White cows @ The Royal Highland Show

The Royal Highland Show is the major farm and countryside exhibition in Scotland. It happens in the last week of June every year and attracts thousands of people from all over Scotland, England and even Ireland. Queen Elisabeth II is a regular visitor to the Show. The most fantastic things to do there are, in my opinion, sampling the array of food on offer (especially the cheeses), watching show jumping, attending sheep shearing competitions, seeing the livestock exhibitions and eating strawberry kebabs with chocolate fondue! In here we can observe the "crème de la crème" of Scottish society.

Brown sculptures in Copenhagen

In June 2009 I went to Copenhagen for a Summer School on "Market-based instruments for ecosystem services". I really enjoyed the city: bike-friendly, colourful, cosmopolitan, cultural, alternative...The PhD students I met came from all over the world and I learned with them the challenges the environment faces in countries such as the Philipines, Spain, Denmark, France, South Korea or Mexico. In my spare time I did something I love: to visit museums. And I went to the Danish National Gallery that (as a bonus) holds a modernism building. The pregnant sculptures were one of the works I saw there. 

With this I take advantage to mention the Portuguese plastic artist Joana Vasconcelos, which is the only woman ever to exhibit in the Versailles Palace. As a Portuguese and as a woman I am very proud. Have a look at http://www.vasconcelos-versailles.com/

Yellow - Oil seed rape

In Aberdeenshire there are many oilseed rape fields. This plant of the Brassica family is used to produce vegetable oil, which is a competitor of olive oil. On one ocasion someone tried to sell me rapeseed oil by pointing at the marvellous health qualities of it. Of course when I said I was Portuguese he did not go ahead with his explanations... Oilseed rape is also raw material to produce biofuel. Biofuel is a clean source of energy and almost carbon neutral but it has a problem: it needs agricultural land to be produced. What do we want and need the most, food or fuel?

Blue sea in Cruden Bay

Ok, ok....Sometimes it is also gorgeous in late Spring. These pictures were taken in Cruden Bay and Slains Castle. Two beautiful spots 30 miles north of Aberdeen that are worth visiting when the weather decides to present us with the most wanted star in the sky.

Black piano

I think for the big things, black is my favourite colour: black peugeot, black piano...I have an acoustic piano in Portugal which I miss and which I play everytime I am back. This, however is my aberdonian piano. It was given to me by a colleague at work and it has been in it I have been practicing songs like "The promise" from the movie "The piano" or "La Valse d'Amélie". I am very happy and lucky that I was given this beautiful thing. But I must confess that in the last 6 months my PhD have been making me feel completely drained. I am not reading my books anymore, I am not playing anymore. The only thing I can stand is watching movies and documentaries and doing sports or outdoor activities. What a life...

Grey is the color of Summer

Late Spring can be pretty grey in Aberdeen. This can be proved by the first picture which was taken in Balmedie, a beach few miles north of the city. It can be depressive but people always find a way of enjoying themselves. And one of the ways is doing a long lasting barbecue in the beach (in mid June the night only arrives at about 11pm). Barbecues are very common at this time of the year and when it is not raining. I found out, however, that most of the people leave the rubbish in the beach, this contributting to the millions of tonnes of litter that are washed away to the sea every year worldwide. Some volunteers usually offer to clean the beach afterwards, but where are people's brains? Sea litter is a huge problem for our oceans and there has not been an effective way to tackle this problem so far. In my view, individual action could make a difference.

Yellow and white - olympic flame

11 June 2012 - This was the day the Olympic torch passed in front of my window in Aberdeen. Maybe I will never experience this again in my life. How likely is to live in the country that hosts the Olympic games and at a same time renting a house in one of the streets where the torch is supposed to pass by?
Certainly an experience that is worth mentioning in my blog!

The torch came from Stornway in the isle of Lewis to mainland Scotland, passed by Balmoral and left Aberdeen to Dundee on the following day. It will keep visiting UK cities until the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

White gannet

Today I am going to talk about the museum of the Zoology department at my university (University of Aberdeen). The museum encloses a range of stuffed animals from all over the planet. Even a stuffed tiger can be found here. According to some, it is obsolete and should be restructured. It makes me remember the British explorers that went all over the world and brought back anything that had not been seen in this island before. I hope this is not going to be the only way that children of my generation can one day experience such creatures...

By the way: Post number 100!