Balmoral

Balmoral is our local beach. Sydney has many beaches but this is the nearest to our house, although it's too far to walk the way from where I live. Not having found a car yet, I always go there either with one of my housemates, or with Michael, the guy from next door.

It is hot again these days, but luckily not as horrid as the heat wave that currently strikes South Australia with more than 40 degrees Celsius. Here in Sydney it's quite hot in the city, but just lovely at the beach with temperatures around 28 to 33 degrees. "STAY COOL" was a skywriting ad from Lipton Ice Tea today and I thought it might make for a "cool" picture with me below. (I need to buy sunglasses sometime for an even cooler look... ;)

The moon

We had a beautiful new moon tonight, setting scenically in a cloudless deep blue summer night sky over the city lights in the West to the chirping of crickets.

Those of you in the northern hemisphere will note that the waxing moon (der zunehmende Mond) here looks like the waning moon (der abnehmende Mond) in your place. That's why this place is called Down Under!

☾ in the northern hemisphere looks like ☽ in the southern hemisphere
☽ in the northern hemisphere looks like ☾ in the southern hemisphere
but it's always the same moon, and it's in the same phase and visible from both hemispheres

Those who know me know that I love to combine romance and science ;)

Rainy Australia Day

Today is the national holiday Australia Day, which coincides this year with Chinese New Year.

So we have two lovely reasons to celebrate, but the weather is rainy here in Sydney and not nice to go out. So I stayed home and completed the last of my work, which will officially end tomorrow.

Fish Market

This morning I've been to the Sydney Fish Market with my flatmate Lochy. That was quite a show -- so many kinds of fish and seafood. Look at that giant crab for example, and the beautiful shells.

We bought a nice big 2 kg snapper for our dinner tonight, and I tried an oyster for the first time in my life.

Frangipani

I noticed that my view, reflected by my camera, changed from the big panoramic scenes I shot in the beginning to more detail ones, now that I'm settled and a certain daily routine has emerged. This may change when I start travelling again next month. I'm developing the idea of buying a campervan and finding a travel mate to go south to Melbourne and Tasmania for a couple of weeks holiday.

Here is a Frangipani flower, a gift of Nature that to me combines visual beauty, sensual touch and lovely fragrance in an unsurpassed harmony. Forget about roses: this is the flower that deserves poetry perhaps more than any other.

The flower fell by itself from a tree in our street and the picture was taken this afternoon in our front yard. ZEN in 1944 by 1944 pixels.

One month

I'm now in Australia for one month. What can I say? Coming here was the best decision I made in a long time.

Barbie

Aussies love Barbecues. We had a couple of them already since I moved in here and we're having another one tonight, so here is a picture I just shot 5 minutes ago. We'll put the meat and sausages on in 10 minues or so, so please excuse me, I'm getting hungry. :) I made some nice antipasti and Greek bifteki from lamb's mince.

Oh, and regarding this posting's heading. As you have probably figured out already, it's an example of Aussie slang. A barbecue is a barbie, a breakfast is a brekkie, Tasmania is Tazzie. (I felt tempted to think when they go to a funeral they go to a funie, but I don't dare to say that aloud.)

Millie

Millie is our house cat, and I thought I'd share a picture with you. She is an old lady. She's 21, and will turn 22 in May. She walks only very slowly, but still has a loud voice when she wants the front door opened so that she can sit at the doorstep in the sun. Or in the shade.

Dream job offered

It's in the news around the globe today: In a marketing campaign, Tourism Queensland has posted a dream job opportunity: spend 6 months on a tropical island at the Great Barrier Reef and blog about it, and earn $150.000 plus free travel and lodging. Something for a very lucky guy -- like me! (Read more about it in english or german.)

Update (Friday): I sent in my video application -- we'll see how it goes!

Gone fishin'...

...on Sunday, but didn't catch anything. Still, it was relaxing.

Juggling class

Today I had the pleasure of giving a lesson in juggling to a group of five children (and their parents). I got the job through Sydney LETS. We all met in a park in Annandale and I introduced them to the basics of scarf juggling (which was a bit of a challenge due to wind) and ball juggling.

The kids' aunt Barbara, who had contacted me, had made the scarves and even the balls herself -- the rice-filled balloon method, an excellent technique that's easy and costs practically nothing.

As you can see in the picture, we all had fun!

Feedback on this blog

This is some of the positive feedback I got by e-mail from my faithful readership -- friends and family:

1. "Ich lese jeden Tag aufmerksam Deinen Blog und freue mich immer schon auf den nächsten Eintrag. Ist besser als jede Tageszeitung ;-)"
2. "dein Blog finde ich klasse..."
3. "sehr fleißig geführt..."
4. "so komme ich in die englische Sprache mal wieder rein"
5. "Die Fotos wirken sehr schön"
6. "lass uns wieder teilhaben an deinen Abenteuern..."
7. "Wir haben soeben Deinen gesamten Blog von vorne bis hinten gelesen und sind vor der vielen Arbeit, den tollen Bildern und philosophischen Anwandlungen in Ehrfurcht erstarrt."

Original unedited quotes! :)

I changed the settings in this blog to enable comments for anyone, including anonymous. So now you can leave a comment even if you don't have an account with Google.

Back to work

My holidays are over, and I'm back to work. I'm on the 9th floor in a 22-floor building. The open-plan office is quiet and air-conditioned. It's a good work environment right in the North Sydney business district.

The bus connection from my new home to the office is very good. There are buses going every 5 minutes. Including the walks it takes me half an hour from door to door.

The communication to my team in Augsburg will be all through the Internet, and I hope that will work out fine. For phone calls and/or chat I hope to catch my German colleagues after knocking-off time at night (morning in Germany). 8 p.m. in Australia is 10 a.m. in Germany.

There is no canteen, but plenty of restaurants and food courts just 100 metres down the street that beat anything that Eurest cooks by miles. A choice of meals from all cuisines of the world, and for very reasonable prices. My colleague Gaetano here (from Belgium) called me "the lucky man" and I guess that's really what I am.

Newcastle

New home, new year, new computer, and now Newcastle. Everything's new! :)

I went with my flatmate-landlady Peggy on a 2-day trip 150 km up north to her home town Newcastle. Yes, there is a Newcastle in Australia too. A lot of places here have English names, but also a lot of names are taken from aboriginal languages. Such as Parramatta, Woy Woy or Woolloomooloo.

Newcastle was historically important for its steel production, and it is also a "coal city". It has the largest coal export harbour in the world, and there are always dozens of huge bulk carriers anchored in the sea waiting for permission to go into the harbour. But the city is less industrial than one might think and has some nice waterfront and beach areas as you can see on the pictures. Peggy was very proud to show me around, and her sister gave us accommodation for the night.

We've been for a morning swim to the Ocean Baths, a big and old public swimming pool right at the sea which is fed naturally at high tide by ocean water. Free entrance and hot showers -- what a nice service of the city to its citizens. A hundred years before, about 1820, a smaller swimming pool based on that same principle was constructed by order of Commandant Morisset for his own personal bathing purposes. For many years it was known as the "Commandant's Baths". Today they call it the Bogey Hole and it is also now open for free public use.

New computer

After one week I decided to go for another solution. I bought a used computer (for a very reasonable price) and now I have not only a working Internet connection at home but also a proper screen. Gumtree is your friend. And it's good Windows XP, not that Vista crap. Hurra! I feel like a human being again!

Happy New Year!

First the stunningly beautiful panorama view over Sydney from across the harbour by night. This picture was taken on New Year's Eve, in a quiet moment before the fireworks started.

The Sydney fireworks (click here for a YouTube video) are the famous event of the year that attract millions. I went with my housemates Peggy and Lochlyn to watch it from one of the best locations: Cremorne Point, where you have a wonderful view of the harbour, the city, the opera hall and the harbour bridge. Imagine that some people have been waiting there since noon to reserve a prime location, with picnic blankets and foldable chairs. We (just behind them) went there from 9 p.m. to midnight, and had a long 1 hour walk home.

The fireworks were lovely and gigantic, reflecting in the water. They were fired from 6 or 7 special firework barks anchored along the harbour, from the harbour bridge and from the highest skyscraper rooftops in the city. The weather was perfect, mild, warm and no wind, good for shorts and t-shirt the whole night. One other thing that's different from New Year's Eve in Germany, besides the temperatures (I hear it's freezing cold there now, -10°C) is that there are no private fireworks at all, it's illegal in Australia, so there are only the professional ones.

A promising start into a year that will surely be different and eventful for me.

The bad news: my Internet connection (via a USB mobile broadband modem) is still not working. So please excuse my silence over the last week. I spent countless hours on trying to get it to work, and even the tech guys from my ISP couldn't find out what's wrong. So I'm really frustrated and exhausted by now. The problem is somewhere in my laptop computer, but neither I nor anybody else could find out what it is. I'm typing this from the Starbucks Coffee shop in Sydney, Circular Quay, where I bought an hour of online time. The normal wireless LAN works fine.