Category: australia

hunter valley and recipes

sunset climber pouring wine glass (minimalism) tw215 glass (abstract) baked pretzels

today i have cooked these pretzels. the only thing i changed is that i glazed them with egg white instead of baking soda. they looked and tasted delicious, but i’m getting bored!

lately i’ve been making bread quite often. it started with this recipe, and then i was changing it around quite a bit, until i’ve tried pita breads, and other pretzels, and general experimentation. i AM improving – the kneading of my dough definitely has risen (and speaking of rising, when my dough rises, like today, it looks GREAT. just yummy.)

lesley ann has been asking me quite a lot lately to make this carrot cake, thus i shall do that tomorrow (after gym, heh). last night she made these awesome coconut/chocolate squares which were SO awesome. i can’t wait till she does them again, and i’ll be stealing the recipe.

i’ve also posted some photos on flickr from my recent hunter valley trip, on saturday. it’s been fun! i think the fun is reflected by that i had to fix the horizon on all the photos in the last half of the day – its crooked everywhere! (and i remember trying so hard to keep it straight…)

we’re baaack!

after some crazy restores, we’re back online!

summary of past week:

saturday: camping & rockclimbing
sunday: rock climbing
monday: slack off (i think)
tuesday: go into the city with anja, the girl from new zealand
wednesday: insane day of classes
thursday: day of classes, rock climbing
friday: big shopping with taxi delivery
saturday: wine tasting tour for entire day, and big party at the apartment in the evening
sunday: rock climbing, again

and tomorrow is monday and I WILL SLEEP IN OR SOMEONE WILL GET BEATEN WITH AN INFLATABLE BALOON.

some statistics

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.
——————————————————-

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.

night under the stars, movies and the rain

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.

second last new zealand update batch

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 :)

valentines in sydney

posting stuff i had written earlier. 

 

valentine’s day has surrounded us from the start, with appropriate “life” shows on the television. then off to the e-card office to get our student ids, and off to the orientation we went.

since you didn’t have to be at the orientation, i’ll save you the 95% boredom, and let you know of the 5% fun:

  • the security guy made a nice and informative presentation of the dangers on and around campus, and also of the services provided by security. he also was pleasantly self mocking, raising many a laughs from the crowd
  • the part when they were talking about size of australia, the guy asked if anyone is from canada, and a weighty part of the audience cheered. i was the only one to cheer AND clap, thus some remembering i’m from canada
  • of course when he said china right afterwards i heard toronto so i cheered again, which brought some confusion, making some people believe i have some connection to china.
  • and when a little later he asked if anyone is from russia and i was the only one in the entire 200 person room (oleg’s approximation) who went “YEAH!” and raised my hand, made most people to remember me as russian

    • a lot of canadians went as exchange students to this university. some statistics about who i’ve met today:

  • 50% of met were from canada
  • 5% from design, 30% from mining degrees, 50% of other engineering/cs, 15% business
  • 4 mcgill, 1 schulich (3rd year, says he knows of our hesi), +1 u of t, 4 queens
  • i saw 7 french girls, 1 canadian/russian girl (the only other russian speaking person AFAIK), again,

    the day after the orientation bbq was spent running errands, failing at setting up internet (for a few reasons that i figured out later in the evening with oleg), buying some sushi rolls for dinner out of self spoilage, and then a very pleasant evening of blogging, and watching olympics on the tv.

    among other pieces of knowledge gathered today, was that our illusionary roomates (i.e. the ones who are not to be seen yet) are in new zealand until the 18th (day before tim arrives), and they are party animals, and the flat is essentially a big hangout house for most of the time.

    after having some wine, sleep is scheduled to happen in 10 minutes, at 1am. tomorrow’s orientation starts at 9:30am.

    • flat mates

      


    img_2618_    Originally uploaded by olya.

    going in vein with my luck, i have gotten some awesome people as my flat mate. other than oleg, there are 3 more people living with us:

    elen: a 25 year old girl from norway, she is here finishing up her masters thesis in safety (engineering branch). she just moved into the flat.

    lesley-ann: a 22 (i think? or so) adorable irish girl, who bakes and cooks a lot, has the most awesome cute and original shirts. she’s been here for half a year already, and comes from the same university as kevin. she is studying law.

    kevin: a red haired traditionally irish guy, who rock climbs, plays soccer and cricket (well, everyone plays cricket here. i’m watching a bunch of people, including our flatmates, playing cricket in the lawn outside our balcony as i type this). he also is studying law.

    the flat itself has 2 floors. i’m on the ground floor together with oleg, living room, kitchen, and 2 bathrooms (each with a toilet, sink and shower). on the second floor there are 3 bedrooms in which elen, lesley-ann and kevin reside. it is reasonably messy, there’s always a lot of booze on hand, and about 2-3 nights out of the week someone will be sleeping on the couch on the balcony, on the spare mattress in the living room, or on the living room couch.

    my room is very decently sized, with a neat closet, a nice window, and a desk with drawers. unfortunately the bed is single, but its pretty comfortable for a dorm. i’m unhappy that its all carpeted, and that i can’t find anything to put on my walls – no posters or cork boards. will try to find a cheap magnetic board today.

    all photos. my class schedule.

    coogee beach


    coogee beach

    Originally uploaded by olya.

    today while walking back from the bus from the beach, i went through the university. i saw a small, adorable 4-5 year old boy walking amonst all the undergrad and graduate students, in hurry to get to their class. white pressed shirt, neat shorts, proper backpack, neat shoes… one shoelace untied. heading, completely alone towards a long row of stairs down.

    he noticed me noticing him, and when i started walking on the stairs i decided that i couldn’t not do anything. so, i turned around, made eye contact again, and asked if he’d like me to tie his shoelace. surprisingly, he didn’t say anything, just looked at me kinda sadly, stopped and put his untied shoe forwards. i carefully tied it into a knot, stood up and said “here you go”. he looked at me without saying a word, and after just-a-bit-too long pause i said “take care” and walked away, listening for sounds of someone stumbling, just in case. nothing was heard.

    when i reached the bottom of the stairs, a minute later maybe? a rushed, in-tears young girl asked me in a very worried voice “do you know where the library is?” thankfully that i already learned, so i pointed her on her way, with traditionally olya description “big building with at least 10 floors, says UNSW on it in big letters, go this way”. she seemed relieved, and thanked me as she started to run off.

    thus, today i’ve spent 4 hours on a beach, read almost a whole book, ate some ice cream, learned some matlab, cleaned my room and the kitchen, and helped two people. not a totally wasted day right?

    and, with posting this i’m breaking free of my dry-phase of blogging. i have something typed up. it’ll be coming soon. its just tought to get back into the typing routine.

    tim goes all “manly”


    (see all the photographs for this entry here and here.)

    after having been forced to watch women’s figure skating short program the night before, tim had decided that he needed to do something manly, thus we went to manly bay.

    the view off the ferry was AWESOMETASTIC as you can see in these photographs (courtesy d70).

    upon arrival to the bay we walked around, and fussed with their 24 hour tourist center. in the photograph you can see the pad for operating on the screen on the left, and the screen is on the right, and in the middle is tim trying to make it tell us where we can find japanese food.

    after more walking and stumbling around, we found an acceptable japanese place where we had an excellent all-around japanese meal (sashimi, sushi, tempoura prawns, teriyaki chicken, rice, edamame, miso soup, ice cream, all for 2 plus a bottle of nice wine at 26/person! like, wow.)

    the ferry back was equally pretty, and the bus from the quay to unsw was eventful as it was *full* of crazy drunken frosh students who were singing out loud the entire time. it was like a school bus, not a city bus.

    note: for some reason anything from www.olya.org isn’t loading now. i dunno why. it was working earlier and ftp is okay. i guess it will work later again?