Of the five hours I can claim to have been actively engaged in tasks related to work today, about one hour is actual progress on work tasks--the others have been related to upcoming work-related travel, acquiring tickets, arranging lodging, etc. Travel is fun, but it consumes far more time than the trip itself! Today's actual work progress includes turning in the sample I finished polishing this weekend to obtain it carbon-coating so that I may analyze it in tomorrow's microprobe session, and more work on the paper I've been trying to write.

But the next couple of days will be busy. Tomorrow I'll be on the microprobe from 9-5, and Wednesday morning at 06:00 I'll board a train for Siena, Italy. It is just over three hours by train, plus time to get from the station, so I'm expected at my colleague's office around 10:00. This is the lady with whom I published a paper last year. This will be the first time we've met in person, which is one of the reasons I wanted to make the trip. The other reason I wanted to make the trip is that her research team makes use of raman-spectrocopy, which is something I've seen mentioned in various journal articles, but have not seen in progress. A recent paper mentioning the technique reminded me that I'm interested in learning about it, so I e-mailed her to arrange a meeting. After the working day down there I'll have an hour or two to explore the town, before boarding an evening train back to Milan, arriving here at midnight.

Why such a fast trip? Because the train is 58 Euros each way, and I didn't feel inclined to pay for lodging on top of that. Because I've got too much that needs doing to justify being gone longer than that during the week, and because the few couch surfers who live in that area who were interesting enough to ask about a place to stay replied saying they were out of town this week.

In other news:

I finally finished reading the book a friend of mine from highschool sent me, and posted a review of it on my other blog.

My exercise log for this month continues to look better than any other May since I started keeping the records on computer (someday I need to make the time to go back and do the data entry for all of the years of exercise log I've got in paper).

I'm loving doing nålbinding so much I'm not making as much progress on sewing the lovely fabric I purchased in Vienna.

Not too long back a friend of mine in Alaska told me about the blog of one of her friends. The friend has recently set out on a journey in Asia. I've enjoyed following her adventures thus far, and found the post I read today to be particularly inspiring.

Now that I’m back in Milan, and August (also known as the month the city closes) is over, it is to begin the house-hunt in earnest—to find the place where I will live for the next year and three months. Therefore, this morning I went out and found a realty place where the receptionist spoke a bit of English; I told her I wanted to rent something in the neighbourhood, she made an appointment for me to come back at 13:00 to see one apartment, and a second for 15:15 to see another. Accordingly, I returned to their office at 12:55 (as I despise being late). That receptionist was gone, but the next guy on duty had much better English. I chatted with him while waiting for the realtor who was to show me the apartment to show up. After a bit the receptionist called the realtor, who was taking longer dealing with a contract than expected. So we chatted some more (this receptionist had spent a year working in England, so was quite fluent in English). Eventually the realtor shows up, with the people he's doing paperwork with, and they aren't done yet. At about 13:40, the guy I'm chatting with apologizes for the delay again, and I suggest that perhaps I can just look at both of the apartments at the same time, so he checks, and the relator says yes, so they tell me to meet the relator at the apartment at 15:15. So I went home for a snack, and went to the apartment from there, arriving at 15:10 (of course) and wait. Finally, at 15:29 both the realtor (who doesn’t speak English) and the English speaking realtor arrive. The apartment turned out to be a nice enough place--plenty of cupboards, a small but useable kitchen, and a decent bathroom, complete with shower massage. So I ask how much it costs, and they say 190,000 Euros! To which I reply that I'm looking to rent, is this one for sale? Yes, it is. The first lady misunderstood me and thought I wanted to purchase a place to live. Sigh. I’d love to. Alas, I’ve no down payment, and somehow I don’t think I’d be able to obtain a mortgage without one.

However, the day was not a total loss on the house-hunting front. I also called on an apartment for *rent* which is across the street from my office. Not just across the street, but in the building that I’ve most admired from the outside. However, it is kind of small (28 square meters), so I won’t know till I’ve seen it if it will do, and my appointment for that one isn’t till Wednesday morning.

In other news, I've posted a compare/contrast essay on the two conferences I attended the past couple of weeks on my other blog.

I'm glad that I made time to post the first field trip summary for the pre-conference field trip before I left Edinburgh. I got a comment on my geo-blog from one of my fellow geo-bloggers, who said that I was one of the people obstructing traffic outside of his office, so I sent him an e-mail and we agreed to meet up. I've just come back from a very pleasant walk along the bike trail discussing geology, blogging, adventures, travel, and much more.

Now I need to pack an overnight bag for my trip to Inverness in the morning.

This morning sismith42 and I did a trip out to Glasgow, where we first stopped in a museum, and then met a mutual friend of ours for lunch. It was much fun! This friend is one I first met in Melbourne back in 1990, when I stayed with her when in town for an SCA event and general sightseeing during the month I spent with my mom and step-dad the first time they were in Australia (Victoria). The next time I saw here was 2005, and today was the third time, causing me to say that we get to see one another every 5-15 years whether we need to or not. Granted, she's planning on visiting me in Milan in a few months, on her way to moving back to Australia...

In between meeting old friends for lunch and new friends for walks I baked some yummy ( Ginger Cookies )to take with me to Inverness as a gift for the family there.

and something that might help me to alleviate one of them. Over on my other blog.

My other blog has been listed as #22 on a list of Women in Science: 50 Must Read Bloggers. I love their description of my blog. Oddly enough, I've already been following five of these blogs...

A geo-blog about a really pretty tree"

And whilst I'm mentioning geo-blogs, I have, occasionally, added new posts to mine since last I mentioned it here.

This morning I had a functioning brain, and over the course of the day I managed to work out the problem which had been bothering me yesterday, and, as a result, made some minor edits to the thesis (netting me 39 new words). This meant I was then ready for the next step in the calculations for that sample. Alas, while the next step is easy, in theory, I realized that I don't know how to approach it. Sigh. Why don't I encounter that sort of set-back on a week day when my advisor is in town and I can go ask him for help--why does it have to be on a weekend, when he's out of town? So, not being able to do that next step, I went for a my third walk of the day and then posted to my other blog (including photos from my Master's thesis field area). Now I'm going to get some sleep and see if tomorrow I can manage the next step of the calculations, or if I need to do something else instead...