This years special christmas time...

We got a christmas tree in our house, how awesome is that. Uncommonly I am getting all excited about this years christmas and new years eve. The last weeks have been quite unpleasant. Not sure whether the UK turns darker even earlier but from 3 in the afternoon the lights turned off and I ended up most of the evenings studying. More than ever I learned to appreciate the pre-christmas time with the christmas markets (unfortunately I didn't come across any in London) of uniquely crafted things, the Glühwein as well as people staying at home in the warmth preparing great food and christmas bakery - cute characters from the dough or ginger bread houses. I also started liking the tradition of the 4 Advent sundays before christmas, where each sunday one more candle is lighted up and stories are being read out or told of heroism, of compassion and love.

This year for the first time ever I am going to spend christmas at my family's place in Poland having some typical polish celebrations and hopefully some skiing times in the mountains. For this and many more reasons I am really looking forward to finally take off to absolute leisure, to relax, reflect and say goodbye to 2006.

Season greatings!

The old town hall of Bonn with a big christmas tree.

The Evolution of Earth in One Day

"If you imagine 4,5 billion years of earth history compressed in one day, life would start quite early - already at 4 am with the rise of the first protozoa/ monads. Then for the next 16 hours no progress occurs.

Only at approximately half past 8 in the evening, when the day is already finished 80 %, the earth has more to offer than a skin of microorganism.Finally seaplants appear, 20 minutes later followed by jellyfishes and the mysterious Ediacara animals, which you can still see at the Australian West coast. At 21:04 swimming Trilobites enter the scene. Some minutes before 22:00 the first plants blosson on land and shortly afterwards - there are not even 2 hours left of the day - the first animals on land appear. After around 10 minutes of warm weather, the earth is covered by big forests of the Carbon time at 22:24, which remainals are still providing us with coal today. The first flying insects are visible. The dinosaurs appear on stage shortly before 23:00 and only stay around 45 minutes. 21 minutes before midnight they disappear again and the era of the mammals begins. Humans show up at 1 minute and 17 seconds before midnight. Our entire written history is only a few seconds old and the life of a human being only lasts a wink."

A little passage from a very well written book by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything which I am about to finish. Highly recommended for people like me who didn't have a good basic knowledge of all the nature sciences, such as Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Meteorology, Geology and much more...