The last few weeks at work have been pretty hectic (even though I've been gone a lot), and it seems like they're only going to keep getting busier. I only have four more weeks in Germany! I'm trying to end my internship a week early, so I can either go on a trip - I'm thinking Paris maybe! - and/or stay with my sister and brother-in-law for a little while before heading back to the U.S. However, I have a lot of experiments and work to do, a paper to write on my project, and a poster to make for my presentation in Washington, D.C. in the middle of August after I get back, and I'm hoping to get all this done in the next three weeks!

Last weekend I took a train to Prague, only two hours away from Dresden, and met up with Sarah again for the weekend. It was a really fun trip; it just so happened to be Prague's city celebration that particular weekend, so there were boothes up in the Old Market Square all day Saturday, with what I think was probably the czech version of fair food, like we have mini donuts and corn dogs. There was live music playing all afternoon and evening there, too. We stayed in a hostel, which turned out to be pretty nice and clean actually, and really convenient (not to mention cheap!). One thing that both of us noticed was that there were sooo many Americans there! The part of town with all the old historical sites was very tourist-oriented. Almost everything was in English there, actually. For some reason the picture uploader tool on this thing isn't working for me right now, but I'll put some Prague pics up when it is.

I gave my presentation to the lab on Monday! I was supposed to give an overview of the research I've done at the end of my project, but since there are a bunch of people leaving for vacation after this week, I did it now. I hadn't really done a whole lot of experiments that I had definite results for yet, so it was kind of an overview of what I will do I guess, and now I don't have to give one at the end! It was pretty nerve-racking, but a good experience overall, speaking in front of all these Dr.s and Ph.D. students.

I'm taking this Fri. and next Mon. off to go see my sister and brother-in-law in Kaiserslautern (southwestern Germany). She works on an army base there as a dentist, so we're going to celebrate the 4th with the Americans. Then I'm working Tuesday and Wednesday, and taking Thursday and Friday off to go to the DAAD/RISE conference in Heidelberg - basically a meeting of all the students in the same program as I am. It's such a hard life, working two days a week and enjoying Germany the rest of the time!