Paris (Part 1)

Here's the beginning of the trip, and the story everyone wants to know!

We left for Paris on Monday, May 10th. All of Thomas's family: Angie & Gerin, Gerin & Julie, Haden & her friend Allison, and Thomas & I. It was a long flight due to the volcano that is still erupting. We had to fly all the way up to Greenland and around Iceland before going south to France, but we made it. We tried sleeping on the plane but just never could quite get comfortable and fall asleep, and poor Thomas got sick when we finally landed Tuesday morning.

We made our way through customs, got our bags loaded in taxis, and were off to our flat for the week. It was a nice place, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths with a living room, kitchen, dining room, and study. The weather wasn't very pretty and it was raining a bit, but we set out to find a Monoprix (grocery store) to get some snacks. We wandered around Paris for a while and stopped at a big department store to look at jackets and scarves since it was colder than we had planned for.

On Wednesday, Gerin & Julie headed off on their own while the rest of us headed over towards the Eiffel Tower. Last year when Gerin & Angie went to visit Haden studying in Paris, Gerin took a picture of a carousel that is across the river from the Eiffel Tower. It looks something like this, but at night and WAY better than mine. Thomas had the picture framed and gave it to me for my birthday last year. I LOVE carousels and as we approached the one from the picture and the Eiffel Tower, I asked if we could stop and ride it.

Haden, Allison, and I decided to ride it and I thought Thomas was just missing out on the most fun part of the morning. As the ride ended, I climbed off my horse and made my way over to the steps to walk down. Thomas was walking over to meet me and I thought to be a gentleman and offer to help me down the steps. Instead, he pulled out a diamond ring, smiled at my very surprised face, and said "By the way, will you marry me?" I was so excited, it took me several attempts at saying "yes" before he finally heard me. His dad took lots of pictures, but here are a couple.

Afterwards, we went up to the observation decks of the Eiffel Tower, but not all the way to the top because the lifts weren't working. Then we headed off to the Place de la Concorde and walked the length of the Champs-Elysee to the Place Charles de Gaulle with the Arc de Triomphe. We only spent a few minutes at the Arc because they were closing it for some big ceremony before heading home to rest and regroup for dinner.

Today I'm a Doctor

This weekend was graduation. It was both stressful and fun to have so many people in town to celebrate with me. Friday night, my father's side of the family flew in to RDU and we went out to dinner and visited late into the night. Then on Saturday, my mom and Mark's side of the family drove in as well as Thomas's family. We all had a big lunch before the ceremony and then everyone got to watch us walk across stage and get hooded. On Sunday, Thomas and I had breakfast with my mom's family and then went to pick up our diplomas! We. are. DOCTORS!

My friend Carrie took some photos of us before graduation. Here's one of each of us.

An update

Okie dokie, pardon the absence, somehow life without school/work got more hectic than life with it. My month in Winston with PETNET was great. The guys there taught me a lot about the high energy, PET side of nukes and really worked hard to help me find a job. I'm definately saving their contact information and looking for them at pharmacy meetings in the future.

PET wasn't quite as fun as traditional, SPECT nukes. Its really only one major product at this point, where as with traditional you're making different kits. And those manipulator arms really hurt "my texting fingers" aka thumbs. It wouldn't keep me from doing it, but I'd prefer the traditional stuff.

As for the job situation: blargh. The nuke company starting up a new lab has decided to hold off hiring their third pharmacist. There is still a shortage of the technetium isotope and they are trying to break in to a new market, so they just think its best for business to wait. I understand that, and they seemed honest with me about it, but that still leaves me without a job. I had an interview this week with my hospital. I think it went well and we scheduled a second interview with managers and pharmacists for the end of May (yeah, I would really have liked that to be earlier on the calendar). I'm still looking around and still stressing out.

Graduation is THIS weekend. Last week we were all back in Chapel Hill to practice and get our regalia and visit. It was great to see our friends and sad to leave them again. My KD sister, Carrie Richardson, came and took pictures of Thomas and I in our regalia so we don't have to fight the crowds on graduation weekend. My family will start arriving in Chapel Hill tomorrow through Saturday morning. Pharmacy school graduation is on Saturday night and then "big" UNC graduation is Sunday.

And on Monday.... PARIS! I'll have limited internet time, but I'll try to add some tidbits here and there. Happy May everyone!