Day 45-47

Time is starting to fly by.

I have realized I have gotten into a routine now, which definitely has pluses and minuses.

Pluses being I like what I'm doing, so it is good always having it there...

Minuses being I haven't really met that many new people, and the traveling around scotland has greatly died down, even though the traveling around the world has increased :P.

Wednesday I woke up at the crack of dawn, as usual, walked through a BLIZZARD to get to class. Now, I'm from Southern California, I'd say it has snowed at one of my places of residence a total of 5 times over the last 20 years. And when I say snowed, I mean there is a light sprinkling of hole-puncher-cut-outs coming down. This however, was a blizzard! Sideways winds and a heavy fall of snow (to me) = cold. Apparently the winter time snow veterans didn't think it was thaaaat bad, but who cares what they think right?! ;). So anyway, once I made it to class I felt relieved, we talked more about memory - this time on the working memory and executive functions like planning and executing things. Interesting as always. Had a few more classes throughout the day, diagnosed a dyslexia patient, which actually is very intriguing... and then headed back home. Through the blizzard!

Later that night USA and Canada hockey games were on. I headed over to Benny and Daves to watch them. There were probably 10 people there for the USA game, which we won, it was a pretty uneventful game though ... in the meantime between the games we had a good 2+ hours. So we busted out articulate once again, we got two solid games in before Canada started. By which time there are literally 20 people here, not exaggerating. It was amazing how everyone fit in the room, it looked like a movie scene where a director perfectly tetris-ized everybody into place. That game started quickly, with Canada scoring 4 goals in the start of the first period... When it was 6-1 towards the end of the first, I decided to go home and get some sleep, tomorrow was a big day for me!

When I got home I began reading some articles, books, all contributing to working on a research proposals I presented Thursday and Friday. On Thursday I met with a professor named Robbie Cooper, he has a PhD and teaches my neuroscience class during the modules on facial processing and emotion. We talked about a project he thought up that has to do with eye motion when looking at something and then the perception you get on that something, for instance, if you look up at something do you view it more positively than when you look down at it, etc. After we discussed the idea for a bit he offered me full collaboration with him on the project, (which is huge for me!) this means we will do equal work more or less and then after the write up, both get publication credit. And a publication at this stage in my career(?) proves to be quite the achievement to the boards that I will soon be facing come graduate or medical school. After we were done talking about that project, we talked a bit about the draft of my project I had sent him. I am applying for a student grant to conduct research on anticipatory eye saccades. (I just started typing more about it, but then I thought somehow someone would steal my idea...?) Maybe a bit protective of it at the moment, but I believe (as well as a few of my professors) I have a solid idea. So, after talking about it I was able to fill in the complete application, including my necessary funding amounts and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, I need a signature and brief approval rational from a "director of studies/supervisor"... whom I emailed, only to receive an auto-response of "out of office until March 15th" ... this isn't good.

I quickly emailed both the head module leader of my neuroscience class, Alex, as well as Robbie asking if they would be able to sign me off early on Friday morning... there was no responses Thursday night, so I went to bed with my fingers crossed.

I woke up early friday to find both had replied, Robbie said he wasn't working in the office but we could meet up if need be - but even better, Alex had filled out the application completely, along with an electronic signature. I am ready to go. I bought my all-day bus pass and started my errands, went to one campus to get my transcripts, then another to propose my grant. It is all good to go, but I was told since I hadn't completed a year of studies at Napier, that it could pose to be a problem. Let's hope not, two overseas publications would be some great stepping stones to stand on... After I was done with all that good stuff, I ran into Daniel at campus, we talked and caught up for a bit, definitely one of the coolest guys I have met on this trip. Shortly after I hopped on another bus and was off to home. But, in the deep meditative thought that busses put you in, I remembered I needed food!!! So, I hopped off the bus to the local grocery and stocked up :). There is a routine I do for grocery shopping now as well, first I get all my veggies + salad necessities, then fruits, then dairy, meat, bread, cereal, pasta... omnomnom. Amazingly it only came out to 22 pounds?! I think it is because I didn't get any meat, but still, good deal. I bussed it back home.

After making some delicious food, I remembered I needed to "top-up" my phone. I think it is pretty funny, everyone has 20-50 pound phone plans here. I paid 10 pounds of credit in January, and calls were .8p a minute, and texts were .5p. But, I received unlimited texting in February. Not to mention in the UK, incoming calls are free. So, basically, I have unlimited incoming talk time and texting, for 10 pounds, of which I received minutes and texts from anyway! Needless to say, I put another 10 pounds down yesterday, of which I can use strictly for outgoing calls now, because I receive unlimited texting in March now as well. I think I have the system in a headlock on this one.

A poker game was suppose to happen Friday night, but a lack of effort and people wanting to play made this never happen. More hockey was on tonight though, and people were at Benny and Daves already watching it, so I figured I would go join the party. USA smashed Finland (sorry Finland friends) 6-1. It was now about 10 pm, and the Canada game wasn't on until 2:30 am... articulate time? Yes. I won't go into detail, but basically - fun as always. Came home for a semi-early nights sleep. Let the weekend begin!

Day 42-44

A few more days to add to the tally! and I wish I had pictures of monday nights adventures...

Sunday started off after coming out of a long coma from the highlands trip. I met up with Amy and we headed to a local bookstore that afternoon. We ended up staying for a few hours, and I ended up picking up a plethora of books (I know, cool word). Including; Albert Einstein - Essays in Science, Carl Sagan - Broca's Brain, Rita Carter - Mapping the Mind, and NewScientist - Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze (kind of like the bathroom reader, if you have ever read that). I dove into them that night, and got about halfway through Einstein, I feel smarter already, or dumber - theoretical physics is not my expertise!

Sunday night was USA vs Canada hockey, and I must admit, I wasn't planning on watching it after I figured out it would last until 3 in the morning. But, when your room gets raided by a group of confident Canadians, you just have to go see how the game plays out. It was about 8 of us in Benny's room, all Canadians except Katie and I. And seeing as USA scored the first goal ini 42 seconds, that is about how long it took for the trash talking to begin ;). By the end of it, I felt kind of bad for laying it on them, as they hung their heads in dismay... oh to have lost, to team U.S.A.

Monday I had class, we talked a little more about reading routes, I learned in depth about dyslexia and the causes to it - quite interesting actually... afterwards I headed back home. Tonight was the night of a Ceilidh, a traditional Scottish gathering consisting of food, drinks and endless dancing. I was pretty excited to go to this, and not only got Jordan and Marc to stop writing their essays to come out with us. But also pulled Malcom out of a semi-conscious sleep to join us in some pre-Ceilidh festivities. A few others came over, and needless to say, we started the night off right. When we made it to the Ceilidh we were greeted by all our other friends who got there before us, and I immediately went into the next dance which was taking place in the middle of the pub. Now that I look back on it, I danced the entire event. Just get me a kilt and call me "Elllric" So, the first dance, I was holding my own, learning the ropes, you know how it goes... and then I believe Malcom bet Jordan "5 points" if he could get me a drink during the middle of the dance. He did, and then that was followed by 5 or 6 other hands with drinks extending out to me. I felt like I was at a carnival game, and now that I have successfully tested every drink in the pub, the dance goes on. After the first dance, everyone was extremely jealous of my dancing skills so they joined in (or some other reason like that). It was great, definitely one of the best Scottish traditions I have partaken in thus far. At a point, Jordan Kerri Natalie and I were used as an example group for a dance! They ended the Ceilidh with some classical Scottish tunes, such as the soundtrack to Rocky... followed by some Journey, which 20 of us sang in harmony in a giant circle... complete with air mics and guitars. A music video in the making if you ask me.

The Ceilidh might have been over, but the night sure was not! And the stampede coming up the stairs to our flat proved it. Our flat was wall to wall packed, with a bouncer at the door and a line around the corner. Minus the bouncer. What a fun way to end the night. Everyone had a great time and we celebrated until the early morning.

Therefore, Tuesday was deemed the day of recovery. We woke up, cleaned up a little bit, then Jordan came over looking as confused as ever. As if he had woken up from a 3 year slumber. We all ordered pizza. I got the sizzler, which was absolutely delicious (and very hot). Afterwards Jordan got me to watch a show called "the unit" , about some special forces guys who do some intense missions. It was a pretty good show so I borrowed the first DVD and watched it for the rest of the day! I also finished up my research proposal for a student grant here, pitched it to a few professors beforehand as well, they all think it is a solid idea! So I am very excited about that. Lastly, I got 100+ songs from a girl downstairs who I always hear playing music from our window. Some good stuff in there! And last lastly, I looked into something called binaural beats, I read about them in a health magazine and thought I would do some more in depth investigating. These only work in headphones, and they send a slightly different frequency beat to each ear - you can't tell - but your brain can, it takes the difference in hz of these frequencies and makes it into a pulse... which gradually sets your brain waves to this pulse... you can tune yourself for studying via high level thinking, or set yourself into a meditative presleep drowsiness, or even into sleep itself! Basically, >40hz are gamma waves, which are for higher mental activity and problem solving... 13-40hz are beta waves, for active/busy/anxious thinking and concentration... 7-13hz are alpha waves, for relaxation while awake and also presleep/dream drowsiness... and less then 4hz are delta waves, for deep dreamless sleeps and loss of body awareness. When I experimented with these, I did a delta wave beat... I was listening to it for a while until I felt my head tilt back and my eyes begin to become heavy. I damn near fell asleep! Pretty interesting stuff eh? If you think so, here is a site that has some samples of them. http://healingbeats.com/play.html

Cheers

Day 41

A day in the highlands.

An early day at that, the bus left at 8:30am.

Unfortunately, when I woke up at around 6:45, I had a killer stomach ache.

Sharp pains, couldn't really eat... etc... I looked up appendicitis, luckily I didn't have that. It lasted pretty much the whole trip, the first half of the bus ride home was absolutely terrible for me. But it began to die off towards the end, and now I feel fine, so no worries!

Long story short, that sucked, but the non-suckyness of the highlands overpowered the suckyness of my stomach.

It was about a 4 hour bus ride up to the highlands, we stopped a few times in between to get out at rest stops and take a few pictures, one being of a highland cow (or hochland-rind in German) who is there for tourists... kinda weird... but most of the pictures on the way up there were out of the window. Which then contained a lot of reflections of people's heads and sometimes even myself in the pictures. Blah. So I decided not to post any of those, all of these pictures were taken around our final stop, the small town called Oban. When I say small town, I mean the picture with the colosseum in it contains 1/2 of the houses in Oban. Ok not that small, but you get the point. It was amazing, there were lochs (lakes) and castles everywhere - bordered by huge snow-topped mountains and endless amounts of christmas trees. Quite a sight. We got off the bus and walked over to the loch on the shore of Oban, spent some time there taking pictures, then headed off to the hike up to the colosseum, which is where I got the panoramic shot of the towns view. It was a very fun trip filled with endless sights to see. On the way home we stopped a few times, took a shot of two castles. The bus ride there and back I was sitting with my roommate, Rob, and two girls from Holland, Femy and Margaret, and two girls from Finland, Linda and Anna (I hope :/). That by itself was interesting because we spent the whole time talking about our cultures and experiences, very insightful! All in all, great trip! And for only 8 pounds. What a deal.

Day 39-40

40 days and 40 nights in Edinburgh.

What a journey it has been so far, and it is only going to get better.

I went to class Wednesday morning, being in Belgium less then 10 hours from it, I was a bit tired. We got a new lecturer as well, he was pretty intense, definitely knew what he was talking about but he was going so fast. I got the majority of what he was saying, but I'm sure there are gaping holes in it. Eh, they will be filled in soon. Anyway, the lecture was about memory, what memory is and how we form them. Very interesting stuff!

In my next class we did an experiment to see if homologous word forms produce an error in reading... when we read we have two routes of the information going into our brains. The first route, called the direct route - is when you recognize a word on sight, it is how most of us read, from this recognition the word activates all your associations with the word and you now fully understand what it is (mind you this all happens in milliseconds). The second route, called the phonologic route, is when you sound out the word using spelling-to-sound rules of language, this is utilized by people who are beginning to learn to read as well as when we are presented with words we do not know. It was said that skilled readers would only use the direct route, as it is faster, reading by directly accessing memory was considered to only involve processing of the visual information of the text. We repeated an experiment which refuted this... in this experiment, subjects were shown a category, FRUIT for example, and we instructed to push "z" if the following word falls in that category, and "/" if not. Now, another word would flash on the screen - such as PAIR. The word PAIR accesses the phonological route and gives your brain the word PEAR/PAIR/PARE ... when thinking about the category of FRUIT one would tend to make the split second decision that indeed, PAIR is in the category of FRUIT. Showing that even as skilled readers, the two routes of reading are both accessed.

Wednesday night we organized a little poker game. It was Jordan, Marc, Dave, Shahab, Nick, Malcom and I. Pretty fun, it got down to Jordan and I in the end, I had a huge chip lead and then I don't want to talk about what happened after that ;). When it was all said and done, Jordan took first (with some help from those river cards!!). A really fun night none-the-less. We played a few 1 pound buy in quick games after, I managed to take some money from those. I got back in around 1:30am, ran into Malcom, we started talking, Rob showed up a bit later. We all just sat in the kitchen having full on debates - next thing I know it is 4:30. Bed time.

Thursday was a productive day. I made a to-do list the day before. I mailed some things I had to mail. Went to the grocery store, starting my healthy eating binge, got a ton of fresh veggies and fruits... omnomnom. Unfortunately I got on the wrong bus to come back home and took a 45 minute detour. Oh weeeeell. I then did laundry, skyped my pops, and finished up an application to Mortar Board - an honor society at state. After I finished eating my delicious food I headed over to Dave and Bennys for the night. Their friend from France was there, Charlene, we all hungout until late in the night and it was good fun!

Now I get 3 more days of my weekend... Gotta love my schedule!

Day 36-38

We hopped on the train and sat in the first class area for about 20 minutes before we were surprised to find out where we were via one of the crew and sent to the regular area. But it was well worth it ;). Arrived in Bruges at 5:15pm, it was getting dark, but we found our hostel, which was a great deal of only 28 euro for two nights! And we had our own room! After we threw down our bags we headed out in the dying sunlight, already this city screamed character. Everywhere we looked there were 400 year old houses or towering churches and buildings. Canals ran about through the city. This city is absolutely beautiful, as you can see by the pictures... I don't think my eyes were ever set in front of me. I was constantly looking up, around, everywhere. I do think that is how you can tell if someone is from wherever you are - if they are only looking straight when they are walking, the appreciation of the beauty of the city either left them or they never realized all of it that is surrounding them. Anyway, we headed down every cobblestone street and quickly found ourselves at a pasta shop, 3 euro for a giant cup of pasta with almost any sauce you could think of. A great deal! We had that, then headed in around 8pm. A free breakfast buffet is served from 8am to 930am at the hostel, and we intended to make it. I headed downstairs after a quick nap around 9pm, got a 1 euro pint during happy hour and bought a half hour of internet time. After that it was back upstairs for bed time!

An early 7:30am wakeup was in store for us today. But I was wide awake, thankfully. After all we did get a good 8-9 hours of sleep. I pounded all the food there was to offer at the breakfast buffet, filling up on oats&dried fruit, and toast. Followed by a few cups of coffee and a few cups of chocolate milk. We rented some bikes for 6 euro and set off on a 10 hour adventure. The city of Bruges isn't too big, I would say it was around 10km to bike the circumference. And that is just what we did. There were only 4 entrances into Bruges back in the castle days, they all were guarded by huge towers and gates. We saw 3/4 of these during our bike ride. Got an all-inclusive museum pass for 5 euro and went to a few. We saw where supposedly Christ's blood in contained behind a sanctuary in a church. We went to a lake filled with swans, where ancient nuns use to roam around. We climbed the 366 steep steps of the Belfry, where the treasure use to be held, and saw the city of Bruges from a birds eye view. We went on a boat tour throughout the canals of the city. We saw an original Michaelangelo creation. We went to every tower, every building, every nook and cranny of Bruges. We saw windmills, and we saw waffles. Basically saw it all. I'd say a good 80% of the streets containing stores had this layout: restaurant, waffles, chocolate, beer, fries, waffles, chocolate... and so on! After a huge day of countless hours of bike riding we headed in around 6pm. Immediately passing out and falling in and out of sleep until around 830pm. The girls went to get ready at about 7:45pm, and I didn't see them until well after 9pm! So, being that there was supposedly a bell concert at the belfry at 9pm, I went to go see it. Unfortunately, someone got their info wrong, and there was no concert - so I went to see if this local spaghetti place was open, where they serve huge portions for 3 euro, it was also not happening. What a disappointing jaunt. When I got back the girls were in, we decided we were going to spend our last night in Belgium honoring their love for beer. But before we did that, we had to get some food in our tummys! Off to the market square, there are two identical fry stands here. Same menus, same price, different families. These two fry stands have been competing since 1896! Shannon went to one, Rebecca and I went to the other. We told our guy that we were testing both of them, and I think that gave him some extra incentive to treat us oh so nicely. We got free samples of multiple sauces and he gave us a huge portion. The fries were delicious, they both were, I decided our guy was better - but I could be biased. We washed down our fries with some Leffe Blond beers, which was one of my favorites on the trip. I believe it was 6.6%, nothing compared to what was to come.

After fries I had a mental map of where the next two pubs were, apparently I refused to bring the map... anyway, turns out the first place we were going was down a two foot wide alleyway. We had to ask our fry guys where it was. But after we got there we all ordered Garre's, which is at the restaurant De Garre, and is also the only place in the WORLD that you can get this beer. It was very satisfying, and set the night off right. From there I actually managed to get us to our next destination, Bruges Beertje, a local pub with over 100 Belgian brews and a good atmosphere. We stayed there for our next two pints until late night having some quality conversation. My first beer I got was a Stradik Hendrik (don't quote me on the spelling), which is in the picture, it was a 9%-er. Also delicious. The next I had was called Delirium, and going by the name, was also a potent one, 9.9%-er. We were the last ones in the pub, chatted with the bar keeps for a bit then headed back towards the hostel. On our way back we popped into a local mini-mart for one last brew, I got a Kastelsteen (or something like that), and drank the 11%-death-wish right before bedtime. Great night!

Now when I woke up at the crack of dawn the next day I was not feeling so awake. But I toughed it out and lumped down the stairs to breakfast. I definitely got my fill, the girls even left me before I was done eating! A big bowl of cereal, and five pieces of toast, coupled with some tea and lots of water. I sat down with some guys from the netherlands and one from Sao Paulo, Brazil. We talked about traveling and places to go, things to see, it was a lot of fun... and now I was ready to go once again. Checkout was at 10am, so being it was 9:45, this was first on the agenda. We got all our stuff out and put it in the storage, it was now approaching 11, and we had to get a bus to the train station around 3. Four hours left in Bruges. The girls had already told me they wanted to go shopping and take it easy. So when I was planning this day out the day before, I pictured I would go to a few museums, walk around the town and then call it a trip. But then I thought about it a little more, and decided to rent a bike once again! Now that I have endless opportunity in front of me, I looked at a map, asked some people where somewhere cool to go was. The consensus answer was a town called Damme, 8km away. I was gone. Yet, I couldn't find the road to get to Damme, so I asked a jogger if he could help me out. He literally jogged with me as I rode next to him for 15 minutes until we reached the road. During that time we talked about a wide array of topics, (which was impressive he could hold a conversation during this!) he told me a little about the history of Bruges and some other places he has lived in. And then I got to the road, which is in the picture posted, it was such a peaceful time for me. Just riding a bike. I got to Damme a little before 12. It was a small town out in the countryside - there were miniature horses and houses. From there I rode another 12km to a castle in a nearby town, which unfortunately, looked nothing more than a castle-house. Not to mention the wind was at incredible speeds... directly into my face... making my bike riding seem as if I was on an elliptical at the gym, hell I might as well have been! But I finally made it back to Bruges, with a good 2 hours to spare! I went down every alley, saw every tower, every old house, everything. I could draw a map of Bruges from memory. It was great. From there I headed over to the modern art museum, but apparently my all-museum pass fell out during my bike riding around the city. Hopefully some other tourist picked it up because it still had another full day left on it! I still went to the museum, which was closed, but the viewing deck was open on the top floor, and I chatted up the receptionist and I was let through without paying ;). What a deal right? Another beautiful panoramic of Bruges. I stayed up there for a while, I was all alone on top of a towering building in a different country, and it was great. I then headed into the market square and people watched for a bit, mostly just relaxing from my bike ride. I tried to get food, but no where would accepted swipe cards, and I was flat out of money. . . so I decided to spend my last 45 minutes in a locally praised book store. I was talking to the owner for a few minutes, and then he took me to a section in the back that had academic and philosophy books. I was overwhelmed, there were writings by Plato (unfortunately, these were in dutch), others dating back to the 1500s, countless Egyptian hieroglyphic deciphered books, ancient roman works, books about spells and witchcraft... I found a few I truly enjoyed, I figured I would pick them up to read on the train/plane home... but I was only to find out at the end that the book store, also, did not accept swipe cards...

We went to the train station not knowing when a train would be arriving, and seeing as 20 people were killed in a train crash the day before in Brussels - unsure if one would be arriving at all. Workers were on strike in the French side of Brussels, but luckily we got into the train station at 3:50 to find a train leaving at 3:58, we rushed over and jumped on. Off we go.

We made it to Brussels, got on our bus, got trucked back to the airport, where we waited for our plane... and once again, off we went...

Edinburgh, home sweet home, for now.

Day 34-35

Brussels!

Well, this day started off with a nice 6AM wake up call! Packed up all my stuff into a hiking backpack that Jordan let me borrow. And was off to catch a 7:25am bus to waverly train station. I was meeting Shannon and Rebecca there, and I hadn't heard from them other then that the night before I was told it was a 7:50 train to glascow - where we had an 1130am flight. So I arrived at the train station, bought my ticket, then walked toward the boarding areas. I see one train leaving at 7:46am to glascow queen street, and a 7:56am to glascow central. I quickly text Rebeeca one last time to see what train it is, as it is 7:42am. The doors close on the queens street train, I am quickly walking beside it now to see if I could see the girls inside the train. At the same time I feel my phone vibrate with a text "queens street", so I immediately push the door open button and hop on the train! Not 5 steps later it departs. Only then to find out that the girls slept in and caught a train two trains later at 8:10. Precious sleep! No big deal really though, we met up at glascow station around 9:10 and then we were off to catch a bus to the airport. Another good 45min-hour away. When we finally arrived at the airport there was no waiting at all, we were in the lobby waiting for our plane 20 minutes later. Off to brussels.

We landed around 130-2pm. Only then having to catch a bus into the city center, a wopping 22 euros round trip! We made it to the city just around 3pm, and after a 30 minute scouring to find our hotel, we made it. After some lie down time and getting situated, combined with rummaging around our area for some food and things to do (which we were unable to find).. we finally realized we needed to get a metro to the main area. Which turned out to just be two blocks down, but that was unknown at the time. In the metro station we all had our first belgium waffles from a vendor, they were delicious. When we broke the surface from the underworld, it will filled with bright lights and rambunctious people. We popped into the first food place we saw, I believe it was called the food factory... and since the name indicates it produces food, I was game. I had a simple tuna sandwich and a huge white Belgian beer, equal in price but exceeding in amazingness. After eating we decided to check out the night life, we found a local Irish pub, (because we all know those are the best) it was absolutely packed. There was what seemed as a rave going on upstairs, with some live and laid back live guitar down stairs. Unfortunately, Europe didn't hear that smoking kills, and the pub seemed to be in a foggy haze. We got two rounds of 1 euro beers, and then by that time, exhaustion from the journey combined with headaches from the smoke sent us to an early bedtime.

We woke up around 11. It was snowing and around -5 degrees Celsius. But no big deal for me anymore, as I am a cold weather veteran now! We went to a little bakery nearby for two different kinds of croissants, coffee, and orange juice for only 3.50 euro! The best deal on the whole trip, I think. It was great. We began our walking shortly after, saw tons of chocolate and bakeries... but still really no sights. Until out in the distance we saw the steeple of one of the buildings in the pictures. We followed it like the north star, and soon we uncovered the street of tourism and cool stuff. Waffle shop after waffle shop led to Mannequin Pis, the magical peeing statue, which was for some reason dressed up in a demon/dragon/warrior costume... and then onto the grand square. It was breathtaking at first glance, huge towering buildings encompassed 100sq yards. We enjoyed that for a while and then headed into one of these buildings for a beer museum! It was 6 euro, and the guy said a beer was included and then jokingly said and there will be a quiz after the exhibit. The exhibit sucked. But the beer was delicious. We were drinking in a little room no bigger than a decent sized kitchen, there were about 6 old belgium men drinking around the bar and we joined on a nearby table. After we finished our beers, I asked what about the question for another round?! He said "you actually believed me?!" But, after some prying he shot off a question. Ironically enough, this question was definitely not in the exhibit, yet Rebecca had just read it in a tour-guide book. He asked how many types of trapiest beers there were (5, they are brewed by monks and only in Belgium)... we were even able to name them all off. Much to his dismay he poured us another round and the guys around the bar congratulated us. From then on it was a very friendly atmosphere filled with a ton of banter. We even got a few pictures with the belgium guys and our winnings. We headed out after an hour or so...

Now we had a better grounding on where we were and what there was to see, from there we hit statue after statue and giant building after giant building. Seeing huge cathedrals and even a venture to the european union. We saw everything there was to see in brussels! And of course we were a bit famished after all this running around, into frit'n toast we went, a local fry shop. We ordered a round of frit-something-special... they had globs of mayo, ketchup and onions on them. Definitely not my favorite meal of the trip, but they were enjoyed none-the-less. From there we waddled into Chocopolis, lured by the "free sample" sign. We all bought each other Valentines day gifts, covertly of course, but not really. After that we went back into the grand square to see it at night time, it was even better. The steeples and walls were lit up in an impressive glow. We continued walking around now, saw a full street of Turkish food, it is known to be the late-night-munchie street. By now Mannequin Pis was uncovered, and we saw him as he was meant to be seen. We headed home for some showers and rest. The girls went out, but I stayed in due to lack of funds and an early wake up.

It is now Valentines day, and we woke up around 9am. Followed by a quest to find breakfast, seemingly EVERYTHING was closed. We finally stumbled into a grocery store where we stocked up on croissants that were no doubt devoured before the next block. We just had one last thing to do on the agenda today, see Atomium, which you see in the last picture. It was a 165 billion times scaled model of an atom. Pretty damn cool! We were able to go inside of all the balls, each holding a different exhibit and then a viewing area at the top where you could see all of Brussels. Not bad at all. After that we headed to the train station to catch a train to Bruges!

Day 33

Alright, I am going to have to break up the last 6 days into 3 entries.

Wow, what a 6 days!!!!

First, it is thursday now, all I remember is from about 4pm. Which is when one of my classes got rescheduled to. How does that happen? I literally have a lab class at 4pm on Wednesday, and the teacher sent out an email saying that it got moved to Thursday for this week. Is that allowed? Eh, who knows, anyway, went to that, when I got home I made some mash potatoes for, yes, THANKSGIVING!!!!

Jordan, Paige, Jaime, Marc, Amy and I had a little thanksgiving in the middle of February.

It was pretty legitimate. Everyone brought a dish, Jordan did most the cooking, made a delicious turkey. We had all the necessary parts, turkey, tadors, cranberry sauce, gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potatoes, wine and pecan sticky roles. OMNOMNOM. It was great. Such a good time...

Day 32

What the hell is that --> ?

Well... that is what our brains do the entire time we have our eyes open. That is vision, to be succinct, it is the process our brains go through to make sense of these light waves and quantities of mass we interact with on a daily basis. Vision isn't one fluid apparatus, but rather multiple systems interacting together to produce the result that we all know as sight. And what is in this picture isn't even all of it! If you damage V4, you could lose your ability to perceive color. If you damage V5/MT, you could lose your ability to perceive motion. If you damage V2, you could lose your ability to perceive depth. If you damage V1, you could lose your ability to perceive all together. The eye is merely the first step, it's a window that the brain looks through to perceive what's out in front of us. It is an amazing system really. But the reason I put this up on here, is because I just gave a seminar on the posterior parietal cortex, that you see in the top left and top right of the pictures. This structure is responsible for not only sustaining our visual attention, but plays a role in our visual short term memory and change detection. Without it, you could theorize the world would disappear as it appears, like painting a picture but each stroke is erased just before the next one gets laid down. It is the parietal lobe that is damaged in visual neglect patients, but curiously, it is only when the right parietal cortex is damaged that they experience the neglect. Meaning, they literally "ignore" the left half of their world. Their vision is fine, it is their ability to pay attention and recognize things in their left world that is hampered. If you ask them to draw a flower, a house, anything, they will simply draw the right half of it. As if it was some sort of joke, when you point out the parts they missed, they will be just as surprised as you are - "how did I miss that?" seems to be a common phrase. The reason the right parietal cortex causes neglect but not the left is an interesting theory, it is said that the left parietal cortex has representations of the right visual world. Whereas the right parietal cortex has a bilateral representation of visual space, it "sees" the left and right sides of the visual world. If you are still with me, damaging the left parietal cortex would result in the left parietal cortex's failure to "see" the right side, but lucky for you, the right parietal cortex can now take over the role of the left. However, if the right parietal cortex was damaged, there is no longer a structure which has a representation of the left side of space... hence, neglect. If you can't tell already, I love the visual system, everything about it intrigues me to the fullest. That being said, the presentation Kim, Kat and I gave was packed full of theories and information. The professor said it was best he has heard. Come the conclusion, we generated a class-wide philosophical talk on what is consciousness and what structures contribute to it from a neurological perspective. Hell, I could go on and on about this. There are so many leading neurologists out to find the answer to this very question. Ramachandran, who is arguably THE leading neuroscientist, and who also works out of UCSD ;) , is on a quest to find what consciousness is. He believes that the brain is encoded just like the DNA double helix, meaning there is some hidden code that determines what structures are for consciousness and which are used unconsciously. Hopefully he won't find out by the time I go to off to grad/med school because I would love to work with him on it. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed doing that presentation, which makes me even happier knowing that what I am learning and on the path to becoming, is what I want. It seems such a daunting choice from the outside looking in, but from where I am sitting, there is nothing more rewarding.

Day 27-31

YIKES. I am getting worse and worse.

These days haven't been packed with as much stuff as usually, so I will sum them up!

Thursday started off with me meeting up with Kat and Kim, two girls I am working with on the project mentioned below... parietal lobe dealio... we talked about it, the findings and there implications. We are giving a seminar on it tomorrow (Wednesday). I am pretty excited!

Afterwards, I booked a flight to go to Belgium this week Feb 12-16th, with Shannon and Rebecca. Should be great! We are going to Brussels for the first two days then Bruges the next two days.

I took it easy that night and just hungout with some friends...

Friday night was an eventful one, our neighbors were throwing a little get together at their flat. We started the night by having a poker game, it was Dave, Malcom, Jordan, Jacob, Paige and myself. The game ended up going so long that everyone who was suppose to go to the neighbors ended up coming into our flat! But we kept playing, and I won't tell you who won ;). Now that there is 20 people in my flat, I guess the party has come to us? I went over next door and played some beer pong. More people showed up and it was just an all around great/fun night.

I started Saturday off with a good adventure. I went with Amy and Jaime to the computer store to get Amy's computer fixed, pretty funny/sad story there. She had a random spew of Irn-Bru (the most popular soda in the UK) onto her poor Mac. Needless to say, the Irn-Bru came out the winner of this one. After we left the computer store we met up with Taryn and Hilary to go check out this gypsy store that was closing. On the way there we popped into this little store that had a bunch of custom books and poems and that kind of stuff. I found a little book of the poem "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann, which is probably the most ironic thing in the world. Crystal - back home Crystal, showed me this poem on that Thursday before. I loved it and wrote the full poem out as well as posted it on my Facebook. Then randomly I find it in this little shop we weren't even intending to go into?! I bought it. (Recently just gave it away, it is a pretty powerful piece of work, you should check it out). So now we are on our way to the gypsy store, it was pretty much dirt cheap for so many random trinkets and tapestries and who knows what else. Everything screamed buy me I'm so cheap, but the more I thought about it, the more stuff I pictured just lying on my desk doing nothing. Everyone came out with a few to a bunch of stuff, I came out with a 79p tigereye rock - which apparently gives me "serenity, happiness, and good luck." I thought it couldn't hurt.

Saturday night I had a potluck with Amy and Jaime, I brought some soup! Amy brought some vegetarian chili with her favorite TVP (textured vegetable protein)... I am embarrassed to say it wasn't half bad, ok ok, it was good! Jaime made some delicious pasta. It was a good meal filled with some good convo! oommmnommnommm :)

After dinner Paige and Jordan came over, we debated what to do for the night and ended up playing articulate at my flat with Taryn and Dave added to the above people. We played until the wee hours of the morning, ending with both teams at the finish line, with Dave and I winning by one point :D.

Sunday, superbowl sunday! Although this wasn't my normal superbowl sunday. I am use to banners, betting, tons of food and pregame/half time golf... and sun. This superbowl was spent with all my buddies at the golf tavern, we had a table of about 15 of us, the superbowl started at 11:30PM! It was a pretty good game, but definitely different with the BBC announcers and terrible commercials. It was all good fun though, and ended up going to bed a bit late that night.

Monday started off very productive, I woke up, hopped on a bus to Craiglockart campus. I then got in line for 1/50 spots to go on a weekend trip to Inverness! Loch ness, you know, Nessy, the Loch ness monster. I am going to go hangout with her for a weekend. Should be beautiful up there the time this trip takes place as well, end of march, and will be a perfect prelude to my spring break travels! I also signed up for a trip on the 20th of February to go up to the Highlands and explore for a day. This club called SENIC puts it all on, and it is a pretty damn good way to adventure around Scotland. After I signed up for the trips I was back on the bus to my class over at morningside church. Class seemed unusually long today, probably because I was still tired from the superbowl festivities, but learned a little more about our language processing system then headed back to my flat. Called it an early night, and am well rested for Tuesday!

I can't believe I have been here for a month already... time sure does fly!

Day 26

Wednesday! My day of endless class. Well, I started out going to my Cognitive Neuroscience class... we went over higher level functions of the visual system. One of my favorite topics! It was good, and I got my article for the seminar that myself and two others are going to be presenting on next Wednesday. "Right Parietal Cortex Plays a Critical Role in Change Blindness" ... It is extremely interesting. It was all about using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (picture) to disrupt neuron activity in the parietal lobe of some patients to determine if the parietal lobe does indeed play a role in change blindness. The findings were great and now we are on the brink to discovering just what specific brain structures are of importance for our conscious awareness. As we have found in numerous different situations, our brain acts even if we are not conscious of it acting. . . some philosophize so far to wondering if we actually need to be conscious to do anything. One of the greatest examples I think is through blindsight, this occurs when patients are legally blind, they can't "see" anything, yet this is due to a problem in the visual cortex of the brain, as oppose to the eye itself. In our brain we have two basic visual pathways, a "where" dorsal pathway - essentially responsible for where things are in space, and a "what" ventral pathway - essentially responsible for determining what these things are... they both run through the primary visual cortex, V1, (which is damaged in these patients)... yet there is a third, older and primitive pathway that is utilized by most reptiles and lower level animals. This pathway bypasses the visual cortex and responds directly to motion. Creating this phenomenon of blindsight, these people are able to identify the direction of moving objects, even though reporting to never have consciously "seen" them. A perfect example would be that of a frog, a fly could be literally sitting directly in front of it, but it wouldn't attempt to get it, because it can't see it... but once that fly takes off, the motion is registered and the frog will get the fly! Pretty interesting stuff.

Anyway, after that I set off to get a ticket to go to the highlands with a club called SENIC, don't remember what that really stands for... but that is besides the point. Unfortunately they were sold out, so I killed some time by printing out all my itineraries for spring break, it is exciting to have them in my hand! After that I met and chatted with the international advisor here, she wanted to talk to me about my stipend, which apparently they forgot to hand into the financial office a week or so ago... got all that squared away and should be getting it within the week :)

My next class was a "practorial" in a lab that I was told "was just around the corner" of my normal Merchinson campus. I went to go find it, walked a few blocks... could not find it... so I decided I should talk to the receptionist @ Merchinson before I wandered around all day trying to find this place, she told me it was just down the street. I specifically asked "is it far?" , and she specifically said "no it is just down the street, this is 10 Colinton road, it is 42 Colinton road"... Sounded good to me. Off I went. Now even before I reach the next cross street the address on the other side are piling up faster then I can count, 43...45...47...49515355575961...

but where is my mystery 42?! I walked up and down that street for a good 10 minutes until I took a turn determined to find this lab... I ran into what looked like two professors, so I asked them where this was. They said keep going down the street, pass the school on the left, pass the stop lights, it is on the right. This place was at least a MILE away. I don't know how they number their streets here, but it sucks. So I finally find my class, stumble in a good half an hour late... and they are collecting data for an experiment. Luckily I only missed the instructions. It was a reaction time assessment where you had to determine if the word on the screen was actually a word or a "nonword" ... two words were presented one after another, it could have been either or. Press "z" for nonwords, "/" for words. It records your times for 5 conditions; associated words, unassociated words, word-nonwords, nonword-words, and nonword-nonwords. I will proudly boast that I had the fastest reaction times in the last two years of this experiment with a 98% accuracy rate... gotta love science ;). Anyway. We grabbed the data from our class and last years class, analyzed it, and people were significantly faster with associated words. Good stuff.

When I got back Jordan and Marc wanted to start the night early. I ate dinner and skyped for a while then out of no where, the fire alarm goes off. So everyone outside. It's snowing. It's the age old battle fire vs ...snow? No no, there was no fire... false alarm, yet the fire truck still had to come, and we had to wait forever for them to check every room. In that downtime somehow beer pong got brought up, we got the supplies and started when we got back in the rooms. It was now us, Malcom and Amy. Shortly after, Amy, Taryn, Paige, and Sogol came. Shortly after, we were off to Biddy Mulligans for some good times and live music. Shannon, Rebecca, Nick, Adrian, Katrina, Macelo, and Greg met up with us at the pub. I think we took over that place, 16 people, not bad. It was a great time, we went to Pedro's on the way back, he was very pleased at the business we brought him. After that everyone started going back in, the rest winded down @ Jordan and Marcs... another successful day i'd say!

Day 23-25

I have been waiting to write because someone who I won't name (AMY!) was suppose to put up some pictures of the rockclimbing adventure I am about to describe. Yet, I fear I will grow old and grey before that happens... so here it goes.

Sunday I woke up with thoughts of being very productive. Gym it for a bit, shower, SHAVE (I didn't shave for about a week, I was turning into a woolly mammoth), get my haircut, do some homework etc etc... well... I shaved. Next thing I know I am on a bus with Marc, Jordan, Amy and Paige to a small town called Ratho about 45 minutes outside of Edinburgh. Where am I going you ask? Nowhere other then the world's biggest rock climbing place?! Yes. But of course, in the spirit of adventure, we set out only knowing that it is around this Ratho place. Which is why when the bus got to the last stop and we had no idea where to go, it was no big deal. I asked some lady, whom is likely the only resident of Ratho, where this mystery rock climbing place was (we figured if it was the biggest in the world we would have seen it... but all we saw were little houses and trees). She pointed us in the right direction, which was also backed up by the rock climbing place when Paige called them. More specifically, the directions were, follow the river with the water to your left. Now I don't know about in Scotland, but in the rest of the world, you can go two directions with the water on your left. Regardless, we set off in the direction we thought it was. Let me give you some more details of what we were doing, we are walking on a hmm, 2 person wide dirt pathway with a rock wall on the right, and a river on the left. There is nothing but trees up ahead, nothing. We stuck to this path for a good 15-20 minutes, getting more and more skeptical until there was an orange sign on the right. And what do you know... there is actually a rock climbing place out here in the middle of nowhere!!! We hike on up and in we go.

Now this rock climbing place was no joke. I have a rock climbing wall at my gym in San Diego, it is a pretty nice one, and I consider myself a pretty good climber. But we have clip ons for the harnesses, as well as the belay. At this place you have to tie your own knots. Meaning, they literally are trying to kill me. Anyway, Marc knew how to do this, so of course I checked off that I knew what I was doing on the sign up form. Cmon... I'm a quick learner. We rent some equipment and then off to the rocks we go. This place is MASSIVE, I'd estimate probably 100 yards by 100 yards. Tons of walls, some actually make you go backwards, as if the monkey bars weren't out of style. Anyway, we start off on some easy wall (more because I didn't want to trust the knot juuuust yet)... by the time I got to the top, my fingers were no longer with me. It had to be 10 degrees in that place. I felt like someone changed out my hands for blocks of ice when I wasn't looking. And you can imagine how good that goes when you are climbing... nonetheless made it up, made it down. Next wall! Now this wall had a little overhang, a part where it makes you go backwards for a wee bit. I got up to it, and just could not reach the next rock. I held myself there for a good 30 seconds, draining every bit of energy I could have possibly had. Down I go, on the bright side, the knot worked! We do a few other walls then I go back to this overhang wall, but attempt another route. This time I told myself I was going to fly up it, no stopping! That is just what I did, a good 200+ feet up in the air... (which a great picture would aid this description... *cough* AMY! *cough*). We climbed a few more walls. Then back to the devil wall that defeated me. I had no doubt in my mind I would conquer it this time. Up I go, same spot... stuck... my hands feel like ice and now my forearms feel like stone. Defeated and a little frustrated I give it another go. I get to the same spot, leap for the next rock a total of seven times. I'd say about three of those I actually got my hand on the rock I needed to grab... but there was nothing to grab. It was like jumping up and trying to palm half a baseball with good enough grip to support my whole body weight. It just wasn't going to happen. So I slinked to level ground, staring the rock wall down the whole time. He knows I wasn't happy about our encounter. Next time, you're mine!

So, we leave the rock climbing place around 7pm, it is pitch black outside. Even better, we need to walk 15 minutes back on a little path next to a frozen over river!! Who's idea was this again?! We literally cannot see as we get down to the path. Luckily, Amy pulled out her cell phone which had a little flash light on it. We all walk swiftly as if we were bugs attracted to the light, following its every move. We make it back to Ratho safely and away we go.

On Monday I had school at 3pm, didn't do much before then. I learned about a couple theories of how we produce words and language. Pretty interesting stuff. Especially since it is still unknown for certain. After I got back from class the same rock climbing group decided to go see a movie - Sherlock Holmes! Great movie! I really enjoyed it. So much that we decided to do the unthinkable and jump into another movie. The Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson, eh, not so much on this one. I would save it for HBO. We headed back home, and apparently in a movie watching frenzy, I started the movie Moon. Also a great movie, this one is interesting, it had me thinking a ton of stuff. I can't go into detail or I'd give away some of the movie, and that just isn't okay. After I meet back up with everyone at Jordan/Marc's flat, and do what? Watch another movie! Haha, sorry eyeballs. This one was called Frostbite, it was 3 pounds and no one has ever heard of it... after watching half of it we all knew why. What a terrible movie. It was entertaining though, but only because it was so bad.

Tuesday, Tuesday I didn't do too much moving around. Only because I was planning my moving around for spring break. From the moment I woke up to right before I went to bed I was cross-searching airlines and flight plans, countries I wanted to visit and people I wanted to go with. As my Dad put it, "the life of a travel agent"... no kidding... after countless skypes and phone calls, my masterpiece is finally complete. Edinburgh --> Stockholm (4 days) --> Berlin (3 days) --> Istanbul (7 days) --> Athens (3 days) --> Rome (3 days)... What a spring break! I would take this over Cancun and Cabo anyday. I especially like that most of the places I will be going to are in Eastern Europe, as well as a few countries home to the earliest of civilizations. What is even cooler is that I'll be with my friends for Stockholm/Berlin and possibly some of Turkey, and my brother from Istanbul on! I have never traveled this much in such a short period in my life, let alone with any of the people I am going to be traveling with. I am much looking forward to the adventures that lay ahead! What an exciting and promising Tuesday. . .