Proves of the hard work

While Maarten and Vincent are doing a lot of work for us, we decided to relaxed for a while at the beach of Barra, still recovering from Henk and Richards booth camp. Although we have participated in a biking experience we really did some work and we have learned a lot. To prove this, we can show you the pictures. Now you can see we really did use the bikes and the titration kit. For those who don't know what a titration kit is: It has been used to do chemical analysis of the groundwater samples we took from the field.

Next to the sweat we also had some blood. Henk has told us he had never seen such a spectacular double salto of a bike (with Noortje). He actually was scared. Luckily Noortje just had some scratches (see picture). Now she gained a lot respect of all daredevil guys.

The last prove is depicted in our final picture. Instead of a nice plant box and swimming pool at a bed and breakfast: hydrologists see here a nora (well) and a reservoir. Try to find it.
Tomorrow the work will start again. We'll keep you updated from Barra beach (our meeting room).

A day of rest, or not...?

In Barra, some students have taken the time available to do their washing, while others enjoyed their spare time discovering nightlife in Lisbon. The latter practice often is accompanied by too much beer and too little fado. But the journey by train to Aveiro will cure any illness.

Meanwhile, Vincent and Maarten went on to prepare the field course. This involved a lot of thinking while planning, followed by some shopping and frantic rummaging through the instruments in the garage. Finally we transported a big ugly shoe-shaped former soviet flat-bottom fishing boat to the Ria de Aveiro - in a car that would probably be deemed too small by the legal authorities - and practicing rowing to the island. As one of our students is actively rowing in a real Amsterdam Student Rowing Club (named Skoll), we think this activity may please her very much.

Things to do in the weekend...

While the students had their D-day, staff was driving through France and Spain all Saturday, only to arrive at Hotel Vegallana in the evening. This is a typical Spanish hotel annex bar annex restaurant, which is all about "El Toro". The bull fights were shown on televion, followed - contrastingly - by the European Song Festival. The meal (solomillo - sirloin steak) was excellent as always!!!

Discovered an unused, and unusually elegant, groundwater well in the back garden of a house in Boadillo, just behind the Vegallana Hotel, could not leave without taking a picture, even though it was only 6:50 am.

At 7 am on Sunday we drove off to Portugal. First dumped the contents of our van in the garage that was made available by the University of Aveiro (see picture below). After a good coffee and a pastel de nata, decided to take a look in the fieldwork area and visit one of our favourite places: Restaurante Sesta. Baffled again by the copious amounts of high quality food served there. Then went on to check where our students could place their discharge stations. Everything OK, rivers contained water...

First students will arrive tonight and all housing has been arranged. Amazed again that everything went as planned...

Saterday morning fever

Hi there!

Today was D-day, which means no sleep, some stress, a couple of beers/ tequila shots and the opportunity to upload pictures as we're bored now with no bikes around. The photos include a nora well (without the donkey) , the staff, some students and the good stuff: food :-)

Enjoy!

Leaving Amsterdam

Stan Getz is playing his saxophone when we leave Amsterdam. On his smooth jazz and other cool music (Fela Kuti, Madonna, Astrud Gilberto) we have been driving over 800 km today to bring ourselves and our hydrological equipment to our final destination in Aveiro, Portugal. Traffic in Paris is always a nightmare on this journey, but the other part went alright. The car has been loaded yesterday with soil physical and geophysical measurement instruments, water level sensors, meteo instruments, laptops and dataloggers, etc. Always afraid that we forget things... Vincent and I are now staying in a hotel near Chatellerault and will be leaving tomorrow early for Salamanca in Spain. Our students are still in the Algarve - doing a short hydrological field campaign on their own - and will travel to Aveiro by train on Monday.

This Portugal field course was initiated in 1969 so this is the 41st edition of this course, and the 6th time that Vincent and me are running the show. As usual we expect it to be great fun!

Faro, fado, fish, fietsen and soulmates

If you are reading this blog, you are either family, a friend, a bored hydrologist taking a break or actually really interested in hydrology. It doesn’t matter, the year of 2010 welcomes you to this blog, which will keep you updated on our fieldwork in Portugal!

Getting here in Portugal was a bit of an adventure. We woke up in the middle of the night (some of us just stayed up) to be at the airport around 05:00 when we heard some ash cloud took a u-turn and was keeping us on the ground. Luckily we could leave the next day and we arrived at Faro airport in the afternoon, but not before Margreets bag was stolen in Amsterdam. So much for good luck! We made a pact though and we are now happy to provide Margreet with some cash in exchange for her smile in the coming holiday. ;)

So what have we done so far? Well, we've been swimming in the sea (with the fossils, EC meter did not work anymore). We went to a spring, we played Tarzan and Jane and furthermore we have been celebrating the fish and the famous fado.

So now for the real stuff:
The first week here in Faro consisted of an excursion, which introduced us to the concept of system thinking. This means we drove around the magnificent area of the Algarve (finally we understand retired Dutch people having their second home here) to see different types of wells and springs and we learned how to calculate hydraulic heads and how to connect it to groundwater flow. We also know now how to interpret water quality measurements in relation to geology, geomorphology, vegetation and land use ('go with the flow'). Tibor (former student of hydrology at the VU) also explained about the hydrology in the Campina area, north of Faro. Furthermore we found out that he has met his soulmate here in Portugal when he was here with Vincent (many many years ago). Barry almost met one too (luckily there is still 5 weeks left to find one).

In 2040: Henk and Richard will still be explaining about this region,then Henk will say: “I want to introduce you to Barry. He is a former student of the VU. He met his girlfriend in a local bar 30 years ago. Now he is an underpaid hydrologist.”

After the first week, we are now participating a bikingtour for middle-aged/retired Dutch people. Only 20 km and minimal 9 measurement points a day. As you can read, we are experiencing a lot of fun. We'll see how this will end on saturday, when Richard and Henk will try to crush our minds with system thinking.

We'll keep you updated about our adventures!

xoxo, Caroline and Margreet

The start

This is the start of a new field campaign season in Portugal. This blog will describe the activities of students and staff in 2010. Happy reading!!!