Trans-european Mountain Goats Odyssey

Flashback to summer: I discover that the Mountain Goats are touring Europe for the first time in several years. Now, obviously (sadly) they weren't going to come to Vienna. I decide however that seeing as I have no idea when they might come back, I should go see them anyway. An examination of the schedule indicates that the easiest place to see them in would be Cologne. But, what's this? They were also playing in the Belgian city of Ghent! 'I have a good friend currently living in Ghent who I haven't visited yet!' I think.

Shoes in central Ghent...

Thus it was that I ended up travelling by train to Ghent, staying there for 2 days, seeing the mountain goats, then hopping on the train to Cologne to catch them a second time before finally arriving back home.

Ok, so it goes without saying that the Goats were amazing. They're my favourite band after all, and the chance to them on a tour where they were playing basically anything from their back catalog they felt like was really special, and made the value of seeing multiple gigs so much higher. I could go on a long time about both, suffice to say they were both totally different in venue and atmosphere, and that at the first I got to hear this song played live on piano, yay!:

So, Belgium. I really liked it! We spent only a few hours in Brussels, enough to see the main square, eat chips (V important in belgium) and find the first of many beer locations. What a joy to be in a place that not only has a beer culture, but also a beer VARIETY culture!

Most of my time was spent in Ghent, which was a lovely place. A stunning centre of the town with medieval and 20th century faux medieval buildings, a massive church and cathedral next to each other, a castle, and several picturesque squares and canals. Much more importantly than any of this stuff though was the feeling that Ghent had a real cafe and bar culture. I know I shouldn't judge other places by whether they have the stuff Vienna has, but it was easy to feel at home in Ghent as one could sense that you could lead a similar cafe and restaurant based life there as I lead here in Wien. The cafes aren't just for great beer either, on Saturday night we experienced a great live jazz/swing/rock'n'roll quartet in a packed bar. Another cool thing was the whitewahsed graffiti gallery situated in an old barge, of which there are many pictures in this post's accompanying gallery.

We also tried to spend the day in Bruges, but the weather was diabolical and drove us into far too many very touristy locations. Probably Bruges is great with the sun out but I preferred the more lived-in, less ENGLISH MENU HERE atmosphere of Ghent. The funnest thing in Bruges was seeing the graveyards of twisted umbrellas piling up and up at every rubbish bin in town.

A summary of the waether in Bruges as we visited

The trip required a lot of time in trains, which was for the most part enjoyable though I doubt I'll ever get the proper hang of sleeping on a night train. I managed to get through the whole of American Gods (for the second time) which was a great companion if a little at odds with the surroundings of central europe!

Pictures here...

As always,
der Tom.

Autumn Mists on a Salamander Quest

One Sunday I awoke, terribly late as usual, and discovered that it was dark, dingy and thickly overcast. Although it was not raining, the streets were slicked with water and it looked like it might start up again any minute. I immediately phoned my friend and fellow quest-participant Ash and we agreed that it was perfect weather for... A SALAMANDER QUEST.

The aim of the salamander quest is so simple, I shall not spell it out here. In previous years we had discovered that this time of year and weather conditions were excellent prerequisites for a successful quest, although ideally there would have been a few more dead leaves already on the ground.

We set off from the familiar ground of Cobenzl, halfway up the Kahlenberg and one of the most frequented parts of the Wienerwald still within city limits. The clouds were so low we were completely immersed in them, visibility was down to a few tens of meters and the widely spaced beech trees loomed indistinctly in the distance. Although it was not raining, the woods and undergrowth rustled constantly with falling water droplets, the fog condensing directly onto the leaves and dripping down in a strange almost-rainstorm.

Less than an hour of damp searching and many fungi photographed saw us heading on a major path in the direction of delicious Austrian Gasthaus food with which to fortify ourselves. On this path, quite undisturbed, sat a big, fat, orange and black salamander. Victory photos taken, we adjourned to the restaurant, consumed our lentils, dumplings and bacon (well, in my case) and then headed home, content in the knowledge of another salamander quest well quested.

This is what quest victory looks like. Cool and mildly poisonous.

Here's the full gallery!

Der SalamanderTom

Crete Field Trip

Part two of my geological journey to small parts of Greece...

We took the night ferry from Athens to Crete, which was a lot more luxurous than I was expecting. I mean there weren't gold plated bathtubs or anything but our cabin looked like any land based hotel room and the ship was so big I don't think I felt a single wobble the whole night. Sadly the ship still arrived before 7am though, so no lie in!

We spent 10 days on Crete, all of which I enjoyed greatly. I am sure part of this was to do with the existence of precious, precious clouds and even on one occasion rain! Also one huge advantage of Crete is that it has big (up to 2500m) mountains so there are some upland areas which are also cooler!

Crete is much bigger than I realised, over 200km long, and in 10 days we only covered parts of the western half of the island. The scenery changes dramatically, in keeping with the varied geological units and tectonic history that has affected the island and continues to the present day. There are high limestone mountains with folds on all scales, broad bays with sandy beaches, precipitous terraced areas and switchback roads aplenty. Big height changes are common, driven by the differences in erosion between various rocks combined with huge numbers of faults uplifting and downthrowing different segments. Best of all there is lots and lots of coast, leading to beautiful exposures of structures in full 3D.

The traces of earthquakes were everywhere for the trained geologist. A fault scarp is the exposed surface of a fault which breaks the surface as one side is thrown up and the other side is thrown down. These really are fantastic s
tructures, you can feel with your hands the scratches and mineral lineations which display the most recent movements of the fault for all to see!

This 50m high cliff is a fault scarp!! Note that it would not have been exposed in one event though, that would be an utterly huge earthquake.

We stayed in a varied selection of towns in Crete, ranging from a 'proper' town where many local people seemed to live, to a town which was completely swollen with beach tourism, to a village with barely 40 houses nonetheless entirely (and I mean this) occupied by german holidaymakers. All of these offered fantastic food, which is best experienced by ordering as many small dishes as possible, even though one waiter was convinced this was 'not the greek way' (he would have had a fight with the serifos waiters who were pretty sure it WAS the greek way!).

All in all an excellent trip, after years more or less out of the field, and a limited field experience at university, it was more than useful to get some quality time on the rocks with a whole buch of students and some excellent field geologists, most of whom were discovering the outcrops for the first time themselves, lending a very excited atmosphere to the whole proceedings...

There's a whole other half of crete to explore someday, I guess!

Until then, here's the gallery of photos from the half I did see...

Der Tom

Summer School on Serifos

After less than 24 hours in Athens we negotiated the subway system and boarded the fast ferry from the port to the island of Serifos. Serifos is a 75 square kilometre member of the Cyclades, more or less in the middle of the Aegean sea. Its only claim to mythological fame is that it is the island where Perseus and his mother washed up. After returning with the head of Medusa, Perseus turned the king of Serifos to stone as punishment for attempting to forcibly marry his mother (thanks wikipedia!).

The ferry ride was much more exciting once I found the way to the outside of the ship, although you were only allowed at the back where the strong wind mingled with the diesel fumes to produce a somewhat unpleasant atmosphere in contrast with the azure sea and dusty islands. In a theme we shall return to often, the sun was also incredibly intense, and I eventually fled below, only returning to get a good view of the island itself as we rounded it and came into the harbour. The geology field trip began before we even got to land, as one of the professors pointed out salient geological features as we passed them.

By far most of the time was spent on geology, and so shall receive necessarily little comment here. Every morning were 4 or 5 hours of lectures, and every afternoon several hours in the intense sun looking at outcrops relevant to the morning lectures. The rocks were fantastic, though I could have enjoyed them easier without the punishing schedule and the more punishing sun!

Mostly I only got round to taking photos as the sun headed towards the horizon, painting the dry rocky island with a less blinding light. As with much of Greece I suspect, the real times of activity and relaxation were the warm evenings, featuring plate after plate of greek starter dishes, the odd beer (greece has lots of beer due to the historical german influence) and the odd ouzo (as long as it is with LOTS of ice!!) and the odd 'tsiporo', which is island greek for raki... One particularly amazing restaurant lay outside the rest of the town, a few hundred metres from its lights. If you made it that far without turning back, thinking you had left the town completely, you were rewarded by reaching Margarita's restaurant. The eponymous owner must have been at least 80, and with uncomplicated english she invited us into her kitchen to choose our dishes! Once she had lifted the lid of various cast iron pots and pans and explained (in greek, with a short english translation) what they were, we could make our choices. Every possible type of greek food was available, the highlight being the stuffed aubergines and tomatoes, as well as the chicken in tomato sauce, and, well, everything frankly. If all the food is gone for the night, the restaurant closes!

A last highlight was the night sky. I had guessed that a tiny mediterranean island might be just the place for a bit of stargazing, and on two nights I was able to hike a little out of town to get an absolutely brilliant view of the sky. Partly aided by the fact that greece is considerably further south than my usual stargazing spots, I was able to see at least 5 or 6 zodiac constellations at once as well as some southern (celestial) hemisphere stars! The milky way was in fine form, and I pretty much convinced myself I *just* saw the Andromeda galaxy.

The ferry trip home saw a gorgeous sunset over the sea, which rather monopolises the last part of this small collection of images I took on the island.

Next time (whenever that is) we get to Crete!

Der Tom

A brief stop in Athens

So, here we begin the tale of my September antics. Due to a cunningly scheduled confluence of a student field trip to Crete and a PhD group seminar on the much smaller cycladic island of Serifos, I was privileged to spend nigh on three weeks of September learning about and getting to literal grips with the geology of the Aegean area.

Of course, the thing about islands, remote or no, is that it is always a tiny bit harder to get to them than some other places. In the case of my first destination, Serifos, the vagaries of flight and ferry schedules demanded an overnight stay in Athens before heading to the ferry the next day.

I didn't know much about Athens (still don't!) but my colleagues and I were clear on one thing: you're supposed to go and see the acropolis. So, less than 2 hours after stepping off the plane, we did! Athens is a different sort of city to the ones I spend most of my time in. There is little in the way of old (as opposed to ancient) buildings, and most of the streets are lined with 4 or more storied flat blocks. The pavements are pockmarked, occasionally narrow, and it is clear that street cleaning is slightly lower on the priority list than in central Vienna (though this is true of almost every city, I'd imagine). A lot more stuff was going on on the streets though, all kinds of small stores and hundreds of people with second hand things just spread out on blankets on the ground.

Other things I didn't know about Athens include how many hills are in and around it, adding a cool element to the city's skyline (can you can call it a skyline when it is made of hills not buildings?). The acropolis is of course situated on/around one such hill, sticking up abruptly right in the centre. After Florence it was a nice surprise to find that the acropolis in the evening is a fairly quiet place, partly just because it is so large. The view from the top was amazing, especially with the sun going down. From the top all the dusty streets and flat blocks of athens turn into a big white carpet lapping up against the occasional hills and stretching a long long way out towards the sea, just visible on the horizon.

The acropolis itself is impressive, of course! It is really quite impossible to get into one's head how really, really old it is, even at the same time as I think, geologically speaking, that it is really rather young! And the sheer size of the remains is impressive too, just enough to hint at how monumental it would have all looked intact and painted!

As is becoming terribly monotonous for you I'm sure, you can click on some words and they will lead you to pictures of the things I have been talking about!

Hopefully soonish you will get the first batch of field trip images proper, of the island of Serifos.

Till next time,

Der Tom

Vienna Interlude: 70 year old graffiti in the Lainzer Tiergarten

In the week between my trip to Florence and setting out for the greek islands (all for work mind, no holidays here!) I snatched the chance for a brief walk in the Lainzer Tiergarten. It was the first week of September, the beginning of one of the best months of weather Vienna has to offer, and I was a little sad to be missing so much of it.

The weather for our walk was obligingly autumnlike, not too hot, not yet cold, plenty of bright sun but lots of dramatic clouds too. The original plan for a very small walk soon stretched out into what for me and one of my fellow walkers still counted as a short walk, although the third member of our group wasn't so sure (and he certainly wasn't expecting to still be out at dusk, as he was wearing his prescription sunglasses... sorry!).

'Damen haben Antwort zu erwarten' / 'Ladies should expect a reply'

The grounds for extending our walk were to reach the viewing tower in the centre of the Tiergarten. There i took a few shots of the dramatic light breaking through the clouds, and also for the first time some shots of the rather unique graffiti to be found there. The tower was finished just prior to the outbreak of world war two, and scratched into its metallic cladding around the parapet is a veritable history of postwar Austria, first featuring Austrian army members advertising their addresses to prospective lady correspondents. 'Ladies can expect a reply' writes one soldier under his address, complete with rank and barracks.

'die Welt in Ruhe'/ 'the world calmly/quietly/peacefully'

After the war there comes graffiti from British/Americans, such as 'Bill Stallings, 1948, Vienna 1946-49' and also plenty of Russian graffiti too. It is actually almost rarer to see more modern graffiti in some areas, which were obviously filled up quite early, but one particularly romantic graffito from 1961 portrays the changing times, reading '2nd July 1961, I looked at the world quietly and at peace. Erich und Helmut, 30 years old' ('2. Juli 1961 sah ich die Welt in Ruhe und Frieden, Erich u. Helmuth, 30 Jahre alt'). Our modern scratchings are rather put to shame by the beauty of the handwriting, not to mention the depth and richness of sentiments of those from earlier times... The view is still good though!

The full 6 photos can be accessed here. Sometimes the handwriting is hard to figure out, and I only just now think I have puzzled out that Helmuth's name is Helmuth... Do check up on my work!

Der Tom

A trip to Florence (but not on holiday!)

At the end of August I travelled by night train to Florence (Firenze) Italy, for the annual Goldschmidt conference, an international geochemical gathering.

Probably one of the most important and exciting occasions for scientists are international conferences. Sure, it's fun sitting around doing research and chatting to your office mates, but nothing beats finding out what everyone else from all over the world is doing! If you're lucky, you might even find a few people where you feel qualified to actually discuss their work with them, rather than just take their conclusions at face value. And if you're super lucky, you might find some people who can do the same for your research (here's where you hope that you haven't been barking up the wrong tree for the past few months!).

Naturally, seeing as you could hold an international conference anywhere in the world, one tends not to choose ugly places for them, so I do have some small tourism anecdotes. One part of learning to be a PhD student has been to realise that just because I am at a conference doesn't mean that every microsecond of my time has to be focussed on me and my project. It is very important to relax, wander around, look at posters on things you have no idea about, and generally chill out. This helps avoid feelings of demoralisation when you realise how little of the time you actually spend presenting your own work and/or 'networking' with new and influential people. One has to realise that a conference will usually never provide the exact answer to that problem that's been bugging you for the last month, but nonetheless, it can still give you a bunch of ideas, usually about stuff you hadn't even started thinking about yet...

Florence in late August was hot, but no hotter than Vienna, so it was just about possible to explore. I only spent one day checking out the city, and even then I rushed back for the poster sessions, so most landmarks were experienced only from the outside. Florence is a beautiful, but therefore reasonably full city. I wouldn't say it reaches Prague-like levels of tourism congestion, but it is on the way. This means that those seeking authentic italian experiences that do not come from the architecture might have to look further afield. Nonetheless, the food is great, even if the menu is often in English, and so's the ice cream! Though I was surprised to note that true italian fruit icecream seems to be more fruit than cream.

Zhang Huan + Florence....

Of course the highlight is the insanely detailed Cathedral in the centre, clad in 3 different colours of stone with a massive dome on top. The whole of the town centre is littered with ancient mansions from ludicrously rich people from the 16th century, which you can look at if you don't mind getting run over by mopeds cos you're not looking where you're going... The second highlight was rather a serendipitous find. On a hill overlooking the city I discovered an exhibition of vast, buddhist inspired sculptures by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. The juxtaposition of giant buddha heads and the Florence skyline was unexpected, but therefore all the more entertaining.

A few pictorial highlights can be obtained from the usual location by carrying out the usual clicking operation!

Der Tom