First bicycle trip!

First bicycle trip with Julia went well. Julia's vehicle no 2 seems to be a pretty good buy. 

There was a sudden hunger attack and changing of diaper in the middle of a forest but all in all - everyone was happy and in good mood for most of the time :-)

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Learning each other

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Learning each other

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Learning each other

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First time in Wallonie ... and we liked it!

This Saturday passed too quickly! Our first trip to Wallonie was very nice and we will be back to see more. 

We started with visiting the Remouchamps cave. The guided tour is finished with a boat trip on the river inside the cave. Very enjoyable!

To enjoy being in a hilly land again we did a 2h hike nearby Remouchamps. The spring in slowly getting there :-)

You do not need to go Asia to find a Budda statue in a garden :-)

In Olne:

In Soiron:

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Leaving to Melbourne in 24h

And here we go: in 24 hours we will be leaving to Australia!
The last days were pretty stressful (e.g. I thought I lost my passport, that we luckily found back in one of the suitcases) and full of work. The first attempts co close our luggage were very promising so most probably we have forgotten something ;-)
Anyway, first we will attend some pre-conference workshops, then the ISPRS Congress itself and on the 30th of August I need to present about 5 months of work in 20 minutes. And on the 1st of  September we will officially start our 2 weeks holidays!!!! Yeeeey!!!
Almost 3 weeks without staring at the computer/laptop screen!!! Yeeey, yyeeey yeeey!!!!



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Aarhus

On the Pentacost Monday Aarhus, the second largest city in DK, was completely empty... 

We need to go back there to check out if the night life, so much recommended in guide books, is at least partially true...




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Denmark's highest point

Our first (and hopefully not the last) summer weekend we spent with two very nice people Paul and Kasia, travelling around to get a better taste of Danish nature :D

Viking Center in Fyrkat:

 

And we also visited the highest and the third high point in Denmark!!!

Ejer Baunehøj the highest (almost) natural (not the tower :-)) point in Denmark, 170.89 m above sea level!!! 

Until 1847 people thought that Himmelbjerget (147m, image below) was the highest point in Denmark. At that time Ejer Baunehøj was declared to be higher, and in 1874 it was measured to be 170.95m a.s.l. Nevertheless in the middle of the 1900's, Yding Skovhøj, only 3 km away, was declared to be even higher. In 1953 the Danish authorities finally decided  that a burial mound on Yding Skovhøj from the bronze age didn't count :-) That reduced Yding Skovhøj height to only 170.89 m  (6 cm less than Ejer Baunehøj!). 

Finally in 2005 Denmark’s National Geographical Survey determined that Denmark’s highest point (170.86m) is .... located only 200m west of Ejer Bavnehøj on an ordinary field belonging to a farmer. There is only a minor slope between the two tops and according to the international principle of primary factors they are defined as one complete top.

Anyway, the third highest top, Himmelbjerget (below), is much nicer to visit and it somehow feels much higher than its 147m :-)

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First cycling season in DK officially started!

After very intense Easter break in PL we enjoyed our free time without looking for a new car or painting walls. Two short cycling trips were very relaxing and brought us pretty strong..... bottom pains ;-)

If anyone could explain why I also have elbow pains after riding a bicycle, please let me know...






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weekend in Copenhagen

 A summary of our weekend in Copenhagen:

• good company :D

•  Spring weather

grey weather

• a lot of laughing  

• traditional Danish food and good French cuisine (thanks Paul!!!)

• a couple of interesting places

 

Again, thanks Guys, we really enjoyed it!!! :D 

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Another "first time"

Another thing to add to my "list of first times"... Last week we bought tickets for a handball match. On Saturday's evening we went to the stadium, walked around it and were surprised to see that the area looked rather dead... And than we chacked the tickets.... We were in a right place but 24h too late! :D Next try on the 17th of February... .

Norway -> Denmark

Ufff, 80% of the removal plan completed! Yupppiii!!! We are tired but happy... and we are together in one place again :-D

Most of the things went veeery smooth. 

PACKING

Packing, especially the last bits, were much more difficult and time demanding than unpacking. We thought that 4 days will be more than enough to close everything into the boxes and load the rented VW Transporter. Four days is really short.... Fortunately we received a great support from S&A!!! The amazing thing was that we did not even ask them to help, they just came and spent several precious hours of their weekend on packing and carrying heavy stuff around.... THANKS GUYS, you are great!!!!  :-)

UNLOADING

The new flat is on the first floor with short but pretty steep stairs to climb. Two colleagues of drTBBE were supposed to come after work to help us with unloading the van, but amazingly we were ready with everything after less than 3 hours! A SuperWoman and Johnny Bravo ;-) 

UNPACKING

Well, than will take some time... Two wardrobes, a couple of bookshelves to assemble  + about 40 diverse boxes/bags to unpack. The desk in my new office is ready and the internet connection works like a charm so in the theory there are no obstacles to work...

But to be honest, I kind of lost my motivation to work: considering the fact that when I am ready with my PhD we would probably move again - I am not in hurry, I do not look forward to the next removal ;-)

Last week in Bergen: 

 Yesterday in Viborg:

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Project Denmark - our new flat

Ufff, finally we have a flat in Viborg :-)
Things were little bit slower than expected because of several reasons:

• 70% of the online advertisements of rental apartments (like this or this ) do not include photos! A short description like: number of rooms, area, floor number, location of the flat and a list fees to pay is a standard. If you are very lucky, you might get a glimpse of the house in Google StreetView but it is only available for the main streets where you probably wouldn't like to live anyway...
• housing associations (that dominate the rental apartment market) are not the best organized 'companies'... They might for example send you a list of available flats that, after you spent entire evening on selecting the ones that you might be interested in, happens to be outdated and non of the flats that you wanted to see is on the market anymore...
• drTBBE had much more busy and more stressful (and full of surprises) than expected time at work.

Another new thing that we have learned lately it the fact that in most of the housing associations in Denmark the tenant is paying the rent for the time (mostly 2 weeks) when his future flat is renovated for him. So in our case, we pay the rent from the 16th of October but we will be only able to move in on the 1st of November. As we discovered in some places it might be the other way around, you might have to leave your flat 2 weeks before the contract termination so that the housing association has time to paint the apartment and fix some small faults. I find it really awkward but every country has its own customs...

Anyway, the logistic puzzles soon will be solved and I will join drTBBE to start our common Danish adventure on the 1st of November :-)

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faulty Kindle screen

After not even 4 months of using my Kindle broke down :-(
It happened without any particular reason: many black stripes appeared suddenly on the screen and they kind of spread around with each device reset.

I have to admit that I got really upset. Not only because it was a birthday gift from drTBBE but also because I liked my Kindle so much! I was very positively surprised when I called Amazon and they told me that they would ship the replacement within next 24 hours. Let's see what will happen....



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Folgefonna glacier

Long time no blogging... Too much work and time spent in front of the computer so I decided to avoid my laptop at home as much as possible.

Last weekend we went for a blue ice glacier hiking trip. That trip was a 30th birthday gift for TBBE so I was 'only' 1.5 years late with the delivery :-)
Anyway, we had a lot of fun! The Folgefonna glacier is only little more than 2 hours driving from Bergen but we stayed around Jondal for two nights camping. Veeery relaxing weekend I must say, with good weather and beautiful views :-)

Hardanger fjord:

10p.m.:

 

 11p.m:

 Way to Folgefonna glacier:

 Seek and hide ;-)

 The darker bits covering ice/snow are ashes that arrived in May from Island:

 A bit of climbing :-)

The glacier trip itself is definitely something to recommend for people who do not have any glacier experiences. It takes about 6 hours and you get all the ice gear. Our guide, Knut, was also pretty keen on telling facts and stories (also with a historic background) and share his experiences :-) Fun!!

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