Trip to Dijon, Strasbourg, Paris for interviews

Hi everyone,

As you must know I had 5 labs to meet in order to establish a co-direction in France for my PhD.
I landed in France on Tuesday the 12th. The following Saturday, my parents and I drove 850km to go to Dijon and see my family there. I had a lot of fun. It was good to see my family. On Monday I was supposed to go to Strasbourg by train, and my childhood best friend decided to come with me, so that we can spend an entire day together and catch up. That was very nice, but of course we had a problem. Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be my life!!! The train we were supposed to catch and which was taking us to the next train station where we were supposed to take the train for Strasbourg was late. Then we would arrive too late to catch the train for Strasbourg, I asked when was the following one and it was 3h later, so would have been late for my appointment in strasbourg. So finally, we decided to go back to my family's place, and we took my grand mother's car and drove to Strasbourg. 3h to go, 3h to come back, yeah!!!
Anyway the meeting went well and now it seems that it's gonna work, but let's see.

Tuesday we left for Paris, and there I had 4 meetings. All of them went very well, I met some really interesting guy (the director of one of the most famous cancer research institute in France). There I was staying with my brother and one night I stayed at a friend's place. It was also nice to catch up with her!

Well now I am back to the south, we came back on Sunday. Here it is boring, it's "nice" to be with my parents, but there is nothing to do or nobody I know, so hopefully I'll get out of here soon!!!

Here are some pictures of Paris:

small update

As most of you must know I am back to France in order to get a new visa so that I can do my PhD in the usa. The bad news is that the only suitable visa we found is a work visa, H1 visa, and that these visa are based on a lottery where I have 1 chance out of 3 to get it. But we stay positive, and as I will get it, I won't be able to start my PhD work at Oncomed the 1rst of October, meaning that I won't be back to the US before mid-September probably.

As you can imagine it is very hard for me to be away from Poorav, but we will get through this! And hopefully we will see each other in between those 8months

Right now I am with my parents in the south west of France, near Mont de Marsan, it is a small village called: Duhort Bachen (department 40) if you want to have fun and look where it is on yahoo maps!
Saturday early morning we are leaving for Dijon and Monday I am going to Strasbourg to meet a lab for the co-direction. Hopefully it will work out with them, but in case it doesn't I also have appointments in Paris for the rest of the week with 5/6different labs! So I hope that between all these labs, one will want me!!!
Well I will keep you posted, and tell you about my adventures in France.
Do not hesitate to post something, I would be nice for me to see that some people are looking at this!

switching to english!!!

When I was in California, I had decided to have a blog so that my family and friends could follow me in my adventures.
Now that I am in France for a little while, I decided to switch to English so that my American friends or more than friend ;-) can follow me here!

Passage a l'anglais

Bonjour a tous,

Lorsque j'etais aux Etats-Unis, mon blog etait en france de facon a ce que mes proches en France puissent avoir des nouvelles. Maintenant, je vais passer a l'anglais, etant en France pour 8mois, afin que mes proches americains puissent aussi avoir des nouvelles.