Five down and three to go. Vet med finals aren't much fun. Mostly because we have so many of them. I just found out that the third years have five more finals left this week and all of them are comprehensive. I guess I must count myself fortunate.

I am now counting the days until I depart for my summer adventures. While I'm gone I will try to keep my trip updates on here but it may be challenging at times. I will be leaving for Ukraine on May 8th at 10:00AM so by this time next week I will have spent my first night in Kiev. Here's the site for this trip.

http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron496/

I'm kind of worried about the language barrier. This is the first time I'll be going to a country where I must learn to read a different alphabet. I've been attempting to read Ukrainian and Russian for most of the semester but even with the help of our professors I'm still having problems. My name in Ukrainian is spelled (I have to illiterate the letters because I don't know how to add them to this yet) with the greek letter pi then o then a pi which is modified with a tail on the first vertical line.

You can read our itinerary at the site listed above. With the modification that I will be departing on May 31st on a train ride through Poland and into Czech where I will be visiting Prague. I don't currently know what I'm going to do in Prague nor where I will be staying but I have a travel partner whom has backpacked throughout Europe before so I feel comfortable that we won't get in too much trouble.

I'll be back in Ames on June 7th. Yes I will be spending my birthday abroad yet again. However I have requested that on June 8th we have a celebration in B/N and go see the new Harry Potter. I just recieved an unusual request yesterday to pick up and bring home "grandma" Blauveldt who is actually of no relation to me but is my Great aunts (grandmas sister) husbands mother. My familys geneaology gets very confusing but fun at times and I plan on going into it in the future. I digress, my "layover" lasts until the 9th when I will be once again departing for Sao Paulo to spend the rest of the summer in the bush. I set up a trip last summer for a group of 10 people to go down there and this is somewhat of a continuation of that tour but more focused and for more time. I'm currently looking at doing a little research while I'm down there but haven't yet decided on a specific topic. If you look at the site and read the journals you will have an idea of what is possible and perhaps you'll have some questions that you would like answered. If the answer isn't known then that's a research topic so please if you have questions ask me. I'd love to hear them.
The site from last years study abroad is:

http://www.vetmed.iastate.edu/academics/international/recenttrips/brazil2003/

OK, so now my stomach is growling (the technical term for this is borborygmy) which means it's time for breakfast. I'll be back soon.