Here I am again, from Australia. I didn’t post earlier because of two reasons. First: I was overwhelmed by the palace here. The landscape around Canberra is magnificent. Especially the view from the Mount Stromlo Observatory. Due to the huge bushfire in 2003, the forest on the mountain was lost. This gives a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and of the city of Canberra. The second reason was work: I am not here as a tourist, but had to concentrate on the talk I was to give. (And squeezed in some sight-seeing, which I found more important than sitting around with my laptop in some spot where I could find free WiFi to blog, sorry. The apartment unfortunately didn’t have internet.)
Now, where shall I start? Well, I gave my talk last Friday, which was well received, with lot’s of interested questions and discussions. The discussions here have been fruitful, I had the chance to learn more about the ‘Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey’ and right now several new ideas for my future research are developing. And I gained experience in giving talks to people that don’t know me nor my work. Interestingly, there are several German-speaking scientists here, like my host who is from Switzerland originally and one of his post-docs is from Germany.
The city of Canberra, even though it is the Australian Capital, is a bit, well, sleepy. Shops close at 5 pm, the city has only a few buildings with more than one story and the streets are wide. The whole city stretches over a big area, over 800 square kilometres, while the population is only short of 350 000. Compare this to Singapore, where I have been before: It covers an area of only 700 square kilometres but has a population of about 5 million! That’s what I call a city.
One benefit of being on the opposite side of the globe, on the southern hemisphere, is the weather. We mainly have a bright blue sky, temperatures between 25 and 35 degrees and light from 6 am to 8 pm at least. Much better than the winter in Bonn, for which the weather forecast predicts freezing temperatures. Seeing Christmas decoration here, on the other hand, is a bit strange (but the Christmas tree balls are much more shiny in the direct sunlight 
). And it does not feel like Christmas time. I don’t worry much about this, I usually feel annoyed by all the holiday preparations in Germany. But seeing a TV advert with the slogan “Barbeque better this Christmas” simply sounds ridiculous to me :-).
Well, enough writing for the moment. I’ve got some pictures for you:
The lanscape surrounding Canberra as seen from the Mount Stromlo.
For some signs, the heat of direct sunlight seems to be too intense …
Some of the Telescope domes on the Mount Stromlo. The right building is completly burned inside, the telescope was completely destroyed. But it is cheaper to leave the domes standing (after a new paint-job), than to remove them.
I think this is the ruin of the directors house on the Mount Stromlo. You can see the signs of the fire everywhere, even though it happened over six years ago.
A band playing christmas songs at the ‘Old Bus Depot Market’, a regular market in Canberra that is turned into the local christmasmarket in December.
The decoration for the Observatory’s Christmas party is shining in the sun.
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Dieses Jahr war ich ja so überhaupt nicht in Weihnachtsstimmung. Da passt mit den Weihnachtsmannverkleidungen unter der Sonne der südlichen Hemisphäre natürlich grandios. Danke für den tollen Beitrag, Marcel. Ich hoffe es geht Euch gut & die Weihnachten waren nicht so glitzernd & konsumorientiert.
Viele Grüße & weiterhin sichere Straßen, Fritsch.
Weihnachten unter der Sonne, ist doch mal was anderes. Habe das jetzt auch schon 1 mal hinter mir und ich fands gut. Es werden noch viele male folgen. Grüße