Spring Break

Trata-se de um fenomeno completamente americano... Em Portugal ha ferias da Pascoa... nos EUA ha a Pausa da Primavera!... As universades (bem como outras escolas) param as aulas e os alunos (principalmente os de licenciatura... e claro esta os MBAs!) ou viajam para fora do pais se tiverem dinheiro suficiente ou ficam em alguns resorts americanos que ja estao preparados para as festas da Spring Break. Claro esta que os que vao para fora do pais ficao a ganhar por poderem beber alcool a vontade... enquanto que os que ficam nos EUA... hum... bem... acabam por beber na mesma pois ha um numero ("undisclosed") de miudos com menos de 21 anos que tem cartoes de identidade falsos... (so pra poder entrar e beber em bares e discotecas!)

Claro esta que muitos dos alunos de pos-graduacao geralmente ficam a investigar e aproveitam que nao tem de dar aulas nessa semana, para adiantar o seu trabalho de investigacao... Foi o que se passou comigo... fiquei em casa a semana inteira em retiro para ver se conseguia acabar de escrever um dos artigos principais para a minha tese...

O retiro acabou por ser bom pois acabei por encontrar a linha de raciocionio certa para o artigo... assim... como e sexta-feira a tarde premiei-me metendo os tenis e fui correr para marina... o premio para a Marta foi que fiz finalmente a barba ao fim de 4 dias :)

Fim da epoca de ski

Este inverno foi bastante fraco aqui nas "Sierras" e caiu bem menos neve que o habitual.
Como nao alugamos casa este inverno e eu estou ainda a tratar do meu joelho acabamos por esquiar bem menos que o ano passado. As fotos em baixo mostram que isto ate nem foi muito mau porque o vale praticamente nunca esteve coberto de neve e so os picos mais altos e que tiveram neve consistentemente o inverno todo ( mesmo assim a camada de neve era fina...)


De volta a casa no fim do ultimo fim de semana a esquiar deparamos com um fenomeno tipico do verao na Bay Area: nevoeiro! As fotos em baixo mostram bem quao forte e este fenomeno e a forma como entra pela baia dentro. Impressionante... nao admira portanto que o Mark Twain tenha escrito uma vez que nunca passou um inverno tao frio na sua vida como um verao em Sao Francisco... Felizmente nos vivemos do outro lado da baia e o nevoeiro nao chega ca com tanta forca... mas acaba por nos impedir de aproveitar a praia aos fins de semana... :(

Portugal's more than just soccer

I know most of you know that we Portuguese know that we're known for our worldwide known soccer players... and of course... me :)

This post is just one of a million evidences that we can do more than just kick the ball around... we actually have the balls (pun intended) to beat some of the best rugby teams in the world and the proof is right here: Portugal just qualified for the Rugby's World Cup... this wouldn't be that big of a deal if the team wasn't amateur (only two players are professional!). This is probably the first or second amateur team in the whole history of rugby to qualify for a rugby world cup (that's right, that tournament where you always get the same elite teams).

As for another example where balls don't come to play (again pun intended) Vanessa Fernandes is one of the most successful young triathletes in the world, having been ranked for several times #1 female triathlete by the International Triathlon Union.

So... when you go around talking about Portuguese athletes... thinking about the ones that kick the ball around... keep in mind that we're good at doing more than just that.

Godzone

That's right, we've been there!... and you know what?!... We've also seen the "long white cloud"! Puzzled??! Come on!... Didn't you know that two of New Zealand's nicknames are "Godzone" and "Land of the long white cloud"? I guess you didn't... I didn't before I went there!

The original name of the country was Aotearoa: Ao = cloud, tea = white and roa = long, and it is accordingly most often translated as "The land of the long white cloud".

As some of you already know I went to NZ for a conference (yes, I won a grant for that! :))... and Marta joined me for my second week there. The trip didn't exactly go all as planned (which is probably why it took me so long to blog!)... but we still fell in love with the country.

This is a very easy going country where you get tagged as "pom" if you're too preppy and uptight... (short name for pommey, nickname for brits) What else could you expect from a country where everyone is everyone's "mate", and "cheers" is the full time replacement for "hi", "bye" or "thank you"?!

Here's why the trip didn't go all as planned... The first week I was stranded at the conference in Auckland (also known as the "city of sails" or the"capital of Polynesia") and couldn't take advantage of the good weather (just perfect: sunny and warm).

City of sails (get it?)

The day after the conference the weather was still awesome but we we're stuck inside a bus travelling to the volcano where we would be doing a one-day day the following day. The day of the hike we get to the volcano and suddenly everything went astray! There were clouds everywhere, winds, rain, cold temperatures... and we're still at the bottom of the volcano! So here's how it went down this day: this was supposed to be one of the best hikes in the world. Tongariro Crossing is often referred to as the best one-day hike in NZ and one of the top hikes in the world... but this of course is when we can see where we're going and enjoy the landscape! Obviously this is not what happened:

Marta to Heather: "Are we supposed to be nearby a 2000m tall volcanic cone?"

The problem was that the weather went from bad to worst as the hike progressed and some of the guys in the pack where not equipped for this type of weather (keep in mind that the day before we we're all highly concerned with the clear skies and afraid we were going to get sunburns!). Anyways.. despite everything we tried to keep our spirits up... after all we we're walking on Mt. Doom (Mordor's place for all the Lord of the Rings fans out there!).

"No Mordor isn't going to take our rings that easily"

The group survived the hike but now without some creepy moments...like running into 2 girls that had lost a friend in the middle of their hike and our guide was so worried about our safety that he barely tried to help look for this girl (which luckily got a ride from another group)... in his words "my primary concern is your safety and getting you across the mountain... from now on we'll move as a pack and at the same pace... if we stop we get into hypothermia so huddle and warm each other...". This was really nasty mountain weather.

See any Orks around?

I guess the weather was too nasty even for them

And this was just the beginning of the bad luck in NZ... the day after the hike (yes we made it...) we jump in to the bus (to spend another freaking day travelling back to Auckland) and the weather is just awesome again!... and we can even see the volcano and the clear skies around it!

It is real! The volcano exists!

We got back to Auckland went to pick up a rented and the only one they had reserved for us was a Ford Festina twenty years old or more and with 250 THOUSAND Km of history... so the challenges kept going up... now I don't only have to ride on the wrong side of the road, with a manual stick (something I have barely tried in the last 4 years) and with a car so clunkier that everyone looked at us every time we drove in a parking lot! (now imagine the face of the Bead and Breakfast people when they saw us arriving to their fancy manor in this piece of junk!)

It even seems that the suspension (drive train) is misaligned

Is our rented car a good fit here?

So... by now we were at the Coromandel Peninsula, a region of lovely (that's right this is about NZ I have to use Brit terminology) beaches and the sun gave place to clouds and rain once more...

Glad we didn't go the casino during this bad-luck streak

This is how we made use of the amazing Matarangui Beach we had in front of the manor: hiking boots and waterproof shells.

Ok... let's look for a place that's not too crowded

Shoooot... I where did I place my beach towel...

When the 1 1/2 day trip around Coromandel Peninsula was over we went back to Auckland and finally got a real car (sorry no pix...). Then... in a heat of the moment thing we decided to go visit the Maori Museum in Auckland hopping that the weather would get better before we headed north to the Bay of Islands where we had planned to stay for a couple days enjoying the sun and the beach (after this streak of "wrong place-wrong weather" you can imagine what type of weather we were expecting to get once we got there).

Anyways... we had been inside the museum for no more than 15 min and the lights go out and the security team asks everyone to evacuate the building because a power outage had brought all the safety systems down... By this time Marta was almost having a nervous breakdown for spending one oh her two weeks of vacations in a country where only bad things where happening to us... and I was trying to rationalize all this and make use of what the hike guide had taught me: "in NZ we cannot count on the weather... you have to learn how to enjoy yourselves no matter what the weather is like"...

So... in the process of evacuating the building we we're almost dragging our feet so that we could at least try to see some of the stuff that was lit by natural skylight... This also gave me time to do some spiritual rituals...

... and learn a bit more about the Kiwi:

Kiwi's a bird that is almost in the brink of extinction and is considered the national symbol (mascot) of the country. Kiwi is even the nickname for New Zealanders! You can read it all about Kiwis online but the interesting thing is that this bird doesn't fly... and that's why this video won YouTube's 2007 Award for Most Adorable Video. Check it out.

Ah!.. and about my spiritual rituals... guess what?! They worked because when we were about to step out of the safety barrier (exiting the museum) the a guy from the security team shows up saying that the problem had been fixed and that we didn't have to evacuate the building!... So, the 2 of us and only a handful of lucky people managed to stay inside without having to go through the ordeal of proving that we had already gotten a ticket to get back in... and I believe this is when our luck changed... because we finished visiting the museum and when we came out the sun was shining and kept shinning for the next days!

This allowed us to travel through the country side and enjoy magnificent views... including the usual sheep-spotted landscapes... (people make jokes that, specially in the south island, it is easier to get a date with a sheep that with a human :))...

...run into Gandalf and thank him for saving us from the bad weather...

... get to the Bay of Islands with sunny weather and thank the Maori God of the Sea for the good weather too (yes there's a face there, and some say two)...

... and finally cruise around the bay...

... and get close to our friends:

So to conclude this whining post: this trip didn't exactly go as planned but we loved the "land of the long white cloud" (which followed us pretty much everywhere!) and want to go back and visit the south island. This is one is even less inhabited than the north island, and has all you can wish for: beaches, mountains, untouched forests, volcanoes, ski areas, glaciers, fiords...you name it, they have it (now you know why they call it Godzone!).

If you want a more positive report of the trip check the album with all the pictures Marta chose and her comments on each picture.

Mainstreaming Green

We all know that sustainability and specially Global Warming is becoming a buzzword (even a small country like Portugal paid to listen to Mr. Gore twice in less than a month!)...

But for me this is the ultimate example that Environment is no longer a topic for the metrosexual, treehugger kind of a guy: this weeks Sports Illustrated magazine features Global Warming and Sports!