Melbourne photoos online

Hi there, just uploaded a set of photoos of my trip to Melbourne. Check m out if you like it on Flickr. Details might follow tomorrow...

Back from Melbourne

Hi there! It has been a while and a lot has been going on. University ended two weeks ago and I think everything was handed in succesfully, so I should be fine. Now I need to get started on looking for my graduation project, as all courses have been completed. It is a strange thought.

Just as I was enjoying my sparetime and considering finally backing up my pictures and documents, my computer crashed last week. The thing got stuck in a vicious Windows update loop. It keept booting, configuring 0% and restart - shutting down and again. It could not be persuaded to stop doing this so I has to bring out a linux boot cd to rescue my documents and now I have got a brand new Vista running on a otherwise empty harddisk.


When the Vista ordeal was over I went to Melbourne with Guido, the Italian from across the hallway. We took a cheap night bus to get there and that took 8 misrable hours. Once there Melbourne was pretty pretty cool. It has nice and big centre and exels in shopping, coffee - and wine drinking facilities. We also saw some cool expositions in the ACMI: GAME ON a retrospective on videogame design and the National Gallery of Victoria was showing the works of Alfred Stieglitz and Otto Dix among many other things. I'll try to get some photos and maybe more stories online soon, but now I have to go and check on my laundry. See you soon...

Cardboard house

Ha! Here yet again a story from Sydney. This months posts on my blog are definitely going better than last month. As promised I have been spending a lot of time at university this week and some progress at meeting the deadlines is being made. 1.5 week left to go.

Last Monday I handed in my architecture model which turned out quite nice. It is a cardboard house showing my plan for a pavilion in the park next to the Central station here in Sydney. The pavilion should provide shade and water for visitors and has a small pond in the middle of the structure. I made it like a big wall so it can be used to separate the park from a big road and a nasty looking parking lot. And night it should be illuminated by light coming from the pond. See for yourself below.




The whole thing took the most of the previous weekend to make and is about 110x60x30 cm big. While I was taking it to uni on the bus a guy almost stepped on it. Holy crapola. But in the end all was well and it got me a "high distinction". Which is nice. The grades here in Australia are different, they range from fail, to pass, to credit, to distinction, to high distinction.

Besides that I went to the world press photo on Wednesday, which was awesome and in the evening I watched "the State of Origin", which seems to be the biggest Aussie Rules footy match in the year. It is similar to rugby. New South Wales (where I live) played Queensland (neighbours to the North) and won. Good times. See you again soon!

From the News...

Hi, here again, live from Sydney. I do not read the newspaper much here in Australia, but when I accidentally do there is usually something good. This week I got hold off the Daily Telegraph and I found a bit on the second page which I would like to share with you. And I quote:

"Chair sniffer denies quokka abuse"

"CHAIR-sniffing Liberal leader Troy Buswell says there is "absolutely no substance" to report he once did something inappropriate to a quokka. Mr Buswell, who has admitted to sniffing the chair of a former Liberal Party colleague and snapping the bra of a Labor staffer, was questioned on the rumours yesterday. ... Asked if he had done anything inappropriate to a quokka, Mr Buswell replied: "No". ..."
Taken from the Daily Telegraph, thanks Daily Telegraph, on the 15th of May.

Should you wonder what i quokka is: it is a small furry creature, a bit like a very small kangaroo. They can be considered cute and I do hope nothing inappropriate has happened to any of them. I regret that we do not often have these stories on politics in the newspapers at home.

Besides this there is not much to report from this faraway country right now. I celebrated my birthday with my house last Thursday with pizzas and some drinks. Besides that all I have is a lot of deadlines coming up and I will be spending a lot of time getting them sorted out. After that all will be good again with the winter holidays coming up.

Itinerary update

Today I changed my flight back home. My return to the Netherlands will be a bit later than previously planned. I am staying in Australia for a bit longer, and will go to Malaysia for about two weeks. Because I am not allowed (?! Damn you, Qantas and British Airways) to go to Kuala Lumpur directly, I will be stopping over in Singapore. From there I am planning to take, a hopefully scenic, railway into Malaysia. I will be back in Delft on the 4th of August. My new flight schedule is listed below. So, I will you in a few months...

Sydney - Singapore: Qantas flight QF31 on the 20th of July 16.55, arriving the 20th 22.45

Singapore - London: Qantas flight QF9 on the 3rd of August 23.05, arriving the 4th 5.25

London - Amsterdam: British Midland flight BD105 on the 4th of August 10.4o, arriving the 4th 12.55

Cars Go By...

Hi! I was just playing with my roadtrip photos in this program called "Photoshop". I like the result, as the gray has now gone from my photos. Nice! See you around, maybe.

Goldcoast

Aloha, yesterday I got back from the trip to Sonja's parents. They live in Tweed Heads on the Goldcoast. Sonja wanted to visit for mothersday and Guido, the Italian, and I could come along. In a straight line the trip would have been 650 km, thank you Google Earth, but on the road it comes down to about 850. That's quite a trip.

We left on Friday after lunch and arrived at Tweeds Heads round 01.00 at night. Trip was pretty long, about 12 hours. If you want to compare: from Amsterdam to Berlin would be 570 km, Amsterdam to Paris would be 430. Driving this long in Europe would get you from Amsterdam: either half way through France, or to Switzerland or maybe just to the Czech Republic. Here in Australia it gets you to your parents' house.

The trip was really cool to do though. Not only does it put travel in Europe into perspective, we also got to see a lot of Australia that I had not seen before. We stopped at some beaches and had a nice Subway sandwich. When it got dark we passed the Big Banana and the Big Prawn. Australia makes up what is lacks in culture in two ways: 1) Sports, 2) Making Big "things" and putting dodgy entertainments in them. Or so it seems. Because it was dark I can't show you any photo's of my own, but follow the links to check 'm out.


On Saturday we had some time to spend on the Goldcoast. In the morning we went to the beach and after that we went for lunch twice. Nice. After that we went up the coast stopping at some nice beaches and enjoying the weather. It is always nice and warm on the Goldcoast. We went up to Surfers Paradise, which was a bit of a let down. It consist of mostly big and nasty flats on the beach and a massive mall. When we got back we went for dinner with Sonja's parents, which was good.


Sunday we had to go back to Sydney, but went shopping first. We went to a Australian mall outside of the town. While Sonja was being outfitted by her mum, I got myself a new pair of trousers, a pair of new Hawaianas and a new wallet. I am quite happy about that. On our way back we stopped at Byron Bay where there were no whales about, but we did see some kangaroos in the sunset later on. We arrived at home in Leichhardt at 1.30. Quite the trip, for some pictures go to my Flickr site by clicking here.