Life Updates (Yes, I'm Still Alive!)

I thought last year was the worst productive year for me in terms of blog writing and I did plan to write more this year, but turns out PhD life and traveling doesn't leave me enough extra time to write. Funny that I'm writing after whole 8 months!! 

So, good news is I'm still alive and doing fine but what happened during last 8 months? I have been travelling A LOT! Though most of the times these are weekend trips plus a day or two extra, I have to always play catch up game with work everytime I am back. Then there are friends, personal life, and so on. Looking back a year ago, I couldn't feel more grateful for where I am today. I feel really lucky to meet all the people I've met in the past year and all the traveling opportunities I had so far.

Here is the list of places I've been to this year - the year started with celebrating the New Year in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then I went to Hungary in February, back home in March, Netherlands in April, Denmark in June, Italy in September and just got back from Greece. Within the UK I've visited Isle of Wight in February and two new places in my favorite Cornwall - Perranporth in May and Falmouth in July. Falmouth was on my list for a while, so happy that I managed to visit this year. Two more countries to visit this year in November and December. So, I've been going somewhere pretty much every month and my travel stories have been piling up. I do promised myself to write everything up in separate posts because many of these trips were dream-come-true, lifetime achievement for me.

White washed buildings surrounded by blue ocean in Santorini

However, I think it's time I move to a separate platform with my travel stories. I will still keep this blog and post personal stories from time to time. I kept this space mostly for myself, more as a diary rather than to share with the world (other than some learning posts). 6 years later it makes me feel nostalgic going through all the posts. But I do want to write about my travels more broadly, for bigger audience, for the less privileged, non-white, women of color who dream to travel independently. Also, I do realize that it's more difficult to browse the stories in this platform, having to go through the total list or clicking for older posts. So, I'm wrapping up this post with some of my favorite photos from recent trips before I write about them separately on a different platform.

The Colloseum, Rome, Italy

Copenhagen, Denmark

Budapest, Hungary

Tulip festival in Keukenhof

Santorini, Greece

Devon Life - Fossil Hunting in Lyme Regis

Yes, I'm writing after 9 long months, after the longest gap in my blog writing and ending 2018 with the smallest number of blog entries! Good news - I'm still alive and have a lot to write. Bad news - life has been incredibly busy (in a good way) and none of my stories are ending up in my blog anymore. Right before the end of 2018, I wrote in my new diary a to-do list for the new year and writing more blog posts was one of those. 

It's almost the end of February and I still couldn't manage to get one entry in my blog and my to-do list is only getting longer. But better late than never. Starting to write from today and hopefully this year I'll write more posts than last year including all the pending travel stories. I just finished reading the book "This is Going to Hurt" by Adam Kay. I really enjoyed reading the book and especially the short diary entries motivated me to start writing again and reminded me that it doesn't have to be long but it's important to continue the practice of writing. So, starting off this year's blog entry with a quick one from last weekend's trip to Lyme Regis in east Devon. 

One of the main reasons why I decided to live in Devon is the proximity to the coast. It's very easy to get to the beach by train, Dawlish, Teignmouth in just 20-30mins and Cornwall in few hours. However, so far I've been to the beaches in south-west and didn't have the chance to explore much of east Devon. I've few places to visit, Lyme Regis being the first stop among them. It's famous for it's beautiful prehistoric landscape, and million years old fossils. As written on the official website, "The local blue lias clay found to the east and west contains the remarkable fossil remains of sea creatures from the Jurassic seas of 180 million years ago." Also, the first complete ichthyosaur in the UK was found in this area by Mary Anning hundreds of years ago.

Charmouth beach

Traveling there isn't much difficult, apparently the 9A bus goes directly from Exeter bus station, but we took a 40min train to Axminster and then bus to Lyme Regis that takes about 25mins. We got lucky with some beautiful sunny weekends in February and Lyme Regis looked gorgeous in sunshine when we reached. We walked around for a bit, popped into some fossil shops, and went to get some fish n chips as it was lunch time and we didn't want to feel peckish while fossil hunting.

Lyme Regis

After doing a bit more walk after lunch and a drink at the beautiful seaside restaurant, we decided to go to the Charmouth beach for fossil hunting as it's renowned for fossils. It's about an hour walk from Lyme Regis but because it was already afternoon, we decided to take the bus and spend more time there. Bus took about 24mins. 

Charmouth looked equally beautiful and you can surely spot a lot of people facing downwards, which means they're after those hidden gems, and we followed. Unfortunately we couldn't spot a dinosaur but we were happy with our little fossils and that we were lucky with the weather and didn't come back empty handed.

On our way back we walked to Lyme Regis, took little more than hour. It was uphill for a long time and we came back with sore legs (we frequently do long walks and I'm used to running, but that knocked us off) but happy hearts. The landscape in that area is incredibly beautiful and I'm looking forward to exploring more of east Devon this summer :) 

Hiking on Dartmoor

Spending another traveling. Quite a bit of journey, more than four hours with three changes. I don't mind long journeys if I don't need to change trains too many times, then I can focus on something and get some work done. This isn't happening today, so I figured I'd rather write a pending blog post. The weekend before last one I went to hike on Dartmoor with a group of people. It's a national park, part of the moorland and popular hiking place in Devon. I had heard about it before, so was looking forward to going there.

On the way up

Everyone who is familiar with British weather knows what a difference sunshine can make here! The day it's sunny outside it's like a freaking festival (!), but probably because everything does look very pretty in the sun here. We got lucky on our hiking day as there was some sunshine in the morning and wasn't very cold. Dartmoor weather has its own mind people say, so wasn't really sure what to expect. We got some drizzles but was lucky that it didn't pour down.

The most interesting part of Dartmoor landscape is granite hilltops. Later I learned that this place includes the largest area of granite in Britain. On our way up we saw Dartmoor ponies wandering around freely. They were super adorable!

This photo was taken by Joey. I really like it, couldn't help posting!

Ponies!

I wasn't sure how difficult the hike would be and which shoes to wear. It wasn't too steep or difficult actually, only need supportive shoes for the rocks - LOTS of them there! Other than that it was quite fun to chat with people while hiking. We had a little lunch/ picnic after we hiked up. The weather started to look more dramatic by then.

From the top

When we hiked down (we did a loop) it felt much shorter than the first half. We definitely hiked more than half of the total path (8 miles) on our way up. Some people grabbed a drink at the pub where we started, most were quite tired. Overall it was a good day. I look forward to more hikes in different seasons. I wonder how the scenario will change.

Dream Trip to Cornwall

This post is long overdue. Last last weekend I went for a short trip to St Ives in Cornwall. Visiting Cornwall has been my dream for many years and I wasn't disappointed a single bit! The place was absolutely dreamy and I'm really glad I took the time for myself to explore and relax little bit. Of course, it took me few days to come back to reality (wish I didn't have to!) and catch up with my research. And like all PhD students I've reached the point of frustration while trying to solve something that seems apparently unsolvable (why do we do this to ourselves really?!). So, I decided to take a little break and write this post instead.

St Ives is a cute little town, one that has been a popular tourist destination and inspiration to artists for ages. Usually most places in Cornwall require driving like most beach towns, but they built a tiny train station from St Erth (four stops, takes 12mins) that drops you right in front of the Porthminster beach (how convenient)! The train journey from from St Erth is very scenic as well. My AirBnb host suggested me to sit on the right side, front-faced for the best view and he was absolutely right!

So, this is the first picture I took of the Porthminster beach after getting off from the train. It was cloudy and windy on Friday afternoon, so I wasn't expecting much, but that view took my breath away! This one is the calm beach, more suitable for families with little kids. The turquoise blue is stunning and as the sun peeps in and out, the ocean changes its colour in various shades of blue too. I felt I could just sit there and watch it all day!

Porthminster Beach

The Porthmeor beach is about 15mins walk from there. There's also Harbour beach in between. I was lucky that my AirBnb was conveniently located right in between the beaches and everything was in walking distance. The place itself was very nicely decorated too and the couple was very kind and friendly. Soon after I realized you start seeing the same people again and again as you wander around because it's so small! However, I didn't get bored at all. There are also plenty of art galleries and museums to explore. Later in the afternoon I made a quick trip to Porthmeor beach. This part is more of surfer's zone with gorgeous waves. The Tate Museum is right next to this beach too. There's a cliff named Man's Head that offers breathtaking views of the beach. I decided I'd spend more time on that beach next day.

Porthmeor Beach

On Saturday morning I pushed myself to get out of bed before sunrise so that I could watch sunrise on the beach. I'm not a morning person and it was little chilly in morning, but that romanticism (!) was totally worth it! It was cloudy at first but then I got a beautiful view as I was about to leave for Porthmeor. Also, pro-tip - I learned the evening before that Porthminster is perfect to watch sunrise and Porthmeor for sunset. I didn't realize it and missed the lovely sunset on Friday as I was waiting for it by Porthminster :-/ Anyway, here's a picture of the sunrise :)

After that I headed to Porthmeor beach and walked on the quiet beach by myself. It felt like a dream and I couldn't help humming "Don't Break the Spell"! The surfers started to gather too. It was lots of fun to walk on the beautiful, clear water even though it was quite freezing. I collected lots of pretty shells and started to head back for breakfast and little shopping as they neared the opening hour. Most shops open there around 10am, which makes sense for tourist towns but also I started to get hungry. 

I had tasty Cornish pasty, hot chocolate and brownie and went home for little rest. Later that day I went up to Man's Head. We were blessed with gorgeous sunshine that day and I took plenty of pretty pictures. I mean it looked so beautiful already that I didn't have to make much effort!

I loved that they placed benches beautifully on that cliff. What a simple nice idea to let people watch those blue waves! I walked to the top, took more photos, had fish & chips for dinner and came home with a happy heart.

On Sunday it was time to head back. It felt too soon! I really wished I could be there longer. I left AirBnb with all my luggage and it was drizzling, so thought I'd just walk around little bit. I went to the gift shops and had more Cornish pasty, but after a while I couldn't resist climbing Man's Head again. I spent some more time there watching beautiful waves, the wind made them extra gorgeous! After that I headed back to Porthminster beach and hopped on my train back.

I'm really glad I made this trip and can't wait to go back in June. Already started to think where else to visit in Cornwall! :p Till then I've got plenty of photos and videos to cherish those beautiful memories. 

Now back to my research (-_-).

Brighton Days

Brighton is a beach town and quite popular tourist destination (figured from AirBnb price!) in the south of the UK. Apparently it's the third most expensive city to live in this country, but I had the chance to stay here for a while because of my sister. I visited her 3 months ago and been staying with her until I move to my own place. 

This city reminds me of my childhood a lot as I grew up in a coastal city and going to the beach was a regular fun activity for our family. People living here are lucky to have a beautiful beach right in the heart of the city. Surrounding city centre is buzzing with all sorts of shops and makes all amenities easily accessible. You walk through the lanes and can hear the waves calling you (well, not quite as romantic until you cross the street as traffic and human noise masks it quite a bit). 

Water always pulls me because I've always had close connection with rivers and ocean. Sitting there alone listening to the waves soothes my mind and makes me feel I could wash away all my pains. Most importantly, the vastness and depth of the ocean remind me that we're all so small. I should learn to be more humble and tolerant from the ocean. 

I love sunsets, and a beautiful sunset by the beach is all I need to be happy or at least heal my soul. I was lucky to spend some time alone there watching pretty sunsets when I needed it the most. Given that it's still pretty cold for spring, both days I came back frozen! Hopefully I'll get to spend longer time when it gets warmer.

Brighton Central Beach

I also like the view from the house. You can see this hilly area that goes down to Stanmer Park. On a beautiful day, clouds rise above the hill in a blue sky making this background even more beautiful. The weather has been funny since I got here - a lot of rain and snow. But got to see some beautiful sunsets in last couple of days. 

I am also trying to get back to running routine slowly. When I moved here I put my running gear in my main luggage so that I don't have to live without running for too long, but it became overweight, so had to get rid of them :( Happy to be finally going back on track even though I gained a lot of weight in about a month >.<

View from living room

 

Last time when I came here we went to visit the Brighton Pavilion, which is very gorgeous. I still haven't gotten the chance to explore the museum, hopefully soon. We planned to visit the aquarium with Arnan (my little nephew) but couldn't find a good day for it yet. The weather has been bizarre most weekends. 

Brighton Pavilion

Brighton Museum & Gallery

My Brighton days are almost over. I'm moving to my place this weekend and then will be visiting occasionally. I'm looking forward to being settled and getting back to my regular lifestyle, but it'll always be a pleasure to come back to this city.

Places I've been in 2017

We're just few hours away from starting 2018, so I thought I'd write a quick post on all the places I've travelled to in 2017. I travelled way too much this year - three overseas trips, two trips to the West coast (which almost count as overseas trip) and lots of conference trips within USA.

The year started with celebrating NYE in NYC. I wrote a separate post on that trip, which was quite fun visiting places in Manhattan and Brooklyn. February was spent packing and moving to my new apartment, and preparing for the Code4Lib conference in Los Angeles. LA weather was gorgeous in March. Apparently it was raining a lot for past two months, so it was unusually green, but luckily we had full sunshine and crisp weather during our stay. Right after I got back from LA, I had to go back to Santa Cruz in California for an interview. It was a short intense trip with the interview and my work Macbook being dead from soaking water on the plane. However, Santa Cruz was absolutely dreamy! It's a small beach town where you can see gorgeous blue ocean when driving back from campus. I'm not sure how people concentrate on their studies and work there, but it's definitely worth visiting for vacation! I wrote another post on my Cali trips here.

In May I went back home to get my H1B visa stamped, which was another stressful journey. After I came back I went the UK for a week-long vacation and to present at the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School. On that first week I visited Dawlish, House of Marbles in Bovey Tracey and Exeter. Then I spent the second week in Oxford. This was my second time after 2015 and I felt very nostalgic re-visiting all the places. I wrote another post on my stay there.

Dawlish beach

After those summer trips I had a break for about three months. A lot happened in between. Then I had four conferences in a row from October through November. The first conference was in Winston-Salem. It's about 2.5 hours drive from Raleigh. We drove back on the same day but I managed to pay a quick visit to Old Salem, which is a preserved historic town. Then I went to Pittsburgh for the DLF Forum. Pittsburgh is a decent city with quite confusing streets. I didn't get to see a lot but made it to the natural history museum and some nice places to eat in downtown. From Pittsburgh I flew directly to Washington D. C. for the ASIS&T Annual Conference. That was very eventful but I won't go into the details now. D.C. has good food and cool museums but I got super exhausted from all the traveling and conference presentations.

Old Salem

Pittsburgh downtown

Washington D. C.

After coming back from conference travels I went to the UK for vacation in November. It was my first time to visit Brighton, Bristol and Portsmouth. I think I'll write a separate post on that. Hoping to travel less for work and see more new countries in 2018! 

Hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Cali Trips - LA and Santa Cruz

Could I start this post by saying how much I love Saturdays? If I could cwtch Saturday I totally would! So glad it's finally weekend. Falling sick last weekend made the week feel really long but I'm feeling a lot better now. While staying in bed last weekend, I went through thousands of my old photos from all three phones I ever possessed! I usually try to write a post after I visit any cool new place but realized I never did any for my trips to Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. Both of those trips were back on back, and right after I moved to my new apartment. So, it was pretty hectic and after I got back I got busy with unpacking and then again travel... Anyway, even though I was in a time crunch, I got to enjoy some of the charming beauty of California during those trips, so thought I'd post the photos.

I went to LA in March for the Code4Lib Conference 2017. I presented a talk and taught a half-day workshop with my colleagues. Also, I'm grateful to be recognized as one of the Code4Lib Diversity Scholars. We had few meet-ups arranged for the scholars and their mentors, so all in all it was quite busy. The conference center was located at UCLA campus, so I had the chance to walk around little bit. Honestly speaking, I wasn't impressed by LA as much when I traveled from the airport to UCLA. Everyone drives in LA, so traffic is pretty bad most of the times. However, I LOVED the campus. I really like big campuses with historic buildings. It reminded me of UIUC campus in many ways. Also, Cali had one of the unusually big rainfalls this year, so it was very green, apparently that's not how it looks at that time of the year. Luckily the weather was great the week we visited and I absolutely loved how crisp and fresh the air feels there. We had lunches outdoors under the sun every day, which was really lovely! (I know I'm overusing "love" but that's how it felt)

En route to LA, looking over San Fransisco

Lovely afternoon at UCLA 

Lunch time!

Gorgeous library!!

On the last day of the conference I made a quick trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Anyone who knows me should know that art museum is the first place I visit wherever I go. The museum was pleasant, they've pretty good collection. I went around the city little more but had to be back on time for my flight. 

LACMA entrance

Was pretty amazed by that water drop detail in that painting

 Oh, forgot to mention that we went out for a group dinner in downtown. LA culture and downtown area seemed very different than the other places I visited before in USA but it was interesting. Got to see a pretty sunset too (which is always a plus)!

Umm..?

Dreamy sunset

Immediately after I got back from LA, I had to go to Santa Cruz for an interview. That was a very stressful trip. Not because of the interview but because by water bottle decided to spill water while we were taking off and my MacBook happily drank it and died within half hour (my usual travel horrors -_-). That's whole another story but the only thing I want to mention here is that Santa Cruz is very beautiful. The beach was about 20mins walk from the hotel I was staying in, so I made a quick trip after I got back from the interview. It was really peaceful and de-stressing to be able to walk on the beach. I saw many unique plants on my way back too. I'm not moving to California but I'd love to visit again, especially San Fransisco and San Diego area.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Pretty plant!

UCSC Library

I've to get back to my weekend activities and more travel planning now but hope to be back with new post soon!

Oxford after two years

Can't believe it's been two months that I wrote my last post. A lot happened over past two months, mostly a lot of traveling, jet lag, recovering, catching up with normal life and traveling again. Finally I'm home almost after 3 weekends, so thought I should look back and write a post.

In 2015 summer I was in Oxford for 6 weeks for the Oxford-Illinois Digital Libraries Placement Program. That was my first time in U.K., a place I always wanted to be. It's especially endearing to me because my dad was at Cambridge for 6 months and we grew up hearing those stories. Being there was a unique experience for me, something that reshaped my professional and personal life, for better or worse. I loved the campus so much (who doesn't, right?) that I wanted to be back for grad school, which hasn't happened yet because of the U.K. educational funding system. That's a different story, but I went back this year again for the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School (DHOxSS) to present my poster on special collections discovery methods and participate in the machine learning workshop. 

The famous Radcliffe Camera

Being back to Oxford was a bitter-sweet experience for me, it brought me back many good memories I hold really close to me. As I walked the streets, all the familiar places made me nostalgic and I wished I could go back to 2015. May be I would do few things differently if I could go back. Anyway, summer school was a mixed experience too. I learned some and it was great seeing my favorite faces from UIUC and OeRC but I was hoping to get more out of the workshop. The city was beautiful as ever and luckily we had a nice sunny week. Here are some photos -

Christ Church College

Loved the sculpture under window

Another favorite sculpture

Weston Library for Special Collections

Bridge where Harry Potter was shoot

Also, this year my workshop took place at St Anne's College, where I stayed last time. I could see the backyard garden full of lavenders, which I really adored. Another thing I should mention is food - one of the great things of summer school is the variety of food, they always provide awesome lunches and desserts (and I never say no to desserts, so tried most of them :p).

St Anne's backyard

Got to see a pretty sunset

One week went by pretty fast and I was beyond exhausted by Friday. Unlike last time, I didn't get to go to my room and rest the whole evening. I had to pack my luggage and get ready for a ridiculously long trip. Also, unlike last time the ending of summer school was less heartbreaking, I was ready to be back home. Oxford -> London -> New York -> Washington -> Raleigh, after three layovers and a night at the airport (did this second time in my life and never doing it ever again), I finally arrived home and bravely went back to work the next day. Not sure if this was my last trip to Oxford, time will say but this is a city I'd love to be back again, may be at some different time of the year.