My Italian Research Group Family

So here is a picture of most of the guys and gals of my research group at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. It is a really fun group. So for the technicalities, we work on things such as fuel cells for alternative energy, sensors to detect harmful gases, membranes to produce hydrogen gas, and even materials for biomedical purposes. The group is composed mainly of Italians but we have a little bit of an international mix with one from Egypt, another from Tunisia, one from France, and the two most recent additions Milan from the Czech Republic and me from good ole America. The group has a bunch of intelligent people in it who are at the same time a whole lot of fun to be around. Sometimes I wonder how they ever get any work done because people stay at the lab less than in America, coffee and smoking breaks are a huge part of the day, and there is always conversing going on. Everyone has been really helpful in helping me to transition, especially with speaking Italian. It's awesome because I've already seen an improvement in everyone's English and they say they've been seeing an improvement in my Italian. Milan and I are currently the only ones who can't hold a complete conversation in Italian. We're determined to change that! (if i could only properly say 30 so people stop getting confused that I'm saying 100)

Graduate student "life" is totally different around here. In America, it's not that untypical to see lots of students working in the wee hours of the night and a lot of hours on the weekend. Here the labs close at 9 at night, you need special permission to get in the building on Saturday, and the lab is absolutely closed on Sunday. It gives me a nice chill perspective on doing research and keeping my priorities straight. We do a good bit of hanging out after work too, except for this week which is like our off week since we've been exhausted from hanging out in the previous weeks. In addition, the Italians are busting their butts to finish their end of year reports for our research adviser.