Stephanie

A weekend in Mudgee

2009-08-03T14:08:00.003+10:00

I've spent my complete Friday morning to find an accomodation in Mudgee as most hotels were already booked out. I'm not kidding: Mudgee, the little town in the middle of nowhere, apparently was filled with Sydneysiders.

After many disappointing phone calls I decided to make a list with the final three hotels which I want to call before finally giving up hope. The first one I've talked to (from that final list) was a nice lady at the "@77". It seemed to be almost too easy when she told me that there is space for us, and as if there is something wrong hahaha. In fact, it sounded as if we would be her only guests...

Hesitating to make the final decision if we should really go to Mudgee this or better another weekend (to another hotel), Faris convincingly started to pack his stuff.

And really, it turned out to be the best decision to go this weekend! We really were the only guests in this B&B. However, what we didn't know, was the fact that our accomodation was a whole house with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a big kitchen and dining area as well as a very comfy living area.... which really didn't miss a thing and which we all had for ourselves!! :o)

Of course there was no need for so many rooms for just the 2 of us, but only making breakfast in a spacious kitchen, rather than a tiny one, makes the difference. With all the delicious food we received from our hosts Helen and Bill, we created a wonderful and rich breakfast before heading to the vineries of Mudgee (we already saw three of them the day before on the Sydney side of Mudgee). There were 5 on our list - recommended by Helen - each known for a certain type of wine.

All in all the wine tasting was a wonderful experience with lots of different tastes and things to learn about. Including one learning effect: If you do not go with a guided wine tour, you may most likely end up in the vineries yourself, being the only guest. This way, the owners do not only see your lack of knowledge (and probably laugh off their asses when seeing you tasting the wine and pretending to know something about it), but also make you feel really bad if you come, taste and do not buy anything -obviously-... this would never happen in a big group.

After the 4th vineyard this morning we couldn't see any wine bottles anymore, were fed up with tasting and feeling guitly of not buying anything anymore (we've already bought lots and lots of bottles of red wine, port, sweet white wine, ice wine, olives, etc...) or spitting the wine into the spitting-bowls respectively.

So we headed back to Sydney, taking the longer, but much more scenic drive via the Blue Mountains. In the very famous apple region on top of the mountains we finally purchased some apples (some 6kg) and 2 apple pies as a last purchase on this trip for our spoilt bellies :o)

It was a wonderful weekend!

Back in SYDNEY!!!!

2009-07-28T15:28:00.003+10:00

Again, the 2-day journey was absolutely worth it - I am finally back in the most beautiful city on this planet!

Australia really is the country of my dreams and even European summer, sunny weather, 30+ degrees and all our wonderful lakes could not stop me from going south, flying to almost exactly the other side of the world - and into winter...

I am especially thankful for the reunion with some of my friends down under - hoping to see the others very soon!

Faris gave me a new home in Dee Why, or better: in paradise! Seeing cockatoos, parrots, pelicanes, a beautiful beach and surfers now every day (and whales ocasionally) really makes you feel like having the longest holiday you could think of.

...and it almost made me forget about the fact that I am actually here to work and write on my thesis :o)

I -for sure- will come back to Austria; but I can already tell you that this was not the last time I went to Australia - definitely not!!

Find out more about my adventures in the picture area; I will try to always keep you posted!

Goodbye

2008-09-21T04:34:00.002+10:00

Hey,

It's been a long time and honestly spoken I tried to postpone this day to an unhealthy extend... I am talking about saying goodbye to the absolutely amazing times I experienced in the most beautiful country in the world!
And it also means to say thank you to all the great people I met and my lovely aussie or aussie-to-be friends down under.

Even though I came back to Austria quite a long time ago, I miss Australia every single day - and I didn't live a single one without thinking about all the amazing experiences I gained and all my great friends down under.

I swear, I will try my very best and do everything in my power to come back next june to have a reunion with all of you!

Please don't ask me why I am posting this final Aussie-2007-post now, maybe my heart is telling me to say good bye to keep it open for new experiences, maybe it is just sick of all the pain it is causing me, maybe it will be even more painful afterwards or maybe it is happening without any reason - I don't know.

Either case, I will never forget the best times in my life!!

Believe me, I can't wait to go back and see you all!

Das ich DAS erleben durfte!!
Zitat: Günther Harich (ruhe in Frieden)

ROADTRIP

2008-01-07T09:51:00.000+11:00

Hi again!

This is us: Faris, me and Andi on our great roadtrip!!

The day Andi and me came home from Darwin we immediately picked up our new home, a huge campervan!!

After loading in all our stuff we took Kat with us to go to the Blue Mountains! As she lives there she was our personal tourguide for one day :-) and she did a great job!! Thank you a lot Kat - it was just great!!

Unfortunately she couldn't join us for the whole trip (23days), so we had to continue on our own. We headed southern through Royal National Park in the south of Sydney, 7 Mile Beach (Faris favourite, even though the weather wasn´t perfect), Jervis Bay and then a bit inland to Canberra, Australia's capital! Well, now I can say I saw the capital, but I really think that 5hours are enough for this city (to be precise for the Parliament House and the Museum which are both really really cool - but that's it).

From Canberra following the coast more to the south and going all the way down to Melbourne, passing by Batemans Bay, Pambula Beach and the Prom (Promontory National Park) - the most beautiful NP I've ever seen!!!! - just to name a few.

After visiting Melbourne (which is a really nice city - if there weren´t be so many annoying flies) we headed to the very exciting Great Ocean Road and all the way up north again to Adelaide. All in all we drove almost 4.000km.

Just the perfect route if you ask me, and exactly what I wanted to see!!

The only thing I quite miss seeing is Kangaroo Island (which caught flames 1 day before we wanted to go there - only 12% were open for tourists anymore and only from the non-spectacular site of the island). Well, I see it as a new reason for visiting Australia again :-) VERY VERY SOON!!!!

Unfortunately I cannot post everything of our trip - that would take me ages and I am sure no one is interested in reading a whole book of a trip from Sydney to Adelaide.

But I can absolutely say: It is extremely worth vivisting this part of Australia and going all the way by caravan was just the best decision we could make!

I am so glad I had such lovely partners to travel with!! Thank you soo much for travelling with me Andi and Faris! I had the best time in my life with you both!

Always take care!!

Yours,

Stephanie

KAKADU NATIONAL PARK

2008-01-07T09:32:00.000+11:00

Heyy!

Here we are in Kakadu National Park!!!

If you´re sick of all the desert you can find in Australia, go up north and find one of the greenest places ever! Kakadu NP has quite a few options: IF YOU CAN (due to the almost unbearable heat) go up the hills, watch some birds, walk into the eucalyptus forest, watch amazing sunsets and new species of animals, do a river cruise, relax and enjoy the beautiful (almost) untouched nature and the silence! Additionally, you can learn a lot about aboriginal culture, their way of life and try to understand their world a bit better by visiting the best cultural centre I've ever seen in the middle of the park.

Some hiking tracks (we could only explore the shortest ones, because after 1 hour you almost die of thirst, heat and sweat) lead you directly to several thousand year old aboriginal arts - a very impressive experience, especially when you try to understand aboriginal anxient stories written on little information blocks.

I already mentioned the hut we booked for the one night we spent in the park - it was sooo nice!!! If it wouldn´t be so extremely hot during the day I could live there! Best thing about it: You could look through it when you were inside and e.g. watch animals before falling asleep. Also, you can look into the hut when it is dark outside and you have the lights on inside - but there was only one family besides us in the entire park, and the ranger - so, no worries mate ;-)

I have to say: Even though we had a lot of plans, stops and quite a tight schedule, everything worked out, nothing happened and it could not have been a better trip!!

Thank you Andi for being such a good travel mate - I had a lot of fun during this beautiful trip!!

I am already looking forward to post the story of my roadtrip with Andi and Faris! It was such a cool trip too!

Hope to see you all soon!
Stephanie

DARWIN

2008-01-07T09:11:00.000+11:00

Hi all!

After heading back from the Pinnacles to Perth and catching our next flight up north in the early morning we reached DARWIN!!!

Darwin is really really green and it looks like a green oasis even on every site of the freeway! And except of the temperature (it was BOILING HOT) and the humidity (it rained every few hours), Darwin gave a really nice first impression.

I mean, we knew that Darwin is not the most beautiful city in the world - and it really doesn´t offer much - but it has a certain charme and flair.

Checking the Lonely Planet and talking to locals in the airplane we found out that fish feeding (and petting) is a nice experience - so we immediately (after exploring the little city centre a bit) went there to pet fish - for the first time in my life!! I mean: living fish - no dead ones of course!

The thing is: with high tide, certain types of fish come to a little bay in Darwin. And you, grabbing some toast bread, can feed them (they have no teeth and just suck in the bread) and meanwhile pet them. As you can imagine, fish are not used to be pet - but especially the old ones know that nothing happens to them and in my opinion: they are just too greedy!! If they want to get fed, they also have to get toughed!! :-D

It was a very nice experience!!

Also very nice was having dinner at the harbour! After a little shock (because it was not what we expected) Andi and me enjoyed wonderful Thai food :-)

Even though we had to get up very early the next day because the way to Kakadu NP is quite far (around 300km in one direction) and we only had 2 days there, we just couldn´t fall asleep in our "suite" and we had to drink quite a lot of Ouzo to "drink the room pretty" hahahahahahaha [I hope you all know that I am just kidding]. Check out the fotos for our 5*****suite in Darwin! I swear: 1 bed and 1 cupboard was in the room - nothing else!! Not even a board to put your stuff on in the bathroom - well, the floor is good enough as well, true!

Well, I know that is what you would expect in a very cheap hostel, but for only 7$ more, we had our own hut in the middle of a small jungle in the NP!!!! Unbelievable!!! See the Darwin hostel in the darwin-pic-folder and the hut in the Kakadu NP-folder!

Enjoy the day! Hope to see you soon!

Stephy

PS.: On the pic it´s me with a baby-croc in Crocodylus Park in Darwin. I didn´t post much fotos of it because I was really shocked how small the cages were for animals like ocelots and tigers!! Even the crocs were lying on each other due to the small size of the cages - I will send a shocking pic to the Lonely Planet I guess and I hope not many people go there anymore to support this torturing of animals!!

PINNACLES

2008-01-07T08:57:00.001+11:00

Hi again!

As already mentioned in the "PERTH"-blog, 2 days after visiting Perth Andi and me went to the so called Pinnacles, 260km northern of Perth.

The formation of these impressive stones is still unknown as far as I know, but neverthesess just impressive!!

Andi and me wanted to explore Perth as long as possible, so we started driving very very late - almost too late.... but to be honest right in time!! We went up north and reached the Pinnacles exactly 10mins before the sun set - perfect timing I would say ;-)

And to be honest: This was the MOST BEAUTIFUL SUNSET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!

- And I already saw a LOT of them!! But this one was really special, with a dark golden sun that disappeared behing the very very white beach and the sunrays lighting the Pinnacles in a very special way before the sky turned dark rosé, red and purple... then light blue and a bit grey before it all disappeared in a dark blue and in the end black sky. Meanwhile a full moon "played" with the clouds and appeared every once in a while after a dark pink cloud - it was just amazing!

To repeat this experience with another light Andi and me got up very very early (I guess it was 5:15) to watch the sunrise! And I again have to say: It was soooo amazing!! The light reflected on the Pinnacles is just special and unfortunately there are no words for discribing it.

Check out the fotos - even though they never reflect how it really was, they give a small impression. The foto posted here in the blog is my absolute favorite!!

Enjoy watching!

Stephanie

PERTH

2008-01-07T08:40:00.000+11:00

Hey everyone!!

Sorry, sorry, sorry!!!!

I didn´t post for such a long time - I know!!! But please don´t be too angry - you know, after all the stress of seeing everyone after coming home I just couldn´t find the time to sort out the thousands and thousands of pics and to post them respectively.

But for all hungry readers, here is some information from my last trips in beautiful Oz:

As both, Andi and me, had our last exams on the 19th of november, we booked a flight to Perth leaving on the 20th (so that we use every free minute we have for travelling).

After almost 2 amazing days in Perth (it is such a beautiful city) we continued to drive to the pinnacles (260km north of Perth), then we took another flight up north to Darwin and from there we drove to Kakadu NP (another 300km).

But I will go into detail in further posts - I will only talk about Perth now!!

Well, Perth is, as you can imagine, quite far away from anything!!! And you can feel the isolation when you enter the city - but not at all in a negative way!! To be honest, for a city that big, it makes a very calm, relaxing impression and I really liked it.

Check out the picture-area for some fotos of the marvellous buildings, the incredible architecture and all the green areas in between!! It is such a nice city!!

The only thing I didn´t like that much was: In Perth you find one shopping mall after the other!! Well, lots of people would say: "That´s cool!" The only problem for me is (for those who don´t know): I hate shopping!!! :-(

But I was really lucky that Andi already organized heaps of his christmas presents and so I wasn´t forced to go shopping and we just enjoyed this beautiful city ;-)

As nice as the city is - Sydney, for me, still is much better!!!! But maybe I only have this impression because I fell in love with Sydney and I currently see everything through pink glasses ;-)

I hope you enjoy the new pics - the whole journey was just GREAT!!

See you at the next post!

Stephanie

CARGO BAR

2007-12-29T02:04:00.000+11:00

Hello!

Thanks to Andi we planned to have a great night at Cargo Bar. It's a shame that I went there only once - but you know, time is running too fast!

Nevertheless, Jarrod, Kat, Ellen, Becka, Faris, Andi and me had a lot of fun and a great night in Darling Harbour - thank you all a lot!!

On the way back home, Kat had some difficulties with her shoes - so our strong boys carried her a bit till we found a trolley and..... no more words, check out the pics ;-)

All the best,

Stephanie

CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE

2007-12-29T01:57:00.000+11:00

Hi!

Some of you know that I had some problems finding good stuff to eat dunring my first days here in Sydney.... this changed completely and I found HEAPS of delicious things :-)!!!

For example: San Churros - a cafe with HEAPS of chocolate!!! That means: you order a chocolate cake and get a VERY VERY chocy cake with an additional cup of melted chocolate *jummy*

Everytime I went there I was soooooo filled with 'vitamine choc' - it's unbelievable!

For those who don't know the cafe yet and those who already went there as often as me (or even more often??) - don't waste time, go to San Churros in Gleebe!!!! NOW :-D

Enjoy!!!

Stephanie

KANGAROO DINNNER @ DARLING HARBOUR

2007-12-29T01:49:00.000+11:00

I realized that I didn't even post anything from our kangaroo night *tststs*

Here it is:

Initially we wanted to try crocodile, but as we couldn't even find a very expensive restaurant that served that we decided to go to a (also quite expensive but very nice) restaurant in Darling Harbour. 'We' means: Andi, Faris, Kat, Kat's friend Kirisha, Albert and Anna.

Check out some fun fotos in the picture area

The kangaroo was just delish!!!! ;-) and we had a great evening!

Thank you all for this marvellous dinner! I wish I could have another one with all of you in Darling Harbour!!!

See you soon, hopefully!

Stephanie

BACK IN AUSTRIA

2007-12-29T01:38:00.000+11:00

Hi everybody!!!

I am finally back in Austria!!

I'm very sorry for not posting or answering emails earlier but I left Sydney immediately after my last exam - firstly for going to Peth and the Pinnacles, then up north to Darwin and the Kakadu National Park and then back to Sydney. One day after we already started the big big roadtrip from Sydney to Adelaide (south). I came back to Sydney on the 19th of dec. late at night, had my farewell party at out student house rooftop the night after and left the most beautiful city in the world on the 21st... :-(

After 45hours and heaps of delays I FINALLY reached home and could FINALLY cuddle and pet my cute cat Toulouse!!

Even though I had a great Xmas back home in freezing Austria, I miss Australia and especially Sydney with all the great people I got to know there heaps - actually more than I can express....

I promise, I will save money in the coming years, finish my degree here in Austria and come back - at least for a visit.

You might not believe it - but even though I was travelling almost 5 whole month, there is still a lot to see in Oz ;-)

Have a look in the upcoming days for further details and pics of all the trips and things I've done in Aussie!

I wish you all a nice after-Xmas-time and a very very cool New Years Eve!!!

Take care!!

All the best,

Stephy

IN THE MIDDLE OF SYDNEY....

2007-11-15T19:06:00.000+11:00

Hi!

After finishing 2 exams on one day (almost 6hours of pure exam time on one day), I was soo exhausted but still awake so that I couldn't sleep and wanted to do smth. Therefore I went for a very nice city-walk with Faris, and look what we found..... (see photo)

I have no idea how this animal is called but I would definitely say it's a cute "Fellchen" :-)

Imagine, we are here in a HUGE city and I could really touch and pet this "Fellchen"!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Unfortunately it doesn't look as cute as it was due to the glowing eyes on the pic... but I can tell: it was soooooo cute and fluffy!! :-)

I miss my kitty-caty at home - TULLI, I send you HEAPS of cuttlings, kisses and pettings!!! :-)

Take care and all the best from the most beautiful city in the world!!!

Stephanie

TEA PARTY

2007-11-15T18:56:00.000+11:00

Hi again!

As time is flying quicker than ever in my entire life, we have to make sure to use every single free minute, also during study-period!! That means for example: Having a nice teaparty with your flatmates :-)

Thank you Anna for the delicious pancakes and Maytham for the english tea - and all the others for the nice morning!!! I really enjoyed it!

See some funny photos...

Cheers,

Stephanie

SCHNITZEL-EVENINGs

2007-11-15T18:51:00.000+11:00

Hey!

I hope you're hungry now :-) Check out the photos of our 2 Schnitzel evenings!! 1 with Andi's flatmates and 1 with mine - 2 very nice dinners with lots of fun (and meat).

Actually, we (Andi and me) are experts now in preparing and cooking Schnitzel *mjam*

All the best from Down Under!

Stephanie

HUNTER VALLEY

2007-11-15T18:13:00.000+11:00

Hi again!

Finally we managed to book a tour to HUNTER VALLEY!!!

We were talking about this trip for such a long time, but neither the weather nor the time was right for doing so (at least this is our excuse hahahaha).

Nevertheless we were really lucky and received two out of 22 places of the UTS-Tandem-Hunter-Valley-Tour for 30$ instead of 85 :-D A good deal in my opinion!

So, we went with a bus and a very funny Aussie Tour guide to the marvellous Hunter Valley.... and started tasting Schnapps and Portwine at 10AM. This was a bit challenging for my stomach, especially because all in all we visited 4 (or 5? - can#t remember hahahaha) vineyards and EVERYWHERE we tried white wine, red wine, port wine - only the first(!!) served us Schnapps...

Well, all in all I have to say, SOME wines were very good, but the most I couldn't drink (I'm spoilt I know...)But we learned a bot about the process of producing wine, it's differences and tastes and it was a WONDERFUL day!!

Check out some nice pics in the picture-area :-)

See you soon!

Stephanie

AUSTRALIA MUSEUM

2007-11-15T17:51:00.000+11:00

Hey!

Finally I found some time to post again - time is flying and the exam period is not fun :-(

Nevertheless - this is our semester abroad and we use every minute to travel and see something new, for example: going to Australia Museum on a rainy day :-)

As the travel guide promised, it is a really COOL museum!! Right next to the entrance you find a HUGE skeleton of a dinosaur, some stuffed lions or man-size kangaroos, a big part of aboriginal culture, minerals and heaps of other animals!!

It was really fun walking through this museum and worth all three hours we spent in it :-)

Have a look at (only a few, sorry) awesome pics - i know, photos never show how it really is, but it give a small impression.

Besides of huge gold nuggets (64kg) we also saw precious opals and other very expensive stones - a lovely part of the museum even though I don't know anything about those materials!

I hope you enjoy the next post - coming soon :-)

Take care!

Stephanie

HALLOWEEN

2007-11-03T22:19:00.000+11:00

Hey!

Last thursday (on the 1st of november, unfortunately not on the 31st of october) we had a small but extremely fun Halloween Party at Nude-Bar!! Check out the hilarious photos in the picture section with all the utensils (purple hat, bunny ears, etc..) from Kat :-)

It was such a fun time - I hope the photos make you lough too!!

Enjoy... hahahaha

Take care!

Stephanie

AMP TOWER

2007-11-03T20:28:00.000+11:00

Hey all!

Check out the cool photos from the top of AMP Tower (Sydney Tower)!! Unfortunately it was not possible to take good pics with my camera – but we have Andi’s special one to zoom into every office hahahaha :-D
We experienced an amazing sunset from the top of Sydney but I have to say: watching Sydney by night is just the best!!!
The reason why we didn’t go to the tower was the weather – we waited for the perfect day (without uni and clouds) and we were successful!!

I hope it’s not getting too cold in Europe!
I send you some sunrays (it has around 35 degrees here) :-D
Take care!
Stephanie

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

2007-11-03T19:01:00.001+11:00

Hey again!

As you can see - we went to a very beautiful concert in Sydney Opera House!!
The Sydney Philharmonics played some extremely nice pieces of Strauss (thus spoke Zarathustra), before a huge choir of about 150 people entered the hall and sang even more beautiful pieces of Mozart! I missed classical music a lot, also because I have no speakers in my room so that I cannot enjoy classical music that much.

Before going to the opera (it was Becca, Ellen, Andi, Faris and me), we had a delicious dinner very close to the Opera House with a marvellous view to the harbour, the Bridge and The Rocks.

I really enjoyed this evening - thank you all soo much for this experience!
I wish I could stay in this amazing city for a longer period so that I could repeat this perfect evening, but unfortunately time is running.... :-(

Have a look at some nice pictures of the inner side of the Sydney Opera House!

Enjoy the day,
Stephanie

PALM BEACH

2007-11-03T18:53:00.000+11:00

Next update for you:

While Andi was sitting in the train, watching the landscape, I also didn’t want to spend the whole day in my flat – of course!
The weather was perfect, therefore I decided (with Faris) to go to the Beach! And as I am such a complicated person I wanted to see a new beach – so we took 2 busses (ride in one direction 2 hours!) to PALM BEACH!!!!
It was such a beautiful beach you can´t imagine. The sand was brown and really soft, a quite strong wind created huge waves and we could watch 14 kite-surfers and heaps of “normal” surfers – what an adventure! J
Additionally, a light tower and cliffs surrounded the empty bay which made it a unique experience – It was such a nice day!!
I hope I can see some more beaches here in Australia – I cannot get enough J

Check out the beautiful pics!
Hasta pronto,
Stephanie

INDIAN PACIFIC

2007-11-03T18:39:00.001+11:00

Hi again!

As I was not really keen to sit in a train for 2 days and due to the fact that I wanted to safe the money for my final trip, I did not go with Andi, Becca and Ellen to Adelaide with the famous Indian Pacific. But of course (selfish as I am hahahaha) I had to see this amazing train!! So I accompanied them to say good bye and wave with a white tissue like in a movie. I only had problems with producing tears….. but I knew that they would be back 3 days later J
I hope you guys had an awesome trip – but I’m convinced about that!!
Check out some funny photos J

See you soon!
Stephanie

RES-BALL

2007-11-03T18:22:00.000+11:00

Hey everyone!

I'm soooo sorry for not posting for such a long time!!! I had HEAPS to do at uni - imagine: I will only stay another 2,5 weeks in Sydey, then the whole semester is over and I will be on my long trip!!

It almost kills my heart when I'm thinking of leaving this beautiful city - I soo fell in love with it!

Nevertheless, here are some updates and infos about the things you cannot miss, even though a lot of work has to be done.

For example: Res (Residence) Ball :-)

I can only say: It was sooo much fun and we all had a very cool party!!! Well, I think I don't have to mention, that it was NOT a real ball - of course it was just a fun party! I guess only a few countries know, what a real ball is...

But, if you start the night with the intention of just having a party (instead of a ball), you will not be disappointed.

If you're wondering about the dresses: the theme was 1920s - therefore everyone was dressed in a quite funny way.

I hope you like the pics (picture-area).

I will continue posting immediatey to catch up - see you at the next post :-D

Take care!

Stephanie

LIVING AT GUMAL...

2007-10-22T10:22:00.000+10:00

Hi again!

I realizted that I only posted some photos of my room here in Sydney when I moved it - with all the things lying araound, the suitcases open and unpacked.

Here you get a small impression of my small, but very cosy room with the best view ever - CBD (Central Busines District) and AMP-Tower... I LOVE IT :-)

I`ll try to take some more photos of the rest of the flat, including flatmates soon so that you know even better how I live.

I just can say that I'm really happy with my flat, my room and especially my flatmates - they are soooooo nice :-)!!!

Sadly, time passes by so quickly and the semester is almost over - I want to stay!!!

To all my friends at home: I really miss every single one of you, but how about you all come to Aussie??? ;-)

I'm sure you'll like it as much as I do!!

To all my new friends here in Asutralia: I will definitely come back as soon as possible!!! That's for sure!!

Well, have fun while watching the pics.

Take care!

Stephanie

SURRY HILLS FESTIVAL

2007-10-22T09:22:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

Last week we went to Surry Hills Festival!! This was an occasion where you can listen to lots of different kinds of music, sitting in the park, relaxing, eating several good things from turkish via mexican to german etc...

Taking a break for some hours to go there, enjoying the sun a bit and walking back home is the best we could do between all the studies we´re busy with at the moment.

Check out some fotos of the crowded area in the "picture-section".

Hope to see you soon!

Cheers,

Stephanie

TASMANIA

2007-10-11T12:11:00.000+10:00

Hi all!!

I'm back!! - back from Tassie (Tasmania) :-)

And finally I found some time to post some information of the trip - sorry for not telling you earlier but uni keeps me busy at the moment ...

As you can see on the map - this was approximately our route (sorry it's not 100% correct - I didn't take much time for doing it precisely but it should just give you an impression of what we saw in our 5 Tassie-days; the crosses indicate our overnight-stops).

Here are some details of our route:

Everything started on Thursday two weeks ago when my alarm rang at 4:30 in the morning... The plane left at 6:05am (over Melbourne). All in all I guess it took us 4hours to arrive in Taz - and: what a surprise - the airport of Hobart (the capital city) is smaller than Klagenfurt-Airport, can you imagine this????? For those who have no idea about the size of Klafu-airport: it's REALLY small hahahahaha
But, we got our car immediately, a brand new (186km) red KIA - a "women's car" in my opinion, not much PS (which was worse with the automatic) but we reached every place we intended to, and that's the most important thing :-)
After visiting Hobart for a couple of hours and a Harbour cruise we left it to go to Cadbury chocolate factory. Unfortunately (or luckily??) it was already closed, but the houses around were just beautiful!!!
After this disappointing moment (we inteded to buy ALL the choc from the factory hahahahahaha...) we left Hobart and its surroundings to go to New Norfolk, our first overnight-stop. You can imagine how tired we were after getting up soooo early.
By the way - it was just Andi and me who did this journey as everybody else went to Cairns or had no time to joins us, but it was ok!

On the second day we headed to the west of Tassie to Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park. I don't know if we just noticed it because we're tourists (maybe it's the same in Austria, we just don't realize it) but the landscape changed extremely often! We saw farms that looked like our Austrian ones, little villages, rain forest, hills, etc... is was great. And also the weather made it look different all the time - rain, snow, wind, sun, rain again, etc... it changed every 10mins.
Especially extreme was the weather when we reached Lake St Clair National Park and went to the rainforest for a 2,5hour-walk: it rained like crazy, it was freezing (around 0 degrees), it snowed and - it hailed (!!). I'm so glad that we had a look at the weather forecast before leaving Sydney and took several jumpers and trousers with us. I guess we changed clothes 3 times a day due to the fact that we got wet all the time. But even though this was quite challenging for our immune system, it was just GREAT and I loved the walk!!
After warming up in the car we went to some lookouts and did some little walks on our way next to the border of Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair NP and Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers NP. When it got dark we arrived in Queenstown, our second overnight-stop in Tassie.
You won't believe it, this island is really beautiful, the nature is just marvellous and the people are even friendlier than in Sydney (!!), BUT: This town (Queenstown) was the ugliest we saw on the whole island. The people were unfriendly (most of them), the buildings looked dirty and.... I don't know I'm running out of words when I'm thinking about this ugly town - I just hated it hahahahaha.
But of course we did the best out of the situation, ate some instant noodles in our room and fell asleep really soon as we left this place at 7am the next day!
As the northern part of Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park was quite far we had to drive a few hours to arrive in Craddle Valley. It again snowed a lot (for Australia) and Craddle Mountain was completely white – remember: we’re here in Australia and winter is over!! Unfortunately almost every track was a little river or full of slippery snow so we couldn’t walk as much as we intended to, but even the small tracks were extremely beautiful and worth every meter we got wet J We went through an impressive rainforest and tried several lookouts for the best view to the mountain.
On our way to Lauceston we passed the King Solomons Caves. Initially we intended to do a tour and go into the cave, but we would have to wait for 45mins we simply not had. The problem was that the way to Launceston was quite long, the sun sets really early (at 6:30pm) and you shouldn’t drive when it’s dark due to heaps of wallabies hopping on the streets.
So we just had a quick look at the entrance of the cave and went on to reach the best wildlife park I’ve ever seen. It was quite small, but: we could touch, hug, carry and pet Wombats, Koalas, little Tasmanian Devils, Kangaroos etc… it was really nice and I bet that in no touristic wildlife park you’re able to get so close to those animals as in this park. I just loved it (and the cute Koala)!!
Initially the plan was to stay in Launceston for the next night but we had some daylight left after visiting this really nice city (small but full of soooo beautiful houses – I liked it much more than Hobart) we decided to go on driving to Scottsdale and stay there. BUT: We just couldn’t find the junction where to go – there were no signs!!! After half an hour driving around like idiots and getting angry because it got dark and it was quite a long way to Scottsdale, we found out that we were on the right way but didn’t realize it because there were no signs… So we filled the tank and kept on driving. The street was gorgeous – just the best for me: up the mountain, down, heaps of curves and a marvellous landscape. Then it got really dark, it started raining heavily and a lot of dead wallabies edged the street. Andi stopped talking (I guess he was a bit afraid of the curves I cut, the rain etc..) and we both stared into the dark for any living animals on the street. I just loved the way! Even though it rained heavily I really enjoyed driving this street with all its curves up and down the mountain – I felt like being at home driving on a carinthian mountain (just the street was a bit narrower) – it was soo much fun J
After this monster-trip I fell asleep immediately in the Motel in Scottsdale.
On day 4 we went to St. Helens, a lovely town on the east coast. At St. Helen’s point we visited several very beautiful beaches with sand dunes and lots of shells! And the best thing about it was (like during the rest of the trip) – no one as there, we always had the whole beach just for us!! Unfortunately it was not warm enough to take a bath – not even for my toes (they really start hurting after 30seconds due to the freezing south pacific ocean!)
After enjoying approximately 2 hours of beach-feeling hahahaha we went to Freycinet National Park in the south.
Maybe you heard about the famous “Wineglass Bay”. We did the hike up the hill to the lookout where we had an incredible view to this and another beautiful bay. As we realized that we will have enough daylight for going back we decided to walk down to the beach and again I have to say: IT WAS SOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!
Unfortunately we had to go back and drive to Swansea our last overnight-stop in a beautiful beach house!
The last day was quite stressy as we were far from the airport. We took the beautiful Tasman Highway to Sorell and then to Eaglehawk Neck via Arthur Highway. Eaglehawk Neck is a narrow land bridge which connects Forestier Peninsula with the Tasman Peninsula. There were a lot of attractions: The Tasman Blowhole (wasn’t blowing at all), Tessellated Pavement (a rock formation), Tasman Arch and Devils Kitchen (I wanted to cook Andi but there were too many people around hahahahaha).
After this great lookouts and mini-walks we went to Port Arthur were we joined a guided tour which gave us a brief overview about the huge area and how life has been in this convict prison. Then it again started to rain heavily and we ran from one house to the next – still we got really wet!! To be honest I expected it to be different.. I can’t explain how… but it was like a big park with lots of buildings and just a small museum, that’s it (oh yes, and the Isle of Dead which we couldn’t visit due to lack of time and the heavy rain).

As we had to be at the airport at 5pm at the latest we had to leave Port Arthur quite early (3:30pm). Happily nothing happened to the car, so everything was fine and we got onto the plain … the trip was over.

All in all we drove about 1,400k’s and I have to say that Tasmania is absolutely worth a trip! It’s sooo beautiful – but don’t expect it to be a party-island or something like that, you should go there to enjoy nature and the silence but nothing else J

I hope you found some time to read this monster-post and still have time left to have a look at the pics (click on “pictures” on the right)!

Hope to receive some news from all of you!
Take care – hope to see you soon!
All the best from DOWN UNDER
Stephanie

LINDT CAFÈ

2007-10-03T18:19:00.000+10:00

Hi again!

Yes, I think I already mentioned it - I really miss a few things here in Sydney....

Firstly, I really miss all the lovely people who're constantly reading my blog so that I know it's worth the effort :-)

Secondly, I miss the austrian food!! It sounds ridiculous I know, but you will never imagine that the quality of the food (even in Australia) is not even close as good as ours. I'm talking about meat, fruits, vegetables, sweets, etc...

Of course you can get EVERYTHING here, but it's also a question of money. So, I will never ever complain about the prices in Austria for the perfect quality we get hahahahaha - at least I will try not to complain anymore :-).

So, as there is also a lack of good chocolate in the supermarkets here in Sydney too (yes, Cadbury is not bad, but it is quite similar to "Milka" and you get sick of it after some time) - Andi and me decided to try the Lindt-Café at Darling Harbour last wednesday (check out the photos of the pralines, our iced chocolate and the delicious cake) and I can just say: IT WAS SOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOODDDDD *mmmhhhhh* - and expensive, but worth every cent for this day hahahahaha.

I hope you get hungry now - get yourself some Lindt-choc, I'm sure wherever you are in Europe it's cheaper but the taste is the same, so ENJOYYYY.

Well, I can't stop myself, I'll have a chocolate-muslibar now (unfortunately from cadbury as my lindt-choc is already gone) ;-)

See you soon!!

Yours,

Stephanie

MANLY BEACH

2007-10-03T18:02:00.000+10:00

Welcome back to everyone!!

Bondi??

Coogee??

Forget about those - these beaches are really ugly compared to MANLY and especially the small beach behind Manly: SHELL BEACH!!

As you can imagine - I just loved the day trip to those beaches!

Last tuesday the weather was perfect, it had more or less 30 degrees and there was not a single cloud in the sky!!

Have a look at the marvellous photos in the "picture" gallery on the right.

I'm sorry, I guess I was so impressed of shell beach so that I forgot to take any photos of it, but I see it as an opportunity to go back soon ;-)

Please excuse that I didn't post for such a long time but I had problems with the Photo-upload last week and went to Tassie (Tasmania) last thursday till monday evening so I couldn't keep you up to date earlier.

As we took most of the pics in Taz with Andi's camera (he has a really professional one and it's so much fun taking fotos with it), we have to sort them out first but I promise to post some + details of the trip ASAP!

I hope you had a good week too!

Hope to hear from you soon,

Take care

Stephanie

Lobster? Oysters? Salmon?

2007-09-23T14:36:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

Andi is in Cairns at the moment - lonely, without me - I had to stay at home due to being sick :-(...

so I decided to see something from this amazing city (I'm talking about SYDNEY of course!!).

So I went out to walk to the well known Fish Market near Darling Harbour - yes! I walked :-) everything is sooo close to my appartment (it was just 10mins). The weather is perfect today - very warm, the sun is shining as if it would be the best day ever and the sky is deep blue!

And of course I didn't go alone - Albert was joining me and we had a lot of fun looking at all those (quite expensive) and huge lobsters, oysters, king fish, etc.... I'm very sorry, I couldn't even remember a few names, there were heaps of.

To be honest I expected it to be like a huge hall where they prepare the fish, everyone is screaming, fish is flying around the air, everything is smelly and slippery - it wasn't at all!! There were a few areas where you could watch someone preparing for example oysters, but the rest was like several huge fish-corners in a supermarket. Of course there was one area (which we couldn't enter) where they prepare it as in my imagination - I guess!

But even though it wasn't what I expected to be, it was great and I ate the best fish ever here in Australia! I'm glad that Albert found his beloved "Chish and Fips" aaahh I mean "Fish-and Chips" hahahaha :-D

Look at the amazing size of the lobsters, crabs and oysters in the photo-area - I hope you get hungry while watching :-)

Hope to hear from you soon!

Take care!

Stephanie

Chinese Garden and Monorail

2007-09-20T14:04:00.000+10:00

G'Day!

We still didn't go to the top of AMP tower due to two reasons: (1) sometimes we just forget about doing it and (2) the weather must be PERFECT for doing this.

So, last Sunday we decided to go to AMP tower (because the weather looked perfect) but when we went out of the building (housing), we realized that on the other side of the city there were heaps of clouds... As we didn't want to go back doing nothing, we decided to go to chinese garden.

Unfortunately the weather got worse and worse and so are the photos - sorry for that!

Nevertheless it was a really relaxing afternoon, the garden was just beautiful and I felt like having a holiday!!

After being kicked out of Chinese Garden we decided to take the monorail to feel like a real bluddy Sydney tourist :-). We stayed in the rail for 2,5 rounds (hahahahhahahaha) and I guess it took as more than one hour, but the sun set and it began to be really dark so we had "2 in 1" - firstly seeing everything during daylight, and after that when everything is dark - GREAT!!

Check out some new photos of this nice afternoon!

Take care!

Yours,

Stephanie

Andi's Birthday Barbie

2007-09-20T13:01:00.000+10:00

Hey all!

You thought Andi, the funny Austrian guy, celebrates his 24th birthday just for one day???

you're wrong - he celebrates 3days (2 extensive ones and 1 in the middle to relax).

As you can see, his actual birthday - last thursday - was just the calm and relaxed one. But on saturday he really did every effort to have a great and huge party with ALL new Aussie-friends :-)

And to be honest: IT WAS AWESOME!!! (even though I do´n't like the word hahaha)

To give you a small impression of the night, just check out the new photos @ "pictures" to the right on this blog!

Have fun while watching!

Hope to see you all soon!

Cheers,

Stephanie

Andi's Birthday!!

2007-09-15T10:18:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

It took me a while to create a new post here on this blog, but this is mostly due to the lack of photos. And the reason why we couldn´t take much pics was simply the awful weather during THE WHOLE APEC-week :-(

So, we had to cancel our Blue-Mountains-Trip as well as the Hunter Valley Wine Tour. Instead, we spent most of the time in front of our books (I will take a photo of my "book-mountain" soon - it's huge!! hahaha)...

But there is a lot to celebrate this week as almost everyone has a birthday these days.

We startet at Tuesday when my flatmate Mercedes celebrated her birthday (she is from Argentina and we had cheese-Fondue and lots of cake *mmmmmmhhhhh*), the next was Pedro (unfortunately we couldn't join him to his rooftop-party :-(...), then Andi's whole-day-party on thursday (hihihihi, it was GREAT and I felt like being on a holiday), yesterday evening Cameron's birthdayparty (he is from Tassie and his actual birthday is on monday, but - who celebrates on monday??) and today: Andi's (second - for some people) rooftop BBQ-party :-)

As you can see - 4 (!!) parties in 1 week (I hope this ends soon as I think I will die on an overdose of cake hahahahah)!

Andi's whole-day-party in detail:

I had my first exam at UTS in the morning, so I was quite exhausted afterwards but the walk to Darling Harbour (I LOVE DARLING HARBOUR) immediately woke me up and attracted my full attantion. Just to remind you: Darling Harbour is 10mins by foot from our appartment and I can see most of the buildings from my room-window - it's GREAT!

Well, in D.H. we went to the so called "Blackbird Café" which served us an extremely delicious lunch (see photo for the nice location). After that we had to hurry back home so that Andi can open his presents and try the cake :-)

Unfortunately Andi had to go to uni then, but I had to study a little too, so it was ok.

After coming back from my class (fortunately it ended much earlier) we met in "Unas", the Austrian-German-Restaurant to eat Schnitzel!

As you can imaging, we got a lot of stomachache due to the huge amount of food on that day - but it was worth every bite hahahaha! In the evening, we initially wanted to go to a party in Georgestreet, but it was soo nice in Andi's flat chatting with some people and having fun, so that we just stayed at home (until 3am).

Andi, I'm so glad you had a birthday - it was such a nice day for me (and I hope for you too!?), thank you! ;-)

Luckily the weather is perfect up to now, you can't even see a single cloud (we had lots of rain yesterday and heaps of sunshine the day before - so the weather is quite unsettled) but I'm sure it will be fine tonight!

Once again:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDI!!!!

Now we have to organize some things for the BBQ - I'm so sad that some of you can never join us... I hope we can introduce having BBQ in Austria much more often!

Take care of yourself!!

Yours, Stephanie

APEC-WEEK

2007-09-07T21:38:00.000+10:00

Hola amigos :-)

Blue Mountains? - cancelled

Hunter Valley? - not yet cancelled but maybe...

Why? - because of the awful weather!!! :-(

This week - due to a visit of George W. Bush - called APEC-week (not OPEC-week hahaha), is free for almost all of us because the whole city (including Uni) is closed!! Sounds good i know - but what can you do when it´s raining all day long?? - NOTHING!?

Well, Andi and me went for example to the PowerHouseMuseum and to the SydneyAquarium, which was a lot of fun!

I mean, compared to a trip to the wonderful Blue Mountains it's nothing, but honestly, we have to catch up with our Sydney-tourist-sightseeing-programm because we got lazy during the last weeks (uni keeps us busy...)!

What is still missing is:

- Sydney AMP Tower

- Chinese Garden

- Taronga Zoo

- crossing the bridge (when it's open again hahaha)

Even the OPERA is closed - can you imagine this???

But: we found a nice one (http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/boxoffice/event_details.asp?EventID=2124) which we definitely have to watch in October!!

After the Aquarium (it was pretty late then) Andi and me weren't very hungry but even though we had to try the incredibly good pancakes @ the Rocks (have a look at the menu here: http://pancakesontherocks.com.au/menu)!

All in all - it was a very very relaxing and nice day!!

Now we have to catch up and study again....

Please wish us luck so that the weather gets better and we can do the HunterValleyTrip in the following days...!

Hope you're all feeling good and are enjoying the rest of your holidays!

For my Aussie-readers: Hope you don't have too much to study...!

All the best to each and every one of you!

Cheers,

Stephanie

RUGBY!

2007-09-01T22:38:00.000+10:00

Hey!

Today: watching RUGBY!!!

To be honest: Even after the game I have no idea about the rules, regulations etc...

but what I can definitely say is: it was a LOT OF FUN :-)

And even though I didn't figure out until the very end who I actually supported - I think I prefer the winning team (sorry Andi and Faris...).

Have a look at the funny pics!

Hope to see you soon!

All the best from DOWN UNDER sends you

Stephanie

MANSAF - EVENING

2007-08-28T14:46:00.000+10:00

Hola chicos!

Necesito practicar en espanol (me ha digo mi profesor en Viena), por eso voy a escribir todo en esa lengua...

No entiendes nada? No hay problema, voy a continuar en inglés :-)

You didn't understand anything? No problem, it wasn't that important.

By the way: learning other languages is very important! At the moment I'm trying my best in malayan...

"salamat malam" = good night

"jumpa (b)esok" = see you tomorrow

I can't remember more :-(

Hope that more languages will follow - if not, I'll keep you up to date in english!

But back to the main topic: JORDANIAN EVENING

Faris and Ibbi cooked us (Andi's flatmates and me - I'm part of that flat too, they adopted me hahaha) MANSAF (did I write it correct?) and it was just DELICIOUS!!!!

If you don't know what this is, here a short description: It is basically meat (lamb) with joghurt and rice....

sounds disgusting? I know, but it was absolutely DELICIOUS!!!!

If you want to read a proper recipe just check out Andi's page, he posted a cooking-photo-story :-)

Tip of the week from Down Under:

Try everything you can get - you will be surprised in either way! :-)

Hope to keep in touch with all of you!

See you soon,

Stephanie

ANNA's BIRTHDAYPARTY

2007-08-28T14:33:00.001+10:00

Hi again!

Have a look at "pictures" for a new album of Anna's Birthdayparty at NUDE-Bar (our every-thursday-bar).

The theme of the evening was: 1920's

You don't know what this means? No problem it´s simple: Boys have to wear a suit and a hat (none of our boys had one hahahahaha) and girls had to wear dresses and a hairband.

Except of Anna who really had an amazing dress, none of us was dressed properly - but we all had a lot of fun and that's the most important thing.

Thank you Anna for this marvellous party - it was great :-)

New posts will follow, I promise ....

Cheers,

Stephanie

INFUSION FESTIVAL

2007-08-28T14:20:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

Check out the new photos of the Infusion Festival which took place on our incredible rooftop (9th floor)!

It was an amazing afternoon with cooking competitions (you could try EVERYTHING *mmmmh*), traditional dances and A LOT OF FUN!

Even though I didn't feel extremely good (as you can see on the photos I still had been a little sick) it was an awesome day :-)

I hope you have fun while watching the pics!

(Unfortunately I forgot to take some of the food - maybe I was too hungry???)

See you soon - take care!

Stephanie

ANDI

2007-08-28T12:21:00.000+10:00

Hey!

Just to make sure for everyone: I just got well again so quickly because of Andi's perfect nursing knowlegde (he may got from Elizabeth).

He went to Coles for me and bought me:
- milk and honey (for falling asleep faster)
- caughing juice (for my terrible caugh)
- tea (3 different types so that Stephanie doesn't get bored and drinks enough)
- bananas, oranges and kiwis (vitamines are essential)
- etc..

THANK YOU SO MUCH ANDI FOR YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT!

See you soon,
Stephanie

FEVER... :-(

2007-08-28T11:54:00.000+10:00

Hey!

Last week was not the best in Sydney - I got sick and spent most of the time in bed :-(

- alone
- with fever
- and throat ache
- and caughing
- and sleeping all the time

The good news is: I'm fit again and feel more powerful than any other day I experienced in Sydney :-)
Maybe it's just because I almost freaked out yesterday when I realized what I missed last week.... now I really have to catch up and do every effort to be up-to-date again as soon as possible.

Check out the following events I couldn't miss (even when I wasn't 100% fit again)
*pssst don't tell mum!!!! :-)

Oh and: Thank you mum for your medical advice - it helped PERFECTLY :-)

See you soon!

Cheers,
Stephanie

AUSTRIAN SCHNITZEL.....

2007-08-19T15:17:00.001+10:00

Hey!

Wow - Till and Thorsten (two german guys) just arrived in Sydney yesterday for staying overnight, having some german/austrian lunch with almost everyone of our apartment (see pic)for leaving to New Zealand. Till lived in my flat last semester and now he and his friend are using every free minute to travel around :-)

They will come beack in 5 days to fly to Melbourne for 3 days, then come back to Sydney for another two days to go to Singapore (and the islands surrounding it) before finally leaving to Germany.

I can´t wait until November when I can travel around - I'm sure this is going to be soo much fun!

But let's start studying now and enjoying the most beautiful city in the world: SYDNEY!!!!

See you soon,

Stephanie

P.S.: Sorry for the quality of the pic!

ROCK CLIMBING

2007-08-19T15:08:00.000+10:00

Hey again!

It's raining all day long so I use the time (actually I don't have any because I didn't start studying at all up to know but anyway...hahaha) to keep you up to date and to tell and show you a little bit of my new aussie life :-)

As you can see: Stephanie started ROCK CLIMBING!

Firstly I thought: Oh come on, I will climb one meter and then fall down.... BUT: I was actually quite good and reached the top of the wall almost every time and I'm getting better and better.

Up to now we already climbed 2 times (in a big group) and I'm addicted!!!

It's sooooo much fun!!! :-)

As soon as I get some more pics from my climb-mates I'll post a new album for you, but please be patient!

My recomendation for today: Just try it once - you'll get addicted immediately!!!

All the best from Down Under,

Stephanie

FARIS' BIRTHDAYPARTY

2007-08-19T14:25:00.001+10:00

Hey!

Have a look at the photos of our funny birthdayparty yesterday (saturday) night - especially for Faris (from Jordan).

For everyone who doesn't know Faris: It's the only guy at the pic and he lives in Andi's flat (have a look for some more photos under "pictures" on the right hand side).

By the way: all the other girls are from Andi's flat too but i also see them as my own flatmates because they're all sooooo ectremely nice and I spend so much time in their kitchen (it's incredibly clean hahaha)!

That's why they invited me to Faris' birthdayparty as well..... THANK YOU! :-)

PS.: Thanks to my very best friend (the best friend on the whole planet!!) MONI I'm doing every effort to post some more pics of the people I'm spending time with - maybe this is more interesting than just landscape-pics :-)

So, have fun while watching and reading and write me some emails, posts, messages back to keep me up to date.

Take care!

Stephanie

ERROR

2007-08-18T14:04:00.000+10:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I just realized that I typed in a wrong phone-number!!

I´m very sorry for that - hopefully nobody tried to contact me meanwhile....!

So, here the right number: 0420 86 38 37 (plus 0061 for Australia)

I´m very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

See you soon!

Step.

Contact details...

2007-08-14T16:33:00.000+10:00

Hi again!

Sorry - I completely forgot to give you my new contact details...

Up to now nobody knows where I live, what´s my new phone-nr. etc. so it´s time to post it :-)

phone:
0420 86 38 38 (+ 0061 for Australia)

address:
Stephanie Haas
161 Broadway, App. 701B
2007 Sydney
Australia

(attention with the "1" - if you write it european it will never reach my house because everyone reads it as "7")

So, now I hope to receive lots and lots of mails and calls hahaha :-)

See you soon!
Take care,
Stephanie

We finished!!

2007-08-14T16:11:00.000+10:00

Hi!

We did it - and we finished!!!

What I am talking about?? City-2-Surf of course!! :-)

We (Andy and me) were full of energy last sunday so that we easily ran 10 out of 14k`s (at least) and finished the half-marathon exactly after 2hours and 5mins. That was quite good keeping in mind all the 68.000 people who ran, jogged, walked and crawled with us. Due to the crowd, the lack of training and the beautiful (rich) areas the marathon went through we couldn´t run all the time... sometimes we just wished to win 10000000000000000 (or even more?) Dollar to buy one of these beautiful homes with the best views: one side Harbour Bridge, Opera House and CBD, other side beaches and sea... *I´m sooo jealous*

But now I know why I want to work 20hours a day in the future: I want to have such a home on the small hills so close to Sydney!!!!!

But let´s stop dreaming... here are some facts for you to know:

68.000 people enrolled (and paid) for city 2 surf

53.113 is the last number of all those finished the marathon (of those who were enrolled)

67.395 was my "starting-number"

32.141 is my "arrival-number" - as you can see: I passed more or less 35.000 people hahaha :-)

All I can say is: It was a marvellous morning (I had to get up at 7 to meet at 7:30 for leaving to Hyde Park), it was absolutely warm (even hot while running), we had perfect weather, the people are soo nice and it was just a lot of fun!!!!

Hope to get some news from all of you soon!

Cheers

Stephanie

PS.: Here my sweaty City2Surf UTS-T-Shirt :-)

CITY 2 SURF

2007-08-10T10:53:00.000+10:00

Good morning!!

Here some news about the weekend-plans (except studying - uni doesn´t give you time to get used to everything, it starts immediately):

http://city2surf.sunherald.com.au/

Have a look at the link! thousands of UTS students, people from all the different housings and especially from all over Australia will join this event - I´m sure it´s going to be great!!

After having finished the 14k´s Sydney Morning Herald will print a special edition with a list of all participants and the time when they´ve finished the run/jog/walk/(pub)crawl (hopefully I´m not the last one hahahaha)!

I´ll post some news as soon as possible to tell you how it was :-)

I have to go for a run now (need some training)....

See you soon!
Step.

ops...

2007-08-07T23:55:00.001+10:00

Hi again!

Sorry I don't know what had happened to the post below - I hope you can still read it...

Enjoy the high temperatures in Austria (but I don't want to complain, it's getting warmer and warmer and we always have around 20° during the day).

Yours,
Stephanie

New Photos!!

2007-08-07T23:43:00.000+10:00

Hi!

Just have a look at Andy's page (see link on the right) for much more photos of our outback-trip - they're absolutely great!!

Here are 2 more pics to pint out:

(1) this is us

(2) did you know? - some of us are coalas :-)

Have fun while watching the diashow!

Hope to get some news from all of you soon.

All the best from Down Under ....

DOWN UNDER

2007-08-05T23:57:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!!

I'm back again in Sydney from my amazing trip to the australian Outback!
To give you a little taste, I posted some photos of the last three days, but as you can imagine - i could have posted a 100 more, they're all great!!
I hope you enjoy the dia show. Here just a few infos about the tour:

Andi and me left on friday morning at 5:30 to the airport. After a 2 hour flight we arrived in Melbourne where we instantly met our two tour-colleagues Martin and Christin (also from Villach).
Together we left Melbourn directly to Ayers Rock. We rent a car and checked in immediately in our Hotel (Outback pioneer: http://hotels.australianexplorer.com/directhotel.asp?id=1643 we had the 41$ per night Budget room of course). I really loved the lodge, not only because of the 6 o'clock morning shower at 5 degrees outside... :-)

After checking in and changing clothes we started driving to Kata Tjuta (Olgas) and followed the small 1 hour walk to the centre of the "mountains" and then a 2 hour-trip to the other side.
Unfortunately there was no time left to finish the second walk because we didn't want to miss sunset at Ayers Rock!
On thursday in rained in this area, that's why there were a few clouds on friday as well. That is really rare and for us it was a special occasion to take some nice photos.
After watching the beautiful sunset we went back to our hotel to get some sleep. It was really cold and the next morning we had to get up at 6:30 to experience the sun rise at Ayers Rock as well (07:25 o'clock). At that time (so my impression) the rock was even brighter and looked like a fireball - it was just the best view ever you can have at such an early time!!

After that we started to climb the rock (I know you shouldn't do it and respect aboriginal culture, but to be honest: we are just 4 out af a million of people who climb the rock every year. and: when you're standing at the top of this incredible huge rock, you realize why it is so special and you can imagine why it is holy to the indigenous people. I really hope that they will close Ayers Rock in the future completely and give it back to its former owners, but as long as it is open I would recommend this climb to everyone!!).
The view from the top of the rock is incredible and I think there is no single place in the world where you can feel so extremely free like up there.....

At noon we took the car to drive 3,5 hours to Kings Canyon (and the same back home in the evening) which was ABSOLUTELY WORTH EVERY SINGLE KILOMETRE!!! (all in all we managed to drive almost 900 km in just two full days).
The whole Canyon is full of pancake-like red rocks and hills (a little bit like in New Zealand, but without blowholes - of course it is in the desert - and red like the rest of the australian Outback). We did a three hour walk there and we all four just loved it!! Have a look at the pictures then you'll know what I mean.
The way back home was a little bit dangerous with cangaroos hopping around the street, cows standing around etc... during the day we also saw a dingo, two camels, poisonous snakes etc.. - great :-)

Back home we opened a bottle of Wine (thanks Andy that was a great idea) and memorized the whole day. Then we had to go to bed early because the next sunrise was coming faster and faster....

The last day (sunday) was quite short for us, because our flight back home was around mid-day. so we were a little bit in a hurry to finish the whole track around Ayers Rock, but then, for the cultural centre we had 20 more minutes :-) That was not enough for sure, but we got a small overview of the creation of the world and human beings (from aboriginal view) and some information about their culture and life today and in the past.

Unfortunately we had to leave 12:00 to give back the car and to catch our flight - I could have stayed at this wonderful place for some more days!

At this time I want to say thank you to Martin, Christin and Andreas for travelling with me - I had a great time with you and I would love to repeat a journey like that (or a completely different one - no matter) with all of you!! Thank you!!

Now I'm back in my room in Sydney and a new week at uni will start very soon. After one week we already have a lot of work, but I really like this university and my subjects!

Hope you didn't fell asleep while reading this long story :-)
See/ hear/ write you soon!!

All the best and a nice summer in Europe from Stephanie DOWN UNDER

POSTGRADUATE!!!!

2007-07-30T22:57:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

Good news:

(1) I'm officially a post-graduate student!!! Thant means: I'm the youngest in the entire program, I have certain privileges (eg. own tea/coffee/cookie-lounge) and I hope the subjects are not tooo challenging....

(2) finally I found out how to post the link of my pictures on the right hand side of the page - so after some further posts you don't have to search for them. Additionally, I added Andi's page where you can find even more photos, the time and weather in Sydney etc...

Hope you're all right!

Cheers

Fotos

2007-07-23T23:53:00.001+10:00

Hi!

I have no idea how to add the link of my picassa-page (full of pictures) to this blog.

So - to keep it short and simple - here it is: http://picasaweb.google.de/stephanieaustralia/

Have fun while you're watching; more fotos will follow asap!

Cheers

G'Day Australia

2007-07-22T01:08:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone!

I'm here now in Sydney for almost two days and I can just say: It's soooooo extremely awsome!!!! Yesterday the weather was quite cloudy, but today - perfectly to have a great look at Sydney Opera House - the sun came out :-)

After purchasing basic stuff like sheets, blankets, etc.. for my flat we had a boring introduction held by UTS housing service (eg. how to use your key-card ----surprise!!) but the internatonal dinner was perfect *mjam* and we had a lot of fun.

My seven flatmates are really really nice and the apartment is always crowded. Only problem: How to remember all those names?????????

Today I met Natalie from Vienna who unfortunately left today. But she was just the best showing me a lot of useful places round university within just 2 hours.

After a good self made (a flat mate) chocolate-cake we had a party at the awesome roof with a best view over the whole city ever.
By the way: I'm living in the 7th floor (out of 8) and the view during the night is excellent!!!!!! :-)

Hope to find time again very soon to post something new!

I can just say: My biggest dream is becoming true!!

Please feel free to post here, to email or to call me via skype (my internet-connection is not the best, but it should be ok) - I'm really looking forward to some news from home :-)

All the best!

important dates and facts

2007-07-16T20:35:00.000+10:00

Hi friends and family!

Here are some important dates and facts for you:

departure (to Sydney): wed, 18. 07.2007 from Munich via London and Singapore

The next trip - Ayers Rock (Uluru) and Olgas (Kata Tjuta) - with three lovely friends Andi, Christin and Martin, is already planned:

departure: fr, 03.08.2007 Sydney - Melbourne - Ayers Rock, 3 day trip till sunday

Pictures will follow...

I wish you all the best - see you all again at Christmas!!

Start

2007-06-12T08:14:00.000+10:00

Hallo!

Ab Mitte/ Ende Juli findet Ihr hier neueste Infos von meiner Reise nach Australien und den diversen Ausflügen innerhalb dieses wunderschönen Kontinents!

Viel Spaß beim mitverfolgen, lesen und kommentieren wüscht Euch,
Eure Stephanie