Geoverse

Yesterday I’ve been to my first gig in Australia! The Metal band Alchemist held a live performance in their home town Canberra at the uni bar (ANU). There were 3 support acts so it took a while before the moment came, but then when Alchemist went on stage it was absolutely awesome! I took some sneaky pics too which are pretty good despite the poor lighting. Alchemist played some new tunes for their upcoming album Tripsis. I thought they sounded great so I can’t wait to check out the album when they release it in a months time. I heard about Alchemist via some friends and bought their latest album Austral Alien which I love because it has these Australian themes in it. The tracks Alchemist played from that album that night were First Contact and Great Southern Wasteland. Since i’m not too familiar yet with each track from other albums they played I wasnt sure what they were called. I’m sure they must have played one or two tracks from Lunasphere as well. I must remind myself to get some ear plugs next time though but overall i loved the music and the atmosphere. So here’s to more metal gigs!

Sneaky pics

Sneaky video

I’ve been away for 2 weeks (8 July – 22 July) with my mum and brother to various destinations on the east coast of Australia. It was simply awesome. Highlight of the trip was snorkelling in the outer great barrier reef!

Main destinations were Sydney – Cairns – Great Barrier Reef – Brisbane – Blue Mountains. We flew to most destinations but between Brisbane and Blue mountains/Sydney we drove in a hired car. The trip was mostly inland after Surfers Paradise.

The photos have been uploaded here. They should speak for themselves. I’ve added captions for xtra info.

If anyone is interested for more details, dont hesitate to contact me! 😀

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!

I’ve been to Melbourne for the weekend and it was friggin’ AWESOME! I departed from Canberra at noon and arrived only an hour later in Melbourne. I took a skybus (hideously expensive!) to the CBD (Central Business District). I was pretty hungry so I grabbed a maccas first. I was to meet with a guy I’ve known via the internet by the alias of Willow. I couldnt get a response from his mobile phone but luckily he found me on the stairs leading up into the Southern Cross railway station. It turned out I had entered his mobile phone number wrong on my mobile. This was the first time I ever met someone in RL whom I got to know on the internet and it went rather well I think 🙂

We headed into the CBD and I was simply amazed by the hi rise buildings, many looked brand new completely covered in glass. And between these buildings were these Victorian style 19th-early 20th century buildings with the kind of architecture you see a lot in London. The sheer contrast of it was stunning. I had made a small list of things to see in Melbourne from my Lonely planet guide so we headed for the immigration museum first. The museum was pretty interesting showcasing the Australian history from the moment of the first European settlers in 1830. Of course it was a Dutch guy who discovered Australia in 1600 something but he didnt found a settlement.

After that we did some more sight seeing in the city and decided to check out a movie in the cinema. I still wanted to see Shrek 3 but at the last minute I changed my mind and agreed to see “Bridge to Terabithia” or something like that instead. It was a movie similar to “The Chronicles of Narnia” so it was more a childrens movie. It was good to watch nonetheless. (I had Shrek 3 already d/led and actually watched it last night. It sucked lol :D) The cinema was inside a pretty big shopping mall with 5 stories! Inside it was an old lead factory (?) and its tower was covered by a glass dome. There also was a big watch hanging from one of the balconies.

When the movie ended we decided to get some food and where else to go than the Italian quarter on Lygon street. 🙂 We both munched away a pizza and I had a James Boags premium to quench the thirst. The night wasnt over yet so we headed back to Federation square (big place with strange architectural buildings and a very big trophy cup) and found our way into a pretty big bar where we had a cocktail. I cant remember what mine was called but it had a nice strawberry flavour and maybe some chocolate as well. As the night drew to a close we took the train to the suburbs at Willow’s place where I was allowed to crash for the night. Normally I dont really sleep well in new places but I must have been pretty tired and around 2:30 I was pretty much fast asleep.

The next day I woke up around 9 am. It turned out Willow’s new housemate moved in that very weekend which must have come as a pleasant turn of events for him to meet two new blokes at the same time. We had some cereals and generally chatted about computer games and stuff (what else? ;-)). Willow was pretty keen on coming with me to check out some more stuff in Melbourne so we left the house around 11 am. Next on my list was the Australian Zoo. It also turned out to be the last item on my list to check out as we spend pretty much the whole afternoon there. It was pretty cool though and we saw lots of animals. It was just feeding time when we came so i took a number of cool hungry lion shots. You can check out the photos in a link below to see what animals we saw. But darn it, the platypus was hiding! Maybe I’ll have more luck to see it in the wild…

We got back to the CBD by 5pm which also what about the time I had to head back to the airport with the really expensive, I could go to Sydney from Canberra with that money, Skybus. No worries though and I got to the airport right on time and flew back to Canberra where my bike was waiting for me in the freezing cold. Still it saved me some money for a taxi and it’s only a 30 minute bike ride to home.

HERE are the photos. Sorry for the crappy quality. I will buy a new camera soon!

Rex out.