November 6th - leaves

November 5th - frozen soup

No shortage of soup this winter ...

November 4th - Blurry photo

November 3rd – Clementine season started

November 2nd – sunny Yosemite

November 1st - Back at AMS and FRA

The flight back was such a sweet dream compared to my flight to Van. No stress at all, even slept a little. In AMS briefly saw my dad while we waited for half of my mother’s luggage that disappeared, and briefly phoned a friend. At FRA there was again some stupidity going on: “To the train station follow Terminal 1”. 5 meters later it says Terminal 1 right, train station left. I ended up on the stupid shuttle bus to the other terminal, which was super full and it took quite a long time. I just don’t understand why they have this whole sky-train or air-tram or whatever they call it system between the terminals and then they don’t put up signs for it. When I finally got to the train station and went down the escalators, they broke down. I don’t think more than 5% of FRA escalators are working properly. I SWORE to myself next time I fly from a different airport. I am completely fed up and done with this insane airport. Their toilets were also dirty.

October 31st - Golf and Halloween

It was a beautiful day, so in the afternoon my uncle took my brother out to practice their golf techniques, or whatever you would call that in proper golf-slang. I decided to come along to enjoy some sunshine and see for myself whether golf is really as stupid as I think it is. It was quite entertaining to see various people hitting golf balls. Some were pretty good, other were extremely bad. Now I am still by no means a golf connoisseur after this one hour, but I think the pictures show quite nicely who has taken some lessons and who is still mostly hitting the balls with uncontrolled brute force. Every time my brother, or another beginner, hit a ball the earth was shaking.

Of course it was also Halloween. My nephew was going trick-and-treat-ing with some friends and here you see him and one of his soccer friends in their outfits.

I have no idea what they are supposed to be. They wore this cheap coverall that merely looked like weird pajamas, and they refused to actually wear the masks (“it HURTS! AU!” and “NO! I don’t LIKE the mask! It is STUPID!”), which I thought was the only the thing worthwhile at all. Well whatever, they came back some hours later happy, loaded with candy and energized by sugar and artificial flavours.

my criminal record

I am applying for a post doc in New Zealand. One of their questions is:
"If you have a criminal record, or any legal matters or court orders against you, please provide details (minor traffic offences excluded)"

Such a relief! Cycling through a red light does not make me a criminal in NZ! I already love those people ...

October 30th - Dinner

So we had a "family dinner" on our last night (more and more people from outside the direct family got invitations as well) in a very nice restaurant. The food was wonderful and conversation was fun, and they were even broadcasting some hockey game so that our little hockeyfan who hates to go to restaurants was content.
After my salmon burger that featured a complete salmon (well, sort of, I mean it was just very big), I leaned back in my chair, full, happy and rosy. Our waiter took our plates away and asked my aunt something on the other end of the table. I heard her ask "do we get free cake in that case?!", and then she looked at me and said "SHE just got her PhD!". And before I knew it, there was a sticky toffee pudding with ice cream in front of me and everyone congratulating me with my PhD. Apparently they had a special offer to people who graduated recently (recently! Suddenly everyone at our table seemed to hold some kind of obscure graduate-certificate), a free piece of cake. Of all the advantages of having earned this degree, I never thought Iit would involve getting free cake!

October 29th - RAIN