Crossing the world to get to New Zealand

It's not that I have a lot to say about the actual flights, but I do have some pictures that I like and thought I could share them.

A I wrote in my post Destination New Zealand: some tips, on our way there, we flew through London, Dubai and Sydney before setting foot on Christchurch. I think the airlines were Qantas and Emirates, the latter being the one I'm 100% sure about it. Why? Because I really liked it. So I would recommend it.

By the way, I'm letting you all know that you can book, in advance, your meal for your flight, and choose what kind of meal you want: vegetarian, vegan, lactose free, gluten free, and stuff like that. I didn't know that in advance so my trip to New Zealand was pretty shitty (literally) in that sense. On the other hand, my trip back home was awesome. If you book your meal in advance, you also get it earlier than the rest.

Something yummy that I could not try

My highlights about the flights? That warm (not sure if comfortable) feeling in your butt when you go to the toilet at Dubai Airport, to see an actual desert... and the landscapes of New Zealand seen from the skies.

The desert around Dubai from the plane

And New Zealand... ❤

Christchurch: the city under construction

It is time I start to review and organise all my pictures and videos from my trip to New Zealand (in the summer of 2015). And since I have to do that, it may well be a good time to review and write about the trip in here. It's been too long since I last wrote, and the other day I started to have problems to remember everything we did and when we did it, so that was the first alarming sign telling me "you need to write that shit down, gurl!". So yup, let's go.

Christchurch: the city under construction

In total, from all the time I spent in NZ last summer (1 month and a week, approx.), I slept 3 nights but only spent/enjoyed 2 evenings in the city, so I didn't get to know the city a lot, but I can say some things. Also, thanks to the course I took, I had the chance to visit some sites around Christchurch (also written as Chch), so yeah, it's something. Let's start with the basics (and a bit of copy-paste from the Christchurch's entry in Wikipedia):

Christchurch (Ōtautahi in Māori) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. The Christchurch urban area lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula. It is home to 381,800 residents, making it New Zealand's third most-populous urban area behind Auckland and Wellington.

Don't know if you know, but Chch was hit by three earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, the one on February 22, 2011, is considered the nation's 3rd deadliest natural disaster in history. The city collapsed due to that tremor, and this is the reason why Chch is now a city under construction, literally. You get a weird feeling when you walk around the city center. It's really sad because it reminds you of all the suffering and pain its people must have been through, and you can also perceive all the memories and history that have been lost. I was shocked when I first arrived because you could find parking places almost everywhere, I guess where there had been a building before. And now there only were huge solars destined for parking...

Christchurch cathedral (upper right image, images below)

Swedish Lapland: around Kiruna and Abisko

So... almost half a year later, yes, I finally write about Swedish Lapland! It's been a busy 2015 so far. And I'm going to start from the very beginning.

For those who still don't know anything about Lapland, it is a cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sápmi people and it is located in Northern Europe, extending over Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (you can find more info on Wikipedia, of course).

 

Weather contrasts of Sweden

Now that I'm more or less free and I have some time to look back, I wanted to share one of the curiosities of Sweden: its "weather" contrasts independently of the season. I know I always end up talking about the weather, pictures and landscapes, but you know, is one of the things I enjoyed the most. Here comes a "pic post".

These first images that I'm sharing are from Uppsala in November of 2014, on the 25th and the 26th, respectively. And you can appreciate the outstanding beauty of all of them. Different lights and colors, but all enjoyable. So we were approaching winter and we were lacking some sunlight, and autumn gave us a warm, beautiful and shiny day (maybe one of the last ones, enjoyed by all) which was followed by a foggy and wintery day that was premonitory of the exciting never-ending-grey that predominates winter, and spring.

New, nice, fun and weird experiences at swedish uni

>>> SPOILER ALERT: BOOM ! SHITTY ENGLISH AHEAD ! <<<

So... I'm just going to put together a lot of different things in one single post, which is... stuff that I did on the courses I took. I'm not going to write a lot, just post some pictures and videos that I took... which I think they make really special memories.

During my first block of courses (from september to november) I took a course called "Soils of the World", where we basically analyzed and assessed types of soils, and also learnt the typical soils that you can find around the world, according to climate conditions, etc.

So, field trips consisted basically of digging and observing the soil "wall", or just taking some soil samples here and there. Location.

One day (very very windy and cold) we went out and saw and tried how to extract sediment cores (this long piece of soil that seems a snake xD) which allows us to differentiate soil ages (every slice of different color has a different "age") and gives us information about climate and soil conditions in the past. That day was cool, in both senses. Location (somewhere around here ^^).

Bergen i Voss, de visita als fjords noruecs!

A veure si me'n recordo, perquè ja fa més d'un mes que volia fer aquest post... Del 17 al 22 de juliol vaig anar a visitar una amiga noruega que he conegut a Copenhagen, així que, de forma "improvisada", he aconseguit trepitjar noruega... per fiii !!! Total, dijous vaig arribar a Bergen, divendres ja vam anar cap a Voss i els fjords, i dilluns vam tornar a Bergen, on hi vaig estar fins dimarts al matí. Una mica de per aquí i per allà, però va ser profitós.

A Voss (Vossevangen) em vaig allotjar a casa de l'amiga, on també hi viu la seva mare i germana, que només hi és durant l'estiu. La casa està en una posició elevada, de manera que les vistes eren molt boniques.

Rejs rundt: Dragør og Dyrehave (Viatjant: Dragør i el parc dels cèrvols)

Doncs anar a aquests dos llocs en bicicleta des de casa meva són un total de 82km. Està prou bé que no hagi mort en l'intent ^^

Dragør és una ciutat al sud de l'àrea de Copenhaguen, està just al sud de l'aeroport, i és un lloc molt cuco, que a l'estiu ha de ser molt maco. Situat a la costa, amb port, platges... molt bona pinta! Per mala sort no hi vam poder estar gaire estona i el temps no acompanyava gaire, així que em vaig quedar amb les ganes de veure més... motiu pel qual hi tornaré a anar segur! Les fotos del Google són precioses! Jo no en tinc gaires de "bones".

I el Dyrehave (Deer Park, Parc dels cèrvols) a Klampenborg... és immens! També hi vam anar en bici, en aquest cas per la carretera que està tocant al mar... i el trajecte va ser preciós. Aquell dia feia molta boira i no es podia veure res a més de 10 metres de distància, no vaig poder veure pas l'horitzó al mar! Però tot i això, el paisatge era espectacular, fred, tètric... jajaja, a mi em va agradar!!! Un cop arribats al parc, vam dinar els nostres entrepans que ens havíem dut i ens vam creuar el parc de dalt a baix amb la bicicleta (si no es va en bici, jo no tinc clar que caminant es pugui creuar sense morir... xD)

Novembers solrig søndag i Brønshøj (Diumenge assolellat de novembre a Brønshøj)

Recull de fotos que he fet avui durant el migdia, abans d'anar cap al supermercat... a deixar-m'hi el ronyó. Són fotos dels voltants del llac Utterslev Mose (http://goo.gl/maps/wScmF), situat al nord-oest de Copenhague, al barri-districte de Brønshøj.