At last

As I sit here tired from a day's school after a night of cocktails and girly chatter I happily realize that I now have holidays. Tomorrow I will board the train to Brisbane what will hopefully be the start of days filled with beaches, surfing, strolling around and relaxing. Four different places, five different hostels, I can't wait to explore what lies beyond the boundaries of Sydney.

When holiday is near you discover that you desperately need a break so the last couple of days I have been a bit pissed off with uni work and longing for today. Besides that I enjoyed myself immensely.


Saturday I went to the Brazilian festival at Darling Harbour, which honestly was a bit of a disappointment. All in all it was just a couple of stalls with Brazilian food and some music, but I had fun nonetheless. I went with housemates and saw some other friends and watched Sambadancing while eating pastel. Once again I was horrified by the eating of little chickenhearts and felt a twang of nostalgia as I saw all the cans of Guarana around me. I realized I am already looking forward to go back to Brazil.

The next Sunday I went to Centennial park with Lisianne and in the evening I went to a restaurant with my housemates to eat five dollar steak and chicken and surprisingly the food was amazing.





Monday and Tuesday was mostly filled with trying to conquer my assignments, ending up just hanging around with people on campus. The last couple of days campus has been swarming with coloured shirts convincing you to vote for them for the studentcouncil election. Entertaining names as BOOM, PUNCH and ACTIVATE kept harassing you all the way to the poling booth. As I have some friends in BOOM I walked around with a sticker claiming : I tick ticked BOOM which saved me from some aspiring student politicions. Tuesday was also the first day our American housemate Chris cooked for us, which was delicious, but I guess it had to be as he just graduated as a cheff.

Yesterday I went to a a house of two friends in Leichhardt for a girly night full of cocktails, brownies and girly talk. I crashed on the surprisingly comfortable couch and now I am trying to convince myself to finish my PR assignment, for which I have to give a presentation right after I come back. *sigh* I much prefer imagining myself on that beach already.

Jazz, waves and breakfast at Tifanny's

This Wednesday I had to linger after class as I had signed up for participating in a research study, neccesary to obtain a percentage in my grade (it's not for a bonus as it is at Erasmus). In the end I spend an hour (!) instead of the half hour it was supposed to take on a survey of 33 (!!) pages. The first page was the same question, but then askes with different answering scales or option.

I left the room completely cranky, but the clouds around my head quickly dissapeared as I got to Manning bar where there was a Jazz evening. Some friends of mine and other students were playing on stage while I was enjoying a free drink with some other friends. Afterwards I headed home to cook with Lisianne.

That evening I also started booking my trip with Pedro for when he arrives in November. We will go camping in Airlie beach close to the Whitsunday Islands and the great barrier reef, then we will head to Brisbane to catch the bus to Noosa. Then we will head to Melbourne to go camping again in Hobart, Tasmania. I am really looking forward to it and I can't wait to be in that little tent next to the blueest of seas.

Thursday I went to Paddy's market with Lisianne to go shopping. It basically is a big hall full of stalls and you sometimes wonder whether you made a mistake and walked down the same lane again, because half the stores sell the same souvenirs. I did find a nice hat so I can prevent a lovely red line forming on the top of my head. They also sell a lot of veggies and fruits for very low prices and while we were looking around we were entertained by a marketlady shouting 'Lady Gaga' and 'Ella Ella umbereeeeellaaaaa'.

After eating dinner with the four of us with our just bought veggies I went to watch the last revue of the season: Cadavatar, the medicine revue. As a friend perfectly summarized, the revue showcased all possible talent except comedy. The dances were amazing full off stunts which wouldn't be misplaced on a gymnastics competition. I do believe that to be a medstudent hear they ask you two things 1: can you do a backflip? 2: Please lift up your shirt. Half of the show was filled with barechested medstudents and girls in lingerie. The puns towards avatar were amusing and this revue actually had a story, but I didn't really have to laugh about any of the sketches. I didn't mind though, watching people summersault over each other is quite entertaining.

Today I walked from Bondi to Coogee beach with Lisianne and we couldn't have picked a better day. The sun was shining and the waves were enormous. It took us three hours because of all the stops and it made me realize how impressive this country actually is.
I just came back from a friend's place where we watched breakfast at Tiffany's. Now it's time for bed and I have moon river stuck in my head.

Sexy Hippo

That Saturday I went to a 21st birthday of an Australian friend from the revue. The theme was cartoons and she literally was the belle of the ball, beast included. It was amazing to see how much effort actually gets put into a dress-up party. I saw buzz lightyears and Woody's, Little red riding hoods, Ariels, Smurfs,Snowwhites and a lot of powerpuffgirls. I was dressed as Alice in Wonderland, but not exactly a spectaclar version as I only have limited resources for dressing up here. It was a lot of fun with dancing some of the revue again and listening to speeches, which is a custom for major birthdays here.


Sunday I spend the entire day picknicking in the park with Lisianne and on Monday I just did some homework (meaning browsing the internet to find lovely places to go to in November) and read a book in the garden.

On Tuesday it was raining as if I was home so I spend my five hours in between working on a advertising schedule for Hungry Jacks so mostly cursing the computer for refusing to save data and the people who gave the assignment as they nicely mentioned percentage targets, just not in which of the four different categories they wanted to achieve that target. When I got home I almost immediately left again to go to a Thai restaurant for a birthday, where we ended up discussing the fact that a Hippo was Harms favourite animal and I learned how to say sexy Hippo in Japanese and Swedish. Afterwards we went tot The Establishment where they were playing Salsa music. It is a lot chique than Cantinero, but still the atmosphere made me feel like I was back in Lappa, Rio de Janeiro. Trying to teach Harm some moves was a lot of fun and I feel like a kid in a candystore when I see how spectacular some people can dance.

The cutest teddybear

Oh dear, I have neglected my blog again. I needed my mum to remind me I hadn't written anything in a while.

The truth is, I also haven't done that much in the last week. I spent Monday and Sunday studying, running errands and making assignments. Sunday we had another fun dinner with the house (French Laura cooked this time)and Monday I had dinner with the people that were planning to go to the great barrier reef for springbreak.
Tuesday was a long day of class after which I went home to have dinner with the rest of the people in the house before I would go back to the uni, but this time for the coolest kind of party: A silent disco.


I had been to one before during a liberation festival in Rotterdam. I already loved it then and this one was even so much cooler. Two dj's were competing to have as many headphonewearing dancers switched to their channel. The wonderful thing is that you can decide how loud you want the music, which music you want to listen to or just take of the headphones when you want to talk to someone. You see people dancing to different rhythms and you would quickly change the channel when people started shouting because of an awesome song that came on. The finale of the party was everyone that was left in one big slow motion cancan line on the tunes of 'New York'.

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with more classes, reading an amazing book outside in the sun and writing a news release for a mark on a made up company with Hugh Jackman as a spokesperson (later a Norwegian girl I also have another class with was shocked when I told her he was an actor, she had no clue who he was and had just thought he was a member of the made up company HabbaDabbaDo).



Friday I started with a groupmeeting and then continued to a birthdaybreakfast in a chocolate cafe. One chocolate frappe and an amazing but oh so filling brownie later, we went to Manly beach. The ferry ride between the bridge and the operahouse was once again amazing. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very good and it even started raining a bit (it is not always sunny here) but Alexandre the birthdaygirl was determined to go swimming. I went home for dinner and actually we had a party from our French housemate who had her birthday on Wednesday (other alternatives were going out with Alexandra or the sciencerevue) but we ended up just talking, too lazy to go anywhere. In the end some friends dropped by as they lost interest in the bars in Oxford street.

When they left around two I went to my room to skype with Pedro. In Australian time it was our first anniversary and I was looking forward to see him and unpack the parcel that had been burning a hole in my bag since I picked it up from the post office that morning. One year has flown by while so much has happened. As far as I'm concerned there will be many more years, but now I do have the cutest Teddy to hug while I wait for him to arrive in Sydney.

Banana worshipping

On Saturday I went to Lisa's house to plan our Springbreak. Together with her and Karina (both German) I will go backpacking along the gold coast of Australia. We will go by train from Sydney to Brisbane during the night. We will arive at six in the morning on Saturday the 25th of September. We will stay there for two days and then hop onto the greyhound bus to Surfer's Paradise. After one night there we will go to Byron Bay to surf and chill on the beach some more. I am quite excited, since every Australian I talk to tells me to go to Byron Bay. After four days in Byron Bay we will go for two days to Coff's Harbour, where apparently they have a massive banana. Four places, five different hostels, one big eastpack I for some reason used as a freshman and heaps of fun. I can't wait.

With my laptop in the garden soaking up sunlight watching little lizzards shoot by, studying doesn't feel so bad, but still I can't wait to pack my bags and discover what lies outside the boundaries of this city.

Compliment please

Friday I headed to uni on my classless day because of the night markets organised because of the Verge festival. 'Tent with some stalls' would have been a better description as we arrived to the disapointing sight. Together with some people from our house and some others we met there we started our tour which was likely to last all of ten minutes.

On stall was just signing in to get a goody back, so I now am a hat, a keychain and several free entrance tickets for parties richer. Very surprising was the stall with Poffertjes (this description was accompanied with Dutch mini-pancakes, otherwise nobody would understand what they would be eating). When we arrived at the end there was a guy dressed in a jacket that would have made him fit to conduct a circus who was bartering. He had a cigarette and half a subway cookie to offer, so Jenny gave him a massage for the cookie and Harm gave his free hat for the cigarette. The guy statred out with a paperclip, I wonder what he ended up with in the end. The coolest was the girl who gave away compliments on pieces of paper with a red painted heart. She exchanged them for hugs and now I have a little note saying 'you looked like a fairy coming from the woods'. We started talking and in the she wanted to know how to say I love you in Dutch. I wrote the sentence in a couple of languages and the girl proclaimed she would write Ik hou van jou on the next Dutch person she would give a compliment to, not really expecting she would meet one. About 30 seconds later a woman raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw the note and asked how she got it, since she was Dutch. Naturally complimentgirl couldn't believe her luck.


We spend some time up in the tent where they were playing live music and where you could play Mario Kart, which was also decorated by a mona lisa made out of rubix cubes. We also watched some firedancing and then decided to go cook at Sunniva's house, a Norwegian girl. We found the Dutch section in the supermarket and to our amusement they were selling everything from stroopwafels to double salty liquorice, proffertjesmix and red cabbage with apple.


With some delicious scones for desert in our stomach, we walked to Surry Hills to the house of some friends who just moved. We wanted to go out, but it seemed our other friends were in Bondi, which we thought was too far. Instead we ended up drinking tea and eating cookies when all of a sudden it was 2am and it was time to walk home.

Strawberries and breakdancing

Before you know it another week passes by.
Im glad to say that Lieke, Harm and Lisianne enjoyed the show and Lieke even said it made her day. Harm mistook the thriller moves for lady Gaga and not all the jokes were understood because they are simply too Australian, but in the end they laughed their asses of.


That Friday was the last show which went amazing, but it was also bittersweet as it was the last one. After trying to collect every single prop backstage, we went to the house of one of the castmembers to celebrate. I had a lot of fun and in the end I got home with the sun already in the sky and my head hitting my pillow at 7.30. After six hours I got woken up because there was a birthday BBQ at Bronte beach at three. We ran a bit late, but we still had a good time with some delicious burgers made on the public bbq's at the beach. We were even provided with music as someone from another group brought his entire djset. When it was getting dark Lisianne and I pretty much fell asleep standing, so we decided to head back home where we spend the evening in bed talking and eating strawberries.
That Sunday and Monday I was still recovering and I spend my time trying to write an essay of 2000 words, which meant I was mostly skyping. On Sunday we had another German pasta with the rest of the house as our German housemate Joerg is leaving the house to go travelling.

Tuesday was just classes and sitting outside with Alexandra from Vienna. Yesterday after classes I went to Manning bar to spend some time with some others of the revue cast before we would go the Shawshank Detention, the education and social work revue. At manning there was a hiphop/breakdancing competition going on, which surprisingly had about 99% Asian contestants. It was fun to watch though and they sell awesome veggie burgers at the bbq there. The education revue was honestly quite horrible and we mostly entertained ourselves with folding big paper hats out of the promotional posters they were handing out at the entrance. It was only their first year, so I hope it will improve with experience. Afterwards we headed to the rose and later Kelly's, which has karaoke.



This morning Lisianne left for her springbreak, so the coming ten days Ill have to find other partners in crime. Hopefully Ill be able to plan and book my own springbreak, since at the moment I mostly have a lot of ideas. Right now there is also the verge festival at uni, which means there are a lot of events, parties and markets going on. It is strange to realize that back home school is almost starting as well while Im already halfway through the semester, although I must say, the lack of holidays is starting to catch up with me.