both goats and yoga. Me - not so much (oh the hard sacrifices I make for friends.....😏). But first we had a Friday to get through.Full of hipster breakfast in Fishtown we ventured to the center of Philly to visit the ultimate museum of medicine curiosities, the Mutter museum:

You were not allowed to take pictures in there which kind of makes sense as it is not everyone who likes to see malformed fetuses, human skulls, and wax replicas of nasty infections. But we loved it! And you certainly learn to appreciate good health and not living in medieval times after a visit!

We also had time to sit in hammocks and eat icecream:

And as I am a crazy party animal I made sure to get Tammy hooked on helping me out with my puzzle Friday night✌🏻

Saturday came along and we spend a solid hour (at least) on the delayed oh-so-slow train to Philly to make it to south Philly where the yoga studio was. And there were goats! Two of them to be exact...... but since they kind of tried to escape and/or eat the candles (the battery kind - not the flame kind) all the time I think more than two would have been quite chaotic:

They look cute, but I must say that the power they contain in their cute little heads when they climb underneath you and start head butting you as you struggle to do a yoga pose? That power is intense! Ouch!

Most importantly the birthday girl was happy:

And as we went to have dumplings afterwards, where I finally got to try soup dumplings (dumplings with soup inside) I had a blast too. Here I am, poking a hole in my dumpling to release the broth. It requires a lot of focus:

And then we strolled through the Italian market where they had sflogiatella😍

If you have never tried them - please do! They are kind of tricky to make so if a bakery has them it’s a good bakery, and these were SO delicious. We also had teapot cake with raspberry and earl grey mousse later in Chinatown

And last but not least we got to visit the secret garden. A giant outdoor mosaic with all kinds of stuff going on and on and on:

It is a popular place and if we had not booked tickets in advance we had not gotten in.

And poof - it is Sunday morning and Tammy is on her way to the airport after an interesting wait at the train station in the-middle-of-nowhere-rich-suburbs-with-mansion-size-houses. Usually a pretty quiet place, but this morning there was a guy who was high as kite, and rocking out to his own inner concert to en extent where we got concerned he might hurt himself, so Tammy called the police. But as soon as the train arrived he managed to pull himself together and get on the train about 15 seconds before the police arrived at the station.

Nothing like making memories with friends!

Safe travels Tammy - it was awesome to have you visit

Third and final confirmation

This weekend was Luca’s confirmation weekend. Third and final kiddo, and he had such a good day. My sister came over from Denmark and we had a few of our closest friends over. “Unfortunately” Luca’s best friend also had his confirmation the same day, and since none of the families have mastered the art of being in two places at once we had to miss out on each other’s parties. But they still got to hang out at church before the confirmation:

Luca was very excited (and a tiny bit nervous). But we did manage to get a few photos before we went:

The confirmation class was 19 kids this year which was quite a few. And here they are in all their excitement before the service started:

And here we are after it’s all over:

My sister had prepared her amazing super embarrassing speech with super embarrassing pictures. And we had the super embarrassing song:

But - most importantly - Luca had a fantastic day and enjoyed every moment. And here he is having just spent his gifted money on a clarinet:

Summer Saturday in Philly

When I moved here I didn’t really know what to expect from Philly. I had heard about Philly cheese steaks and also that it is “the birthplace of America” but it honestly surprised me that it was right in the middle of NYC and Washington DC. I have been in here a handful of times by now, but today has been extraordinarily good. It has been perfect summer weather and I know my way around by now so I can venture a little further out from the center and still kind of know where I am at.

First stop today was Spruce Street Harbor Park, where they have set up a load of hammocks right by the river side:

And there were also food trucks and bars and floating islands in the water:

I really hope I get to go back here a warm summer night.

On the way back I had lunch at the Bourse. The fanciest food court I have ever seen in my life:

Where I got a dumpling sampler. I am such a sucker for dumplings and these were freshly made and GOOD!

I strolled back through old town to the very far end of Chinatown where there is a lantern festival going on. The lanterns get lit at night and you have to buy tickets to get in, but it was still worth a visit in the daytime:

I have been drinking bubble tea:

And I had a cappuccino on a sidewalk cafe

After which I walked out to Whole Foods right by all the museums to get a bottle of wine for tonight’s dinner with colleagues. Pennsylvania has had (and still has) a very strict alcohol policy and only few grocery stores sell it, but this Whole Foods is one of them. And I got a bottle of Pomelo white wine which will either be fantastic or an utter disaster. Time will tell!😬