Emily and Mitchell in the USA

Hello y'all!  Emily here and as the title suggests, I have been adventuring on my own this week! On Friday morning, while Mitchell had his team meeting, I went to explore the botanic gardens. I've heard back from them and am starting to schedule in some volunteering hours, but on Friday I was just there to visit by myself. I knew it was a fair size, but this place was HUGE. I spent about 2 hours there and there were still parts I hadn't seen. They split it into different regions, so there's an Australia section, a North American section and others including China (which I managed to miss), each with plants native to the desert regions of that place.  Went for a quick visit to the land down under They also have an area which is less wild for various gardens. There was a little herb garden, a rose garden, a butterfly garden and a bee garden, although I did not manage to find this last one.  Found in the rose garden As well as some paved paths around the gardens and main s...

Hello, it's Mitchell here, or as you may know me, Dr Masterson, Since the last post we've basically had 2 major events: 1. We had some of the best takeway I've ever had 2. I become a doctor Yes this is the correct order, the food was insane. My viva was a video call (currently the default due to COVID so they didn't even have to make any extra allowance for me), due to it having to be within British work hours the call started at 5:30am here. Obviously I knew this was coming which was a big reason why we tried to delay shifting our sleep schedule as much as possible. Emily had to get up early and then shut herself in the bathroom (it was a little cold outside at that time) while I had the call in the main room of the airbnb. Fortunately the wifi behaved very well (likely aided by the fact no one else was really using the internet yet here) for the THREE HOURS it took to complete the viva. The actual viva was pretty good. Three hours is barely enough time to discuss a wh...

 Hello! Emily here, here to update you on the last few days of our adventure. I'm writing this from our little patio. It's sunny and set to reach 26c today. You'll be pleased to know that as of yet neither of us has got burnt, but there's still time. Not much in the way of big things has happened so far (we are still isolating after all) but I'll give you a run down of what our days have been like. Avocados in the sun with lunch So where did Mitchell leave you all? I'll start from Saturday. Saturday was an inside sort of day, as was Sunday. I read a couple of books (Shadow of the Wind is my top read so far) and watched a series on Netflix by Pheobe Waller-Bridge called Crashing (would recommend to anyone who enjoyed Fleabag or who enjoys good things in general).  Before we left we would watch a film on Disney+ group watch with a friend each weekend, we were working our way through the X-men series so we continued this and had a movie night/day which was nice and...

Hello from California, Mitchell here! We've now been here 3 days! Here's a little update on how the last few days have looked for us. On Tuesday evening we spent the night in a little hotel a bus ride away from Heathrow so we could get there early for our 8:40 flight (we woke up at 3:30am!). Despite getting to the airport only slightly earlier than the recommended arrival time we still had to wait for almost an hour before anyone turned up to check us in! We were then through check in and security very quickly as while the staff were reduced due to COVID the reduction in passengers compared to any other time either of us has been in an airport was much more substantial. Waiting for the bus Empty airport Empty travellators Our flight to the US was much less than half full and we were allowed to take any seat we wanted without changing class (We'd maybe have all fit in first class but oh well). Our request for vegetarian food on the flight for some reason got us one vegetaria...