Verity in Sweden

Monday, March 08, 2010

You won't find me here...

Hello to anyone who finds themselves here. I have moved on to greener pastures and now have my own domain.

Head on over to with sparkles to find my travel stories.

cheers
Verity

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The Keimling *shudder*

So… I know I promised you all a story about Germany ages ago. So here it finally is. Basically arriving in Stuttgart on a Sunday afternoon is not very conducive to getting home. Swebian (or Schwaben in German) Germany is a bit strange on Sundays. We were planning to wash my co-supervisor’s windows on our last Sunday (don’t ask why now, I promise I will get to it in a later post) but Joyce calmly advised us that it would not be a clever idea, as Paul would probably be ignored forever more by his neighbours for such a heinous crime as having three PhD students wash his windows on the Sabbath. So as you can imagine, getting from Stuttgart to Tübingen was not the easiest task and resulted in a 75 euros taxi fare (ouch). The only food option was 10 euro spag bol takeaway from the airport.

I will pause here briefly for a gratuitous and exceedingly touristy (seriously… this is like THE picture of Tübingen) shot of THE colourful riverside houses (yes mummy there is even a half-timbered house for you there and more to come =).

Gratuitous Tübingen pic

So anyway I arrived at Paul’s place, which had a lovely sign on the door which basically translates as “You can do without some things in life, but not cats and literature”. I couldn’t agree more. In fact Paul’s cat has even been the co-author on some of his papers. He is a very geological cat =). But I have to say that the second thing I noticed about Paul’s apartment was the extremely odd smell which we became very familiar with in the next few weeks (I guess that is what comes from chain-smoking indoors). And then the skulls of course, which I mentioned in a previous post. So as I said before, feeling a bit lonely I sat around writing posts for my blog and eating some of the chocolate I had bought for Jesper in Spain (I know… how terrible am I!... but I bought him lots… and he didn’t mind… and I was sad!).

Luckily Helena soon arrived and then we decided to do some emergency cleaning, which included de-stickifying the kitchen and throwing out some VERY old food items in the fridge. I mean, I know you are supposed to let cheese ripen, but really. There was one thing we were slightly disturbed by and that was something in Paul’s bedroom that looked exceedingly like big pieces of drying skin stuck to newspapers. We could not work out what it was and eventually had to ask his Post-doc. Thankfully it turned out it was only latex imprints of very interesting rock textures from the fields... it was getting a bit silence of the lambsey there for a minute.

The next morning we followed the Jen’s directions to the city which consisted mainly of, “follow the canal”. So we did and we managed eventually to find the geology building after having an diverting conversation in German with a secretary with extremely hairy arms, in the main building. I have to admit, the geology building is not the nicest and the windows of our office were facing a main, busy street. But it definitely makes me feel better about sitting in my lovely Stockholm office, typing this.

Follow the canal!

And so began a crash-course in C and C++ programming. I unfortunately was rather behind as the other two girls had already taken a basic course. Jen’s pretty much skipped over the concept of functions and for, while loops so I was left struggling behind as the other two headed off further and further into the distance. This coupled with the awful news about Eliot meant I was pretty much a wreck when Jesper arrived on Wednesday. But he is so wonderful. He managed to scrape me up and put me back together and even tutored me in C programming so I could catch up with what was going on.

Here’s a picture of the wonderful boy now.

Jesper had a couple of days wandering around Tübingen while I worked (although he had pretty much seen everything after a day and half). He was the one who noticed something wonderful about the number plates in Tübingen. Basically they all begin with TÜ so you can get some pretty fun words. The next picture illustrates this perfectly:

TÜRD

Some of the other great ones were TÜBA, TÜBB, TÜMM, TÜRF TÜFF (as well as being a cute word for tough this is also a geological term for an ash-deposit… just so you know =) and many others I have forgotten but which made us laugh.

We were slightly terrified by the extremely strange mascot of the Keim backerie (by the way… Tübingen is totally overflowing with bakeries… there has to be at least one for every ten people there. I don’t know how they stay in business). Anyway… the Keim backeries had decided they needed something a bit extra to help them get ahead in the market… so they employed the use of the Keimling. I think the picture will illustrate the freakyness of this enough so I will stop there *shudder*.

Sheer evil in its corporeal form.

And with that chilling picture I think I have talked enough for one post so I will let you go for now. Will be back soon with more Tysk (German in Swedish) adventures. Lots of love and missage!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Total eclipse of the heart… or moon rather

On our last night in cadaques we went out for beer as one does when one is a geologist. It was a full moon and it looked amazing rising over the town. The golden orb… sorry I’m regressing. Anyway… after much camera advice from Paul and Jens I managed to take this photo… and I really like it. It was such a beautiful night. Warm enough to sit outside.

Finally a nice taken at night photo… hooray for timers.

After paella for dinner (this and Spanish tortillas are the only Spanish food I actually like… everything is so oily), we headed back to watch the total lunar eclipse. I was really excited… I mean it is one of the 101 things to do before you die after all (now I am one step closer to dying… well make that half a step since you need to see a solar eclipse too). And yes, I managed to take some photos using Paul’s tripod.

First I will show you without:

Yeah… not that exciting is it… at least it proves I was there!

But during the time when the eclipse was at it’s fullest (can you even say that?) I took this pic with the tripod (I have also zoomed in as far as I can… hooray for zoomy cameras).

How cool is this?

The next morning we got up super-early to drive to Figueres to catch the train. I didn’t mind getting up before the sun though because the drive was one of those amazingly beautiful moments that you aren’t expecting. The sun was rising over Cadaques as we left, staining all the whitewashed building pink and gold. The moon was huge and golden, still visible on the horizon. It was just so devastatingly beautiful (eek is that a bit of HSC 3 unit English coming back to me… maybe I should have said it was “hauntingly evocative”).

And with that I will leave you once more for a time with a pic of the Alps as I flew over them towards Germany and the next post (yeah I know… I’m lame).

The Alps from the plane.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Salvador Dalí is a very strange man

And on with the story. The next few days were spent at our computers for the numerical modelling workshop. This was basically a room full of geologists and laptops and good ideas (and some not so good ideas mostly coming from my corner of the room =). After this I had a much better idea of what I was doing for my PhD and how it actually relates to what everyone else in the larger project is doing (sort of). But I guess you probably aren’t so interested in the workshop but rather sightseeing and other such things.

The day after the workshop finished we didn’t have much to do because my co-supervisor and the post-doc where driving people to the airports all day, so Joyce (a PhD student from Germany who is also part of the same research group as me) and I went for a walk around Cadaques and the area. We started off with a walk over to Port Ligat, the place where Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala bought their first house, a small rundown fisherman’s cottage. This evolved into a huge house which is apparently very strange inside but unfortunately we could not see because it was closed for the winter (ie Borthwick day). We could see the garden from up on the hill though and it was quite a back garden to have.

Port Ligat

Actually Port Ligat was pretty nice because there wasn’t really anything there except for Casa Dalí, a small hotel and some little fishing cottages. Oh yeah… and some boats. And cats. Lots of cats. Actually I was really happy about the cats because they were very friendly and I was in serious need of some cat-patting.

The view of Port Ligat and Casa Dalí… you can see some weird sculptures in his garden.

After a bit of a look around we walked back to Cadaques on a track that gave us the lovely view of Port Ligat that you can see above.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Cadaques, looking at the church, listening to the sound of the bikes that are ubiquitous in Spain (hehe… when I called Maddy when she was in the Basque region I could even hear them in the background). So noisy! They really spoil the whole sunny, whitewashed walls atmosphere. The church on the top of the hill was nice but filled with tourists so inside all you could hear instead of the usual churchy silence was the “click, click, cachunk, beep, rrrr” of cameras. I put mine on museum setting so it didn’t make any noise, but it also didn’t take good photos. Not that it was that exciting inside, but since the advent of digital cameras I feel totally compelled to take a picture of everything I see. It is a terrible affliction.

Whitewashed walls and sun sans Spanish bikes.

Another important part of the say was to find an ugly postcard for Jesper. In case you didn’t know, whenever I go away I send Jesper the most boring, tacky and hideous postcards I can find. This is because I am mean and sadistic. No, not really… I think he likes them. And the one I found him in that day was a real cracker. It was of a flamenco couple looking terribly bored, and they had sewn a piece of material on for the skirt... a piece of fluoro-orange material. Blech!

So… I was talking about Dalí wasn’t I. Another day when we had a bit of time and needed to buy train tickets, we headed down into the smoggy valley that contains Figueres (and along that dreadful windy road again, though Jens was actually really nice and drove slowly for me). Since we were in Figueres we thought it an opportune time to visit the Dalí museum. And it was weird. So very weird.

The exterior of Musee Dalí.

I wandered around in a sort of daze discovering all sort of new things about Dalí. Like did you know he had a rock people phase. He has dozens of paintings of people made up entirely of rocks. And a nail phase. There is so much stuff of his that you never see. He really was amazingly talented even if I think some of works are absolutely dreadful. The building was amazing since he designed it, so the architecture was almost as weird as the artworks.

Inside a large atrium in the centre of the museum.

In the middle of the museum was a large atrium and courtyard, with more weird stuff. Like a car that if you put 1 euro in, it starts to rain inside on the statues sitting in it.

In the courtyard.

Actually the better one was when I decided to put a coin into another artwork, one of Jesus hanging on a giant mirrored cross (I am such a sucker for these things… I have to see what it does when you put the money in. I am exactly the type of person they make these things for =(. Immediately the hallelujah chorus blasted out at us and the cross started swaying. A bit hard to hide that you were the one who put the coin in when everyone in the entire museum can hear the religious strains booming out.


See I can be artistic too!

Severely Dalíed out we walked around Figueres for a while, which I have to say was just… well… nasty. It wasn’t a very nice town. Jens got upset because he bought a sandwich which after taken a bite he was certain was garnished with a crispy pig ear =). Ah Spanish food.

I decided to buy a book on Dalí cause I was curious to actually read a bit about his life. And yes… he is really, really weird. When staying in Paul’s apartment in Tuebingen, I found that he had “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí” a so-called diary (but really I think most of it is made up and apparently so does everyone else). But I had to stop reading it because it was so strange it was giving me nightmares.

And with that I will leave you with a picture of the lovely Mae West apartment Dalí designed. I think I would be a little disturbed to sit on her pouty lips and even more so light a fire in her nostrils, but there you go.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Trent Reznor has an awesome nose

Hej guys! Just a quick post as my short Easter holiday is coming to close. Bah. Back to work tomorrow and actually need to get myself back into gear after frantically playing the sims for the majority of the weekend (there is a new expansion pack out... seasons =). Actually speaking of the sims it was pretty funny this morning because I looked out the window and said to Jesper (who was still half asleep) "It's snowing!". He was like "Mmmhhmm okay... again". Then I said "No, no I mean in real life... not on the sims".

Anyway... there was a point to this post. First of all last night Jesper and I went to see Nine Inch Nails and they were f#@king awesome (sorry about the use of expletives but really when describing NIN it's the only way to go =). Although now I am unfortunately deaf in one ear... really hoping that will go away tomorrow.

Trent Reznor the singer (and well... pretty much the band since he makes all the songs and just hires new musicians when he goes on tour) was amazing. Although I have to say he was a bit more mellow than I would have expected. Still very angry and angsty and growly though. And he has the most fantastic nose.

See how awesome is his nose... there is just something about interesting noses that I really love.


But he didn't really look like that last night at all. More like this:

I am angry!!!

He was wearing this huge jacket though. I really thought he must have been so hot. I mean with all those lights on and everything. Maybe he had heard that Stockholm was cold and thought he needed to prepare. I think a t-shirt might have been a bit more appropriate though =). Still he was awesome so he can wear whatever he wants.

The guitarist was pretty cool too... he was really going crazy kicking his leg up in the air and swinging his guitar around. I was a bit worried he was going to accidently let go and it would go flying out into the audience. He was throwing the microphones around and kicking the speakers too. I thought it was kind of funny because he and Trent had a conversation between songs. I could just imagine what they were saying:

"Listen... can you stop throwing the microphones around... they're really expensive. And also... quit it with all the running around and leg stomping... I'm the guy here and you're totally showing me up".

It was good fun though, although I think the sound guys got a bit worried when he started swinging from the giant floor to ceiling speakers. New definition of pale and that is a pretty big thing for Sweden =).

So what else. Oh yeah. Jesper and I had a big birthday party this weekend to celebrate both our birthdays... they are only a month apart. It was a costume party with the theme come as your favourite superhero or villain. And yes I have pictures.

Wolverine and Jean Grey.

The Mummy I and the Mummy II

Dr Evil and the Blue (pink?) Rajah.

As I always do at parties when I want some good photos I gave the camera to David for a couple of hours and look what happened:

Professor Chaos

The Mummy I and and Icelandic girl whose name I've forgotten.

Guy wearing a hat from signs (apparantely... there was a long story behind his outfit) and Dr Evil (Penta actually shaved his head for the party... how cool is that?)

Wolverine and generic evil guy + wine glasses.

The blogwriter herself... or is it Dr Grey?

And the lovely photographer himself... a beagle boy.

If you want to see more pics from the party they are here.

And in case you were wondering yes we did smoke the cigar. It was really really awful. Having grown up only ever smoking cigars which I stole puffs of from a true connoisseur (don't worry I didn't smoke many) it was horrible. But I guess I shouldn't have expected anything special for 35 kronor. And that is the end of the post... I know it was supposed to be short but you know I am bad at short. Love and kisses and big hugs to you all!



Monday, April 02, 2007

A big smile

It occurs to me that I promised all my loyal commenting readers... all 6 of them (and a few readers in the background) a picture of me smiling biggly and never delivered.

Well here you go:

A rather large smile.

Or would you prefer this:

Not so much.

Okay okay... we will stick with the biggly smiles.


These pics were taken by Jesper in the Schwarzwald which I promise I will write about very soon. Better get back to work. Lots of love to you all.


Goodbye

I just want to say this now. I dunno... I feel so weird that life just goes on when something like this happens. It kind of frightens me how much that is true... when something awful happens everyone else is still living and doing their laundry and going to work, like nothing ever changed. I tried to just go on with the blogging like normal because I don't know if saying something is strange. But I have been thinking about it a lot lately and dreaming about it and I don't want to just go onwards without saying.

Eliot... you will be missed.

We may not have been the best of friends in the end, but I will always remember the times we had together... growing up with you.

- In Celebration 75 standing in the chorus in front of you and you poked me every 5 minutes in the back with your bow till I couldn't stop giggling when I was supposed to be quiet

- A minor in Eliot's car - the best fugue ever

- Parties at your place that were always the best ever cause everyone ended up in the pool whether they liked it or not and someone always spiked the punch

- long phone conversations dissecting last weekends party, revolving entirely around who was doing what and with whom - you were the best gossip buddy

- your huge smile and your huge hugs and larger than life personality that filled the room as soon as you came in

I hope that wherever you are now the music is beautiful.

Friday, March 16, 2007

The smallest boudinage (sounds like a kid's book doesn't it?)

Hi all. Back to the tales of Spain (I promise I will finish my Christmas story later… I don’t have those photos with me and I figure it is better to try and stay sort of up to date now). The weekend was the geology fieldtrip part, and thus was spent wandering all over Cap de Creus which has absolutely spectacular structures everywhere. I was seriously in awe. If I had seen just one of those structures in Australia I would have been so excited, but on this cape everywhere you look there is something amazing. It was almost too much to absorb. So we ran around looking at the different evidence of deformation in the area and taking huge amounts of photos. The majority of the day was spent looking a pseudo-boudins but I am not even going to get into that here… I think most of you probably aren’t that interested.

Cap de Creus

But for anyone who is interested to know a little bit about the geological setting of the area (and I guess there aren’t so many of you who are but bear with me =), the Cap de Creus Penninsula is the eastern-most outcrop of the Variscan Axial Zone of the Pyrenees (yes I got that straight from the excursion-book). The cape has undergone a number of periods of deformation leaving it metamorphosed and extremely deformed. The thing is, there is so much happening there that it is sometimes very hard to work out what is actually going on. Also, since the lithology is dominantly turbidites it is almost impossible to follow any of the beds along, so there has not been much done on the lithology.

More Cap de Creus

A nice rocky view of Cap de Creus. Now that I have been looking at more Salvador Dalí artwork I think it is a bit like some of the backgrounds in his paintings (but I will get to Dalí later).

At the end of the first day we went up to the bar that is next to the lighthouse for a beer. Of course it started raining but the view was so amazing that we sat outside anyway. And here it is:

The view from the bar.

Apparently when Paul is running excursions for undergrads he sits up there with a beer and can see what they are doing. Pretty good vantage point.

The second day we went a bit further inland, to Mas Rabbassers de Dalt which is the ruin of an old farmhouse, with some structures nearby that are perfect for kinematic analysis.

Geologists doing what geologists do best.

The ruined farmhouse.

It was at these ruins that we got to experience the start of Tramuntana, an extremely powerful wind that makes you want to go inside and have a beer (unless of course there are amazing structures to view). Fortunately it was not at its worst apparently (I would seriously hate to see it then… I felt like I was going to be blown off the rocks and into the water as it was).

Then we came across absolutely the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (except for Jesper of course ;). A teeny-weeny boudinage. Now any of the geologists out there will know that boudinage is an effect you get in a deformed layer, where it becomes stretched and blobs form with very thin umbilicous joining them. Often these seperate boudins rotate due to deformation and so you can work out the stress field that has affected that area by looking at the way they have rotated, thus determining things about the bigger tectonic picture from just a tiny structure. And how cute are they:

The littlest boudinage (with a coin for scale).

Okay… yes you may think I’m strange but usually you don’t see these so lovely and small and perfect… alright… I guess I’m not digging myself out of the weird rock person hole, so I think I will just dig a bit further (I’m a geologist after all) and show you some almost as cute ptygmatically folded quartz veins.

Ptygmatically folded quartz veins.

At one point that clouds lifted and we got a lovely view of the Pyrenees.

The Pyrenees

When the wind finally got too much we headed back to our bungalows. And so another geologically perfect day ended as most do… with a beer.