09 avril 2009
Today, I am fine
A bit of sun for us and less for the others, and so I feel good :) It is rare enough to be mentionned.
22 mars 2009
NZ-2009-Coromandel
Woke up early, not to miss the low tide. Just time to eat our last poor 3 toasts, talk 5min with a french turist and admire the morning and the view from the hostel terasse.
Here we are, on the way to "Hot water beach". You first arrive at a large beach with white sand, surfer-waves and a bit of wind.
Spades and surf boards, the 2 essential tools at Hot water beach
As you go along the shore, we got closer to the heated sand. Some kind of thermal veines where the water is at 65°C are just 50cm underneath the ground, and just with walking above them you can feel the heat. It just had to be during the low tide (twice a day) otherwise this part of the beach in underneath the ocean. You can rent spades at the beach parking, and you go digging your hot water pool, in which you should't forget to add a bit of ocean's water, otherwise you might look like a crayfish !
So if ever go there, I give you a tip: If you walk on the sand and it burns, then Dig, otherwise not !! We have spent 20 minutes, at least, to dig here and there, thinking that if 1m further people had found hot water, we should as well. But that's not the rule, and you just have to find THE vein !
1st try from Cheri
Not only it took us some times to have our pool, and I started to get annoyed, but it got worth when watching the people already laying there, I saw the "perfect familly" whom brought with them a "breakfast-picnic basket" with Champagne ! F*** how come, me "miss organization" could have not think about that ?!!? I got so jealous and always thought about it along the trip ("where is my blooOOody Champagne ?")
But with a lot of labor, and "friendship" with a german girl, we also had burnt our bottom in our pool, facing the wavy ocean....Happyness !!
We had again witnessed that the world is so small (after I met David in Auckland): the german girl we met, was actually here on hollidays because her brother was going to the same conference than Cheri and his colleague......how funny ? ANd 3 days later and 700 kms further, our colleague was telling the story to the brother between 2 talks. When do we go on the moon to be a bit alone ?!?!
The hot pool chapter is not closed, yet. While we were completly lazy and warm, Cheri discovered that the ocean was much more fun and he came to take us out from our cosy pool "Come with me, it suck here, overthere there are waves, it is sooo cool !! COME !!" yeah, that's what happens when you go on hollidays with kids ;) so we folowed the big kid, and that was for good ;)
No more time for kids' games, we are in the peninsula and shold be by the evening in Wellington !! 660 kms and 9h drive, let's go.
We continued our race against time and curves, but we add a 3rd perturbating element: our colleague/friend !! At 1st he looks vert quite, but when he drives, this guy become a "F1 driver" with the option "no anticipation", "braking at the last seconde" and "no, I am not driving to much left" ! I was freaking out (and Cheri as well) and spent the rest of the trip on the back seat by using the excuse that the smallest shouldn't be on the front, and by this way I let Cheri on the side of the ravine. I still felt really stressed and I prefered to read than facing the danger at every turn (and God knows how much turns we had).
You think I am exaggerating ?? How often did you scream in car, while the driver was passing a car and you thought that the distance was too short ?? It was the 1st time for Cheri and me. And of course, our driver kept his cool "why are you screaming ? That's all fine". Yeah right !
In the same style we had the truck: the guy didn't close properly its back door, and one turn out of 2 we could see the inside and all the stuffs that might fall down on us. Scary !
left turn, no problem
right turn...we are scared !
It has been a really tiring trip: Is that holidays ??
At mid-day we stop by Waihi beach which is also a surfer beach, but the weather was always changing and we didn't have much time so we didn't really enjoyed it.
On the Road again...this could have been our holidays title.
A little stop by Taupo, a break for diner (and always good retaurant even in the middle of nowhere) and we arrived in Wellington at midnight. Ok I slept the last 2 hours, it was a never ending trip ! Thus we had the chance to pass by "MORDOOOOR", with the sunset and that was great.
Finally here we are in our super hotel really posh, 5 stars, with our golden car *sic* and our backpacks, we didn't have the right look for such an hotel. Anyways we really enjoyed our room with the awesome view on the harbour....I guess I will appreciate the 3 days to come in Welli.
ALL the pictures from these day are in the album "NZ-Coromandel"
08 mars 2009
NZ-2009-Rotorua
It is the rain who woke us up this time, but it made the landscape so green that we weren't annoyed...well yes we were a bit annoyed, but not that much.
Stop at the gaz station, which is also a "snack bar"
and a post office
On the way to Rotorua !
In december I had taken at the library, 2 DVD made by a german couple who had visited NZ and gave their tips about the recommanded activites. We then heard that WE HAD TO visit Rotorua, well known for its geo-thermic activity. THe city also got a huge lake which has welcomed the sea-ski worldcup in 2007 (we will discover along our trip that the sea-ski in lake is really popular, and when you see the area of their lake and the roughness of the ocean, you understand better why it is so). What has to be seen there it's Geyers. mud-pool with a perfume of sulfure...feels like goin there hmm ?
Cow's attack:
We stoped on the side of the road, to take some photoshots. On the way back to the car, the cows ran all together, closer to us, and were looking straight at us. Have you seen the Hittchcok movie "the birds" ? It was exactly the same but with cows....scary !!!
In fact we wanted to go tothis parc, where they bake eggs in a hot water source (yes I know, sound really for turists) and where you can also see a lot of lacs with different colors due to the different metals (Copper, Zinc...). But the woman at the turist office didn't get me right or just sold us her "business" and we have ended up here.
All the pictures are in the album "Rotorua" or by clic here.
Only on the geo-thermic side, it was a bit less than the other park, but the guide tour was included in the price, and the park welcome also the "carving" school : Maori art of Wood sculpture, as well as captiv Kiwi (the only ones we had seen), so all together, we didn't lose much.
We have seen one the higher Geyser in activity (around 15m heigh I think), mud-pools (a bit funny, looks like mud-frogs jumping), smoke coming out from nowhere.....
The carving school was also interesting. To get in you must be male, below 30 and having some Maori blood. Well for my new job I can't count on that !!p>
Not that we were bored, but it was already 16h and time for lunch. We found a cool bar, the Fat dog cafe.
1st discorvery of local seafood. In fact, New-Zealand has its own specie of Mussel: Green Mussels!! They are not really green, the shel is, but they are huuuge!! And so, in opposite to what we can find in other animals, all their organs are proportionally huuuge, and that's how, during all our stay, weither it was ginger marinated mussels, ´white wine mussels, mussel salad and so on, we always removed their....PENIS !!! No I am not kidding, and you can have the prove on the following pictures:
Cheri very happy with his salad and his local "Tui" beer, and the brownish stuffs which are huge as a schrimp (almost) are the penis: enjoy your lunch !!
Anyways, soon the evening appreared, and this time we thought to book our hotel on time. We will spend the night in Tairua, to be close to the "hot water pools" where we want to go the day after...sounds good, but 200kms and 3h driving are ahead, we hit the road !
Tairua is on the Coromandel peninsula: one of the best spot for the guys from Auckland because it is only 2-3h drive from the city, and got awesome beachs, waves for surfers, amazing hikking tracks... The Coromandel itself worse 2 weeks of visit.
To tell the truth we had a hard time on the road, we had to be at the hotel before 21h, and of course, the road were everything but straight nor flat !! We arrived just on time, but unfortunatly it was already dark and we couldn't go for a walk. At low tide, you can reach the hill on the other side of the village "the one going on the top will come back in 7 years"....Obviously it won'T be any of us. Next time ! We just refreshed ourself with the daily beer ;) and went, completly smashed, straight to bed !
Local library beside our hotel !
View of the hill opposite of our hotel...but at night :(
13 février 2009
NZ-2009-Waitomo
Just awake and we are already on the way to Waitomo. They said 3h to get there, and that's what it took us, even with a "we are running out of gas" time !
The goal ? To go caving, look at the glow worms and being adventurous in a 10 degree water. Would you also feel like ?
We leave the city for the "hobbits' world"
Arrival in Waitomo with our goldy car
We didn't just want to walk through the stalactits, looking at the celling, so we choose the mid-time (and price) adventure, 3h instead of 5h for the longest one (but we regretted it after). YOu can see a video of what we (more or less) did
I will post pictures here very soon !!
It was already late in the afternoon when we decided to go to Marokopa. The road to get there was full of small hikes with couples of natural sites (natural bridge, water fall...)
Was great !! I took so many pictures, that I made an album for it that you can check here !
The beach amazed us, with the light going through the clouds, very strong water stream, waves...was impressive. And the locals were very nice, always up for a tchat.
Life seemed so quite there, going with your small boat, getting your fish for the diner, welcomed by the kids " The men are back" sung loud, was great !
Kids on bike singing the coming back of the men, and the men :)
The probleme was that nobody fished for us, nobody was waiting for us with a BBQ on, and worse, we didn't take care of our coming night accomodation. 19h we left the beach, 20h in Waitomo and all the hotels (their reception) were closed and/or without vacancy !! PANIC !!
We found some nice backpackers whom opened us their room to give a call at some B&B I spoted earlier :
"Sorry, no room left, but call "this one", 1 room is left there"
OK, I call "this one":
"Yep, I have a room, I keep it for you but you have to rush we are closing very soon. How to come here ? .....blabla-kiwi-accent-where-I-dont-get-a-shit.....see ya"
This was followed was 5 min of stress and shout between us, but well, we made it as we, luckly, were close to it. Got a room for 3 with bathroom, all we asked for ! 21h30 we decide that a beer and a snack will do us some good. We were right !!
Moral for the day:
You don't wait to fill up the car with gas, as there are not so many station on the way and as, in the country side, they close before 20h
You don't wait to book a room is hostel/B&B/Backpacker as in the country side they close before 20h.
04 février 2009
NZ-2009-1st day
Happy mood as soon as the alarm rung, the sun goes through the plam tree to tell us that NZ is here and wait for us to explore it.
View from the room
AND in the room
Lack of luck, it seems that the dry air in the plane has decided of other future plans for me, and for the 1st time of the hollidays (and not the last !) I am cut on my way by nose-bleeding I know it is super Glamourous to share that with you, but I know you like it and by this way you can swear a "you deserve it" that was stuck in your throat since your started reading this blog. Don't thanks me, my pleasure :)
Well, I need more than this to stop me, and we made our way to the bakery (italian) for our 1st confrontation with the "Kiwi Slang" NZ:
Expresso => short black
American coffee => Long black
Café Latte => Flat white
Why, how ? No idea, that's the way it is.
This has been followed by the local food confrontation. Summer fruits, that's ok. The bread, like in USA, it's ok we can deal with it. The jam passion fruit...hmmm love it. The local "jam" , "oh what's that, don't know it, let's try" !
WRONG !! bad mistake !! In Australia or NZ you'd never buy this thing, which is tricky enough to hide in the jam rack but which is in fact some yeast extract (left over from bier preparation). SO then I didn't try anything else local all the trip long ! "You might trick me once, I won't let you trick me twice."
"For people who like good food" I don't say it, it's writen on it !
So we are finally on our way to the car rental office to pick up our car. After check of the price of flight, bus, train and the freedom we have with car we chose this last option (the problem was that for a trip Auckland-Wellington you need a minimum of 6 days rental) and when we saw the gaz price, we didn't have doubt left.
Noon, everything is done, and Mattis starts his 1st trip with our goldy-car *beurk* on the left hand side of the road, on the way to the music festival: The Big Day Out !!
2nd cultural choc of the day:
- The people: ALL with tatoos ! ALL a bit..shaped/round/fat ! Fashion that you'd have never think of and a music interest VERY low. They tchat, they show of, they talk in the middle of the crowd, back facing the stage and giving phone call at the same time (I witnessed it !) it's THE place to be, and the rest F*** off. Far from the european festival spirit (or am I wrong ?)
- Alcohol: That's another story. 1st you can bring in only 1 bottle of water, only if it is locked. So ours didn't pass through the security. Then the sun is really hot, it's really warm (look at Cheri doing topless on the grass ;) so what do you feel like ?? A good beer !!
this is not a good beer, but when you don't have the choice...
1st step, to queue to show your age proof, that you are over 18 and thus obtain your "drinker" bracelet
2nd step, to go "ON THE OTHER SIDE": meaning there are 3 bars within the whole festival (with 6 stages in total and a fair, gives you an idea of the lack of bar !) and that they are separated with barriers "you step back you alcoholic !!"
the stage, IN FRONT people, and us BEHIND
3rd step, to buy the beer: TOO limited choice: small bottles of wine (who is drinking wine at rock festival ?!), cheap beer in plastic bottle and Smirnoff and other alcoolic drink with wisky. Of course, they watch out how much you drink: Not more than 4 drinks at the time per person. Concrete example, when Mattis took 4 beers (but they are so small) and 2 smirnoff, we had to share for real, in our small hands, although we paid together !! Like small kids "You should have 3 each, otherwise one has 6 drinks and the other none and it is maximum 4 ! Even if in total is 8 and it is following the rule "........... Are you perplex ? So were we, and also tired, pissed and DEHYDRATED !!!
Cheri with our 4 beers, Smirnoff, the bracelet and topless on the grass (and still pale skin but not for long !). Clic on the picture to see better, BUT STOP WATCHING MY MAN !!
ANyways, we were here for the music so QUO about the music ?? Was a bit disapointed ! There were my favorite on my MP3 player: Artic MOnkeys. But they lacked of....everything. The TV on the radio were not better. We unfortunatly missed the local Black seeds.
The good surprise came from Lupe Fiasco, that was a good time, even if the huge Maorie girl in front of me scared me all the time.....
2 of the 6 stages and the roller-coster :s
the big final was on one hand Neil YOung, with its 74 years and a lot of energy, dynamism and awesome guitar playing !! He kicked out all the youngest bands. He was THE guest of the festival and thus we saw 50-60 years old people around all the day and I am sure they were not there for the 2nd hand of the final: the Prodigy !! (and thus they were here for Mr. YOung, if you have follow properly).
The (small) feminist side of me if a bit ashamed to say that I HAD SO MUCH FUN underneath the packed tent (they add extra screen outside) jumping, screeming, singing "Smack my B**** up" (yes I am ushamed) toward what was supposed to be the stage !! Too far, too small, I could just see the band ion the inside screen.
We left a bit before the end, too tired and didn't want to leave with the crowd. Also we had to walk 3kms to reach our car !
What to remember from the day ??
- People are behaving a bit more like americans than like british (even if these are, mainly, their ancestors).
- The sun is hard, even through the Tshirt (Mattis had the shape of the neck-collar !)
- a 74 years old rock star is STILL a rock star!!
03 février 2009
NZ-2009-The departure
For exceptional reasons, I will post for a little while in this blog. Why ? Because I am just back from 2 awesome weeks in New Zealand, for hollidays with my beloved....well the 1st real reason is because he had a conference there, and thus Uni was kind enough to pay him plane trip and a bit of hotel. Why not taking the opportunity to visit the other side of the world ??
So I will sum up, day by day our trip, and hope you can get some informations out of it for your future trip there. Yes, of course YOU HAVE to go there !!
So let's get started.
It took me a little while to realized that I was going far away AND on hollidays (definitly not used to this one). Although I pushed a lot my trip-buddies (boyfriend and his collegue) to book one day trip/excursios, car, camper-van...it all seemed not so real.
But the "day before" arrived, the last CD to rip for the car/van trip, the "vanity-case" to make, the flat to tidy and finally a too short night when I had to be at work at 7am on the D day. I came back home almost jumping around, I was sooo excited (and also wanted to exhausted myself before the non-ending plane journey).
being goofy, as usual, just too make me a bit tired before sittng for hours !
Tuesday the 13h, we are leaving Rostock at noon
18h we take off from Hamburg, where we met our other buddy, Andreas. Start to look like an hollidays camp ! 13 Kg each in our backpack, quite a good job, furthermore when I had my diving equipment in mine !
20h arrival in London (19h local time)
22h30 Take off (21h30 local) for 12h flight to Bangkok where we stay for 2h, time to clean the aircraft and let us, poor guys, walk and stretch a bit.
Thursday 15th , 06h10 local time, we arrive in Sydney :) Already look like summer... 1h30 later we start our last trip.
yes, we have seen the Opera from the air and were happy...a bit pathetic but that's the way we are
By the way, this black dot on the top corner is not a problem from your view, we found out in the plane that our camera lens had this problem depending on the degree of zoom. It's a bit a pity, but we decided to make it our signature and call it the "NZ-dot". Anyways it was just too beautifull there so we can mess up a bit the pictures, can't we ?
Jeudi 15, 13h lending in Auckland. It is then 1h at night in Germany (-12h) and so we had a 36h journey, that's the price for beauty (and summer in January).
Auckland from the air
We are even not tired (not really). 1st thing to do: put our sun glasses on :) yes, it is summer, it is warm and sunny, we are all very happy.
We make our way to downtown, the Parnell district where is our lovely backpacker hostel and the good shower that we were so much looking forward !
Downtown from Parnell and its Skytower
The Parnell district is lovely, and what we have seen from Auckland didn't make much impression on us, so we quickly came back there. We just took time to plan our trip Auckalnd-Wellington.
Our first plan was indeed to rent a car from the 17th to 19th, go around and leave Auckland by train or bus on the 19th evening to be in Welli on time for the guys to register at the conference on the 20th morning. And this is when we witness for the 1st time what will be our mistake N°1 for the rest of the trip:
" We under-estimated the distances !"
Auckland-Wellington by bus: 11 hours !! *gloup* hard to digest the news, our plans are bit...changed ! So then we decided to go back to Parnell to help the news to go through with some Thai food and sweat sunset. We felt already much better.
Small statistic break
QUESTION: What are the chances for a guy from Prats de Mollo to meet a girl from Collioure ?
For you whom, I am pretty sure, never heard of these 2 names, Prats de Mollo it's this, a small village of 1000 inhabitants, in the department where I am from. Collioure is not even better, with 3000 inhabitants, but this is the village where I am from.
In normal condition, you could tell me that they both have a good probabillity to meet, furthermore if we add the fact that they have some common friends. Ok let's say 20%.
Yes but what IF we are at the other side of this french departmentmais, for instance in Auckland, the day the girl arrived there and the day before the guy is leaving ??
Yo'd tell me "Impossible" !! But I'd answer : 100%
Yep, that's exactly what happened to us ! And actually the 1st time I saw David, I didn't believe it and told my guys about how much this guy looked like someone I know. But when I saw him the 2nd time (we were walking the same street, looking for a restaurant) then I was sure about me.
Unbelievable, going as far as you can from 1 place, just to meet someone you used to meet once a year à la fête de l'ours, we could just have had a drink there next week-end (if money and time would have allowed me to go back to France in 2 days)... Quite a funny world out here.
30 juillet 2008
Not tired of it
Or the adventures of a Chinese in germany :
I might have told you already about my chinese colleague. Anyways, 5 minutes ago he poped up in my office, like a little boy, with his hand full of blackberries, more or less black and ask me :
- Excuses me, do you know what is it ?
- Euh, yes, those are blackberries, check online with Wiki, I send you the link, then you can check in chinese.
- And can I eat them like that ?
- Yes, definitly !! :)
I think it's so charming ! Furthermore we you think of him being a researcher, it's quite a paradox and naive.
At the same time, it could have been the other way around if I would have had to ask him "what is it" the 1rst time I saw a dragon-fruit. Everything is relative.
And also becuase it is good for my ego ;) here a lovely sentence from another colleague (informatician one) from China :
"Thanks ,again ,dear Orianne,though I haven't been to Paris yet,I start to know the part of the French charming;)"
Yes, yes, the "French charming" it's ME :D don't forget that ;)
days I gonna miss
It's warm....warmer and warmer ! Furthermore when you work at 5 people in 6m² in the basement
Days are passing by with sun bath and goose-bump in a 19°c sea water, load of BBQ and quiet a few beers, to prevent deshydratation.
Some good evening, Girls-movie night
Or just good movie night (go see the movie AND the website (click picture) both are AWESOME)
Dolce vite before the august rush.
17 juillet 2008
Researchers are great
I swaer that it is a true scientific paper, you can read the rest of it here.
Nuptial gifts fail to resolve a sexual conflict in an insect
BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:204doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-204
| Published: | 15 July 2008 |
Abstract (provisional)
Background
Because of the potential benefits to individuals of saving investment for future mating opportunities, there is conflict between mates over most aspects of reproduction. Males of many species transfer compounds in the ejaculate that manipulate female reproductive physiology to increase male reproductive success. These seminal compounds are often associated with direct and/or indirect costs to females. In contrast, in some species ejaculates also contain nutrients used by females for somatic maintenance and increased reproductive output. In general, the extent to which male seminal components are detrimental or beneficial to females is poorly understood, and interactions between seminal compounds with different effects have been almost completely neglected. Here we examine the impact of male receptivity-suppressing factors and nutrient donations on female longevity and lifetime reproductive output in the bushcricket Requena verticalis.
Results
We show that receiving multiple ejaculates reduces longevity in female R. verticalis, indicating a cost of male derived receptivity-suppressing compounds. Consumption of male nutrient donations does not appear to ameliorate this longevity cost, and there was no effect of nutrient provisioning on female lifetime fecundity.
Conclusions
These results indicate that nutrient provisioning does not provide a resolution to sexual conflict over female receptivity in this bushcricket species.
10 juillet 2008
Celebration
OUr institute is now independant (and at the same time got an awefull name), to celebrate it we had a small garden-party :
It's my Post-doc, A GIRL, who is taking pictures, and don't ask why she snaped my and our american student ass !!
For once in germany the food was good, and we even had real-1rst price but still real- Champagne...oh yeah ! We are a RICH independant institute ;)
We are ALL NICE, listening to our boss !
Too late for Dr. Mix...but not for the summer-german -rain :(
