you and how many of your friends...?

Con un saludo especial a Nuria!

Townsville, North Queensland, Australia

billabong

i've done it. it's illegal in the state of new south wales. it's not illegal in queensland, because today, in the billabong sanctuary i was holding a koala. it was beautiful, but not as cute as someone else.......

imagenes

the images from aussie snowboarding :)

2030m

fast hero

The secret of energy boosting. Find all Polish items in this image :D

snowboarding in snowy mountains

I have been traveling a lot lately and my computer has been doing very strange things, not even to be explained by the computer experts having spent several of their jouvenile years on the beautiful art of hacking. Still, my internet access is pretty restricted, not the fastest and most accessible broadband in the world I tell you :)

I have been to Brisbane, the Gold Coast, several small towns therearound and Townsville. The pictures will come as I will have the time to upload them.

Two weekends ago, me and Bastian, a German friend of mine, working in Australia on similar terms, went south to the Snowy Mountains, very close to the boarder of Victoria, but still in New South Wales, even though it's closer to Melbourne than Sydney... We drove through Canberra and got to Thredbo, which showed to be the most snoby ski resort in Australia, on Friday evening. Thredbo is full of nice cars, rich people and, during the wintertime, it is one of a few skiing bases in the Snowy Mountains. This weekend, the European population of Thredbo accounted for two, including my friend and myself. The prices are a bit high, we payed 75AUD per person per night in a 4-bed dorm room. Off-season, the same costs something like 20AUD. The day pass was following similar pricing strategy.... but who would say no to an opportunity of snowboarding in Australia? :D

The highest peak was at 2030m, with a very cosy blizzard at this altitude. The snow and the overall experience was much better than I expected, although there was no powder and much ice, it was great for a weekend. and for Australia :)

In the dorm we met a guy having a Swedish mother, he didn't talk Swedish though. And during our cosy evening, reading books at the fireplace and talking to a university professor from Sydney, we were joined by an Aussie, who had spent two and a half years in Östersund and was pretty eloquent in Swedish. Odd, but real :) It was a great weekend! We also saw a couple of kangaroos, and managed not to hit any of them while snowboarding.... :D

on the move again

I'ts Sunday afternoon and I am in the airport again. Returned on Wednesday night from over a week in northern New South Wales, the Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise and Brisbane and going up to Townsville for three days. In the meantime my laptop stopped to be eager to connect to the internet and I had to have Windows reinstalled. I can't believe how addicted one can be to the internet :) Will write more soon and publish some pictures as well. Hope it's sunny in Townsville! Hugs to ya friends!

helylle

fresh news: a gym in malmö offered a special deal for couples, without defining the term "couple". when someone asked about gay couples and the gym representative wouldn't accept that as a "couple", they reported the case to homoombudsmannen, call it a ombud for the rights of the homosexual. sweden, a country where everything's ought to be right and follow the rule, whatever the rule might be. so very unspanish. so very helylle. so very lagom....

btw. i am in this very instant listening to sahara hotnights and consuming mandel spekulatius from aldi - german gingerbreads - they didn't have any glühwein, but it feels a bit Christmassy anyway, reminding me of the of December in Innsbruck....

el rei

click the image to view large

australian marketing

found on the saturday shopping tour. did not know whether i should wave to him, laugh at him or kick him in the butt (he was certainly asking for it).

so i shot him. with a 4MB piece of arms. very pacifistic :)

even more mtb

a couple more photos from the mountains. btw, great game yesterday, ey :)

you talkin' to me?

drinking electricity

upwards....

where did the road go....?

everybody sing with lucky luke: I'm a poor lonesome cowboy.......

the ride

Andrew, the financial controller. also very skilled in breaking bicysle parts....

walk/runners. we passed them laughing going downhill and were passed laughed at when Andrews chain broke :) Grüss euch!

The source of energy. outperforms duracell. (Polish plum chocolate-covered plum for the ignorant reader :)

yes, there was a river to pass. no gators. i think.

suspension bridge and the coolest guy :)

bush mtb

last weekend I suprisingly entered the australian crazy mountainbiking association and joined our financial controller and his cool mates on a 41km tour in the blue mountains. he asked me to join them at 5pm friday afternoon, picked the redeyed me at 6am on saturday morning and we all went to katoomba, where a tour guide was waiting with the bigger version of a surfer's bus. the crazy drive ought to be able to cause a heart attack, but we arrived somewhere at 1500meters and did a crazy downhill for some k's, followed by very nice and steep uphills, stairs, gates, rocks, rivers and, a thrilling suspension bridge....

the bus of joy

rollin' rollin' rollin'....

hit the road jack!

the source of information

no posing here mates! just rudeboy bikers....

more pictures will follow :)

rudeboys

kiwis (new zealanders) and aussies (inhabitants of the world's leading vegemite-consuming country) like to kid about eachother....

swedish surprise

Found in a restroom in katoomba, blue mountains, new south wales.

First Ikea, then Volvo and now SCA. From Göteborg, Sweden.

proudly being irish

Just got this one from Frankie Knuckles here at work, crazy guy!

Oh' when the Irish eyes are smiling.......

state of art

origin of state of origin.

a big game was played in Oz tonight, a game of rugby. And not any rugby.

the game is a mix of football and fight club, and when it's played between the states of Australia, they call it state of origin. the players play for the state they started to play in. Hence the name. state of origin.

it's a huge thing over here. more than 50.000 aussies saw it in the stadium, and at least as many in my local pub. Queensland beat New South Wales (the state we're in) (didn't chemical brothers use this phrase already?) but beer in just the right ratios makes people happy anyhow. there's a lot of franziskaner in yours truly at the moment.

and he's got to work at nine. see you tomorrow! cheers!

Fredrik and Martin, try to get his cola!

united colors of benetton

It's autumn in the southern hemisphere.

It's getting cold in the city of Sydney. Extremely cold. Use your scarfs and everything.

Half of the staff in the office is ill. Even more, half the Sydney is.

This is certain when the temperature suddnly drops to 17C during nighttime....

How's the summer in la Europa? How are you guys? Emails, comments are well appreciated!

parrot brunch

One of the parrots joined me for brunch today. A big meal on the balcony, looking over Sydney harbour.

Sweet!

I didn't share my German herring, but rather offered pieces of citrus and kiwi fruit.

Does anyone know how to tell the sex of a parrot? Please, share the knowledge!

installation

Hello good people. We have been working since the dusk with things that wouldn't make you very proud if you're a ve vegetarian. we have made it work much better then anytime before - it's great and the customer is jolly happy! ah, the place is called poowonga and is as pitoresque as a terrestial place can get, and the hobbits are great too! after the breakfast at seven am we had a cup of tea (sugarless) at one pm and first dinner at seven pm, with a dry martini before that. it's a hammer! and the food is five hundred times better than you think it would be in the (half) middle of nowhere. but then again, it's called the Bear House. and it's in Crainborn! and the wine is outstanding!

Victoria

Hello from the land of Victoria good fellas! I have been here a day now, we are installing a big instrument in a meat factory in a town called something like Powoonga or thereabout. Very interesting. And very beautiful landscape - just like I imagined New Zealand to be, very green and hilly, lots of cows and goats and shetland ponnies and creaks and ponds and meadows and hobbits. And this is very close to Melbourne. A beautiful place!

We are staying at a lovely little motel called the Bear House. They've got a big stuffed brown bear in the restaurant cottage looking at you. The food and the wine is amazingly great - I just had some kangaroo, very rare and nice. Great place! You should come here! Now the wine tells me to go to bed! :)

How are things in Europe mates? comments please!

Sydney airport

Just boarding the 06.45 flight to Melbourne. The hi-fi in the surfer store next to my ears plays some sweet dance music. What about a sunny happy remix of the Similou, All this Love! Sweet!