Mar 19

ohmygod update

okay, shame on me about blogging so shamelessly about all the insects and things i’ve seen. about 5 minutes after i pressed “post”, a huntsman crawled out to the ceiling of my bedroom. most. paranoid. feeling. ever. it was a small one - only 7cms in diameter (about same size as a smoke alarm), but i hid under my blanket the entire time oleg was trying to get it. the part that i missed, thankfully, is that after oleg missed the huntsman (not thankfully), it jumped down onto the window sill. it even might’ve went on the bed. its too freaking fast. anyway, after i saw how it squeezed itself completely flat into the crack of the windowsill, i crawled out of bed and far away, until oleg flicked it outside.

lessons:
- no more windows open. ever.
- those things are fast.
- and they can be very small when they want to be. PARANOIA BZZZZZ.

good night! … i hope.

oh yeah. photographs from last 2 parties, and, well, the huntsman.
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university

weeks in sydney: 4
week of classes: 3rd
number of classes i’m taking: 4
number of exams i’ll have: 2
number of textbooks i need to buy: 2
number of textbooks bought: 1

enterntainment

number of times i went to the movies: 2
days off in the week i have: 1 (but almost 3 if i leave after 12pm on friday and skip the tutorial on tuesday)
cost of parking ticket on our first day in sydney: 175$

internet

cost of internet that i get from university: 4.4c/meg (that’s $50 for each gigabyte)

how much have i spent in the first 3 weeks despite not *downloading anything other than pages* (not even photographs): you don’t want to know. or rather my parents shouldn’t know :p

cost of wireless modem that we bought to get away from that: $70
cost of wireless router to connect to the modem to share the internet: $40
cost of monthly plan at 12gig, 512kbps download, 128kbps upload: $90
cost per person: $10 for lesley ann, $40 for me and $40 for oleg
do we actually get that speed? only for australian websites, and even then not always.
is it still worth it? hell yes.

insects

section 1: bites

number of bites on my left arm: 16
number of bites on my left leg: 5
number of bites on my right leg: 0
number of bites on my right arm: 3
is it bed bugs? unlikely, couldn’t find any traces. looks like mosquito bites.

section 2: spiders

number of spiders seen: a lot
number of significant spiders seen: 1, a huntsman in our bathroom. (visualize: i’m walking in without contacts, put my contacts in, look up and see this reflection in the mirror.)

section 3: cockroaches

last night, on the way to the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow (thinking its a cockroach or some huge crawly animal): about 70
last night, on the way from the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow: 0
last night, on the way from the movies, cockroaches seen: 4
(biggest one was about 6cms long. right next to my foot.)
did i jump? yes.

food

amount of times i made bread from skratch: three!
carrot cake: once, and very very good
oladushki: twice, also very very good
ate honey mustard chips: endless. very VERY good
drinking: water, lots of awesome juice, green tea
coffee: once (at home)
cappuccino: 5 times. it is amazing here.

my room

things on the wall: only 3 4, all 3 are calendars (hesi’s, ansel adams, and UNSW’s). can’t find posters! aaargh. and sometimes a huntsman.
pillows: 2
lamps: 2
spiders: 0 (so far). funnily i typed that 5 minutes before a huntsman crawled in. make that 1.

Mar 16

register www.aylo.org

:-)

kthxbye.

Mar 15

the night that tim left australia, sydney had a movie festival of short films. one of our new friends’ friends actually worked on one of the films as a producer and sound manager (or something like that), a lot of the people went there early during the day to catch a spot, kevin, elen and i joined the rest later during in day, when the crowd was bursting the park to the seams.

as the sun was setting down, the weather seemed to become worse, and when it started raining lightly the announcers finally stopped pimping sony and other supporters and announced that the screening of the winning 16 short films will now begin. the movie that our friend produced had to go last.
8 movies later there was a break in the festivities for people to stretch, and that’s when i shot these photographs.

the movies were cute, funny, poignant, weird, interesting, different, and all of them were under 7 minutes, and included the theme of this years fest - bubbles - in some shape or form. we saw a lot of bubblegum popping.

when the second half of the event was coming to a draw (we were about 3-4 movies away from the end), the rain started pouring harder and harder until elen, oleg and i decided to leave, as we were becoming soaking wet - everything, down to our wallets, and all that we had with us. earlier, newspapers covered us, but at this point after 30 seconds of this rain, this monsoon, they would fall apart.

as we were leaving the park (with the beginning of the torrent of other people as well), they actually stopped the event before our friend’s movie played anyway. thus, we ended up not missing it. (the guy actually brought the dvd to our apartment later, so the end was a happy one, mostly. they didn’t win any of the awards).

the walk and the ride home was entertaining. on the way to the bus stop there were people dancing in the fountains near the park, giving up all hope of staying dry and getting soaked by both the rain torrents from above, and the fountain water. strong streams of rain water were flowing underneath our feet (very unhygienic :) ), and this completely soaking wet crowd of happy, young people was squeezing their way towards the bus stop.

after some difficulty (the bus drivers here are incredibly stubborn and will not pick you up, in pouring rain, 3 meters away from the bus stop, when you’re next bus is 15 minutes away. bastard.), we got on the bus, which was full of aforementioned young happy wet people. and here perhaps the most awesome scene of the entire day occured - the back of the bus started to sing.

first the singing was repetitive bon jovi “oooh we’re half way theeeeere, oooo–oohhh, living on a prayer…” after a few times of repeating that cuplet along with some more words, the crowd got a bit tired. a few minutes later a voice called out from the back - “thank you everyone, the back of the bus will be here until thursday!”. i was thinking all this time that they should sing something like a *whole* song, so i called out “do you take requests?”. some laughter followed, and a random hidden voice called out from the back “what did you have in mind?”. “queen!”

a pause followed, and then a very awesome thing happened.

they, and then i, and then the rest of the bus started singing the bohemian rhapsody. if you know the song (and you should), it is sung in multiple voices, which made this all the more awesome as the different voices all were acted out by different people in proper succession. we sung the entire song, and incredibly in tune (for a bus, it was magnificent). we finished exactly as our party was exiting the bus, and i shouted out “thank you!”, to which i got a reply of “we’ve got our first fan!”

the entire experience was reminicent of the fish scene in finding nemo (hmm okay should be more specific with regards to which fish scene - the one with many fish forming signs and symbols for dora and nemo’s dad to follow), where a conversation was held between an individual and a single entity composed of many singular units.

i think that a singing bus should be mandatory. once a week, have people gather at a pub, and then depart on a certain route, prepared to sing songs together.

Mar 13

i have only 2 days left to write about (and a little - the day of departure where we left at like 5 am), but i decided that i’ll put up the last few days that i’ve already written anyway.

the weekend here went awesomely - i spent another full day at the beach, almost bought a dress, and realized i can now carry 7 kg worth of groceries for about 25 minutes.

enjoy the entries!

for photographs start here and end when you get bored :)

Mar 13

the day began with the bad news that my bag still has not arrived. after some phoning the YHA in haast, it turned out that my bag is still in haast as of this morning. wtf mate… it was sitting there for a whole day? argh!!!

anyway, the choices were put as follows:

  • for an extra charge get the bag delivered to the glacier today (what i especially don’t get is that it was supposed to arrive *YESTERDAY*. okay, maybe same-day is impossible, so then *TODAY*. but if i did not pay, when in the world would it get here?! like 10 days after i leave new zealand? i don’t get it AT ALL. cause the guy who i spoke to initially definitely understood that i was leaving this place in 2 days) after 1pm. when after 1pm? no one knows.
  • for a doubly extra charge get it sent to hokitika, where it might - might - get by tonight.
  • leave it in haast and waste 4 hours driving there and back to pick it up.

    after some hesitating and deliberating i decided to wait here and try getting it here. if it doesn’t come today then i will leave my chirstchurch address (the hostel), and try to get it delivered there asap. argh. i miss my toothbrush, glasses, shampoo… FLIP FLOPS! dang it.

    the nice thing about this town is that its so small, and the gas station attendant is doubling as the post office guy, and the hostel owner actually knows him (in the sense that she said “oh he’s a nice guy, you can talk to him and give him your cell number). after talking to the post office guy, further positive information came along - he said that the package should get here by 1:30pm. so, for now we’re hanging out in the hostel. it is 11:26am - we had breakfast, and at this point anja is reviewing photographs on oleg’s computer, and i decided to blog. i am 8 days behind!

    some hours later…

    so, upon spending the next 2 and a half hours blogging, at 1:30 (half an hour after the approximate 1pm deadline) i went to the post office/friendly local gas station/mobil. unfortunately, the guy said “another half an hour”, and i demurely went back (having bought an ice cream to celebrate the shiny blue skies and warm weather and to cheer myself up in general) to the hostel.

    some minutes later…

    20 minutes later a postal truck pulled into the hostel with a MAGICAL SINGLE PACKAGE in his hands! yup! my bag has ACTUALLY FOUND ME. apparently this whole concept of “mailing” “stuff” is not entirely flawed.

    in joy and celebration we have jetted out of the hostel on the road to hokitika, which has been described as the jade capital of new zealand (and possibly THE WORLD, although i’m not sure). another waterfall of flyers describing things and places as “the best kept secret in new zealand” has accompanied the visit to this town. remind me to not really trust new zealand with secrets, as they tend to publish them in official visitor guides.

    hokitika also greeted us with rain, and thus we have decided to hang out at the very posh, very large, very cool looking hostel, with a very calm and friendly australian sheepdog, sid. (funny that i can remember dogs’ names but not people’s…) here i’ve found a book by grisham, “the broker”, which addicted me right away. around 11:30pm the realization that i just won’t finish it (and i can’t take it cause the hostel libraries work on the principle of take-one-leave-one), so i went to sleep in our 3(people)-for-1(room). anja hasn’t been able to find a place in that hostel, but they very nicely made her a bed on a mattress on the floor, and other than that was a bunk bed, leading to generally cozy accomodations.

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