domingo, 25 de outubro de 2009

16th Nov: Getting to Norway! :D

Nothing is as funny unless you have some nice stories to go with it, right? :P

The weekend actually started on Thursday night, with me working late on the laptop in order to leave it with Runa before going. As a result, I went to bed without packing and I had to do it on Friday morning when I woke up.

Got to work and then i decided to try to activate my Lebara roaming... just to find out I needed my CPR number... and that they’d give me the answer in 5 days!!!! Of course when we were less than 24h to go to leave, that implied going home after lunch to get my portuguese sim card, with a small pit stop in the camera services to pick up my camera :D All this travelling was a bit stressing and mostly time consuming :/ and during the next 2 weeks I’m working a bit later to make up for the time outside work :P

After all this, I thought the rest of the trip would be smother, but the adventure was only about to start! We got to the train station on time and bought the tickets. Got in the train and the journey start. So far so good. But then we stopped somewhere and we had to wait for smth, losing the buffer time we had. We started our journey again and in the stop before Copenhagen, another stop... one of the tracks leading to Copenhagen was not in use and all the trains had to wait to pass one at a time. We didn’t had that much buffer time by then and when the train driver said ppl in a hurry could take the local train to Copenhagen leaving in 5 minutes, we went for it! In the middle of all this, the handle of my luggage broke! :P but we got in the train. We finally arrive to Copenhagen Nord and went for the metro, but the one to the airport was 5 min away... and then we found out it took around 15 minutes to get to the airport... and we had 10 minutes to check in our luggage! XP Of course we didn’t made it on time, but at least we had done the online check in and had some [little] extra time to get to the boarding gate. We managed to pass security with some luck :P and then went to the plane – Norway, here we go!!! :D

It wasn’t a jet plane, but a smaller one. When the trip started it was shacking a bit, but it normalised shortly after – and I was glad for it :P We got to Trondheim and we caught the bus to the city. When we got out I wasn’t cold – after all I had my [new] jacket, my gloves and my beanie on – but I saw some girls in tank tops and guys in shorts and t-shirt... ok, i know nordic ppl are more used to the cold but THAT was way too much! :P

By the time we got to the school were we were staying [a kindergarten ;)] it was pass midnight and I decided not to head to the downtown to join the others. I’ll explain: in Trondheim all bars and discos close at 2 am and you pay to GET IN [smth like 100 – 150 NOK, about 12 – 15 EUR] plus all the consumption inside. And drinks are even more expensive there than in Denmark. So it was better to enjoy the ciders in the school and then get some rest.

PS - By the time we got to Norway, my luggage had broken one of the "pulling handle" metal connections too :P

12th – 15th Nov: The first “normal” weekdays

So, I’m back to posts, but this time with a little change – no more counting days, it’s just easier to mention dates :)

These weekdays (Mon – Thur) were rather normal – I mean, as much normal as it can get, not working anymore when I get home :P I don’t really remember anything special, except for the window shopping which ended up in me getting a new [warm and water-proof] jacket :D and bike episode on Wednesday eheh

About the bike episode... In the morning we had an appointment in the water treatment centre near our place, so we went there by bike. The actual water and waste water treatment facilities that we visited were near our work, so we were left there to go straight to lunch :) If you noticed the “we went by bike”, you can wonder what happened to them... well, they stayed in the meeting point near our place. After work I went to the down town to do some more window shopping and I did buy the jacket cuz I needed a warmer jacket [mine was way to fit for Southern weather lol]. With all this, I only got back to the water treatment centre around 6pm. The only person there was the security guard, who didn’t speak much English – it was a funny thing to use gestures, sounds and pedalling movements [and showing the padlock keys :P] to show I had my bike inside and I needed to go and get it. Well, eventually we understood each other and I went home cycling :)

PS - During this week I had company; Michael's fish stayed with me while he was on vacations ;)

PPS - Called the camera services on Tuesday... and the camera was still being fixed, in Germany :( Tried again on Thrusday and I found out it had just arrived to Copenhagen! :D They shipped to Aarhus so it would be there the next day, on Friday ;)

segunda-feira, 12 de outubro de 2009

[Days 39 and 40] A weekend at home

Hello!

Neglecting a lot of things during the past two weeks made my "To Do" list grew :P Of course some of the things included making a backup of the thesis and organising everything so I can send them home - and doing this felt really good :D - but also included some other basic things like major clothe washing and vacuuming the floor :P Ok, it wasn't all work and I did finally get to see a few things I had (films and series) - the couch is really nice to sit there with a blanket watching movies eheh

With all the things I was doing, I missed the match between Portugal and Hungary :P including the trip to see it elsewhere (where there was a party afterwards). I ended up not going cuz it was still 1h away with 2 buses and my energy levels were still in "recovery phase" - I've been hitting the bed quite early, little after midnight every day :P Anyway, next weekend has a lot of partying ensured and I have more plans for the week too :)

Beijinhos

Nuxa

PS - And today I have supermarket + movies for the after work period

sábado, 10 de outubro de 2009

[Day 38] In a way, a new "first day" :)

Hello!

Thursday ended with me sending all the stuff to Lisbon and Friday started with me checking my e-mails (at 7.00 am)... and receiving the news everything was printed and ready to go - a great way to start the day :D

During the morning we went to the Incineration plant of Århus - a really nice "field trip". I still don't have a camera :( so I gotta use links to show you the outside - it really looks nice, considering its function :P And according to what we were told, the "smoke" you see is almost only water, they use a lot of different filters and chemical processes to clean the smoke before it's released into the environment.



The incineration plant is on the North part of the city and we're working almost on the South part, so we took the bus back. We had to change lines in the city centre and we decided to make a "pit-stop" in the shop to buy bus tickets (Ivo) and the Kulturnat ticket (me). Afterwards we went to the bus stop and caught 5... just to find out we took the "wrong" one, as this was changing directions. We got out and tried to get another bus... which was also going the wrong way XD After two bad choices, we walked back to the main road and tried to catch another bus. This time it was the right bus... but the wrong bus stop (it didn't stop there)! The three of us (Piort was with us too) then decided to just walk all the way to work :P We got there at 01.05 pm, when the canteen closed at 01.00 pm, but we asked the lady if we could still have lunch - she was really nice and waited for us to eat :)

After work I came home, and enjoyed my first afternoon with no plans and no work :) I found out Michael and Runa were going to the town too, so after dinner the three of us and Alex went to Kulturnat. It was a really pleasant evening, with stories about the city, alternative bars and discos, huge ice-creams, art galleries and me being used as part of a multimedia art piece :P, "special benches" and more stories with the bus on the way home eheh Alex had his camera, which I "borrowed" for the evening and I'll send some pics when I get them :)

Beijinhos!

PS - I had (portuguese) soup for dinner!! THANK YOU INÊS :D She came over and gave me some of the one she had made - and trust me, after over one month without eating any soup, this one was just delicious ;)

quinta-feira, 8 de outubro de 2009

[Days 23 to 37] Lot's of work... and FFFFREEEEEEEDDDDOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

As you might have noticed (or not... :P) I've been pretty quite the past two weeks. Or, more accurately, I haven't spammed you during that time with my adventures lol

Cutting the crap, the past two weeks had:
- thesis
- a Tuga dinner - where my camera was broken :(((
- a trip to the local Canon repair service to fix the camera (will be back in 1 week, after a trip to Germany to be fixed)
- thesis
- a BD party and I finally managed to dance a bit :D
- thesis
- work 7/7 = no weekends :/
- a weekend devoted to finishing the thesis... while it was windy and rainy outside, to abnormal standards really
- a lot of car/ bikes countings.... including one with corrupted data that will have to be repeated :P
- thesis
- a lot of banana yogurt with chocolate chips (also know as emergency food when there's no time for cooking nor will to do the dishes :P)
- oh... did i mention thesis? :P

Last Monday I had the day off (cuz my colleague was not here) to finish my thesis and so I did :D BUT there was this very annoying thing called summarising-all-you-did-in-10 pages, that did took a looooooong time, more then I had expected lol Anyway, I'm happy to have my Iparanga scream, my Mel Gibson moment and write FFFFFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! :D All files have been sent to Lisbon, my dad is taking care of the printing process - actually my thesis shouls be printed by now, only the CDs and the extended abstracts were left for tomorrow :P

Now it's time to slow down, to sleep, to rest my ankle (which decided to swell today, so i feel as if i'm wearing 3 or 4 thick shocks on my foot :/ ) and to not think more for the rest of the night :P Tomorrow is a day to figure out how to spend the weekend :), to get some time to check mails (my unread counting is going off the charts :P) and to pack everything i have here from the thesis... and shipped it back to Lisbon.

Beijinhos



And let's start a new time in life :)