NAM 2012 - Manchester

So I have spent the last week at NAM 2012 in Manchester. Here is a quick overview of the week. It was exhausting but nothing really big happened. So...

Monday:
I spent Monday in the Manchester Science Museum and Natural History Museum. I was a bit disappointed in the Science Museum. They had a lot of interactive parts but even I couldn't figure out exactly what some of them were trying to say. The air and Space part had some great aircraft but seemed to miss the Space part. I liked the trains but really wanted to sit in one (the 5yr old in me) instead of just look at them. The Natural History Museum was good though they need to turn up the lights. I loved the life-size tiger, lion and polar bear. I think I went at the wrong time as a lot of the exhibits were being changed over so in disarray.
Monday night I went to the public lecture which was good but nothing I haven't heard before. Though I was very impressed with how the speaker handled some of the questions. One day, I hope to answer awkward people that smoothly.

Tuesday was the first full day of talks. Personally for me, there were no really interesting talks that day that I saw. On the evening, there was a reception at the Natural history Museum so I got to see a few things I had missed the day before. But it wasn't the easiest place to network. I introduced myself to random people. But some people look at you very oddly when you do that. After that I went for food and drinks with Rob and some people he knows. We were going to go to the comedy club but they didn't serve food in there. So I ended up eating and drinking wine from a plastic pint glass. Class in Manchester!

Wednesday ... Again none of the talks were really that interesting. On the evening I meet up with Victor for a drink and food and talked about possible research stuff. It was a good meal, at somewhere called Red Hot Chinese which lived up to it's name. Very nice food but spicy. It was good.

Thursday:
There were some more interesting talks. I was supposed to give a poster presentation (of about 1min) but there was another session I really wanted to go to instead about all the cool telescopes and instruments that were happening so I went to that instead. The Conference dinner was on the evening in the Town Hall which is beautiful. T hey had a picture of Jeremiah Horrocks. If anyone wants to know more about him have a look for the book Litmus on Amazon. The first chapter is on him and the forward (written by yours truly) explains the transit. I sat on a table with a group of first year postgrads. Not the best place to sit. But then meet up with Jayne, a friend from when we were at the AAO in Australia and it was great to catch up.

Friday was the last day and by then I was exhausted. Some of the talks were good though the names and abstracts didn't really match the talks. The careers lunch was interesting and depressing at the same time. There are so many things for people after one or two postdocs. But little to no help for people trying to start. And I wasn't the only one to think so. The only advice was to get one through your supervisors. So I am totally screwed. But still, I will stick to the plan. And hopefully not go insane while trying to do so...

It was an interesting week but I am exhausted. And I have to do it all again next week in Italy. Sigh. Early night tonight I think.... :-)

Weekend in Preston (sort of)

I spent last weekend in Preston having a great time with my friends.
On Saturday, I meet Katherine, Tricia, Alan, and Alan's parent to go to see Heidi's dance show. Heidi is Tricia's niece, and studies dance with the aim of working on the cruise ships. The show was amazing. Very professional and slick. The moves were effortless and some of the lifts were amazing.
On the evening, Katherine and I went to Pond for a meal. We had a very nice bottle of wine and a lot of food. (We went a little over the top.) We could barely move after it.
Sunday was a beach day. After a few errands in Preston, we picked up Abi and Kitt and went to Southport. To start off we played crazy golf.

Katherine kept the score

Kitt, the new Tiger Woods

Abi, waiting her turn

I got trounced. Apparently mini golf is not not my sport as I got my ass kicked by a 6 yr old. Though I  am suspicious of his counting! And every one managed to get a hole-in-one. Except me. After all that hot work, we went for the first ice cream/ice-lolly of the year.

Enjoying our post-golf reward

After that we wondered down to the sea front. As it is Southport, the sea was nowhere in sight. But we were going to let that stop us from paddling. So we paddled in the puddles instead and had a great time hunting for shells and finding crabs. We found some really big ones and a sea urchin shell, which is rare this far north. And we got very messy and muddy!

Kitt with his new shell collection.

Sunday evening, Katherine and I meet Tricia at King Dynasty, the best Chinese in Preston. They do a great set menu, which is really nice and great value for money. We spent 3 hours eating, catching up and setting the world to rights.
All in all, a really great weekend. :-)

Seafood Splurge

On my last day in Nice, Gerry and I had a seafood splurge. We went to the market and brought loads of seafood, most of which I had never tried. We set up the table on the baloney.
We started with sea urchins. I never even knew you could eat sea urchins. We started with herbal tea.

Table set with our sea urchins

Inside a sea urchin

 Sea urchins are very difficult to eat. You need to cut them open at the beak which means holding them on the spikes! And they are purple. There isn't much to them. The orange stuff is the only stuff you can really eat. The black/green stuff is not nice! Though the liquid is good when you dunk bread in it.
The next course was sea snails. We had two different types. And a very nice white wine called Pouilly Fume from the Loire valley.

The big sea snails

The little sea snails (purple!)

Enjoying snails and wine

The big ones were nice though I preferred the slightly smaller ones as they were less chewy. The little ones were nice. They really were purple. In the Roman empire, they used to grind them up and use them for purple dye. As you need a lot to make enough dye to dye a robe, this was only for the really rich, so the deep purple became a sign of the rich and influential. But we only had a few so ate them instead! :-)

We also had a violet. This is a really odd creature which looks like a vegetable but it is a oyster without a shell. If you hit it, it goes hard because it is a huge muscle. They only grow in the Med. It was very nice, though once again, not the easiest thing to get in to. 

a violet.

Finally we finished the seafood courses with a spider crab. They had longer thinner legs than a normal crab. 

spider crab

Waving goodbye to the crab as it valiantly gave his life!

The crab was very tasty.

Dessert was a 2 course deal again. We had some cheeses for the first part and some little pastries from my favourite bakery. The cheeses were good, especially the goats cheese with cranberries.

Our cheese table

Pastry mouse!

It was a good way to spend my last day in Nice. And very French! I will miss France, especially the food and wine and the sun. But it is good to be home. :-)

Last weekend in France

So this was my last full weekend in France. On Friday night, we went to see Cirque de Soliel. After some drama with people being late and then forgetting the ticket (and having to go back to get them), we got in, only missing the first 20 minutes. Still they were amazing. But there are some things the human body should just not be able to do. Like put your bum on your head. And for once, I enjoyed the clowns. Definitely worth all the stress and money. A great evening!
On Saturday I went into town and went to the crafts and antiques markets. They have some great things. I was very tempted by the rings with have cakes on them. But they would make me want cake all the time so I got an amazing necklace (Thanks Dad!) with a 20's French actress holding a pair of pistols.
I then went and sat on the beach for a while. The weather has beautiful and I started my tan. So I sat there and read my book with a snack.

Me and my book on the beach

My seaside snack! So nice!

On the evening I went to Eze Old Town with Gerry and one of his visiting students, Anthony. The Old Town is a medieval fort on a hill. Everything was shut but the lighting gave some spooky photos.

Spooky lighting in Eze old town

Steps up to the top

We then headed briefly into Monte-Carlo. Gerry was very impressed by the car he parked next to.

Gerry and Anthony next to Gerry's car. Guess which one?

Sunday was spent sleeping and working. 

Night carnival and closing ceremony

Last week I went to the night parade with Deanna (and have finally sorted through all my photos). It was great, though the parade is the same as the carnival parade in the day, which was a little disappointing. Still I got my photo taken with some of the entertainers. (And Deanna is good with a camera so I have more than me with a pair of Madonna style boobs!) She also had a thing for the Italians guys in the tights, which was fine with me as we got a few pictures taken with them! :-) They certainty had nice ... form.

I love the abs!

Smiling Luigi and a tired Mario

Me and the Italian men in tights!

Sunday night was the closing ceremony and fireworks. I went down and sat on the beach to watch. They burnt a replica of the King at sea. Very dramatic and very creepy. The arm would not stop moving and then the head feel off! It reminded me of when the Termintor was set on fire and keeps coming after you! Still fun. :-)

The fireworks were amazing! The best ones exploded into hearts. And others were stars. That, I have never seen before. My camera was useless. I took some videos but they aren't that great so I just sat back and enjoyed. And laughed and clapped like a little kid. They lasted for about 30mins and were brilliant. Someone put a lot of time into it. They played music with a sports theme. Including "3 lions on a shirt". And who said the French hate the English?
After that I walked home, which is a hike but the trams were packed. So I decided to just walk the 50 minute walk home. It was a good end to the carnival (though my feet were killing me by the end).

Parc Phoenix

On Saturday, the weather was lovely so I went to Parc Phoenix with Deanna and Marie-Chloe. Parc Phoenix is a large park, petting zoo, and one of the largest greenhouses in Europe, out near the airport. We took the bus out there (I wish English public transport was that cheap). And at only 2 Euros to get in, a bargain. I am pretty sure we were the only group without children but we made up for it by being as excited as some of the kids at times.
The gardens were beautiful.

The gardens

Seating area.

There were lots of little streams and waterfalls

The park has a strange variety of animals including otters, kangaroos, crocodiles and guinea pigs.

That foot sticking out looks really uncomfortable

The G-Force team on holiday

He stared at us the whole time.

Anyone home?

There is also an Avery with parrots, owls, ostriches and otherbirds.

Hiding parrots

Having a groom

One of the owls

Dude with serious afro!

In the greenhouse, there is a waterfall in the centre and different areas branching off. There was a beautiful garden of Orchids (my Mom would have been in heaven!).

Pink poinsettia

Orchids

Ground orchid

There is also an aquarium and bug house, which as always gave me the creeps.

Dory and Nemo(s)

"I'm coming to get you....And your little dog too!"

I think my favourite was this guy. He was very chilled out and just munching away.

Cool dude!

The most bizarre thing was the tortoise valley, as they called it (I think). This is just a small section of it and everyone of these is a tortoise. They really need to have a word about safe sex and population control with these guys!

LOTS of tortoises

Battle of the Flowers

Yesterday I took the day off and went to the Battle of the Flowers (Battaille de Fleurs) with Deanna. It was down on the Promenade Des Anglais, along the sea front. I had brought a seat ticket but decided to stand instead as you get more flowers. The carts go up and down the promenade and thrown flowers into the crowd. At the start, they are mainly these little yellow flowers called mimosas. However, once they are out of those, they start literally taking the carts apart and stripping them of their flowers. Lilys, roses, sunflowers, carnations, all sorts. I really wanted a sunflower but alas. Unfortunately some of my photos didn't come out as the sun was on the wrong side of us. (Though I got some great ones of the backs of floats!)

Throwing Mimosas at the crowd

I got one of the red lilies on the top at the end!

More lilies.

On the Eagle of Nice float.

Garlands of flowers

The back on one of the floats

Another float.

There were also dancers and carnival bands going around at the same time. And a lot of costumes similar to what I imagine you would see in Rio. (Some could really have done with more material.) Deanna and I decided there was way too much eye candy for the men and not nearly enough for us!

Dressed as flowers

Rio type "dress"

Blue bird

With drum band from South America

One of the parade queens

One of my favourite ones was the bubble machine. What is it about bubbles that makes you feel like a kid?

Bubble machine float

Lots of bubbles!

Unfortunately, we were standing next to these two young teenage boys. Now, you would think that would be a good spot. What self respecting teenage boy would jump and yell and fight to get hold of flowers? Well French ones apparently. And they had longer arms than we did.
Anyway I did manage to get some flowers. :-)

My flowers!