geowench

It took me all of October to recover from COVID.  I'm just now beginning to feel more or less back to normal, though I'm still coughing and bringing up gunk. The only other thing of any note that I did in October was to plant a small patch of garlic.  

Tomorrow I'm flying out to CA for the week -- we are having "team building" on W/TH, but I'm flying out on Sunday so that I'll have two days on my own to see friends.  I've been with this company for three months now and I am still really struggling with just exactly what the #$%* I'm supposed to be doing all day.  I'm finding it harder than I expected to be so isolated all day at home.  But I am happy to not be at my old job (I had a drink with several of my old colleagues a week or two ago, and not a damn thing has changed), and I really enjoy the big paycheck, so I'm trying to figure it out.  

I'm slightly anxious about being around so many people next week - I've never met any of them, plus they just dropped the mandatory masking inside rule.  I will be masked when indoors, I think.  I don't want to get it AGAIN.  Plus, it's winter and there are other bugs going around.  I did get my annual flu shot a few days ago though, so hopefully I'm covered there.  Will get the COVID bivalent booster in December (you're supposed to wait about 3 months after having it).  So hopefully my immune systems is primed to take care of me.  Fingers and toes crossed.

Guess I'd better write about out our European adventure before I've totally forgotten.  This trip was planned around two European conferences for Eric, and I decided to come along and call it my 50th birthday trip.  The first conference at the end of August was in Strasbourg.  We spent a full week there.  I found us a little (too little) AirBNB just a block away from the university where his conference was and an easy (though longish) walk or quick tram to the city center and tourist spots.  It was a good time, although I often felt underdressed - last time we did this two years ago, I never wore any of the fancier clothes I brought - so I didn't bring any fancy clothes this time, and regretted it, amongst all the tres chic French women, including the very stylish wife of the organizer, with whom I spent quite a bit more time than I was expecting. 

We went to several museums, a castle, a provincal village, and of course the Notre Dame cathedral, which is truly impressive - a gothic masterpiece.  We had a good time in Strasbourg, though not fabulous time, partially because we ended up spending much more time than anticipated with conference folk.

On Saturday, we took the train to Brugg, Switzerland to see our friends E and S, who are Brazilian, lived here in Stillwater for awhile, and now live in Brugg.  We stayed with them for the weekend.  They showed up around Zurich (a quick train ride), we relaxed, we ate, we talked, we really had a great time.  We are so lonely in Stillwater, and we miss our only friends.

On Monday we had a quite long (6 hours or so) train ride to Turin, for the second conference.  We were there only 5 days at the beginning of September, and E spent almost all his time at the conference. so I was pretty much on my own.  Which was fine - I ended up feeling quite at home in Turin, and really enjoyed myself.  I went to quite a few museums on my own including the small but incredible Museum of Criminal Anthropology and the Museum of Human Anatomy.  These were both basically untouched since the early 1900s and I could have happily lived in them.  Neither allowed photographs, unfortunately.  I also went to the Egyptian Museum, which was enormous, like 5 floors, and utterly exhausting - you could go there every day for a week and not see it all properly.  I also went to the Royal Palace, which now houses half a dozen museums, including the archaeology museum, which focussed on Turin.  While I have of course seen tons of Roman archaeology, I found it almost jarring to see Roman archaeology in situ in Turin (and also in Strasbourg, actually).  E had one day free, so I decided he'd most enjoy the Palace and it's various museums.  Despite his busy schedule we had dinner together every night at various streetside cafes, eating (usually) delicious pizza and beer.  All in all I enjoyed Turin far more than Strasbourg.

So then of course we had to come home, and we both came down with colds, and we are still not fully recovered ... mine actually devolved in pneumonia, and I was off work for 5 days.  It never got truly bad (I didn't have to hospitalized) but it was unpleasant all the same, and I'm still coughing away and can't yet manage my daily 30 minute walks - I did 20 minutes on Thursday and it exhausted me.

So anyway, that was our big adventure - I've failed to convey how much fun it was and all that we saw and did, and how it has inspired me in my daily life back here in Oklahoma.  Next time I will talk about what I am doing to keep myself sane in Oklahoma.