Magical seacreatures, experiencing Australia and enjoying the best time of life...

It has been two weeks since my last blog. To be honest it feels like months! The last two weeks have been amazing! I think the coolest two weeks of my life aside from a few days of sickness. As usual I will describe my adventures word for word.. =] It started with another fun party in the Valley with Linda who finally came back from the US. (and has left us again for a research trip on a boat) We went to meet her at my favorite cocktail bar where she, her boyfriend Pat and two Dutch friends of her were having a good time. It was weird talking in Dutch again. I'm getting used to the english so fast that I'm actually losing some of y Dutch vocabulary... We tried to end up in this bar that four other friends were in but apparently none of us had any clue where this place was, o we endended up, after 30 minutes walking in the lamest bar ever. But, yes thats me again, I had forgotten my drivers licence in Nick's car. This country insists on people showing their ID at all times, even 70 year old gradpa's with a walking stick! So we went walking back to the car.. yes a 15 minute walk, when, passing a fancy night club, an enourmous bouncer decided to take a step back onto the pavement without looking. He stept full on my foot! And this was not an ordinary big guy, he was HUGE! So skipping around in pain he asked what he could do to make it up to us when Nick cleverly replied that he could let us in for free.. This club had a 15 dollar entree fee! SO thats 30 dollars saved! So we had a drink there enjoyed the music got a stamp from another boucer while walking out and headed to the car again. We met up with the rest of the group in te super lame bar filled with super druk ununderstandable irish guys. So I tried to make everyone leave for another venue when we decided that a house party on nicks deck was a better and cheaper plan. I was the only sober one in the group unfortunately so I had the honour of driving a big Rav4 to Red Hill. The first time I felt a bit comfortable driving on the left side of the road. That is one of the things I love from Australia, you can do anything outside because it is never cold! You can sit in your short summer dress in the middle of the night without feeling cold once! Wild plans were made to head to Byron bathe next day. And so we did, leaving early in the morning. A three hour drive to Byron Bay, a place that is very popular but still very laid back. Tried to get a nice camping spot but there was almost nothing left. The one spot that was left was directly next to the entrance bordering the road... Well ok, we settled for that, when genius nick took out the tent to set it up realized he had forgotten the tent poles! I laughed my ass off, he kept mumbling the line, rookie mistake, rookie mistake.... Luckily there was still some space in the lodges. We went to do a little tour through Byron, which is actually a very small place and got to see all the sights. After some shopping we headed back to barbecue some haute cuisine burgers accompanied by a lovely red shiraz. Next to us there were these three guys eating some hotdog and after a while we started talking and found out we had a common interest... Diving! These guys were in byron with the sole reason to go diving! One of these guys had an incredible under water camera and showed us some of his pictures, that are published occasionally in dive magazines. We mixed the party up and enjoyed some drinks together. After a while the guys invited us to go diving with them the next day! They brought their own boat on a trailer and had all the gear with them! Drinks turned into a party and Blair the Photo guy started another barbecue spree. Kangaroo steak was on the menue! I love it! We took an esky and moved to the beach where a few french guys joined us and some dude that called himself moonjoined with a guitar. We ended up drinking and singing songs till 12, when we finally headed into the nightlife of Byron bay. Unfortunatly almost everything closes, or refuses people to get in, at 12. So our last resort was the "cheeky monkey" we rushed there and partied untill 4. After that went straight to bed to be at least a bit fit in the morning for the dive. I wasn't looking forward to it because I know I get sick on boatrides.. The next morning we headed out to Julian Rock, 30 minute boatride, smashing onto the waves. It felt like a rodeo... The dive though was unbelievably beautifull! I only did not have a wetsuit, so I dove suitless, which wasn't bad at all!! I got cold once at a thermocline at 12 meter depth. We saw bullrays, eaglerays, stingrays, a lot of pufferfish, I adore them, they look so cute with those big eyes and kissy lips. We even encountered an angelfish!! Beautifull! Back on the boat getting my gear off I felt a bit of nausea comming up, but nothing too bad. I actually survived a dive trip without spuwing! I was so proud! Back on the beach it was a bit cold though... A hot shower and a fresh change of clothes did me really good. Then it was time to head back to Brisbane...

That week I was a bit ill.. Go this bad cold from my room mate with a tickling cough that almost makes you puke out your intestines while coughing. So did two days of uni started my morphology studie, really happy to start something new. That friday a trip to Sarah's house on rainbow beach was planned. So we headed out a bit after eight to drive the 3,5 hour up north to Gympie (seriously a place has this name...) and the to Rainbow beach. We arrived picked our rooms and took a tour of the house. It was beautiful with a gorgeous view of the beach and the bay, even Frasier Island was visible in the distance! We had some drinks and a dance when Sarah had the wonderfull idea to take the music to a sanddune and enjoy the view from there. It was the biggest sanddune I had ever seen. And ofcourse we had to run down it, not thinking of how bad the way back would be. My roomie Micheal aka Germy aka Jeremy was also invited to this trip so we showed the australians the proper european way to run into the ocean on a moonless night... Totally naked! So the five of us ran into the sea. When we were in there I noticed that the waves were filled with little sparks.. little things were lighting up when you stirred the water. It was the first time in my life I ever experienced seaspark... It was magical! Unfortunately when I was running into the ocean I did not notice a rock in the water and sprained my knee falling over it. Well I was so happy and had a few drinks, so I did not notice it at the time. The climb up the sanddune was a big adventure. It was really steep and really high, but I invented the Gorilla running technique to get up the hill. Back at the house we enjoyed a bit more music had a dance and decided we were going to watch the sunride from the big sandblow. It was unbelievable beautifull. The sky turned pink and a deep orange sun rose between the hills.. the sea was sparkling gold. I think this was the most beautiful and magical night I have ever experienced. We headed back and danced on the balcony till 9 in the morning, then went to bed for a few hours of sleep. Sarah, Cameo and Germie made the best breakfast ever, toast scrambled eggs, avocado, tomatoes and cheese... That with a coffee brought me back to life again. We did some groceries for dinner and headed to the beach where I did yet another magical discovery I found a Glaucomus atlanticus, also referred to as a little blue sea dragon. This is a nudibranch, a sort of seaslug that eats bluebottle jellyfish, the jellyfish pop when you step on them on the beach. The blue sea dragon concentrated the venom from the jellyfish and stores in in some weird shaped extensions on its body, so its very poisonous! But only when you squash it.. And it's pretty.. =] We headed back to the house, I took a shower and a little nap and started cooking. Made a grilled vegtable pasta salad sweet potato and Yam from the oven and a nice light green salad. Andrew! my favorite party animal did his magic on the berbecue grilling the sausages and the steaks... Best steak ever! Since there was no sleep on fridaynight everyone was a bit tired after the dinner so we had an easy evening and a good sleep. The next day we went fourwheel driving on the beach! Its quite popular here, you can't call it a beach anymore.. Its more like a highway! Hahaha, but really cool nonetheless. We stopped at double island point for a swim. The water was just beautiful, so clear, though there was something that was gruesome on the beach. A beached and very dead dolphin. And yes I had to take pictures of it. I know I horrible, but whats even worse, I'll put them on the blog too!! Anyway, the tide was comming up so we had to head back by taking a sandpath to another beach and then through the bush to get back to the house. While doing this trip we found out that Nick's car wasn't actually a fourwheeldrive! Oops, sarah stopped the car in front of us on a impossible sandy spot because germie dropped his camera out of the car. So we got bogged... Luckily there are a lot of Macho Australian dudes with huge cars to pull us out of the mess. The car had a hard time though and with our efforts to get it out ourselfs the engine overheated... After a little wait and some help we were able to continue the journey, that took 45 minutes thorugh sandy bush paths back to the main road. It was awesome! Really cool and beautiful... Hail to our courageous driver! And then it was time to clean the house and head back to good old Brizzie again.

There and back again, I had the best time ever.. Am so thankfull for it! It gave me the energie to start back up in the lab again. Get more work and start another blog! I started a cooking blog with recipies etc in it. Hope to update that one at least every week. Since the stories are not as ridiculously long as for this one. ;) Anyway.. Big kiss to all of you. I hope you are enjoying the hot chocolate and the fireplaces back in holland. Its getting so hot here that you sometimes whish the whole country was a nudist campsite. Bangkok like hot, very humid. Next saturday my roomie and me organised a barbecue in the garden, so I hop that will be a nice little party. On sunday the plan is to go and see a cricket game! Culture!!

So peeps! Big kiss and hope to hear from you guys!

PS, the new blog is:

therecipebylindagomes.blogspot.com

ANd anothe picture from thge Byron Bay dive!!! Magical!

Island Vibes, beautifull beaches and my first kangaroo!

I have had the most cool, incredible beautiful long weekend trip. We went with a big group of people to stay in a big queenslander house on stradbroke island to go to the Island Vibes festival! We left early early in the morning to make the 1,5 hour drive to Cleveland to catch the ferry and do some groceries for the weekend. Stupid, because we got there at eight! And the shops weren’t open yet. Silly… after half an hour in sun on the ferry in the sun we arrived on Straddie and drove to point lookout to pick up the keys to the house. The Island is sooo beautiful! Eucalyptus forests, squeeking white beaches, the sand actually squeeks when you walk on it. Its so fine and white.. The house was not ready for us all yet so we had some fish and chips for lunch did some shopping and went to cylinder beach. Floated in the waves, a bit scared for the giant shark luring around those parts, walked around in search for some hidden sea creatures lay in the sun and read my book. Finally we could pick up the keys for the house. Arriving there we found a huge Goana on the driveway. The biggest lizard I have ever seen in the wild. It was HUGE!! The house, by the way, was equally HUGE. With two enormous decks and so many rooms! I got installed in my room and hit the deck with a glass of Pimm’s with gingerale. New invention =]. By that time Josh arrived who is always our beloved DJ and has the most relaxed tunes ever. Since Billy, the organizer of the whole trip, brought his didgeridoo, bongo, drums and guitar we were entertained by DJ music with live instruments. I thought digeridoos, as josh said it, sounds like an elephant fart. We’ll this definitely changed my mind… At around 5 the festival started and after the little party on the deck and a bit of a wait for the others to arrive, Bas, Abbi, Nat and last but not least my teeny tiny dancing queen Nadiah. The festival was not very big just a few thousand people, 5 at the max. Lots of food stands and little shops, but three big tents for all the performances. All the music was reggae-ish, but mixed with electronic and drum and base. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ioxadKgUoOtZTshhuDNupecZ0KW7Um4ErUJ_7aQI_OPtIqlLkO3kxVgn8CMlABtKIswtl8Hp_jeSSm3TnwMET8M9Ir7hVWcExLI0b4uhBk4ZzLUD0KNDLeZEIIRe1bFft2zfhvELKh4L/s1600-h/PA300102.jpg">Happy nice danceable music! Nadiah went crzy on the dance floor… So did I. At twelve the party ended and we walked the long uphill walk back to the house to continue the party on the deck. Fully equipped with my uggs and a furry vest. After some beers I was so tired that I practically fell asleep while sitting at the table. So I just rolled into bed to wake up at 7 the next morning by people running around in the living room. After a nice breakfast and headed to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. We played boogie ball on the waves. A funny little ball the bounces on water. We had another deck party after. We left at five for the festival, but on my way there I was cought off guard by three wallaroo’s, a smaller version of a kangaroo! Unbelievable, these big hopping rats just live in the wild here! Saw a coule of Galah’s too, pretty pink headed birds =] On the festival again; had a little thing to eat there, bad food… ooef.. But anyway we saw this incredible band called Darky Roots. If you want to hear nice reggae, download that! Seriously! A lot of dancing again =] I have never seen so many people out of their minds on acid hugging trees. To be honest it was just a long blur of fun… three days of festival make you mix up what happened on which day. Anyway, again a little party on the deck after the festival. Sunday the festival was going to be over quite early so we headed there at one, shopped around. I bought the coolest dress ever! Its sooo pretty. I had the best food ever at a nameless stand and we saw Darky Roots again! The last performance in the big tent was of a guy from Jurassic five, a crazy cool performance. The crowd was going nuts! I have never seen a crowd like that! Unbelievable. After that we had a big party at the house with some other people that were staying at the camp site.. dancing crazy, drinks, girls with hairy armpits… ewww. Monday we got up… and Josh had already cleaned the house!!!
Unbelievable! We just had to have breakfast and after we headed out to catch the 12 o’clock ferry. Got home and crashed on my bed… I was sooo tired. Then my roomie Micheal a.k.a. Germie came in and asked if I wanted to join him and a friend to the movies. Before that I made this huge greek/Turkish dinner. I had neglected my cooking urge all weekend so I had to catch up. Sometimes I wonder why I am not a cook/chef. Well I’m not that good, but maybe I should put in some effort to really get good. Anyway the movie was, dr. Parnassus Imaginarium. Heath Ledgers last movie. Incredible! I really liked it! Yesterday was another disappointing day in the lab since nothing worked again. I did some easy maintenance tasks to at least feel a bit useful. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a researcher. Maybe I’m not patient enough. Well we’ll see. I got to toughen this one out. Murphy ’s Law can’t last forever… And today is today… Going to do a bit of groceries and make my cheapest dish.. I’m getting broke. I need another job. :P anyway guys! Big kiss and talk to you soon

The life here...

Hey everyone!

It took a while but here's another update. The reason you all had to wait so long ;P is because my days are crammed full with working, working, working, cycling eating and sleeping. Yes guys, I'm making at least 10 hours a day at the uni. And still I have the feeling that I'm not getting anything done. The techniques that I have to use in the laboratory take up a lot of time, but I'm training myself to do two or three things at the same time. My weekends however are a combination of sleeping in, the west end market, dinner with friends and a lot of parties! I just moved to another part of the city. Yes, near my favorite market, West end! This is one of the most popular area's in Brisbane. It has lots of little restaurants, (cocktail)bars and clubs. It is a good shopping area too! But I'll have to stop myself from doing that for now, The rent here is killing me. It's a lot more expensive then "anti-kraak". I have a job at the Uni but since the guy from admin is on holiday I have to wait to be able to fill in my hours. I've worked a good 10 hours already, what I think is a fair amount, considering the long days I'm making in the lab. This weekend there is a little festival in the "Valley", thats the club/party area in the city. They will block off all streets and there will be live performances all day and night. Lucky that its not cold at all at night. a jumper or jacket over your dress is enough to be nice and comfortable. So I'll be heading up that one. The weekend after I'm returning to Stradbroke Island. The Island I went to the first weekend I was here. But this time it is to attend a reggea festival called Island vibes. The fun thing is it's during halloween and I agreed with a friend to go as vampires... what else ;P (owh Edward) I have two new roomies by the way, One is Josh, who is living at the house permanently, a nice Ozzie guy. The other one is a German guy called micheal, a funny surf fanatic who, I hope, will teach me a few tricks on the board. Tonight I will be attending a ballet class with Sarah a friend who became practically my neighbour since I moved to the street opposite to hers. After we will head into the valley to watch a live performance in the "Alhambra". No idea where or what that is. But who cares! It will be fun anyway! I'm having such a good time here, I have a lot of fun people around me, and I'm getting offers to stay longer to aid in other researches or to do my Thesis here... I might... But I'll come back first anyway to finish my bachelor. Ashamed that I haven't done that allready. The laboratory here is quite prestigeous. To be honest, I had no idea. Our professor is a celebrity in environmental research especially looking at ocean acidification and its effect on coral reefs. But thats just the tip of the iceberg. I haven't had time to look up more. since I haven't even got time to read all the articles I must read. So I feel a bit guilty writing my blog instead of reading an article. Well, pick or choose in this case. As you are used to I'll add some pictures later on... I have to save them as .tif file to be able to upload them. Internet here sucks! For a western country they are far behind on that aspect.

Got to get back to work guys... I'll try to write another one after the weekend with lots of pictures! Kisses!

Mexican independance, bogans from logan and being left behind...

Hey everyone =]... Hope you are all doing ok. I had to make some time again to write this blog, but to be honest it is a bit to avoid doing work in the lab. It's one of those days that you cannot push yourself to do anything usefull at all! Pfff, I'm a bit bored, tired and lazy at the moment. So this will be a short one for a change :P. But let me start at the beginning. I met Nadiah at 10 for coffee like we agreed at Marlow, a nice coffee bar on the great court on campus. Had myself a really nice Iced coffee with cream, very bad for my figure. We were having so much fun talking about everything and found that we had one thing very much in common. Our passion for dancing! This tiny dancing queen is training almost every day of the week! While she also is doing her bachelor in Marine Biology! Unbelievable, and I thought I was a busy one... Well coffee became lunch and at 1 I decided that I had really better head back to the laboratory to still make something of my day. She invited me to a party that thursday in the city. A party to celebrate the mexican independance day! Wednesday was a bit boring,thursday I took the day of to go to the beach! What a nice day! Brisbane was clouded but the shore was as sunny as it gets! Fish and chips is the best =]! At night it was mexican party time!! It was so much fun. Everyone was really going crazy, there were so many people you had to squeeze your way through. Nadia was there, Andres the Columbian dance master and a lot of other friends; Nick, Johnny, Claire, Nadia, Maggie, Josh and probable some I am forgetting. There was a live band playing and there were performances of traditional mexican dances in between! With sombrero's and mustaches! So It was a night of corona's and tequila. I had just one of both. The music was so good I had been dancing all night with Nadiah and Andres!They are both so much better then me... Pfff... Its hard to keep up! But Got a new goal now... Get as good as they are!! Friday was a relaxed day at work and quiet at night. Saturday I took the ferry into the city, walked in the botanical gardens and took a stroll through the shopping streets. Made myself a nice pasta (what else, its all I seem to be making these days...) And had an early night. Sunday was catching up on my literature reading. Monday it was work again. Linda came back from her housesitting at Kenmore so we cooked together and went out for icecream, tuesday was another day in the lab and I did some boxing at night. By the way, my trainer is a real Bogan ;P Something I learned. Another not nice word :P a sort of "tokkies" for the dutch people. They make the nice alliteration Bogan from Logan because a lot of those bogans live in the suburb Logan... ;P Weird Ozzies! Today wednesday Linda left for LA. So I'll have the place to myself for the next four weeks... Nice but boring. Nadiah was this week doing fieldwork at Heron Island, and Nick went to Samoa... Pff everyone is leaving for Islands and leaving me behind!! This week will be quiet, but it is good for me to come to my senses of all the travelling and partying. Find the Zen part of me again. Although i must say I prefer the adevnture and crazy people =]. Well At least I met a really nice girls at boxing practise; Emily, she is a florist and owns two shops in town. She actually offerd me a job! So I might come back as a practised florist! We could open a shop together Mama! ;)So this is the part where I really start to miss everyone in Holland. My peacefull evenings would otherwise be filled with friends and picknicks at westerpark, crazy parties and tea with my girlfirends... I miss you guys!!! But all is not lost! I'll be back! Don't forget that!

Kisses for everyone!!

Sleepdeprived and Satisfied...

Time is going unbelievably fast... I have the feeling that I'm running as hard as I can and still I'm stumbling over the mountains of things that I have to do. There are not enough hours in one day. But after the last week and two weekends, I'm sleep deprived but satisfied. Fridaynight was my first relaxed evening, just putting everything in drawers making a bit of dinner and watching, 'so you think you can dance', when Linda (my roomie) texted me the question if I wanted to join her and Pat (her boyfriend) and a group of friends to a party at someones house. I was very tired but my curiosity overruled my sleepyness and I put on some mascara, jumped into a dress and got a cab to red Hill where they were at a friends house. They were with four of them. Linda, Pat, Justin and Nick. We drank a beer there and got anoher cab to the next party. A bit of a crazy party, where the cops kept barging in and most of the people were vey cracked up. It was quite funny though... Spend some time there sang some songs with a guy who brought a guitar and drank some wine. After the fourth visit of the cops and the fourth time the music stopped and everyone turned suspiciously quiet we decided to leave and go home. This was at about four. The next mornoing at twelve I was picked up by my two roomies to be; Maggie and Josh, to leave for our trip to Stradbroke Island. We had to stop at Indooroopilly shopping for me to go to the bank and see if I could withdraw some money from my new account. The money I transferred, ofcourse, hadn't arrived yet. We picked up Nadia and Tim and drove up to cleveland to get on the ferry to "Straddie", as the Ozzie's call it here. I also learned that they call Flip-flops, "Thongs". So the first time anyone mentioned that to me I was assuming that, he in this case, had a thong (like a G-string) in his car to put on his feet. Anyway, the ferry ride to straddie was very beautiful. We were very lucky with the weather, since spring just commenced here it can still be a bit chilly. (for their terms;) It was comparable to a very nice Dutch summerday. We arrived on the Island and drove to a very nice house owned by on old Ozzie, a real army captain, Ken. I got a bed in a huge six-bedded room that I shared with Maggie and Josh. We unpacked our stuff and ran down to the beach where I took a nap. I was still quite tired of all the travelling. On the beach we met Marina and Juka, they are brasilians also doing research on the UQ. Back at the house we had a nice barbeque and watched a movie. I was sleeping at eleven because we had to get up at 07:30 the next morning to go out to dive near lookout point. Ken attached the boat trailer to his huge oldtime 4x4 while we prepared our gear. We jumped in the car and on the beach we pushed the boat into the water and we drove/rode however you call it, off to the gutters! I had my usual problem when I was putting gear on, on the boat I was getting very nauseous but when we in the water and descended I was feeling as fresh as ever. The rocks under waeter were overgrown with beatiful seaweeds, anemonies and thousands of beautifully cooured fish. The gutter that we were diving in is know because big quantities of grey nurse shark live there, so we were hoping to have a close encounter with one. Juka and I, he was my buddy on that dive, were the only ones lucky enough to see one swimming by. We also saw a shuffle nose shark! It looks more like a vacuum cleaner though. Unfortunatly the dive was to deep to take my camera with me under water so no pictures of this dive. After about 30 minutes under we had to come up because some of us were running out of air. Back at the surface, I was ever more nauseous... So I fed the fishies... The divers term for being sick. But I felt better instantly! We had an hour surface time and we watched some whales pass by from a distance saw some dolphins and two turtles swimming by. The next dive was less deep but was even more beautiful. The thing that made this the hardest dive I had ever done was because of a really strong current. I had to swim so hard to go just a bit forward. Josh, who was obviously stronger then me and my buddy at that moment, struggled less so I signalled him that I was going up to the boat. When we reached the surface I could tell him what was wrong and Ken guided us to a place where the current was not so bad and we only felt a gush of the waves. Wich is actually quite funny to experience. You are like a tree in the wind ;P we some really beatiful carpet sharks or Wobbegongs as the Ozzies call them. and many, many other beatiful fish. We headed back to shore, towed the boat back onto the trailer and went home to rinse all our gear and to eat some wonderfull, Quesedias, made by Nadia and Tim. We headed down to the beach again for a nice and sunny afternoon where I shared nadias body board with Maggie, she and Josh coached me well and I was able to catch a few waves. =] After that we headed back to clean the house pack our things and drove to the ferrie. I was dropped home at about 19:30 where I made something to eat, and to go to bed. Monday was not the best day for me. When I got up to go to the Uni I wasn't feeling very well. A bit of an understatement really, so I stayed home and slept all day. Later when Linda came home she made a really nice rice dish, the first thing I ate that day. Went back to bed at eleven and again, slept like a rose. The next day I felt much better and started my work in the laboratory. The rest of the week was a bit of the same. Work hard during the day making dinner at night, and sleep on time. Thursday I joined Unidive, a group that organizes reasonably priced diving trips for everyone of teh University. That night one of friends I met at Linda's party came over for beers and invited me to some other parties the following weekend. Friday was a succesfull day in the Laboratory. We we finally able to get our PCR's working. It shouldn't be that hard, really. and I decided that I would go to friday night salsa at the casino square. There was no one to join me so I just put on my party shoes and Linda gave me a ride to the square. It was better than I had imagined! So many people having fun and dancing! It took half an hour for the first one to ask me to dance, But when you are on the dance floor, it's easy. I met a lot of people and made some nice new friends. A really nice girl Nadia who, what a coincedence, studies in the same faculty that I am do my internship in. Nick met me there for some drinks and we went to a place called "stock exchange" a nice weirdy place with fun music. We were with five of us, all dancing like crazy! It was so much fun! Especially Nadiah, little dancing queen!! I went home at about 4. Got up early the next morning to go to the free market at west end with nick. Really nice. Almost all earopean countries were represented! They even had Dutch "poffertjes"!!! Hahahaha... Hilarious. Bought a lot of groceries and made a nice lunch. At 5 we picked up Justin and Kate and went to friends house. Andrew the friend is the funniest guy ever. As gay as it gets and totally fired up! He really made the party. At seven a thing that they call riverfire started. An enourmous fireworks event with the spectucualar ending of two F16's that dump and burn their fual while flying over the river!!! It looked like a meteor shooting over the city!! I brought a lot of fruits that I bought on the market started to make cocktails for everyone. Again a really crazy party with a lot of cracked up people.. Seems to be normal here.. But I had a great night. Was glad whem I finally reached my bed though. To get a cab was really hard because of all the parties in the city. Sunday was an easy day with another visit to andrew, who needed some company to survive hs hangover, a visit to the Southbank, where we met up with Linda and Pat to have a drink and after I went to Normanbys with Clive and Nick to laugh at overdressed trashy girls and meathead guys. I was forced to watch Point break because I enquired Clive, who is a personal trainer, to give me a surfing lesson; he said watch and learn... Hahaha... easy lesson huh! Early to bed and up again next morning to get to work again... SO now is now, and I'm a bit sleep deprived of all the beers and dancing. Having an easy couch night bith Byron the house dog, a big Benard Senner who is alone today because his mistress had to stay overnight in the hospital. Tomorrow I will have coffee with nadiah and try a boxing training at the campus to try and get all the beers from the weekend off my ass... ;P So again, nice things for the days to come... =]

Honouring the Spirits, acquireing Luck and reaching the farthest corners of the world...

Maybe I was lucky that I missed my Firefly tour, because the evening that I got in return was an incredible succes! I'd like to think (wonderfully supersticious), that it had something to do with a good luck charm I bought that afternoon in the Central Market. It must have had something to do with it! I was quite disappointed that I missed the tour and a bit cranky about it too, so out of frustration I wrote my last blog and watched some tv. At about seven I went outside to the evening market to see If I could find some nice watches. Later I decided to visit Joanne again at her foodstand and had a deliciuos, specially preperad fried rice, by her husband "Bobby". She tought me some more kantonese and told me about their custom with the "Moon rice cake" Which had a nice history. http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/midfallstory.htm. You can find it here if you're interested. After a very nice evening she invited me to have dinner with her and her family. So we drove to another part of the city and enjoyed a real typical dish. Rice porridge with lots of side dishes to combine it with. It was a strange but nice dish. Joanne gave me as a present a fan

that could also be worn as a hat and she promised to call me when she ever came to holland with her family. The family dropped me of at China Town again where I walked towards my hotel. I walked through a side street of jalan petaling and saw heaps of yellow papers on the street with golden emblems on them. They were burning forests of incence sticks and there were huge tables filled with food, sweets and beer standing right on the middle of the street. There were about twenty drunk asians on the streets inviting me to join their party. They lighted the paper stacks into a great fire and threw so much food into it! They were offering it to the spirits. It was like an asian type of halloween. A group of British joined me in the party.
It was an incredibly fun evening. I was "dumbfounded" by the way the asians were going crazy. A word Karl, a really funny british guy, taught me. I got a tour of the restaurant of one of the party guests since me and the other girls had to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, back at the party, a really tiny asian guy with a charred voice started to play guitar and sing with two little kids next to him. A boy playing the jembe and a girl with a tambourin! Ik was incredibly funny! They sang really corny amercan songs and the man sounded like he had smoked a cigarette every other minute of his life. The little boy who was playing the jembe was so cute. So I grabbed a plate and put two Ringitt in coins on it and placed in in front of them.
At once all the drunk people grabbed their wallets and filled the plate with bills... My good deed for the day! We partied on, on the street, till four. Then the group British left because they had to catch their plane at 9 in the morning to Bali. I had to admit I was a bit jealous! Some of them were going surfing! I walked to my hotel and slept like a rose... Woke up far too late. I forgot my checkout time was 12:00 I woke up at 13:00... because the reception callen if I wanted to extend my stay... Ooops.. :P I packed my bag as fast as I could dumped them at the reception and went out to buy something that could pass for breakfast. The good thing was that, even in that hot climate, they sold grilled chestnuts!! My favorite! So breakfast found. I went to say hi to some friends I made who had I watch store and went inside to grab my bags and take a cab to Kuala Lumpur Sentral and next a bus to the airport. I had to leave far earlier then needed because at four is the time when the evening market starts in the street that I was staying in. That market is so narrow and cramped that I wouldn't have been able to pass with my enourmous bag. So I took a nice nap on the airport. While boarding I met a really nice girl. She was a true Brisbanite! When I told her I was going there too she offered me a ride to city! Unbelievably kind! Her father and best friend came to pick her up and there was one more spot in the car for me. =] They dropped me off at Pim's place, my supervisor of the research I will be conducting on the University of Queensland. I hadn't had one minute of sleep in the plane and when I arrived at Pim's place it was allready eleven in the morning. I's skipped a night. They brought me to my new house. (for the next one and a half month) Where I met my new room mate. A Dutch girl from Amsterdam also called Linda. =] She's really fun! The house where I am staying now is incredibly nice. It even has a pool!! My room is nice and big with lots of closet space =]. Afetr we went to the University where Pim and his grilfriend Kyra showed me around on the campus and in our building. At 2 I went to buy some lunch. After I ate that I was so exhausted that I slept 45 minutes in the sunshine on the gras. After that I opened a bank account here and took the bus home. I unpacked and met with Linda to do the groceries and after I made a Killer carbonara and Linda made a killer salad... We drunk a beer that Linda had brewed herself with it. After dinner I took a shower. Almost fell asleep underneath it and dragged myself to bed. At 21:30 I was vast asleep and I woke up a good 12 hours later...
I raced to the Uni as soon as possible where Pim and I fixed all the administrational ruckous and he explained the possibilities of my internship here. It is going to be incredible! I'll explain the specifics later but the research is going to be so cool and het promised me 2 publications as co-author =]. When that happens I'm on the chart of real researchers!!

I also took care of some necessities. I got an Australian sim card now. So you all can reach me on the following nr. +61415800829.

I'm going home now to eat the leftovers from yesterday and meet Pim, Kyra, Linda and maybe some more later in the city to drink some beers. The prospect of this weekend is also NICE! Maggie, a room mate of Pim and Kyra, soon to be my roommate since I will move there in 1,5 months, asked me to join her and some others to go to an island close by to spend the night there and do some diving on sunday! How cool is that! Can't wait. So about that good luck charm... I think it working quite well for me =]

Goodbye Kao Lak, Hello Kuala Lumpur

After the floaty car incident I had a quiet morning with some shopping, reading and wandering around in Kao Lak. Wilma was working hard with the local mechanics to try to get the car up and running and back and forth to the rental office to fix the insurance. Peng (a friend and employee from the jerung house) was scooping up all the remaining water in the car. I the afternoon Wilma and I escaped the car-mess and hopped on to our scooters to visit the market. The markets there are like an exotic version of the Albert Cuijp market in Amsterdam. It was very big and with anything you can imagine. Wilma and I ate some nice snacks, grilled chicken on a stick ;), coconut pancakes and I bought two dresses. Very very nice =]. The food section of the market was even more interesting. Chickens cut in half with the eggs still inside, meat lying in the open almost covered with flies and very peculiar sea shells…
I have no Idea what that was… Wilma left again to check on the car and I stayed to wander some more. I sat down at a little bar and bought an orange juice to get hydrated again. There I found out the owner of the bar was a Dutch guy married to a Thai woman. His son of three was walking around too. When I said (in Dutch of course) that I was going to buy some fruit, the little guy suddenly said “can I go with you?” (also in Dutch). I was stunned, a little boy of three that speaks Thai, Dutch and English. Of course I took him, Song is his name, with me to walk around watch the goldfish and other exotic aquarium fish that they sold and to buy and eat some fruit. I stayed for two hours hanging around, talking with Songs dad and mother. When I came back I had a moment of rest and Wilma and I went for dinner in a local restaurant where we had sweet and sour squid. Wonderfully good, with fried Thai pumpkin with oyster sauce. I could cry so good was it. For desert Banana fritter with honey. The Thai sure know what is good. Our regular massage parlous was flooded that same night as the car floated away so we searched for another one. We found a good one and the lady gave me a real Thai massage. She walked all over me! But it was incredibly good. I turned in to chill watch a movie. The next morning I packed my bag said goodbye to Wilma and Kao Lak and took a taxi to the airport of Phuket where I took I flight back to Bangkok. The hotel where I made a reservation was close to the airport but in a bad neighborhood. I went out anyway with only some money in my pocket, too scared that I would get robbed if I carried a bag. About 4 minutes walking away was a 7/11 market. I thought that the guy behind the reception meant a supermarket, but it was a real food market. There were only really poor people, men sleeping in every corner. Women were sitting on chairs that have 3 legs instead of 4. It was total poverty. But the food looked incredible. I bought a dragon fruit, grilled chicken with oily pepper coriander sauce and shrimp rice crackers. A very nice meal. I ate it in my hotel room and stayed there because I had to get up at 4 in the night to go to the airport to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I couldn’t sleep and I stayed up all night watching movies and weeds. At four I was ready to go and brought down my bags to be brought to the airport by the hotel cab. On the airport I had my first encounter with an Australian guy from Melbourne, Gabe. We had breakfast together and found out that we were on the same flight. So he gave me loads of tips on what to do in Melbourne. In the plane I sat next to a nice Malaysian girl who told me all about Kuala Lumpur. Out of the plane I had coffee with Gabe and took a one hour bus to Kuala Lumpur Central and took a cab to Jalan Petaling road where my hotel is. The hotel was in the middle of the main street of China Town! So Cool! I dumped my bags in the tinest room a hed ever seen. It didn’t even have a window! That doesn’t matter though.. I went outside to take a walk in the city. It is a real metropolitan here. I had the petronas twin towers in view and went to a great square. It was independence day here. I had hoped to see some festivities, but there wasn’t much because of the fasten month and the H1N1 scare. They take these things far too serious here. I took a nap in the afternoon that was far too long… oops, I went to have dinner when the stands were all closing. I met a very nice malasyan kantonese woman who owns a dinner stand. She taught me a lot of kantonese. Thank you for example is Mkoy! She told me a nice place to visit at night and dropped me off there. So nice, I was in the car with her husband and two sons. A nice street with lots of restaurants. I walked back home bought an icecream on the way and just in front of my street an Indian guy talked to me to give me a flyer for salsa lessons. We got talking and invited me to have tea in a café two shops away. His name is Lingan and studied Chakra massage and more about energies. He calculated my earth and universe numbers (4 and 3) and explained a lot about these beliefs and teachings. I went to the hotel to sleep but had no sleep at all.Today I went to see the petronas towers. I crazy French guy tried to climb it! He got caught by the police just after he reached the top! The guy was just like spiderman. I hopped into the central market which is like a really old aythentic mall with lots of little shops. Very beautiful and I bought some small good luck charms, one for health, one for long life and one for luck! Now, I was supposed to take a tour to the countryside to see the fireflies over the water… But I missed it because the time on my telephone was one hour off… Thank you for your help good luck charm... :S Now I have to think of something else to do tonight. I will go for some more kantonese lessons with Joanne and try to go to the beachclub. A disco near the petronas towers. Tomorrow in the morning I try to go the aquarium if I have enough time because I have to catch my flight at nine to Brisbane!!! Finally! Please don’t forget that you can give a reaction to this blog. I like to hear what you think of it! and how you all are doing ofcourse! And for now! Aie to Buur!!