Day 2324: Banff

This is essentially a continuation of my previous post.

After Disney World, I returned to Milwaukee on a Sunday, only to leave on Wednesday (at 5:20am) for Calgary, Alberta, Canada! If any of you followed the news in the past two weeks, you will know that Alberta had floods and there were states of emergencies called throughout the province. My family and I arrived safely in Calgary (and then drove to Banff National Park) on Wednesday June 19, only to have flooding begin that night. We were then stuck in Banff for the duration of our trip. This was our itinerary. See our new itinerary in red.

• Wednesday: Arrive in Calgary. Drive to Banff. We successfully completed this.
• Thursday: Explore Banff, head to Lake Louise. Stay in Lake Louise. We had already checked out of our hotel when we were told all the highways out of Banff were closed. So, like many other visitors, we scrambled to find a hotel to sleep that night. We found one, luckily. We explored Banff more thoroughly. It has a small, cute, shop-filled downtown that spans about six blocks. As you can imagine, my sister and I were done with downtown by that evening, haha.
• Friday: Drive on to Jasper and explore the Ice Fields. Sleep in Jasper. Another day in Banff. Our hotel has a fitness center, complete with an indoor track, so, what else was I going to do? I ran 50 laps on that tiny little track, which amounted to 5km or 3.2ish miles. Not bad, since I hadn't run in at least a week. The sun came out at 5pm and you better believe the family and I booked it to Lake Louise. It was truly a sight to see. Apparently, when you actually have sun, it doesn't set until 9:45pm! Crazy!
• Saturday: Explore whatever we wanted (Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff). Return to the Calgary area. We found out that a bus was leaving Banff for Calgary. It was taking the long route (aka the only highways that were open and available to us), making a normally 75-mile journey in to a 475-mile journey. It was a 10+ hour bus ride, but we made it to Calgary!
• Sunday: Hang out in Calgary until our late-afternoon/evening flights to the states. Downtown Calgary was closed indefinitely due to flooding. A lot of the city and the surrounding cities/towns were closed due to flooding and/or states of emergencies. So, we ended up staying in our hotel until it was time to check-in. Then, we all parted rather abruptly since we were all on separate flights (in separate terminals).

All in all, it was great to see my sister and have some bonding time with her. As you can imagine, the trip was an adventure to say the least. If anything, it reminded my mother and I what a bearer of disaster I am. Don't believe me? 1994: earthquake in Northridge, CA. 1998: typhoon in Taiwan. 2003: blackout while visiting colleges in New York/the East Coast. 2013: flooding in Alberta. I am just missing a hurricane and tornado. Don't worry, I have a lot more life to live to get those babies on my list. (No tsunamis for me, thank you.)

Pictures below:

Our first day in Banff. Should have foreseen the impending doom.

Met this chum at a yummy Canadian restaurant called Earl's.

A Canadian sheriff informing us that all highways out of Banff are closed.

The view from our new/second hotel in Banff.

Blue skies! Honestly. I can't imagine how even more beautiful
Banff would have been if it had been sunny on our trip.

The Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise

Lake Louise

A black bear seen on our 10+ hour drive to Banff.

Followed by a family of mountain goats! So adorable!

The rain and flooding was so bad that mudslides, rockslides,
and rising rivers caused part of this bridge to collapse.

Can you see how high the water is?

Day 2323: I'm back!

Hello everyone!

Firstly, thank you all for being so patient, supportive and wonderful about this time away from the blog. I'm sure you were all itching for a post, and here it is. In all it's glory.

What I'm sure you are all wondering, if we haven't already spoken/texted/communicated, is that the exam was fine. It felt a lot like the question bank I had been doing, and in that regard, that was nice. There was familiarity. Otherwise, it sounds like whether you barely scrape by with a pass or get a rockstar-score, everyone feels like the exam was a complete sh!t-show, pardon my French. So. My exam score comes back in the next few weeks and I will let you know how it pans out for me. (Depending on the score I get, if it's competitive enough, I will still pursue urology. If it isn't very strong, I will enter family medicine and be 100% happy and confident in that decision.)

Anyway, enough snoozefest boards stuff. I am positive you are all bored out of your mind of my "I'm so stressed" "boo hoo Jess" blah blah blah. Me too.

Disney World was a ton of fun! Danny had come to the conclusion after Day 1 (of 4) that this was going to be a very different trip to Disney. Normally, he puts the pedal to the metal and wears himself out from a 12+ hour day, every day. With his parents getting older, and me having an "oh yeah sure, whatever you want" attitude, I think he realized that he wasn't going to hit everything he wanted and he was okay with that. We still had an awesome, fun, hot-and-humid time! Danny's parents were unbelievably generous on this trip. Not only did they pay for my flight and lodging, they paid for my food and even bought me some stuff (a rash guard and new swimsuit, both on sale!) just because they wanted to. I was incredibly humbled by their kindness.

Don't think I forgot how lame text blog posts are. Here are some pictorial manifestations of Disney!

I painted these Donald Duck nails the day of our flight.

The iconic Disney castle.

I painted these shirts for us!

I couldn't leave Danny's parents in the customized-shirts cold!

Our first Splash Mountain picture.

The rebel spy!

Our second Splash Mountain picture. The photo attendant
actually laughed when he saw it. Probably because my face of
sheer terror (all acted, by the way) was amusing as hell.

Day 2279: The end. Wow.

Hey there team.

I am proud to tell you all I have completed my second year of medical school. Can you believe it?! It doesn't have nearly all the fanfare that last year's completion did, but that's probably because this year wasn't as much of a struggle as last year. I learned a lot about myself, personally and academically, in my first year of medical school and I think I was able to use that to my benefit this year. Pathology and microbiology and pharmacology have all come and gone and I'm still standing. Way to go, me.

With that, I leave you with some pictures from my last day of relaxation before it's boardsboardsboardsboardsboardsboardsboardsboards.

Danny treated me to a yummy Sobelman's burger
and "bloody masterpiece" for my M2 year coming to an end!

A butterfly in the Puelicher Butterfly Wing at the
Milwaukee Public Museum (free on Mondays for residents!)

An awesome wall of African art/woodwork at the MPM.

Having crazy beetle adventures with Danny at MPM

I have a lot of great things planned post-boards -- Danny and his family are so kind and wonderful and they are taking me to Disney World! I feel like after taking the most important exam of my life, it really will feel like the Super Bowl so you better believe I will walk out of that testing center saying "I'm going to Disney World!"

After Disney, my family and I will be going to Canada! Banff National Park to be exact. My Mom has always wanted to go and I think it'll be a great time to bond with my mother and sister.

And then I come back for orientation in late June and rotations begin July 1st! This is really happening people. I'm finally going to be in the clinic, where I belong! I can't wait!

I'll talk to you all in June or July!

All my x's and o's!

Day 1919: I had to post! What a fun number!

Hi everyone,

I am off to Los Angeles to meet my family in the airport, and then it is off to Venezia! We have a 7-hour layover in London so my Mom (ever the amazing woman) has planned a few excursions into London. Fun!

I have a few posts scheduled since a) it's summer so I had time to actually write some posts and b) expect to have lots of stories and pictures and posts when I return.

Day 1081: Hello from Columbus, Ohio!

Ohio from Ohio!

I am currently on my tour of the Midwest! For those of you who don't know, I have very little to do until school starts. As a result, I chose to visit all my friends who are dispersed throughout the states. The places I will be going include: Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, New York and Massachusetts. Lotsa states!

Anyhoo, here are some pictures from the flight and of the town. The second picture is of some sort of bridge heading into Ohio State University territory. My friend's friend told me to title it "the useless drawstring bridge," so that's the title it shall receive.

 En route to Columbus!

 The useless drawstring bridge

I am currently visiting my friend M, whom I met whilst in North Carolina. We've never actually hung out extensively, but we're getting along swimmingly. I feel so bad, she's in dental school right now and it is kickin' her butt. This is just a taste of what I have to look forward to in med school!

Speaking of which, I contacted my NoLa school to turn them down and they emailed me confirm the removal of my name from their school. Milwaukee--here I come!