21st EUPVSEC - Dresden

Only after one week of being in London I had to leave again, this time for Germany. It was a bit harsh as still most of my things were packed in boxes at my new place. The conference was as expected (once you've been to one or two the rest are more or less the same). I did get a chance though to meet a few interesting people which was a plus. In addition i got to see Berlin, Dresden and Freiburg. After 10 days of train travels (9 in total including two night trains!) I was ready to head back to London for a good long rest!

Summer holidays!

So this summer went by without having the major beach party we have every year. Or should say had the last couple of years. Anyway wasn't much of a problem for me! I spent in total four weeks back home and it was wonderful. The first couple of week i would wake up, maybe do some work and then went windsurfing for a couple of hours. Would get back, have lunch with Marilena, get some rest and then either go out or stay home for dinner. The summer highlight was going to St. George hotel in Paphos. The hotel wasn't all that much but spending a few days with Kotsios and Vasilia was really wonderful. We even rented a boat and explored the Akamas peninsula by sea. It was really relaxing and all of us had a great time. Next summer it will be even better as I wont have to leave to come back to London!!!! You can check out the pics at Flikr.

Zeeland - Scharendjike

Me and Christos (yeah it was that much fun!)

Me, Liz and Christos at Waterloo.

One of my regular dive buddies is Christos a.k.a. Indos. As he currently lives in Brussels, I paid him a visit last July for a small diving trip to Zeeland (that is the western most province in the Netherlands - more facts here). Since most of you are just saying that am not doing anything but travelling, I arranged to do some work in Brussels as well since I was going to be there! Anyway, in Brussels we went for a dive at Nemo33. Unfortunately I did not take the camera with me so no photos from that dive :(. Diving in a swimming pool was not bad after all!
Anyway the good part was Zeeland were we managed to complete 7 dives in three days. On one day we actually did 4 dives, which led to a comment by another Belgian diver saying "You guys are fanatics!!" Back in Belgium we paid a visit to Waterloo, the famous battlefield site, which is quite close to Brussels (see photo above). For more photos visit my Flikr account account. Thanks to Christos for accomodating me and special thanks to Liz for putting up with both of us :D.

No more travel!

Ok at least for a while. So since my last blog I have been to Cyprus, Belgium, back to Cyprus, Germany and now finally i get to rest for a while in London. Travelling is a fair excuse for not posting anything new but in the next few days i will bring everything up to date hopefully. For all my recent pics see my Flikr account.

Deep Blue Hawaii

Of course I could not go to Hawaii and not go diving. So i got to Honolulu a day earlier than everyone else and looked for the first available dive center. So I ended up doing two nice dives with Dive Oahu. Very cool divers (thanks Rodger!) and highly recommended. The first dive was a 32m wreck dive on the Sea Tiger. Lots of triggerfish and a few morray eels. The next dive was at 11m at Turtle Canyon. Yes, as the name implies there were lots of green turtles, some quite big. Apparently lots of people like to ride the turtles, so if you do you get a nice fine of $20,000. I think that's pretty reasonable! That's all the dives i could do in Honolulu as i was flying the following night. I did however try my luck at surfing in Waikiki with the locals. I think I was well spotted as a beginner!
Next two dives were at Kona bay on the Big Island. The first one being a dusk dive at Garden Eel Cove. Never seen before in my life so many different fish on one dive. Groupers, triggerfish, green turtles, a lonely moorish idol and to top everything up two huge mantas gliding gracefully in the distance. That was just a glimpse of what was to follow. The next dive was the world famous Manta Ray Heaven dive! As Martina Wing said before we hit the water "it is a spiritual experience!" And it wasn't far off. Having a large ensemble of lights underwater, a large plankton feast was created and soon from the shadows emerged 8 manta rays. This was probably the best dive I ever did! I'm certain I forgot even to breathe at some points. Huge manta rays gliding above us with huge open mouths devouring plankton. Truly unbelievable and I cannot do it justice by describing it. The video shot by Martina though is perfect! Thanks to captain Mike for keeping us entertained. If you are ever on the Big Island do go diving with these guys! Thanks Sandee for being my dive buddy. At the rate you are travelling around the globe we are bound to run into each other again. Here are a few pics just as a teaser. For more pics check my Flikr site.

4th WCPEC

Doing a PhD in solar cells has its perks! Going to cool places for conferences is one of them. The 4th World conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion was held this May in Waikoloa, Hawaii. That is the Big Island of Hawaii. Here are couple of pics. One is from Waikiki beach, Honolulu and the other two are from the east side of the Big Island. Random fact: on the Big Island 4 out of the 6 major climatic zones can be found.

Tandems!

When I set out to update my blog tonight I was planning on posting something else. As i was getting ready to upload a photo the first directory that opened when I pressed insert picture was my solar cell data directory. So i figured it must be meant to be this way after all! I came home quite late today as I spent more than 12 hours doing measurements, giving a talk and preparing another presentation. I will be presenting a paper in a couple of weeks at the World Conference for Photovoltaic Energy Conversion and today was the deadline for submitting my presentation. As usual I left everything for the last minute but it wasn't entirely my fault. It is common in the PhD community that when you reach a deadline then things start happening rapidly! i.e the samples you have been waiting for months finally arrive and you have one last chance of producing data that are barely presentable. And of course at the same time you are expected to pack all the labs and move because some idiot has decided that, since we've been waiting for our "new" labs that are more than 3 months late, we have to move overnight! Anyway I might sound bitter but it i enjoy it. So The two pictures above are the things that I have been struggling over for two years now, and will do for one more year. They go by a quite fancy name: Strain Balanced Multi-Quantum Well Dual Junction Monolithic Tandem Solar Cells. If you cross this again chances are you might see my name somewhere along there. And before I forget: thanks Keith for not saying how horrible my presentation was today and the help into making it a descent one in the end. Enough with my post-midnight rant. I am off to bed!

Return of the Northern Monkey, Liverpool SWA '06

It has been a while since i last posted anything so this seemed to be the perfect oportunity to do so. Last weekend myself, Chris and John travelled to Liverpool for some windusrfing fun organized by University of Liverpool. Only us three from Imperial College windsurfing club were mad enough to defy the freezing conditions and join the other nuts who decided this was a perfect weekend to windsurf up north. Despite the freezing temperatures and the occasional snow and hail, windsurfing was fun and the partying was even better! Overall a memorable weekend and lots of new friends in the north. Besides when will i get the chance again to windsurf while snowing!

Absolut Grass

After I received a letter from my apt manager (for the third time!) complaining about the horrifiying state of my garden (the grass wasn't cut for a few weeks since i was away) I decided to trim my grass , my style of course! So here it is :D

Beach Party '05

The highlight of the summer was a huge party that we threw with my roomate Kotsios and some other friends. Thanks to Kotsios' inspiration the beach was transformed into a palm tree oasis with 10 palm tress being planted within an hour! The party was a huge success and we all had a great time. We had a live show a la Paparizou and as you can see the crowd went wild. Here are a few pics from the party.

I must be quite popular!

So i got back home after 6 weeks and this is what i find waiting for me!

Back in London :(

It's been more than a month since my last update. After 6 wonderful weeks of holidays back home I am back in London. Summer was great thanks to all my friends and of course my girlfriend. I have been on 12 dives in total this summer and after Nic's request on the last post i took him with me for a dive. Christos (a.k.a Indos) was also with us on that day at Fontana Amoroza. The location of the site is on the Akamas peninsula, which is supposed to be a National forest although the authorities are not doing much about it. Its a lovely area if you wish to visit it and the underwater world is filled with ancient artifacts such as pots, plates, a boat battery that we found and lots of bullets and other stuff that the lovely british troops left there during their military exercises! Nicholas was dubbed as the most uninterested diver ever (o "adiaforos") . After Christos' suggestion to play underwater Go though, he proved to be interested to do more dives! Can't you tell from the photo that he is bored? I put a few more photos from the dive so that everyone can see that it wasn't really boring. Not to mention the two giant squids (about 60cm ) that we saw. Unfortunately i did not manage to take any pics of them :(

A few more days!

Only a few more days left and i will leave gloomy London for about a month to return to my natural habitat! This is a self portrait i took during a decompression stop whilst diving at the Zenobia wreck. Hopefully i will be doing some more of that when i go back home.

Ispra

Last year i was fortunate enough to spent 6 months at Ispra, Italy where i did some research, learnt a few things and hopefully made a few friends too. This is a panoramic photo i composed in photoshop of the view of Lago Maggiorre from Isra.

Carnivale d' Ivrea

Ivrea is famous for her carnival, the Carnivale di Ivrea. This is more widely known as the orange throwing festival! I was lucky enough to be there last year with a few friends. As you can see from the photos Ivrea is a lovely place and it turns into hell every year!

Misty Brighton

It has been a wonderful weekend with a nice bbq with new and old friends and a lovely long Sunday walk by the Regent canal (photos when they develop!). This a pic i took during a visit to Brighton with Myria. It was quite a misty day which ended with literally searching for the car through the heavy mist.

Octopus

A nice octopus i found during a dive at Alamano bay in Limassol with my dad. Don't worry we played a bit with it and then released it.

Aigina

These are two nice compositions of photos i took last July at Aigina (pronounced aegina).

Say hi to Kallia!

It took me a while to get this blog started but hopefully i will keep it running for a while. This all started from a friend's idea to post my pictures online. So here it goes and please fell all free to add your comments. But although this blog is for my photographic hobby i will post other interesting events that happen . Speaking of interesting events: The first post is dedicated to my newly-born niece. This is not a photo i took but one that her proud dad send to me. Her name is Kallia (named after my mum) and i will post more pictures of her in the future. She is the cuttest baby and of course I'm the silliest uncle!

P.S: As for the quote on top i will provide a translation later on