Go Dawn!!!

Posted on September 27, 2007
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Go Dawn!!

Dear me! How many times did I write ‘building blocks of the inner solar system’ in posters, presentations, abstracts,… And how many headaches did Vesta give me… and will give me until the end of my PhD?

Better finish my PhD in the next 8 years then :P

Nations of the World

Posted on September 27, 2007
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WHEN are you going to do something about Burma???

Are you waiting for China to decide what to do???? Are you joking????

How many people have to die???

NHS Vs Servico Nacional de Saude (2)

Posted on September 27, 2007
Filed Under General, Portugal, The English People and I | 2 Comments

STILL wondering which one is worst

House keeping

Posted on September 27, 2007
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I’ve been tidying the weblog just by adding categories. Thought that as I write mostly about my travelling it should have it’s own category. And of course Portugal deserves a category of its own :D

Mallorca (2)

Posted on September 26, 2007
Filed Under General, Travelling | 2 Comments

Finally a bit of time to write and to copy the pictures from my phone. There aren’t many but enough to have an idea :)

It all started with only a couple of hours sleep, waking up at 4 am to go to the airport. The only thing slightly interesting about the flight was that the landing was one of the worst I ever experienced. Some people even screamed :s

About Mallorca, what can I say? It’s lovely! We stayed in a cheap hotel 200m from the beach. The hotel wasn’t very nice, but that clos to a beautiful Mediterranean beach, I would sleep on a tent!

The purpose of the trip was to teach some of the OU students at the observatory. Almost all of the PhD students do that at some point working as demonstrators. Of course that dealing with telescope (which I’ve never done before) we worked at night. Each working night consisted of 14 hours work. A lot! And working at night it was a bit difficult to get the sleep pattern right. Especially when I’d just got used to English hours after Arizona. But we had about 2 days with a few extra hours free to relax or, in my case, go to the beach :d

Besides the main domes, where the offices are, the observatory has 6 or 8 (can’t remember) smaller domes for teaching purposes where you can do photometry, spectroscopy, etc, and a planetarium.

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The other thing I found out the observatory has is fig trees(!!!) as i said before. I had some happy times sneaking out to the trees :p

Even though the working hours are long, it is a pleasure to work there. Not only because you’re working with telescopes and observing the stars and leaning where they are but also because the students are great. They are there because they want to learn and in fact pay to be there so they are very interested and willing. They are all eagger to learn which, if you are teaching, is very rewarding. they were all very nice people :)

The food, well the food was great as well! ost of the meals were given at the observatory. They had a Mallorcan cook cooking all the food for us every night and it was delicious. It was much like food from Portugal and I had the opportunity of eating a lot of stuff I miss so much and don’t have the opportunity to eat in England. I hate lots!! There was squid, octopus, and even tripe!!! I had tripe just the way it’s cooked in Portugal!!! HMMM!!

In the afternoon before going to the observatory I had lunch/breakfast at restaurants and cafes around the beach. They were not expensive at all and I ate fish and shell fish every day of the week :D People were very friendly especially after they knew I was Portuguese and altough they all speak English and I was with English people they simply spoke Spanish to me.

I managed to go a couple of times to the beach get some sun bathing and swim in the sea. It was gorgeous! Nice weather,warm waters,… fantastic! I would only get out of the water after I got wrinkly hands :P

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In summary, even though I was working long hours and not getting much sleep, I felt like I was on holiday. I felt really happy there and it was excellent to charge my batteries! Come back a changed person I would even say.

(of course that as soon as I get to England I get ill :s but lets not talk about that and I’ll keep the smile on my face)

And after all this, I even get payed to do it!!!Couldn’t ask for more. Except ask to go back :)

Back to work

Posted on September 24, 2007
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

After being ill and taking care of Russ (who is still ill) I’m finally back at work. I have a lot piled up so I hope I’ll get a break soon to write about my trip to Mallorca which I LOVED! :D

Subscribe take 2

Posted on September 20, 2007
Filed Under General | 4 Comments

I (or should I say Russ) have updated the subscribe plug in with the hope that the previous problem might be solved.

Can you all who subscribed let me know if you received an email with this post?

Thank you!!

:)

Five!

Posted on September 11, 2007
Filed Under General, Travelling | 1 Comment

Five fig trees in the permisses of the observatory!!! Very happy!

Figs are my favourite fruit in the whole world and i never get the chance to eat them.

Mallorca

Posted on September 11, 2007
Filed Under General, Travelling | 1 Comment

Loving it!!! :D*

I’ll start teaching tomorrow, let’s see how that goes. But the view of the beach makes it all worth it!!

*(except the part of missing home)

Travelling

Posted on September 4, 2007
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And as I was getting used to being back home, I have to leave again. This time to Mallorca, to work on the observatory. No time for much else than work this time tough.

I like travelling but it’s a bit too much in such a short period of time :s



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