The adventures continue...

Yesterday I donned my last pair of lab gloves and pipetted my last as a postdoc. Tomorrow evening I'll leave Aarhus, Brighton bound. I have no idea what's waiting for me, but can't pretend I'm disappointed to be moving on. Join me for the next chapter of my adventures, post academia, at the new blog I'm building up: leftattherabbithole.blogspot.com

"The future ain't what it used to be"

Like any good PhD student, at the end of my degree, I found myself in somewhat of an existential crisis. What had I just spent the past four years doing? Why? Where was it taking me? And where did I want to be going?

There was no question I was overdue for a change in scenery, but what sort of change? I visited labs, attended information sessions with management consultants, spoke with pharmaceutical researchers, and even survived a three-month internship with a small biotech consulting start-up that wasn't really going anywhere. Finally, I set out to identify a research field with the potential to produce innovative clinical applications in the near future. I wanted a part of neuroscience where biotech and sci-fi-turned-reality meld. After scouring through life science start-up sites and scientific journals, I decided that the spinal cord and the retina were the places to be.

I landed a job in a retina lab, moved to Denmark, and everything seemed to be going to plan. At least, for a few months. And then things started unraveling.

European Retina Meeting (ERM) 2015 logo

The first time I started to realize I might not be in the right place was last fall at the European Retina Meeting. As I sat through talk after talk, I realized that these brilliant researchers were devoting their lives to sorting out minutiae. They were arguing over exactly how many sub-categories of a given cell type we might find in a certain layer of the retina. They were arguing about the precise significance of their patterned input and output. They were arguing about refining techniques for studying their activity. Hardly any were standing up and talking about real problems (ahem, blindness), and how their expertise might be applied to solving such problems in creative, innovative, and efficient ways. I hadn't found what I'd hoped for in this new job, and I wasn't going to find it in academia.

I felt heartbroken. I felt nauseous. I felt like a failure.

I took the Christmas holidays to reassess. Perhaps signing up for Google alerts on my research topics might keep me in the loop about exciting developments. Reading more articles might give me the know-how to finally feel that spark. Why not subscribe to neuroscience podcasts to really immerse myself? And then, in January, an email appeared in my inbox with this subject line:

Time to make a career change? Use the MIT advantage to help

It was an ad for an MIT's First Alumni Virtual Career Fair. I hesitated. What good would something like that be for someone based in Europe? Still, I figured it couldn't do any harm, so I signed up. To my surprise, there was a small consulting firm looking to send people to the UK, visa sponsorship and all. It was a chance to stay in Europe and even move somewhere where Nicolas speaks the local language, a real boon when in the market for a new job.

The next five months never felt longer. There were online tests, in-person tests, case studies, team work challenges, role plays. I felt like a circus animal jumping through hoops and nervously awaiting each round of elimination. I re-learned high school physics, I bought my first business suit, I flew to England twice, I even met the founder of the company. And then, last week, I accepted their offer.

I'm joining Newton Europe. (Yay!) Newton is a small operational consulting firm founded by three Cambridge engineers. They are in the early stages of expanding into the US, so they've begun recruiting American hires (who may one day serve as their NY-based team, emphasis on the may) and they figured MIT alumni were a good pool to start recruiting from. Their shtick, operational consulting, is different from your typical management consulting. Instead of spending most of your days in front of a computer writing reports, there will be a lot of hands-on work. In fact, all the assignments are site-based, which means I'll be living out of hotels across the UK from Monday through Friday. My projects might range from hospital operation theaters to supermarket aisles to nuclear submarine construction sites, so the job should never get too routine. The company is also results-based: if a client doesn't see at least a 10-50% operational improvement without spending an extra cent (or pence) in 2-6 months, there's no fee.

But what makes Newton so special is more than just project diversity and the results guarantee: It's the culture. This company was founded by three colleagues who were also friends. They built Newton up around the principle that the best work gets done when people feel supported, encouraged, and challenged by the colleagues, or "frolleagues," the friend-colleague hybrid term they've coined. I know I'm not on the inside yet, but concretely I know that once every two weeks, Newton sponsors a Thursday-night company-wide social event to bring everyone together, on whatever theme employees decide, from costume parties to spa nights. Every weekend, Newton employees organize optional activities, often sports-oriented. There seems to be a certain comraderie at Newton, a work hard-play hard spirit that reminds me of a place I once fondly called home: MIT.

I don't know what this next step holds, and I'm confident that leaving academia holds challenges I've yet to anticipate. And of course, no job is ever perfect. But I'm ready to give something new a try, and I'm excited to get to do it at Newton.

I used to keep a certain ironic inspirational quote up in my high school lockers that seems just the thing to close out today's post.

As the great philosopher Yogi Berra once said,

But at least it will be different.

"Les soldes" come to Denmark

Like Santa on double-duty, les soldes (the sales) come but twice a year. Any Parisienne can tell you that these are the times to hit the stores without breaking the bank: January-early February, and July-early August. So what's a displaced Parisian with a thing for shoes to do in a city with a disappointingly drab sense of fashion? Let me introduce you to my new favorite way to lose (at least) a half hour: spartoo.com.

This French shoe site sells every sort of shoe you can imagine, from bargain basement to runway fashion. The deals come January/July (or better yet, tail-end super mark-downs in early February/August) are unbeatable when it comes to massive selection and bang for your buck (or euro, or kroner, or whatever your preferred currency). This site became my favorite way to blow off steam (and spare euros) when I discovered it while writing my doctoral thesis. What really did me in this year was my recent discovery of spartoo.dk. (And don't think you're immune, dear non-French non-Dane reader: there's spartoo.co.uk, .de, .es, .it, etc, but if you're still not covered, spartoo.net offers free delivery to over 150 countries.) With over 1000 brands, free returns, free exchanges, and customer advice on sizing of each individual shoe model, what's not to love?

An assortment of Spartoo goodies to have greeted me in Denmark

And now that I'm gearing up to become a businesswoman, scouring this site has become a gleeful obligation! This season's July "soldes" have officially launched this week, and I was all over them. From the confines of my damp and chilly Scandinavian country, I just had to share the joy that came with these little parcels of Parisian pleasure. I might not be able to step foot in Paris these days, but my feet have Paris all over them.

The Michelin tour of Aarhus, Part 3

Having tested Aarhus's Michelin Bib restaurants in March and April, we readied ourselves for the big league. Aarhus's Nordisk Spisehus is one-of-a-kind, a restaurant that collaborates with Michelin starred restaurants around the world to craft new themed menus every two months. I'd first been introduced to the concept during my university job interview at the start of last year, and had been itching to take Nicolas here ever since.

I've been hanging on to the cards that came with each course of the tasting menu during my interview dinner, until the day I could finally make it to Nordisk Spisehus.

Finally, the time had come. With lunch menus literally half the cost of dinner, we decided to bump our dining time slot up to early afternoon. We arrived with just a light breakfast in our stomachs, ready to dig in. Today's menu theme: Copenhagen.

The meal began exquisitely with delicious dark bread to rival the likes of that in Tallinn, accompanied by a whipped butter-yogurt blend that was light in texture but rich in flavor. For starters, I had a shrimp and asparagus dish, and Nicolas a salad with ham and fresh cheese. We followed this up with fish and chips for me (much to my surprise to see this on such a fancy menu), complete with lemon, estragon, and cucumber dipping sauces, and a chicken dish with peas and garlic for Nicolas. Finally, we both enjoyed a light dessert of rhubarb and anis covered in almond ice cream, topped with thin sheets of rhubarb- and anis-flavored candies. (My Danish server did not pronounce "anis" correctly and I had to fight to hold in my laughter. I am not yet a grown-up.)

Lunch at Nordisk Spisehus, Copenhagen theme

The ingredients were high quality, the flavors balanced well, and overall we were very pleased with the meal, perhaps our best in Aarhus to date. The visit served as a delicious way to start to say goodbye to this city, revisiting the first restaurant that welcomed me in.

Brexit and me

Well, that's it, guys. Britain is out. As a proud resident of the EU since 2008, losing one of our biggest players hurts. But shaking my head should be where this all ends for me, but for what I just did earlier this week.

I got a job in England.

And still, everything should be fine, right? I'm an American. My visa requirements don't change when the UK jumps ship.

The thing is, I've been living in Denmark for a year, a country for which I acquired a visa to go with my job, and then my French boyfriend followed. He was able to freely move here, to job hunt with equal rights to the Danes, as an EU citizen. But language barriers can be a big hurdle, so the past year hasn't offered many opportunities to him. And then this UK-based job appeared. Suddenly (well, less than suddenly—the interview process took five months), we had a chance for a fresh start in an EU country where he spoke the local language. My job guaranteed my visa, and as an EU citizen, he could follow freely for his own job hunt, just like any other English local.

Today I'm left with a sensation half way between a punch in the gut and the feeling of teetering on the brink of an abyss. I have no idea what comes next. The UK will still be EU when we arrive, but the cogs of Brexit will be in motion. England and France are so close that there's sure to be some good terms negotiated. For goodness sake, there's a tunnel that connects the two countries! But how will English employers react? With an economy in crisis and the future rights of EU workers unknown, how many Englishmen will jump to hire a Frenchman?

For a week that had begun so upbeat, this really throws a wrench in the works. Why, England, why?

Home away from home: accommodations on a budget

Unless you're lucky enough to have friends or family conveniently located, planning a trip means sorting out where to stay. For a budget traveler, there are a few good places to start:

Hostels
As a solo traveler, hosteling can be the way to go. If you don't mind sharing a room, you'll likely land the cheapest bed and might even make some friends. Hostelbookers and Hostelworld are my two favorite sites. Both offer user reviews of hostels based on a variety of criteria, including atmosphere, location, security, and cleanliness. Choose your priorities, run a search, and generally don't stray below 70-80% overall ratings. I've had a lot of good experiences this way.

Couchsurfing

For the brave of heart, and ideally, the budget-traveling duo. Couchsurfing is a concept where people offer to open their homes to you totally free of cost. (Nice mannered guests should think to bring a small host(ess) gift.) As a traveler, finding a host can be a big time sink, what with searching through lots of host profiles and writing individualized request messages, but it can result in a really personal experience and a chance to get the most "insider" perspective on the town. You can't be too picky, though, so you may end up in a less-than-central part of town and you might sleep on the floor. It's easiest to find accommodations in lower-requested locations, not major cities where hosts can be overwhelmed with requests. Not recommended for those with some extra cash nor for female solo travelers (sadly, in my experience).

Airbnb
This is undoubtedly my new favorite way to travel in a couple or with a group of friends. It can even be a solution for off-the-map destinations with few (if any) hotel or hostel options. With Airbnb, locals open up their homes—sometimes just a spare room, sometimes the whole place. Users, both hosts and travelers, are vetted through the site's security system, to which they must submit some form of state ID. People who host or are hosted by users have the opportunity to leave a review, so you can get a feel for who the person is and what their home is really like. Airbnb homes range from young couples or empty nesters with a spare bedroom to the lucky ones who have a second home that's not always in use. Personally, when I'm exploring a new city with just one other person, I love to go the spare room route in hopes of getting to hear an insider's perspective from my hosts. I've also taken advantage of full homes to enjoy a get-away weekend with a group of friends. The experiences are always unique and often much more charming than your standard hotel.

Hotels are always an option, and can even be called for in the world of budget traveling under certain conditions, say in remote places, for last minute bookings, or when someone else is footing the bill (say, when your airline goes on strike and they cover accommodations due to canceled flights). Loads of search engines exist for this. I have tested Kayak and Hotels.com, but hotel travel has never become my area of expertise.

Whatever your tastes, as Ray Bradbury wrote in Fahrenheit 451,

'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' [...] 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.'

Getting from point A to wherever B may be

It's no secret that I'm a travel junkie. Since I began earning a living wage, nearly every spare penny has gone to travel. And, mostly on a student stipend, I've made my way through 35+ countries. There isn't one secret to hitting the road (or the skies) on a shoestring, but here are a few pointers to book that killer deal.

Rome2rio is a fantastic starting point. If you've ever wondered how you might venture from point A to B, this site will break down all the different modes of transport and their price ranges. It's a great way to figure out if plane, train, boat, or car/car-share (or some combination of these) is your best bet.

Skyscanner.net has been my long-time favorite for its search capabilities. This site is limited to air travel, but its incredibly flexible search algorithm lets you run searches like

• Destination "Anywhere": figure out what destinations are most financially accessible from your starting point.
• Don't care when you fly? You can ask this search engine to check out flight prices across an entire calendar month, which is great if you want to take a vacation sometime in July or August, and you just want to find a good deal. 
• Need some budget-travel inspiration? Skyscanner even allows you to leave the travel dates unspecified, pulling up cheapest options regardless of date. This combined with destination: anywhere has been the starting point of many a fantastic adventure.

Kayak is a search engine of travel websites. It scans all your standard air carriers (including budget lines like Easyjet and Ryanair) as well as travel sites like expedia, booking.com, opodo, etc. After finding my inspiration on skyscanner.net, I always run my selected travel destination and time window through kayak to find the most competitive prices. (Tip: Once I've selected my flight, I always go straight to that airline's website to double check that fares aren't cheapest when booked directly through the carrier. It's not often the case, but can offer some savings.) I've also seen Momondo floated around on traveler forums as a very popular search engine.

For the students and under-26-year-old travelers, Student Universe and STA travel do offer the occasional killer deal.


Besides the above advice, a couple extra tips:

• Book early. If you can deal with planning up to 6 months in advance, you can get yourself an international flight for the price of a couple of drinks in a bar downtown.
• Be flexible on dates. Traveling out on a Thursday or back on a Monday can halve the cost of your journey, or more. Whenever you have the luxury, run your searches on kayak with specified dates + or - 3 days.
• Clear browser history and cookies. If using Google Chrome, run your searches on an incognito window. I've read over and again that websites notice if you've searched a trip more than once, and will up the price on subsequent searches. Not totally sure if it's true, but why chance it when clearing your history is just a click away from potentially cheaper airfare?
• Take advantage of the sharing economy. If the last leg of your trip takes you off the beaten track and far from public transport, check for local ride share websites that can let you travel for a fraction of the cost of—and way more convenience than—a car rental. And for shorter distances, keep in mind that uber is often half the cost of a taxi.

Hope this comes in helpful the next time you start dreaming of a faraway escape. Happy travels!

A few days in Helsinki and southern Finland

Our grand return to the European Union, and the last leg of our Baltic adventure, began with a few days off from city life. I'd hoped to go further north, but the transport fees and schedules weren't in our favor, and honestly, it probably wasn't the right time of year. I'd wanted to visit the Sami people, the European Union's only indigenous people, who inhabit the Arctic Circle across Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. They happily receive tourists interested in learning more about (and financially supporting) the Sami. I'd also have loved to see the Northern Lights, one of northern Finland's major draws, but they aren't generally visible after early-to-mid March. I reluctantly acknowledged that some bucket list items can afford to go unchecked.

We stayed in a home in the outskirts of the Helsinki metropolitan area alongside a lake, complete with rowboat that we took out for a spin. Literally. To be generous, we were both a bit rusty on our rowboat skills, so some spinning definitely happened. I am proud to report, however, that nobody tipped the boat, which counts as a win in my book.

Our Airbnb home on a lake came complete with our own private rowboat.

The next morning we got ourselves out to the Nuuksio National Park, probably the best nature escape near Helsinki. The birch tree forests shaded us from a surprisingly sunny day as we hiked past lakes and rugged, untouched terrain. The scenery could not provide a starker contrast from where we'd just been two days prior, and it provided a welcome balance to the trip.

Nuuksio National Park, the best nature escape in Southern Finland

After a couple of days nearly off the grid, we headed back to the world's second-most northern capital city. The prices immediately reflected that we were back in a Nordic country, where we were no longer equipped for the fancy wining (beering?) or dining of Talinn or Saint Petersburg. But Helsinki still had plenty to entertain while holding tight our purse strings.

We visited fancy churches, from the spartan Lutheran Tuomiokirkko just north of Senate Square to the Russian Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral to my personal favorite, the late-1960s Rock Church, or Temppeliaukio kirkko, whose own unique take on Nordic modesty is expressed in its guise of a giant pile of rocks.

Notable churches of Helsinki. Leftmost images: Lutheran cathedral Tuomiokirkko. Top right: Russian Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral. Bottom middle and right: Late 1960s Rock Church, a semi-underground church which appears, from the outside, like a giant pile of rocks.

We spent our time wandering along the waterfront, down the tree-lined boulevard called Esplanadi, and across the city admiring the sights.

Highlights of Helsinki.
Top row: Nicolas and me in front of the Sibelius Monument; Rauhanpatsas, or Statue of Peace, a monument to the friendship between the Finns and the Soviet Union, erected in 1968; the Three Smiths Statue, unveiled in 1932.
Middle left: the Helsinki waterfront.
Bottom row: A sideview on the Presidential Palace; a memorial on Esplanadi to Zacharias Topelius, a Swedish-speaking Finnish journalist and historian; a small German church; monument on Esplanadi to Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a Finnish-Swedish poet; the Kallion Kirkko, a church built in the Art Nouveau style that can be spotted all around Helsinki

While wandering along Esplanadi, we stumbled upon the existence of techno-opera. Who knew?

I even found some impressive consignment shop offerings—thank you, Recci!

Remarkably enough, through the wonders of Facebook, I had the chance to catch up with a friend I'd made while backpacking through Southeast Asia last year. We didn't just enjoy good company out in the town, but also back in our Airbnb home, where we had the pleasure of staying with a worldly musician and her gracious hostess of a cat.

Our feline Airbnb hostess in Helsinki graciously allowed us to share her bed, if we asked nicely.

Finally, on our very last night, we allowed ourselves a bit of Finnish culinary exploration at Juttutupa, a restaurant and bar that was once supposedly a favorite of Lenin. A table in the corner where Lenin and Otto-Ville Kuusinen supposedly liked to meet up is known today as the "Revolutionary table," at least according to the restaurant menus, though we couldn't figure out which corner table they meant. I sampled the fried vendace fish with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Not bad at all, though Tallinn still topped the list for food on this Baltic trip.

Traditional Finnish food at Juttutupa, supposedly one of Lenin's favorite hang-outs.

The skies finally opened up on the morning of our departure, but we could hardly complain after Mother Nature had spent the past week and a half smiling down on us. It was time to head home.

Russia's "Window to the West"

St. Petersburg was our Paris of the East, or the Russian "window to the West," as the city's founder, Peter the Great, once called it.

Despite taking ages to pass a border guard who made it clear that Americans were not particularly welcome, I immediately felt at home in the city.

Made it to Russia! Complete with my new Cyrillic name and fresh passport stamp.

As displaced Parisians, Nicolas and I were immediately struck with a sense of familiarity thanks to Saint Petersburg's wide boulevards, the ornate bridges criss-crossing the Neva River and canals, the grandiose architecture, and the international flare.

Unfortunately, due to the boat schedules and our 72-hour time restrictions, we had to book our departure trip for the following evening, allowing us just 36 hours to see a city that could easily take a week or two. This meant we had to rapidly switch from our leisurely Tallinn pace to power tourist mode.

We were happy to take advantage of the weak ruble, but still felt a bit of a price jump compared to Tallinn, where we could dine and drink like royalty. Still, we didn't feel too pinched as we sat down for meals. Being in Russia's second largest city, it was no trouble to find a place specializing in Russian and Ukrainian dumplings, which we promptly did.

Traditional Russian food. Left: Pelmeni, meat-filled dumplings. Right: Varenyky, curd-filled dumplings with cherry sauce and sour cream. A food he happily associates with his late Ukrainian great-grandmother, Nicolas insists I note that varenyky are traditionally Ukrainian.

Our stomachs happily full, we spent our afternoon running around town trying to check off as many major monuments from the tourist list as possible. The pace of life here felt fast, busy, energetic. Everything was so big, so colorful (notably a trait not shared with Paris), so beautiful. My personal favorite was the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It seemed to have come to life straight out of the Candy Land board game we used to play as kids. Trying to see all of Saint Petersburg in just two days was unfair to this city. A photo collage might do a good job of capturing the whirlwind of sightseeing.

Saint Petersburg in 36 hours.
Left column, top-down: St. Isaac's Cathedral; the view down the Fontanka River from Anichkov Bridge; the Winter Palace by night.
Second column, top-down: the Smolny Cathedral convent; Dvortsovyy Bridge by night; Feodorovskoy Sobor.
Third column, top-down: me outside the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; red carnations, the most common flower to place at Russian soldiers' graves, around an eternal flame monument. Flowers were there to mark the May 9 anniversary of the end of Soviet involvement in WWII; the Admiralty.
Right-most column, top-down: Nicolas outside the Peter and Paul Fortress; the inner courtyard of the Winter Palace (Hermitage Museum)

For once, the following morning, the weather wasn't entirely in our favor. Under heavy skies, we toured the Peter and Paul Fortress and then headed for the Winter Palace, once the official residence of the czars (pre-1917 revolution), now home to the Hermitage Museum, one of the oldest and largest museums in the world. I'm not sure exactly how it compares in size to the Louvre, but it certainly gives the Parisian gem a run for its money.

Views from inside the Hermitage Museum

And lest Saint Petersburg look merely like a sparkling monument of the past, here's just one glimpse at how modern and trendy it is, with store fronts à la New York/ London/ Paris.

I couldn't help smiling at these store front windows along Nevsky Prospekt, a major boulevard in Saint Petersburg.

And in honor of Nicolas, I'll wrap this post up with an image of just one of the many Western chains that made it to the Motherland, complete with Cyrillic sign post.

Burger King, now in Cyrillic. (For the life of me, why a Frenchman would find *this* cuisine enticing...)

Before we knew it, we were rolling our suitcases down the sidewalks, doing our best to avoid the major puddles, and wheeling back up the boarding ramps past customs and back toward the European Union. By now, I'm convinced that getting that Russian tourist visa will be worth it, one day.

A small, modern, medieval town: Tallinn

The first words I find to describe Tallinn are small medieval town. I just loved the medieval town walls and the old town hall, complete with dragon gutter spouts. Of course, this is a modern (albeit little) European capital city, so there's much more than just that.

Old Town Tallinn. Top row: St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church seated atop Toompea hill; The view down Rataskaevu, home to plenty of fine restaurants that we enjoyed during our stay; A typical street in the Old Town; Tallinn's Viru Gates, which date back to the 14th century and were once part of a larger defensive complex. Middle left row: A typical street (technically outside the Old Town) bearing the Estonian flag; A medieval city gate. Bottom row: Part of the old city walls; Looking down the street toward the 14th century Gothic St. Olav's Church; Tallinn's town hall, reputed to be the best preserved Gothic town hall in Northern Europe; Climbing up to Kiek in de Kök, a 15th century tower.

Tallinn offered surprisingly good food and a great craft beer scene. Mostly, we came across high quality European cuisine, not too much in the way of Estonia-specific beyond some fantastic dark breads. We even found a fantastic Italian gelateria run by real Italians charging at least three times what they could in Italy. (Whoever said that EU didn't do any good?)

Dining in Tallinn. Left column: Estonian dark breads and soups. Middle columns: an assortment of main dishes we enjoyed over the past few days. Right column: desserts!

Enjoying the craft beer scene in Tallinn

Great wifi was available in just about every shop, restaurant, or café. The prices in Tallinn were cheap, though not Vilnius-level cheap, but uou definitely didn't have the feeling that you were among a downtrodden people struggling to find their footing in the 21st century. And you shouldn't. This is a high-tech European country. Did you know that Skype was once a small Estonian start-up? And things haven't stopped there. In late 2014, Estonia became the first country in the world to offer electronic residency, in a step towards "a country without borders," enabling people around the world (who are willing to shell out cash) to obtain access to Estonia's digital services and to gain the rights to open a company or a bank account in Estonia. This is a high-tech little country.

Views across Tallinn, capital of one high-tech little country. (Nicolas does not love the camera, unlike a certain seagull.)

Fun fact: Did you know that Estonia was actually run by the Danes from the 13th-14th century and again in the 16th-17th century? For such a small country today, Denmark certainly has left a large footprint. In fact, traces of it can be found in the Danish king's garden, right on Toompea Hill nearby the castle. Legend has it that today's Danish flag fell from the sky and into existence right here back in 1219, turning the battle for Tallinn in favor of Danish king Valdemar II and winning over the hearts of Danes, who take great pride in their Dannebrog (the Danish flag) today.

The Danish King's Garden, legendary birthplace of the Danish flag, overlooked by an eery sculpture of a faceless monk

It wasn't just the Danes getting in on the business of running Estonia for the Estonians. During much of the 20th century, Estonia was part of the USSR. However, unlike Lithuania, our first former Soviet state to have visited, Estonia is much more integrally tied with Russia. Unlike in Lithuania, where the Russians seemed to be viewed as an external former occupying force, many Estonians actually identify as culturally Russian, even learning to speak Russian before Estonian. Our Airbnb host here in Tallinn told us that she considers herself an exception as an Estonian who is just plain Estonian as far back as she can trace her ancestry. Most of her friends have some Russian/former USSR ancestry. As she explained, that's due much in part to the Soviet Union's efforts to create a "Soviet race" by relocating many young people to different parts of the USSR, where they often ended up meeting people, falling in love, and starting families far away from their roots.

This may help explain why the Estonian Museum of Occupations was much less overwhelming than its Lithuanian counterpart. However, it was home to some impressively discreet KGB spy technology and other interesting tidbits. For instance, we learned about the underground punk music movement of the 1970's, which the Soviets tried hard to suppress. In Estonia, a small magnet required to amplify a guitar could only be found within the public pay phones. It was no coincidence then that, at the height of the '70s punk movement, many repairmen found themselves fixing pay phones, and replacing these magnets, several times a day.

Museum of Occupations. Left: Anti-Nazi Soviet paraphernalia from the early 1940's. Right: a display of an old public payphone, the likes of which had to be repaired 2-3 times a day at the height of the punk music movement, when young Estonians secretly stole phone parts to make their own electric guitars.

In an earlier, less oppressive period of Russian rule, Kadriorg Palace and Park were created, beginning in the early 1700s under the order of the Russian czar Peter the Great. We took a half day to stroll the 2 km outside the city to enjoy the grounds and admire the palace.

Kadriorg Park and Palace

Overall, the city was a charming little place, though we might have done better to plan a day-excursion outside of the city as we had 4 ½ days to fill, more than enough to properly see the city. Instead, we took the opportunity to relax, do a bit of work each morning, and enjoy tourism at a pace to which I'm certainly not accustomed. I'd gladly give Tallinn my thumbs up.

And, with Estonia added to my list of foreign countries visited (#37 and counting!), we boarded our Saint Peter line ferry, Russia-bound.

Farewell, Tallinn!

Traveling to Russia visa-free

The Cold War may be over (or is it?) but Russia hasn't exactly swung its doors open wide to American tourism. (Nor, in all fairness, has the US for the Russians.) Getting to the Motherland as a US tourist can be a huge headache: trips to the nearest Russian consulate, a letter of sponsorship from your hotel, ID photos, visa application forms, a visa support letter, and fees that currently hover around $160 USD for American citizens. All of this is hardly conducive to a nice weekend abroad. Luckily, there is another way to get yourself into Russia, and it's visa-free and totally legal.

Cruising into Russia visa-free

Turns out the tourists entering and leaving by port are permitted up to 72 hours in Russia as part of an "organized cruise excursion" when traveling with a cruise line officially licensed with the Russian government. For some reason (perhaps it had to do with who knew who when these laws got written, or just a certain interest in tourist dollars), cruise and ferry lines are not distinguished under these guidelines. So, if you take the overnight Saint Peter line ferry from Talinn or Helsinki, equipped with proof of hotel reservation for the duration of your stay, you are welcome to enjoy a couple of days of total freedom inside Saint Petersburg. Just carry a little cruise shuttle-bus ticket on your person, and you're part of an "organized excursion"! The same money you might have spent on your Russian visa can instead go to enjoying two nights on a cruise ship getting into and out of the country, with some left to spare for tourism inside the Motherland.

So guess who's heading to Russia in less than two weeks??

Russia, here I come!

I think it's finally spring

The bravest of flowers have opened their petals, the nights are no longer endless, and we've finally shed our heaviest winter coats. I think it may be finally time to say it's spring in Aarhus!

Optogenetics: the hot new neuro tool

Optogenetics is a hot buzzword in the world of neuroscience, but it's hardly considered a household word. So what is this futuristic sci-fi-sounding topic and why should you care? I'd like to give you a taste of what it is and the potential it holds in a 3-minute summary.

Optogenetics is a novel technique which, with the flash of a light, allows us to control the electrical activity of one or many neurons. And it comes from a surprising source: pond scum.

Magnified green algae, aka pond scum

Pond scum, otherwise known as green algae, express a molecule on their surfaces that enable them to convert sunlight into an electric signal. A little more than a decade ago, some clever neuroscientists in Stanford thought to themselves, "What if we took that pond scum gene and inserted into neurons? Might we be able to then use light to control the electrical activity of neurons?" And you know what? It worked!

Some clever neuroscientists thought to themselves, "What if we took that pond scum gene for a molecule that converts light into electricity, and inserted into neurons? Might we be able to then use light to control the electrical activity of neurons?"(Image from nsf.gov)

In labs across the world, optogenetics is being applied for a variety of different applications. Neuroscientists have genetically modified many different classes of neurons to express optogenetic molecules for different experiments. This has enabled them to, all with the flick of a switch, make normally behaving mice suddenly start running in circles, relieve depression in mice, calm anxious mice, or eliminate trembling in mice suffering from Parkinsons-like symptoms. They have even used optogenetics to target and selectively erase specific memories. And that's only a few examples.

A fiber optic is implanted in a genetically-modified mouse brain in order to deliver light directly to the genetically-modified neurons expressing optogenetic molecules in order to control the activity of these neurons with light.

(This image has been widely circulated across the internet, so I don't know which source to site. Just google "optogenetic mouse" to see for yourself.)

So that's all fine, but what does tinkering with a bunch of lab rats—er, mice—mean for you and me? Well, just a couple of months ago, in early 2016, the first human underwent optogenetic therapy as part of a new clinical trial starting in the United States. This woman, who has lost her vision, hopes to have light sensitivity restored thanks to optogenetic molecules that should soon be expressed in her eye. If it works, it will be the first proof that optogenetics can be used in medicine. Potential future applications lie in many diseases and conditions across the board, including Parkinson's Disease, anxiety, chronic pain, depression, even cancer.

This may be the first you've heard of optogenetics, but I suspect it won't be the last.

The Michelin tour of Aarhus, Part 2

Continuing our quest to find the best eat in town, we visited Aarhus's other Michelin "Bib Gourmand," Hæværk, last night. The restaurant can best be described as cozy, intimate, informal, and trendy, in short, the definition of the Danish concept hygge. The restaurant recently changed their tasting menu to pre-dinner snacks and 5 courses including a choice of dessert or cheese platter for 450 kroner (approx. $68 US). Going meat-free (but still eating fish) was easily accommodated.

Seating along a raised table at which parties were separated by stacks of cookbooks

Hæværk isn't your usual restaurant. There is no menu, and your chef will surprise you dish by dish. The restaurant works with local ingredients that may be limited in quantity, so you might not even be eating the same thing as your neighboring table. Course after course continued to surprise and impress us with the expertly balanced blends of flavors, textures, colors, and spices. We found the service to be friendly, if a bit slow, and (as per the Danish norm) very skilled in English.  No longer the novices in tasting menus that we once were, we restricted our wine pairing rather than trying to keep up glass per course. This way, we and our wallets can really appreciate every last course, and can even afford to add on extra sweets and coffee/tea guilt-free.

Our Hæværk tasting menu

Overall, I was very impressed, and frankly surprised that Pondus and Hæværk had even been placed in the same category. No question as to the winner of my Michelin Bib Gourmand competition. The only thing left to ask is when we can make our next reservation!

The Michelin tour of Aarhus, Part 1

The little city of Aarhus is a foodie destination, and it's finally earned its Michelin seal of approval. Just last year, in Michelin's first Nordic Cities guide, Aarhus received its first set of stars, one each to three high-end restaurants, and two "Bib Gourmands" for notable restaurants in a more affordable budget range. To begin our exploration on the wallet-friendly end, Nicolas and I made reservations for each of the 2015 "Bib Gourmands," Pondus and Hærværk.

This weekend, we sampled the Pondus package: appetizers and sparkling wine, 3 courses paired with wines, desserts, and coffee for 575 kr (approx. $72) per person. Things started off quite well with the snacks, whose flavors were complex and nicely balanced.

Unfortunately, the selection went downhill from here. Full points for presentation, but that's where the high praise starts and ends. Between Nicolas's carnivorous and my pescatarian menus, we tasted nearly everything the restaurant had to offer, but our experiences generally matched: The flavors were consistently oddly paired and unbalanced, with one individual flavor (like seaweed) strongly dominating without presenting anything particularly interesting or appealing. It's not that any dish was awful, but nothing worth writing home over (despite the fact that I'm doing just that).

Dishes from our tasting menus at Pondus, one of Aarhus's two Michelin "Bib Gourmand" restaurants

The deconstructed crumble topped with chipped blocks of meringue wrapped up the meal with no more talent than what I enjoy on a daily basis at home. I certainly wouldn't want to downplay the skills of my wonderful personal chef, but I do expect something more at a Michelin-noted restaurant.

Deconstructed crumble and coffee/tea wrapped up our mediocre meal at Pondus

No need to rush on making your next Pondus reservation. I'd hardly call myself a foodie, but still I wasn't impressed. We walked away with a mutual shrug as to how it'd earned its rating.

Our first foray into the former Soviet bloc

At 30€ a pop, it would be wrong not to grab tickets for a birthday weekend abroad. And so I awoke to the last birthday of my twenties inside the former Soviet bloc. And it was awesome.

I didn't really know much about Vilnius. Heck, a few months back, I couldn't have told you it was the capital of Lithuania. And its status as an "undiscovered" tourist destination gave it a charm that may not last long as more people start to realize how surprisingly charming, vibrant, and affordable this little city is.

Wandering through the streets of historical Vilnius

As luck would have it, a street fair had sprung up across the city center on the weekend of our arrival. Around each twisting turn and street corner were more stands selling woolen slippers, bouquets of dried wild flowers, wooden carvings, and sparkling amber jewels. Block out the smart phones and you could easily imagine yourself transported back in time about a half millenium, when this city was the seat of power of the largest country in Europe, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. UNESCO has recognized the well-preserved medieval town center, lined with a blend of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical architecture, as a World Heritage Site. Who knew a city could survive a half century of occupation and still look so good?

The street fair that just so happened to coincide with our weekend in Vilnius

That said, the most memorable part of our visit wasn't the charming narrow streets. In the middle of Gedminas Avenue, Vilnius's Champs Elysées, lie the former KGB headquarters, now the Genocide Museum. The museum was a powerful testament to the resilience and pride of a people oppressed by Nazis only to be "liberated" by a Communist occupation. This museum displayed the country's painful past while inviting visitors to connect and to see themselves reflected in the faces of those who had struggled through life in Lithuania in the 20th century. As I walked through the rooms, I kept wondering about the photographers who'd made much of the museum possible. Who had the presence of mind to sneak a camera into the woods and document the resistance movement of the 1940s and '50s? Who was brave enough, when faced with a mutilated body displayed by the Soviets, to document the horror for posterity? Who walked along the lines of displaced Lithuanians in their work camps and asked the workers to smile for a camera? And then, there was the museum basement: Here, the KGB political prison was preserved, complete with torture and execution chambers. To emerge from this museum and walk through the streets of Vilnius, suddenly appreciating that anyone just a decade older than me had real memories of these times, was eye-opening. The locals were so welcoming. The city was vibrant. The markets were bustling. These people had been through hell and back and here they were, cheerfully enjoying a weekend in what could only be described today as a charming little capital city. How privileged I suddenly felt.

"Even under total surveillance and brutal persecution of people with other convictions, there were those who risking their freedom or even their lives were determined to fight against the regime and protect human rights. Although there were not many of them, their resolute stand and activities served as a moral example for many others and helped to keep the hope for freedom and independence alive. [...] Lithuania is working for its future remembering the price of freedom and independence."

On a lighter note, we also explored Lithuanian culture through our stomachs. Local cuisine included lots of unexpected but surprisingly edible, even enjoyable, delicacies: acorn coffee, dandelion cappuccinos, sour dough flavored drinks, rye bread ice cream, and apple pie served in a bread bowl. There were lots of soups, especially a cold, bright pink beetroot specialty, and sour cream and potatoes were everywhere. Beer was cheaper than water-- can't complain there. And each meal finished with an embarrassingly small bill.

Lithuanian cuisine. Clockwise from top left:  a cold, bright pink beetroot soup with sour milk, boiled eggs, and dill known as saltibarsciai and a sourdough drink, kvass, in background; potato sausage and potato pancakes; fried cottage cheese dumplings with cherry sauce and sour cream; dandelion cappuccino and a typical Lithuanian tinginys (meaning "lazy one") chocolate dessert with cookie chunks; Nicolas with mini fried dough balls covered in powdered sugar; apple pie à la mode with cherry sauce in a rye bread bowl; beer: cheaper than water; a glass of surprisingly good ryebread ice cream.

In three days we had enough time to hit up most of the major tourist attractions: the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, now a history museum; St. Anne's Church, the Gothic cathedral made of 33 different kinds of brick; the Gates of Dawn, once part of the medieval city walls; the remains of the old Vilnius castle atop a hill overlooking the old town; the self-styled independent Republic of Uzupis; even the Stebuklas ("miracle") tile, in the Cathedral Square, which marks the end of a 2 million person chain formed from Vilnius to Talinn (Estonia) in 1989 to protest Communism.

The tourist highlights of Vilnius. Clockwise from top left: Gediminas Avenue; the Stebuklas tile in the Cathedral Square; a university entryway; Castle Hill; The Republic of Uzupis; St. Anne's Cathedral; three displays of medieval Vilnius artefacts at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Vilnius and the Cathedral doors bearing Alpha and Omega wreaths

Nicolas and me outside the Vilnius Cathedral and its free standing bell tower at the end of my birthday weekend abroad

Vilnius was an unexpectedly charming, vibrant, and fun little town. I hope it isn't the last I'll see of it.