Nelson as the new liberal leader!?

Hey!!!

Just a couple of things. Firstly?! Brendan Nelson as the new head of the Liberal Party!??!! Fuckin' awesome!! They couldn't have chosen someone more inept for the job! That's great news for Kevin O'Ruddo! Me and Kiri are going to spend this weekend at Johannes and Pinar's place and have a Ruddfest on behalf of you guys that are left in Canberra!

Secondly, myself, Kiri, Kia and Richardson are eagerly waiting for news of your life in Canberra and the US. Please post more often, even if just to complain about how shitty your day was. ;)

If I can get my camera to work we will post more of J&P and Laila early next week as well as pics of my new flat in Bonn and of the city itself!

Cheerio!

Viva Rudd Zapatta!!

Raúl

Go labour!

But f**k Nelson.....

theage.com

what an asshole!
So glad he's not it power.


Sorry, can't let the Australian politics debate go.

But hurray for the new environment minister, Peter Garrett!!

YAY!!!!

After 11 long years, Australia has finally seen the light! Mr John Coward has been thrown out on his ass, including likely losing his own electoral seat. To an ex-journalist, Maxine McKew.

The lovely Maxine! My new personal hero.

A file photo, Coward vs Rudd ;)

And here's the dynamic duo; on the left, our first female deputy prime-minister Julia Gillard, and Mr Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia, and instigator of what the newspapers are calling the "Ruddslide". The government has so far lost miserably, their coalition of right-wing parties getting 58 seats, with Labor on it's own getting 83. Labor gained 28 new seats, with the liberals only taking two.

In case you care, he is a website you can check on the results from, but with only a few minor seats left to count it's well sorted ;) http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/

Finally makes me proud to be an Australian, lets hope he lives up to the hype.

Kiri

Rain, snow and elections

Need some rain in Canberra? It's pouring down in Uppsala outside my window!
I guess it only took me 3 month to "forget" the Australian view of rain.... as something glorious!
Now its just wet, hard to bike in, gray sky and frustration over NOT having SNOW!!

I demand to get the snow back (it was so beautiful a week ago). Hate unreliable weather, and global warming...

Please all ozzies - remove mr Coward from the power this week end!!!

Saving energy

Just as our black blog consumes less energy when displayed on a computer compared to pages with white background, there is now possible to use Google with a black background.

www.blackle.com


Maybe you knew all ready, but I just read it in a magazine and just wanted to share the info.

I walk in LA!

Dear all. Great to see that everyone is doing well and congrats to Kia and Raul for jobs!

What happens here? The slogan for LA is visible on many taxis: "No one walks in LA". Which is exactly why I walk everywhere. I don't even own a bike, let alone a car. This city, which angels left a long time ago, contains some oddities like freeways that are mainly used for parking huge amounts of cars... The bushfires and bone-dry rivers kind of remind me of Australia, but lets be clear, if you think you had a "miserable existence" in Canberra, you ain't seen nothing yet! My main hobbies are not showing up to work on time, and not writing to my friends blog despite many invites...

The most exciting thing so far has been seeing the Finnish band Nightwish live at the House of Blues!! With their new Swedish singer they are now the best band in some universe. But don't take my word for it, check out their new album. You may also have heard the sad news from Finland - yet another pathetic youth demonstrated the destructive power of an unstable mind - where a school shooting claimed the lives of 6 students, the school nurse and the principal. Since the purpose of the shooter was to gain publicity for his 'revolution', let no more be said about him and his thoughts. ever.

Just last week I experienced an encounter with the world famous US cops. After helping a colleague with some fieldwork in Mexico, we were rolling out our sleeping bags for the night and gazing the stars. Just when we cracked the beers open, two police cars with search lights turned up demanding us to explain our existence... Despite the fact the we were not the burglars they were looking for, and our car was the wrong colour etc, they still searched through our stuff and car. They even thought that someone was hiding in my (empty) sleeping bag on the ground... after I kicked it in the air they finally gave up


Anyway, take care youz all. If you happen to drift in this direction, you'll probably find me cursing in the basement of UCLA Geology surrounded with the pieces of a blown up ex-mass spectrometer...


sorry no photos... who takes pictures of traffic jams anyway??
Antti

Berlin!

Well, I can now say that I have seen the most depressing city in the world. It was great! Absolutely loved it. We went for the weekend and subsisted almost entirely on the most fantastic doner kebap in the world. And partied all weekend, will have to go back and see some more scenery. ;)

Here are some pics though...

On our way! My first trip on the Autobahn!

The Allianz Arena, famous from the world cup

Couple of friends modelling Berlin's beautiful underground, with lovely plastic seats with a design we hypothesised would clash with every piece of clothing not made of the same material.

If anyone saw the Bourne movies, AlexanderPlatz should be eerily familiar...

The world clock in the same square, tells you the time, even what it is in canberra.

No prizes for guessing what this is a part of ;)

Some of the local (ahem) colour ;)

One of us (Totte the Swede) demonstrating the weather - it was lovely.

Part of Berlin's massive central train station, the trains even come in through the roof.

The tree-lined street near where we were sleeping.
The million mile traffic jam - 5hrs to get there, 11hrs to get home, though that might also have had something to do with getting pulled over 3 times in less than 5 km so we could get searched by the cops.
And finally, something you don't see often, someone hanging their head out the window smoking on the autobahn. Only really possible in massive traffic jams - don't try this at home :)

All in all, a great time was had by all. Will be going back I think, it's a pretty awesome city, but in the meantime Raul will entertain me in München :)
Miss you all!
Kiri

First snow in my home town!

But first I have to write: I got the job in Uppsala!!! I've worked two days so far and I think I was very lucky to end up in this lab. :-)

Happy happy joy joy - as Lucy would have said!

Now for some photos:

Zirro, my mum, Ri, Igor and my dad enjoying the first snow back home. 10 cm of lovely white snow.

Then we took a walk to the lake and saw a wolf!

No... it was only Igor striking a pose.

Zirro instead enjoyed swimming after snowballs that we threw in the lake... and the stupid furball didn't get that the snow melted and turned crazy trying to find the 'ball'.

Last picture - a Swedish fridge..... if you look closely in the upper part of the picture.

Last pictures of Lisbon

Heyyyyy!!!!!!!

Okay, I promise you that these will be my last pictures of Lisbon for a while. I might be sick and tired of being here (more from excess of red tape and being f****d in the ass by Portuguese customs and especially the f*****g Australian carrier - Pack and Send), but I do find this city really cool. Enjoy some views of our 12th Century S. Jorge Castle.

Turrets of S. Jorge Castle

A visigothic water fountain at sundown

Sundown at the castle

View of downtown Lisbon and the river as seen from the top of Castle Hill

Another view from the castle

A picture of me for Kia, with the statue of my nation's founder, D. Afonso Henriques (Henry I the conqueror).

The battlements of the Castle.

Another view of downtown Lisbon.

Sundown over the river Tagus.

My next pics will come from Germany!!!

My Family!

My sister in my old house!

Another one of my sister, Raquel, in my old place
It's getting old, another one of my sister, then again I havem't seen her in 5 years.
Myself, my father and Miête my father's wife
The same but with my sister.
Me and my Sister.

For those of you that complain about me not posting pictures of people in the blog while I am in Lisbon. Here you go. Enjoy!

Where I am going to work.

Poppelsdorfer Schloss where the Mineralogisches Institut und Museum resides and where I am going to work.

Okay, now it's almost official. I have officially accepted the job offer (after getting the forms I needed). It will go to their commitee and get approved which I am told is just a formality. Just as a teaser I am leaving you with a picture of the Department of the University of Bonn where I am going to work. Going back to Muenchen next week so the window for visits to Lisbon is narrowing. The flat I was going to have available for each time I was to come to Lisbon is going to be rented out to someone who can pay a lot more than me, so I will not have a place to stay for all of us in Lisbon any time soon. Sorry for that!

Enjoy!

Raul

P.S. - This is were the Kaiser kept is mistresses in the XVIII century

Clarifications are in order

Dear all,

I officially do not have the position yet. I still have not accept it officially due to the amazing world of German bureaucracy. I am going to send the signed offer back today. It still has to be approved by the University bureaucrats. To make a long story short, I do not have the job yet. I will have the job once I get my contract approved, and money on my bank account. I have just spend the last month in cues to take care of an infinite ammount of bureaucracies, and spend over 1200 euros in customs procedures and in the purchase of several documents which I really needed. I appreciate your enthusiasm though. ;-).

Hugs,

Raul