Australia day 2008

Self-acclaimed uber Aussie Gavin with his mini Aussie-flag.

We drove over to Trevors place early morning for a champagne breakfast. Trevor was working on some yummy pancakes here.

Nicole, Gav and Karin.

Karin, Sharon, Trevor and Nicole.

In the afternoon we all went our own way. Nic and I went for a drive along some coasttowns. The beaches were different again.

The tide spans a whopping piece of beach here.

One of the places we visited was Port Vincent.

If you can't stand flies, Australia is not the country for you my friend. But this sign I had not seen before.

"Duck" with a dog.

Gav having a good time under the Australian flag during the weber roast at Trevor's place.

While waiting for the roast to be cooked we walked down to see the beach.

Our shadows remind me of farmers. I like it very much.

The drive down the peninsula

Early morning. I wanted to remove the tape before we left for Yorke peninsula. It looks alright but unfortunately the tape ripped off some of the wall's paint...

Nicole quickly making a phonecall to Internode, the ISP we want to hook up with. Let's hope this can be done quickly.

Mason waving us goodbye as we drive out of the driveway.

Traffic was already busy. Standing next to a Adelaide rubbishtruck.

On our way. Small car, big car.

Irish people must have settled here first.

The skies were beautiful.

Arriving at our campingsite where we had hired a small bungalow for the weekend.

In the evening we visited Karin ex-colleague Trevor and his wife Sharon. Trevor drove us down the beach in his big-ass Toyota truck.

The busy day

While waiting for the phone technician to hook us up today the moving company arrived to deliver our stuff from Amsterdam!

Nicole dealing with the administrative things while I was helping unloading.

It got full in our little flat REALLY quick.

We also put the final layers of paint on. It looks nice but I'm kaput.

Tomorrow we're going on a little holiday to the Yorke peninsula with Karin and Gavin. I'm looking forward to it very much.

We'll be back on monday!

The Vapores

My learners drivers license arrived today. Very handy as this is also a form of ID. I feel so professional now ;-)

The car we use needed new tyres so we brought it to the Bridgestone Tyre Centre.

We finished putting the base-paint on the front of our flat. Maybe tomorrow we'll put the old style green on it to finish it off.

Someone on (American) TV was trying to bore me to death and almost succeeded...

In the evening we visited Gianna and her parents. Lovely people all of them and we had a great time. This is Gianna.

This is Gianna's mum, Anna.

And this is her father, Pasquale.

The stupid paintdude.

In the morning I tried fixing the handle of the kitchen window with a paperclip. Not the best of solutions but it worked.

The flower next to our door is beautiful.

So is my little bonsai.

We drove up to Solver paints. We needed advice and prices. The guy helping us wasn't too experienced and actually had to make a call to get the right info. Also they told us to sand the bricks we want to paint. I dunno. I don't think we'll do that. And I don't think we'll buy their stuff. And I don't think we'll come here again really, sorry.

We had time and not much to do so why not do some more driving? It went well except that in my attempts to drive off faster I stalled the car 4 times. Driving went smoother and parking as well. After 70 minutes my knee ached and my back was soaking wet...

The new blog

Went to Bunnings today to checkout paint, wood and sliders to make drawers in our new cabinet. Paint they had plenty, also sliders, nice and cheap too. But the wood situation is disgracefull. They don't have any laminated panels except for a few sizes in white or ugly red-brown. When I worked at Karwei (Dutch DIY chain) in The NL we used to stock about 10 different colours in at least 4 different sizes. Bad luck I guess.

A new blog is born! And it is called:

VINCENT CREATIVE BLOG

I decided to put my DIY and creative outbursts online. It starts with a simple IKEA thingy but I'd still love to make my own arcade game console, you know, one of those that stands on the floor. My modeltrain-coffeetable too of course. And little things in between I reckon. Have a look and see how you like it. I strongly encourage you to do the same. It's fun and I'd love to see what others are up to :-)

The icy beerpumps

If you think IKEA stuff is made in Sweden, think again!

Yesterday we bought this.. well, cupboard I guess. This is the contents of the package.

DIY to me is like what cooking is to others. We bought these legs seperate at Bunnings. So I mixed in a bit of this...

... and it turned into this. And as with cooking, sometimes it goes right, and sometimes it goes wrong. We were lucky this time and very happy with the result!

For Stephen M. and Nantko: "BEATLES".

In the afternoon we met Stephen for a bite and a beer. We went to the first Irish pub I went to in Adelaide about 7 years ago, Finn MacCool's. You can look up the name, he was an actual figure in Irish mythology. Well, I think it was mythology...

Inside something changed and amazed me incredibly. They had new beerpumps installed. To keep the beer really cool (quite a neccesity in this country) the beerlines go through a big pipe or casing. This big pipe or casing has a coolant flowing through it to cool the beer all the way to the tap. It actually creates a 1cm thick layer of ice around the pump!!!!

I was absolutely stunned by this. I think the bartender now thinks I'm nuts...

The Guinness pump has a thick white coat of ice on it. Unreal!

Kilkenny as well, but a little less.

Nicole and Stephen.

My pint. All mine. I have to have a pint every now and then. It's my favourite way to meet friends, sitting behind a lovely pint.

We're hunting for free, public tenniscourts these days. These ones are not free but they look nice.