A lot of good things happened this month: I defended my PhD, sold/given away a lot of my possessions, got a German national visa, got my  US driver's license (!). Alexey and I went to IL and MI for a very short weekend and saw a few friends and family. I finally took him to Flint, MI and showed him my undergraduate school. 

Alexey's sister Tanya is coming to visit on Tuesday and we are going on a road trip trying to fit as much of US sightseeing as possible in one week. 

On Sept. 2, I will leave the US and head to Russia, where I will pick up my mom and together we will go to Germany. We will travel around Bavaria and Austria, see the mountains and the castles, and she will get to see (and I will get to meet) her college friends, that she hasn't seen in over 25 years! 

Alexey will defend his PhD in September and we will start our new jobs, as postdocs, at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen on Sept. 15, where he will be doing quantum optics, and I will learn biophysics. 

I still can't really believe I'm leaving America and New Haven, which has become my home❤️, but I am excited to see more of the world, explore Europe, learn German and eat all the bread. If you come to Bavaria, send us a message. We will be happy to see you 😊

The beginning.

Being a final year grad student has me thinking about what to do next. One one hand, I have been in the USA for 10 years. This is home. I know it, I like it most of the time. I speak the language (mostly) fluently - curse you articles.  If I wanted to, I could get permanent residency in a few months, then 5 years and I am a citizen. On the other, I feel like this is my best (last?) chance to get out of my comfort zone and explore the world outside a bit. I am not planning to get too far out though, Europe would suffice for now (also it is a lot closer to Moscow, where my mom is, and visiting mom during long weekends just sounds nice (also the plane ticket prices are simply amazing!)). I am not completely sure yet, and we will probably apply to some places in Boston and, maybe, Princeton. I don't really want to get too far away from the East coast. Though, I guess, there are regular flights from Moscow to LA, Miami and Washington.

The next step was finding someone interested in us (myself and my husband). First we both applied for the Technical University of Munich research opportunities week. It is a week-long program in March, where we get to go to Munich for a prospectives weekend (but for postdocs!). They pay for everything, show us around, take us to dinners, we meet professors. All in all good things. We were both lucky to get in! Now was time to see if we could meet more people.

I emailed quite a few people (12 I think).  Three did not respond at all. One told me that they wanted someone with a different experience. The rest responded and invited me to come and visit them. I don't want to include names yet, for privacy and stuff. But I am visiting the following places:

Copenhagen, Gottingen, Erlangen, Munich, Zurich and Lausanne.

My husband so far arranged for interviews in Erlangen and Zurich, but I am sure everyone will want him.

So, I am excited for March. We first go to Moscow and I get to see my mom's new apartment. Then we go to Europe for 3 weeks. I am trying to get work done here, to make myself feel a little less bad about our 3 week long vacation (fine, job interviews).

I am also still working on my thesis. (I wrote like a sentence today!)