Geoverse

G’day everyone. Looks like I shouldn’t make deadlines to leave a post, but here we go. It’s 2008! And how to better celebrate the new year than to go to Sydney! I went with my housemate there by bus (which takes about 3.5 hours). We got there by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. After having bought a subway sandwich we headed for Hyde park with some beer and stayed there for a bit relaxing on the lawn. Thereafter we headed for the circular quay in sydney which is like a harbour where the ferries are. We had in mind to go to Manly Beach first by ferry and then come back and secure a place to see the fireworks. This was a bad idea as it turned out! When we got to the botanical gardens we heard from people that the areas where you can sit and watch the fireworks were quickly filling up with people and it was only 3 pm! The opera house area was already closed so we headed straight back to the city to buy some food and booze to get us throught the night. Bad idea again but we were ignorant of the organisation at these designated spots. Still it didn’t matter too much. By 4 pm we were at the botanical gardens where we figured we could stay and watch the fireworks. We were shocked to realise that you could not bring your own alcohol inside the fenched area. So after some thinking I suggested I’d hide our esky (= container) with beer. After that we got in alright. Because I am still 24 I had to get a silly wrist band at a stand but only after I had showed them my passport. Like they don’t trust a 24 year old with alcohol! Tsk. It was incredibly crowded there and we were soon hunting for an empty spot on the grass. I’ve not often seen so many people in one place. We did find a decent spot in the end were we stayed for most of the evening. Alcohol could be bought but the beer was shit (of course) so we ended up drinking serveral bottles of white wine that evening (which was pretty shit too ha ha). The atmosphere was awesome and it was great seeing so many people having fun. By 9 pm the first fireworks were on. This was a trial to see if it all worked. It was nonetheless a sight to behold. We didn’t have the best view because some trees were blocking our line of sight and we couldn’t get to a better spot because they were already taken by people who probably arrived early that same morning. As time moved on the moment had come. We managed to find a slightly better spot to stand and see the fireworks. I could see half the harbour bridge which was good enough. At the stoke of 12 the spectacle burst loose. The fireworks on the bridge was brilliant! Then after that everyone was forced to leave so we all went to the CBD (central business district). There wasn’t much to do in the city and the streets were filled with drunken people, some causing some havok. At around 4 i guess we went back to the park and found our esky with beer. We had a couple and then fell asleep. It wasn’t too cold ouside and in the park hardly anyone was around. We woke up full of mossie bites but the sunrise over Sydney was pleasant. After a while we took the bus back to Canberra and I had another nap. I was pretty knackered and it was really hot that day, at least 35C. The weather has been hot all around but it’s a bit more agreeable for now at around 28C. So that was it! Best new year ever! Next year I’ll be back 😛 If you want to see photos, follow the link on the sidebar to my picasa web albums.

Have a good one!

I love mountainbike riding in and around Canberra. When it’s Sunday, the weather is good, 18C and you can’t be arsed to hang out with people, go for a bike ride with your camera! Anyway here are some shots I took. 🙂

If you are wondering about my research, it’s all going swell. Just doing heaps of experiments and some reading although at the moment I’m not really bothered to browse through heaps of articles. That time will come!

Before I went to Melbourne I had a eventful Friday afternoon with the RSES PhD students. We went lawnbowling. It’s like Petanque (bocce in Italian), only that the lawnbowls are slightly flattened. Also the weight distribution is assymetric so they always rotate inwards as you throw the ball. There are some funny technical terms you want to know. I have illustrated them with a picture below. We teamed up and had some good matches. The trick was to aim for a pink peg offset from the jack and with enough weight (or power) you roll the ball so that it ends up near the jack. We played for 2 hours or so after which we had some more beers in a pub nearby. Tis was good fun! The perfect lazy sport!

Here’s a small update with all that’s been keeping me busy since my last post. I’ve been putting my PhD project to one side for the last week so I could spend some time on rewriting my masters thesis into a GRL paper. I’ve been using LyX and the result is incredible! It’s also so easy to use with making references and inserting figure and tables in a very professional way! Sweet as aye. The first version is now finished and sent off to my former supervisor in Utrecht. I have a good feeling about my first publication that this will be it.

Other than work, I have checking out some pubs Canberra has to offer. There is a really good one called the Phoenix. Last thursday after a seminar dinner I went with some friends to this place and had a couple of drinks and good laughs. Kilkenny is a beer that I can certainly recommend! Now that many PhD students are completing their research many nights like these will follow to celebrate a successful conclusion to their 3 – 4 year research. Brilliant! I say :-). Last night I went with some people to a steak house/pizzeria. The steaks are awesome! Normally I’d rarely eat steaks (back in NL) but here the temptation is too good! Steaks are relatively cheap too in the supermarket. Later that evening we went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At world’s end in the cinema. It was pretty much alright, a bit better than the second one but the original first one still rules. If you like comedy and action and some adventure, you certainly mustn’t miss out on this one! Prepare yourself for a long watch though. It lasts for 3 hours! That was actually one of the flaws. If it was shorter, i might have been even better. I’d give it 8/10.

Maybe next week we’ll go and see Shrek the third! I heard it was quite good!

I booked a flight to Melbourne in the weekend of 23 – 24 June for some sightseeing. It would be a good opportunity to get out of Canberra for a bit.

Next week I’ll be starting new experiments on a side project on the annealing kinetics of dislocations in synthetic Fo90.