My time here 'across the pond' is quickly coming to a close. Here's how I spent my last few days: *Go-Karting with ~20 Formula 1 junkie aerospace engineers(Intense) *Walking into the Foret de Soignes *Kayaking the Lesse River, 21 km, with 3 great guys *Writing my project report *Going for one last pizza with 14 interns for Antonino's and I's last day of work *Hanging out with my dear, wonderful, amazing, (did I mention gorgeous?) roomate from GaTech and her 'travelling friend'! Wow, I didn't realized how much I missed her! I really can't wait to get back to my 'second' [View Full Entry]

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So, I bet you are all expecting another wild crazy adventure, right? Well, it wasn't so crazy. Why The weather hasnt been so great leading up to the weekend most of the week... rain, more rain, clouds... I'm starting to miss home....my friends.... I hadn't been eating right....or running/excersing nearly enough.... and money is starting to run out.... Needless to say, I was a little 'anxious to get back to the comforts of home(namely the people, and the sunshine)... Being in a foreign country on you own, not an organized program is a whole other level of learning: frankly, [ [View Full Entry]

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I just finished my 6th week of internship in Brussels! I've been in Europe for two monthes now! WOW! Dad flew in tuesday, and was greeted with wonderful(ok typical) Belgium weather: rain, clouds, and chilly. and did I mention rain. I think he managed to survive the weather, throughout his trips to the market in Brugge, the climb up Butte de Lione at Waterloo, and his journey to the Supermarket! ;) We were soon off to Rome for the Weekend! Friday We arrived late in the evening, thurdsday, and stayed at a lovely, with character and within college kids budget, b&b. [View Full Entry]

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So I'm writing this on the way back from strasbourg on the 5 hour train ride, that was definately worth it! I got up very early Friday morning and trekked with my ~35 pound kayak+belonging monster off a backpack to the train station. After realizing I was on the wrong car, the one I was on only went 2 hours of the journey and wold stay in Luxembourg, I had too haul my way to another car. End train drama. Enter Strasbourg! Friday I quickly found my hotel, and speaking only in French inquired where I could kayak. She showed me [View Full Entry]

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I really need to get this out there: work is going great! I'm so blessed to have access to such an amazing facility. I wake up everyday and go into work knowing that I get to go use, with my hands, a facility that is uniquue to the world, and extremely interesting and relevant. It is certainly satisfying. Just finished today running our heat flux measurement device campaign for the Plasmatron, and so next week I will be doing a lot of post-processing, data plotting, and other computer intensive things. Plans for the weekend: Leaving tomorrow for Strasbourg. Plan on getting [View Full Entry]

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After work Thursday we started our France Adventure to Normandy and on Friday evening we ventured out to Paris for the Air Show. So right down to it. Normandy Our visit to Normandy was perhaps the most moving, heartfelt, exhilarating, exhausting, emotional place I have ever visited. Sitting on the Omaha Beach with Evan, staring back at the American Flag on top of the Ravine, reminded me so vividly of just how blessed I am. It is the sacrifice of more than 9000 U.S. soldiers, with many other soldiers from other countries, that quite frankly provided for us the free [View Full Entry]

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So I suppose it has been a few days since I last updated on here. It sure has been a busy few days! ESA-Netherlands Last Thursday, a group of us students took a trip up to ESA in the Netherlands. After a drive that took twice as long as we expected due to wonderful traffic conditions around Brussels, we arrived, got badged, and toured around. It’s really a neat facility, and they have a large emphasis on microgravity and especially satellite technology. Their space simulator was pretty impressive, it could simulate nearly every aspect of a satellites mission in space(ext [View Full Entry]

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As promised here are the two videos I‘ve yet to put up here: Videos Week 2 in Ireland and Vogalonga, 2009. My Vogalonga videos don’t do justice to the scope of the boats involved. Imagine a full Sea of Boats, stretching for more than a mile long. And maybe that can come close - maybe. Summary Work has been very exciting! We’ve been busy running tests from right after the coffee break monday to tuesday evening. Spent most of today finishing up my first pass of the post-processing spreadsheets. The data is looking pretty good, though there is still [View Full Entry]

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Saturday:Ghent and Brugge My day started much too early, 7:00. I wanted to get an early start, because two cities plus train/bus travel makes for a full day. Ghent: Didn't really like it. It was too metropolitan, and it had a sketchy feel to it. I did find some pretty gardens though... I ended up stayng for only an hour, much less than I had planned, but I didnt find the city too appealing. Now lets take a 180 degree flip! Brugge: Brugge was absolutely wonderful and charming. The walk to the main part of the city was a beautiful [View Full Entry]

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Work: Just finished my first week of work. I have a wonderful summer job(in my humble opinion). I am working at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. As a stagiaire short-term student, I am assigned to a particular project. My project involves the use of the plasmatron wind tunnel facility, a subsonic tunnel extrapolated to hypersonic flows. In short, we research the re-entry of a space vehicle into the atmosphere, in order to design better Thermal Protection Systems. The specific vehicle that I will be focusing on is the ESA EXPERT. I’ve been very busy acquainting myse [View Full Entry]

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