Coffee from a Cardboard Cup

I can’t say I am a big fan of the pope, but I do like the apparent open embrace of science being expressed out of the new ‘administration’ over there in St. Peter’s.

Vatican says aliens could exist

I think the popular media have missed out on the many stories of the roles of priests/astronomers have played int the development of modern cosmology. The apparent dichotomy that has popped up between Christians and science, particularly in the U.S. in the past few years, has not always been there. The Catholic church, in particular in the last couple of centuries, have played an active role. I will over look, for the moment, that you don’t hear much about nuns/astronomers coming out of the Vatican observatory.

Back to reading about extrasolar planets……..

It’s been a while since I wrote an update about the blob (already a bad mother!), so I thought I’d give an update.

We are just starting the 23rd week, which means me are more than half way to her birthday. My belly has grown so that I am wearing my ‘big girl’ clothes all the time or making some alterations to my old clothes so I don’t pop out. The photos show how much I have grown since the beginning. I am still wearing my old yoga clothes, but I am going ‘belly free’ (as Matthias calls it) because the stretchy material just won’t cover the blob.

She is moving more and more these days. Matthias finally felt her move last week, and I noticed today that if I watch my belly, I can see it jump when she kicks! At the last ultrasound, she was lying transverse with her head on the left and her butt on the right. She seems to be both kicking and punching because she moves on both sides. Up until a few days ago, she usually moved the most at night, but now she is bopping around throughout the day. Matthias gives her updates on what’s happening out here, but she doesn’t yet respond to his voice.

We are starting to read books on the preparation for the labor and delivery. My friend and wonderful yoga teacher, Clare Collins, is prepping me on how to use my yoga ’skilz’ for the pregnancy and eventually for labor and delivery. Matthias is struggling with reading about this part - he gets a bit squeamish when he sees the photos. I, on the other hand, find it all fascinating. I suspect that will change to anxiety as my belly grows more and I realize that the blob will be coming out in a most amazing way.

I have been trying to get out a bit and walk every day, which is pretty easy to do in Regensburg. I met with Andrea for a coffee/lunch today. After spending the morning reading about planet formation around nearby stars for work, I was walking down the street appreciating the beautiful May afternoon in Regensburg (the best month of the year here). I thought, “How come they never talk about how beautiful May is on the extrasolar planets?” That would make proposals more interesting to read! I can see the proposal title now: “Investigating lovely May weather on HD 209458b” - I think it would review well!

Anyway, the blob seems to be doing well, as are we - with periodic moments of freaking out during the whole apartment search drama, but that is for another post.

So, while in Italy, Aparche searched for dresses for her graduation party. Luca had a few for her to try on - she looked great in all of them. Which one is your favorite???? I uploaded the rest of the photos from our visit here. Aparche wouldn’t stand still for very long, so it was tough to get good shots - I guess that’s why she’s a doctor and not a fashion model.

We’ve got the White, beige/gold, green, purple (1 & 2), and the peacock (or at least that’s what I call it):

Gas in Germany runs about 1.5 euros/liter. A euro is 1.55 dollars as of today. A liter is approximately a quarter of a gallon.

Therefore: 1.5 * 1.54 * 4 = $9.24/gallon is the price of gas in Germany!!! I read that people in the US are afraid of $5/gallon - HA, I say.

You know those people in your life who you haven’t seen in years, but as soon as you see them, it’s as if no time has passed? We have been lucky enough to have quite a few great friends like that in our life. Being with these friends brings me back to myself like nothing else in the world. This weekend, we spent the weekend with Elena (our gracious hostess in Milan), Denis, Sean and Aparche - I think we both really needed to catch up with these guys. It was like one long, relaxed exhale all weekend. I feel great. There is a pile of picture from the weekend here if you’d like to see some great and not so great photos of Italy.

Matthias and I headed down early on Thursday morning (labor day), and the rest were there waiting for us. We headed out to see a bit of Milan once we got there. There was a big labor day festival in town next to the castle. We all ended up crashing out in the park before heading back before walking through the crazy crowd of drunk Italians celebrating/protesting in the streets. We ambled down toward the canals in Milan for an apperitivo (I had my first 9 euro coke!) before heading back to Elena’s for some dinner.

As usual with our good friends, much of the weekend revolved around eating and chilling out. My theory is that we enjoy eating together because our time together is nourishment for the soul - the food is the embodiment of that. Either that, or we are just all pigs looking for an excuse to stuff ourselves! We also tend to bring a lot of good food with us, so it would be a shame to waste it. Matthias brought some Weiss Wurst and beer. Denis brought three goats worth of cheese! It was good.

On Friday, we took the train over to Venice. Venice is awesome! It was the first time there for Matthias, Sean and me. It is the kind of place that really looks as beautiful as it does in pictures. Even though there are a ton of great Venice photos uploaded from the trip, these two were my favorite! We needed a bit of a break after a lot of walking (we are not as young as we used to be). The only thing that’s different than what I imagined was the hoard of people on every street! We weren’t the only ones to have the idea to go there on Friday. Aside from that, the city was great. We had a fantastic lunch next to one of the canals and then took a Gondola ride after picking up some ice cream - We had the best chocolate ice cream EVER!

On Saturday, Elena took us to her friend Luca Hettner who is an up and coming designer. He is a really nice guy who showed us his Frida Forever collection for the summer. Aparche, in search of a graduation dress, modeled some of the clothes for us. I was soooo bummed that my big belly and backside inhibited me from being able to try on the clothes. How often do you get to try on clothes in the designer’s office? Once I get my body back, we need to schedule another Milan visit! I also encouraged him to make a maternity line next - he kissed my belly instead, which is almost as good. I was surprised Matthias like the visit to Luca’s so much. He said he felt like he was in an episode of Sex & the City, so he had a great time.

Elena and I went on a little adventure to China town at 7:30 that morning. She has been doing Aikido at the Scuola della Respirazione (school of breathing) for about the past 7 months, and she took me to see her class. I wasn’t planning on practicing at all as I am avoiding activities that require me to be thrown to the floor for obvious reasons. However, once I got there, a student approached me about practicing and assured me that pregnant women have come before. The place and people had such a great energy that I felt comfortable. Elena and two of the senior students helped me put on the uniform - they had a spare maternity uniform, which also made me feel comfortable. The class was a lot of fun (no one threw me to the ground, in case you are wondering), and I can totally see why she loves it. The style combines breath work with the movements of Aikido, so it is a beautiful dance when done properly (which I didn’t manage). The teacher is awesome! If I seemed confused, which was often, he came over, took a deep breath as I touched him to do the moves, and suddenly I knew what to do! He also gave the blob a little energy blessing! That was nice. It’s cool that Elena has found her Yoga in the Aikido. I can see why she is drawn to it. If I lived in Milan, I’d go with her! (my legs and knees are still sore today from the practice)

Anyway, after lots of eating, walking, napping, and chatting with good friends, Matthias and I both feel pretty full of life. It was nice to get away from apartment searches and all of things that made us feel stressed here. I hope we can keep that positive energy with us through the rest of the year!

PS - Venice has the best chocolate ice cream in the world!!! If you got there, I highly recommend it.

We’ll be offline for the next few days. It’s Labor Day weekend here, and we are driving down to Milan to catch up with Elena, Denis, Sean and Aparche! (old friends from Irvine for those of you who don’t know them).

Have a nice weekend ya’ll!!

For any frequent travels out there, this is pretty cool. It’s a simulation of airplane traffic out of the U.S. over a few days in March 2005. It was the Astronomy Picture of the Day today.

Mark should be taking ff from Munich in about ten minutes or so. We drove him down this morning to take the long trip home. I don’t envy the trip he has today. I posted and array of photos from his trip here.

We had a nice time the last few days. He and I went down to Munich on Friday. It was kind of a bad weather day, cool and drizzly. We walked around Marienplatz a bit until the giant cooko clock went off in the old city hall. Then we wandered a bit, checking out the cool buildings. As the rain started coming in, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus so Mark could see the tourist vision of a Munich brewery (filled with a lot of really nice non-Germans). Mark got to meet a local and toast some beers, so he had a good time. I finally got to see the Hofbrauhaus too, which was fun; I’ve heard so much about it.

Yesterday, we headed out to Kileheim with Cliff and Sarah. The The Kloster Weltenburg is a monastery on the Danube next to some cliffs along the river. We tok a short boat tride to get to the Kloster. We sat down under and awning in the beer garden just befre it started raining. We cut the day a little short because Matthias wasn’t feeling well, but before we left, I stopped down at the restrooms (as I often do these days), and I was surprised by a little gift from cleaning ladies at the Kloster. Apparetnly, the knit little baby booties in their down time, and they keep a bag to hand them out to pregnant ladies who come there! Cliff poster a photo of me with my little gift here. That was a nice surprise.

Now, we are just cleaning up and getting ready for more apartment searching and our trip to Italy next weekend. It seems like everything is happening at once these days. Time is flying too. I am already half way through the pregnancy! I still can’t believe that, though my growing belly and the wiggly blob inside is slowly convincing me.

Here is the video debut of our little blob. We found out on Monday that she is, in fact, a she. You can’t see that in this ultrasound video, but the doctor saw the ‘girl stuff’ in the ultrasound.

On the subject of girls, what is with the pink? I have noticed that there is an assumption in the maternity clothing industry that once a woman is pregnant, she must suddenly love to be draped in pink! I like the color and all, but I have to be in a particular mood to wear, particularly the pastel pink. If it’s all I can get for clothes, it is a bit annoying. The same trend seems to stand for little girls. I don’t want to drape my little blob in pink all the time, I think I’ll have to buy ‘boy’ clothes for her to get some color variation. Luckily, most of our friends have had boys so if we get hand-me-downs, they might not be pink.