1668575834,20 cm

Aloha! I have just calculated that I am now 1668575834,20 cm away from home using Google earth. Quite amazing. It is quite some distance and quite impresive that I now know how many cm's (cm's!) + 2 decimals (2!) I am away my house in the Netherlands. Door to door even. I used to think is was further, 20000 km, so I just received a 3300 km discount.
This morning I have been rowing in a boat, at LRC (Leichhardt Rowing Club). I was nice to be out there again and a lot better than the rowing machine I used yesterday. I am happy that I did not see any sharks, but I did see some jelly fish, which I also do not like. After that I have been to school and when that was done I took a look at Glebe.
Glebe is a nice and green neighbourhood which I pass everyday going to uni. Today a took some time to ride down Glebe point road to the waterside. There are a lot of tearooms and organic food stores it seems, and the mood was nice. The waterside had a nice park and a great view. Only too bad that it was raining, but the rain does make me feel more at home somehow.
I also dropped by my favorite motorbike and bicycle store: Deus ex Machina. They've got a very cool collection on classic and custom build motorbikes and do some extremely nice custom bicycles as well. Check m out: here.

LRC

Hi, I decided that I would try to write a little more often and a little shorter. So here is an update. Generally I am still fine, but I have seem to have caught a cold Easter was a bit slow, now the house is getting full again as everyone returns from their parents, which is nice.
To battle the cold I have some throaties. See also the picture below.



The packaging looks awesome, as you can see. Al least I think so. But the taste, is a bit awkward. The butter menthol ones are pretty okay, in awkward, slightly addictive way, but the throaties are bad. But luckily you are only allowed three boxes (!) a day. Also interesting to note is the -ies extension, which is an Australian way of shortening words. This can be used in several ways such as sunnies (sunglasses) or shorties (shorts, although it is not shorter).

Besides al this I have been rowing on the ergometer for the first time today. 2 x 20 minutes. It was not easy, but I made it. I hope to start working out on a daily basis from now. I will try to get some pictures of the club soon and I will upload them, as well as some other pictures, as soon as I can presuade flickr to give me a pro account.

Whats going on in Sydney?

Aloha! Sorry about the lack of posts lately. If you were wondering: I am still alive, posting just was not on my mind. Just did not feel like it. The previous weekend it was a bit down, because everything here in Australia just seems too go so slow. Long waits for reply’s, long waits at traffic lights, long waits for trains, long waits in the supermarket, long waits for everything. Aaaargh. Also, UTS rowing club told me after three weeks of trying to reach them that there was no rowing for me, school was still boring and I got an email from university the course I wanted to change could not be changed. Crap.

But I have been feeling a lot better since Monday morning. As the introductions for everything are over University seems to be getting more interesting, I contacted another rowing club and have put in a new e-request to change my course. Things seem to be going somewhere again and I have found some peace with the laid-back Australian attitude. It takes some getting used to. Long waits at traffic lights, long waits for trains, long waits, long waits; No worries mate.

The weather has been great. The Monday (Architecture) and Tuesday (Maya) classes were good, and I tried an extra course, Design for Theatre, which seems nice. And on Wednesday the class I wanted to change got a little better, which was good because on Thursday my e-request got rejected again. We also tried to go surfing on Thursday, but because the surf school was fully booked, we have to wait, yet again, until next Thursday. So we spend the day on the beach and going to a party.

On Saturday I went to take a look at the Australian National Rowing Championships on the Sydney 2000 Olympic race course. The race course is really cool with 9 lines, and lies sheltered against the mountains. Next to the race course is a warm up lake. Nice. The Nationals are a bit different then in the Netherlands, because they’re spread out over the entire week so athletes can compete in all boat types. What was also very cool was that every club had brought their own tent, which gave the spectator area a cheerful look. Today I had an appointment at Leichhardt Rowing Club to see what they are doing. It is a civilian club, it is not so big but it seemed nice. Maybe a bit expdensive. I am going to give it a try next Tuesday. At 5.15 am.

Pictures will follow when internet is a little faster then today. Cheers!

Sydney, the second day.

Aloha! Today the second day. I slept really well tonight, when I woke up it was already past noon. After breakfast I went to running and found out that it was raining, and raining good. My first plan was to go to the beach today, but because of the rain I decided not to.

Instead I tried to find the UTS rowing club today. When I got to the train station the train were not running so I walked. It is quite some distance to the rowing club, about 10km, but the walk was good. From my hostel you go thought the city centre, past the university and then you follow Parramatta road. This is a long road all the way through town from east to west. It has a strange combination of buildings on it: houses, stores, factories and collapsing things. At some point I had to take a right towards the bay. That road took my through a living neighbourhood with small houses that all had verandas and nice well kept gardens. At the end of that there was the bay and the rowing club.

Oddly enough there was nobody rowing at the club when I arrived. On top of the club was a some sort of bar where I went to take a look. Inside I found many middle aged men drinking large quantities of beer. As this was not what I was expecting I decided to ask the lady behind the bar. She told me that the rowers were not in at the moment, and told me maybe to come back on Monday. So, more on that some other time.