End of last year I was living and employed in Juelich and now I sit in sunny South Africa with my German ex-colleagues. This seems strange to me as for the last 3 months I have been living and working in South Africa, yet I am again working with my old colleagues from Forschungszentrum Juelich.
I have a cool video for you of our campaign…
On 29 January 1833, Charles Darwin sailed on the HMS Beagle through the strait now known as the Beagle channel. Sailing on this ship, Darwin came to his first ideas on evolution – for which he became famous. Nowadays this very channel forms the border between Argentina and Chile. We decided on our day off to retrace his ‘steps’ by taking a sailing trip in the Beagle Channel.
You will agree with me there is nothing more infuriating than working on a computer and suddenly the blue screen appears, leading to a restart… The infamous “Blue screen of Death”… Most people (including me) are extremely outraged by this and their rage frequently results in a ferocious shout, a slap on the desk or even a kick aimed at the computer box. Now imagine this, except this computer, is the ‘brain’ of your instrument that is worth about 1 000 000 Euros AND has data of 3 flights which you hope to use in your PhD… Need I say more!
After a brief 2 week ‘vacation’ at home we are on our way back to Rio Grande. You might wonder why do I call it ‘vacation’? Especially since the last two weeks were spent working at Forschungszentrum again…? It seems that I have been spending so much time in Argentina and so little time in Germany, that Argentina almost feels more home nowadays…
Finally a well-deserved break. I would not call the break a restful period, but it was most definitely rejuvenating, relaxing and a hell-of-a-lot of fun!! We spent 4 glorious days hiking in National Park, Torres del Paine. This is one of the most famous parks in the Patagonia region.
Our time here in Argentina is drawing to a “pause”… The end of the first campaign is within sight and most of our teams are on their way home. We, however, still have 2 weeks left in Argentina, what is work without a little bit of play?? But I leave our holiday plans for the next post, first I will say a bit about the last couple of days…
Another nightshift… It’s 3 AM and I have to stand outside in the cold to have a mere feeling of being awake. Coffee is not doing its job anymore, I ran out of Mate Tea (for those of you who don’t know, Mate is a local tea from Argentina with half as much caffeine as coffee but with supposedly double the buzz…) and I still have 3 hours of my shift left…
So maybe I am running out of creativity or I suffer from severe sleep deprivation. So tonight I will talk about our latest science flight and combine that with photos of the wildlife in Argentina. I know they don’t fit, but hey it’s my post … 😉
Finally, the long-awaited HALO arrived in Rio Grande. We obtained our container from customs and managed to get our first measurements in the flight down to Rio Grande. Now that we are all very excited (and relieved), the real work starts…
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