A lot can be said about MK but one of the good things about it is the millions of trees. And are they beautiful with all their colours through the last rays of Sun!!! Lovely view from my window!

But I still get surprised by the amount of hypocrisy of some people. Are there any limits? I’m speechless.

Having done one of my talks at a young researchers meeting in Oxford, I was able to see for the first time one of the most iconic places in the academic world. We are all used to English films and TV series (usually crime related) where a big traditional English university is the stage, full of the very rich students that behave in the way that we associate only with the English people. The very straight back, head held high, with an accent (that even the foreign people recognises as posh) student, in his dressing gown speaking to another student outside the door of their room.

Well let me tell you that on Friday I thought I was in a film! They do exist! They are like that! I saw it with my own eyes! The student described above in his dressing gown outside his room talking to a fellow student with a very pompous, serious face! As Jemma said all he needed was the cigar in one hand and the Port Wine glass in the other! A very surreal experience for me. I though they were an exaggeration on TV. I was wrong

Apart from that, the little that I was able to see from the city was beautiful. Full of history, people on the street (young people), shops, life, and no cars in the centre, only bikes. Basically everything you don’t have in MK…

Would like to go back with more time

If PhDs could be made on number of talks, I would’ve been a Dr for a long time now…

Last record is 2 talks in 4 days. Seems like I do nothing else…

I hate the lab, I hate the lab! Hours looking for the damn tiny sample unsuccessfully! Hours!! In a dark lonely clean room with the annoying noise of the venting and nothing! I was even getting sick at the end! No samples! Nothing! I hate the lab, I hate IDPs (Interplanetary Dust Particles)

One of the first things I noticed when I was travelling from the airport to MK was the lack of rubbish bins in stations. I just couldn’t find one. I was thinking: ‘Why the hell don’t they have bins in the stations? Where do they put all their rubbish?’ I always noticed that every time I travelled but only recently I had the chance to ask someone if there was a special reason for that. And there is. Apparently some people have this habit of disposing of bombs  into rubbish bins in train stations and such and hence killing a lot of people! Well it seems like a very good reason not to have rubbish bins in stations. This is one of those things that never occurred to me living all my life in a country with no problems of this sort. Makes you think doesn’t it? I always thought of terrorism as something that doesn’t happen in Portugal, something that only happens in other countries far, far away… Makes you think…

I recently remembered the initial purpose if this blog: To write about my experiences in England and compare it with my experiences in Portugal. I guess I didn’t write much about it because when the blog was given to me I was more or less (maybe less) acostumed to England. But I remember some of the things that surprised me and some that still do so I decided to start a new category called things that surprised me in England. I must point that even though they surprised me it doesn’t mean I think they are wrong. It just means they are different to what I’m used to. When I don’t agree with them I will make it clear

Vanda sent me a challenge. Basically you have to open the book you are reading on page 161, and check the 5th complete sentence, write it on your blog and pass it to other friends. Considering that I really don’t have that many friends with web logs and interested in this kind of thing, I won’t pass it around but I will write the sentence. The book I’m reading is The Eldest by Christopher Paolini. It’s the second book of a trilogy which started with Eragon (some of you may have seen the film). The sentence is: ‘If you make a mistake, the elves will think you did it on purpose’. Not very interesting I guess I confess the 4th was a lot better but it would be cheating.

Is something I will never understand…

I consider it to be such a small behaviour for a human being that I think the best thing to do is to ignore it…

So when the guy finally called to arrange an hour to come and fix the shower he asks:’ Is Wednesday a good day for you?’ Wednesday??? Wednesday??? Am I supposed not to have a shower until Wednesday???

So after insisting that he had to come today and that it was just a connection broken easy to fix, he took 15 min to get here and 5 to fix it! And I was supposed to wait 2 days… Sigh…