Programming...

The picture below describes perfectly my last days: 

Pretty sad, isn't it? Things like: "rotations using quaternions" and "gradient dependent opacity attenuation" consumed most of my time and energy in the last weeks.
Sometimes I ask myself: why on Earth I am doing that? Who cares? I guess these are the most frequently asked questions among the PhD students... but has anyone found the answer yet?

TBBE has gone to our favourite 'southern' country for the next 3 weeks to pass the final exams before the defence of his PhD. Our flat is incredibly empty now and even the weather forecast looks more horrible than usually...
Ehhh, it might be the right time to dig out my Energy Lamp and see if it works at all  :-)



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First day of winter!

Winter arrived!!!

and it looks like I get the first winter cold in this season :-(

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Praha

Two weeks ago we went to Prague :-) Nice trip, specially for Poles understanding quite some Czech.  It was sometimes easier to communicate in Polish than in English. The city reminded me of Krakow so I felt almost like home in there :-).

Talking about home, in childhood I was a great fun of Krtek! It was so good to see him again :-)

Karlův most (Charles bridge) was full of artists, their little kiosks and musicians - very nice atmosphere and we could stay there for hours without getting bored!. Tourists were also fascinated with the statue (below) that if you touch it (see the shiny spots), will make your wish come true.

And now, keeping in mind the shiny spots from above, check what is the most shiny place on the statue below :-)

Talking about statues... we have also found a statue of a Nazgul :-)

We have also discovered that we both love Czech cuisine!! Delicious food, not always healthy, specially when accompanied by a couple of beers, but delicious!!! :-) mniam!!!!

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F...ck Donalds

Have a look here:  Sally Davies art project to see how McDonalds' Happy Meal looks like after 180 days.
"No bugs, no mould, no smell, nothing."

Interesting and quite scary if you think about all these kids eating Happy Meals, growing up and eating Big Meals and other stuff like that.

Incredible !!!!  :-)

Oktoberfest!

Finally, with a one year delay, we went to the Oktoberfest!!!
TBBE won this trip as a reward for the best poster on one of the conferences :-)
Our visit to Munich started with a visit to the St. Paul's Church tower that has an amazing view on the Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest takes place.

Being encouraged by the delivery of fresh beer...

... we explored many types of German entertainment, like:

or:

and my favourite:

 and finally joined the largest beer drinking society that we have ever seen:

The tent was full of partying (standing - not enough space for seating), drinking (or drunk already), singing (or shouting) German (!!!!!) schlagers and absolutely happy people!!! 

After the first Mass we started to feel and enjoy the atmosphere much more and in the end we liked it a lot!!!! So much that we were tempted to cure the hangover with... sour cucumbers :-)

On the way back to our flat we discovered how friendly German Police can be! They were watching people accessing the metro station and playing very positive tunes (peace, love and Bob Marley ;-) from their car. I guess that the music was played in order to relax people while the policemen were recovering the smuggled beer glasses from their hands :-)

To summarize:

If you are a beer lover and you do not mind crowds - visiting Oktoberfest is something to try once. If you additionally know German schlagers and you have a group of friends who will join you - you will probably visit it even more than once! We enjoyed the historical background of the event highlighted (read more about the history) because of its 200. anniversary - very interesting! And finally we enjoyed all the time in Munich: sightseeing, drinking and eating with our guide and our good old friends!

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