The windy road of DOOM!!!

Hola everyone! Or I guess I should actually be saying Guten tag seeing as I am now in Germany. So… for those of you who didn’t know I have spent the last ten days in Spain for a workshop and fieldtrip and am now in Germany to learn how to use the numerical modelling program Elle for my PhD. I will be here for about three weeks and then I head straight on to a conference in France near Nice. So it is quite the travelling life I have at the moment. At present I am sitting in my co-supervisor’s apartment in Tübingen and I have to admit it is a little creepy since he collects skulls, so there are lots of empty eye-sockets staring at me. But it is okay, I ate some chocolate (which was actually supposed to be for Jesper… sorry babe, I have more for you though) and Helena (my office-mate) is arriving at 11pm so I won’t be alone with the skulls for very long. Good thing too… I don’t think I would want to spend a night just me and the skulls.

Some of the skulls keeping me company (can I just emphasise the word some here).

Anyway… Spain. So… I arrived last Friday in Cadaques, on the east coast of Spain quite close to the border with France. I had to catch the 7.05 plane to Girona (Ryanair’s Barcelona airport) which meant having to make a trip out to the dreaded Skavsta airport (Scabsta as it has become in my mind, quite a fitting name I think since it is a rather scabby airport). To get to the airport before my flight I had to catch the 3.45am bus… yes you heard right. How obscene is that. It is the only flight that goes that route so it was pretty much the only cheap option. But blarg. So I headed off at the crack of sparrow fart giving a rather cold hug goodbye to Jesper who had seen me out into the snow. And it was snowing an awful lot actually… it was bloody freezing at Skavsta. I was wearing two coats and I only had to walk the distance between the bus and the terminal (about 10ms) but my teeth were chattering by the time I got there. Oh and I should probably mention that while I did sleep on the bus on the way there (it is 1hr 40min trip) I also managed to drool profusely much to my dismay when I woke up to the kid sitting next to me staring in disgust.

To cut a long story short I got to Spain after another monotonous plane flight (so over flying now… ‘specially when it is a short haul flight. I don’t mind long haul so much… they feed you and you can watch movies and sort of sleep sometimes but shorthaul is just like being on a more uncomfortable train). My co-supervisor Paul was awaiting me with a sign (my first airport sign… hurrah) and another geologist, Kristian from Estonia. We drove to Cadaques and I was reacquainted with my least favourite stretch of road in the world. I have vivid memories of totally dreadful car-sickness on the windy coastal road driving from Spain to France and now I had to relive it. Actually, four times in the last ten days. It is particularly awful and green-face inducing and I hope I never have to see it again (although I might be going on another fieldtrip there later this year so I probably will have to). But I must admit it is a beautiful view as you wind down to Cadaques and catch your first glimpse of the white-washed walls, the beautiful bay and the church standing on the top of the hill.

The view of Cadaques from the top of Club Carpe Diem (made a little less nice by the renovations in the foreground... there is always renovations).

We were staying at Club Carpe Diem up on the hill with a stunning view from our verandah… of the football field. Oh well… you can’t have everything =). Basically the first day was spent waiting around while people were being picked up from the airport. I tried to have a bit of a sleep and soon realized that despite the fact that it was warm and sunny outside (about 15 degrees) our room was absolutely frigidly cold. I couldn’t sleep because my teeth were chattering. And this was in the middle of the day! I didn’t sleep much that night either. The problem was that it was very humid and the rooms were extremely damp. So I had everything I owned on (why do I keep having to do this) as well as both coats over me and blankets. After this Joyce and I (PhD student from Aachen in Germany who I shared a room with) snaffled the small bathroom heater and tried that. Problem being that it projected radiant light out into the room making it very hard to get to sleep. Oh well… at least it was sort of warm with it on.

So… all the people who were coming on the fieldtrip arrived and we headed down into Cadaques for dinner. We went to a very cheap, out of the way resteraunt that Paul often goes to. I quite liked it, especially the décor. It was basically like someone had put some restaurant tables in the middle of their living room (which may actually have been the case). There was a cupboard with trophies, a soccer figurine collection, the ubiquitous glass fronted cabinet full of special crystal you were given for your wedding and never use because it might break. Then the walls were covered with amateur paintings, those collectable tiles and plates you get everywhere and a cuckoo clock which played edelweiss at random intervals. Actually it reminded me a lot of the incongruous style of Professorn, basically the only restaurant we ever go to in Sweden because it is cheap and almsot right downstairs (well it’s cold to go out to the city). Unfortunately it has gotten to the stage now that the people who work there know what I want before I open my mouth to order. I like them though because they always let me try and speak Swedish to them, everybody else replies in English as soon as I stumble over some Swedish words. But they wait patiently, smiling and nodding. And there are twins. The beardy one and the blinky one. We didn’t realise this until the beardy one got his beard. We just thought maybe he got all blinky when he was stressed. Anyway… I have gone off on a horrible tangent and I think I have rambled on far too long for one post so I will continue the story in the next. Love and kisses to you all and much missage (wish me luck with the skulls =).