Fishing

5:00 Sunday morning. Wake up. 5:10 Get a taxi to Hillary.
Yep I'm here, I'm going fishing today. Yaaaay!
I meet up with a couple of blokes working together. The Harley Davidson riders type of guys.
It's 6:15 and they're having a true Aussie breakfast. Beer. They offer me one, and as I want to make a good impression, I'll have one. (Just got Emma on the phone and she concurred... so hey... If the wife says it's okay :o)

Off we go.

The wind is off shore and rather strong, close to the shore this does not matter but 1,5 hour out at see -so far that land on the horizon is gone since long- the waves really kick in. Must be about 5 meter waves some of them bigger. One of the beer drinkers just turned green and is hanging over the side. (I didn't see that guy the rest of the day, he stayed in the cabin).

Okay, Lines out, its 85 meters here so drop 'm quickly. All of the sudden I see another guy running for the railing. Raaallfff, Baaarffff, Huuuurrrl. And another, and another. By now 4 guys are feeding the fish. Cool, more for me, space to fish and beer that is.

A couple of beer later, we're having fun. However the fish aren't hungry. Well, no matter...

At the end of the day we got 2 small fish and something bit my bait pretty hard and ran off with it, I lost all my tackle. Must have been a shark the captain reckons.

The run back to harbor is a long one, we've been drifting for quite a while. I watch the beautiful Indian Ocean and the guys regularly spurt, vomit an puke their intestines out. The captain smiles, I smile also.

All in all a good day, too bad I didn't catch anything.

I'm in Perth

Well what can I say? So far it’s been quite disappointing. It’s a huge city where thing do not get organized. I wanted to go fishing… too much wind on Sunday and overbooked on Monday. Damn. Ok let’s go surfing: I’ll need lessons so I mailed a surf school. Yeah sure, we’ll meet at the beach on Monday. Okay, Monday I’m there, the instructor is not. I call the number on the flyer: out of service. Back to the city center. It’s a 1.5 mio City so there Must be something happening in the city right? Wrong! Perth closes down like an oyster out of water at Eater. Fuck! So now what. Well Easter Monday, 17:00 I’m back at my hotel room. Okay, I swam in the Indian Ocean for the first time in my life. That’s gotta be worth something :o). I visited Freemantle, Hillary’s, Perth CBD and Scarborough beach so not too bad after all. Perth is nice but not a city I’d like to live. I’m happy I chose Brisie. Brisie Rocks… Perth does not.

I’ve won the Lottery!

Isn’t it fantastic that it’s possible to live and be relatively successful with just a reasonably healthy set of brains?
Of course I had to win the lottery first to get this: being born in a Western European family, having been raised in a fairly stable environment and been able to study at a high level. Once that’s done the world pretty much opens up.
My wife discovered this ages ago and has lived all over the world, so have a few of my international friends. I say this is the best time to be a Western European Young Professional. Enjoy the world!
My tools can be contained in a laptop bag: a Laptop with roaming internet, 1Tb external drive, a phone and a credit card. Another bag with my shirts, suits and shoes and I can work anywhere.
All you need is a little knowledge, some good bullshit and some luck. That’s it.
Can’t believe my luck!

St Patrick’s Day

I met up with Yolanda and Luis at the Pig ‘n Whistle in the centre of Brisie. Off to the parade we go!
The parade 10:00: The Irish community in Brisie, like in any great city, is tight and they take St Patrick’s day seriously. The Parade started in sunny hot weather… St Patrick decided that the parade should take place in true Irish weather so a shower came down for 20 minutes but in the midst of parade. No worries… the dancers kept dancing and the bagpipes kept playing. I spoke with an older man who turned out to be the manager of the largest Irish Pub in Brisie offered him a Guinness and he accepted.
We went in the pub and taste a couple of KillKennies and Guinness.

By now I’m slightly plastered and the sun is out again.

Second pub 13:00. Here most people are dancing and talking. I tasted green beer, a bloke with a powerful coloring agent was nice enough to change my beer’s color, I think my tongue will be green until St Patrick next year. Met a couple of nice people nice enough to provide me with a very silly hat. (I’m wearing green balloons, an Irish Flag and a silly hat and feel a little Irish)
Walking down the corridor to the loo I found an Irish overview of Celtic Families. And sure enough… there it was: the family name of my wife. Mc Cartan. Nice! I feel more Irish by the second.

By now I’m well done. Somewhere between a little drunk and letting all brakes loose.

Third pub 15:00 Good music here. A bagpipe band marches in and plays a set of evergreens, we dance to whatever rhythm we can discover in the music; we’re drinking beer and talk to anyone. A good atmosphere here, I’ll be back here.

Yep I’m now somewhere between stomach pumped drunk and heavily sedated.

Forth pub 17:00
All brakes are gone, the people are nice and the beer still tastes great. We talk to many Irish guys and gals (some of them 4th generation) and pretty much feel a brotherly bond between us. Oh yeah they love Amsterdam. Once I say I’m from Amsterdam the reaction is: tht’s a fucking awesome place… Let me buy you a beer. I must have had 5 beers just saying I was from Amsterdam. Damn I’m cool :o)

20:00 time to go home, I don’t think I can handle a Saturday night in addition to this day. Going out to the pub now sounds like suicide to me right now. I must be getting old.

Be Brave and Shave

There’s something strange going on today. People seem a little more rushed, running around with cake and pie, scissors, shaving gear and razors. What’s all this about then? On the Cat to work I see people with hair painted in all colors of the rainbow? What the fuck is going on?

Here in Oz the thing today is to shave your head bold. Years ago the leukemia foundation though of a good way to collect money for their cause. You ask your friends, family and colleagues how much dough they’d be willing to cough up to see you with a bold head, collect that money and give it to the foundation.
Some colleagues here are actually willing to pay a fair amount of cheddar to see some people with no hair. Most employers will double up the amount raised so there’s another incentive right there. At my office out of 23 employees 2 will get shaved today and 2 already got shaved last week, about half of all people have done it at least once. It’s really huge down here. Literally thousands will be shaved today, not only men but women as well.
Raise awareness and money… sure… but have fun at the same time? Somehow the Aussies have come up with a way of doing this.

The less heroic option is to have your hair painted in different colors. This is regarded as the weaker option but is not frowned upon by the diehard shavers. Not everyone looks great as a shiny cue ball. I think I’ll do it next year although many here would like to see a bold Dutchy run around this year. No way guys!

Airmiles

I’m flying to Perth on the 22th and will be back on the 28th. Now that’s a 5½ hour flight comparable to a flight from Amsterdam to Alanya in Turkey for a 4 day work week (I’ve taken 2 days to explore Perth a bit. Maybe I’ll go diving or fishing or surfing. We’ll see.
The week after that I’ll be in Brisie and the week after that I’ll be in Townsville from the 7th of April to the 11th of April (2 hours flight) doing a server setup, some consultancy and training. I don’t think I’ll stay the weekend.
The 6th of June I’ve planned a holiday with ‘da wifey’ in Cairns to go snorkeling and relaxing as Queensland enjoys yet another long weekend. I must say the pictures of Palm Cove (south of Cairns and where I’ll be staying) looks magnificent.
The Aussies take the plane easily and that’s probably why flying is so cheap down here. Mmmm wonder what my carbon footprint is.

International? you think so?

I was invited to a BBQ (what else?) this weekend by Patrick who is a Swiss bloke and his Mexican wife. I bought some Mexican 'Dos Eqios XX' beer and plenty of things to eat. Patrick, the host, has become a good friend and his wife is fantastic, they are truly International People as they have lived all over the world. Unfortunately they'll move to Calgary in 3 months. So I guess I got myself a place to stay in Canada. (It's only a 15 hour direct(!) flight).

Luis (Mexican) and his wife (Colombian) invited me to Saint-Patrick’s day with Guy (New Zealand), his wife (El Salvador) and a friend (Venezuela). So that's going to be a couple of Latino's, a kiwi and a Dutch guy celebrating an Irish festival in the China town part of an Australian city. It doesn't get any more international than that folks.

I guess that's pretty much the message here: international.
To give you another example: at work we have people from: Zimbabwe, Tasmania (we don't really count that as Australian, it's like the ”Friezen” in the Netherlands), New Zealand (the kiwis), South Africa, Swiss, UK, US (Alaska), Lithuania, Canada, China, Germany, India and the Netherlands. Now don't forget we are 22 in the bureau and only 6 are true Aussies.

You get some very exotic accents here. An Indian Taxi driver speaks quite differently than a Zimbabwean upper class bloke. The most difficult ones are the Chinese. Here are a couple of examples.

Dutch	Its four o'clock lets go for beers.
Chinese	èts fôh o'crock. Wrets gôh fôh beels, velly nâis.
Zimbabwe	Right'o chaps, its four o' lets go for a couple o' swift pints, shan’t we?
South Africa	Fuck! It’s fucking four man! I'm fucking off to pub to get fucked, real fucking fast.

Off to work!

I haven’t told this yet. I’ve got a new apartment since a couple of weeks. It’s very small and nothing like the other one but it has its advantages. The terrace is quite large and the sun comes in the morning (that’s 05:00) It’s in Kangaroo Point one of the most sought after suburbs in Brisie. There’s a pub just around the corner and best of all, I get to go with the City Cat to work.
The City Cats or Cats as they are called here are really fast boats moving over the river. They are quite famous in Australia and they’re the most popular means of transport around the city. Here’s a comparison a movie and a couple of pictures.

Netherlands: Run to car in the rain and darkness, wipe the windows for condensation, join the traffic jam and look at people picking their nose in the car next to you.

Brisie: Walk to the pier in the sunshine, board a City Cat and get a breath of fresh air, walk up to workplace in the sun watching people basking in the sun with a coffee and a cigarette.

Off to work, with a smile, it truly makes a smile come to your face.

Get Out!

There is a war going on when it comes to housing here in Australia especially here in Brisie. A colleague of mine got kicked out of his house with a, hang on to your seats, two weeks’ notice. So imagine you’re drinking a nice cold beer by the pool side and the mailman comes by with a letter on Saturday saying: "bugger off we’re selling the house, and oh by the way, you have 14 days to find a new house, pack, move and settle."
After chocking on your beer making your face turn blue, shooting the mailman’s head off, your face turns red with anger.

But hey, that’s the law down here. You can stay and fight it off with a lawyer for another 4 weeks but you’ll be registered as a squatter and your chances to rent anywhere else plummets to somewhere between ‘bugger all’ and ‘freaking no way’.

So now my colleague has cancelled his plans for the coming 2 weeks and is packing his stuff and ploughing the Internet for a new home. I hope I don’t piss off my landlord.