Rainy Summer

Just like I said in my last blog time is flying. So fast that I even forget that I also wanted to write once in a while something new on my blog :P. More than a month has passed here and I will try to give a summary of what I have done here. The ones that have looked at my pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/eshuishenk/Slovakia will already have an idea, the photos I am updating regularly.

The work is still the same but now also I started with something new, vegetation mapping of the 4 different sites I already was measuring the soil respiration. Each site is around 100ha and has a grid of 250x250m. On every point on the grid we make 4 plots of 10x10m where I draw roughly a map of the dominant vegetation and the young trees coming up. Also a list is made of all the plant species so different plant communities can be distinguished. To be more accurate with estimating the cover of the plants I also came up with my own method, putting my camera on a long telescopic stick to make a picture from above. Works quite well I must say.

In May the weather was generally dry and warm but now at the end of June and beginning of July it’s cold and wet. The last 2 weeks I spend most time in the office because the weather was too bad to go outside :( . But that doesn’t stop me from liking the work here, still a good combination of fieldwork in a unique place and office work where I can practice/improve all my skills l learned. And also the people working here are really nice.

In the weekends I am still playing tourist and geocacher. Until now I have found 61 geocaches, almost as much as I found in NL so far :P. In the first weekend after my last blog I visited Belianska Jaskyna, the only cave here open for public and Spisska sobota, the old city center in Poprad. The weekend after the weather was good and I could go Slovenksy Ray NP. On Saturday I made a 28km walk through the forests, river canyons and waterfalls. A really beautiful place! I stayed there for one night with the plan to walk for another day but I injured my foot the day before and decided to take it easy and not to walk too much. I walked a bit too much the day before I think :P The next weekend on Saturday I went to Stara L’ubovna to see the castle and the open air museum. And on Sunday I made a hike with the son and daughter of my supervisor in the Tatra mountains. The weekend after it was bad weather but I went to Strbske Pleso and could walk a bit around there. The next weekend, of 25th of june I went on Saturday to Poprad for some shopping and geocaching, even met a Slovak geocacher that day :). And on Sunday it was relatively good weather and I went climbing the Krivan, Slovaks most famous mountain, 2494,7m high. It was though climbing 1300m into the freezing air but I made it, and the scenery is beautiful :). Last weekend I didn’t do very much, lots of rain. Only thing I visited was on Saturday, I went to Popradske Pleso. Still in the rain but at least now I have a decent raincoat to keep me dry.

Tomorrow I will go to Turany to meet my Slovakian housemate from Wageningen and on Thursday we will go to Pohoda festival in Trencin :) (www.pohodafestival.sk). According to the weather forecast it will be 3 days of music sun and beer :). The 22th of July I will go to Luxembourg for two weeks to the scouts summercamp, really looking forward to that! The rest of the time until beginning of September I will be working here in Tatra National Park. And in the weekends explore more of Slovakia.

In NL the holidays are starting so I wish everyone a nice vacation, whatever you are going to do :)