Summer is coming... it is time to DETOX

A few months ago, my boyfriend wanted to embark on a detox cure, trying to include more alkaline food in our meals. Well, I did not know anything at all about this. I just knew that at this point of time, I was not quite fitting in my favorite clothes and with summer ahead of us my diets were certainly not the healthiest I could boast of. So I thought, Why not? Let's try!

The cure duration lasted one month. And it was so liberating, I lost seven kilos, I feel so much better now. This must sound hippy, MY BODY IS GREATFULL TO ME! And I get to do new shopping again, because well all my clothes are now too big :) 

We followed a program from a German website.

http://www.zentrum-der-gesundheit.de/basische-rezepte.html

Based on my experience, I will share with you a few lessons.

1. No Bread No Diary Products.... No Cheese

YES, you heard no cheese, no bread. For me, a French girl, this was (and is) the hardest. I was a cheese junky. No diary means no yogurt, no milk, and no butter... Now I am eating cheese again... like a normal person.

The Ersatz: for yogurt, you may, from time-to-time, try Soya Yogurt. It is very tasty. To cook, use plant-based oil, such a coconut oil.

2. No Coffee, No Black Tea, No Soda

These drinks are full of acids, which is not ideal for your body. When you feel sleepy, what you need is either vitamins or a nap. The first few days of detox may be challenging because you are addicted to these beverages and everyone around you drinks them.

The Ersatz: green tea, jasmine tea, herbal tea, and my favorite ginger and lemon in hot water

3. Breakfast

Start with Millet, buckwheat, and cereal-based “seeds porridge”. Warning:  It’s not going to be love at first bite. I usually add a fruit to give it more taste. Then, I take a ginger/lemon infusion. 

4. Lunch and Dinner

One of them needs to be 100% veggie: soup, salad, cooked veggies. Whatever you like! –as long as they are veggies. No meat/fish for all your meals; once or twice a week should be more than enough; you don’t need to be a vegetarian to do a detox.

For the other meal, I would follow one of the recipes from this website.

http://www.zentrum-der-gesundheit.de/basische-rezepte.html

[Apologies, it is in German]

Tip:  Just cook chez vous. Avoid pre-cooked meals, burgers, ready-made sauces etc. Cook what you like and do it from scratch with organic products. Simply by doing, you are removing conservatives and unhealthy stuff that exists in those products.

5. What about snacks?

Of course, you may snack, and when you do: have a fruit (ex: apple), or nuts! No worries. You won't get nut! And once in a while why not a little bit of super dark chocolate?

6. Alcohol?

Since month without cheese is hard enough, a month without alcohol would be torture. I did have some wine in the weekend. It is up to you. If you want to do it hardcore, No alcohol.

Ready? Go for it! You won't regret - just take your time, plan for the start of an interesting detox experience and CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

5 things to do in the rainy Bremen

I have to apologize, I haven't writen a post for ages. I don't want to look for excuses, but... Ok, I've found one excuse! It's been raining sooooo much in Bremen!!! How is the expression in English? It's been raining cats and dogs! and mice, and tigers, and elephants! and I'm not one of those who say (with a cheesy voice): "Oh, I love it when it rains and I'm at home with a hot tee and a warm blanket and I see raining through the window... so romantic...." NOPE!!!! When I see it's raining outside I just feel like crying and yelling because I think of all the awesome activities I could be doing if it was sunny and warm!!!! I hate everyone and everything on TV, I want to eat anything I don't have in the fridge, so I must go outside to buy it, I feel ugly and fat, and sad, and angry, and and and.... you know what I mean, right?

So I could only think of depressive topics for the blog like: 10 reasons why not to come to Bremen, the trendiest rain boots spring/summer 2014... and then Emma showed me her amazing and colourful post about the favelas in Rio, and I decided to wait a couple of days until it stops raining, so I could feel a little bit more optimistic. And of course it hasn't stopped raining. But the clouds have given me a break today (10min?) and I would like to give some ideas of what to do if the weather is so disgusting as it was the last days here, and how to forget the rain outside. In my case, I don't feel like doing sport, or cleaning up my apartment, or doing my taxes but:

1. Go to a sauna-spa with your girlfriends. I did it last Friday after work, and it was an awesome idea!! It was warm, fun, we chated, we laughed (I guess we aren't used to nudist spas yet... ;) )

It doesn't seem it's rainy outside, does it? 

2. Meet your friends to plan a trip to a sunny country. The way to the cafeteria/restaurant/apartment where you meet will be rainy, but you will forget about it once you start planning and choosing the bikini you're going to wear in a couple of weeks!

3. Organize a wine & cheese event at your place. Everybody loves wine and cheese, it will start early in the evening and you will have a great time with no need of discos, expensive restaurants and fancy cocktails. And it's at your place, so no need to move!

4. Go buy ingredients and bake cakes the whole weekend!!! Sweets make people happier, and you can go for dark chocolate and light quark if you want to reduce calories.

5. Make some online shopping! If I would go shopping personally, I would get depressed because I would think nothing suits me and my mood would get worse, but if you buy online, you will see pretty clothes on pretty girls in sunny environments, and you just have to click and wait at your place!

My flatmate Eva makes everything much easier for me, since we can get angry together when it rains, and she loves saunas, sun, wine, cheese, healthy cakes and online shopping! And she gave me the idea for this post! And since rain makes me a little bit emotional, I share a pic of her because she's awesome :)

Another look on the Favelas of Rio

For my holidays I went to visit my family in Rio Brazil. Of course I went on the beach of Ipabena and Copacaban and saw the Corco covado (you know the big jesus that you see on all the pictures). What touched me at most was the visit in some Favelas. In this article, I will write what I learned about the favelas during my visits.

What is a favela?
Favelas is a term for slum in Brazil. It was supposed to be temporary habitations for soliders and now families have been living there since generations. What defines them is that constructions are not made by a plan, follow no influence of the state. Inhabitants left on the side of societies had to organize hemselves to get some road build, get electricity and water. The community feeling is very strong in theses places.

Favelas have a very bad reputation, known for their drugs dealers and violence as in the movie, the city of gods:

If this is still true it is not the case in all favelas. Their inhabitants are human beings. I invite you to watch the movie 5x Favelas. The trailer is in protuguese, but if you get the DVD you will appreciate those 5 short stories giving another side of the life in the favelas.

As a preparation to the world cup and olympic game, some favelas are being "pacified". This means that the police comes and install some policemen in the favelas. The people are being told a week in advance so that "caids" go away ... or just stay quiet. The pacification police unite then will settle in the favela. Different projects are then done to bring in infrastructure, education and culture.

Graffiti in the favelas:
I visited two favelas with a lot of graffitis, Prazeres and Vidigal. In the favela of Prazeres, a project supported by a local NGO, organised to have grafters from all over the world to redecorate the favela. There are two goals:
-Make the living of the inhabitants better
-Enhance local economy and tourism by getting visitors to see the graffiti. We did the tour accompanied by Young people linking there.

Here, you can see some pictures I took. Enjoy the art and the view!

Garden View from Prazeres

Graffiti in Prazeres

Graffiti in Prazeres

Graffiti in Prazeres

Graffiti in Prazeres

Graffiti in Prazeres

View on the favela of Vidigal

Graffiti in Vidigal

Graffiti in Vidigal

Graffiti in Vidigal

Graffiti in Vidigal

And there are a lot more to say. So if you visit Rio, get off the beaten tracks!

How to organise an Unconference : from the idea to the day it really happened.

During the last years, I travelled to conference in South Africa, in Italy, spend a few weeks in Strasbourg to meet my fellow space enthusiast and share innovative ideas and views on the Space Industry. One day, while flying back tired from the travels and the fight to get the fundings, I thought : I have in Bremen plenty of people that are working on exciting them with which I would like to share ideas.

I saw on the internet the Space Up concept popping up abroad, Paris, Belgium, New Zealand. To know what is a Space Unconference please see my article. I knew this format would be awesome. And this happened on April 11-12th. 

What are the important steps to start?

1. Get a team with motivated and independent people
2. Make the website and flyers as soon as possible
3. Get some sponsors and make them commit to the event (Let them pay! otherwise they can say no, and your are in trouble)
4. Find a place to accommodate your event with enough rooms and light
5. Organise a cool DJ that will rock your breaks
6. Choose the catering. If people eat well, they will be happy. Happy participants is important for an happy event!
7. The whatsapp group for the organisers save your life during the event
8. Communicate with to have new participants, to connect with them
9. Find some cool keynotespeakers (see below our astronauts Reinhold Ewald)

Lessons learned:

1. Make people pay so they can commit.

I wanted to have a free event so everyone can join whatever the back-ground. However, we had a full event and refused some people, which was a pitty because 20-30% of the people did not show up or just stayed an hour or a day...

2. Dealing with the budget is not that easy

It takes some time. So maybe dedicate one person to do this job.

3. It is important to push the participants to participate 

Even if the event has no rules, the participants have to be the conference, it is important to explain to the people the concept, give them the confidence to be on stage, propose some subject, get prepared to different topics.

What next?

1. Help the new team to make Space Up Bremen 2015 even better
2. Try to apply this format of conference to other areas
3. Get people over 35 to participate

Lucie's 4-month adventure on Mars

I hope you are all enjoying your Easter holiday! Sometimes it's difficult to find some time to write a post when you are so busy visiting family and friends or sun bathing under the Spanish sun with a beer on your hand (the sunlight makes it impossible to look at the laptop screen...). Emma has also been busy getting ready for her trip to Brazil (yes, we all hate her!) (no, not true, we all love you, Emma!). Anyway, I've looked through the window this morning and I've seen it's raining (it sometimes rains in Spain), so it's time to write a post about my very good friend and colleague Lucie, who is spending Easter in a very different way: she's on Mars!

She is also an aerospace engineer and she couldn't wait until the next European Astronaut Selection. She wanted to know what it feels like to be on Mars with a crew, a habitat, freeze-dried food, an unknown desert around and complete isolation. Thus, she has joined the HI-SEAS mission in Hawaii. Yes, how cool, Hawaii! But remember I said habitat, astronaut food and isolation. And desert, not beach! And I forgot to say that every time she goes out from the habitat she has to wear a space suit, no bikini!

Habitat on a volcano in Hawaii

 

HI-SEAS crew

 

She will spend 4 months in a closed habitat doing space-related research with 5 other space enthusiasts. Life there is an experiment itself and it's one of the "almost-on-Mars" experiences you can have nowadays. And this is not the first time she does something like this! If you are willing to know more about this mission, or you want to see more pics of lucie with a space suit, have a look at her blog, 100% recommended! And you don't have to be a space freak to read it!

We miss you, Lucie!!!

European Elections 2014: how to vote if you are living abroad

I'm sure you've all read the post about the coming European elections on the 22nd - 25th May. Some of you have asked how to vote if you are living abroad, and I realized I have the same question! Every time there is an election you have to get informed about when, where and how you get the proper documentation and until when you have time to send your vote.

You may already know that I love tables and structured information, so I've prepared a summary for the French and Spanish people living in Germany.

1. If you also live abroad and want to know more, you can find useful information here:

http://www.europeansabroadvote2014.eu/

2. and these are the websites where you can find specific information about your country (you will probably have to contact them at some point):

http://www.botschaft-frankreich.de/
http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Portal/es/Paginas/inicio.aspx

3. Or you can decide to register in your city to vote where you live. For example, in Bremen we received a letter. If you live in Germany, are a european citizen and you want to vote there, you have to register before Mai 4th. The good thing in Germany is that you can vote with a letter.  So no worries if you have plans for this week-end. You will still be able to fulfil your citizen duty. No excuses.
I am doing it for the first time as well, so I will let you know how it goes.

http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/europawahlen/EU_BUND_14/unionsbuerger
http://www.bmi.bund.de/europeans-vote-in-germany/ (information available in several languages)


We are now all registered to vote. The next step. Who are you going to vote for?

What are Chia seeds and why you should add them to your diet?

Some months ago I set myself the goal of eating healthier. You can call it hobby, or call it obsession, but I love finding new foods to add superhealthy nutrients to my diet. You have seen my posts about the BIO obsession, and I also explained my first (and last) bad experience with ginger (we are friends again). My last discovery are the chia seeds. I've been adding them to some of my meals and a lot of people asked me what are these black disgusting grains. I thought it was time to write a post about this amazing food!

Health benefits of chia seeds:
- source of omega 3 (helps to reduce bad cholesterol)
- protein
- fiber
- satiating effects
- antioxidants (against free radicals, aging and cancer)
- calcium (good for your bones and teeth!)
- potassium
- magnesium
- manganese
- phosphorous
- stabilizing effect on blood sugar (insulin level regulation)

But (!):
- it's extremely expensive (13euro per 450g in the BIO shop, no kidding)
- it has almost no taste (in my opinion)
- you shouldn't eat more than 28grams a day (too much fiber can harm your stomach)

Ideas to include chia seeds in your meals:
- mix it with cereal
- make healthy pancakes (with one banana, one egg, one teaspoon chia seeds)
- add some to your salads
- egg substitute for baking (1tbs chia seeds and 3 tbs water and let sit for 15 min) (I've never tasted it, but I will and I will post it!)
- add some seeds to your milkshakes