Juan Convers

One of the advantages of the EPFL campus is its location relatively close to lake Leman. Sometimes the landscapes that can be seen in the background are really spectacular and this was indeed hat happened last week: I was on the esplanade walking towards the library when I noticed in the background this composition that I thought definitely deserved a photo and a post about it.

These days I had the opportunity to visit the city of Cubelles, a catalan tourist town near Barcelona. I was very lucky to find an apartment very close to the beach and I have spent almost every day enjoying the sea, constantly refreshing myself.

But every time I watch the news I realize that I was lucky to spend my days there during the heat wave that is hitting Europe. There are roaring fires in many places in southern Europe, and on the other hand places where the summer is not particularly strong like the UK are experiencing record temperatures.

No comments. The Climate Change problem is already here :/

A few days ago I had the opportunity to visit Berlin again and I spent some very pleasant days in the company of my dear friend C. In those days I remembered why the German capital is one of my favorite cities in Europe, and although I am satisfied with my life at the moment, I will always miss that very interesting place!

One of the things I was always curious about before leaving Berlin was what had happenned with the famous Humboldt Forum. I remember the first time I visited that space in 2015: At that time it was atemporary construction, created by the Humboldt foundation, that served as an exhibition space and viewing platform for the Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum reconstruction project.

Well 7 years later, this project is finished and the palace is back to his former glory (at least the exterior facade) and it has some interesting expositions inside. Above you can find a picture on how it looks like nowadays. bis (hoffentlich) bald, Berlin

This morning, before starting work, I noticed that the day was quite beautiful with a bright sun, so I went for a short walk to the lake here in Morges, and when I was passing by the harbor I captured this image with an interesting composition.

Sometimes you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to capture an interesting photo. This is what happened last weekend in Ouchy, Lausanne: We were relaxing by the fountain in the main square and as the sun was setting, illuminating the bridge and the water, people were passing by, including this cyclist who was captured in the image.

Last weekend when I was walking home after getting a PCR test (which is part of the routine in this pandemic era), I passed by markplatz where I have walked thousands of times, but from the angle where I was, looking at the clear sky, with the Rathaus in the background, I said to myself: wow it really looks beautiful!

Nice picture of the moonlight through a tree branches shadow a couples of days ago in Morges, Vaud, Switzerland

The city center of Morges can be quite beautiful when there are snowy days in these winter months. That was the case a couple of days ago as you can see in the photo above this post.

On this first day of 2022 I had the opportunity to enjoy this beautiful sunset on the shore of Lake Geneva, with the church of Morges in the background. I felt at that moment that in spite of the difficult beginning of 2022, I have hope that everything will be better and that it will be a great year!

In a couple of days the year 2021 will be over. It seems incredible to me how fast the time passed and how the seasons and months went by so fast that this period is indeed going to end. The covid-19 pandemic continues to present serious problems, particularly with the new Omicron variant, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why this year and last year have passed so quickly: It has been a tug-of-war of hope and despair associated with the desire we all have for this pandemic to end once and for all!

Anyway, since I don't update this blog much lately, I wanted to take this time to write a longer post and remember what are the events that marked this year through a few illustrations. In my opinion these events were the most important of this year:

James Webb Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) developed by NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) was launched on the 25th of December. This telescope will support a broad array of research across the fields of astronomy and cosmology.

Facebook Files

Beginning in September 2021, The Wall Street Journal published "The Facebook Files: A Wall Street Journal Investigation", a series of news reports "based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management." A couple of weeks later the face of this whistleblower materialized in Frances Haugen, a courageous former product manager for the Civic Integrity team, which was in chage to curb misinformation and other threats to election security

It's not news that Social Media has been used for years to spread misinformation. But having an "insider" to document and record the action (or inaction) coming from the senior management of the social giant, was quite a moment.

Tokyo Summer Olympics

A year later than budgeted and with a lot of restrictions associated with it, but finally the summer olympic games took place in tokyo this year. A number of athletes discussed the importance of participating in the games, but also they expressed their frustration for the lack of spectators and the confinement, not able to enjoyone of the most interesting cities in the world!

COVID-19 vaccine rollout

In January started the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, naimly in the industrialized countries, leaving the poorest nations behind). But then the scarcity of this valueable resource became clear, having many nations compiting for the same vaccines.

There was a lot of criticism in particular about the EU, since he pace of the roll-out was quite slow at the start.

Insurrection at the US Capitol

I remember I was working at home in January when those images of people attacking the US congress appeared in my news feeds, so I switched to a live a streamming to check what was going on.

My first thought was "there can't be a coup d'etat in the USA!" ... but they weren't that far off, from everything that has been discovered so far. Democracy can be quite fragile.

PS: All the source pictures used on the illustrations come from wikimedia commons.

Last week when I was leaving work the light was just perfect to take this snapshopt at the EPFL Campus.

Lausanne is a city that can be quite photogenic, and one of my favorite areas for taking photos is the Ouchy area. This area has stunning views of the lake with the alps in the background. A couple of weeks ago I took this photo of the Éole sculpture created by Clelia Bettua in 1995.

I wish you all a very happy year 2021. I hope that this year comes with good health, with vaccinations that will end the pandemia and with a return to that normality where it is possible to travel again.

Last week I went out at lunchtime to do a little walk to the lake that is quite close to my home office setting and although the day was quite cold, the sun reflected on Lake Geneva created a beautiful view that I captured in the photo you can see above.

I have been walking up quite early these days. A couple of days ago I was lucky to get this beautiful and peaceful sunrise.

A couple of days ago we were visiting the old windmill in Swinoujscie and when we were heading back to the car I looked and saw this amazing view of the mill silhouette and the people walking by, while feeling the fresh breeze of summer in our faces. Nice memory.

4 years ago today I was in my a career break travelling in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. This was one of the last countries that visited during my itinerary and I'm completely fell in love. It's in my opinion one of the most beautiful spots in the planet. Additionally, all the people I met over there, were really nice.

It's sad that the country suffered a terror attack last friday, targeting its muslim immigrant community. Fortunately the perpetrator was arrested and the kiwis are doing everything possible to get the punish he deserves without providing any platform to further advance his deregend views.

Update: On the 21st of March the New Zealand goverment announced a ban on the military style semi-automatics and assault rifles. Well done!

Yesterday I noticed the Autumn colors are already here. It's beautiful as you can see in the picture above, but with the crazy weather this year and the temperature going up and down I hardly noticed this season is already here.

This picture was taken in Łańcut, a Polish city in the southeast of the country. The Łańcut Castle in the picture was completed in 1641. The idea was to build a fortified residence to repel an attack from the Swedes.

Today the weather in Berlin was completely bouncing between sunny and rainy, but this created a quite stunning sky that you can observe in this picture.

Today I was coming back from a quick bike sprint to the store to leave some PET bottles and buy a couple of things. When I was about to enter the key to open the garage door, I obseverved this nice nail moving slowly around the edge. Its shell was beautiful so I thought it was worth it to get the phone and shot a picture,

Today I was making a copy of the pictures I shared in twitter a couple of years ago during my career break and when I was reviewing those photos, I remembered this particular shot on a long exposure where a guard stayed only for a brief time creating this cool phantom effect

Yesterday before I boarded the plane, I noticed the sky was just beautiful with an amazing summer sunset. I started to climb the stairs and just before I entered the aircraft I was able to snap this quick shot throught a narrow gap in the door. Sometimes the light, time, station and weather is perfect for a picture like this.

Last night my colleagues joined me in a walk to the city center of Krakow, where I wanted to look for a present at the old city market. There were flocks of tourists in the old town, but on the other hand the weather was quite pleasant so it was nice to walk around.

Did ever tell you the Sky in Berlin can be amazing? Look at here yet another example. When I was about to board a plane a couple of days ago I observed this nice clouds decorating a nice warm summer night.

A couple of days I was walking back to my place in Berlin, look up and saw those nice patterns in the sky that you can observe in the picture above. A couple of times I mentioned in this blog how the Sky in Berlin is one of the highlights of this city.

Beautiful sky in the basel airport

Today the French are voting in their presidential elections and the possibility of having a far right president, who has campaigned against Europe and NATO brings dark clouds to the European horizon. I'm hoping the french people will reject those proposals. Allez le bleus!

Last weekend we had the opportunity to visit the big sur park, a quite beautiful region on California's Central Coast. This region is quite beautiful as you can see in this picture.

It had been awhile but today I had the opportunity to stroll again through nice streets of San Francisco. I really like this city and I'm happy I had the opportunity to visit SFO one time more.

In Berlin you get very frequently the chance to see nice sky worth to take a picture as it was the case today at the office.

Another picture I shot last weekend during a sunny Sunday. In the background you can see Pauluskirche. This Reformed Church in Basel was built between 1898 and 1901, in a Neo-Romanesque architectural style.

Yesterday the weather was quite amazing here in Basel. Spring is definitely here already.

Yesterday when I was working, I recieved a news notification related to a London Attack, where five people were killed and many other were injured after an attacker drove a car along a pavement near to the Parliament. I always enjoyed visiting London and Westmister near to the Thames river is beautiful. As I say when it happened in Berlin: I will keep visiting this amazing city and no terrorist is going to change that.

This morning when I was landing in Berlin I was staring at the window and I realised sometimes I forget how many lakes and water sources there are around Berlin. I shot this picture to remind myself about it.

One of the most interesting parts of the Basel Fasnacht is the big latterns that participate on the parade on Monday morning. On tuesday they were exposed in Munsterplatz and this year there were a lot political motives related to politics and the far right trends. One of the most descriptive ones was this one.

Sometimes you look and the window and the view is so nice that it doesn't look like a normal window but rather as a picture that was presented to you instead. That was the case today.

The last couple of days have been particularly cold in Basel, but a nice gift that you get with those type of days is the Snow. Yesterday I saw this beatiful snowy tree next to the snow on top those leaves.

Finally 2016 is ending. As John Oliver mentioned in the last episode of his last week tonight show, 2016 has been a pretty shitty year. There were so many musical and movie legends passing away (David Bowie, Alan RIckman, Prince, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Carrie FIsher, Debbie Reynolds and George Michael) and Europe experienced terror in many cities including Nice, Istanbul, Brussels and Berlin.

On the other hand the populists and far right anti-immigrant movements gained a lot of traction in Europe and America. The popular vote brought many unexpected outcomes including the Brexit victory despite the Scottish and Northern Irish opposition, the Colombian plebiscite rejection to the peace agreement reached in Cuba and finally the astonishing Trump victory on the electoral college, even though he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots.

The only silver lining of this year was the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Let's hope this doesn't change in 2017 (cough trump), since that will make it a horrible year as well.

This morning I was talking to my father in law and he mentioned he wanted to check out the Synagogue in Basel. I had no idea there was such a building in the city, but I checked online and discovered there is a neo-Byzantine domed structure indeed, originally constructed in 1868 and enlarged in 1892. Above there is a picture of this Synagogue.

This weekend I did a small city break to the Bulgarian capital. On my last day before coming back to Berlin I experienced my first snowing of 2016 and it was quite a big one as you can see on this picture of the Sveta Nedelya cathedral.

We enjoyed the sunny sunday morning by making a quick visit to Freiburg. Last time I visited the city they were restoring this building and the result was great.

Last weekend a colleague of my girlfriend was in town and I was happy to walk with her around the city. During the evening I remembered it was the last day of the Berlin Festival of Lights. During this event the main landmarks of the city are used as canvas for very interesting light displays. Some of the most beautiful ones were at the Humboldt university where I shot the pictures above.

The sky in Berlin is not only amazing in Spring but it can be in Autumn as well. Yesterday a former colleague was visiting the office and when we went up to the terrace I had the chance to see this amazing sky.

I didn't update this blog in the last week because we went with my GF to Tenerife and I decided to leave this computer back home to unplug for a while. We had a really amazing time in the biggest canary Island: The weather was warm but not scorching hot, the landscapes are really nice and quite different across the island, the seafood was so fresh and delicious and finally the people were extremely friendly. It was just great.

So of the highlights of the trip were (besides the stunning Teide you see in the picture above):

1- The nice town of La Otorava:

2- The picturesque town of San Andres where we stayed, and the nearby "Playa de las Teresitas":

3- Walking around in Santa Cruz:

4- The old town of Garachico and its natural rock swimming pools:

A couple of days ago we visited Lindau, a major town and an island on the eastern side of Lake Constance. We stayed at a hotel in the Island that's connected with the mainland by a road-traffic bridge. The current harbour of this island was built in 1856 and the iconic Lion sculpture and lighthouse mark the entrance of this port. An interesting fact is that this lighthouse is the only one in Bavaria!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria and I learned about the interesting history behind this castle. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria, as a refuge from his constitutional monarchy duties, in order to revive his romantic dreams of the medieval king figures. The guide described how the king was deemed insane, he was arrested and died mysteriously. We were discussing yesterday with my GF that insane or not but he brought good fortunes to this region of Germany for sure!.

My old LAMP hosting is about to expire and I’m using that account only to host a travel blog of my career break two years ago called breaksian. This weekend I migrated the contents to a node platform and I took the opportunity to review and publish a post about a week I spend in Ko Lanta, Thailand. Quite an special place.

In the last days I had the fortune to visit Iceland for the first time and I loved the country. The people are very friendly and the landscapes are just stunning. The capital Reykjavik has also very cool atmosphere and it can quite picturesque as you can observe in the picture above taken at the lake Tjörnin with the city hall in the background at the left corner.

Also look at the Geyser blowing off steam every couple of minutes.

And finally the Þingvellir National Park has some beautiful landscapes.

If you have never seen a picture with a soldier like the one in the statue above then you don't know who is the soldier depicted in this piece, then you don't know who is Comrad Schumann. This soldier from the East is one of the first and most famous defectors to West Germany when the border was being built and it was just a line of barbed wire. This is statue is located in a building near Bernauer Straße

A couple of days ago I was walking by the Berliner Dom and I realised I haven't seen the progress of the Humboldt Forum construction in a while. The project is scheduled to finish in 2019 and as I you cans see in this picture it's definitively moving along.

I have walked by the Chapel of Reconciliation in Bernauer St. many times, but yesterday I noticed for the first time the sculpture you see above. It's called Reconciliation and it was created originally by Josefina de Vasconcellos, an english artist of Brazilian ancestry and placed at the University of Bradford. According to wikipedia there are copies of this original work in the ruins of the Coventry Cathedral, the Hiroshima Peace Park and this one here in the Berlin Wall Memorial.

Time really flies by! One year ago I took this picture in Berlin.

The german border in the eastern part with Poland is located in the town of Görlitz that before 1945 it was a single town. This border post shows the end of the country

Last weekend we did a long weekend trip with my girlfriend to the Ticino region of Switzerland, staying in Locarno. I wasn't aware but the Locarno Film Festival was starting this week and part of this event was a preview showing of a movie on Sunday night open to the public.

The organizers decided to honor Bud Spencer, one of the classic italian actors from the 70's in the action-comedy genre who passed away earlier this year. They featured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Call_Me_Trinity", one of the best examples of the "Spaguetti Westerns" target="_blank">Lo chiamavano Trinità. I really enjoyed this movie!. It brought really nice memories since the movies featuring the duo Bud Spencer / Terence Hill were one of my grandpa's favorites.

I have been living in Berlin for more than a year now and last weekend on a sleepless night I setup the site pics.inberl.in to check the different pictures I have been taking in the city. When I was browsing through my collection I found this cool photo I took in my first weeks in Berlin at the Lustgarten. I'm proud of the composition.

In the Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland, relatively close to Basel there is a Benedictine monastery, called Mariastein. Apparently this place is a must for the catholics, but it's also a nice to walk around in the fields as you can see on this picture we took yesterday."

View of the TV Tower from the Strausberger Platz. Nice colors in the sky."

Two days ago. Amazing Coldplay concert in the Olympia Stadium in Berlin.

I was reading on the news that at least 36 people were killed in suicide attack at Istanbul airport. It's pretty sad that this amazing city has been hit by different terrorist attacks this year: the March suicide bombing in Beyoğlu district, the January bombing in the Sultanahmet district and now this attack at the airport. I had the chance to visit the city in 2013 and I loved it.

Last weekend I watched the Ireland / France game in the Tempelhofer Feld (pitty we were so close to beat les bleus!). When I was leaving the place I shot this picture with an interesting composition

It's shocking the UK decided to leave the European Union, but on the other hand Scotland voted clearly in favour of the UK staying in the EU by 62% to 38% - with all 32 council areas backing Remain. Heading towards a new Scottish independence referendum?

As I was mentioning a couple of days ago, the sky in Berlin during springtime is quite amazing!

Backlight is not necessary bad. Sometimes you get really nice silhouette pictures like this one I was able to shot in Birgu, Malta.

The island of Malta is in the middle of the mediterranean sea and it was in the past, a crossroad between Africa and Europe. The history of this place is therefore fascinating!.

The Berlin sky is so photogenic during springtime!

In downtown Basel there is a wall with a mural that shows portraits of rock stars like Janis Joplin, Keith Richert, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, that you can see on this picture.

Yesterday I did I nice bike ride from Berlin to the Wandlitzer lake, located some 30 km north of the capital city. The area is really beautiful as you can see in this picture.

Walking from the Nordbanhoff through Gartenstraße, you arrive to the roundabout in Liesenstraße where there is a hidden but nice remain of the former wall.

The weather is improving in Berlin and the skies are very nice again. This picture was taken in the colorful street of Oderbergerstraße

The Hanseatic League was a confederation setup by different merchant guilds and the market towns where they operated with the purpose of mutual defense and commercial trading. Between 1400–1800 it dominated the trade in the northern coasts of Europe. The German city of Stralsund was one of the most import cities from this confederation.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the city where I took this picture.

Last friday when I went to the airport to catch a flight I was able to capture this nice shot of the Berlin airport with the spring sunlight.

One of the last vestiges of the Berlin Wall in the Topography of terror in Niederkirchnerstraße

Beautiful Sunset in Bornholmer Straße. I love the colors in the Sky. Last year I remember we had many of those spring days with amazing photogenic colors such as this one I was able to see today.

Picture taken in the Görlitzer Park last weekend. It as a sunny and warm Saturday so the people poured to the Cafes and Parks in Berlin!

I was thinking today that one year ago I was flying back to Europe after finishing my 6 months career break travelling in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

I tried to document this experience on the road in: Breaksian.com. I was checking today some the interesting experiences I described there and I found these posts:

Visiting the Angkor Temple Complex by bike

Making new friends in the Jeju Island of Korea by playing the Piano:

Cruising the Halong Bay in a 1906 replica boat

Travelling from Bangkok to Penang in an overnight train:

Experiencing the Portuguese flavor in the Chinese Macau

enjoying the amazing Autumn Colors in Nara

Biking in the isolated Island of Zamami, off of the coast of Okinawa.

Or visiting Taiwan, and understanding the politicial and historical issue regarding China

I was such an amazing experience that I would definitively recommend it to anyone!

Last weekend I visited Dublin for the 100th year anniversary of the Easter Rising, when Ireland started the process to become and independent republic. The city was absolutely packed as you can see in this picture taken at college green.

Interesting picture taken today in the vitra design museum when sun was starting to come down.

Today we were walking along the east side gallery and when we pass by the Oberbaumbrücke, I got this picture of this landmark bridge on a cloudy day.

Time passes really fast!. A year ago I was exploring the beautiful city of Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand. Nice memories from my career break.

This weekend I wanted to do a smal city break and I realised visiting Prague by train was relatively easy (it's only 4.5h by a direct train). I went there, met and chatted with a Czech friend and spend the rest of my visit walking around and taking pictures. One the most interesting ones I was able to get contains a street performer making huge soap bubbles. Here the colorful bubble make a nice contrast with the people staring and walking around.

Last week I provided at work a couple of my pictures for the article The Lowdown on Living and Working in Ireland . One of the pictures I selected was one of my favorite ones. A completely empy O'Connell street in a Monday morning:

I love this picture not only for the beatiful colors in the sky and the nice contrast they do with the shadows of some of the Dublin landmarks (The General Post Office and the Spire), but also because of the strange feeling of seeing one of the busiest spots in Dublin completely empty.

Almost the same picture taken near to Rosentharlerplatz in two different seasons in Berlin.