stlucia.blogg.se

Flew into Ireland after my conference week in Birmingham to catch up with Roisin and Johnny and most importantly Coopie =))
The weather has honestly been pretty crap (or Irish) with a perfectly blue looking sky early morning, which has turned into thunderstorms and pissing rain within seconds. Bit like april-weather.

The photo above was taken at Sliege cliffs today in Donegal minutes before the rain started to pour on us. Happy looking coops!

 

 

 

Trying to look professional and nerdy presenting my poster at the IUPS meeting today.

 

So I have now survived the first two days of the conference. I always struggle to socialize with old and grey professors that have spent their whole life in isolation, researching a tiny enzyme which converts A to B. The man at the opening cermonie looked like Einstein, but with brushed hair. And abt 100 years older.

The talks today have generally been quite good but it's quite hard to sit still for 7hrs trying to focus on things you (a lot of the time) have no idea what they are. Especially when a day starts at 8am and finishes at 8.30pm and they do not provide you with any snack OR coffee or tea AT ALL for the entire day. How do they honestly expect you to stay awake? And what did they do with all the money of people registering? Hm. the conferences I've been to until now have overdosed you with coffee, tea, frui, chocolate, sweets and have had really good lunch. I wonder if this is a UK thing or an IUPS thing...

This may have been the longest and worst travel for me. And I have travelled between Australia and Sweden 5 times...

Had a few great days in Oz before I left. Great but stressful. Packed last minute, cleaned up my room and packed all my stuff as I found someone to rent it short term. Almost brought Zelli with me as well. Also went full out on training sessions with friends, celebrated Jamie's PhD graduation and (almost) submitted my first paper.

 

Then took off. I though I had to wait 8 hrs in Spore but it turned out to be only 3. On the other hand, I had to wait 7hrs in Frankfurt. Ive only been to Frankfurt airport once and that was 10 years ago. Nothing has happened. It was one of the most boring airports ever, even worse than Helsinki. For the flight, I had booked GF/veggie food which had got lost in the system so although the first lady was very helpful and found me some food, I hardly couldnt eat anything from Spore and onwards. (Not even in Frankfurt as everything was closed or inside the gates I couldnt access). Anyway, I managed to sleep quite a bit so wasn't too hungry.

 

The most interesting thing with this flight however, was my feet. I would upload the pic but my phone doesnt allow me to transfer it. They were so swollen! I have never had swollen feet on a plane before, they looked hillarious! Couldn't even squeeze them into my flip flops without getting marks from the striped. So now, after finally locating my hotel (which believe it or not are smaller than my suitcase (except for the bed), which means I can't actually open my suitcase at all)...ive been lying with feet on the wall for abt an hour to get the blood down. Despite that, they still look swollen. Weird.

 

Anyway, Im struggling, gonna have a nap and then see if the police helicopters and 20 shielded policemen that were chasing someone outside (Bham repurtition true??) are  done so I can go out and find some food.

 

 

 

So. I won my age group in my first ever duathlon, Moreton Bay Grand Prix-13. Woot!
Was quite a rainy morning, as it normally is on race day. We drove up to Moreton Bay Lakeside where the duathlon took place on a race course for cars. How nice to race on proper ground, and not have to worry about bad roads, cars and stupid people who decides to walk straight out in the road.

Quite a few Southbankers were up racing but it wasn't a massive competition.

The course was 2km run, 9.4km ride, 1.7km run, 9.4km ride, 1.7km run. It may not seem very hard but with shorter distances like that you just have to sprint the whole way, which makes the transition between cycle and run very hard. The official times haven't been published yet but my Garmin stopped on 1.02.00. Preferably I would have wanted to be under 1hr but I can't complain.

 

Jamie (pic above) came 4th overall and just missed out on the few hundred dollars the top podium positions offered. So he wasn't as happy as me to win his age group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why does Zeldie have such a big smile on her face?
Well, maybe because Australian winter has warmed up enough to do SUP-boarding without a wet suit! Not that she would care too much about that but still...

7 breakies to go..! The most sad thing about this is that after 4 years in Oz, I have only just discovered Milo. Milo is a type of chocolate powder but it is healthy and tastes AMAZING! And it goes on top of whatever breakie you have. So. Only 7 more Milo-breakies...
No, thats not good enough! I'm loading up my suitcase!

 

Will miss my little shadow, who blends so well into my bed, so much but very much looking forward to come home for a while =)