The big garden

In the morning we went to the VW dealer again for a more detailed chat about accessories and prices etc. We'll get back to him about a price and possible order on Monday.
Then we went to Tea tree plaza shopping centre. While Nicole was looking for clothes, I studied the carpet.

There was Santa stuff everywhere. And also jugglers and unicycle riders.

On the way back home we went to the supermarket. Which reminds me, I have to order Dutch pindakaas online.

The afternoon was very lazy. I went to walk Mason early evening.

These people created a gigantic garden. It looked nice though.

Caesar was outside again too. He was very quiet though.

Like when we arrived last year, certain streets have been coloured purple by the Jackaranda trees.

They make a LOT of purple flowers. Quite stunning except when you see it on these photo's... :-/

Quest: Crush the republicans!

Two days ago I was bitten by a mozzie three times. It's getting a bit itchy now...

During lunch I watched the clouds above me. There were actually three layers. At least two of those moved in slightly different directions.

After work we drove to Henley. We were a bit late and very hungry. The food was fantastic, again.

I saw this posted on my World of Warcraft guild's forum. It's hilarious, if you know what all the WoW stuff around him means :-)

PS: Click the picture for a more readable version.

In the evening my friend Mic from Amsterdam came on Skype so we could have a little chat. That was the best surprise of the day! His son Yaan came on as well who was clearly excited to see me, or maybe just anyone, on the computer's screen ;-)

The granny wannabe

Lunch was to be had at Victoria square again.

While walking to Nicole after work (good for more than 30 minutes of exercise!) these two waked in front of me at some point. The girl on the left is about 18 years old I think. And she dies her hair GREY. She's not alone, I have seen it before. My crap camera does not really show the colour very well but it was really grey and white...

I actually took this photo for Gianna because we recently talked about it and she couldn't believe me, but I doubt she'll ever see it. It's retarded anyway and it looks like shit.

After we came home I played with Mason for half an hour, then I gave the dove dinner in my hand and I said hello to the cocky boy.

Back to studying now.

Fruit girl

I sat at the church hangout during lunch.

If I would have had lunch three hours later, I would have been a witness in a violent stabbing. All of these cars are police cars...

Apparently groups of Sudanese youth had a bit of a fight and thought stabbing would be a good solution to see who was right. Very effective. One kid is dead and the other one is critical. Because they ran around while bleeding the crime scene is very big. It also blocked the street which caused great chaos for home bound traffic.

Today at lawn bowls I was the skip, the fourth man, the captain. I enjoyed that a fair bit.

In the tea break Nicole won a fruit bowl in the raffle. It's a pretty good fruit bowl too!

When we went back outside after the tea break, a gazillion flying ants had come out. It was unreal.

When we came home we found our Chris Isaak tickets in the mail! We are going to see him at the "Barossa under the stars" festival this March. We're very much looking forward to this!

One year in Australia

So, it has been one year now. It doesn't feel like one year at all. Really it feels like three weeks... Do I miss anything? Not really. Because of this blog and being able to chat with family and friends on the internet I don't feel like I'm far away. I most certainly don't feel like I left anything behind that I will never see again.

I tried to think of all the things I have accomplished and discovered this year. It's probably way more than this. The thing that I'm most happy with is that I didn't end up in some kind of social isolation. I have met new people and made new friends quite easily.

Yeah, we landed pretty alright I think.

Here are some pictures of various things of various levels of importance:

The beach. It's a fantastic thing to have so close.

We like it a lot and we go see it often.

Amsterdam beer.

It's just good.

Ace ice cream from Cibo. I never need ANY other ice cream in my life.

We got our internet connection back. It took a bit of effort but it's all coming through these wires.

Because of this I can thankfully have chats with my family. It makes living so far apart a little bit easier.

We live much closer to nature than would ever be possible in Amsterdam.

I like walking around Adelaide.

There are still so many streets to discover.

I got myself a nice job.

Now also with a bigger desk!

We discovered a winery called Uleybury with very nice people that make sensational food.

In a sensational location too I have to say.

I got my driver's license. Very important in this country.

I play more sports. I like getting my ass kicked by Karin in Tennis (and sometimes by Stephen) :-)

I don't like getting my ass kicked by grannies at Lawn bowl. But I like the sport.

And we found a nice Irish pub to hang out and have our Monday night dinners.

So today I bought all my colleagues (and Nicole) a doughnut to celebrate that this poor little immigrant has made it this far :-)

The über bruschetta

During lunch I went to the post office to buy stamps so I could post my letters to some ministers regarding the 44 mln dollar they want to spend on a mandatory internet filter. It was busy and it took all of my lunch...

So I ate less during lunch. I knew that after work we'd go to PJ's again where we had bruschetta. So much tomato. Mom, I ate all that tomato, are you proud of me now? ;-)

My World of Warcraft has ended

I cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription this weekend. It has taken me a while to get to this point. It makes me rather sad. I started playing this game in Februari 2005 when it came out in Europe. Most people will not understand that a computer game can have this big an impact on people. That is because World of Warcraft is not just a computer game. It's a virtual world but behind the characters are real people. You play the game together. You need eachother to accomplish certain tasks and you help eachother out. On certain occasions up to 40 people are required to reach a common goal. This means that 40 -real- people have to get together in this virtual world at a certain time, and commit to completing the task ahead for sometimes up to six hours. During this time, each player has it's own role and needs to perform well or the whole group might fail. You can see how there is a whole 'social' thing going on. So yeah, it is not, just, a computer game. And maybe you will understand why a World of Warcraft player can not just 'leave' to answer a phonecall or go to the pub. There are sometimes 39 people waiting for him. Not a computer but 39 REAL people...

To all my old guildies I simply want to say: Thanks for the many, many hours of fun team work guys! :-)

These are my characters who will now remain untouched untill removed from the server:

Ningirsu. My very first character, a druid. The funnest one to play.

Ningirso, a rogue. A violent little fella.

Ningirsi, a mage. He likes playing with fire. He's already dead so there's no danger in that for him self ;-)

Ningsor. He was going to be my tank-warrior. He's tough as nails but never made it big unfortunately.

Ningadin, a Paladin. My only female and last created character. After seven male characters you want to look at something sexier I guess ;-)

Ningeling, my warlock. Only started playing this one again after I entered Australia and discovered how much fun that could be. Very powerfull little guy he is.

Ningning, a priest. Never had a chance.

And Clerk, my banking toon. He used to control the banking for my guild and the other three guilds that the guild is in an alliance with.