Lago Maggiore

After the Gorizia workshop, I headed off to the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, situated in the small village of Ispra. Ispra is one of many little villages scattered along the shores of Lake Maggiore, which is, incidentally, the second largest Lake in Italy! I was going there to present my research, chat with colleagues/friends, and as it turned out, to check the place out as a potential place of work. A few weeks ago, and long after the visit had already been arranged, the centre put out a call for grantholders to work on research on "Emerging Technologies: Governance under Conditions of Uncertianty and Complexity". Surprisingly, this could be considered exactly what I am doing! So I applied, which means I sent off the 2-3 page CV required under the European template. Fortunately for me, before travelling to Italy I was told that I had been ranked as the best candidate for the position, and that there would be no interviews, just offers!

While in Gorizia I was hanging out with and chatting with two of the people currently working on this topic at the centre - the previously mentioned Silvio and the as yet unmentioned, Matthieu (who was, incidentally, the organiser of the nanotechnology group in Gorizia and is the guy on the right in the group pic of the previous post!) Matthieu gave me a lift from Gorizia to Ispra (about a 5 hour drive, with food and fuel breaks) and served as my totally fabulous and delightfully attentive guide for both my visit to the centre and to the whole lakes district as an area. The tour began in Varese. ..

This is the largest city near the research centre and many of the people working there live here and commute, Matthieu included. Although Varese is not on Lago Maggiore as such, it does have its own lake to make it feel special! After arriving from Gorizia I spent one night in Varese and took a small walking tour of the city with Matthieu the next day. The smell of money was evident in both the size of the hotel beds, the style of the city parks and the design of the government buildings facing the park...


Very beautiful areas also surround the city, which feels very green when you head out into the suburbs. Matthieu showed me the area where he lived, his local park (also beautiful), and his incredible house. He is renting a converted old stables of a huge villa that sits within a enormous fenced gardens in the suburbs of Varese. This is the villa (that the owners use for about 1 week a year in August). No joke. After seeing this I must say, the position was looking appealing...

After getting a feel for Varese, we headed off to the research centre (JRC in the local lingo). It was about a half an hour drive but of course the Commission has buses cruising around all the surrounding areas so as to take care of their commuters. After passing various intense security checks, I was in. It is a strange centre in a sense. Long sterile hospital corridors, lots of shared offices and various layers of division where people do not tend to know each other or intereact much in a work sense. You basically work on your own most of the time, which at the moment also has elements of appeal! It is also strange in that it is an almost totally contained little world. About 30 odd buildings within a fenced forested area, complete with 2 huge canteens and a separate coffee bar, where staff briefly gather for their schluck of espresso after lunch. The people I met were all great though, and my talk seemed to highlight exactly how closely both my current research and PhD interests fit with the action group I would work for (the action group, incidentally, is called "Quality of Scientific Information for European Policy"). After the first day of visiting the centre, I had a rather mixed impression - it was no doubt a great opportunity, but it would also clearly involve some sacrifices in terms of a really healthy, enjoyable, and productive collaborative work environment at Bergen. I was to continue mulling it over as I spent the night in Angera, a village about 10mins from the centre and on the lake shore.

Matthieu and I had long discussions over yet another delicious meal and some fine red wine, and after a lazy morning stroll along the shores of the lake the next day, I decided to say yes and accept a position working in Italy next year. Of course there remain some hurdles, me being Australian rather than European, and me wanting to start later than they would like. Things are in motion though and it is now looking like a very real possibility. Very Very Exciting! A little overwhelming, but Very Very Exciting!
xxx

Italy Adventure

I have just returned from my very first visit to Italy. As it was a jam packed visit covering 5 different locations and a range of work and leisure activities, this Italian blog may come in a couple of stages...

The adventure began with a 4 day workshop in Gorizia, in the far North East corner of the country and right on the border with Slovenia. The workshop was for a European research project called 'Risk Bridge' in which so called experts from different fields came together to talk, exchange insights, and apparently engage in mutual learning on the topic of risk. The different fields covered in the event included climate change, electromagnetic fields, stem cells, sediments and in my case, nanotechnology. Can you say Junket? When the conference dinner involves 9 courses, some of which include a kind of guinea pig pate, you know that you are not in Kansas anymore Toto!

Before the workshop began though, my boss Roger and I were taken on a wine tasting tour of some of the fabulous vineyards popping up all over Slovenia. With the alps as a backdrop, the countryside was just absolutely stunning, so stunning that these photos can not do it justice!

In addition to all the wine that was sampled, there was also some grappa, of course!

The most interesting of which was one made from celery, which not only had a very distinct celery flavour, but which was also celery green in colour!

One of the wonderful things about this wine/grappa indulging jaunt in Slovenia was that not only did it occur in a fabulous cellar in an ancient castle set in the beautiful Slovenian countryside, it was also guided by the fabulous company of one Silvio Funtowicz and his wonderful wife Bruna De Marchi. If you don't know who they are, don't worry, but if you do, I hope you are suitably impressed! Here is the one and the wine...

While the risk bridge workshop itself was a little dull, on the last day the nanotechnology group had their own separate meeting and that was wonderful. A really great collection of people debating ideas and sketching collaboration projects, all the while enjoying the fabulous coffee that Italians are deservedly famous for! Academia as it should be! At the end of this day, the group was again escorted by Silvio and Bruna into a fabulous little outlying area for some more spectacular food and wine. This time we went to a town called Cividale, established by another guy you might know, a little someone called Julius Caesar...

Cividale was so beautiful that the whole group had to stop and admire it!

And as it turned out, Bruna happened to know a man that owned one of the medieval towers in the village and he allowed us to come in, climb, and admire the view of the city and surrounds from the top. It is not every day that that happens!


Unfortuantely I have no pics from the very top as I was worried about climbing the rickety ladder and squeezing out the tiny hole with my camera in tact, but here is one from the window before the final climb! Also rather beautiful I think you will agree.



All in all the trip to Gorizia was really fantastic, but I must say it was more for the food, the wine and the company than for the quality of the work :) It is a tough life I am leading here in Europe I must say! Next time, news from Lago Maggiore...xxx

Final Hurrah

Last weekend, J and I travelled to the mountains with some friends to enjoy the snow for the last time for the season. Six of us drove up to a friend's cabin in a place called Oppheim, about 2 hours from Bergen. All Norwegian families seem to have a cabin that they like to escape to on weekends and holidays. Sometimes it is in a great position for winter activities, sometimes for summer, and sometimes for both! The cabin we went to was one of the latter I would say. Situated on the edge of a huge (currently frozen) lake with an amazing view over the mountains, it has a top quality skiing resort only 15 mins away. This was the view from the verandah...

Here is a shot of the cabin, good old Cedric and a hound or two happy to be free range out in the countryside!
These Norwegian cabins (from my limited experience) all seem to have similiar elements of design and decoration. To begin with, the walls inside must be wood paneling...lots and lots of wood paneling, can't get enough of that good stuff and oh so scandinavian! Then there has to be lots of single bunk beds, especially in the attic, so as to fit in as many people as possible. Then there has to be games of the old school variety, cards, board games, wooden puzzles etc, and of course, a few Donald Duck comics...in Norwegian! This was a particularly super fabulous cabin, with all these essential elements in place, and it provided a wonderful place for us all for the weekend. Here is the clan sitting around the kitchen table...

Of course lots of time was spent telling stories, drinking red wine and generally having a good time...


When we went to the slopes on Saturday, it was raining and threatening to be miserable. The three guys and me had snowboards while the other two ladies were going cross country skiing for the day. We agreed to meet in the cafe to eat our 'matpakke' (packed lunches - sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and some fruit) in a couple of hours and headed off into the drizzle. To celebrate the end of the season, a live band was playing, a grill cooking, and a competition water jump was even set up. It was almost for the benefit of no one though as the conditions meant that the whole place was almost deserted. The boys immediately headed to the top of the mountain while I chose to practice my new footing arrangement on the beginners lift and slope first. After an hour or so they came to 'kidnap' me to take me to the top. I was initially highly dubious about my abilities to ride a snowboard on a T-bar for 3kms straight up a mountain face, but somehow I managed it and it was amazing! Up the top of the mountain it was snowing rather than raining and the conditions were fabulous, with not another person in sight...well except for once or twice...It was really great fun and I finally managed to pull off a few forward turns without completely eating it :) Oh, I ate it plenty of times trying to do them don't worry, but sometimes, just sometimes, it worked! As this was the first time I really managed this, I was very excited. It felt great to return to the same resort we started snowboarding at and see how far we had both come. The first time J and I didn't even buy a lift ticket! While the last time, we were riding the T bar right to the top and pulling off some fancy moves all the way down! Unfortunately I have no photos from the snow on this day as the rain/snow conditions did not make for ideal camera conditions, and besides, we were having far too much fun to take any photos!
So here are some photos of the dogs having fun instead...


And finally, a picture from along the way home. Take a good look, it will probably be the last blog about snow for quite a while...xxx