After my three European weeks, it is now time to go back to the US! As I had anticipated, before going to California, however, I am spending some days on the East Coast, and in particular in College Park, Maryland – basically near Washington – where I am taking part into the International Energy Workshop (IEW).

“Then why did you take the plane to Newark (i.e. New York) if you had to go to Washington?” one could reasonably ask…

Indeed I had bought the ticket some months ago, in February, when I had thought I would leave one week before in order to spend some days as a tourist in the Big Apple (starting from July 4, by the way), before going to the IEW. In the end I had to change my plans: in order to complete all the pending activities without getting mad, I decided to take it easier and come directly to the conference. Now, I was allowed to change the ticket, but only in terms of date, without modifying the itinerary: hence my flight to Newark, followed by a train taken directly at the airport’s station (by the way, I should mention that the temperature on the train was good to carry liquid nitrogen…)

By the way, as a consequence of what I wrote above, during the last weeks I did not even had holidays, apart from a couple of Fridays off. But never mind: in the next weeks I will try to find some days to dedicate to vacation, and I will also try to find time to go to New York before the end of my American year. For the moment, I will have to content myself with these two photos (indeed quite blurry…) of the NY skyline from the airport 🙂

In any case, now let’s focus on the IEW, and on my following return to Berkeley. By the way, the day after my return to California, i.e. July 15, will be a quite meaningful date for my project, because I will precisely be halfway through my year in the States! The second half of my American experience is already about to start, then!