back to the mainland (i was so used to being on an uninhabited island that i forgot looking left before crossing a street) there was a markus&julieanne-reunion, and we …how should i put it… basically, we drove all over the place. :-)

we didn’t get a spot on a doubtful sound cruise right away (milford sound’s little brother; it’s less popular, and therefore less overrun), so we drove into the east first, and came back later.

on the way from invercargill [G] to dunedin [G], we paid a visit to curio bay (catlins) to see the petrified forest, which is (said to be) 180 million years old.
apart from old dead trees, there’s also a colony of yellow-eyed penguins (megadyptes antipodes) and a …pack of hector’s dolphins (cephalorhynchus hectori) living close by.
given the timing and time-frame when we were there, the odds for seeing a dolphin were very long. we did get to see one penguin, though*.
*the “singular tendency” that i mentioned persisted. by then, we had stopped being surprised to see just one animal of every kind…

[view photos: invercargill to dunedin]
 

the following day, we made a visit to the otago peninsula, and then drove back west on a different route.
in the early afternoon, i wrote down this note:

memo to self: the universe is out to get me today.

[more...]

innsbruck seems to have grown big enough for ebay to consider advertising here:

i promised to have these online soon(er than this), so here they are:

another short set of photos that might best be filed under “hometown tourists”…

[view photos: hometown tourists, part 2]

silver balls, silver balls
it’s christmas time in the city
i hear more and more people complain about the christmas lights in innsbruck. i don’t know why - i really like them. especially the brand-new “silver balls” that were installed in maria-theresienstrasse.

[view photos: christmas in innsbruck]
 

ring-a-ling, hear them sing
soon it will be christmas day

“anton’s choir” (the high school choir that anton is singing in) co-held a christmas concert with a brass ensemble, last wednesday.
it’s the same choir that i was a part of, in my own high school time.
it was a triple-treat for me, (1) being the first choir concert in a while where i was only listening (mostly), (2) being reminded of my own high-school time, which is slowly fading away, and (3) taking pictures in wonderfully-lit church.

[view photos: christmas concert]
 

check out this very cool interactive animation from utah.edu: molecular effects of drugs

christmas holidays have started, so it’s the last chance to post some photos while they’re relatively up-to-date…

here are some impressions from various practical courses, from work, and - in a separate album - photos i took on a zoological field trip back in october.

one of the highlights of that field trip was the finding of a beetle which belonged to the cicindela genus. there are only a few spots left in tirol where these ground beetles can be found.

another one was when timo (the head of the excursion) suddenly asked me “would you like to hold a bumblebee?”
what he didn’t tell me at first: in the evolution of insects, the stinger developed from their egg-laying apparatus. males don’t need to lay eggs, so they don’t have a stinger either. still, the male tried to sting me, making the usual “stinging moves” with its back - seems like this reaction is genetically programmed in both males and females.
besides, at first i had no idea how to actually hold a bumblebee. it’s not something i do everyday :-)

fun fact: one of the features for telling the gender apart is …facial hair (who would have guessed? seriously?). bumblebees with a lot of facial hair are usually males. counting the number of segments in their antennae is more reliable, though.

[view photos: university and work, in pictures]
[view photos: zoological field trip]

the season is lacking colour, so i thought i’d post some of my most colourful shots: