Hola! Time again for the annual holiday, well, those who know me, most of the year is a holiday anyway. Either way, theme here was more or less a “meet the family” (of Roxy), which would mean less travel, and more eating and drinking (as in, more Argentinean steaks with Argentinean red wines, YEAH!). Early morning rise, and a grand (and cold) sunrise over Melbourne left us in a chaotic Qantas check in queue, think we had about 30 mins left after check in to get to the plane….. and with separate seats on the 12hour Sydney to BA leg…. “They’ll [View Full Entry]

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ROADTRIP !!!! Helleu again, and again apologies for the delay. What can I say, the year’s barely started, and January has already flown by! For last year’s Xmas break, Roxy and I decided to head out on a roadtrip, and see a bit (or a lot) more of da land downunder. Some we’d seen before, some awaiting to be explorer further. It all started with a lot of restraint, as there was a final Christmas party the night before, and a lot of pushing and shoving….. of a bag that wouldn’t fir into a very small boot (spare tyre takes up [View Full Entry]

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OK, no excuses, slack arse reporting back here after many months of delay! Happy new year to all !! Story and pics from that trip are to follow (hopefully soon). So, here goes, in management summary, 4 races in spring here in Melbourne, a little while ago: - Philip Island MotoGP, again, like last year, with Serge and his mates. - Opening race at Caulfield, Guiness stake day (I believe) with Roxana and her friends (I shaved, just for the record). - Polo match in Werribee Mansion (west of Melbourne). - Melbourne Cup, thi time enjoyed on the big screen on [View Full Entry]

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Hellu, that was New Zealand speak for, a "weekend trip to windy Wellington"..... ;-) OK, no excuses, almost 2 months late, this here little entry. One gets slack in the daily grind. But anywho, just wanted to get some pics on the web. Reason was simple: I used to work with Ellen briefly at Dockers(tm), aaaaages ago in Amsterdam, ad Ellen also worked with Delphine. By pure change, I'd moved to Oz, Ellen maried a Kiwi (Russel) in the Netherlands and eventually moved to the land of the long white clouds, and Delphine ran into an African bloke (Tony), who's sister [View Full Entry]

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As crazy as it may sound, probably the flight from Dusseldorf to London took longer than the last leg from Singapore to Melbourne! Why? Well, thunderstorms had closed down Heathrow, and the plane I was supposed to leave on from Duss. hadn’t even left London when I said my goodbyes to mum and dad….. and wasn’t about to leave soon either. Shame really, could have had tea at the airport with the folks, rather than walking in and out of the security zone at Duss International Airport (it’s actually bigger than you think, but nowhere near big enough to make it [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, from Limburg, again ! Have been here now for just over 2 weeks. It's only been 9 months (or thereabouts) since I left at the end of the last big trip, but that also meant I wasn't overly inspired (yet) to come up with any bright and clever travel plans. So when I got a wedding invite back in the motherland, it was good enough for me to get a ticket back and not worry too much about a holiday this year ! Well, sort of, I'm having a stop over in Singapore at the end of this trip, [View Full Entry]

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Quite unexpectedly, for people who know me, I've moved again.... think this is my 9th place of residence since moving to Oz (not counting friends' sofas, hostels, hotels etc etc). [url=http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=334+princes+st+port+melbourne+vic&daddr=111+ross+st+port+melbourne+vic&sll=-37.83477,144.9398&sspn=0.00455,0.008293&ie=UTF8&ll=-37.834768,144.939816&spn=0.00455,0.008293&z=17]THIS is how far I've moved, all of 500 meters according to Google maps.... But for a change, I did decide to throw a little do to Christen the place. Well, it had JUST been re [View Full Entry]

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Contrary to common belief, I don't actually spent all my free time in pubs, concert halls, and restaurants. I do actually still exercise! Trying to do it a bit different to Sydney though, not as much pressure anymore, just a bit more…. relaxed, if you will. So, joined another dragon boating club, this time in Melbourne of course, so they are appropriately named The Melbourne Flames . They are as serious as my old club in Sydney, however don’t have the headcount to make a serious dent in any competition. Well, we actually don [View Full Entry]

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One of those things with moving to another city (or country), is getting your friends/family to visit you. I've been quite creative in the past, even forceful (I'm not saying blackmailing here, but I could be blamed for that as well). A little triumph again this time, getting Anthony across from Sydney.... "How about going to Ballarat and surrounds".... which has a lot of history revolving around the victorian gold rush. With Anthony being a history buff, it was a straight bullseye ! Anthony organised a great weekend away to northern Victoria in 2001 right after I'd moved over to Sydney. [View Full Entry]

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Ah yes, the time had come, the Formula 1 circus finally hit town !!! The time when I can finally act my own age again.....7 years and 8 months..... As it's in the middle of town (rather, taking over all of Albert Park), there had already been plenty of activity around the park getting everything oragnised and set up. So driving past it once in a while was a slight form of torture (for this 7 year old anyway)...... The week before the GP was a busy one anyway for me, so plenty of distractions. A Toto concert on the Friday. [View Full Entry]

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