Paris (Part 1)

I went to Paris last week and there was so much to do. So I will use two posts.

Here I am in front of Notre Dame. It is so beautiful on the inside. There were these huge elaborate stained glass windows and there was such incredible paintings inside.


This is at the top of the Eiffel Tower and it was so scary. It felt like the elevator was going up forever. This boy in front of me got scared because I was so scared.


Obviously, I am the Eiffel Tower in this pic. I went all the way to the top and it was so scary. It felt like the elevator was going up forever. This boy in front of me got scared because I was so scared.


Versailles: Just the house alone is 17 acres. And the total property is 37,000 acres. It was so incredible to see paintings or sculptures that I had studied in my Humanities class but was sure that I would never see in real life.


Garden of Versailles. So pretty. I brought my book, found a quite part of the gardens and layed in the sun (since the sun has been so rare this summer) reading for a little bit.

Paris (Part 2)

In front of the Louvre. I was there for 4 hours and I barely saw half of it.


I am a muse...


The famous Mona Lisa, which is rather quite small.


I look so classy in my beret. Now that I have one I think I will read poetry while snapping my fingers in a coffee shop with other people as classy as me.


From this church you could see the whole city of Paris. I think it's funny because there was a sign that said "to respect the sacredness of the church please no pictures" but then they had those coin machines that Disneyland has where it smashes a coin into a cool shape. So as I was walking through it sounded like I was walking by slot machines.

1-meter pizza

Yesterday my friends and I ate a 1-meter pizza...ummm. It was so delicious. The waitress gave us plates and silverware while we were waiting for our pizza, but I think that was just to use up time because they were taking forever to make the pizza. When the pizza came we were all so ravenous that we just grabbed pizzas with our hands. The waitress barely had time to get out of the way. It was a really good pizza.


Afterwards we went to the park that was next to the restaurant. It wasn't technically a big kid playground but big kids were playing on it so it was a big kids playground last night. This is me and my cousin on this bridge thing that moved so much. We spent like 20 min just playing on that bridge.


This swing thing was amazing. it was a seat that was hanging from a line and you sit on it and slind down the line. Finally my friends dragged me away from it. I think I could have played on it all night long.

Beer, trains and the temple

Ok so there was a beer festival the other day and what better place to wear a dirndl? And I wanted to get a cup but it was 3.50 euros to buy a cup or you can get a drink and a cup for 4 euros and who can pass up a deal like that. Although the look the lady gave me when I asked for just a coke was hilarious. Also, I was one of four people at the festival wearing a dirndl (the other 3 were waitresses). The wonderful thing about that is I am in Berlin and people really don't care if you act crazy here. There are such weird people in Berlin that I fit right in

You can't really see what this picture is but I am sitting on the front of a train. Me and some friends went to the museum of technology last week. We realized when we got there that it was a kids museum so we found our inner kid and had a blast.

Finally we got to play with this machine, after this 5 yr old was hogging it for so long. So this is what mine and Frankenstein's kids would look like. I know...we would have really attractive kids.

When I first unpacked in June, I noticed that I had accidentally packed 2 boy family names. Luckily my ward had a temple trip today so I went to the Freiberg Temple and it is beautiful. It is surprisingly small. But it was a nice day and Freiberg is a beautiful city. Here is a pic of me with the nearly finished temple names and the temple in the background.

Every princess needs a castle

Last week I went to Munich Zurich and Heidelberg and while I was there I decided to look at some real estate (in case I decide to live here permanently). And I am torn between a few places.


Zurich: The first one is a very nice looking castle but it is a little small for my taste. If I lived there, I don't know if there would be enough space for all my servants.


Munich: This one is my second choice because it is the most beautiful and has a wonderful view. It also overlooks a huge man-made waterfall. However, it needs some interior design work done and not all of the rooms are finished.



Heidelberg: This next place is pretty and has a nice location near a river but it is a little bit of a fixer-upper.


Munich: And this last one is my number one choice. It is the largest of the castles and has a beautiful backyard (I don't know if it could be considered a backyard because it is like 50 acres). But the thing that puts this in first place is the fact that the prince lives there. Considering I'm a princess, we are a perfect match.


And lastly what German experience would be complete without a dirndl? I got this one while I was in Munich and I love it. It is pink, I can't breathe when I wear it and I look fantastic in it...basically it is perfect.

Address

I will be here for another 2 months so if anyone wants to send me mail, here is my address:

Melissa Thompson
C/O Thaben
Crellestr. 26
Deutschland 10827 Berlin

The Beach!

I went to the Baltic Sea this weekend and it was incredible. It was pretty warm (mid-80’s) and I got a much needed tan. The town we went to was a rather small town about 3 hours away from Berlin. When we got off the bus, they told us that we would have a few hours to look at the sights of the town (aka. a church and a lighthouse) and then we could have a little time to go to the beach. Seeing the church and the lighthouse took about 30 minutes so we spent the next 7 hours on the beach. It was a perfect day. Below is a picture of me on the lighthouse. It was pretty cool because I had never actually been in a lighthouse. Surprisingly I was not afraid of how high this lighthouse was either.


And the beach was beautiful. The sand was white and the water was clear. Clearly I am overjoyed with being on the beach again.

Fun, Fun, Fun

There is so much to do here that I can’t mention everything but I will briefly mention a few other things I did.

Went on a hike



Went to the Deutsches Historiches Museum


Saw the largest dinosaur fossil in the world


Walked along the Berlin wall


Made banana jelly

Working in the Lab

In this post I talk about blood so for those of you who get grossed out by the sight of blood I have included the pictures at the end so you don't actually have to look at it.

In case anyone is confused about why I am in Berlin, let me explain. I am here on an internship with Humboldt University and I will be working with a PhD student on how different chromosomes affect fat content in the body. However, it is not currently ready so I have been working with another group of students on how pro-biotics (live microorganisms that may be beneficial) affect the immune system. They took pigs and gave each group a different type of pro-biotic and there was a control group. Then they collected tissue samples of things like the spleen, lymph nodes, etc. After the samples were collected is where my work came in. Some undergrad students in Berlin and I were working to isolate the lymphocytes, which will give us information on how the pro-biotics are affecting the immune system.

The first picture is me in the lab. The next two pictures are before and after the liquid was centrifuged to separate liquids of different densities. Once the densities were separated, we needed to remove the liquid in between the first and second layers of fluid (picture 4). After that we kept on centrifuging the liquid and re-suspending the liquid in a neutral solution until the lymphocytes were isolated.

Just a few notes, observations and FYIs

1. This is random but it's kind of cool, even though it's difficult to see in this picture. When people would spray paint the windows, it would peel off so now people scratch the windows to do graffiti on them. I'm sure it's not just in Germany where people do that but I wanted to applaud them for their creativity.


2. If you say hello to random people on the street they will think you are crazy, with the exception of old women. Not because they are rude but because people don't do that here.

3. Chocolate is amazing here and I can have as much of it as I want for the next few months...mmmm

4. Also, Germans love JFK. When he was president, he went to Berlin and said "Ich bin ein Berliner" (translation for all you non-Deutsch speakers: "I am a Berliner"). Below is a pic of me in one of those face cut-outs of JFK. Since I have been here, I have heard that story so many times. I have been walking around Berlin saying that to all the random people I strike up a conversation with and I have yet to reach the fame that JFK did. I want to do something, not illegal, that people in Berlin remember me by. Any ideas?


5. I am amazing at directions. Berlin is a huge city but since I have been here I have yet to get lost. It's even more impressive because I don't take special care to know exactly where I am going. Today I wasn't sure which which direction train to take but the train was there so I randomly guessed and I ended up where I was planning to go. Maybe that's a lesson for life. Wander around in life with no clear goal and maybe by chance you will end up where you want to go. That was really deep. If anyone quotes me on that I expect my name to be included. Maybe that's how I will become famous.

6. The German language is really difficult to learn. But there are a lot of words that are almost the same just different pronunciations.

7. The Christopher Street festival is a gay pride parade...not a parade to honor Christopher Columbus. It was a lot of fun and every float had really good music and everyone was dancing. I take any excuse to be able to dance in public without people thinking I'm crazy. Two things I didn't really like was all the cigarette smoke (I'm pretty sure every other person smoked) and the fact that clothing was optional. There were drag queens all over the parade I loved it but I was a little bitter that they were walking so well in the highest stilettos I had ever seen. This was my favorite drag queen. He was dressed up as a flight attendant and he did their safety demonstration. It was hilarious.


8. Traveling by bus/train is really cheap within Europe, therefore I will go to quite a few countries while I am here.

9. An adapter (used for recharging things) is different than a transformer (used for things like a straightener) and you can blow out the socket if you use an adapter when you should use a transformer. Needless to say I will not have straight hair for the next few months. Good thing it is the fashion in Berlin to let your hair go crazy. Also be very careful when you are walking down stairs because most of them are very steep. On Sunday I was walking down the stairs in my heels and I tripped and fell down the stairs. Luckily I only got a few scratches and bruises but the girl in front of me turned around and said, "Don't be embarrassed, my brother fell down those and broke his arm." So really I blame the stairs.

10. Lastly, moving to a new country where you don't speak the language and don't know anyone is extremely scary but it is such an amazing experience. Berlin is wonderful. I love wandering around the city looking at monuments and statues and stuff because they are everywhere.

I love the food here. All the food tastes delicious here (I'm sure there will be some food they don't like but I haven't found it yet). And the sweets, they are divine. I had a pastry this morning from the corner store and it was so delicious. I can't even describe how good they are. Whenever I want, I can just walk to the corner store and have an authentic german chocolate or pastry for so cheap. This is me eating something that I can't pronounce because it is like 20 letters long and I can't speak German, but trust me, it's really good.


There are rivers all over Berlin. I knew that there was one main one but there are a lot. And there are bridges everywhere. Whenever I am walking over a bridge, there are always big tourist boats floating on the river and I have really been resisting the urge to be like a spy and jump onto the boat from the bridge like they do in movies. I feel like that might not be the best idea for many different reasons.


So this is the fountain of Neptune, he's the statue in the middle of the fountain (you can't really see him too well, I realized that when you ask a stranger to take a picture for you, even if you are standing in front of very famous monument...you should specify that you want the monument in the picture). Note: the next picture. I asked this man to take my picture standing next to the fountain but he insisted I climb onto this statue's lap, luckily I didn't fall while climbing on it. There are fountains everywhere, and not just plains fountains but they have elaborate sculptures and memorials from the war. Also the buildings are incredible. They are so old and there is so much history here.


So this is what I was talking about by getting the monument in the picture. In the background is the monument to the Berlin Wall. This picture is for Lutie. That's right, I am killing Darth Vader in Berlin.


For Michelle, Mollie and Karalee. I met Edward on my flight delay! Ok not really but he looks just like Edward, except for the fact that he's German. I think he was kind of annoyed when I asked to take a pic w/ him (his friend told me that people ask if he is Edward all the time).


I spent all of today wandering around the city and I love Berlin so much. I fit right in with the people, besides the fact that I don't speak the language and am a lot more friendly to strangers than most Berliners are. Berlin is an incredible place and I think there are parties every night.

I'm in Berlin

I made it to Berlin. I'm so excited to be in the city but there are lots of things I need to do. I'll post more later :)

My plane broke down

SO about an hour into my flight to Berlin, the captain told us that there was a problem with the air pressure of the cabin so the plane had to turn back to JFK (New York City). But the pilot said that our plane was overweight and he couldn't land until he burned off some fuel so we flew in circles over JFK for another 2 hours. After we landed safely, the Delta personnel said that we needed to rebook a flight so everyone did a mad-dash for the Delta customer service counters. Luckily, I called the help desk number instead of waiting in line so I got my flight rebooked rather quickly. However, once my flight was rebooked I still had to wait for meal and hotel vouchers for the night so me and all the people on the airplane just sat around for a few hours until we got everything we needed. Now (10 hours later) I am in the hotel and about to go to sleep. On the bright side, I am in New York so I can see the city tomorrow and the airplane gave us meal vouchers for 3 meals :) Hopefully my plane tomorrow won't be broken down.

New haircut and Germany

Let me just start off by saying that I am going to Berlin, Germany in less than 10 days. Let me repeat NEXT SUNDAY I WILL BE IN GERMANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited (if you couldn't tell by the all caps and exclamation marks).

So this first pic is for my mom. She isn't what you would call tech savy and she wanted me to post this pic. Here I am in my Easter outfit (I'm basically the next Gisele Bundchen).


Also I got a hair cut, as you can see it is a big change from the previous pic. Kara, my cousin, cut it and she did an amazing job. I don't think I have ever gotten so many compliments from a haircut before. I love my shorter hair. It is so easy to style in the morning and it is nice to have less hair in the summertime when its hot.


Lastly, me and my roommates have been running lately and it feels wonderful. I love the feeling of the wind rushing past me and the soreness of my muscles (and believe me there has been plenty of that). I did cross country in high school but I really haven't run since then. I like running just for fun rather than in a race. It is so nice when you aren't running against a clock. There isn't any girl that I am trying to beat. I just run at whatever pace I want. If I want to speed up I do and if I want to slow down I do. I just like how I can be so stressed out in the day and when I go running, my stresses go away. My mind just clears and all I think about is putting one foot in front of the other. I realized these past few weeks how much I like running. I don't like racing but I like running, not because I want to beat someone but because I want to feel good and be healthy.

Graduation!!!

I walked in my graduation ceremony at BYU last week so I am a free woman. Well mostly, I have to take one more term but it will be short so in 2 months I will be a free woman. Anyways, that's just a minor technicality, my parents came up to Utah to see me graduate and it was really nice to have them here.


This is me and Michelle at my graduation. Michelle has been my friend for a few years now and she is amazing. She has been such a good support for me through college. Even though I embarrass her half the time, she still goes along with all my crazy ideas. Also when I am stressed out and acting like a lunatic she puts up with me. Basically, I am really grateful for all the help she has given me.


These are a few of my favorite teachers, and often they served as counselors to me when I would freak out about not knowing what to do with the rest of my life.


Getting my diploma...


So for Easter today, me and my friends wore these classy hats. They looked pretty awesome. After church, we had a little photo shoot. This one is me and my friend Natasha.


And this is me with my hat (in the dress Jen sewed for me).


Also I will be spending 3 months of the summer in Berlin, Germany. I have an internship helping a PhD student on her research. I'm really excited for it.

Zombies

Today at Break the Fast some boy asked me if there was a zombie apocalypse and I was the last human alive, which zombie in the ward would I kill first? I said I would just let someone bite me so that I could be a happy zombie with the rest of the world when Karen, my roommate, said zombies don't spread through bites. We tried to look it up on Wikipedia but there wasn't information on how zombies spread their disease/condition. So I'm asking everyone, how do zombies spread their disease/condition?

Also Karen found this one blog that is hilarious, I think this person is a little too into zombies and his argument is flawless, Here is an excerpt from it:

Many professionals believe that zombies live here on the surface of the Earth just like we do, but that they are invisible. However, this theory is clearly flawed. If zombies are the undead and they are invisible, then they would just be ghosts. Everybody knows there is no such thing as ghosts.

Here is the link if you want to read the rest of it:
http://www.angelfire.com/fang/zombie/

Arizona

Last weekend I went to Arizona for a friend's wedding and Arizona is so beautiful. It was a warm 80 degrees and sunny. I am in love with Arizona, but maybe it is because Utah is like 40 degrees. I saw my cousin, Russell, and his wife, Jodee, while I was there and they are pretty much the nicest people. I rarely get to see them because they live so far away. But they took time out of their Saturday to spend time with me. They have twin boys and they are adorable. At first the boys were unsure about me but they got less shy and I think by the end of my visit they even liked me.

Also it was cool how there were cacti (I like that word) everywhere. Even at the Mesa temple there were cacti. Here is a pic of me and Michelle in front of I think the biggest cactus I have ever seen.


Now for the part that everyone has been waiting for...an update on my plants! Prepare yourselves because this picture below is so full of lush green leaves that you can barely see anything else in the pic. That's right, despite the huge clouds that have been blocking the sun lately, my herbs are growing like wildflowers. Ok, they aren't huge plants and honestly I don't know if my herbs will ever be big enough to actually cook something with but I am proud that they are growing. When the weather gets warmer I think I might branch out, maybe try my hand at avocadoes (that was for you Steph haha).