Fancy BBQ

On Sunday night we went to a friend’s place for a BBQ. They are currently house sitting for some other people. So they are living in this really fancy area in a 2 story villa with great view over the city and river. And even better they have a big swimming + pool boy who checks the pool, a gardener who checks the garden and reticulation and a cleaner comes in every two weeks. And this is all for free!! I think they scored really well there!

Red Bull Air Race – copyright

I just had to remove the video I recorded from the Red Bull Air Race in Perth last November and I am sorry if I have infringed any copyrights. I am just wondering why all the other videos from the same event are still on the net…



... alright, the other videos have been taken out as well.

My new bike!

Don’t know whether I mentioned already, that Ian loves race bikes. His best bike is even sleeping in our living room :-) He also had this big box full of ‘old’ spare parts. And from this box he reassembled a whole new bike for me :-)
So on Saturday I went for my first big tour on this bike. We went around the river – from Fremantle to the city, across the bridge and back on the other side of the river, 40km in total. I quite enjoyed the ride because you can go much faster on a race bike then you would on a “normal” bike. But afterwards I had a really sore neck! I am just not used to the saddle being higher than the handlebars :-)

Japanese Night

We went to this great Japanese night on Friday at a friend’s place. Everyone had to bring a Japanese dish and everything was decorated very authentically :-) We brought Sushi. I actually planned to make sushi myself – I did it before and it was quite good :-) – but unfortunately there was not enough time and so we ended up buying it.
It was a really nice evening with lots of yummy food!! Unfortunately I can’t remember the names of the dishes but my favourite was this wok thing. They had this cute little mini-outdoor-wok in which soy sauce was heated up. In that everyone had to added more ingredients (sliced beef, all sorts of mushrooms, noodles, cabbage,…) – let it cook for 1-2 min. – ready! Was great fun!

University surplus??!!

“Curtin has recorded an operating surplus of between $70-80 million …
… Thank you to all staff for their contribution. …”
http://www.ovc.curtin.edu/notetostaff/2007/070205notetostaff.html
I still have to get used to the system of universities as profit-making companies.

Construction Work

Just in front of our house they are doing some construction work at the moment. Last week I had to take the “race track” across a little sand hill with my scooter in order to get to uni.
But on the weekend some kiddies rearranged the orange traffic cones – I quite like it, kind of modern art ;-)

Swim Cancelled

As we suspected already the swim was cancelled on Saturday morning. And I reckon it was a good decision – the weather was really crap and it wouldn’t have been much fun. Many people were disappointed but after the swim was already nearly cancelled last year and Ian and his mates still remember this very tough 7h race, I think they were glad that they didn’t need to do this again in similar conditions.
And so we enjoyed a very relaxing weekend on the island. I just love Rotto!! Just sitting in a café, reading a book or enjoying the beach – its great :-)

Rottnest Channel Swim 2007

We just came back from the big team meeting for the Rottnest Channel Swim 2007. Like in the past 2 years Ian and 3 other mates are going to swim from the beach in Cottesloe to Rottnest Island - 20km (5km each).
And we again made fantastic team shirts!! Their team name this year is “Strictly Ballroom” – yeah just like the movie but in the context of swimming it means something totally different ;-)
But unlike the last years the weather forecast for the upcoming Saturday looks pretty crap – strong westerly winds and up to 3m swell. It is rumoured already that the swim might be cancelled but we won’t know until the very last minute on Saturday early morning…

Happy Valentines Day :-)
http://www.adrianlafond.com/?page=bugorgy

Annoying cold

I do have one of those annoying colds! Jet lag, 30C temperature difference, 8h time difference, a crap flight… are some possible reasons for it.
I feel too good to stay in bed but too bad to work - really annoying!! So I walk around the house and don’t know what to do! Don’t wanna stay in bed – too boring, can’t work… So I ended up going for a walk along the river, sat outside in the courtyard reading a book and just enjoyed the lovely weather :-)

The photo of Australia Day that I posted the other day (here) is actually from Antii Kemmainen and you can also find it in the astronomy picture of the day (here). I just found this out because the photo was also mentioned in Ehrensenf.

Warm welcome

I was crazy enough to go to uni on Wednesday after I arrived Tuesday night. I didn’t want to work I just wanted to say hello. And so I spent the whole day chatting, listening to the newest gossip and distributing good German chocolate :-) It is good to be back and nothing really changed.

Back in Perth

A friend asked me whether I missed Perth… well I didn’t quite miss it because I was busy visiting friends and spending time with my family but I must say that I am happy to be back in Perth :-)
I really enjoyed the first part of my trip. I met a man on the train who was on his way to Moscow and told incredible stories about the live there; I flew business class from Frankfurt to Dubai (I could use the many miles I collected already to upgrade) and could therefore enjoy the Emirates Lounge in Frankfurt.
But after I was spoilt with that I flew economy class from Dubai to Perth (10h) and it was horrible – a fully booked plan, half young parents and their babies and half old grannies. I couldn’t sleep and they had only crap movies. Anyway I made it ;-) but I am still suffering from pretty bad jet lag.

I hate saying goodbye!

I love coming back home but I hate to say goodbye. I don’t like to see the sad faces of my grandparents when they are nearly weeping. But I am glad that my parents are getting more and more relaxed about the whole thing. Of course they are still very sad when I have to leave especially because we won’t see each other again before Christmas. But somehow it feels like my home town and Perth are like two neighbouring cities. And it takes just about 24h to travel between those two worlds, it is not far at all ;-)

Mum’s birthday

The reason for staying in Germany until the beginning of February was the 50^th birthday of my mum. And so we started to celebrate her birthday last Saturday in a nice little restaurant close to where we live. What I really liked about this location was the bowling center next door. So we all played a couple of games men against women and had lots of fun. They also had a pool table and my granddad really surprised me with his billiard skills – apparently he never played before…

Australia Day and comet McNaught

Australia Day is celebrated on the 26^th of January, the day the first fleet arrived in (what is today) Sydney 1788. Unfortunately I couldn’t celebrate it on the beach in Perth this year because I am still in Germany.
And a friend just sent me this beautiful picture of this year Australia Day. The picture was taken north of Perth north of Hillary's Marina and if you have a closer look in the middle you can even see the comet McNaught!