Package Insert (Packungsbeilage)

I had to take antibiotics lately - which is also my excuse for not having done any sports for the last 2 weeks :-) ... but this is going to change! Anyway, when I got the package from the pharmacy it contained only the tablets - nothing else.
In Germany I am used to a package insert that is about 1m in length and printed on both sides in font size 6 or so. It tells you everything you may want to know and everything about things like side effects that you probably don't want to know. I mean I am not really keen on knowing what could probably happen to 0.001% of the people taking the medicine, but I would like to know whether there are any contraindications or whether it reacts with other medications, the recommended dose, what about alcohol, pregnancy, what to do if I have taken too much, ... In case I need to know these things I know where I can find the answer. But with these antibiotics from the pharmacy here - nothing at all. The only useful thing written on the package itself was the used by date.

First BBQ of the season

Summer is definitely on its way! And because it was also the Australian rules football grand final we went to our first outside BBQ for this season. I think we both were more interested in the BBQ than in the football game :-) We really enjoyed sitting outside in the garden and eating salads and fish straight from the BBQ *yum*
But the game was also good to watch. Geelong won the final (again after 44-years) against Port Adelaide. The final score was 163 to 44. This equals a soccer score of, say, 5 : 0, and this is in a grand final!! What an embarrassment! :-)

Nerd night vs Girls night out

Once in a while, maybe every couple of months or so, the boys (Ian and his friends) get together for a nerd night. This means: about a dozen nerds and their computers, plenty of pizza and beer and one of their favourite shooter game (I think this time they chose Alien vs. Predator). So whenever this happens I am very happy to have a girls night out at the same time because I am so NOT in to shooter games!!
So this time we went to see a chick flick in the cinema - Hairspray. Once I got used to the singing - I didn't actually realise before that is was a musical - the movie was quite funny. Especially John Travolta dressed as a big chubby mother was hilarious!!

Build on Sand

My university, i.e. the whole campus, seams to be literally build on sand. There are several construction sites on campus ...because the A$80 million surplus needs to be spent on buildings rather than on competent lectures... anyway...
Where ever they dig a hole they just excavate sand. I actually find this quite funny because I am used to dark thick soil back home and not to this fine yellow sand perfect for a sandpit. But I guess they are used to this here and developed special construction techniques to handle the sandy subsurface and I don't need to be afraid of buildings collapsing because of quicksand :-)

Stardust

We've been to the movies last night and watched Stardust. It is really good movie and I highly recommand it - a fairy tale full of romance, laughter, fun and a very good cast.
My favourite quote: In the movie the fallen star Yvaine declares her love to Tristan. This was soooo romantic :-)

"You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan is... I think I love you. Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no fits. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine. "

Snail Killer

I need one!! Someone / something that can kill most of the snails on our garden. Usually I respect every little creature on our planet and don't mind then living in our garden. But not if there are hundreds of them, in case of snails!
We tried the beer trap - didn't work.
We tried chemical warfare - only minor success.
Now I am trying to reduce their numbers by hand picking them, which is quite laborious. But nearly every second day I get about half a jar full of them!!! And our garden isn't very big!!! But then what do do with a jar full of snails?! Google helped and apparently the most humane method is pouring hot water on them - which kills them very quickly supposedly. Anyway, so I am picking away and boiling water until I found a better solution or until the hot dry summer finally arrives.

Flipside Burgers

We live in North Freo and luckily there are quite a few good restaurants / fast food places just in walking distance. There is ...
+ our favourite Pizza Palace with the best pizza outside of Italy :-)
+ Harvest Road - a great place to have breakfast and to start the weekend
+ a couple of fine dining restaurants along George Street namely George Street Bistro or Limones and The Red Herring right next to the river
But about a year ago a new healthy burger place opened just 5min. walk from us right next to Mojo's Bar called Flipside. It is a really great place with one of the best burgers I ever had. (They is REAL chicken breast on a chicken burger! :-)) It is always busy and there is only one big table that everyone sits around - what a great idea!
The other day we went there and I noticed 3 old ladies sitting at the head of the table studying the menu. All three of them probably in their 70's were neatly dressed, nice makeup; they looked like pretty cool grannies :-) But I was wondering how they would eat the burgers. Because it is almost impossible NOT to make a mess while trying to squeeze this big stack of bread, chicken breast, fresh pear, parmesan cheese, rocket salad, tomato relish & mayo (one of my favourites) into your mouth. But when their burgers arrived they came without the bread and everything else was arranged as in a salad, which they then ate with knife and fork - classic!

University Gardeners

The many gardeners at my university probably don't need to fear for their jobs unlike some of the lectures. Because even though Curtin managed to have a A$80 Million surplus last year some departements are still running on debt and lectures have to leave, partially also because of decreasing student numbers.
International students, and I think about 50% of all the students are non-Australians, have to pay a horrendous amount of tuition fees each semester. For instance an international PhD student has to pay around A$23 000 per year and I just can't see why! PhD students don't visit lectures, if they are lucky they maybe get one hour per week exclusive supervision, all they need is a desk and a computer. This does never sum up to A$23 000!
But hang on... yes that's right... the gardeners... last week 3 gardeners worked half a day on this bit of something / dirt / lawn in front of my office...

Three minutes

Yesterday we went running again with this group. The route is actually really nice - we run in a park along the river with views over the city and watching the sun set. Last week I done the 6.2km within 41min. But yesterday I did it in 38min.!!! That is a huge improvement! And I was totally exhausted afterwards :-)
Ian was running next to me the whole time - even though he could probably much faster - and he kept motivating me. He is a really good personal trainer :-) I think without his motivation I would have been that fast!

IKEA

Last week we went to IKEA here in Perth and I really enjoyed it. The more European style furniture reminded my of home and we got heaps of really cool ideas and saw designs that inspired us. This was in fact Ian's first visit ever to a IKEA store and he was quite sceptic beforehand. He just thought of IKEA as very cheap and poor quality. Yeah, I mean you always get what you pay for but I think the quality is quite good for what you pay for it. But in the end he was quite surprised how clever some of the designs were. So we bought new everyday wine glasses, dessert bowls and a shelf for the kitchen. :-)

Review after a week full of sports

So, after I had all these resolutions last week ... here is what I actually managed to do.
Running. As resolved we went running on Monday after work - 6.2km! We joined this group of leisure runners - or what I thought were leisure runners. It actually turned out that we were running together with 3 other triathletes! All tall, skinny and very well trained guys. They ran 5kms in the same time that I needed for 3!!! I actually felt quite embarrassed running with them... but nonetheless I think we will continue running with them. Maybe we can motivate some friends to come along, so I am not the only slow runner ;-)
Swimming. We went swimming for about 30 - 45min. on Wednesday after work. Because I can't do the crawl yet - only (fast) breast stroke :-), I will try to learn it with a new technique - fish like swimming. I will let you know how I go.
Cycling. We I had a really good excuse for not riding to uni this week ;-) The weather was pretty crap the whole week - rainy, stormy, really ugly! But that is alright because we went cycling on Sunday (40km) and we will probably do the same this Sunday.

Feeding Lizards


The other day we went to a friends place and found all these annoying flying ants on the outdoor table. So Ian had the idea to try to feed them to the little lizards that were running around. And as you can see it worked :-)

Belly Dancing

On the weekend we went to the Istanbul Turkish Restaurant in Fremantle. We've been there a year ago and were really disappointed. The restaurant was pretty empty and it seemed like they didn't want us to stay too long either. We felt hurried choosing our meals and after they arrived very quickly we felt hurried to finish.
But we thought we give it another go since we had a 25%-off voucher :-) This time I think we picked a better day – because it was belly dancing night :-) In between meals a girl would dance between the restaurant tables and animate to dance with her. Luckily she only picked guys – including Ian ;-) But he did quite well as a belly dancer ;-)

Artistic Mulberry Tree

Sheep Shit!

We live very close to the port in Fremantle. So, on my daily ride to Curtin I share the first kilometer with all the trucks going to and from the port. Some carry containers from Germany (saying Hamburg Süd :-) ) or from other various parts of the world. But because Australia also exports lots of (alive!!) sheep to Middle Eastern countries we get lots of sheep trucks. These poor sheep are stacked up and squeezed into 4 stories.
So this morning I could already smell that sheep trucks were going from and to the port. This means I need to be careful where on the lane I ride. I don't want to ride through sheep shit!! But the worst thing is riding behind a truck – I always make sure I am as far away as possible from these trucks. Because these sheep also pee and when the truck is moving at the same time this might be carried all over the place... ;-) So every time you see a sheep truck coming and you are not inside a car, try to get out of its way or you might get a golden shower ;-)

Running, Cycling, Swimming

Some friends of mine called me a wimp because I didn't do the city to surf ;-) But nearly all of them didn't do the run either!!! Only the girls were more understanding and told me that I made the right decision :-)
Anyway, just to prove them wrong and because I planned to do this for a long time already – I cycled to uni on Monday morning. Ian rides to work every morning. So this Monday he took a little detour and we cycled together along the river. It was actually quite nice, watching the city waking up, the birds – I just love the big pelicans – and sometimes you can even see dolphins. But I had headwind all the way to Curtin, all 22km long, so it took me more than 1h to get there. And because the wind usually changes direction in the afternoon we had head wind on the way back as well *mhmpf*
On the way back home we went past Point Walter and found out that there is still a group of people running every Monday evening. So my fitness plan for the next weeks is: running on Monday (6-8km), cycling to uni once a week and because Ian started to train for the Rottnest Swim, I will also go swimming once a week. Let's see for how long I can do this ;-) The hardest thing for me will be getting up at 6am to ride to uni – I am just not a morning person!! I love to sleep in :-)

Once
"It may well be the best music film of our generation." (Chicago Tribune)

On the weekend we went to see “Once”. Ian heard that this film got really good critics. The plot outline on imdb.com says “A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story. “ Which doesn't sound that great if you are not a musical fan. But this movie turned out to be one of the best movies - probably amongst my top 10. It is just gorgeous, happy, romantic, beautiful – I loved it! The music is just great. I will definitely get the soundtrack!
So it is really worth watching!! And for those who have watched it already. In one scene she says something in Czech... this is what she said: “miluju tebe”. You can look up the translation at wikipedia, but do this AFTER you watched the movie.

Just a little advertisement for some friends of us who are having their first exhibition - how exciting! :-)

"“Journeys” is an exploration of form and colour from four different artists. Jane Kos is an established and well respected artist who has exhibited regularly over the past 15 years. She has taken the unusual step of holding her latest exhibition with three previously unexhibited artists; Marnie Beissel, Wendy Tweedie and Karen Cheng. Each artist has brought their own interpretation to the theme and so promises a feast for the senses."

Little Caterpillar

The other day we noticed this little (about 5cm) gray caterpillar next to our front door. It looks really funny and we don't actual know what it is, whether it will turn into something else or not. And we don't even know what is front and what is back. So if you know what this little caterpillar is let us know.