Visit to California, dissertation defense, and bike racing

In August, I flew home to San Francisco to defend my dissertation and graduate from my PhD program at UC Davis. Here is the best part about finishing: nobody will ever ever ever ask again, "How long until you are done?". It is like asking someone, when are you finally going to lose that last five pounds? It is a sensitive issue for most PhD'ers because to be honest, they don't know. What it takes to finish a PhD, is a long, incredibly thorough thesis (mine was 115 pages,  my husbands was 270 pages) of original science. Original! Meaning you came up with the idea, figured out how to do it, and executed original science. And I would like to take an Ann Romney moment here, and tell you that it is hard. Not harder than a lot of things, but hard enough to feel like you were run over by a truck on a semi-annual basis with no more than a sympathy pat on your back from whoever will listen to you complain. The other thing you need are signatures from your entire dissertation committee. This was no easy task, and involved my advisor meeting one of the committee members at a conference in South Carolina and over-nighting my signature form back to California the day before it was due. I will add, however, the benefits of doing a PhD outweigh the costs by a narrow margin, and for the most part, I had a great time.

Having family at my defense was really helpful. My in-laws, Morris and Anna came and helped me set up snacks, listened to the whole thing, and then took me and all my friends out for margaritas and Mexican food. How awesome is that? The best part was when my husband flew in the Saturday after my defense and we got to relax a little by the pool, enjoy some California sun, and see some old friends. And to celebrate we all took a trip down to Half Moon Bay and enjoyed some excellent sea food and locally brewed beer.

Our last week, Nils competed in the Masters Nationals Cycling Championships in Bend, Oregon. His team is a great bunch of guys (Folsom Bike/ Mercedes Benz), and we rented a big house with everyone and hung out in the best town on the west coast. Nils came in at the middle of the pack, but after not racing all season, I'd say that is a pretty good finish. I had a celebrity sighting (Allison Tetrick Starnes), and naturally we enjoyed a great meal at Deschutes Brewery with our friends Greg and Janeen, and their amazingly funny son, Chimali. Here are some pics of our trip.

View from my in-laws house

Trees in Half-moon bay

Anna and Nils in a labrynth

Nils' Dad

Nils & parents

Nils & Mom

This is what my Father-in-law made for my defense :-)

Großglockner with Kira and Chad

In  between Italy with the fam, and my last push to finish the dissertation, we climbed the biggest mountain in Austria. It is 3,798m above sea level and requires a guide. It was a whole weekend adventure, starting with an overnight stay at a nearby lake, an early morning drive out to the trail head, and a one day hike up to the highest hut in Austria before the early morning summit on Sunday. As it turned out, right after we arrived at the hut on Saturday night, the windiest, fastest snowstorm moved in and quickly iced over the windows. We sat in the hut for hours eating and drinking and playing cards, and went to bed for an early wake up for the summit. About 5am, the guide came through and told us the weather didn't look good, and we could wait 1 hour to see if it cleared up. We waited and nervously listened to the howling wind. He came back and said it was a no go. I was secretly relieved, but Chad was really bummed. As we descended into the beautiful valley, it was a perfect summer day, and nobody could believe we were turned around from bad weather. We had to cheer ourselves up with recovery strudel at the lower hut, and despite the failed summit, had a great time overall.

Nils being outfitted by the guide

Kira, Christoph (guide), and Chad

The snowfield trek

Climbing up to the hut

Slumber party!

The crew at the very foggy hut

The walk down

Nils enjoying the view

View from the lower hut

Ortisei with Julie and Jeff

Man, it has been a while! So much to catch up on. Let's start in July. Nils and I went to Ortisei, Italy, with my Aunt Julie and Uncle Jeff and spent an entire week together eating, hiking, eating, and seeing Ötzi, a 5,000 year old mummy found in South Tyrol, Austria by some German hikers in 1991. Julie and I are very close, and it was great to have time for her to get to know Nils a little better. Her husband, Jeff, is a string theory physicist and always explains the coolest things to me when I ask about ideas in quantum physics I have heard of but don't really understand. My favorite thing about spending time with Julie and Jeff is I always walk away motivated to be more generous with my friends and family. Julie was the first person to show me, if you work hard, you can help a lot of people. She is currently sponsoring 8 Tibetans to come to the U.S.. EIGHT! Here are some pictures from our trip.  

Hotel Hell! It was actually the opposite of hell....

Mid-hike beers with Uncle Jeff

Ortisei

Jeff and Nils

The saddle of Sassolungo

Julie in Ortisei

Tram down the mountain