Summer in Switzerland

I am a firm believer that summer is the best time to visit Switzerland. I mean I don’t snow board or ski and I prefer having feelings in my fingers than not in frigid -14ºC weather. The point is summer in Switzerland is awesome.

Take the past two weekends for example, both of which were awesome enjoying outdoor parties, an outdoor movie, and strolling around and swimming in the beautiful lakes. This past Saturday was simply perfect. My friend Giovanni came over and we reunited after not seeing

each other for four years. Giovanni and I were exchange students together and we went to the Migros Klubschule to learn German along with nine other exchange students. We, eleven students, had our crash-course-in-German-before-being-thrown-into-a- Swiss- High-School during our first month of our exchange year and as a result we became an international family. Giovanni just graduated from the hotel management school in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and was visiting his family in Sirnach, which is close to where I live, when I suggested we meet up. So Saturday, Giovanni arrived by bicycle for lunch and then we decided to bike down to the lake for a swim. The bike ride was about 8 kilometers which is the furthest I have ever been with a bicycle since I learned to ride in Switzerland when I was 17 years old. So for me this was a moment of triumph! Thank goodness Switzerland has bike lanes or I would have been killed since I have a tendency of steering towards cars. Anyway, we got to the lake which was the perfect temperature and was a nice swim. Later in the day we attended the OpenAir Kino on the lake which was really awesome. We saw Slumdog Millionaire with the lake behind the screen and a full moon above, which concluded my awesome Saturday.

I love openair events especially movies. On Friday, I am going to go to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A couple of weeks ago there was Openair St.Gallen which is a huge concert where you camp out for a few days while several acts perform all weekend long. However it’s really expensive so I didn’t go and am happy that I can use the money instead for the Zurich Tango week which will be at the end of the month. I have gone weekly to the Argentine tango Milongas (tango dance event) in St. Gallen and am really excited for Tango week which will include several Milongas (some openair ones too!), two balls (I new those formal dresses would come in handy!), and several classes and workshops taught by some amazing tango teachers from Argentina.

In the past two weekends, I have attended two cook-out equivalent parties. The one from the past weekend was a birthday party for my friend Jasmin who lives in Glarus surrounded by beautiful pristine Swiss Alps. Her cook-out thankfully consisted of a lot of salad which I was thankful for since I have been keeping to a vegetarian diet (with the exception of the occasional seafood making me a pescatarian, which I am not so sure how to spell). Not so fortunate for my diet, however was sitting in front of the four cakes that were delicious. I mean you have to try them all right? It’s a good thing I offseted (hmmm my offset research is taking over my thought process) that cake by bike riding and swimming the day before.

The one from the weekend before was to say Bon Voyage to my dear friend Nora who is journeying back to New Zealand to be reunited with her boyfriend there who she met while backpacking around NZ five months ago. She is not sure when she is coming back; her only certainty is that her visa lasts three months which can be renewed twice so she thinks nine months in NZ is probable. Interestingly enough a lot of people here go to New Zealand here, for example my neighbor Carmen will be leaving soon, and my Swiss father spent many of his holidays in NZ when he was a young man. Actually, most Swiss, from what I have observed,

really travel far distances for their holidays. The secretary at the Uni is going to northern Africa for her holiday and many people have already left the office bound for a summer in America. Going back on subject, the party was lovely especially surrounded by a magnificent garden (Nora works as a landscaper and her father owns a successful landscaping company so basically the whole family is highly talented in the garden). I got to practice a lot of German which at a party consists of the same questions: Where are you from? Are you here on holiday? What are you studying? How long are you staying? Do you understand Swiss German? Where did you learn to speak/understand German/ Swiss German?

Before the party I picked some of the now perfect cherries from our tree in the garden which is the other reason summer equals awesome. Fresh cherries means my Swiss mother spends the day removing the stones from the cherries so she can make homemade jam (9 jars so far), making cherry soufflé, cherry pies, cherry sorbet, and then she freezes the kilos of cherries in the deep freezer so she can do all of this culinary magic throughout the year. All these cherries are from one tree, surprisingly, and even though we have been picking and munching and inviting relatives over to do the same, that tree is still full of cherries. For me, my favorite is the

raspberries which I spent the remainder of the day picking after I got home and mowed the grass (with a highly sustainable old school push mower…hmmm Katie-Peige-power is my favorite renewable energy :D ). Since we just got a new ice cream maker, I am excited for the raspberry ice cream prospect. YUM. Oh and then there are the black and red currants which I wasn’t sure what they were really but soon found out that I really liked their sourness in the cookies and pies I have sampled so far. Mmmmmm summertime in Switzerland is delicious.

Time flies when you're having fun...

Hello again from Switzerland! It's been quite a busy week for me in the lab, but I'm finally getting the chance and energy to sit down and write about my latest adventures.

In the research world, my independence continues to grow. I am starting to understand more perspectives on the same thing, because in biology we have so many. There's always a great spectrum of needs in any experiment, it's just a matter of knowing what protocol to use to get what you need (if you even know that much!). Everyone has their own way of doing things that they're pretty sold on; it works for them, and the cost of changing is just not worth the potential benefit. So when you talk to someone else that says it's "better this way" or "it's fine this way", and you're still young enough to be flexible, you start modifying what you're doing until you reach your own perfect medium. But just about everyone, no matter how inflexible on their own protocol, understands this as just the way it is. We say it all the time here in my lab, "I will try it to see if it works in my hands," because so often what works for you does not work for someone else. You never really get to the bottom of the difference, like maybe the cells were a little strange, the conditions not quite the same, maybe your mood was different, but it's quite impossible to know what matters. All you can really hope for is that every time YOU do it, it's consistent. I am just very fortunate to be in a great lab, with very qualified and helpful people that are fantastic to learn from. The diversity of experiences really makes for a great place to fine tune your own methods.

Once you gain this methodical understanding, you start being able to plan your own things. You know how much time it takes you, what steps are involved, how controlled about it you want to be. Especially important to me is knowing when the long incubation times are, as they are helpful for either multi-tasking or taking a good break. Here, people take breaks with coffee. Right after lunch usually there's this crowd of people all standing around the Nespresso machine waiting for their cup from a pod. In fact, Nestle, the maker of these Nespresso machines and pods, is headquartered not too far from here. Once, my PI even told me the exact number (in millions) of pods a year they turn out, but as I didn't write it down, it now escapes me. But it was big, so you know. I'm really going to miss the Nespresso machine, and the culture of taking breaks around it. They have told me I should just make my own culture of taking communal coffee after lunch in my next lab, and possibly I will have to institute some version of this. I will also miss the ease of getting good Swiss chocolate to take with the coffee during breaks. And the pastries - oh the pastries. Pain au chocolate is my very favorite here in Switzerland - it's all of a simple croissant with chocolate in the middle. But it's awesome, and impossible to describe to the unenlightened (check wikipedia for a picture!). I will also miss the cafe culture, where you can just take dinner slowly, sit out on the terrace, and enjoy a nice meal by yourself. It's not that popular to eat out in the US by oneself, I always pitied those who had to in days gone by. But not anymore, and certainly not here. I am one of those parties for one many times here, but I am of all people to be envied - Switzerland has taught me to just absorb my surroundings and enjoy those quiet meals by myself. But then again, you have to have a good atmosphere for absorbing, so take that into consideration before trying it yourself and just deciding I'm crazy (to do research I have to be a little crazy, but this penchant for quiet meals is not an example).

So on to the adventuring! Last week was a much quieter week in the lab, as so many experiments are a "hurry up and wait" affair. When you're just preparing, you may dawdle along, checking and doublechecking, maybe even get out early one day or two...but if you're in the middle of something, you're rushing around like a chicken with your head cut off doing too many things at once! This is what keeps me feeling alive and thriving in science, this constant ebb and flow of activity. But that brings me to my more ebb than flow week last week, wherein I took a couple of early afternoons to go to Geneva and Montreux.

Geneva was not really all that I had expected. It's a very different feel than other Swiss towns; I really enjoy that quaint Swiss feel with the gems of the city so close together and coupled to a fantastic view. Geneva, though, is much more of a big city feel. The shopping is superior to anything I've seen here so far, and Lac Léman actually cuts directly into the city. Right after crossing over the lake from the train station side of town, you hit one of the main attractions, the flower clock (picture 1). There's a very nice old town, surrounded by an equally old wall. The University of Geneva was founded by none other than John Calvin himself, and a church he used to preach in still stands. The 450th anniversary of the university is this year, and so they are doing a huge historical tribute to John Calvin, which is how I know many of the previous details. I didn't even know until I arrived that the UN was also in Geneva! Unfortunately, I spent the last of my battery on this gorgeous sunflower in the botanical gardens (picture 2, and a very well done garden, I must say) and then didn't have enough left for taking one shot of the UN building. It's not that impressive architecturally, but it's the spirit of the place, you know? Especially interesting was being around there when people were leaving the building, you could tell it was a highly international crowd by their appearance, clothing, and language. It was well worth seeing, even if I couldn't capture it on camera.

Going back to Montreux was such a good idea! I think that Montreux will go down as one of my favorite places in Switzerland. It's just quaint and beautiful, yet sophisticated all in the right places. The walk along the lake is marvelous, and it just strikes me as a great place to relax, stroll, and swim in the ridiculously blue waters of the lake. This time, though, I spent more time hiking, and I mean hiking, up to the top of the city near old town. I discovered the series of small waterfalls in a stream that runs down the hillside, all the way to the lake (picture 3). I got to see some beautiful scenery just walking back down towards town, then took one of those leisurely "me-time" meals on the lakefront. I then discovered I was here, fortuitously, on the opening night of the famous Montreux Jazz Festival. People from all over had come for this night, and I could hear the many English speakers in the crowd (which is unusual for me here). I got to press my way through the crowds behind the main concert hall, and saw some outdoor performers as well (picture 4). Just a great night to be there, and a neat thing to say I've seen!

Finally, my big trip over the weekend was to Milan (or as the Italians say, Milano). We Americans seem to have this "glow" surrounding all of Europe, but especially Italy. I knew that if Milan was only 3 hours away, and thus do-able in a day, I was going to go there if for nothing else than to see Italy. It was a great idea, but I had my fair share of discouragers along the way (all of whom were either Italian or Swiss-Italian). They all said "go to Venice, it's only 6 hours"; in fact, the last person to tell me this was a girl I met on the train to Milan, about 20 minutes before our arrival into Milano Centrale station! It's a very large city, and it's incredibly easy to get lost. Unlike my wonderful Swiss trips, where you get off the train and there are signs everywhere to helpful tourist offices, Milan is not built this way. I had to find my way to the center of town, but once I got there, WOW. The greatest thing, in my opinion, about Milan is the Duomo (picture 6). City life has revolved around this site since Roman times, but the construction of the current cathedral began in 1386. It's the first cathedral I've been to in Europe that has actually installed an elevator to get visitors to the roof to see the view. I took the 250 stairs up, because I've decided that climbing up the stairs is just part of the experience and I wasn't missing it!

Milan is a fashion capital, housing the great Galeria Vittorio Emanuele II (picture 8), a great shopping center bridging the Duomo to the famous La Scala Theater. The weirdest thing about this Galeria is the bull mosaic on the floor in the center (picture 7). It may sound strange to some, but spinning on the bull's testicles is supposed to bring good luck, so you can see many people standing around waiting for their turn to take a swirl. So many people have done this that there is only a hole in the floor where they used to be drawn. Surrounding the Galeria are many shops for the most exquisite tastes. All of this came in handy for me, however, when I was denied entry to the Duomo for having worn shorts on a 90 degrees F (or 30 C) day. I was not going to miss out on this amazing place just because I put on the wrong clothes, so I ran down the street, entered a shopping mall I soon exited for the price and throngs of people waiting in mobs to get up the escalators, and finally found my way to a reasonable H&M. I found my 15euro pair of capri pants I couldn't even try on because of the lines for the dressing rooms, bought them as quickly as possible, and ran back down the street to find a bathroom I could change in. Ironically, I waited in line for that, too, but it was all worth it. The Duomo inside and out is really a sight to behold.

I also did this bike sharing program in Milan called BikeMi. The bikes are stationed everywhere around the city (every couple blocks or so), but you have to go to a central station to get a username and password. You can use the bike for 30 minutes without charge (other than the price you paid for the day, which is low) or 2 hours total. You have to leave the bike for 10 minutes before taking another one, but I think this is the optimal way to see the city as well as get around it. The metro is great transportation, but not great sightseeing. I rode my bike around the city, seeing the Porta Romana (an old arch that unfortunately was covered for renovations), the Navigili (the oldest canals in Italy), the Santa Maria delle Grazie (another church that houses Leonardo's Last Supper), and the Castello Sforezco (once home of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan prominently featured in Machiavelli's The Prince, and picture 5). But don't get all excited, I did not see the Last Supper, as one must book well in advance (which I didn't know until "well in advance" no longer applies), but the church was still well worth the visit. At the end of this crazy day of biking around Milan, I returned to the Galeria for dinner at a nice little restaurant where I had osso bucco (veal shank) with risotto, a Milanese specialty. It's one of my favorites at this nice Italian place in Albany I've visited, and so I knew I had to try the real thing here, and it was well worth it!

But the adventure didn't end there, I met these really wonderful Swiss Germans from Brig on the train ride back to Lausanne. We spoke only in French, our common language, but I did learn the Swiss-German word for rainbow, which sounds like "ragenbogel". It's "regenbogen" in high German, but they definitely say it differently here! The ride back was really beautiful, too, as we passed by the alps and Lake Maggiore of northern Italy.

On Sunday, I rented a bike from Lausanne Roule, a city-run enterprise available in many other Swiss cities that lends free bikes for the day. You show ID and give a 20 CHF deposit, which you get back at the end of the day. I even got a free soda, so it was a pretty neat deal. Lausanne makes it easy to bike around town with its many bike lanes, but the uphill battle is really daunting! I took the bike down to the lakefront to go watch a professional beach volleyball match (picture 9), showcasing two of last year's Swiss Olympians from the Beijing Olympic games, as well as many other European stars. Best of all, it was again, free (sponsored by our local supermarket, the COOP, so not so free if you count the price of some of the food here!). I even took the bike the other direction back towards Montreux (east), but then headed back and even climbed up some of the hillside on my way. Overall, it was just a fantastic way to spend a day.

So that's really all for now, but this weekend will be quite an adventure. As Ishita mentioned in her blog, we are off to Zermatt this weekend (home of the REAL Matterhorn of Disneyland fame) and I plan to go to Interlaken on Sunday with Ishita's roommate. It's crazy to think that I've really only got 3 weeks left here. The time has really flown, but it's all been so worthwhile. Until later!

Into the 6th week of my stay

I have almost spent 6 weeks out of my 12 weeks now and it feels like time is flying away -- faster than the trains here. My work is progressing at a satisfactory pace and I hope to write down some results before I leave. From where I left my last blog, I met some of the thinkswiss fellows at Lausanne and went out for dinner with them, tasted the famous swiss fondue, went for tapas at a spanish place, went to Bern with Erin and Nasreen and visited my labmate back from Chicago at his place in Como, Italy. The last one accounted for the most enjoyable weekend during my stay here so far. I reached Lugano on a saturday afternoon, the train ride to which was the most scenic and magnificent one I have had with mountains, lakes, river, farms and a wonderful sunny weather all through luzern to Lugano. I met my labmate, stefano and his father there and they drove me to their place. The entire weekend was dedicated to home-made delicious italian food-- lots and lots of them. It was like being at home with people around you taking care of everything. I got to see the city of Como as well.
The weekend before that I traveled to Bern, the capital city with Erin and Nasreen which was just a one hour journey from Lausanne but a big change in the culture and language as Erin pointed out in her blog. Its the most beautiful city I have been to with its cobblestone streets, trams running over them, water fountains at every block, clock towers, a magnificent church and a very green river Aare running through the city. We were however not fortunate enough to spot a bear in the bear pit. I had my first swiss Rosti there which tasted great and was reasonbly priced. The last point where we went to, was a rose garden at an elevation that allowed for a breathtaking view of the entire city along with a bunch of beautiful roses.
Next weekend we have plans to go to Zermatt and paraglide there if the weather is favorable.

Hiking in the Alps

I have now been in Basel for a bit more than a month. It actually surprises me that it has only been a month. I feel like I have seen and done more stuff in one month than should actually be possible.
First to catch up on the research stuff... My boss is currently on a two week vacation. That has proven a little difficult. The project I am working with involves testing different language acquisition models. The main idea in the field is that language is learned through preferential acquisition, a word is added to the lexicon sooner the more connected it is to words already in the lexicon. This gives rise to the small world, scale-free structure that is seen in lexical structure. My boss, however, argues that this may not be the way in which children learn words but rather an artifact of the nature of language. He believes that kids learn words that are most connected to the learning environment. Dog for example can be seen in an environment of house pets, things in parks, animals, mammals, ect. So children will learn words based on their contextual diversity under a model of preferential acquisition.
This has been tested using child language norms but I am using a large data set from actual children to see if we get the same results. I have spent the last bit calculating log likelihoods. However, given that the data comes from small children (younger than 30 months) I am finding it difficult to fit the models to the data. In that sense, research has been really challenging. But on the positive side, I am learning a great deal. I am going to Berlin this next week to attend a summer workshop at the Max Planck Institute and will be presenting a poster on my summer work. I hope to get some feedback, enough to propel me through to the end of august, giving me new questions to explore and hopefully new modes of analysis.
Besides work I have been occupying what little free time I have with travel. Last week my boyfriend came for a visit. We went down to Geneva where we were supposed to go Parasailing. The weather however had a different view and it was rained out. We ended up instead hitching a ride with our parasailing companion to Lausanne. It was a beautiful town. We walked into town from the lake and had a lovely view of the setting sun. The next day we travelled out to Fiesch and took a gondola up to Fiescheralp, walked up to Aletschwald and then down again to Riederalp. It was absolutely beautiful. If anyone is looking for a day trip into the alps, this is the one to do! We then ventured back to Basel and I had to put in a day of work. Its hard to be productive when there is so much to see and do in Switzerland!
The rest of the weekend was spent up in Freiburg Germany, a beautiful university town. We had a lovely time celebrating the fourth with a cookout and homemade apple pie.
Sunday I moved into my new apartment. It is really nice to have an opportunity to practice my german (and even a little bit of swiss german now!) with my new roommates. I have a new goal of watching news every night in the hopes of learning to at least understand swiss german.
As I said, I am going to be in Berlin for a summer school the next week and then I am taking a short 4 day vacation to go to Vienna. After that I am presenting at a conference in Amsterdam and then will be back in Basel for the rest of August. I am looking forward both to traveling and to settling more fully into Basel.

Week 3

Hey there,

I've been telling myself I would post my first entry here once I had some nice pictures to go with my writing, but I can't seem to remember to carry my camera with me. I have been in Zürich for over two weeks already, time seems to be flying by already. I got here three Mondays ago and came straight to the apartment I'm sharing, close to Berninaplatz. I met my first roommate, a guy from Catalonia no less. I'm staying at a students' residence, which has been pretty convenient since a lot of the people here are international students themselves, so they helped me figure things out when I had just arrived.

The next day I went to ETH Hönggerberg for the first time, and I was quite impressed with the department I am working in. The group of people working on LCA's here also seems much larger than the one in Rutgers, but they keep a nice "team" feel. I was also lucky that one of the people there loaned me a bicycle, since the city is perfect for riding and I get to save a lot on transport, too! Starting my work has been kind of slow, though, as I am working simultaneously with the people here and back in the U.S., and there was some discrepancy in the data both groups were expecting to provide. We did all reach a convenient agreement, and things should get going faster soon. Meanwhile, I've been getting to know the city a lot (and forgetting to take my camera with me). I knew Zürich was the biggest city in Switzerland, so I was quite surprised to find that it's not that big at all. I can bike to the city center in 10 minutes, but if I bike around 10' the opposite way I'm pretty much on the outskirts. It is a beautiful city though, I was surprised to see how the Limmat river and the Zürichsee are so clean given they go right through the middle of the city. There are even swans right in the middle of the city! I was also very surprised to see just how much of a multicultural city this is. My professor at ETH told me a third of the people here are foreign, and I can certainly believe that: I've met so many Argentines and other Spanish speakers that I am speaking about as much Spanish as English here. Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but not knowing German it is really helpful how most people here speak at least two or three languages.

On my first weekend here, like Rob mentioned, we had a failed attempt to meet up with Rob and Brett. Well, failed for me, since they got to meet up anyway. Hopefully we can all meet up some time soon. That Sunday I went to Schaffhausen with some of the people from my building. It's a beautiful town, I'm regretting not seeing more of it. Instead, we went over to the Rhine Falls (Europe's largest plain waterfalls, whatever that means, according to Wikipedia), which was nice although pretty crowded. Of course I forgot to take my camera, so I'll have to ask some of the other people to send me their pictures. I also went to the Rietberg Museum to see an exhibition on Luo Ping that is going on right now. I know it's not the most Swiss thing to go see, but having studied Chinese art history I really wanted to go (and I really recommend the museum to anyone interested). And yesterday I also appreciated the free admission to the Kunsthaus on Wednesdays.

And that's all for now, I'm trying to get to travel around some more if my wallet allows me to, so hopefully I'll have something more exciting to tell next time! And some pictures to go with it!

Cheers,
Martín

Dear ThinkSwiss Participants,

Hello everybody!

I’m Ursina, the new intern in the Office of Science, Technology and Higher Education at the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C. I am taking over Lukas job for the next 6 months.

I studied Social Anthropology and Political Science at the University of Bern and I am very happy to be in Washington, D.C., and work for the ThinkSwiss Program. Like your research stay in Switzerland, this is a new and exciting experience for me.

If you have any questions from now on just write an e-mail to: ursina.roder@eda.admin.ch .

Please keep posting your interesting comments and your beautiful pictures on the blog. I’m glad to see that you’re making the most out of your research and your free time and that you don’t get too frustrated with “strange” shop opening hours and old washing machines. Have fun and keep exploring!

Lukas told me that those of you who are in the French part meet quite often, which is great. I’m sure you can exchange a lot of experiences. It’s also nice to hear from Rob that you now had a small ThinkSwiss meeting in Zurich. Maybe next time Martin and Katlin who are both in the area, might be able to join as well…

Enjoy your time in Switzerland!

Kind regards,

Ursina
Office of Science, Technology and Higher Education
Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C.

Amsterdam and a Frat Party (sorta)

I am now in my fifth week in Zurich and I must say time has really flown by. Since my last blog, I started working regularly and am developing a real appreciation for the amount of work that goes into writing a paper that has hopes of being published. Right now I am in the full swing of constructing a data set to be used for the project. Thankfully, I have also had a good amount of free time to both enjoy Zurich and begin traveling around the rest of Europe.

Brett Albert and I were able to meet up for a drink a couple of weeks ago and chat a little bit about our experiences thus far. We tried meeting up with Martin as well, who is also in Zurich, but couldn't quite coordinate the logistics.

This past weekend provided the highlights of my last two weeks since blogging last. On Friday night I joined one of my friends (he also lives in the Oasis) at his fraternity. I was very curious to see how the experience would compare to fraternities in the US. Before transferring to Loyola, I was in a frat at Union College, but was not really expecting a frat here in Zurich to be too similar. The biggest difference, in my opinion, is that fraternities here have no affiliation to a university. This particular frat is called Singstudenten, which basically means the singing students. They did not fail to live up to their name, breaking into song about 5 times in the 2 hours I was there. I tried my best to sing along with the ones that were in English. Because Singstudenten has no affiliation to a university, once you become a member, you are truly a "lifelong member." On Friday night, there were plenty of members of the frat that were out of school, and even a few who looked well into their 60s.

The other thing I found kind of interesting was all the different "rules" they have while inside of the frat. Basically, if you commit any kind of party foul, you have to chug two mugs of beer. A couple examples are whistling, throwing anything more than 2 inches, and dropping anything from the table to the floor. Good thing for me I was pardoned when I broke a rule, otherwise I would have been in rough shape relatively quickly.

I did not stay at the frat for too long, as I had a 730 am flight the next day to Amsterdam to meet a friend, Jon, and his friend for the weekend. Jon will start law school in the fall and is taking a couple of weeks to travel around Europe, as he has never been. Amsterdam was a great time, and I think a few days is the perfect amount of time to visit. The city is pretty small and we walked everywhere we went, but a bike probably would have been a lot easier. We spent an afternoon at the Van Gogh museum, which I found was ok, although I'm not a big museum guy. On the left is a picture inside the museum.

This week has been nothing special, and I probably will not do too much until the weekend. On Saturday I will fly to Barcelona to meet up with Jon and his friend once again for the last leg of their trip. I am really looking forward to Barcelona, even more so than Amsterdam. From what I hear it should be a great time, and it will be nice to spend the 4th of July with some Americans.