New blog

OK, so now that Julian and I have moved to Germany and I'm obviously too much of a slacker Julian has established a new blog where we're both supposed to post things. So check it out at:

http://germankiwis.wordpress.com/

Julian got a bit carried away already he made three posts before he even managed to tell anyone that we have a blog.

Anyway, I'll try to write a few things too. (not only commenting Julians entries) but it definitely makes things easier, that Julian is in charge now. ;-)

Long time nothing in here

I try to improve! Well I said that before, but I will try a bit harder. ;-)

Anyway, a lot has happened since my last entry. I've been kayaking and climbing a few more times. I've done a few rogains and two adventure races, but most important of all I've handed in my thesis and got my self a job. A position at the university in Freiburg to do a PhD. So I know now what the future three years (or a bit more but hopefully not much more) behold.
MORE SUFFERING. Ah, well. Stupid me, but I feel kind of motivated so that's all good so far.

I will put an entry in about those adventure races, as they were lots of fun, but now I have to get going to do some surfing in the see with F's Kayak

cayaking again!!! (sorry no pictures that the thing with cayaking it's all wet)

On Sunday I was kayaking and it was great! I finally managed to do a few things that I tried so many times before. But I was also upside down a lot. Well, with the Dry top that I bought myself for Christmas that was ok.

We went down the Hurunui (including the gully) at a flow of 35 cubic meters/s. This time was the first time without Warrick who taught me to roll and took me down the Huruni three times before. Instead I went with a different Warrick (who I know from climbing and I wasn't aware that he was also a kayaker) on a trip of the white water club. (Why do they both have to be called Warrick...) Anyway He's got a few friends who are also very good kayakers so I was feeling quite save with them and I was confident enough too. It was great!!!

-I managed to do a woopy once. This is when the back of the boat is in the water and the front is pointing out. Its quite fun but so far each time I tried to do it I didn't end up with a woopy but with me under water and having to roll. (my roll got a lot of practice that way) Anyway I managed to do that once (but not again since) It felt quite awkward I must admit.

- I managed to surf a very big wave. I tried that wave last time several times and I never even managed to get into it. Well now I did and once I was in it I was sitting there surfing from right to left to right to left, I didn't even need my paddle. I was quite tempted to twisted above my head but to scared to actually do it. As If I then would flip over I would go for a swim. I can hand roll a polo boat but not a river boat. So that's an aim now I got to practice that. Then I can get really cocky. =))

- I was shoot out of the water...
Yes, sounds odd? I couldn't believe it too. Anyway in the gully there is a bit where some water is coming down between two boulders a very neat calm (not white) but fast water tongue. You can poke your boats nose into it and it will push it under water the nose. So you're nearly in a 90°angle (woopy into the other direction) well I managed that a few times before but then I just splashed to one side and ended upside down. This time the last time I went into it, I got pushed down, managed to balance it. the water pushed me a bit further to a point where it stops pushing down the air in my kayak did the rest and I shot out. It felt quite funny. I was not aware that I actually was out of the water. But Lofty (funny name) told me I was 20cm above the water....


So theses were my three highlights but obviously I had heaps of other fun in several other waves and stuff.

I got a bit cocky though and the punishment for that was waiting for me in the gully behind a rock....

THE BEATING
Glynn told me where to go, it would be great fun. It's called elevator...
So I went behind a boulder and when I wanted to get out of there and onto the elevator like Glynn had done. I got tipped over, went for a roll and there I was again at the same spot.... Not good, I hoped to be out of there. Tried it again, got tipped over again rolled again and again I ended up behind that stupid boulder. The rolls in that water where quite hard because it was very swirly and moved it was pulling on my paddle and didn't want me to roll... I tried to get out of there several more times (I don't know how many) Each time I thought now I got it now I'll stay up right now I know what to do each time I rolled I thought well this time was different, this time I'll come up on some other spot. The second hope I gave up after a while but the first one. This time I won't tip. This time I'll manage to keep my rail up this time I come in a different angle... I didn't give up that hope. The guys were waiting for me a bit further down. To get my bits and pieces once I go for a swim. I took quite a beating there. Getting more tired each time....
Well on some moment I tipped over again and remembered that Glynn had said go for the green water... So I looked around but green water my ass! Yeah right! I still sticked out my paddle into a random direction pulled it back fairly quick as the water was starting to rip it out of my hands. So I just sat up to roll. I was quite tired I tried to roll and it didn't work the water was so boily. My body just wanted to get out and get air but I set up for a second try. Calmed my self down and told myself one clean not rushed try if that doesn't work I can still swim. It worked and immediately I thought I should have gone for the swim because I ended up behind that boulder the last few times what is the fight good for If you don't get out? But I wasn't I was not behind the bolder. I was flowting down the river caught the next eddy and had a rest I had not yet quite realised that I took quite a beating there.... After that I was less cocky and when Glynn told my to buff that rock and do bla bla... I only said, wouldn't follow his crazy lines anymore. It looked quite impressive when he did it and I felt flattered that he thought I could do it. But actually I think he just wanted to have a laugh and finally see me swim.

So anyway, I am quite proud that I sticked to it, didn't give up and didn't go for a swim on that. But the next swim probably won't be far. As I was told, there are two kinds of kayakers, the once that just swam and the once that are going to swim soon... I hope it's not to soon. (even though it actually is not too bad)

Schantall

We had a typical German break fast, without the "Brötchen" and toast instead. But with cooked egg and cheese on toast... And there was a reason for it

I got a parcel from Tini, a Christmas parcel! Julian didn't want me to open it, as he thought Tini is so organised that it would be a Birthday parcel. If we had a look at when it got posted we would have realised how well organised she is and that it's just the post which isn't around Christmas time. Anyway I still opened it as I thought if it's a birhtday present it will be wrapped. Once I opened it well, there were all these yummy sweets and some typical German Christmas sweets. Julian still didn't believe me and had a look at the card first. Well it was a Christmas card. Great! I was allowed to carry on unpacking.

There she was SCHANTALL
(Chantale is a French girls name Schantall is the German pronunciation)

Schantall has a history. In my flat in Germany Anne got "Schantall" as a silly present. Schantall is a egg shaped thing that you put into water with eggs of the same size and then you start to boil it. It measures the temperature of the water and times it. Once the egg white is solid and the egg yolk is still soft it starts to sing. Well beep. The melody of a German song. "ich wollt ich wär ein Huhn"... Translation "I wish I was a henne, I woulndn't have much to do,..." (Comedian Harmonists)

So well, flatting with my great girls in Germany we had Break fast together nearly every Sunday. Who ever was up first started to prepare it (I sadly must admit that it was not very often me) And as soon as everyone else would hear Schantall beeping combined with the smell of very nice coffee the last ones (most of the time me) would come out of the bed and join the beak fast. It's a really nice alarm clock for a Sunday. =)

So now I got a Schantall but no flatmates that would prepare a Sunday break fast. It will be up to me now. =) Well so far I quite often made some pancakes. I wonder if my flatmates appreciate Schantall break fast as much as pancakes. Next time though I might just bake some "Brötchen" I'm sure they'd appreciate that. =)

By the Way, Tini was very organised the post stamp shows that she posted the parcel on the 6.12. This is crazy! It arrived on the 2.2. nearly two month later....

And another thing that Julian asked me to do: It's me Jana again writing. He was afraid that you'd think he's silly and can't spell anymore. So now you know he isn't it's just me again.
There are still a few stories to catch up. I shorn a sheep, (well helped sheering it), I did some more paddling, I climbed a mountain,... Maybe I get some time to tell you all about it some other time. But now I got to work. =(

Mt Misery (28th December 2006)

We decided to go tramping for two days while we waited for Warrick in Murchison to do some more kayaking. So we climbed up Mt Misery in Nelson Lakes National Park. At the start I had a few problems with the sandflies. Lake Rotoroa is a very bad place for them. So I had to wear lots of clothing so that they couldn’t get to me.

Mt Misery was very nice though. We didn’t start until about 4pm and it was a very steep climb but luckily we still made it up well before dark. We went through some cool forest that was all covered in lichen. Then we got above the bushline and had a great view back down to the lake.

Christmas (25th December 2006)

We had Christmas in Golden Bay. It is strange to have Christmas in New Zealand. The sun was shining, it was a very hot day, and there wasn't any snow. There was still lots of yummy food though.

We had a very nice Christmas tree and I found some wooden decorations that are exactly the same as the ones we have at home! Except it was silly to put the snowmen up so I left them in the box.

Port Hills rogaine (14th December)

We had another rogaine. This was on the Port Hills and had cryptic clues that we had to solve to find the controls. I let Julian come in my team for this one because he promised not to complain if I made him run up some hills. We did really well and came 2^nd in the mixed category and were only 20 points behind the winner! We even beat all the other people from the tramping club. Results are at http://www.cutc.org.nz/twilight_rogaine/

Party (9th December 2006)

Julian and Anthony won some money in a competition at university. Julian is very stingy and so just put his share in the bank. But Anthony decided to spend his on beer for a party! We had it at our flat because his place is too small.

Before the party we had a BBQ and I got some nice German sausages from a German butcher here in Christchurch. We ended up getting three kegs and drinking over 100 L of beer, about 20 L of icebreaker (alcoholic lemonade) and lots of other things.

I hid the nasty Swiss ball because last time we had a party it broke the lamp. But Vince found it and soon he was causing lots of trouble again. Grrrrrr.

Apfelstrudel (7th December 2006)

I made an Apfelstrudel today. Julian was very surprised when I got a pillowcase to roll it out on but it worked well! Joerg was very excited to have some real Apfelstrudel again :-)

Kayaking and Caspar’s birthday (29th/30th November 2006 )

More kayaking! There was an exam for kayaking instructors this weekend and Julian and I decided to volunteer as ‘pretend students’ in the exam. We spent Saturday doing a flat water session and practicing our rolls. Then on Sunday we went down the Upper Clarence. I’d done more kayaking than the other students so I got some special instruction from Dave Richie – a really good New Zealand kayaker. It was great!!!

Sunday night was Casper’s birthday. It was at a flash restaurant but we were late back from kayaking and decided that we didn’t even have time to go home and get changed. So we went along as we were in our dirty kayaking gear. It was worth going though because it was a cool Japanese place where they cook the food in front of you.

Julian is away! (17th/20th November 2006)

I had the flat to myself this weekend because Julian was away running the Milford Track. So I decided that I would do a lot of work. But I had problems without Julian there to organise me. Instead I watched movies until 3am. Then I slept until lunch time. Ah well. It seems he is useful for something after all.

The races (11th November 2006)

Today I investigated an important aspect of NZ culture. Horse racing! Lots of us went along. I won and won and won! Somehow I ended up with $4 less than I started with though. But I was still very happy because I lost less than everyone else.

Sunset (21st October 2006)

Christchurch has some very nice sunsets. It’s good because I get to experiment with my new camera...

Australia (11th/18th October 2006)

We spent the last week in Australia. Julian was competing in the World Rogaining Championships in Warrumbungle National Park, a few hours drive from Sydney. Because he’s such a generous boyfriend he gave me a ticket to come along as well. Actually he won two free tickets... he is far too stingy to buy me one :-)

While the others were doing the rogaine, Emily and I helped the organisers. I also had time to take a few photos. Someone in the rogaine got bitten by a snake and taken to hospital. I am now very happy that I decided to come to NZ and not to Australia because it has too many nasty poisonous animals. I even got bitten by a tick while I was there.

Julian didn’t do very well because he is too slow and useless and also Kathy, his teammate from the US, got an injured ankle. But Chris and Dennis won! They are the new World Champions!!! None of us were very surprised because Chris always wins every orienteering event that he enters. But it was still great that he beat the Australians!

There were six of us in one big rental car. It was very chaotic. Joe even managed to lose his passport. Luckily Australia is a lot like NZ and someone found it and handed it in to the police within a few hours.

Intermediate snowcraft (9th/10th September 2006)

Julian and I went on intermediate snowcraft this weekend up at Temple Basin. Mark, Kylie and Dave were instructing us. We discovered how to make snow anchors, how to rope up for glacier travel, and how to rescue people from crevasses.

I was scared going up there because it was so steep but once we made it to the big basin where we did the course then it was fine.

It was pretty cool in the end. Sometimes it was hard work but sometimes all we had to do was hang from a rope while someone else tried to rescue us.

I'm a slacker...

I haven’t updated my blog for so long that Julian has given up on me and decided to write it himself (including this entry). He says that he is going to try and copy my unique style of writing. We’ll see how that goes.

Canoe Polo

I took up Canoe Polo again. Last week on Tuesday we lost on default because most players of our team had a cold. So we were just 3 people. As teams usually consist of 5 people we preferred to loose on default and have a social game instead. So one player of the others joined our team and we played 4 against 4.

I scored two goals. Yeay, but I also went for two swims. While swimming with to the boarder of the pool pushing and dragging the boat and then emptying the boat of all the water getting back in the team was only three people playing...

So I was very annoyed with that. As the canoe club had a rolling session this weekend on Sunday I went there to learn the hand roll. In the end it usually worked out very well. I hope there won't be any swimming anymore and in the same time I will play more aggressively. So I'm very curious about tomorrow I'm really looking forward to it.

Arthurs Pass Weekend

Mark turned 25 on Friday and Neil turned 26 on Thursday. So they decided to have a Party up in Arthur's pass, rented out a batch over the weekend and who ever was keen could stay in a bunk for 12$ share. Some went down on Friday. Our plan was to do some work on Saturday then leave have a party and do an easy tramp on Sunday.

Well the thing with the work didn't work out. We slept in. Mucked around until Steve called we decided to leave earlier and have already a little walk on Saturday. Devlis punch bull falls or what ever, a real touristy walk to an apparently impressive Waterfall. I tried to do it with my mum and Eckehard when they were around but Doc had closed it of because a girl had just drowned. Anyway. We didn't make it quite to there.

On our way we came to an accident and were the first people on the scene. Well one car in front of us and us. So Steve and Julian went to tell those people to first put something warm on. The girls were wearing less than t-shirts.

The car had been sliding a bit in an icy corner. The driver over steered into one direction and when the ice wasn't there the over steering worked a lot. facing a big drop she over steered into the other direction driving into/up a hill. The Car went up and fell back onto the back side of the car and rolled over to its side.

No one was seriously hurt. One guy definitely was under shock and to cold and hit his head on the window. The other guy was quite cool and climbed back into the car to get the 9 bottles of beer (of 32) out that survived the crash. Well, it was his 8th crash in his life as he told me, but he never was the driver. He must be cursed or something. The girls were just swearing all the time. They didn't want us to call the police but the driver of the car in front of us was already talking to the police which was a good thing. Julian went back around the corner to warn the upcoming traffic and we waved down traffic from the other side. Once the fire fighters with ambulance had arrived Julian was replaced by an official and Steve got an orange Jacked and became an official helper. He seemed to enjoy his job. So there was nothing we could do anymore. Only waiting till Steve could leave. I then used that time to take some pictures first I didn't but when the gravel machine came and told Steve he would push the car over if he couldn't pass so that he could put gravel onto the icy bit I was forced to by Steve. Now I'm happy I did. Once I started a lot of people took out their cameras. It looked quite impressive and no one was hurt.
Once the traffic could get past the car on one lane and the guys in charge had everything under control Steve was released to go and we could all take off again to the batch. Now it definitely was to late even for the devil punch bull falls.

Arrived at the batch we first had to shovel a car park. Well the guys did a good job in shovelling a car park. I just loved my camera ;-) a good excuse to muck around. Well actually there were not enough shovels. So Ester and me unloaded the car and fought for some bunks. In the end Some one else had to leave a bunk as they hadn't replied as early as us... Julian and I were feeling bad. So they only left one and Julian and I shared another. Very cosy. =) and Far too hot in my great warm extreme outdoor cold conditions sleeping bag. Even for a wouss like me it was to hot.

The party was really nice. Thanks for a great Idea and good organisation of Mark and Neil.

The next morning when Steve, Ester, Juliane, STew, Julian and I went to climb Woolshed hill there was a Kea waiting on Julians Car and he had some fun with the rubber on which the roof rack is attached.
On Woolshed hill we didn't quite make it to the top though. It is supposed to be a really easy tramp but probably not with hip deep snow. Well actually it is already quite a slog up the hill and after that you end up in hip deep snow. Julian was plugging a track in front. But partly we definitely were not anymore on the track. I think we were walking on scrub and from time to time we broke through the scrub and the snow layer just to get stuck hip deep sometimes chest deep. So it was not really hip deep all the time.

After lunch I felt my knee hurting a bit. So we only had a little play at a frozen Tarn and then turned around and went back down to the car. Not leaving out the good opportunities to get stuck and to have snow fights.

All in all a great weekend which ended with greasy fish'n chips at home.
Next weekend I really got to stay in Chch and get some work done on Saturday. On Sunday I was "volunteered" to help on some orienteering event in Hagley park. Which is ok as hagley park is very close. As Julian and I are planning to go boarding tomorrow again I probably shouldn't plan to do too much the following weekend either.

naughty me

I went boarding in the middle of the week even though I didn't manage to do some work last weekend. Ah, well some other Saturday will have to do. =)

Ok, so I can ski, yes. Why not sticking to the skiing. Well last time I was skiing at Mt Hutt it was bloody boring. So I decided to try something new.

Autsch. Really, how stupid. In the beginning I really wondered why I was tying my feet together to then commit to shoot sideways down the hill. When you got skis you commit to the natural direction: forward! And you can move both feet separately...



Anyway so I was getting collecting my bruises behaved grumpy and because it scared the shit out of me. Especially when I went all the way up and we had to go down a long narrow snow road, with everyone faster then me, probably wondering what I was doing up there. One even run me over. Both because he was stupid and probably because he didn't think I would do that stunning surprising turn slide.... Which ended up with him pushing me face down into the snow. I must admit I probably was a night mare to anyone trying to pass me as I was pretty much using up the whole thing and that very uncalculateable. When I'm on skis I hate those stupid beginners....



But In the end of the day I was just great. I managed to do nice curves left right left right left right swint womp. batch... ah, well not all of my nice swings ended with *wompf* batch but quite a few. I'm sure I lost a few brain cells when my brain hit the front of the head and the back of my head and just got shaken around. Wile my fall just ended abruptly with a big *wumpf*.

We head some nice view. It was cloudy but there were two layers of cloud. One dark one above us (announcing the new snow which came down the following night) and some light clouds under us well probably more fog at canterbury plains. Was really good to be exactly in between the two layers. Over all I really enjoyed it at the the day. I'm sure at the end of the day I was looking pretty cool already. I mean it's a must, a snowboarder just has to look cool. It's fun and I hardly see my bruises anymore.
I'm not too scared anymore (I hopbe next time it will be faster that I'm not as scared) but those blue pists still are quite chellenging. So Boarding is the way to go in NZ. But from time to time I still want to ski and if we go somewhere more challenging I definitely will take my skis again.


Another fun thing was Caspar. He decided to go cheap. Unlike Julian and I he didn't buy early in the year a mid week seasons pass. So he got Julian’s ski (which are 190 a bit long for him) and put the ski boots into the backpack. Put one ski on each side of the back pack and started walking in his tramping boots uphill.
This is Caspar before he straped the top bits together. That gave some more stability.

Well he managed nearly as many runs as I did on the day, only that I took quite a while to get down the hill sitting on my bum, while Caspar took quite a while to get up the hill. He definitely had a good day of exercise. But next time he won't manage to get nearly as much done as I, as I will be better and sit less on my bum.
And at the end of the day he looked a bit tired. (Well actually he didn not but on the picture he does)


Right now it is snowing at Mt Hutt again. Already 50cm of fresh powder snow!!! I'm looking forward to go there again very soon. Woohoo!

p.s. I can only post those pictures thanks to Caspar. Which also proves he actually was at the summit. The picture of Caspar though is from Julian.

woops

that came out the wrong way: The weekend was fun. Not because Julian wasn't there!
Because Julian wasn't there we did the chick flick choclate evening and that was fun. ...
I hope everyone understood now!

Girls night and two summits

Well, this weekend was fun. Because Julian went to the snow craft course as an instructor I was on my own. When I heard that Jörg is having a concert on Saturday evening and Sandra wouldn't give him company we decided to have a girls night. Well as spontaneous not too many girls that I know had time but Sylvia came around and brought chocolate cake and three more girls with her. And we watched "playing by heart" a really good chick flick on the big screen using Julian’s projector. That was a nice evening with a lot of gossip and other girls talk after the movie.

Julian called in the evening to tell us not to go on purple hill due to snow conditions but change plans and go to helicopter hill. Good that Sylvia could tell me how to get there as Julian forgot and I forgot to ask. ;-)

We parked the car at the day shelter, walked along the gravel road to the upper end and followed the loop.















The next morning I overslept because of the stupid pm and am thing on the alarm clock. *grrr
However I managed to get changed and packed still on time and didn't forget too many crucial things for the tramp.
But my sunglasses for example.

So we went to helicopter hill. A real small nice and easy hill.

This is everyone at the start at the day shelter.
This tramp would have been a good tramp when I newly arrived in NZ instead of those hideous ones I did... Anyway to get to helicopter hill summit there is a nice first half of a loop to a saddle, which took us not longer than an hour, or so and then 45 minutes to get to the summit of helicopter hill. Great lunch spot with a 360° view. It's time I get a new camera. From helicopter hill and on the map we could see another summit that we could get to starting from the saddle. I found some keep people who would join me to get up to that summit. Helicopter hill didn't really feel like a summit to us. The others stayed in the sun on helicopter hill. We were really lucky that there was no wind and the people staying behind had it warm in the sun on the summit and lots of fun with snow fights, building snow mans, snow angels...


a pitty but so far I only got the pictures of Fernando (Thank you Fernando) Who stayed on helicopter hill while we went up namles summit.



Anyway 6 of us started. Two turned around because one was not experienced in snow and the other was her partner. One crazy French guy shot up in front of us picking a really dodgy route and two girls and me fought our way up. Me in the front, kicking steps. Puh, only in the end one of the other girls did some step kicking. I had completely forgotten how relaxing it is to use steps that someone else had kicked already. But the two girls weren't too experienced so I took over after a while again in total it took us about 1 ½ or two hours to get to the summit. Finally we arrived at the Summit where the French was patiently waiting for us. Telling me he'd never done such a steep thing before. Great those Mountain goats from France that grow up at Chamonix never done such a steep thing before. No wonder he was picking crazy routes. But still fit like hell.
(That's us on the second summit seen from the the snowman build by Jorg. =)

Anyway the way down never takes really long on snow especially if you’re a crazy French bum sliding all the way down. The three chickens, (us girls) we preferred walking and being safe. We met the others at the saddle to go back to the car, which took us about 1 or 2 hours. So without the second summit which was quite a fight in those snow conditions I wouldn’t have called that a tramp. Anyway finishing that great Weekend with a steak at the pub was just right. =)

It has been a while

since I updated the Blog.

So I’ve been in Germany after my short stay in Sydney. Passed two exams my last ones that I had to pass. Went on an excursion that I had to go to. Deleted my computer hard drive since when the computer is running much better but which lead to the loss of a few pictures (stupid me). Watched the soccer. Was climbing with my flat mates. Celebrated my moms birthday. Went to Frankfurt took an airplane back to NZ via Singapor.

Wow, I gave a summary of my last two month pretty much.

Well, I feel very relieved I’m done with exams now. The next step is my thesis…
Right now I’m doing some reading and literatur search/ research. I have a pretty good idea that I’m going to be quite busy again. So far I don’t need to stress out though.
My dead line to hand in my thesis is the 27. April 2007.

So this weekend I’ll go for a little walk up purple hill and hope to have some pictures on Monday. I already took heaps of pictures from the airplane again and from my office but I didn’t put them on my computer yet so I can’t load them up right now.

I promise though I will put more fotos onto my Blogg

Flying

Leaving Christchurch I shoot a few pictures of the clouds and just wanted to put them onto the blogg now. I will write a bit more about Sydney some other time when I'm more awake, but now I'm quite jetlagged and happy I didn't fall asleep working on some pictures


At this picture you can see the beach of new Brighton on the right. And you can see those stripes of clouds. They are formed by the NW-wind. While the wind comes over the mountains it gets shaped and carries on to blow in waves. On the top of a wave the water condenses to a cloud. That's how you get parallel stripes of clouds, which are also parallel to the Alps. Sometimes you can see it much better and have even more distinct lines.

Sydney

So here I am in Sydney now. Surprised? Me too. Well, I'm back on my way to Germany to sit my exams. Flying over Sydney. Hm, and I didn't read my flight details properly. I'm staying here over night. Well, the look on my face must have been quite funny when the girl at the check in told me I had to get a Visa for Australia.
I was quite surprised and said I'm just staying in the transit.... discussion forward and backward until I understood:

• My connecting flight leaves the next day in the afternoon.
• The transit in Sydney closes over night.

Bummer, so I got to get my self a Visa and an accommodation. The cheapest I could get. Well a bit greasy but it's a bed for a night. All a bit of bad timing. Staying in Sydney I actually would prefer to see a bit of it. But now it's night time (well I will see some of Sydney's night life) and then I will already have to be at the check in at 11 to check in again. mmm... Guess I will have to get up really early

Will see what Sydney got but for now I'm hungry and will go for the hunt for some cheap eatable food. =)

Canoe Polo

There was the University of Canterbury Canoe Club (UCCC) meeting on Monday and the Girls canoe polo Team desperately needed another girl for the game the next day. Jean had an easy go on convincing me to give it a try.

so there we were. First we saw some A-class people playing. Wow, impressive. canoes were moving fast, ball was moving fast all a bit aggressive...

And then it was our turn. =) Luckily not only our team hat people in it that had never done it before. I mean I at least have been in a boat before even if I didn't know what to do with the ball, I at least could turn when I wanted and could paddle straight even if I still had problems to stay upright.
So two teams of 5. In each team were at least one girl which had never ever been in a boat before and the rest were pretty much beginners too.

Our Game looked quite different. From out side, I imagine there is a ball peacefully sitting in the middle of the pool while 10 girls are in canoes and trying to get to the ball and stopping the others to do so. All accompanied with big splashes. Well it was not that bad, but it comes quite close.

In the end our Team won (by chance) 2:0. I've scored two of our goals (all just by chance but I'm still a bit proud of myself). It definitely was good fun after I come back from Germany I'll officially join the team.

Pity though that the games are on Tuesday nights because I won't be able to play Go at all anymore. We'll see maybe there will be nights without games.
And Again I can't give you any pictures. Neither 10 Silly girls hunting a ball nor my squashed thumb (I dropped a boat on it) Sorry about that

Weekend

And what have I done? I studied!
Ah well, actually it wasn't too bad. On Friday there was Dave’s Birthday Curry dinner. Which was really nice. Sooo many different curries! Mjam!!! After that we went to see Victoria to borrow a cocktail dress for the next evening, As Sylvia (Julian's Sister) and Fran had a cocktail Party to celebrate her graduation. The organisers (their boyfriends) had asked for cocktail attire. Julian was even wearing a Tie. Wow. But sadly I don't have any pictures of that either.
Today I did the biggest mistake... I went orienteering at Flock Hill with a hang over. So now I'm feeling really bad.
So that was the weekend. And now Jörg is cooking for us a big roast Lam (old Bavarian recipe) and it already smells great.

MMMM

BBQ

We had a flatwarming, celebrating me being back in NZ (even if that's already a while now) and celebrating Jörgs birthday bbq on Saturday. The original plan was to start early so that it's over early and not to have a party. Well, with the "Schlamm Bowle" it loosened up the people in the beginning. The first people actually arrived before 6:30 and the last people left at 3 in the morning. The BBQ turned out to be a Party. Ah, well the next day there was not too much studying then.

As I got to study I won't write a lot anymore, I'll just put some pictures up to give you an impression of the party.



























This nasty swiss ball smashed one of our beautyfull lamps during the Party!!!


















Thanks to Jörg and Patrick for the pictures