River Festival,

An armada of ships makes its way up the river. Thousands flock toward the river shores. IT's River Festival!!

Today there are free BBQ's and beer is shared among friends.
We're having beers and Chips at the StoryBridge Hotel and planes are flying over in formation. At dusk we make our way to the Kangaroo Point bar where a couple of friends await us.The fireworks go off on 5 different barges across the river, off the highest towers and off the bridge. I have never seen so much fireworks going off at once! It lasted for about 30 minutes and at the end a F1-11 swoops in from the sky, flies low over the river and Dumps & Burns his fuel.The sound was as strong as the force was strong with Luke Skywalker.
A lovely evening for sure.

Adelaide

A collegue and I flew out to Adelaide, pumped with adrenaline and ready to go hard and heavy as our account manager had warned us for a heavy week of work. 9 days of work to be done in 4.5 days. That's working at 200%.
Once we arrived, we saw the tempo of most people was that of between a snail on valium and a sleeping sloth. After the first few hours we realized the client expected much less than we thought, basically we had finished all we had to do in the first 5 hours. Damn, now what? We can't fly out, we can't leave, we're stuck! We chose to mingle a bit with the local workforce.

The mere mention of the word 'Work' was enough to make 5 grown up men sigh heavily and melodramitically "ah yes... the 'W'-word!". The 'W' -word, as they call it, is evil: 'that of wich we do not speak'.
The heaviest activity I've seen all day is when an Australian swimmer got the Gold medal. Most people were looking at the television. WHAT? A TELEVISION?, yes a television with FOX cable and everything, we're talking Sony Bravia here.

Quite remarkable to see so many people do absolutely nothing.

The origin of this work-ethic is uncertain, it would certainly have to do with spineless, weak and non-existent leadership. So, looking around people stare at e-mails, look at the Olympic on the television. Surf the internet, read the news paper. Judging by holiday stories, the cars they drive and number of times they mention expensive things most non-workers make a very decent living.

Now I've got a problem, for a consultant costing over $2000 a day, I at least need to look a bit busy... don't I?? So I look at my computer with a deep frown and write this ...

New Appartment

Well here it is.
We'll be moving next week, so you'll get a few pics from the interior. For now just a couple of pics to show the location.
And eh... oh yeah... It comes with a pool and a tennis court :o)

Splash the Cash

This weekend we are going to buy buy buy. We need stuff for our new apartment, so we need a car. I have hired a car at the local shop a Chrysler Cruiser PT convertible! And it's a red one too. Midlife crisis here I come :o)

It's a sunny weekend so top down. We visit all the super stores and a couple of smaller stores and bought a myriad of stuff and things. Don't forget we have nothing. After a weekend of hard work we decide to drive down to the Coolonga beach and have a picnic.

Now I don't know which car to buy. A 4x4, a convertible, a cheap car (and get my motor driving license).

I really liked this Chrysler PT...

Emmanuelle vs Sales guys

We've got a new apartment and we're moving in there by the end of this month. It's an unfurnished apartment so if we'd move in there right now, it'd be a very empty, very depressing hole. Remember, we don't own a spoon. So let’s spend all of our money! Yay!
My wife, having lived in Morocco, is very used to barter for good prices.

A bed - 50% off.
The salesperson says: 'If I'd sell all my furniture at these prices, I'd be out of business by the end of the month.' Emmanuelle - Sales Guys 1-0.

A couch - 20% off.
The salesperson went down to 35% but after a call with his manager he came back with 'I can't go no lower than 20% or I lose my job'.
Emmanuelle – Sales Guys 2-1

Electrical appliances - 40%
After a very long, violent blood ridden fight over percentages the Sales guy gives in and drops his guard. My wife, blood thirsty and aggressive jumps in and closes the deal.
Emmanuelle - Sales Guys 3-1

Did I tell you I love my wife? :o) I do not want to negotiate with her over money, ever. The only thing I can tell is that she'll be buying our car and our house, not me.

French vs Ozzies

Rugby: a sport I used to play every Wednesday and Saturday and now I'm having a hard time remembering the basic rules. My lovely wife decided to purchase a couple of tickets for the game at the Suncorp stadium.

We arrived just in time to purchase beers and fries and run for our seats. Kick off! aaaaaannnd... before my first handful of fries and sip of beer the Wallabies have taken the lead by 10 points. The ozzies around us made sure we'd seen the French get trampled and explained to a high degree of accuracy why the French sucked.

Okay, time to cheer our team on. allez les blues!, allez les blues! ALLEZ LES BLEUS! The Ozzies looked at us, first to make sure we were not Euro-Hooligans and then even start chanting with us. I guess they knew they were going to win.

My wife got into the spirit of it and yelled so loud that Sebastien Chabal -a French Player- looked up at her, smiled and said something to his team mate who looked as well. Without hesitation my wife grabbed her shirt and did the old 'I'm-showing-my-boobs-but-there's-another-t-shirt-underneath'. Now everyone around us is laughing.

My non-patriotic wife stole a yellow scarf just before the 30-3 score saying she had nothing to do with those losers in blue out on the field. That was fun I guess Emmanuelle made about 30 new friends, or at least people that will recognize her in the street.
In the end the French out-sucked a black hole and lost 40-10 being very lucky to get a try in the last minute.
I'm getting tickets for the Oz vs All Black game in September.

Whales

Okay, so about 20 minutes drive from our home, there's a charter that takes you to watch whales.
Great! Let's do that. On the boat, a pretty quick catamaran, we see Moreton Island, its beaches the woods and the blue waters.

Once out of the bay and onto the ocean it takes us about 15 minutes to find the first pod of whales. I crack a couple of jokes:
- Where are the Japanese whale hunters?
- Can we get a Whale sandwich over here?

Here they come, blimey, these are big buggers. A pod of three is joined by a pod of five and later by another pod of three. There are a couple of dolphins around, but they are not the stars of this show.
They get a bit excited and start jumping out of the water and have a good look at us.
They come in really close and... whhhssssshhhhh!!! a spray of water and whale breath right in the face. It smells like fish that has been dead for 3 weeks.
We stay around them for a couple of hours when they decide they had enough of us and take off.

Great Barrier Reef!

Oh crap, it’s early, okay let’s hurry because today we’re going to the Great Barrier Reef!
At 08:00 AM we boarded a superfast mega luxurious cat and blasted close to the speed of sound through the waters to the outer barrier reef. After a flying low (mach 0.9) for an hour and a half we arrived at the first dive/snorkel site. and... the bloody sharks greet us. They're only babies but mum can't be far.

Splash! let's go and visit Nemo and Dorie. It doesn't take long to find a lot of fish. Emmanuelle and I leave the group and go snorkling in a large lagoon. Lovely, truly lovely.
The second site and third site are very nice indeed. A huge groper swims by and a couple of sting rays swim by.
I will return there but I'll be honest, the red sea (Sharm el Sheikh and Hurgada) are a bit better then the GBR. The colors are not that intense, and there are large area's where the coral has died.

Skyrail

Over the tops of the Trees back to the water. Skyrail is a tourist trap, but a lovely one. It flies through the mountains over the tree tops and gives a good impression of how inaccessible this tropical forest is.

KSR Train

The KSR train is one of the tourist attraction in the vicinity of Palm Cove. The KSR is a train winding through the mountains. 15 tunnels, very steep ....We took the train and had a fresh breakfast. Champagne (or rather an Australian variant of the bubbly), some very nice cakes and quiches. At a certain point the train nears a waterfall so close, you can see the individual drops and feel the droplets.

Palm Cove

To welcome Emmanuelle I had booked flights to Cairns (northern Queensland) and then a car to go to a resort a bit further up the coast. After all Emma had only been travelling for 36 hours, so I thought we'd fly some more.

I got the best room in the Hotel, after all 'noblesse oblige'. Palm cove is no more than a collection of resorts by the sea. The Pacific Ocean stretches for as far as the eye can see and the palm trees by the beach make it very nice place for long beach walks. The only thing missing is truly blue water, it has a grey color to it.

Apparently Palm Cove is Marriage central: walking down the beach at sun set we spotted 5 couples get their marriage pictures taken on the beach. (a picture perfect beach, I'd say).

We hired a car, and drove around a bit. Basically the surroundings are tropical forest and beach. It has some history fro a country where nothing is older than 2 centuries. The locals died en masse last century when they tried to create a long railway line between Cairns and the more northern cities. The death toll was so high, that the powers that be decided not to tempt fate and stopped the construction of the rail way at Kundura.

The Wifey!

It's 18:00 I haven't slept well last night, I'm quite excited because my wife will land in one hour. I haven't seen her in 125 days. All I can say: it's been too long.

The doors of the international arrivals gate open and... no. That's not her. Okay, this time then, Nope... After a little wait I find myself a bit nervous. And when I least expect it... there she is. Exactly how I remembered her.
Kisses, hugs, smiles. All is well.

She woke me up 4 times that night to check whether it was really me and we talked a bit. Happy happy joy joy, life in Australia can now truly commence.

We'll have to start from scratch and rebuild everything, from car to home, from clothes to friends. That'll keep us busy for a while.

Evaluation

Righto, after a couple of months in Australia, time for an evaluation.

Nature:
Well, nothing on earth quite compares to Australia, from lush green forests, to ultra dry deserts, to rich seas teaming with fish and dolphins. Australia is also very close to the least explored land in the World: Papua New Guinea. I'm sure I'll visit that country soon.

Groceries:
They have everything and more, the stores resemble American stores where the is choice o galore, however the portions seem more European. (No gallon sized bottles of ketchup, or garbage bag sized bag of chips).
One thing really sucks: they don't sell paprika flavored chips. So bring me some when you're visiting :o)

People:
Very friendly, easygoing and real. Most people are immigrants or 2nd generation of immigrants, people who came to Australia to live a better life, not to fuck up. I have seen some racism against the original inhabitants of Australia.

Work:
You work harder here than in the Netherlands (I think most of the world works harder than in the Netherlands). Everybody can, and does, work from home. Work is very social (BBQ, Beers) and everybody flies at least a thousand times per year for work around Australia.

Family:
The city of Brisbane now boasts the highest concentration of grand children in the World. Just kidding: actually the family is quite far away, and yes it's a hell of a trip to visit the rello's.

Housing:
Far more expensive than Europe. A mortgage runs at 8.7%

Politics:
The biggest political things that happened in Australia in the pas few months are:
1. A politician got in trouble because he sniffed the seat of a female colleague after she had left.
2. The prime minister organized a thinking group (1000 Australians from all walks of life) to 'design the Australia of the future'. Although the results so far are a bit weak, I liked the idea.

Money:
Ridiculous salaries are being paid here in Australia (Truck drivers earn up to 140K AUD and Teachers demand 100K salaries) this combined with an AUD that's getting stronger against all major currencies and an inflation rate that's quite low makes Australia one on the wealthiest countries in the world.

Conclusion:
Work and visa permitting, I'm staying in this country. The lifestyle is better, the beer is better and world politics and trouble do not excite us very much.

Fishing part 2

Mhhuwahahaaa.
It’s fishing time! After having worked 25 hours a day in the past 2 weeks. I decided it was time to reward myself.
Last time I went fishing nothing was caught, this was revenge time! Last time a few guys chose to have a WA brekkie and after the first 4 waves hit the bow, all this beer was lost again to the sea. Hurl, barf… you get the picture. Same thing this time. Overconfident blokes stirring up each other to drink beers. This time it took 10 waves to get 5 guys so sick people in HonKong must have heard them throw up.

So we’re out behind Rottnest Island in some pretty deep water (120m) when my rod goes plink, plonk. This is a fish. Okay stay calm, be cool, let him nibble a little, a little longer… a little… Wham! Got him!

Right, this is no small guppy! 10 minutes into the fight the awkward rod make all my muscles ache. By now the 20 other fisherman are watching me struggle. I can’t show them weakness; this is a man’s sport, a noble sport, for true man, not for wimps. So I fight harder and after a grueling 20 minutes my opponent shows himself. It’s a Mulaway also called ButterFish and it’s a monster: 11.8 Kgs.

Throughout the day fishermen congratulate me on this big catch, and even the captain says it’s been a while since he’d seen such a big one.

I continue fishing and catch an Yellow eye and some Skippies.

I called Tony, a bloke whom I met at the client, and told him he could have the fish if he’d give me a ride to the Airport. Sure enough, he met me at the jetty and sure enough he was very impressed by this fish. Man that will not fit in my fridge. (Tony is a Scottish bloke with a nice access (Sean Connery style).

An albatross flies by to see me off, back to Brisbane for me.

Afraid of flying.

Those who know me a bit, know that I don’t like flying.
It’s not natural to rocket through freezing air at 850Km/h in a device made of parts fabricated by the lowest bidder. To me it has always been a bad idea.

I know the cliché is that you get killed quite a bit easier on the road. And now I believe it.
I just got of a flight and got into a cab. As most Cab’s in Australia they are driven by young immigrants or very old men.

This time I got one of these old men. He said he worked 6 days a week 12 hour shifts. And this was this last day, he had 2 more hours to go.
Now, imagine: a 76 year old geezer, seriously deprived of sleep, in a car that had: 590.000 kms (!). Now that would be regarded as less safe by some. Interestingly I felt more secure with this old fogey than in a plane… There you have it.

Flat out...

...like a lizard drinking.Damn I've been very busy the past few weeks. Flying around Australia. (I fly from Perth today, and back to perth Monday. The system I work with is the flavour of the month here in Australia and just about everybody wants it.

Good for my air miles, bad for my sleep and peace of mind.

Today it was quite cold here in Perth and the striking thing is: many people wear very old-fashioned sweaters and Woolys. Really weird to see a bloke in a red and green banded sweater for the eighties.
Tony, a nice guy I met here, told me it was logical. He's a Scottich bloke who arrived here 15 years ago and he said: yep my sweaters are about 15 years old too and very much out of fashion.

Work, work, work

This time Townsville was all about work.
When I got there the server I was supposed to work on was in a state of decomposition. I mean it almost seemed that the IT service provider did this on purpose.

Having fixed that the IT-service provider basically stole all my credit stating: yep, we've fixed it, and asked for money to my client. What a bunch of fucking leeches. I can only say:
Outsourced IT = very, very, veeeery bad idea.

I had seen this before but... fucking hell, never this bad. It's like they're doing this on purpose: slow network, old computers, no access to anything, not understandable IT-helpdesk based in Pakistan.

Aw, well, I fixed it, installed it and got ready to deliver an admin training: I really like administrators, they're intelligent and I speak their language.
But right before I went to my hotel for a well deserved evening a manager came up to me and said: "you'll be giving a presentation on how to implement this from a Business Process Analyst's perspective". Before I could say: "NO, I don't wanna, fuck off", he added, the CEO would be attending so they expected great things.
Right, there goes my evening, night and morning. Who needs sleep anyway.
So Monday night (don't forget I got up really early to get the first flight to Townsville) I worked till very late to get this presentation ready.

The next few days were a mix of configuration, presentation, meetings and documentation. Really no time to sleep or eat.

I'll be back because they loved me. But next time I'll go a little easier.

RottNest Island

Another Island discovered by the Dutch (I said semi-proudly feeling Dutch). There are some marsupials on the island that if seen from a distance look like huge rats. It’s actually a small kangaroo with a naked tail. They’re quite cute, and very fond of sugar as I discovered (check the Photo it's trying to steal my winegums).

But the Dutch fellow decided it was a rat and called the Island Rattennest eiland… The English not being able to understand any language but their own, translated it to Rottnest Island.

You have to get there by boat (a 1,5 hour ride over the sea). There’s pretty much nothing to do in and around Perth (you need a 4 hour drive to the south or 2 hours flight to the North) so the Perthians are quite happy with this Island and regard it as a weekends retreat. To me it resembles the Veluwe by the sea. A lovely sea, lovely people, lovely Island, but still… not very impressive I don't think I'll return here.

Some Pics

Freemantle, 45 minutes from Perth is just a harbor city like hundreds similar ones in the world. The market is alright and resembles “la boqueteria” in Barcelona – Spain. I buy some a peach, a slice of melon and some pineapple.



The AQWA (Aquarium West Australia how smart) is just another aquarium like the dozens I have already visited. The Box Jelly Fish Foto basically says: The Box Jelly Fish is the most venomous marine creature in the world. A box-jellyfish can kill a human in less than a minute.


Perth has enormous parks and enough space for every one.

I had never swam in the Indian Ocean so I was quite exited to go. I went to Scarborough beach, and splash! Into the Ocean. The water was nice, a little cold.

Swans, the black ones

Swan Taxis, Swan River, Swan hotel, Swan café, Swan Opal Shops, the swan logo for the city council AND the local governor.

I’m guessing Perth has something to do with Swans. The emblem of Perth is 2 black swans. Oh yeah right! I remember: The discovery of a BLACK swan was very unexpected and shocked Europe. Even better, a Dutch man discovered it… Or did he, I’m guessing some aboriginal must have spotted the black swam a little earlier. Europe was under the impression that the only color you could get a swan was white, nothing was further from the truth

Anyway the Black Swan example is used as a principle in presentations as a warning for people who aren’t ready for the unexpected or change. This dogma is underlined by this discovery, the capture and the presentation of this freak of nature. Funny.

I did see a black swam in the distance but didn't get a picture.