Barcelona in September.

In high school, one of the popular girls wrote "Carpe diem!" on another girls yearbook. I had to look it up because at that point I knew more Spanish swear words and valley girl speak than latin phrases from Homer, and found out it means "Seize the day". What I liked about this was its aggressive commandment, I read it as "SEIZE THE DAY YOU MERE MORTAL, WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT TO DO WITH YOURSELF?". This past fall Nils and I had an opportunity to seize something, and that was a trip to Europe for my conference on environmental epidemiology. It was in Barcelona, and because we kind of live for this type of situation, we went. I was frantically working to prepare a talk on pesticide exposure during pregnancy and autism, and Nils noticed a job opening in Vienna at some place called The International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (he says he is not good at math, I smile and nod and resist the temptation to argue).

Nils at the Mies Van Der Rohe Pavilion, Barcelona.

 My talk came off without being publicly humiliated or scorned by the godmothers of environmental epidemiology, and we got to see some of the sites. Thanks to old family friends, we had a great place to stay and a very warm welcome. After many a late night eating tapas with colleagues and friends, we jetted off to Vienna for the job interview. We were just so lucky to have friends, Natascha and Kellie, show us around and let us in on some of the brief Viennese highlights including this whole store dedicated to champagne. We ducked in out of the rain and had a glass to cheers our Tuesday afternoon.

Natascha Unkart, Vienna.

After 3 very brief days and a successful job interview for Nils, we headed off to Paris to try out our AirBnB digs and experience a little "vacation". We walked and walked and walked, and ate some fantastically rich food. I believe I had canard two nights in a row. The long and short of it is,  we couldn't believe how fantastic Paris was. Every street was beautiful and every turn held some kind of magic. Carpe diem indeed.

Flying buttresses of the Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.