Flower Power

Today was the most grey and miserable day in the history of London (and this is an achievement, everyone!) and it is late and I am beyond tired so this post is basically going to be about flowers, sunshine and happiness. I give you:

My Ode To The Lost Spring (there's a metal band name, right there)

These are all from different days, my loyal fans should of course be able to attribute them to the different original posts by the lighting and general atmosphere.

Some of these pictures were actually taken by my sister, of whom I am not sure that she is aware of this blog...

Thanks, Pupskind! (it IS a turning point in every photographer's life to be accepted into this renowned blog, after all).

If only the sky looked like that every day.

More flowers and less witty comments to go with them.

I want to try one last thing, in this post. I noticed that some of my posts have hashtags all of a sudden and after some detective work I am attributing these to some automatic tagging system by Google (I have given up my hopes of ever becoming a cool kid in y life and I am therefore banned from ever using hashtags (#maybeForTheBetter?)). I want test my hypothesis, so please don't think I am crazy when I type: raspberries, cupcake factory, Iker Casillas, very happy baby elephants, poetry enthusiasts. 

Good night!

compuational neuroscience, matlab, brain, behaviour, cognitive, computer, program, matlab, decision, memory, simulation, probability 

Being the tube

In the London underground you are constantly told to mind the gap. Let's not mind it for a minute and visit the underground worlds of:

The Thames Tunnel is the first tunnel in the world to be build under water. That's right, with it's 400m length it crosses the Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping (Jesus Christ, where do British people come up with their Names?!). 

As you see I am not making this up. 

The tunnel is used buy the overground today so it is mainly a tunnel with railways but on special occasions they open this to the public and show it. Why is this so interesting?

Not only because it looks like in the picture above (that could be a scene from some kind of post-apocalyptic movie, btw) but also because, being the first around this tunnel has quite a bit of history. Apparently it was the invention of the tunnelling shield (a protective structure that prevents all the soggy sub-thamesian (?) soil from falling on your head while you are digging) that enabled the previously failed attempts at tunnelling under water.

As you can imagine this was a rather expensive endeavour (of course it flooded sometime and the working conditions were beyond terrible) so in the end there was no money to do an entrance for vehicles and they had to leave it as a pedestrian entrance. Every human being that thinks about this for about 20 seconds will realise that this rendered the whole idea rather useless as you can imagine that there was not much use for a creepy equivalent of an ordinary bridge.

Apparently they tried everything: they opened a market (which after a year of success turned into some sort of creepy illegal underground meeting place (What??! Who would have seen that one coming?! Really??! Nooo!!)), they even relaunched it as a fair with circus people and artists after relocating the previous clientele to prison but still the income was sparse. The owners were therefore probably relieved when the british railway bought it off to build the railways through it, although it remained quite a monetary loss.

Be as it may, the trip was quite interesting and it was nice to see what the tunnel looked like. As you can tell from the last picture it was not like the regular ugly underground tunnels due to it's historic past (it was really unbelievable to imagine people walking along that same path but doing shopping or to think of the decorated walls with the dancers (there is actually a sketch in wikipedia that looks nice, I think: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Thamestunnel.jpg). What a difference!

Cold memories

So after my last summery post I think it is about time that I tell you about my holiday this year, when I went to France with my flatmates. Those of you who know me might be wondering what I am doing in France, after making fun of those poor people day and night, but there was more to this visit than just cheese and absurd pronunciations. I went skiing for the first time in my life!

The place was amazing. We were in this tiny village in between the mountains for a couple of days in a hut that we rented with some friends. It was actually surprising how cheap it is to get such a huge hut for a couple of people. And it was a really cozy one:

We were incredibly lucky with the weather, too!

It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot of skiing in only a couple of days. It's a real pity that the UK is as flat as a pancake.

Here is one las creepy picture to round it all up:

Summerloving happens so fast!

I am hereby officially jinxing it, but: Summertime is here!!

It is really amazing how we went from having pretty cold weather (I am a bad reference, but everyone on the streets was wearing a coat) to t-shirt weather in a day! This week end was a feast of sun and happiness, which is why we went to enjoy this exceptional occasion down to the river at Hammersmith:

All of a sudden London looks more like Sicily during the august holidays than anything else!

I went crazy and even got an ice cream from the van. These soft ice cones are very typical for the UK especially with the little chocolate flake (like a rectangular stick that they stab into the ice cream) which is possibly the most overcharged object in Europe (they are probably produced by the Queen herself with chocolate that she grows in her gardens).

It was such a nice atmosphere! And it was great while it lasted (exactly until tomorrow). 

Sun, don't leave me!

Sur les Pointes

I love going to fancy theatres (almost regardless of the show) because of the stunning architecture and the amazing interior decorations (the dressed up people are also very entertaining to watch!). Yesterday I went to the Royal Opera House to see a mixed program of ballet shows and it was great!

I was not allowed to take pictures of the show itself but I will try to give you the a good idea of what the opera house looked like. Here we go.

This is the glass wall of the bar at the Royal Opera House it is so beautiful! And the weather was amazing too!

This is the very plain interior, nothing out of the ordinary, as you can see. In case you were wondering what the ceiling looks like:

Not too bad. Remember the bar? This is what the other side looks like:

They also have a terrace from which you can look down on Covent Garden Market:

Honestly, this place is so incredibly beautiful! I really, really liked it and can't wait to go again (there are very cheap standing tickets for most of the shows, which is a great chance to be part of this even it you are not the richest).

What to find under a bridge

I have a weakness for second hand book stores and it is bad because I always end up buying way to many of them (books this is, not book stores - that will be a later stage of my addiction). Back in the day when I had more than 30 seconds a day of spare time I would actually go through them all quite quickly, but now that I am busy with the Master 24/7 AND I don't need to take public transport to get to work (believe it or not I have read more books during the 20 mins underground ride than anywhere else) I can't keep up. If you share my symptoms there is one place you should definitely not go:

Welcome to the Southbank Centre Book Market. 

This market is so nice! It consists of a couple of tables with people that sell books (bet you did not see that coming), but the charming thing is that it is located under a bridge (my impression is that they probably held it ON the bridge the first time and it took 10 minutes for the whole place to flood in the rain and for the people to move everything under the bridge). This has the benefit that they can have this market every day, regardless of the weather (it actually IS a daily market).

The location is not too bad either. A bit further down the river you can see St Paul's Cathedral (and other very important buildings which I am sure I don't need to mention to you, because EVERYONE of course knows them).

To the other side of the river you also have some buildings but none of them are particularly famous as far as I know...

All I can say is thank god this place is reasonably far away from my flat, because otherwise I would have to rent a second apartment for my books only.

The Center For the Unknown

And from the traditional facades of Notting Hill we move on to one of the most futuristic looking buildings I have seen lately. I give you, the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown:

This place is a very modern research centre of the Champalimaud Fundation in Lisbon. Research in these premises deals mostly with cancer and neuroscience, the latter being the reason I visited it in the first place. A couple of months ago I travelled to Lisbon to learn more about their graduate program and I was really impressed by the centre.

This is what the interior patio looks like. Pretty standard, right?

The centre has amazing views on to the sea as well. This is what the end of the facilities look like:

It is incredible that not more people were sitting outside. If I worked there I would never leave these terraces. Ever!

Maybe the stunning interiors explain their behaviour. What is up with that window! I don't think I would be able to concentrate in a lecture hall like that! The lady that showed us around said something about it being the biggest piece of continuos glass in a widow in Lisbon/Portugal/Europe/the world (?). So yeah, there you have your facts.

I enjoyed this detail on one of the pillars. You know how they usually have big bronze or marble plaques to commemorate the inauguration of a building? Well these people are either very original or someone forgot to get one and just pulled an Edding out of his pocket in the last minute...

The Colors of Notting Hill

I actively visited Notting Hill for the first time with a friend the other day (I crossed it  and jogged through it a couple of times before but it was still on my to-do list). Notting Hill, for those who are not familiar with it is (apart from a famous movie) a district in London. Although apparently it was quite run down in the 1980's now it is considered a rather fancy area. My favourite thing about this place though, is definitely how colourful it is! I always assumed it would be a pretty but boring area, given the status of the inhabitants, but it is the exact opposite:

There is not much to say to these pictures, I just wanted to show you how great the colours look!

These vibrant details really make such a difference!

This could be the Google headquarters.

Of course not all of the houses are this incredibly colourful, as a matter of fact most of them are the regular white ones, but maybe more and more facades will join over time. :)

The weather was also amazing, which did a lot, but I really did enjoy the neighbourhood!

He was a skater boy...

Here is a part of London that reminds me more of Germany than the United Kingdom. 

This could easily be anywhere in Berlin but it turns out it is a skater park in Southbank. It is a really cool place, because it is right next to the Thames and a bit further down the river you can see the Big Ben and the London Eye. 

It is a pity that they wanted to close this place down (I guess it does not fit the rest of the prettier London) but luckily enough the managed to save it thanks to demos and other initiatives!

As you can see there is actually a lot of people watching behind a fence (it was really packed!). It is nice to watch them go up and down the colourful ramps… good thing they kept this place! :)

To the races!

I am aware that my last post will lose a bit of credibility as I show you this, but here it comes…

Welcome to Ascot!

The Ascot racecourse is one of the most important (if not THE most important) and the most famous racecourse in England. My friend wanted to celebrate his birthday there (yes, that is the type of high-class friends that I have (actually it was only £10 to get premier class because it was the inauguration, still not a millionaire…)) and I immediately accepted since it was a great chance to be witness of this incredibly British ritual.

Unfortunately it was not the Royal Ascot (oh dear, sounding rather posh today!) so while people WERE dressed in a fancy way, it was not the extravagant type. As I just realised I have been doing a good ob at ignoring the pictures and you are probably wondering what is going on. The second pictures shows the grandstand (apparently that is a word (at this point I am just taking anything that Wikipedia says for the holy truth)) from the entrance with the little lawn in front where the horses are paraded before the race so you can make sure that you are not betting on the horse that is limping (you can get a better view on the next image). On the third picture you can see the view on the actual racecourse from the other side of the grandstand. There are seats for the first class people but as we were not aware of this we stood on the lawn for all of the races.

This is the promised lawn. The horses are walked on the grey circle and the owners of the horses and the jockeys are standing in the middle looking important.

More or less like this. 

It was actually a quite stressful schedule: There were six races, one every half an hour. At the beginning of every half hour we read about the horses and their jockeys for this race in the little booklet that you are given. Then you go watch the horses on the little circle from the pictures above and see how they are doing that day. After that you run to the other side of the grandstand and if you want to bet you have to place them then. Otherwise you just run with me to the from of the fence to get a good spot and wait for this: 

 It was a great experience (although the travel there and back took 5 hours in total….)!

I should start wearing a monocle...

Science, yeah!

So I have been a bit overwhelmed with work in the lab lately… 

This is the main reason why I never get to write this blog regularly and also why I have been so tired lately. But even when I am really stressed and have tons to do I am happy that I have the chance to be a scientist and get to do things that are pretty futuristic and cool! Like...

spelling words only by thinking (granted, this includes an hour EEG setup before),

wearing fancy suits that track my motions (this model was used for the movie Avatar, for example) and also attend quite fascinating (and very serious, as you can see) conferences and lectures on all kinds on subjects:

Those are the standard lab-coats worn by all scientists on this planet (haha, yeah right, as if anyone in the lab EVER wore a lab coat (this good habit has led to more than one hole in my clothes, btw…)). I have to admit that research might not be the easiest of the paths that I could have chosen, but I am pretty sure it is the most fun :)

(Jesus Christ, I have wasted all the time that I could not spend these last days on writing the blog just now trying to figure out how to show these clips to you. I am happy with the result though (although it's probably not working on half of the browsers…))