Working in Spain

After I left the Isle of Elba, I went to Genova, but not without stopping at Pisa, to visit the famous tower, quite impressing. In Genova I meet a friend, Massimo, and stayed with him the next days. We had an awesome time in Genova and went on a day trip to ‘5 terre’, a very cool place, where you can see 5 very little villages at the seaside! Unfortunately I couldn’t stay longer in Italy.

Now I’m in Spain, Mecina-Bombaron, for a field project about mountain ecosystems. The village we live in is quite small; there are 2 bars and nothing else, so not much about nightlife here. That’s why we basically watch Spanish TV at night, quite funny, because it is super badly dubbed, but mostly we’re watching sports, the only thing that makes sense if you don’t speak the language.

Working in the Sierra Nevada is quite hard, very physical, but fun too. We’re basically digging holes and analyzing the soil and vegetation to study effects of climate change. We’re also taking samples of plants for further analyze and working in a mapping campaign, for another research project. So far everything is as I expected it to be. The only unexpected is the weather, one would think of sun if you go to Spain, which there is, we had some sunny days. But we are having snow here as well. As proof there is picture of yesterday.

I’m gonna spent one more week here, before I will leave and go back to Malaga, for my last 3 day of holidays. After that my 7 week Euro trip is over and it is time to go back to Germany.

Italy - south to north

The days spent in Rome have been awesome. Beautiful city and lots of stuff to see there. Very impressive was the Vatican, it’s crazy what you can see there, especially the museum and the Sistinian Chapel. If you got a chance go there, it’s worth queuing!

After Rome I've been to Florence, very beautiful city, absolutely recommendable. Weather was awesome, sun and no clouds. The only bad point about this trip so far is that is super hard to find Italian who speaks English. Even on a university party me and a friend have been to in Florence the only people we could talk to were some Spanish guys, the rest was either to shy or unable to talk to us...

Now I’m on the Isle of Elba and I figured out why Napoleon was send here. It is absolutely boring here, at least at this time of the year. The island is basically dead, besides the few inhabitants. This doesn’t really make work more fun. The Mapping Campaign is going good so far, even though my groups area is super boring… anyways today is the last day, some presentations to be held and then we’re off. I will go to Pisa tomorrow to check out the Tower and then to Geneva to meet my friend Massimo, where I will stay for two ‘relaxing’ days.

On Tuesday I will head for Malaga to my next work project in the Sierra Nevada.

More to come…

Wrong World

After a good week in Edinburgh, where I could meet lots of friends again, play and fail a pub quiz, climb Arthur’s seat, go to some pubs, attend a Climate Conference and so on, I made my way to Italy.

But before leaving I was able to get a few things of my agenda that were still on there, first of all eating a deep fried pizza, which tastes better as it sounds. Go to the Royal Oak again, walk to Leith and watch a soccer match in a Pub.

Funnily I left a warm and sunny Scotland behind to get to a rainy and cold Rome. Nevertheless I was already able to spend a whole afternoon walking around and doing some sightseeing, guided by Raffaele, a friend of mine I'm staying with. The next couple of days are packed with tourism stuff before I'm gonna leave on Sunday. It's just not clear where I'm going then... I'm still struggling between Elba and Florence. Florence is more tempting, but unfortunately a little of the track... hm, dunno what to do?