Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! O what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh ...

RIGHT!! But not here in Brisbane!!! Walking through Brisbane before Christmas was not convincing for me. No, I still don't feel like Christmas.
Some impressions:

It couldn't be more plastic on it!!

REINDEERS!!!

Still not in the mood for Christmas I went home and somebody was waiting for me!!

A cute bat!!

Since a couple of weeks I was trying to win a bet. And I did!! Lynn got me to do some knitting, so I decided to make a scarf. I started it twice. But finally I was thinking, who needs a scarf here in Brisbane? But I found a victim. Rod works for the UN in Afghanistan and there it is bloody cold now. So, the scarf is finished and today I will post it to Afghanistan. Would be great if the parcel will really arrive overthere!! Here the proof!!


I know it is a bit short, but there was no more wool left. I like the colour!

Xmas

I knew the time will come. Now I am here in Aussie-land sweating, enjoying the atmosphere, having fun and some people out there in the world are really celebrating Christmas! As you know I am not religious, so actually I don't have a reason to celebrate something. Of course it would be nice being now together with the family, but why always making Christmas to a reason to meet? Some people were surprised that I stay over Christmas here in Brisbane. Yes I will be alone, but I will spend with friends Christmas Day at the beach as well. I just don't feel like Christmas. Maybe because of the weather or because I am heavily in love. ZEFIX (I like this bavarian cuss)!! Yep, someone broke my heart. ... *blushing*

Anyway, got some other news as well, but this I will report later. Where is the fun???

Ok, guys!! I wish you all happy peaceful days at home with your parents and friends. I will think of you having a cocktail in my left hand and an oyster in the right one, enjoying the sun. :)

Burleigh Head and Springbrook

My first visit of real subtropical rainforests. Yesterday Ken, Vladimir and me had a great trip visiting several national parks. The first one on our ToDo-list was the Burleigh Head National Park, a bit south of Surfers. This park is quite small, but full of interesting things to see and to hear. Just some nice impressions:

nice view of the pacific ocean

Springbook, an impressive and amazing part of nature. I can not put things in the right words, you have to be there to understand. We visited Gwongorella, the Tanninaba Falls, the Purling Brook Falls. We saw the Natural Bridge, The Best of All Lookout and many more.

Purling Brook Falls

Pics come later, there are some problems currently, sorry

explosions in London

For me quite impressive pic!

Nobody was killed by this accident. I think we were quite lucky. But it looks soooo bloody scary. Close to Luton gives the idea of an assault. We are soo vulnerable.

Friends

Today I noticed that I haven't mentioned my friends yet. All the friends I left behind in good old Europe. What are they doing now without me? Do we keep in touch after the four years together in Freising? I think we're doing pretty good.

We all know that Micha will hardly reply to an email, even a birthday ecard is not worth it. I don't mind. There will be from time to time a friendly message in Skype like "Hallo Finchen!" Then I know he is still alive and happy. He is currently doing his Master Thesis at the EBI in Cambridge.

There is Bene, still looking for something to do after his Diploma. He is switching between something social, mathematical, statistical or whatever. I just hope he will find something he really can enjoy, because that is the most important thing!! He is the only one who is allowed to call me "Olle Zicke" That always puts a smile in my face. He is now in Cambridge as well (as almost everyone :) ). I cross the fingers for him, that his project will succeed.

Markus. You don't know Markus? You really miss something then. Just today, we discussed about espresso and the procedure to make a real good one. That is first class science, I tell you. Next to espresso science he is just doing the PhD at the Sanger Institute in Molecular Biology. I really wish you all the best for the next four years. I think you are really doing well, at least the first two months!!

The connection to Munich will be Georg. Georg is just cute! Congrats for the PhD!! Of course he is in Cambridge right now and misses his Munich so much. We share at least one thing and that is the interest in Football. The World Cup next year goes to GERMANY!!! Go for it!!!

I am not sure if I should mention Flo. He actually wants to be where I am now, namely in the sun. And he is in bloody cold Cambridge!!! Sorry, I really don't want to swap. See you next year here at the beach!! ;)

Ok, Henning was already complaining that I haven't written anything about him yet. Yep, Henning. We met the first time in Cambridge at the EBI. Then almost no word for two years. Now with a distance of more than 16.000km we chat everyday! What happened? I would call it metamorphosis of mine. Some of you know my "evolution" through the last four years, all the up and downs. After all this I finally noticed that he is a real nice guy and worth to have as a good friend. Ok, Henning, we have definitely to meet in Germany again for a real *liebdrück* ;) !!

Freddie is just cool! We were almost enganged, but his "mum" didn't allow us to do so. We play the browser game -New-Crusader- and there we are a couple, fighting in different clans!! Is real good fun. Freddie has planned his future in Ireland already. I wish you all the best!!! And I want a postcard!!!


will be continued with ...
Fritjof, Dominik, Stephane, Guillermo, Rod, Matte, Katja, Maja, Yvonne etc.

Last friday, Mhairi and Lynn convinced me again to go to the cinema. My first Harry Potter in a cinema, wow!! It was the fourth book they have filmed called "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". The movie takes ca. 150 min, but I didn't fall in sleep. The movie was ok, nice effects and a good story, but not remarkably good. I can recommand the movie if you like Harry Potter or you have nothing else to do!

Martina spent her last weekend at Gold Coast, so she could persuade me to come and spend the afternoon together. But unfortunately we missed each other at the beach. Looking for Martina I took some nice pics from the beach - Surfers Paradise.

The largest building in the world, not used with offices, just for living!!

Look at this blue sky *sniff*

Finally we found each other and decided for a nice seafood-meal with a good beer. The food was great (sry, forgot to take a pic!) and the beer not too bad! Almost like home!!

VB - Victoria Bitter, one of the famous beers from Australia

We spent some time at the beach during the evening. Maybe we are crazy, but just watching and listening feels like the perfect world. It won't be easy for both of us to leave this paradise full of good looking guys!! ;)

Look at this a... (blushing)

And this is the way an evening should end, with the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen:

Without words ...

Both pics taken from the 25th floor.

And how about a sunrise at 4:30am? I have surprisingly no problems to get up so early, especially with a nice kiss and coffee! ;)

Thanks to Matte I had a great time yesterday in the northern part of Brisbane. She kicked me virtually in the arse out of the office into the aussie-world. We rent a car, the australien Holden, for one day.

Holden with automatic gears - just great

Matte had prepared a ToDo-List, a long one. If I remember we planned to visit 8 or 9 places. I was already shattered before we started. With me as a navigation system and Matte as a quite good left-side driver we found the way out of Brisbane to the Highway M1. This road led us to the Glasshouse-Mountain, near Redcliffe. There are several hills (200 - 400m high) placed just in a flat landscape.

Two of the hills seen from the lockout of Mt. Beerburrum

The famous Glasshouse Mountain

As you can see, it was quite cloudy at this day, but it was hot, very hot, and humid. We (more me actually) decided to go up to the Beerburrum Mountain, just 700m per pedes. What can I say? I was happy that I have survived it. It was extremely precipitous. Ok, we had just flip-flops and we left the water in the car. We were sweating like mad and had a nice apparentness being old and without any endurance.

The Glashouse Mountain taken from the driving car on the highway again.

Next stop was the The big pineapple in Yandina, north of Nambour. The entry can not be ignored. This big example is 16m high.

Matte lolling at the pineapple

I have a question for you. Where does actually a pineapple grow? Good question, isn't it? But why do we think actually a pineapples grows on palm trees? I was thinking so. But ...

Pic will come soon!!!

Yes, you see right. I couldn't believe it!!

Pic will come soon!!!

Did you know that it takes two(!) years for one fruit to be harvested? Something learned again!!

Ok, next stop the Ginger Factory, ca. 100km north of Brisbane. I always thought Ginger was something exotic. Matte and me made a tour through the factory and it reminded us of our most dreaded lesson at university -> Bioprocess engineering. I preffered the tasting, where we got Ginger beer. That was lekker!!!


Just on the other side of the street was a beautiful cafe. Freshly made cappucino, great. The first one I enjoyed without sugar!! Next to it you can find the Nut Factory. It was not so exciting, but we could try macademia-nuts differently prepared. (10 points for the one with chocolate!) But we saw Santa Claus!! ;)

The first time me in shorts next to Santa Claus!

Now we even went more north to Noosa Heads at the coast (ca. 140km far away from Brisbane). We arrived there when it was getting dark. But the sea was still great.

Pic will come soon!!!

In the background you can see a part of the national park of Noosa Heads. Martina and me had a nice walk along the beach until the Dolphin point. But we didn't see one of them neither a Koala. I don't mind. I had a nice day.

Now it was my turn to drive. I loved it. After 5 minutes you are used to it to drive on the left side. It is a bit tricky at the crossways, but I even made it in Brisbane.

Thanks Martina for this great day, even with our usual troubles at the beginning! ;)

Last Tuesday I went with Lynn, Mhairi, Rob and Martin to the cinema. You should know that I am not so into movies, but why not? The movie is called 'Corpse Bride' and is an animated movie from Tim Burton.

The story has of course a happy end, but I am not enthusiastic about it. I cannot recommand this movie. The graphic is a bit special, quite different to IceAge and Shrek. Maybe it is worth to go for the graphic. But who likes the voice of Jonny Depp should go as well. Victor, the main figure, looks a bit like him anyway, on purpose? We went for a beer afterwards, so it was still a nice evening!!

Since one week I live now in 66 Warren Street (4067 Brisbane - St. Lucia). I live together with 2 cats, two birds and some fish and two australien girls. I think both of them study veterinary medicine. But during the summer holidays one goes working and the other one I don't know. We don't see each other quite often. My rhythm of life changed a bit, like getting up at 5 am!! (I am surprised as well, don't worry!!) Here are some impressions from my new home:

One of the cats - of course in my bed!

My room, quite empty, but what do I need for 8 weeks?

The living room

Kitchen - with all things I need! I like it! Espresso machine!

A real traditional Queenslander - this is how they call such houses here. (I know the bin is full!)

This weekend I spent at the Gold Coast again. Currently there are summer holidays here in Australia, and all kiddies come to Gold Coast for two weeks to celebrate something, I don't know what. But you can imagine what kind of fun they had. I was unfortunately a bit sick, so we couldn't do what we had planned. Stephane and me went out for a drink and spent some time at the beach, surrounded by screaming and pissed kids, quite romantic! At home we watched Ice Age (don't laugh!) and had a nice dinner. At least I could relax a bit and enjoyed the weekend.

I have some bad news > my laptop is sick as well!! The monitor doesn't want to work anymore, so I have to use an external monitor. I don't know how to solve this problem in the next weeks, but we will see. Where there's a will, there's a way. So I went today (on a Sunday!) in the office to do some administration work. I couldn't resist and did some SQL-statements for my database! Sorry! I took a pic of my desk and another one with the view out of the window. So you get the impression how it looks like from inside when we have a storm in Brisbane.

It doesn't look too busy, does it?

It was a quite severe storm with lot of thunder and lightnings

With the summer the rainy season starts as well. I don't mind the rain, because it doesn't cool down afterwards and I still can live with this high humidity. The storms normally don't take long, maybe 15 minutes and then the sun is shining again!

The time has come that I move places now. I will spend the last night here in this flat. The chinese girls are moving as well. Life goes on. Most of them will go back to China. Wen Wen wants to finish her studies. We try to keep in touch, but as you know it is easier said than actually done. We took a pic tonight.

Ella, Me
Tricia , Wen Wen, Gina (Qu Hua)

This afternoon we had our christmas party within the Teasdale-group. We went to a restaurant called Jazzy Cat Cafe in West End. It was quite nice and the food was good, but too much as usual. After one bottle of tasmanian beer and one glass of champagne I was quite tipsy, especially with the temperature of more than 25 degrees around you. We had a nice time. Sorry, no pics, I forgot my camera :(

After a couple of days I find time now to update the blog, actually more at Henning's urging ;). Nothing really exciting happend. My work makes a good progress. The database get filled. You know, there is always the battle with redundancy. But I will win!
Last Friday I was invited for a BBQ at Mhairi's place. So, I got to know her boyfriend Rob, a real english guy! The third person on this pic is my supervisor, Dr. Lynn Fink. She hates to be called like this!!! :)

We had a nice evening! Especially because I survived a chilli attack from my colleagues. I had to put out the fire in my mouth with cold milk. I felt better after one litre. The beer is of course only decoration!! (german Schöfferhofer!!!)
After a sleep of 4(!) hours I went to Gold Coast to visit Stéphane. Gold Coast is located around 70km south of Brisbane and includes the famous Surfer Paradies!! Stéphane moved excactly to this place. On this pic you can see how touristical this place is. Not really much nature, which is a disadvantage to sunshine coast in the north of Brisbane. This pic was taken from the 25th(!) level of the tower block, where Stéphane lives in. Ähm, sorry, for the rest of the day I had no time and possibility to take pics. :)

At the end just a nice impressions I got in Brisbane. Like at least 3 or 4 times a week we get warning for storm, and this looked like a real one, but it passed by!

skating on a sunday

So, on Sunday I met Mhairi for doing some exercise in skating. We went to Kangoroo Point along the river. We had a lot of fun, coke, icecream and beer! I tried the first time XXXX, a famous beer here in Australia. It is not too bad. It was a nice girl-afternoon.

Me resting under a palm tree

Mhairi in front of Brisbane's skyline

One of the oldest buildings in Brisbane