Vacations in Science? Mission Impossible

Hi everybody,

Just came back to Portugal after a week in Belgium. What had begun as a 4 days vacations and 2 at the lab, turned over to become a scientific week of work.

Never try to do vacations were you are supposed to work, because you will work. Usually I am always thinking that is very good to go to work at these other countries, like Mozambique, Tanzania and Belgium, because you can always take some vacations before or afterwards. And I will tell you something, this never works. Or because you try to go before, and then you realize you still have several things to do before your work (what had happened to me in Belgium), or because you always have some things that did not went well or you try to improve your results, as always happens to me in Africa.

In Europe I am lucky, because at least I can take the weekends and holidays off… not because I do it with conscience of it, but because the labs are closedJ. But in Africa, the mangroves (till this moment) do not close on weekends or holidays.

Resume of the Belgium week.

Went to Brussels on a Saturday after lunch. Got there and a friend of mine picked me up and we head home. Sunday I got to know Brussels and Monday (a Belgium holiday) went to see Bruje, which I advise everybody to see it (or Guent).

Worked from Wednesday to Friday from 8:30 to 21h, however life did not stopped after 21h. In Brussels there are a lot of pubs and bars with life jazz and blues, as you can find now all over Europe. However, not in every city you can find every Tuesday a pub with a good Dixieland band (also known as New Orleans style band) playing.

I went there and I can tell you that I listen to one hell of good jazz from the beginning of the past century. Other than the music, there were several old couples dancing swing, the traditional dance of Jazz. It was beautiful. I even thought about working less in the lab so I could stay there till next Tuesday, but…

Well, Saturday was a day to go to a wedding, see Antwerpe, and buy several different Belgium chocolates. And don’t try to get a sample from my BC (BC has nothing to with catholic religion, it only means Belgium Chocolates).

Hope to get some news from you.

Hugs,
Gil