BioLEx

Posted on July 29, 2008
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And what is BioLEx, you may ask. BioLEx is a biological experiment that we (students at PSSRI) are developing that will go on the spacecraft ESMO sent under the supervision of ESA (European Space Agency). ESMO (European Student Moon Orbiter) will be launch to orbit the Moon and take different instruments. All the instruments, the space craft, and all the money necessary for the development is of the exclusive responsibility of students from different teams around Europe! ESA supervises and gives us a lift on a rocket.

When I say ‘we’ at PSSRI are developing BioLEx I don’t really mean me. I just deal with the money and budgeting part of it ;)

So I’m here to present you with our fantastic webpage completely done from scratch by fantastic Jemma! She did a lovely job!

Here you can see information about the team, the mission, the Moon and our instrument.

Just click this link http://www.open.ac.uk/pssri/esmo/

Take a look at the team page and pass the mouse over the pictures to see the two faces of our team :p

I will also keep a link on this page under the work category.

The Beach

Posted on July 23, 2008
Filed Under General, Portugal, Travelling | 3 Comments

So after a few days looking for the ring and seeing family and friends we headed off for a real, resting holiday.
My stepmum’s family has a small house near a beach in the north of Lisbon so there we went for almost a week of beach, good food (lots of fresh fish, very good bread and local cakes), putting back some weight, and fantastic views.
Russ is not used to being on the beach so he got a bit bored. But I loved the 3 S: Sun, Sand and Sea! Oh and the sea was great!

 

Back

Posted on July 22, 2008
Filed Under Portugal, Travelling | 4 Comments

After a long day of travelling, we picked up the wedding books (took a look-oh dear there is so much to think about), went shopping (didn’t have ANY food in the house), I took a nap, and now we are looking for a theme for our wedding blog (this is news, will give you updates soon).

I am absolutely knackered and I don’t want to think that I have to go to work tomorrow, but the truth is, I am quite ashamed to say, I am very happy to be back home. I really wanted to come back as weird as it may sound. To my house and to my daily life. It seems like this is home now. Just the food and the weather could be a bit better :S

I’ll write something about the holidays soon :)

Holiday!

Posted on July 5, 2008
Filed Under Portugal, Travelling | 1 Comment

I’m going to Portugal! Wake up at 3 am and I’m on my way:D

Easter holiday

Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under General, The English People and I, Travelling | 4 Comments

Russ and I decided to go somewhere this weekend as on Easter people are granted with 4 days off in a row :)

I’ll show some pictures here but if you want to see all of them follow this link or click at the images link at the top of the page and open the Devon Easter 2008 folder. Comments are not available there at the moment because I was spamed, but you can comment her.

As I was desperate to see the sea again, we decided to go back Exeter and explore a bit of Devon, home of the fabulous Muse.

We stayed at a dairy farm where Russ stayed before when he was working there. It was gorgeous. We had a small apartment all to ourselves and it was so clean and nice it felt just like home.

We left on Thursday evening so we could have more time to explore. On Friday, after a morning of shopping, we decided to go to a nearby park and do one of the walks around it. The walk route was 5 miles long (~7km) which by itself would be very exhausting. What they didn’t tell us was that part of the walk included crossing a field with cows and so much mud we completely buried our boots in it! :o We managed to get out of there but it was quite an adventure. I was so glad I took my waterproof walking boots. It was also very cold and windy and it rained sometimes but the views and the contact with Nature was all worth it :D Unfortunately there are no pictures of this day.

Saturday we decided to go on a ‘treasure hunt’. The goal is to follow leads and finding the final answer but the important bit is that it takes you to places you would never find out on your own. From fantastic beaches (with rocks from the Mesozoic- Triassic to Cretassic-you can see some on the picture with a fantastic cross-bedding) to fantastic villages, it was amazing! The weirdest thing was to be on a beach and it started snowing!! On the beach! This was something I never experienced before. It was weird! We drove and we walked a lot up and down hills until we finally got back home exhausted again!

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Sunday, we went to see a local cave. It was a touristic thing but it reminded me of the time I did a speleology course (remember Vanda?) and I really want to do it again! After that we when on another walk in the woods to see the highest waterfall in England. It was great walking up next to the waterfalls in the middle of the woods with nothing but trees and animals and water around us. And the air was so fresh! We ended the day eating ribs at a great restaurant in Exeter, exhausted once again ;)

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Monday was the day to come back. But on the way back, despite the heavy traffic, we managed to still go and see Stonehenge! I’d been there before but Russ hadn’t so we visited and had an audio tour. It’s always impressive. But again it was so cold and windy we couldn’t even keep the hands out of our pockets for long even with gloves!

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And we came back home! Great holiday! definitely something to do again in some other part of the Kingdom (or outside the Kingdom-been trying to convince Russ to go to Ireland where he hasn’t been and I’ve been a decade ago).

Oxford

Posted on October 31, 2007
Filed Under General, Travelling | 5 Comments

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!:D 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 :)

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 :)

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)

Arizona (part 2)

Posted on August 30, 2007
Filed Under General, Travelling | 2 Comments

After the conference we went on an 2 day trip to see some of the geological wonders of Arizona :)We started by waking up really early and go on a long bus trip on our way to Flagstaff where we would stay the next two nights.

On our way there we stopped at some place which I don’t remember the name to see the sight of some mammoth and Pre-Historic human discoveries that weren’t there anymore so all we saw was a dry river bed..

After that we stopped at Walnut Canyon National Monument to see the ruins of the Sinagua people. They built their homes on the sharp cliffs of a beautiful canyon. Impressive!! They would have to climb down for water and had their crops at the rimtop. Again, as a geologist, I was impressed with the cliffs themselves and the fantastic cross bedding :ddsc00201.JPG

Next stop was the much awaited Barringer Crater a.k.a. meteorite crater! Where the Canyon Diablo meteorite fell
Wow! It’s huge! This was very exciting. General public are only allowed to walk around therim but we were special so the Barringer Crater Company (which also gave me the travel grant-Thank you!) allowed us, members of the Meteoritical Society to go down to the bottom. It was also the first time in 30 years the the society went down there :D One in a life time!

It was a long way down and a long way up. But all worth it! Even with my fear of heights. We had an explanation about the processes of formation of the crater and te local geology and then back up again. Something to tell your grand children!dsc00223.JPG

We finally came back up exhausted and filthy. Luckily the temperatures cooled down a bit that day so we managed to survive (remember it’s the desert).

Back at the museum the Barringer Crater Company offered us a BBQ. Lovely although I was too tired to eat.

Fantastic day!

Next day we left early again and headed to the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument were we walked on a lava flow.

Next stop the Wupatki National Monument, the ruins of a pueblo in the middle of the desert. Very clever houses, very hot and dry but a fantastic view :)dsc00248.JPG

Finally we headed to the Grand Canyon!

Oh dear! Amazing!! You loose all sense of perspective! It’s huge!!!!! It’s beautiful! It’s a geologist’s dream come true! I have no other words to describe it. You have to be there!dsc00258.JPG

After an afternoon at the Canyon we went back to Flagstaff to a restaurant where waiters disappeared and went to sing on a stage. Interesting…

Next back on the road and back to Tucson to the same hotel where we spent the afternoon in the pool.:D

Tuesday was the day we started our trip back home. The flight to Phoenix was short but horrible with lots of turbulence. At Phoenix I had the following comment from passport control: ‘ Portuguese? Awesome!’ I had several of those comments. No one called me Spanish and they all seemed to know where Portugal is. Nice :)

Then a long turbulent flight to London and we were home!

I forgot to tell in the previous post that we had a trip on Wednesday to Tombstone! Very good with the random cowboy on the street and original buildings. Nice museum at the saloon/brothel where Wyatt Earp met his love.dsc00168.JPG

And that was it. A trip to remember! I’ve uploaded the remaining photos here or you can click on images at the top of the page and see all the albums and I’m sure Becca will soon upload hers here :)



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