Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Hello!

Last weekend I went to London with Tanja, but without my camera… Everyone who knows me, knows how unlikely this is. I always have my camera (the compact one, not my SLR) with me. Always. Even to work. And that’s where it went wrong last week. I was running to meet Gerardo at the gym in the morning, and in the last moment I thought of bringing my water bottle, so I threw it in my backpack. While walking to the sports park, I felt a drop on my legs. Hmm strange, it’s not raining. Another drop. Weird. Another one. Something is wrong… Then I discovered that my backpack was leaking water. Help!! I quickly checked the damage. Half a liter of water had spilled, my passport was soaked (yes I always carry my passport around as well, don’t ask why), my trainers were wet, my agenda was dripping and even my camera was wet. I had to go to the gym so I couldn’t do much. When I came back in the office I let my passport dry (it’s fine now), but it wasn’t until late afternoon that I remembered my camera. Hmm the battery/memory card compartment was wet. I dried it, and tried to turn the camera on. Ok that was probably the biggest mistake. It didn’t work. Everyone told me not to panic, just wait a day or two, it will work. It didn’t. It’s dead… I have no idea if there is any hope for repair. The battery and memory card are still working, the camera just doesn’t want to turn on. I’ve only had it since December but I got so attached to it. I miss it so much!! I want to buy the same one, but it costs 200 pounds here in the UK. Bummer!!!!

Ok so I went to London without my camera, I didn’t want to carry my SLR around for the whole weekend. We stayed in a HI hostel called Thameside, a bit out of the city centre but in a nice area. On Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural History (it’s free!), which is really nice. The Science Museum (free as well, I like the UK!!) is just next door and we were expecting a lot from it. Too much I suppose, we were disappointed. It’s more a museum about the history of science with lots of old instruments, while we were expecting a highly interactive modern museum (like NEMO in Amsterdam or Cite de l’Espace in Toulouse or the Science Museum of Minneapolis). So we didn’t stay there long.

At night we went to see Guys and Dolls. It was great!! Patrick Swayze only started playing in it 2 days before, and it was cool to see him. He’s 53, but looks the same as in Dirty Dancing (at least from a distance hehe). The audience was a bit annoying, after the show they didn’t even take time to give a standing ovation, everybody just runned away, we were really surprised by that. I though it was a great show, with some really good singers and dancers. We walked around West End for a while, and ended up in a pub in front of the theatre. We heard some noises, and I joked to Tanja: that’s Patrick going home. We looked out of the window (we were on the 1st floor) and he was there indeed, talking to people.

On Sunday we went down to the Tate Modern. I have discovered something new about myself, I REALLY enjoy modern art!! It was amazing, I loved it so much. Tanja-the-art-lover was even getting impatient because I was going too slow. hehe. We left at noon to go to a concert of Kat Flint in Victoria Park. I have seen her in Norwich, and really like her music. It was a very small concert, a picknick concert for charity. We sat in front next to her boyfriend, I really liked the atmosphere. We only saw three songs because it took much longer than we expected to reach the park. We stayed for a bit, then we went back to Tate Modern until closing time 🙂 After that, we took the train back to Norwich. It was a great weekend!! I definitely want to go back to London, I still have so much to see.

Ok that’s all for now… Ohh I did take some pictures of the thunderstorm last week, I’ll try to post them soon! Sorry for this boring post without any photos… until I make up my mind about buying a new camera, there won’t be many pictures I’m afraid 🙁

Take care!

Hanneke

Hello!

It’s more than a month ago that I went on a trip to Thetford Forest, but I still wanted to share the photos 🙂 Patama and I took our bikes on the train to Brandon (taking your bike on the train is free in the UK, really nice!), then we cycled from there to Thetford Forest. It’s very nice there! We cycled to the information centre, where we got a map of the bike trails. We did one of those, which was good fun! But my bike is not really made for off road cycling, so I got a flat tire in the end. I was able to fix it though, but a few days later I decided to exchange my racing bike for a mountain bike, much better!!

Nice and clear river!

It was a very warm day, so we decided to try the water 🙂

Lunch break in the shade, before starting the bike trail

We even saw water snakes in a small pond next to the trail! We tried to take a shortcut back to Thetford, we almost got run over by fire trucks appearing out of nowhere. Somebody of the Forest Service asked us where we were going, and he explained us a nicer way of getting back to Thetford, avoiding the busy road. We had to follow a walking trail for a while, only we forgot to get off it at the right moment, so we almost got lost and had to go back!

In Thetford we found those ruins while cycling to the train station. They are the ruins of Thetford Priory, and quite impressive!

It was a really nice day and I definately want to go back to Thetford Forest again.

I’ll try to put some more photos online in the coming days. Everything is going well, my model is working so I am finally working hard ;). I am going to London for the weekend with Tanja, from Friday till Sunday. We want to visit the Museum of Natural History, the Science Museum, see a musical… I think it will be a fun weekend!! More on that later 🙂

Bye!

Hanneke

Hello!

I have been back for a while but have simply been to busy to post anything, sorry!

I had a great time in Switzerland, the weather was wonderful (quite warm but the good thing about the mountains is that you just have to go up to get to nicer temperatures), thunderstorms almost everyday (I even took photos!), did lots of hiking, took many trains, boats, cable cars, lifts, buses… Got sunburnt but I also got bitten by spiders (??) and woke up covered in bites… they are still not completely gone. Of course I spent a lot of time in Grindelwald, but I have also discovered some new towns that I’d like to go back to, especially Luzern, it’s so beautiful! Anyway, I won’t put the photos on this blog, I am working on a site about Switzerland with the photos of this year but also last year’s photos!

Since I came back, I have moved to the new house, which is absolutely wonderful. I live there with Candice (MSc in ENV, she will stay for about a month), Nem and Tanja. I am really enjoying the house, my big room, but most of all my housemates! It’s really close to campus as well, it only takes me a few minutes by bike, I will get lazy! Good thing the sport centre is even closer than uni, mayyyyyybe I’ll finally go to the gym… I prefer swimming but the pool is closed till the end of next week.

What else… my project has changed quite a bit, we took a big decision last week to change the model we are using. I do think it’s for the best, and I am motivated to learn to use the new model and finally do some real research instead of studying computer science!! Unfortunately everyone seems to be on holiday right now, so progress is a bit slow (I have to set up accounts in different places so I need permission from people in Reading, Manchester, etc).

Last week I went down to the British Antarctic Survey, to meet with my supervisors there, but also to try on the clothes for Antarctica. Our funding pays for the clothes, and we had to try everything on. Lots of fun!! Fortunately it wasn’t as warm as it was this week. They pack everything in kit bags which will be sent along with the ship going down, sometime late August or in September I think. It’s all very exciting!!

I have loads of photos that I want to put on here, most from before I went to Switzerland. Nicole gave a goodbye party the day before I left, and there are very nice photos of that night. I also have some photos of the trip to Thetford Forest with Patama, and a lot of photos of playing Catan… Ever since I am here, I tried to find people to play with. We played occasionally, but not very often. Recently, I got some people really hooked, so now we play a LOT!! Which is good fun… I also have an online version of it, so we even play at work… shhhhhh 😉

I will put those photos online in seperate blogs, I hope I have some time to do that tomorrow. Now just some photos of my housemates 🙂

My lovely housemates!

That’s all for now!

Hanneke