My accommodation is wonderful and almost everything is taken care of. I didn't have an Internet connection though, at least not wireless. An Internet cable was finally arranged for me so I do have Internet now in my accommodation. Gladly enough!! When I want to get some groceries, I need to take a bus to get them (3-5 km away from the campus). Not really handy - so I try to get groceries for a complete week if I can on Friday.
The first day of my internship was difficult and joyfull all the same. A first day on a new working spot is always a bit akward: finding your way around and trying to fit in. I attended a colloquium by the famous British contemporary writer Redmond O'Hanlon. He is famous for his books about Darwin, Congo, Borneo and the Orkney Islands. He also wrote a book about trawlers. He worked together with the VPRO for the documentary "Beagle: in Darwin's awake". He told about scary parasites from the deep sea that can enter your body on the most extraordinary places and about deep sea fishing in the North Atlantic on a trawler.
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| Small sandplates in sunset colours |
Before and after the colloquium, my mentor Richard and I finetuned the camera for the seals: starting and ending of the filming for this week. I also got an "instruction" where to find scientific literature on seal behaviour. I do like the "banana behaviour" of seals when the sandplate is getting washed over by the upcoming water and the seals still try to keep laying on the sandbank - they stick their head and flippers into the air and their body is formed in a banana shape! I do hope to see harbor seals live in nature - not only from behind the research videocamera. My mentor and I need to make some arrangements for me to work efficiently on the project. Tomorrow we will meet in Den Helder to get it up and running!
