The past two weeks...

So, no surfing the last days, what else did I do?! In short: working a lot, sleeping not too often and enjoying my time to the fullest!

All about my job at the wonderful company of InfoXchange (no.. my boss is not reading this... but hey you never know;)) can be read in the next post, so be sure to stay tuned if you're wondering about that.

The things I'm doing outside working hours in one way aren't very special, cause it's pretty much like what I used to do back in Amsterdam. Partying, going to the cinema, chilling, having drinks and dinner with nice people, shopping, walking around in the city center, things like that. On the other hand it IS special, cause I'm in Melbourne. It's a feeling I can hardly describe. I really feel at home in this place, everything feels so good! Though sometimes it's still a surreal experience. Several times I found myself looking up to those tall skyscrapers, thinking WTF, is this really happening!?!

There are a couple of things I just have to mention. Last weekend I visited the Birthday party of Bianca. She's a friend of a friend of my sister, a Dutchie, and a cool one! I went there with Matt and Fernanda and we enjoyed it a lot! Tonight I'll be seeing her again as her housemate invited us for his birthday.

Also, tuesday night I went for a dinner and a movie to the city center with Fernanda. We get along quite well, she's always in to undertake things. I'm happy to have her around! (no.. I am not in Love!) ;)




Oh,.. and then there was this really great concert in the Melbourne Town Hall I visited last saturday, the party in a club afterwards, the stupid dispute at Monday 01:00 AM in the trainees house, the heavy discussions with Matt about legalization of marihuana and gay marriage, and a lot more things I could have written about if I were not about to start working now!


Photos: Indoor church in the Melbourne Central Shopping Center, Me and Rita (trainee from Hungary) lunching, Me and Fernanda after having dinner.

My new Toy!

It's been quite a while since my last post, so it's definitely time to give you some updates again about my life in this great city, which I'm allready beginning to regret to have to leave once..

I ended the previous post by telling I bought myself a new surfboard. I won't keep you guys being in suspense anymore.. here it is, my new toy!

For the experts among you, it's a Quiksilver 6'2 x 18"3/8 x 2"3/8 thruster. Shaped by none other than former pro-surfer Wayne Linch.

As with most new toys, I wanted to play with it as soon as possible. Unfortunately I haven't been able to, cause last weekend Victoria's coasts suffered a severe flatspell. Yes, you've got them in Australia too.

Tomorrow will probably be my first time surfing it. If I don't meet a hungry Great White, you'll undoubtly find an evaluation on this website next week!

First surfing session!

Last weekend, the moment was finally there; I surfed my very first wave in Australia!



Sunday morning I catched the first train to Victoria's second largest city Geelong, from where a bus departs to Torquay. This village is also known as surfing capital of Australia, and happens to be one of the nearest places to Melbourne where the Ocean Swells hit the land! Around Torquay there's a wide range of beach- and reefbreaks. One of them is Bellsbeach, a worldclass spot hosting an event in the ASP World Championship Tour every year!

It takes about 2 hours by Public Transport from the door of my house to the beaches of Torquay. Too far for evening sessions after work, but not too bad for trips in the weekends! Living just two hours from one of the worlds best and most consistent areas for surfing, I won't complain ;-)

Arrived in Torquay, the first thing I saw was a sea as flat as a pancake. After asking around and a short walk along the coast, I saw clean long not too high (about 1 meter) lines rolling into a beautiful bay. The weather was nice, 23 degrees and sunny, and there were not too many people in the water: Perfect circumstances to paddle out into the Great Ocean for the first time! As there were no other boards available for rental, I hired a big 8'0 softtop surfboard. From some locals I heard, how surprising, that "I should have been there yesterday", and that the waves on this Sunday were not what they are like on a normal day. Still they were long and quite powerful. I had some really long rides like I've never had before! Imagine what the place will be like if the it's really on!

Stoked as I was, I decided that hiring would no longer be an option anymore, since it's quite expensive. On my way back from the beach to the bus stop, I bought a brand new Quiksilver 6'2 shortboard in one of the many surfshops of Torquay! I can't wait to start ripping on it, so there's pretty much a change I might be catching a train and bus to the ocean again next weekend, and probably the weekend after, and after and after... ;-)

Some more pics can be found here!

Inhabitants of the Trainees house

I promised to come back on the subject of my housemates, so if you're intrested, read on and I'll shortly introduce them to you:

First person to enter the house was 26 years old Matthew from Poland. After a one year AIESEC traineeship in Canberra and traveling around in the Pacific for a while, the lucky bastard managed to receive a permanent visa for Australia and is now looking for a job in Melbourne. The guy has been very helpful during my first days, showing me the area of Brunswick and helping me organizing practicle things like a bank account and mobile phone. Maybe that was just because being jobless he had nothing better to do... but there's no doubt he's a very nice and funny guy!;)


Only a few days after Matt, 27 years old Marina from Russia arrived in Rupert street. Marina, just like me, is doing a 12 months traineeship at InfoXchange. She likes photography and thanks to that I'm able to show you some really nice photo's besides the ones I make myself! Another thing Marina really likes is cleanliness, that's why we had some discussions about whether we are allowed to wear shoes in our house and whether we should vacuumclean the living once a week or once every two weeks! Nevertheless, she's a friendly and really enthusiastic girl and it's good to have her as a colleague and house mate!


Last but not least, this chica from Brasil, age 26, called Fernanda, who arrived three days after me. Despite her wavy dark hairs she sometimes acts a little blonde... example: blocking her brand new mobile phone in the middle of the night after the housewarming, by entering three times a wrong pincode! Fernanda is a cool girl who cooks delicious meals and likes dancing, the beach and..... guys with blond hair!:D But forget about that anyway... her boyfriend is coming over in a month and he's gonna live in the trainees house too!;-)

Of course, you can find more pictures of Matthew, Fernanda and Marina in my Photo Album!

The Housewarming Barbie / Party

The housewarming bbq and party we hosted at the traineeshouse last friday definitely deserves a post on this Blog! I guess about 30 or 40 people showed up. Most of them in some way related to one of the three AIESEC committees in Melbourne. Our indoor BBQ did its first job and it was a great success. Some of the girls had prepared delicious salads and everyone brought some drinks and different sorts of meat. Yes, I did eat Kangaroo! And Yes I liked it! It has a strong and spicy taste, best compared with lamb meat, not too bad at all!

We partied untill about three o'clock, I think every one has really enjoyed themselves, at least we, the trainees did! No doubt there will be a second housewarming party soon! And maybe a third, a fourth, a fifth ;) Again I was amazed by the friendliness of the Melburnians. As if their presence and the food and drinks they brought were not sufficient yet, they brought a lot of presents for in our new house, how nice!

Pics of the housewarming party can now be found in my Photo Album. All are made by Marina. Since a lot of people brought their cameras I hope to be able to add some more later.

Photo Album Online

I've launched an online Photo Album where I'll upload my pictures from now on! Enjoy the first two galleries: Stop-Over in Singapore and Arrival in Australia.

I owe much to my housemate Marina, she made a lot of beautiful pictures during my first day down under! More pics can be expected soon, for example of the housewarming party, the cricket, my room mates, and the great city of Melbourne!

"The Trainees House"

Now that we've officially inaugurated our new house by hosting a really good barbie (Ozzie slang for BBQ) and housewarming party on Friday night (yesterday), the time has come to tell you something about my new home in Melbourne!

Back in the Netherlands, I allready started looking on the net for a good place to live. I came in touch with a Brazilian girl called Fernanda, A Russian girl named Marina, and Matthew, a guy from Poland, who also were about to come over to Melbourne and were looking for a roof over their heads too.

Basicly, what happened is that we've found a suitable, fully furnished house for the four of us, which makes us housemates now! On the picture you can see what the place looks like from the outside. Like most other houses in the suburb of Brunswick, it's quite big and has only one floor. This part of the city looks somewhat like a village, the streets are broad, there's a lot of green, everything is really wide and spread out. Yet, you're always aware of the fact that you're living in a metropolis just because of the beautiful view on the skyscrapers of the citycenter, which is not too far away, just a 20 minutes bike ride.

The best feature of the house definitely is the huge indoor gas BBQ, which is right in the middle of the living room! Can you believe it!?! Furthermore, it has a large kitchen, a spacy bathroom and ofcourse four bedrooms. Everything you would need in a proper house, from television and microwave to fridge, bed linnen, spoons, forks and more, it's there!

I guess I could just not have it better than I've got it now. It's not only a very good place, the people I live with are amazing! I'll come back on that later for sure. Clock is ticking and internet is not for free in this place, so I'm outta here!

Ozzie ozzie ozzie! Oi Oi Oi!

This is the funny way Australians cheer for their national sports heros, as I discovered last Sunday when I went to a cricket match with some ozzie guys from AIESEC! Cricket is quite a big thing here in Melbourne. It's played in huge stadiums and people don't mind spending upto 8 hours watching the game, cause that's how long a match can easily take. Boring, you would probably think...

Well, of course, there's not by far as much action as during a good soccer match, but as soon as you understand a little bit of the game you'll find out it can have its exciting moments. Though it's sometimes quite a long wait before you see some action, as can be seen on the photo below where one of the guys (Nick) has fallen asleep!

Perhaps you wouldn't expect it but the crowd in the stadium wasn't bad at all! Whether it's because half of the "cricket fans" found the beers more interesting than the game itself or whether it's because some parts were just so boring that they just decided to entertain themselves, they were pretty enthusiastic!

What I liked most were the plastic beachballs they threw around all the time, and even a blow doll! When someone managed to throw the ball over the balcony to another stadium deck or to the cicket ground, in that way losing it, everyone went mad and yelled "You are a wanker! You are a wanker!" to the poor guy responsible for spoiling the game. Really funny :)

One week in Oz! (+ Arrival part 2)

I'm in Australia now since a week and one day. I've got a new job, a new home, a new life! Although I didn't go out of the city of Melbourne yet, I've seen so many new things and met so many new people allready, that it almost feels like I've been living here since like a month!

I think I could write pages and pages allready about my experiences here so far, but besides the fact that I can hardly find the time to even type just a few lines, I don't feel much like boring you with a long list of everything I've seen and done.

For those who are just wondering if I'm enjoying my time down here, I can anwser with a very very big YES! For those who'd like to know more, I'll shortly describe some highlights of my first days in this post and the coming ones, to begin with the rest of my day of arrival, which is definitely a day I'll never forget!

After the more than warm welcome on the airport, first thing I did, or better said the wonderful people of AIESEC Monash did, was dragging my 30kgs of baggage to their car and driving me to Rupert Street 2/9, nowadays better known as the "Trainees House", my new place to live! After a cup of coffee with my brand new roomies and the AIESECers, and after unpacking a really great reception goodiebag, I successively went to the company hosting my traineeship, to say hi and shake hands with my collegeas, I was taken to the Monash University where I visited the AIESEC office, and Pei-San, my AIESEC "buddy" took me on a quick city tour in the city center of Melbourne, which for sure is one of the best on earth! The tour ended in an Italian restaurant where my welcome dinner took place. A lot of the people who awaited me at the airport so early in the morning did again show up. Despite my extreme tiredness I had a great evening. All those nice and friendly people made me feel home immediately!


Photo's: On the first one you can see me unpacking the goodiebag with welcome presents! The blue thing I'm holding is typical Australian. Don't know what it's called but they wrap it around their beers in order to keep it cold! Very useful! The second one is just a nice view of the Melbourne city center.

Arrival in Australia!

My plane took off from Singapore at 21:55 local time, and arrived in Melbourne at 05:55 in the morning. I had a hard time falling asleep again, I guess I closed my eyes for 2 hours at most.

Imagine you travel to the other side of the world. Leaving your family, friends and relatives behind for a year. After having only two hours of sleep in 35 hours you arrive in a completely new city at the sociable time of six in the morning, walk out of the gate at the airport, and then there are 20 unknown students cheering and waving for you like crazy.. wouldn't you be overwhelmed?! I was!! (as you will see on the pics)

The first few hours really were surreal, like a dream. I was tired, confused, excited, nervous and happy in the same time. I just did let it all happen to me... There were so many nice people, asking a lot of questions, bringing presents for me, everyone was so friendly, it was just an amazing welcome!

Singapore continued...

It's my first weekend in Australia now!! It has been a strange but great week; only 6 days ago I was still suffering a severe hang-over of my good-bye party in Amsterdam, where I party-ed a little too hard... And now I'm feeling quite settled in Melbourne allready, having moved into my new house, and having been working since two days.

After I left the laptop desk at Singapore airport, which I described in my previous post, I decided to rent a room in the transit hotel to get a bit of sleep. Well, it didn't come to sleeping actually. Eventhough I hadn't catched any sleep in the plane, the excitedness kept me awake. I just laid down on my bed, watched some television, had a good shower and then prepared myself to leave "Changi" airport for a quick bus tour and boatride in the great but hot (36 degrees that day) city of Singapore!

And a great city it is! It's an unbelievebly modern and hi-tech city, clean and neat like Euro Disney. It looks quite "cold" and anonymous in some way but you can smell a more traditional Asian atmosphere too. I extremely enjoyed looking, driving, and boating around there! Just indescribable!! I'm sure I'll be going back there sometime!

I'm in Singapore now!

Because of a very very busy last week in The Netherlands I failed to complete my first post on this weblog, in which I was about to tell what exactly I'm gonna do in Melbourne etc. Too bad, I still don't have the time to do it now, but the good news is that I am on my way Down Under allready!!

Yesterday at 11:50 Singapore Airlines flight SQ0323 took off from Amsterdam with me on board. A lot of my friends were at the airport to say good bye, which was really great! (although they almost made me miss my plane.. thanx guys!).

After twelve hours of watching movies and playing video games at the awesome on-board entertainment system, and being served with snacks, fruit, many drinks and delicious meals by good looking stewardesses, I'm now sitting behind a laptop access desk at Singapore Airport :)

I'm here since just one hour but I can tell you this airport really rocks. It has beautiful gardens, it looks very clean and has many great facilities for example a swimming pool! I'm gonna take a shower now and going to try to book a 2 hours city tour. Tonight I'm flying to Melbourne. More updates and probably some pictures later this week!