The Brits built this country

The British influence is very evident in Australia. Obvious things like left-(wrong) side driving, the same queen. But also brit-classics like fitted carpeting, plenty of hanging electrical cables, and plumbing on the outside of the houses. The pictures below were taken in Melbourne.

But there's more. Most British cities have their Australian namesake. I saw e.g. Scarborough, and Liverpool. Although being about a different continent I would like to summarize this with a citation from Eddie Izzard "they took off from Plymouth and landed in Plymouth, how lucky is that!?".

The other cities in Australia, that didn't have British names, had african (well probably aboriginally inspired) names, like Wooloomooloo bay, Wagga Wagga, Warrnambool, Toowoong, Indooropilly etc. as mentioned previously.

The positive things the Australian had ignored from their British heritage was the stupid Imperial system, giving all distances, speed, and other measurements according to the brilliant and understandable metric system. They also had their own currency, not even called pound, but dollars, which are easily converted to Swedish kronor, just multiply by 5.

But don't get me wrong, I love Britain and their cute flaws, and Australia with their funny accent, and friendlyness.

Ice rain

It started raining like crazy a few moments ago, on top of the snow (and our window), and then it just stuck on the window, so now we can't even look out so see the horrible weather. Maybe that's a good thing?

Reunited with the gaaaals

Having spent a month apart from all of my friends, I am catching up on socialness again. Yesterday me and some girls from the lab went out for sparkling wine, tapas, and drinks in Malmö. Excellent evening. I was so tired when I came home, and a bit drunk. Not good to fill up on alcohol in combination with jet lag, but who cares. We had lots of fun, that's what's important, nothing else!

Do not miss...

...the cool/cute pictures of me and Joding at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary outside Brisbane. Just look at the cute koala, so hugable!

First things first

My intense Australia-photoblogging is about to start, but that just have to wait another few moments. First I need to show off my new hair. Dark brown-red on the underhair, then lighter brown on the overhair, and then blond highlights in that overhair. And of course straightened. I know many people would kill, at least something small, to get my pretty curls. But since I have them all the time, I love when it gets straight. Last time the hair-styling cost me 1020 SEK (140 USD), and Joding did not notice it. This time I spent 1200 SEK (165 USD), which actually were his money. And this time he noticed it. Don't you all interpret that as I always need to spend at least 1200 SEK on my hair when I get it done, and it must be Jodings money?

Also do note my new pretty scarf. Bought in Little India in Singapore, for the vast amount of 17,50 SEK (2,5 USD). And of course, check out my tan (while it's still there, this snow is bound to bleach it off real soon). That scarf is the only thing I bought on my vacation that is here. When we arrived 8 ours delayed to Copenhagen, they were pleased to inform me that my bag was still in London (containing my jacket, and everything else). So from 100% humidity, 35 degrees Celsius in Singapore, I went to probably the same humidity but -3 degrees Celcius in Copenhagen, making my way back to Lund wearing a sweather. I did not sweat, as the name of the piece of clothing implies. Not at all. People looked at me with a "why don't she just put some more clothes on?!"-type of look.

Home safe

After an 8 hour delay on a 16 hour flight, we finally made it back home yesterday.

Get ready for some upcoming serious photo-blogging!

Working Links

If you all return to the "A day at the zoo"-post right now, and click on the links, you can now see the picture of me holding the cutest Koala, and Joding holding the icky snake.

Just do it!

Changi again, again.

We have just arrived to Changi Airport again, again. Time to leave Singapore. But not as soon as we thought. Our plane was scheduled for departure 23.20 local time, but has been delayed until 03.35. Lovely. But I can imagine worse things than be stranded another 4 hours in a lovely country, with free meal vouchers corresponding to 125 SEK (15 euro), a telephone card to notify next-of-kins of the delay (sa om du laser detta mamma sa kommer vi komma senare an bestamt, men jag ringer dig kring 18 din tid och berattar, vart plan tanker lyfta fran London 11.20, och det lar ta 1h 45 min).

Today has been an amazingly lovely day in Singapore. Really warm (at least 35 degrees Celsius) and high humidity, and lots of sun. You really had to avoid the sun, because it felt like you were soon to boil when it shone on you. Excellent. We bought cheap electronics at Mustafa Centre (1Gb compact flash III extreme for sweet sister (perhaps a better memory card than MrM now?!, that's worth a lot) it costed only 60 S$, which is around 300 SEK, cheap!!). We also bought Mp3-players (one for Joding and one for his brother, 88 S$ each, about 450 SEK, 1Gb), and some gifts. Then we finished off with some lovely Palak (indian spicy spinach thing), plenty of naan, and lots of drink, all for the price of 15S$, i.e. 75 SEK, I love this place!

So now we have some quality time at the Changi Airport, which is a very pretty place. Orchids everywhere, and lots of shops. I will try to kick Joding's ass in Chess later, the score is 8-8 in games now. Very even. He stole my queen earlier this afternoon, I was not happy about it. At all. But now I have his 25S$ food voucher, maybe I'll sell it back to him, as a revenge and a future warning about stealing my key chess-pieces.

I am sure I'll write some more in a few hours. I have 6 hours at the airport to kill, and internet is free!

Singapore

We have spent two nights in our extremely luxurious hotel on Orchard Road in Singapore. Our breakfast buffe is vast. There is really everything! We binge eat in the mornings, because the breakfast is delicious, we are hungry, and it is built into the price of the room anyway (this is how we get our money back, see Friends for reference).

Singapore is magnificent. Feels like Tokyo. Tall buildings, clean, pretty, intense heat (over 30 degrees Celcius at all times of the day, and night), and the humidity is probably close to 100%. We love it. Yesterday we saw the Botanical Gardens, the Orchid Garden, and Little India. I ate Palak Paneer, and plenty of Naan, mmmmmm. I have longed for that since Tokyo. And sister, it was absolutely amazingly deliciously good! In Little India we also visited Mustafa's Centre, which is a shopping mall, in 7 levels, including a parallell dimension with ugly gold jewellery which we accidently wound up in, and we almost couldn't find our way out of it again. We bought some cheap good stuff, like a Zippo lighter, Narnia dvd, and garam masala spice.

Today we're off to see Arab Street, with all the silk fabrics, take a walk along the harbour, and finally rounding off in Chinatown - where there will be plenty of celebrations due to the chineese New Year (the Pig's year) has just arrived.

Changi - again!

And three weeks later we're back again, at the Singapore airport. Voted one of the best airports in the world. And I see why, free internet! That's all you need from an airport isn't it?

I forced Joding to come with me to post this on my blog, so people would know whereabouts we are. So now you do. We're about to claim our luggage. We have been notified that drug traffickers will be punished with death. Hmm, I wonder if they screen the input words on their computers, for say the word 'drugs'. Well, either way, I don't have any. I'm high on life, and Joding =).

Enough with the schmouschi-poo-googlibear-talk (see Monsters Inc.)

We're off to our Superior Plus deluxe room at Orchard road now!

Water fun

Yesterday we went on an all-day boat trip to a sand-island outside the Brisbane coast. We had lots of fun. We rode a net-thing after our quick boat, something called boom-netting, and was described as getting a water-hose (vattenslang) up your bum, but we tried it anyway. Lots of fun, apart from my bikini-bottoms almost falling off. We saw a ray (rocka), and a sea cow from the boat, and a million pretty pretty fish from the water (while snorkelling). Joding also saw a shark when snorkelling, non-human eating apparently (small one), thankfully. We went snorkelling around/in/over some wrecks outside that island, and it was just amazing. Bright blue fish, bright yellow, yellow with white stripes, white, black (with yellow lips), green with red and yellow fins and a blue tail-fin. So amazing!!

I have never snorkelled before, but now I will definitely start doing it more often. Joding says we can snorkel outside Oland (a swedish island) during the summer. I wonder if I'll see blue fish then...

Perhaps if I smoke something before. We'll see.

Tomorrow we're off to Singapore for another 3 (last) days of holiday. Luxury hotel, and lots of sightseeing. Then snow, ice and Sweden. I'll soak it all up now, to remember during all those boring surgery-days I have upcoming.

Must post. Time is running out.
Hugs!

A day at the Zoo

Today we've been at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and petted Kangaroos and looked at cool Australian animals. I got to hold a Koala, and Joding got to be held by a horrible snake. But he seemed happy. The computers we're on are really crap, there's no port for my camera-computer usb-cable, and the camera memorycard holder does not work. Pictures were taken of us holding/being held by our respective animal. If you can't see the pictures I tried to upload below, then try these links

www.koala.net/photo/1502012772.htm
www.koala.net/photo/1502023861.htm

The links didn't work for us either, but hopefully they work on a regular computer, and not a 1994-model Acer.

All's well. Brisbane is pretty, and very tropical. I have worn a miniskirt and a blouse made of almost no material at all, and still been sweating. The city centre is pretty, with a nice long pedestrian area with plenty of shops. I have shopped alot, and today finally Joding took out his wallet as well. He bought a pair of really cool surfer's bathing shorts. He'll wear them tomorrow on our day trip with a company called "dolphin wild". We'll go out on a full day on a boat (sunproof lotion 30+ packed!), check out some dolphins hopefully, swim, and snorkel. If the weather allows, which we hope!

We've played some more chess, and the score is 5 to me, 4 to Joding, mohahaha. I report this only because I am in the lead, otherwise I'd just deny it. One stupid game that I lost, ended with me throwing the chessboard (a very small magnetic one) across the room, kicking away all the small plastic chess pieces. It was not a good game. But I am over that now. Since I am in the lead. I kicked Joding's chess ass over a local "XXXX" (that's the name) beer on the shopping street. Good beer, good game, cute Joding. It does not get better!

Some more funny names have crossed our path Toowoomba, Indooropilly, and Wooloomooloo bay. Sounds more african than anything, but we are in Australia, I think. At least 2 more days, then we're off to Singapore (promised to be even more tropical than Brisbane!).

Checking out Sydney

In between the heavy showers, the light ones, and the temporary state of 'no-rain' we are walking around the pretty, fun and huge town of Sydney. Today we've been at the beach in Manly (a peninsula north east of the city). When we arrived, and had just put out our towels and changed into swimwear - it started raining. One cappuchino, a chocolate cookie, a chocolate muffin, and an annoying game of chess later (I lost, why it was annoying), we were back out at the beach. It wasn't possible to swim though, due to a too strong current and high waves. Some people went in still, and got sharp whistles and angry waving from the lifeguards. We were good, stayed in the sand, tanning. Joding have a boiled-crayfish look now, but he is still cute as ever.
Tanning in the rain, at Manly beach.

On the boat into Sydney harbour. If you look closely you'll see the tall houses of the city centre, the Opera House, and the Harbour Bridge.

When coming back from the boat trip to Manly, I called Cute Cat (or actually my mum, but she held the phone to his ear). I called out his name, heard his meows, and then he started running around looking for me. How cute is he!? I dreamt about him last night, so I missed him more than ever. But soon enough I'll rendez-vouz with him again. In cold, rainy, snowy Sweden.

Yesterday we walked through the botanical gardens. We saw pretty flowers and some got their seeds stolen. I quickly stopped stealing seeds when running in to these guys...

Click to open the image, and you see a million webs of huuuuuge spiders! Knowing that australian animals are potentially lethal even when only in the ant-size, these guys probably could kill you from a meter away.

But we also saw some cute, chattering animals. The flying foxes. Open the image to see them hanging from the top branches. They look like fruits, but they aren't (the green ones are fruits, but the black ones are the foxes. They weren't actually flying foxes, but a type of bat called flying fox, in case you didn't know.

Joding jumping in the rain at the botanical gardens in Sydney.
I'm jumping on the platform below the Opera House.

Rainy day in Sydney!

We arrived safely in Sydney yesterday noon. It was a semi-cloudy day with promised heavy showers, and very warm weather. It was strikingly tropical, and we went out (with umbrellas in our bags) for a very long city walk. We went up the Sydney Tower and saw the city from above, avoided the driving rain at a Starbuck's over some cappuchino and double-chocolate muffin, we walked over the Harbour Bridge, saw the Opera House and the harbour, and enjoyed the seals, sharks, clownfish (like Nemo), and platypus (naebbdjur) at the Sydney Aquarium.

Opera House, and harbour area.

Harbour Bridge, and some palm trees.

Joding, and some sharks (at the aquarium) Me at the aquarium, avoiding the sharks.
Me and honey-buns at the Sydney tower (do notice our lovely tan!)

Today the rain is berserk, and we will try to dare go outside (through the botanical gardens), and check out some flying foxes (not actual fox, a type of bat), and look at the Opera House and Harbour bridge from another angle. Manly (boat trip to lovely beaches) has been postponed until tomorrow.

Sulking (and heating myself up) in the clean clothes just removed from the drying machine.

A good Melbourne day

Today has been sunny with some clouds. We went to the Victoria Market. A huge market with souvenirs, handcraft, food, clothes etc. Lots of fun, and lots of people. I bought myself a pretty dress, we bought a fabric print of some Aboriginal-inspired painting, and a gift for my dad! After that we took the tram (spaarvagn) to St Kilda, which is a part of Melbourne that is on the coast of the bay (a good spot for sharks they say, a warm nice bay, but we didn't see any). We hung out at the beach for a while, read up on Sydney activites (we leave there in 12 hours), and relaxed in the sun, until it went away. Then we took the tram back to the city, took the circular tourist-tram around the city centre, and jumped off at the central Federation square and had some cappuchinos and a triple-chocolate brownie in the sun. It was such a pleasant place, so after the coffee we ordered some local sparkling wine, and brought out the chess. I kicked some serious ass (Joding-ass), moahahaa. We also got a bit boiled-crayfish hue on the skin, but not so much, since we have a lovely brownish colour as default these sunny days.

Tonight we've been out for some asian food, at a B.Y.O.-place, which is short for "bring your own", which means you bring your own wine to go with the food. Cheap and smart way! We had bought some local wine when we stayed at the Lorne south coast, which we had with our stir-fry:s. Soon its time to sleep, to be prepared to get up at 5.30 AM to catch the Qantas-airplane to Sydney at 9.00 AM.

Come back again to see how Sydney is treating us.

Winery tour

We've been at 5 different wineries today. We started off with sparkling wine at Chandon, and then tastings of at least 30 different wines at the other 4 wineries. We had a delicious lunch, and a great day out. It has definitely been the warmest day too, no thermometer around, but well above 30 degrees and clear skies.

We have just gotten back from a walk up and down one of the main shopping streets. All the stores seem to be open late on fridays. We ended up with a hamburger and a very cold drink. Now the bed awaits. We are somewhere between still a bit tipsy, and being hungover. But it was worth it. Great fun, with a hilarious guide, and another 4 people from Sydney and Canada.

Tomorrow we're off to the Victoria Market before lunch, and then down to St Kilda (the beach) for the afternoon. Let's hope for some more warm and lovely weather.

Grampians tour

We went on the Highlights full-day tour in the Grampians National Park, it was excellent. Our tourguide was a funny man, that seemed to know everything about everything in the park. We saw great waterfalls, crazy looking animals real kangaroos, (and more wallabys - which our previously reported spotting turned out to be). Not that it really matters if it is a Kangaroo or Wallaby, they look pretty much the same, and do the same thing: jump around. We also saw emus, which are hilarious-looking birds that do not fly, just run around with a crazy hair-do.

We also learned about the most dangerous animal in Australia - the ants. There are Bull Ants and Jumping Jacks, 4 cm and 1-1.5cm long respectively. They both sting you, with a pain (we heard, not experienced thankfully) similar to a wasp-sting, and if you are unlucky the anaphylactic shock will kill you. If you're lucky, it will just hurt you for a few weeks. And they are everywhere: on handrailings, the ground, the benches. Joding almost got a Jumping Jack on his hand when holding on to the handrail near the MacKenzie Waterfalls, and and I stepped right into their path when trying to pull a small tree that had fallen across the road. I shrieked, jumped around (maybe that is why they are called jumping Jacks, they make their victims jump about), and brushed them off me. I was lucky, no sting. The actual reason for them being called jumping Jacks are because they actually jump themselves. Onto your leg and bite you.

How humiliating - killed by an ant. Well, that won't be us!

We tried to call our respective parents a little while ago. The result was an anticlimax. Joding's parents' phone was busy, and my mum had just gone for a walk with some of her stupid kindergarten kids.

Highlights tour

We're about to go on a 4x4 tour through the best parts of the Grampians Nature Reserve. We just logged in to see if the guy supposed to pick us up had written anything, but nothing. Let's hope he shows up, we're all ready to go. I look like an Austrian - trousers that end a bit below my knee, my support-socks, that end a bit higher up than the trousers, so I kind of have that lederhosen-aura over me. Brilliant! Off we go.

Great Ocean Road

Scenic, as promised. Sunny as promised. Extremely curvy, as promised. The recommended speed varied between 15-55 km/h. But the actual speed limit was 100 km/h, why bother setting a limit that's impossible to keep?

Kangaroo spotting

Can you see it? If you look really hard? Well we saw it at least! After my beforementioned panic-break, and naive attempts to lure it with my handful of fresh grass.

The twelve apostles

A magnificent part of the Great Ocean Road coastline - huge limestone formations. They were twelve once, but the ocean eats them down with 2 cm per year. The place got even more mystical when covered in a cloud - and colder. But one should not complain, with cold I mean around 18-20 degrees Celsius.

Crazy Horse

Om Anna Sjodin nagonsin kommer till Melbourne, sa har hon ett hemtamt stalle att ga till. Och tid borde hon val ha nu? (Lovar att rotera den senare nar jag har en riktig dator)

A good way...

...to get around the sexist way of depicting women on toilet signs with knee-length dresses. And just get down to the real differences between men and women. Cute pictures from the Melbourne Greenhouse Hostel, 5th floor.

Friend with thorns

We were walking back from town when we needed to cross over an area with leaves and trees, when I caught a glimpse of this little fella! Cute huh?! Joding refused to pick him up so I could get them both in one picture.

Halls Gap / Grampians National Park

We have arrived at our next destination, a pretty little town called Halls Gap in the Victoria mountains. Along the drive we saw a million sheep (Joding counted, without falling asleep), a thousand cows, plenty of white parrots, and ONE Kangaroo!! I emergency breaked, as one does, leapt out of the car, had Joding filming while (rather naively) approaching the cute animal with a handful of fresh grass. I got about 20 meters away, then it jumped off. Soooo pretty!

Will try to blog pictures tonight!

Later.

Warrnambool

Yes, I swear, that's what the town we stay in at the moment is called. It is popular with funny names here - Ulladulla, Wagga Wagga, Yarra Yarra, and Lollipop Creek. We also drove through a little hole today called Separation Creek, a sad little place, as expected from the name. But a great location close to the beach.

We've been driving 200 km today, or at least I have. Most of the time on the left side. There was just one confusion when arriving in the more city-like area of Warrnambool where my focus slipped. But no worries, it all sorted out!

We've checked out the city tonight. It gives me WildWildWest-feelings. Low buildings on a flat landscape, in neverending rows. But without the dusty roads. We found a great little restaurant called Bojangles, where I had a superb salmon-avodado-pasta, and Joding had the Meat-lovers pizza! There was all the meat you'd wish for.

I thought I saw flamingos, but they turned out to be stupid orange flags. We did see great limestone (kalksten) cliffs today, excellent driving along the Great Ocean Road. Tomorrow we're off to Hall's Gap.

Hugs from us!

Australien, Melbourne

Melbourne's a pretty city

Lots of cool buildings, a nice river, tall houses, cute Joding, and sun, warmth, and good coffee! We stayed only one night (but we'll be back later) before renting a car driving off to Lorne where we are right now.

Joding's at his conference, and I am blogging, knicking seeds from nice flowers for my mum, hanging out at the beach, and playing with the cookatoos (kackadua), cookaburras and other parrots - they're just everywhere!

My pictures are refusing to upload, so you just have to do without picture proof right now, and just take my word for that the sun is shining, we're having a great time, my renaissance-pale is slowly turning Australia-tainted. It's around 28 degrees right now, and I have been out walking for a bit, discovering Lorne. Which is a small but pretty town. We will be staying here until sunday when we will drive to Warrnambool (it is customary to either use a lot of double-letters like here, or double-words in city names, e.g. yarra yarra, wagga wagga, etc.). After one night in Warrnambool we'll be driving north up into the mountains and visit the Grampians Nature Reserve (look at hills, cliffs, trees, etc.)