just a short post to keep you ubdated...

This weekend, Anne and I went on a trip to Newcastle and around. Saturday we went wine tasting in one of Australias most famous wine growing region. It was pretty touristy. But today was great: first we went to a sort of zoo where we could feed all the animals. They had little goats, sheep, ostriches, Emus, Kangaroos, koalas and much more. Take a look at the pictures (follow asap).
After that we went on a boat to go whale watching. After a while we actually saw a Mama whale with her baby. There were also dolphins and sea lions! Sooooo cool!
photos follow asap!

Melbourne's gotta wait

The next in Katoomba I went horse riding. It was marvelous, and the best thing was that the Lady who owns the farm asked me if I wanted to work there. So on monday I start on a horse farm in the Blue Mountains, can you believe it?!

Blue Mountains/Katoomba

My first trip out of Sydney took me to the Blue Mountains. I booked a tour with Oz Experience and we left Wednesday in the morning. After stopping to see some wild kangaroos, we went on a 2hours hike through the overwhelmingly beautiful landscape.
After a quick lunch we went on another hike in the rainforest, passed by the Three Sisters, a unique rock formation, and took a pretty short ride in the steepest railway in the world. I spent the night in Katoomba, a little mountain town lonely planet calls bohemian, but which had a rather eerie atmosphere to me. There were plenty of cafes, second hand book shops and vintage shops that were crammed with stuff I bet most people still had in their living rooms.

Tripps/Acquarium

This (left) is how the weather looked this morning from the hostel window. Umpf, it can actually rain here! But it cleared up although it was quite chilled - I actually saw people with gloves!

Yiiiiieeeeehhhhhaaaa, I got my ass up and booked some tripps! So if you don´t hear from me the next couple of days, it is because I am away :-) Tomorrow I start for two days into the blue mountains to Katoomba and for the weekend Anne and I are gonna go wine tasting and whale wats´ching in Hunter Valley! Yay!


After we booked all this which took quite a while, we went to the Sydney Acquarium. Pretty amazing, but I was happy all these creatures were behind glass...Maybe I like this better than snorkeling the Barrier Reef... Sorry for the bad pictures, but it is hard to get those fish on a photo!

Afterwards we had fun in the gift shop and gotten hungry by all that fish had sushi in the Queen Victoria Building.


Now I gotta shower and start packing, I am leaving tommorrow at 7am!

Kings Cross/Darlinghurst/Anne

thank you for your comments! There are actually people reading this :-))
Yesterday, I finally met up with Anne, the other German girl that moved down here. She still ives at her sisters place since she could not find a job yet. We had lunch together and then went shopping to Darlinghurst.

(my coffee and my fiji)

A lot of walking, but very touristy, I wore my jogging shoes since my ankles were still hurting a bit.
I dragged her into several second hand shops (and even to the salvation army, just because I love that name), and while she hated it and waited outside, I could not help but get a white summer dress I'm gonna show you later. Then we paused at a veeeeeery nice chocolate cafe. They all kinds of chocolate melted and put into either coffee or over delicious cakes. I had a dark chocolate something frappe, quite yummy.

(this picture is proof to my desperate state of hair my hair is in - I defenitly need a haircut!)

In the course of the afternoon, clouds came up and in the end the sky looked like this:

and guess what: It is all greyish and raining today!
Time to plan the next trips and go to see a museum.

PS. I don't know what it is about this hostel, but there are exclusively Northern Europaens here. Despite all the German kiddies, there a lot of British and since recently a group of Swedish teenager - so nice to listen to Swedish again! although I don't understand that much anymore...

ps. comment!

Since no one has commented yet, I wonder if anyone is reading this blog... feel free to leave a message

manly

Hello everybody!
Thanks to my roommates closing the curtain I kind of overslept and by the time I got out of the hostel it was 12 am. Since my ankles did not like walking around for two entire days in my thin flip flops, the sinews down there are a little bit inflamed and I try not to walk so much.
I still had to get a sim card for my phone which took hours to buy and register and still does not work for European numbers, sorry.
Then I took a ferry to Manly, a popular beach resort, but by the time I got there, the sun was already almost gone, the surfer beach in the shadow and it was too cold to sit in the sand, so I bought a magazine (frankie, which is really good and arty informative) and a coffee and went back.
At night we had a nice chat with the roommates and everybody went to sleep early.
Now I gonna meet up with Anne from Muenster and hopefully get you some more photos I am actually on.
Cheers, jana

been there, done that

so today was touristy:
George Street, Botanic Gardens, Art Gallery of NSW, Opera House, Harbor Bridge, Museum of Contemporary Art, the Rocks and back, all on foot ;-)

early bird

Thanks to my moderate jet lag, I woke up at 7in the morning, not knowing it was 7am. I went to bed early yesterday at around 22h, so that is ok. Since most of the shops were closed I decided to buy some really good breakfast, fairly hungry since I missed dinner last night. But finding a supermarket in the city centre is usually not the easiest thing to do, especially when you don´t know the brands. So I checked out the convenient stores, small shops with usually overpriced goods, and in the third finally found some fruits that looked edible. As you can see, I have been really hungry ;-).
So at half past 7 (can you imagine? Me, up and walking that early in the morning!) I went to the hostel and – also untypical me – had a huge breakfast. Because today is tourist day! The weather forecast mentioned the number 30 with regard to temperature, the sky is already bright and blue and I will go sightseeing! Yay! Maybe I will pass by some second hand stores I found yesterday on Crown Street, but that is on the way ;-).
I never realized how popular Australia is among German High School Graduates. Half the hostel speaks German and all are around 18 years old and pretty excited about almost everything. So far, Sydney is not that different or alien. The inner city looks pretty much American with all its sky scrapers, though most the smaller shops are run by Asians selling usually low quality Chinese stuff. That is the most striking difference: the many Asians here. And not everyone speaking English is American.
Since the computers at the reception were down, this post will have to wait for its publication till later.

finally there

a delicious asian-vegetarian lunch(or breakfast) on board

So much time later, I have finally arrived in my hostel in Sydney. The flight was really long, and I had terrible neighbours. Although the Qanta homepage promised me a window seat, the girl at the check-in put me on the aisle, next to a middle aged couple (or mother and son, I didn´t bother to figure out). The guy in the middle was of a normal stature, but took much more space than he actually needed: mine. By trying not to get in hysical contact with him, I tryed to find a comfortable position that would allow me to sleep - only to be bumbed into by anyone passing the aisle, mostly the flight attendants. As these cirsumstances did not allow for a deep sleep, I made good use of the entertaining programme. A few naps, two meals, an extended snack and Sex and the City, The Children of the Silk Road (starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and two epsodes of Greys Anatomy later, we landed in Singapure.
Eager to get out of the air conditioned dry air of the plane, I immediately wnated to get in: it had minimum 30 degrees and was so humid sweat was pouring out only by standing in the line for the re-check-in. Unfortunately, my neighbours had the same direction and so I enjoyed their company the rest of the flight to Sydney, too. At least I had not seen the new Narnia movie which kept me from hitting that guy who actually jumped over me once when I had dozed off - only to kick my glasses to the ground which woke me in a shock. Idiot.
Arrival in Sydney was a relieve, the weather was nice and chilly 13 degrees with mild early morning sunshine welcomed the tired passengers. The train into the city did not take as long as I thought, so I had plenty of time to kill before my check in at 12. After a quick refreshment and change of clothes I locked my luggage in wandered off to explore central sydney. It is a very charming neighbourhood around the central station (the hostel is right across the street) with nice little houses with iron fences around their balconys. It boasts with cafes so, by the time I could check in and finally take a shower I was high on caffeine, but had seen the Hyde Park.

But the shower and possibility to stretch out in a real bed send me to sleep. Now it is 6 in the afternoon, already dark outside (!) and I will try to find some place to have dinner and a drugstore to get suncream.

fall over Germany

While in Australia spring is on its way, Germany embraces the first brisk breeze of fall...

Blog Launch!!!

Hallo alle zusammen!
nun ist es offiziell: hier ist es, mein persönliches, aktuelles, spannendes, aufschlussreiches, interdisziplinäres B.L.O.G.!
Hier werde ich erzählen, mich auslassen, schwärmen, staunen, bestimmt auch mal jammern aber auch den ein oder anderen neidisch machen ;-) (spätestens beim Wetter, ich werde für euch blauen Himmel und Sonnenschein fotografieren, falls ihr soetwas im kühlen deutschen Winter nicht mehr zu Gesicht bekommt!).
und hier darf ich vorstellen, meine Kommunikationsmittel:


mein neuer, süßer kleiner Acer Aspire One, genannt Aspro. Er nimmt geduldig meine Ergüsse auf und verbindet mich mit der weiten Welt des Internets. Musik und Videos abspielen kann er übrigens auch.


Eure Augen: meine kleine Kamera. Manchmal verwackelt sie etwas, aber im Grunde verstehen wir uns ganz gut. Vielen Dank an meine Fotographierübungsmodelle!

Wer tatsächlich auch mal meine Stimme hören möchte (und Skype hat), der wird wohl durch dieses Gerät bedient: Ebenfalls neu und hoffentlich haltbarer als seine vielen Vorgänger: Le Head-Set.



Meine emailadresse dürftet ihr ja alle haben, darüber könnt ihr mich immer erreichen oder sonst hier direkt Kommentare hinterlassen, worüber ich mich echt freuen würde!

Italia nn s'é desta

Italy is commemorating it's 1943 armistice with the allied forces that "freed" Italy from the fascist forces. Yes, the inverted commas are adequate, because obviously, not everyone was so happy about American troops liberating the war and terror struck peninsula from Sicily up North, as have shown the recent remarks of high ranking politicians. (Not to mention that Mussolinis granddaughter still bearing this specked name of and actually being an active politician on the national level).
Recently, Romes mayor Gianni Alemanno said, the only truly evil thing about fascism were the Rassengesetze. And he is not alone. Minister of Defense, Ignazio (Benito Maria) la Russa, officially demanded the commeration of the soldiers fighting against the allied forces defending the Republic of Saló, the fascist stronghold at the end of the war in the middle of Italy. In his words
«Farei un torto alla mia coscienza se non ricordassi che altri militari in divisa, come quelli della Nembo dell'esercito della Rsi, soggettivamente, dal loro punto di vista, combatterono credendo nella difesa della patria, opponendosi nei mesi successivi allo sbarco degli anglo-americani e meritando quindi il rispetto, pur nella differenza di posizioni, di tutti coloro che guardano con obiettività alla storia d'Italia».(corriere)
A slap in the face of Head of State Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist who survived WWII, who was holding a speech on the same occasion, even on the same stage: the commemorative service on 8th September in Rome.
What follows? As always in Italy, basically nothing. The protest of the left is defamed by the right and the average citizen does not have any opinion. No public outcry, nothing.
What does it reveal? Again Italy, a founding member of the European Union, portraits itself as ignorant, way too careless with its past that is so much its present, and way too irresponsible with its present politicians.
Svegliati, prima ke ti desti!

the cutest rabbit in the world

omg, I just went through the blogs I read usually and found this lil' fella on nio til fem , my favourite swedish blog. I don´t like to "steal" from other blogs, but this picture has been taken in Skansen, and since I`ve been there too, it might aswell could have been taken by me ;-).
These are the last few days of summer and I gotta go swimming. yay!

bye bye Münster!

This has officially been my last time in Münster and I left with a lot of nice memories. Saturday I stayed in my old flat with my flatmates cause it was Risnas birthday. We had cocktails and went to the Schauraum, the festival of museums and galleries in Münster, later on. On sunday we - i.e. I - slept quite long and we had breakfast in the afternoon alltogether in our kitchen. After that, Risna showed us the carcass of her new flat. Then I had my promised farewell-dinner with Ulli at work. We had typical German Schnitzel, veeeeeery nice and veeeeery much. Stuffed like that we went to sleep pretty early but nevertheless were still tired this morning.
Today I officially exmatriculated. I am no student anymore! Still waiting for the weird feeling, though.

hurricane of change

one and a half years ago the hurricane Kyrill devastated parts of Northern Europe. The forest around here suffered a lot, the storm had mowed down large parts of the trees. My Mum and I went for a walk today and the bare spots are hardly covered with young green again. Most of my favourite spots in the forest have been changed fundamentally. Where once fir trees cushioned the path with their needles, there is a tree cemetry, a glade once surrounded by thick forest has now tripled its size. The hurricane has changed the surface, but the wounds it left, though still visible, give now the way change.

Monica Canilao

on war

Everytime I am at my parent's place I have to pay my grandparents a visit. Today I got them some groceries and had a chat with my grandma. We talked a bit about me going to Australia and she said that when she was young, she did not have the chance to go abroad. When she was 16, the war started and she sought shelter from the bombs penned up in basements. I am lucky that all my grandparents survived both wars, but they rarely speak about it. My grandfather learned Russian in captivity as prisoner of war. Somehow, they managed to get along, they managed to get over it.
Me, being born in the 80s, too young to remember the dangers of the cold war, I never had to experience privation or existential fear. Yet, there still is war and people are suffering. It was like that in Southeast Europe and it is the same in Georgia right now.
A few years ago on an excursion to Northern Serbia, we could see what NATO bombs had done to the previously vivid multicultural city of Novi Sad. Talking to the people there, students our age at night in the ruins of the former Austro-Hungarian fortress on the river banks, playing the guitar, drinking beer and singing Simon&Garfunkel songs, they told about alarms in the middle of the night, the angst the sounds of airplanes caused, the unnatural red light illuminating the city when the close by oil refinery was hit and exploded in flames. Hearing stories about war from the grandparents leaves them ages away. Hearing them from a fellow student a few hundred kilometres away catapults them into your life, but leaves you deranged. And yet, it was only the missing bridges we saw. By now, years later, they are partly rebuild, though Serbia is recovering still.
At work one of my colleagues is from Georgia. Not that she ever was little Miss Sunshine, but in those days she looked even more pale, even more withdrawn than usual. No one cared. Her family lives in Tiblisi, but they heard the bombs. The hits. The explosions. I imagine them crouched down in their apartment, the TV trembling under the impacts, phone lines down, Internet down, electricity down. Reduced to the fundamental essentials about being human: fear.

Erasmus Revival 2008

(blurred pictures due to my blog policy)

TV coincindence

for more than four years I haven`t had a TV, so whenever I am around one, I stare at it. Usually, when I was at my parents place, I could not get enough of the box, although it was usually pretty crappy stuff on. Tonight I just zapped through until a very special movie caught my eye: The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman. The funny thing about it, is not the movie itself but the song that comes with it. I remember being back in Highschool, having my first crush on a boy in my older sister`s class. Of course, as boys that age did in those times, he played in a band, drums if I remember correctly. Once, I went to their rehearsal and guess what they played - Mrs. Robinson.

Jesus loves you more than you will know
Heaven holds a place for those who pray

feel good carnival

I know, it is a little late fort his post, but I only recently stumbled upon these pictures.
Some weeks ago back in July I went to visit my gorgeous friend Marinke in Rotterdam. We got to know each other in Italy and actually shared a bed for a month. So that weekend I went to Rotterdam was the so-called zomer carnival, a Brazilian-like parade through the streets of the city. Whereas in the media coverage from Rio you only see the slimiest and most beautiful girls, this carnival gave a boost to every belly-girls self-esteem. First we wondered how those chubby girls could show themselves in this bikini-costumes on a parade but soon we came to admire their strength and the fact that those kilos around their hips did not hinder them at all. So this parade was not only a lesson in dutch multiculturalism but also in pride of ones own body.
Thank you, ladies!

back to the roots

still at my parents' place, I come to enjoy it. The peaceful nature surrounding the big house is so calming, I went jogging through the woods yesterday and swimming in the public pool nearby this morning, really refreshing and energizing. Besides, I enjoy having a tv and watch McLeods Daughters whenever I can (it is on twice a day!).
Yesterday I went to the birthdayparty of one my parents oldest friends. It was very nice to see all my parents friends again. Though it made me feel old, because now their kids I knew as babies are going to college and abroad doing fancy stuff. But everyone was nice and had advice for me or even contacts to people in Oz right now :-).
Today I spend quite some time researching my new subnotebook. I figured I won´t take my dear old Notebook with me, it has more than three years served me well, but the battery is dying. The acer aspire one in white made it. Now I only need to figure out where to get it, because it was already sold out at the local store, hmpf.
I know, I do not keep up with my self-set standards, but my brain seems to be on holiday and I still have to get used to blogging thus revealing sometimes more than I am used to...