Sydney Blues, or How I Almost Got Jailed

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So I lost the keys to Nils' apartment. If that was not bad enough I also lost a letter which was addressed to his apartment. So any not so dumb individual with enough criminal intent would be delighted to find Adam's (a room mate) giant Plasma TV in the living room. So I decide to search the streets of Bondi at night, of course in vain... At the end it's way past 8 pm and I decide to make one last effort and go to the local police station to check out the lost and found ... or so I thought.

I step into little building to find two officers behind there desks. One of them looks up to something (a watch as I found out later) and does not look very amused. He comes up to the counter and asks me: Are you reporting? Since I wanted to report a lost key I said: Yes. Next thing I know, he's yelling at me that it's past 8 pm and that he could arrest me immediately if he wanted, too. You can understand my bewilderment, as he seemed dead serious and I don't know about you but I usually don't feel too comfortable in a police station anyways. So I started thinking for myself that maybe after 8 pm the local police closes down and you need to to go through certain procedures before you enter a police building. 9/11 related maybe. While I keep tring to make sense of this weird candid camera like scene the officer proceeds to read me my rights and tells me that this is the last warning and next time I come in after 8 that I would get thrown in jail and that I can argue with the magistrate (I guess the judicial system). If I had understood this he asked me in a stern and pissed off voice. I was kind of intimidated so I decided to go on with this game and say yes. Next thing he asks for my name and goes though a list of names in front of him. After some time he gives up finding me on the list. I use this moment of silence to explain why I have come in the first place when I see his face relaxing instantly.

Turns out that he thought I was reporting back in. He starts explaining that criminals on bail or parole need to report every day before 8 to their local station and that I seemed to be one those guys. Can you imagine how relieved I was? Well, it also made me think about his comments that I looked like a lot of his cirminals ;-) Retrospectively I really think it was hilarious but not at that time.

So nothing really happened but I thought I would share this little story with you. Other than that among the noticeable things I have done so far was going paintballing with a bunch of Nils' friends and acquaintances and doing the scenic walk from Manly, a northern suburb of Sydney to the Spit bridge. I took the ferry up to Manly from Darling Harbor and except for being very cold (I needed to sit on the upper deck after all) it was a pleasant 30 min ride. The walk back was pretty scenic indeed and I was lucky to have dry weather.

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Photos

Paintball
Nils and I report to duty

Basecamp
Getting our armor and ready to storm the field

Flowers I Don't Know the Name
Just wanted to show them as we don't see these growing anywhere in Germany. You get them at the local flower shop.

Bay of Manly
North of Sydney

QVB
I think it is inside the Queen Victoria Building. A neat selection of small shops.