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

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

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.

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

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 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

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 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