I'm still alive

Been a while since the last post, I was busy and had no time to post but here is an update of the last 4 weeks.

After Sydney I got back to Brisbane, for my last week and then I found my way to the Outback.
Did a 3 day roundtrip from Alice Springs to se Uluru and all the rest. This is magnificent and a must see in Australia. As it was quite warm during the nights and days (25-45°C) we just camped outside. Pretty nice.

The next stop after this trip was Melbourne. Even though I stayed in Melbourne I spend the first two days on the road. The first day I made a trip along the Great Ocean Road, which is very different from the Outback, but still amazing, you can see rainforests, cliffs, wild Koalas and much more. On the next day I was on Phillip Island to enjoy the nature there. The best part about this trip is the Penguin landing in the evening. By dawn loads of Penguins get to the beach and walk up to their nests, very cute.

So much about the trips, Melbourne itself is a nice place with an uncountable number of coffee shops, nice architecture and excellent food. Besides doing sightseeing I also got myself a ticket for the Australian Open. Good venue, can recommend to go there, the only minus it's overpriced.

Melbourne was my last stop in Australia and it was time to go back to Europe, but not in a single journey I stopped over in Singapore.
This is a very interesting place to visit, besides all those little quarters to see, like Chinatown and Little India, Singapore also offers a humongous amount of awesome and cheap food places. One can easily get a complete lunch or dinner for 3-5 Euros, freshly made. Besides the city centre one can also visit beaches, amusement parks and the rainforest, so there is a lot to do.

Next stop after Singapore was Germany, where I stayed for about a week and then I moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where I will be until June/July. Next updates from here will follow soon!!

There it goes

The last week, which was also my last week at work for this year, has been more or less without anything special happening.
I took the Friday of and went to Gold Coast... quite nice and worth to see it once, especially when there is something going on, otherwise it's just another beach. And there are better ones to visit then this, especially due to the fact, that the beach is covered in the skyscrapers shadows after 4pm... Who had that brilliant idea?
To sum it up, Gold Coast seems to be more like a little Santa Monica or Venice Beach, but much smaller and less exciting.

Yesterday I've attended one more match of Brisbane Roar, this time against Central Coast and Brisbane lost 2:1. This is also another record for Roar. The other game I watched was the record for the longest winning streak in Australian sports history, but since then, they lost every match and with last nights' they leveled the teams record for most consecutive losses in history. Well, not sure if that is a record you want to break...

Anyways, my luggage is ready, cause tomorrow I'll be flying to Tasmania, where I'll spend the next week and thereafter it's time to go to Sydney for New Years!

Becoming History

On Saturday I was at the right spot and right time, as I was attending a soccer-match. That doesn't sound too exciting, but it was an historic match. Brisbane Roar won 4-0 against Perth Glory and thereby extended its unbeaten streak to 36 matches in a row. No team in history in ANY Australian sport was able to achieve this before. The old record was set by a cricket team 74 years ago.

The match itself, was entertaining, at least the first half, which included all the goals. The second one was more or less boring. Well, happens. Therefore the weather was given us a show, we picked the completely wrong day to watch a soccer match, the only day in November with rain. At least it is so warm outside that one dries up quickly.

On Sunday I've paid the Gallery of Modern Art a visit. This is a much better than expected venue, some very interesting 'things' are on display there. What I very much like about museums in Australia, like in Britain, they are for free. That's quite a good argument to go there in my eyes...

Yeah, that was about the weekend and now another exciting week of work has started...

Better Option?

Sunday noon... 30°C... sunny... and I'm sitting inside and study/correct assignments... because the original plan for today, to watch koalas and feed kangaroos, was cancelled at midnight... I think I found an equally awesome alternative, haven't I?

At least yesterday I got out of here and went to the horse racing... but couldn't really bet anything, as most of my horses got scratched... lucky me, so I haven't lost anything either. Still there was something to do at the track, as this race day was sponsored by the Brisbane Tennis International. Hence there were lots of kids' activities, like ping pong and other stuff, but also some fun things to do for me. Like a place where you can measure your service speed. Well sounded fun, so I did that. What I didn't know, the girl who asked me to do that, was a tennis player. Resulting in, my fastest serve was 126km/h, while her fastest serve was 140km/h. One could think that I was at least close, BUT she was playing in a dress gown and high heels, while I was properly clothed. That's what I call a big defeat. Nevertheless, was still fun and totally unexpected, so we had a laugh. At least I was better than two guys trying to hit on her, by showing their tennis skills... which included missing the ball and the target. The target was an area of about 10m² and the serving distance was about 7 meters... That's what I call a big fail! Not even their designer clothes were making up for their lack of skills ;-)

There is no Burger King

Right, there is no Burger King Australia. You can find every well known Fast-Food-Franchise here, but not Burger King, just Hungry Jacks, as you can see from the picture. Why is that?
Well easy to explain, when Burger King wanted to open their first restaurants in Australia, they couldn't use the original name, as it was already taken by a joint in Adelaide. So they chose another trademark they own. Hungry Jacks was born. A more detailed story on that can be read here.


The one you can see in the picture is one of the best known places in town... not because of the food, obviously, no, it is best known as it is very central and a famous meeting spot.

Nothing especially worth talking about happened the last days. Well, internet was broken for a couple of days at home, as a thunderstorm killed it. After that was restored it broke at my work... so 'working' was more or less impossible.

On the weekend, there wasn't much to do, as that was when the thunderstorm happened... pictures can be seen here. Sunday I went to see the Rugby-Worldcup-Semifinal between Australia and New Zealand. As New Zealand won, the mood wasn't that good, nevertheless, still interesting for me to watch, as you would experience something like that in Germany.

That's about it from the last days, updates will follow when more exciting things are happening here.

Soccer choreography

I came across some very good and funny goal celebrations by a soccer club from Iceland, Starjan FC. First of all, there is the angler catching a fish. Then there is the human bicycle and the depiction of giving birth. But the most hilarious one might the one of a toilet. Sorry, for the sound, but the vids are in German.

As a bonus here is another one from England, the Boxer.

So much about this, now I will go back to plan the upcoming weeks. Some exciting journeys across Europe are about to come up. More about this will follow soon!

Too Slow

Yesterday, it was time for the second, and maybe last, run this summer. Again 10km but to make it a bit more challenging, the track included 8 hills. Here is a picture from the start, can you find me? Again a fun run, but I'm still a bit slow. I finished after 49:20 minutes, not too bad, keeping in mind that the track was quite difficult, maybe I can do better next year... we'll see.
Here is my Finisher-Photo, unfortunately not the best one and out of focus.Beside some sport there's still not much going on, I'm basically studying; not fun at all...
Luckily the World Cup is starting tomorrow. At least there is something on TV then. It is unbelievable how bad the programme got in the year I was abroad. Not that it was any good before I left, but this is even worse. I have never thought that this was possible... Just stupid reality-shows like Big Brother, Pop Idol, etc... So basically I got the choice right now, between my books and taking a break and watching crap... I kinda dislike both...

What's going on?

Well not that much... I'm basically studying at the moment. But as the weather is quite nice right now, I've been out every night meeting some friends. We are mostly hanging out outside at the beach or nearby. Yeah right, BEACH, we got a beach a couple of minutes away, quite nice. But not only a beach keeps the city feeling away. Last night I saw some deer and a fox. It's true, it sounds more like I'm living somewhere in a forest, than in a one million population city...
On Wednesday I was competing in a 10km run with a friend. Finish time was 48:05, not too bad, keeping in mind I wasn't taking part in any competition for about 2 years. The run was a 'Night run' with a quite nice route, along the river Rhine, through a park and back along the river to where we started.
I'm still missing the burgh and feel like being at the wrong place, where I don't really wanna be, hopefully that is getting better with time...