Lost in Australia

Trip finished, job hunt begins

2011-12-13T17:55:00.001+11:00

I should have written this in China, but it was impossible as I quickly noticed that their internet censorship encompasses quite a few things, such as, for example, Facebook, Blogger and Picassa Web Albums.

I could always use a proxy service to get to these, but I was not there to spend too much time writing blog posts. And the internet there is somewhat slow too.

So yeah, there are things in China you are definitely not supposed to do. Other things include taking photos of police officers on their duty and protesting in front of government buildings as I managed to observe but was soon politely asked to remove myself from the scene.

And it is not too hard to see that people on the country side do not have it easy, while city centres tend to be super modern.

But! China is also a land of extremely friendly people and AWESOME food. Those fried Scorpions tasted a bit like bacon, especially the small ones. I didn't really like Centipedes and I am still undecided on Silk Worms, Silk Worm Cocoons, Cochroaches and Locusts. They are all very crunchy though and go down very easily... after a few beers!

In a hindsight,3 days in Beijing were definitely not enough, there is lots to see and I only managed to see the Forbidden City, Mao's Mausoleum, The Great Wall and a very spectacular Kung Fu show. All very great but there are lots of other places around Beijing I would still like to see, like the Summer Palace for example.

It turns out that visiting Beijing during the winter can be considerably cheaper than doing so in the summer. There are few tourists around and the prices in my hostel were slashed by 50%, continuing the trend I experienced throughout the whole Trans Siberian trip. And it is not that cold in Beijing either. It snowed a little bit on one day, but to me it actually felt warm compared to Irkutsk and Ulaanbaatar. Certainly no need for long jacks this time round. And I could still feel my nose after walking around the city for a few hours :)

I've been back in Melbourne since Friday now. And it actually feels good to be back, which is not what I expected. I am hoping to sort out my job situation soon, but December is not a very good time to be looking for a job, still I managed to find some good leads and I've already been going to interviews so fingers crossed I will have something by the end of next week so I can relax over the Christmas break.

Pit stop in Mongolia

2011-12-03T19:34:00.001+11:00

After hearing many nice things about Mongolia from fellow travellers in a hostel in Irkutsk I felt a bit bad for only having 2 days to spend here. So I might have to come back one day... in the summer though, it gets very cold here in the winter and some say Ulaanbaatar is the worlds coldest capital.

Not when it comes to people though, they are friendly smiling and if they don't speak english they will just smile back :) But a lot of them do!

Ulaanbaatar is surprisingly modern, certainly not what I expected when I got off the train (BTW: I finally met some tourists on the train, but there were still only 3 of us, enough for me to learn how to play scrabble, though). But in some suburbs people still live in yurts or gers whichever way you want to call them and according to stats in National Museum 47% of Mongolians still live in them... which is not necessarily a bad thing... from my experience they are cosy and warm inside. I wouldn't mind living in one of these things instead of in an apartment... it has more character! :)

So what can you do in 2 days? Not that much; a bit of walking around the city centre, but a lot of things are just closed, like, for example, the state circus. Winter time is definitely not a tourist season. And apart from that it is worth taking a trip somewhere to see how a yurt looks like. Terelj National Park is pretty close to UB and worth a visit even during the winter, but the pictures you take away are quite a fair bit different from the ones in the broshure... certainly no green colours on my photos! The meal I had in a yurt was delicious though... and the horse ride afterwards was cool too, and Udram, my guide was great too!

Lake Baikal & Irkutsk

2011-11-29T21:48:00.001+11:00

While I was still in Moscow I tried to arrange a trip to see a Burjat Shaman which can still be found here in Siberia, but the guy I was in contact seemed very dodgy and in the end, while on the train to Irkutsk I decided I will spend some more time at Lake Baikal in a village called Lisvyanka

As it was already noticeable on the train arriving here in Irkutsk there are not many tourists around at this time of the year. Arguably there is more stuff to do in the summer months, but winter months are quite magical too, so people give it a go, it is not that cold over here. If you wear about 4 layers of clothes like I am that is :)

I ended up having the brand new Baikaler Eco Hostel in Lisvyanka just for myself, a sort of a weird feeling, but I loved it anyway. Especially since I needed a bit of a rest after 4 days on the train and few things are better than a quiet fisherman village like Lisvyanka. Very serene.

I did get a little bit of action in though... I tried dog sledging! Fun, but quite hard to steer the sledge - a good thing the guide yelled something to the dogs and they went slow for me :D They did seem to be bored a bit and were constantly looking back waiting to be told to go faster. Eventually they found some fun by trying to bike horse tails :D

I am spending my last day in Russia in Irkutsk. A very pretty city! About twice as big as Ljubljana and feels quite cosmopolitan for a place in Siberia to be honest. Still a very cheap place, though.

Moscow to Irkutsk by train

2011-11-27T12:43:00.001+11:00

Just got off! Gotta say that there are very few backpackers in this hostel where I am writing this. Winter doesn't seem to be a very popular time to do Trans Mongolian (or Trans Siberian).

I haven't met any other foreigners on the train either (except for a group of Germans that got on the train in Novosibirsk and got off the train after just one night). So it was me and a nice family sharing the coupe. They had 2 little kids and it was funny to observe how difficult it was to get them to go to sleep every day. Funilly enough the older one was the trouble maker. I must have learned some extra patience somewhere along the way as the concert the orchestra was playing sometimes in the middle of the night did not drive me nuts.

I seem to be less annoyed by kids screaming these days. Weird, very weird... :D

Apart from that 4 nights went by pretty quickly, I discovered that Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is actually pretty good and I am likely to go on and read all 20 or 30 of them me thinks. And Leonard Cohen is not just a good singer, he writes good books too. As a matter of fact he wrote novels before he started singing which he began doing to solve an "economical crisis" :) And I am decent at solving Sudokus (will run out of them by the time I get to Beijing though)

And as usual, some pics:

Do svidenja Moskva

2011-11-23T03:28:00.001+11:00

Last leg of my trip.... Made it to Moscow, spent a few really nice days here and now I am hours away from jumping on a train towards Irkutsk!

Russia has finally come good after my somewhat unpleasant experiences at Russian Consulate and an even earlier one in a hotel at Sheremetyevo airport where we were guarded by armed guards :D

In the few days here I managed to learn cyrillic (still reading like a first grader, but it is enough to survive), went to Alice Cooper concert, saw Kremlin and drived around in circles (mostly unintentionaly) with my friend Natasha which helped to memorise some streets :)

And here are some pics:

Alora se vidimo vec k'sno

2011-11-15T22:38:00.001+11:00

I should be writing this in two days only, but since I have nothing much to do today I might as well write it now.

You guessed it! It is my traditional bu hu hu post before I leave Slovenia and go back to Australia. Only that this time I am not going straight back to Australia and instead making my way towards Beijing first - on board of Trans Siberian train (technically speaking it is called Trans Mongolian railway as I am not going to Vladivostok, but it gives me more travel creed if I call it Trans Siberian railway).

So bu hu hu! Thanks to everyone here in Slovenia who has put up with me for the last 3 and a half weeks. You guys rock! I really need to come up with a plan to import you all down under every once in a while. Or find a job that allows me to come back more often and work from here for a while.

Speaking of which, I had a job offer recently which I declined as I didn't think it would be challenging enough and the recruiter asked (after finally reading my CV and seeing my explanation why) whether I would want to look for a manager flavoured role instead. Still speechless and not sure which thing in my CV says I am manager material... hmmmm... Well, perhaps I could take the role of an Alpha Geek somewhere :D

So yeah, I miss Slovenia more and more, but I think it would take even more balls to move back than it did when I moved to Australia. I got used to a higher standard of living and I simply don't have the balls to come back and try to get by with an average Slovenian IT salary. Speaking of balls, here is an AC/DC song I really like - completely unrelated to my writing, but here it is:

So for now I am staying put in Melbourne! Until further notice! But one thing that Melbourne really needs is a place like Metelkova in Ljubljana. Squatters of Melbourne unite and come up with something!

Anyway, until next time Slovenia! Officially the plan is to visit again in summer 2013, but could be sooner if I have another moment like the one that brought me here this year; it was a sunny day, I was sitting in the office and was bored, I looked through the window and said to myself: "What the fuck am I doing here?"

Marching to Korada, Sabotin and Sveta Gora

2011-10-31T06:49:00.001+11:00

Every once in a while me and my friend do a hike that leads us to the top of three "mountains"... These days this only happens when I am in Slovenia and I have to be honest that this hike is rarely very enjoyable as we always aim to get it done as fast as possible, in reality it is some kind of stamina test :)

The whole thing usualy takes about 7-8 hours and covers about 36km. Normally I end up with blisters, stiff knees or in worst case dehydration :) Today's hike ended up pretty well - the only worry is whether I will be able to walk tomorrow :D

The thing starts in Anhovo at 140m asl, then we head up to Korada (810m) and usually we do not bother to stop at the refuge there to have a snack.. it is far more important to run down to Vrhovlje (380m) and then back up to Sabotin (610m). Today this took us 3 hours and 8 minutes, which undercut the estimated table on the tables by more than 2 hours! The pace Andrej has set was a killer (the guy is a fitness freak) and I needed a Jota at the top. It has gone down the throat in about 3 minutes! Meanwhile Andrej was nervous... we wasted 15 minutes at the top! :D

So we continued down to Solkan (100m) and then up to Sveta Gora (680m) where I started to run out of steam... my knees started to hurt and the last km before reaching the top was hard... really hard. I was allowed to rest for 5 minutes there hehe and then we set a strong pace (after I managed to forget about my knees and just grit my teeth a bit) back to Anhovo.

Done in 7 hours 50 minutes (15 minute rest at Sabotin and 5 minutes rest at Sveta Gora included). Good to know I can still do it and I don't even want to think about the day when this hike will be too hard for me!

The corners on the roads of Kras

2011-10-29T20:25:00.001+11:00

It's been a while since I last drove a car on the roads of Kras and everytime I do I understand why I used to love going fast. Even though those days are long gone I still enjoy turning a wheel on these windy roads passing by vineyards, stone walls and all other nice things we have here.

And we also have some corners that look very similar to some famous corners on racing circuits :)

Right here in Dutovlje we have Loews hairpin from Monaco GP, the setting is slightly different but the curves flow in a similar way :)

Then on the road from Sezana to Senozece, about 1 km before Freeway entry ramp we have Eau Rouge, the most famous corner of Spa Francorchamps racing circuit in Belgium. You won't be doing it at 300km/h but nevertheless...

And finally we have Laguna Seca's Cork Screw as well! Just after the village of Kopriva, but it is not as dramatic as the real one :)

Applying for visas

2011-10-29T00:48:00.001+11:00

Just thought I would write it down as I had quite a stressful day getting my documentation for russian visa ready and this might help someone to avoid all this :)

Disclaimer: This is not a rant, I happen to know a few Russians and they are very nice people!

So, I am getting ready to experience Transsiberian railway and to do so I need to have visas to enter into countries that the train passes through. Quite expensive, but what the heck, I only live once!

Got my Chinese visa yesterday which was a breeze and actually cheaper to get with Australian passsport than Slovenian passport. Nice! So today I armed myself with, what I thought was complete documentation and went to Russian Consulate to be there at 8:30 when it opens.

First, my travel insurance was not good enough. Word of advice, don't buy your insurance online, if it doesn't have a stamp and looks nice and very official they won't take it! So I went and bought another one just for Russia - the cheapest one I could get - and ran back to the Consulate. After another long wait (somebody sorting out visas for a group of sportsmans and another guy arguing with Consul that he was able to get visa in the past so he should be able to get it again) it was my turn and this time everything was right! Whew!

Until I had to pay... :) Since I don't have a Slovenian bank account anymore I tried to pay with my MasterCard only to find out that they do not accept credit cards... Yay! With one hour left before the Consulate closed I was faced with a mad rush to get from one end of Ljubljana to NLB at Kongresni Trg in city center (which happens to be the only place where you can pay for visa in cash) and then getting back to Consulate on time before they closed. Luckily for me Ljubljana happens to be quite small and I got back on time... just! It was actually outside of hours when you can apply, but I guess I got credit points from Consul (who seemed to be in a bad mood all day) for my determination to get it done today! And the processing time ended up being 5 days instead of 7 days (5 days for Slovenian passport holders, if you are applying with a foreign passport it takes 7 days) which is kind of cool! :)

After I got back to my friend's place I asked where that bottle of Jagtraum was as I was a little traumatised by the whole experience :D

Fingers crossed that all goes well and I do get that sticker in my passport!

After this I will only need to sort out Mongolian visa, which will require a trip to Vienna... expensive, but an opportunity to have a cup of coffee with my friend there :)

Crossing France and relaxing a bit in Luxembourg

2011-10-24T04:16:00.001+11:00

I always feel a bit uneasy when I travel through/to a country where they don't speak something I can understand. Not that these places would be ugly, but I just feel like I am the dumbest person around when I try to order food or something else. This is one of the pitfalls of travelling alone... when you have someone else travelling with you it gives you a peace of mind - you are not the only dumb person around who does not speak the language :D I believe that French people perhaps make it a bit worse, I always had a feeling that they are very proud of their language and find learning English unnecessary as French language is an "important" language that those ignorant tourists should know.

Anyway, I was only passing through France and spent most of the time in a car so I didn't have to open my mouth too often AND they actually did speak English pretty well in Le Mans. No wonder as it is the home of Le Mans 24 hours race which is why I ended up there in the first place! The only problem being that I should have been there about 4 months ago to see the race, but track side museum is pretty good too and throughout the year teams test there and you can see trackside action for a measly 3 euros on those days.

A day later I dropped off my rental car at Metz airport and got driven on a tour of Luxembourg. I've been asked if I liked it over and over again and say it again; Yes I liked it a lot, it is a nice little, tiny country that was completely different than I expected it to be and it was very, very nice to see you again S. Good enough? ;)

Luxembourg is definitely not a destination an average tourist would think about going to, but it's got plenty for a little country like that... from green countryside with it's chateaus to a modern, but small city of Luxembourg with it's really lovely old city center. And apparently they sell the cheapest petrol around! :D

In Slovenia now... will be touring it over the next month to see everyone :)

Pais Vasco

2011-10-19T07:49:00.002+11:00

I find myself on my way to Luxembourg and have some time to waste somewhere... Spain made perfect sense after South America :)

The only "must see" place I had was Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao... Why? Because I've seen a documentary on TV about how it was built and it got me interested. The current exhibit does not disappoint either and since it was built on October 18th 1997 they have free entrance this week. No complaints here!

The rest of the trip was up to my daily mood. I rented a car at Barcelona with a GPS where the woman's voice says one thing while the display tells you another... ok, only about a dozen times, but most of the time she was right. Maybe I confused the GPS when I told it to avoid toll roads and take me to the country side instead. Still great to have a GPS when you travel somewhere unprepared and quite honestly I don't think just having a map would cut it in a city like San Sebastian... it is a maze of one way streets!

In the end my route took me from Barcelona to Bilbao, Guernica, Pamplona and finally to San Sebastian.

The city that surprised me the most is Pamplona, it's old part is amazing and San Fermin, when the bulls race down the street must be a great event (I noticed that some hotels are already taking bookings for San Fermin 2012!). The new part of the city is leafy and quiet and somehow surprises you with this modern feel. Not sure why, but somehow I did not expect this so it was a pleasant surprise. Speaking of San Fermin, the town is full of tourists when the event is due and you will find plenty of little hostels in the city which are basically an apartment converted into a hostel, just like the one I was staying in which was owned by some friendly Russian looking people who also ran a restaurant (although it made me wonder if this whole business was not just a cover for something else). The girl who booked me in was in fact from Moldavia, no wonder she seemed to know the s with an upside down roof letter in my name!

Tomorrow I am off to France, with the only real stop being Le Mans (the petrol head side of my personality wants to see the museum there).

Wrapping up South America

2011-10-14T09:45:00.002+11:00

Tomorrow is my flight towards Barcelona where I am to star the European leg of my trip :)

Getting from Bariloche to Santiago was a breeze. Nothing much to see along the way though, except that I've seen amazing piles of volcanic ash on the road from Bariloche towards Chilean border, there were places where they were loading it up onto trucks, they are still cleaning the mess up.

Interestingly enough there is almost no traces of ash on Chilean side, the wind has taken it all towards Argentina.

I loved my stay in Lima, learnt some Spanish there, made new friends and had an opportunity do do a proper web project after quite a few years away from web development. I am no longer rusty (an earlier demo is here http://vpdemo.apphb.com, the guys have probably changed the design a bit since and from what I've been told it goes live soon).

Bolivia, I wish I had more time to spend there. I stayed a bit longer in Peru that I thought I would and this is where I had to scarifice my time. Still one quickly gets an impression that it is a land of extremely friendly people.

Argentina, well... Patagonia was awesome! Buenos Aires was awesome as well and that is from somebody who does not like big cities very much.

And San Pedro in Chile is magical too!

Anyway, I am probably going to be in South America in 3, 4 years time. The itinerary for that trip is still unknown at this stage, it will involve Peru though, got great friends there!

Bariloche

2011-10-14T09:33:00.003+11:00

Yet another lovely place in Patagonia!

I did not realize that the Chilean volcano that was spewing ash just about 2 months ago is apparently just 70km away from Bariloche. That certainly explains why there was dust on the streets and roofs.

Bariloche is a charming little town sitting right beside a huge lake (my memory for names is like swiss cheese, I don't remember this one except that it carries the same name as the national park where Bariloche is so google it yourself) which is some ways looks like the master of the area, controlling the weather in some way :) The early settlers were mostly european families including from Slovenia! There is a Slovenian refugio on one of the mountains and a Slovenian club in the town too (none of which I have visited in my 2 days there though)

I've done some cycling instead around Circuito Chico which was a nice way to spend a couple of hours as the views are really nice and I've done an easy organised trek which took us to an awesome waterfall (beats the ones in El Chalten) and another glacier which looks very different to the others I've seen before as it is melting fast! (I really have forgotten all the names, uncle google can help, these two are nearby an extinct volcano named Tronador).

And one should not forget that I've again met some very nice people in the hostel where I was staying. So if anyone asks me why I can't stop travelling, this is one of the reasons!

Plus, who would have though I would bump into a bus full of Slovenian tourists when we were trekking around Tronador. We really are everywhere :)

Getting to Bariloche

2011-10-14T09:13:00.003+11:00

I knew it would be a difficult trip and at the end I was impressed how well I took it.

During the high season you can get from El Chalten to Bariloche via Ruta 40 which is apparently an amazing trip.

During low season you have no other option than to go back to El Chalten first. BTW: on the way from El Chalten to El Calafate (and in other direction) buses stop at Hotel La Leona where I spotted articles about Butch Cassidy on the wall (if the name doesn't ring a bell see this) and I first though it was there just to make the wall look a bit less boring. A closer inspection revealed that La Leona was in fact a hiding place for Butch Cassidy after he and his gang robbed a bank in Rio Gallegos. Quite interesting!

Anyway, when I was booking bus tickets in El Chalten I opted to avoid staying another night in El Calafate which severely stuffed up my itinerary :) After returning from El Chalten I ended up sleeping for 4 hours on a bench at El Calafate's bus station (freezing!) and then took a 3 AM bus to Rio Gallegos.

I was hoping to be able to see a Penguin reserve some 150km away from Rio Gallegos, but it turns out there are no organised tours going there and after asking the taxi driver if there is anything else around he responded with "No hay nada!" (and probably thought "chico loco, que haces aqui?") so I was sentenced to a chair for 12 hours at the bus station. I was glad to finally see the bus at paradero, I was only another 23 hours away from Bariloche!

The hiking capital of Argentina

2011-10-14T09:00:00.001+11:00

Or El Chalten as they named it when they've set this village up back in 1985. It has been set up in a hurry so that Argentina could claim this territory before Chile could.

It is about 3 hours away from El Calafate and some opt to come here just for a day and then return to El Calafate in the evening which is a huge mistake as you can't even scratch the surface of this place in 7 hours that are available to you. And if the weather sucks too you miss out on majestic views of Fitz Roy mountain!

October is actually low season and it was a bit quiet there, but I like this kind of places so I was happy that it was this way.

The best hike by far is Laguna de Los Tres where you get to see Fitz Roy in all it's glory, the path is officially closed due to snow, but people are allowed to go there at their own risk and I wasn't the only one up there. Sasha, an Argentinian girl I've met at the top made it through that snow in Converse All Stars shoes. Respect!

I've also done a hike to Laguna Torre, which rewards you with a nice view at a glacier on the other side of the lake as well. The weather in El Chalten can be very moody at this time of the year and on this day lady Luck did not follow me. It was raining throughout the 6 hours hike but the view was still nice at the end. But I can easily imagine how awesome it would be on a sunny day.

Apart from that there are a few nice lookout point over the village and a nice waterfall just one hour away from El Chalten where you can get within meters of the waterfall. Ask at the rangers office for more, these are just the most popular hikes around the area.

And I should not forget the steaks! I always end up with a great appetite after a trek and over my 4 days in El Chalten I've sent 4 delicious chunks of meat down my throat. The guy at the bar in Rancho Grande said to me "you really do love meat do you?", I think I am more of an Argentinian than he is! :D

On the other side, Rodrigo, from Como Vaca was not too impressed when I wanted to order a small beer...

R: You live in Australia? Small beer? Really?
A: All right, all right I'll have a grande!

Perito Moreno

2011-10-14T08:39:00.002+11:00

Perito Moreno is one of the biggest glaciers in Patagonia (but not the biggest!) and out of all glaciers on Argentinian side of Patagonia probably the one that is most impressive.

But first thing first, to get there you need to get to El Calafate, which is a more or less just a tourist hub in the middle of Patagonia. I didn't like the town that much as it looked like a mix of accomodations and shops. The setting is nice though, right beside a like and only an hour away from Perito Moreno glacier.

BTW: did you know that after Antarctica and Arctic, the next biggest area covered in ice is in Patagonia?

In any case it is worth visiting it, whether the price is fair is debatable though. I can only hope that the money goes towards trying to keep the National Park as intact as possible.

So what are your options to see this big block of ice?

You can take a bus for 100 pesos, pay 100 pesos entrance fee to enter the park and enjoy the views from the platform.

For additional 70 pesos, I believe, you can go up close to the glacier with a boat.

And then there are some very intimate experiences available if you opt for a mini trekking or a Big Ice trekking. There is only one company that you can book that through, so the prices are like they are. Mini trekking will set you back by 540 pesos (my wallet cried a bit, but in the end, I might not be there ever again so I paid for it) and Big Ice is about 770 pesos.

I believe there are some discounts for people with HI (Hosteling International) card as well.

Anyway, here are a few pics (selected out of 200 pics I've made there hehe)

New look

2011-10-14T08:21:00.001+11:00

I really liked my old template, but I like the dynamics of these new "dynamic" templates that Blogger now offers. So it is time for a change. I'll customize the design a bit at some point to make it a bit more personal, until then enjoy my scribbling :)

La Boca

2011-10-01T09:01:00.004+10:00

First day in Buenos Aires and it was enough to change my early opinion about it.

Yesterday I though it is too european and that it just doesn't fit into South America

Today I've seen the other face, behind it's tidiness there is a passionate city.

And there is no better place to prove it than Barrio Boca! A colourful part of Buenos Aires that is home to art shops, restaurants and Boca Juniors! I've spent hours walking around and enjoying the atmosphere, including a fight between a guy selling photos and a group of, for some reason, agitated Boca Juniors fans. But being close to "Bombonera" (Boca Juniors stadium) the police was quickly there to calm things down.

"Bombonera" includes a museum where you can walk through all of it's history, see trophies they have won, read statistics about their seasons and admire photos of some of their greats, including Maradona, Batistuta and Tevez.

But as they say, pictures can say more than a thousand words!

Lima - La Paz - Buenos Aires

2011-09-30T08:49:00.001+10:00

I stayed in Lima for a bit longer than I wanted, and that meant I had to hurry up if I was to do any hiking in Patagonia at all.

So 4 days later I find myself in Buenos Aires. The trip from La Paz to Buenos Aires went far more smoother than the one to La Paz. AeroSur is quite a decent airline, with some rather provocative stewardess uniforms in these days when other airlines seem to give them long skirts or trousers :)

Back to the topic! How did I get here?

The cheapest option to travel around South America is travelling by bus. Needless to say this is veeeery slow (in fact there is a Peruvian company called Caracol, which is Spanish for snail and offers long distance trips). I decided to go with Ormeno as they are the only ones that offer a direct service from Lima to La Paz. The trip is supposed to take 28 hours but it ended being a fair bit longer than that...

But I don't regret it. The bus was slow, the engine was overheating and at the Bolivian border the Ormeno bus gave up and they arranged us mini bus for the remainder of the trip. Crossing the border is a unique experience in itself and if you only travel by air you never get to experience these things. I've experienced even more entertaining border crossings, but this one does not dissappoint either: first you walk up to Peruvian immigration get everything stamped there and then with all backpacks on your back you cross the bridge up to Bolivian side of the border and get things done there before packing everything on the mini bus and continuing the trip. There is some sort of romance in these kind of border crossing, especially these days when everything seems to be controlled by computers. Also, the breakage of Ormeno bus kind of brought the group on the bus together and I have to say it was an interesting mix of Columbianos, Bolivianos, Argentinos, one Australian girl who was travelling with her Columbian boyfriend and one Slovenian. We quickly bonded and ended up in the same run down Residencial Uruguay next to main bus station in La Paz when we finally arrived there some 7 hours late.

While still in Lima, I booked a ride down the world most dangerous road and that ended up being my only Bolivian experience, which doesn't do this country any justice. I was impressed by people's friendliness in La Paz and the city itself is amazing, with it's streets that go up and down which quickly makes you tired as the city sits 3600m high. I wish I could have stayed longer.

Anyway, the downhill ride was with Gravity Bolivia, who basically invented the ride down The Wordls Most dangerous Road. Why is it called this way, you might ask? Simply because of the number of people who used to die on the road every year. In the 70's there were about 200 casualties annually on this 44km stretch of the road. The name itself sounds a bit too sensationalistic when referring to the bike ride itself, but even so there are 18 cyclists who died over the years here and a lot more people who went home with broken bones. The road does deserve respect as I learned myself too in one of combinations of corners called the Devil's tail - I was a little bit ambitious in first corner, late into second and completely wrong in the third and I was heading towards the cliff, but I get to live another day, I managed to get the speed down, remain in saddle and turn into the corner with about 30cm to spare. It got my heart pumping though!

One nice thing about Gravity Bolivia is that they are pretty much the only agency that gives you an option to cycle a 8km uphill section somewhere at the beginning of this ride that starts at 4600m and ends at about 1500m. 8km of uphill section might not sound much but at this altitude you do end up huffing and puffing. I was very happy when I finished the last part of the climb behind (called The Heart Break Hill by Gravity guys)!

And let's not to forget Gravity ends it's trip in an animal refuge where they take care of animals who fell victims of illegal animal trade. A Slovenian girl who referred me to Gravity used to volunteer there about a month back and the guys in the refuge remember her, I am not sure if she knows what her nick name was. I can't blame them, I referred to her as Lara Croft once when talking to my friends :D

Gravity is the most expensive agency to do this trip, but the trip is organised well and worth the money! I've been in a great group made of one girl from Netherlands, Kate from Singapure, Mike from Germany, an older Australian bloke (who travelled around the world 7 times already) and myself of course. We gelled together well and the day was full of fun and topped off with a dinner once we were back in La Paz. I seem to make a lot of new friends when travelling. It makes sense, we have a common interest.... travelling!

Tripline

2011-09-16T08:53:00.000+10:00

I've wanted to find a service that would allow me to draw a map of my trip for a while now, and after a bit of googling I stumbled upon Tripline.net.

So I've been drawing a little map for about 2 hours now :) I am yet to complete much of it, though. I still have just under 3 months to do it so it is nothing to be worried about!

Project completed!

2011-09-10T11:28:00.001+10:00

Almost, will still do a day or two of work to iron out some outstanding issue next week but what we have is pretty close to final result.

Not yet telling what it is, but the website covers pretty much all countries in Central and South America bar Brasil and it is a site for one of world's largest personal health and care products companies. I am going to give you a hint, they manufacture Kleenex pocket tissues ;)

An awesome reference for me and I must have left an awesome impression too. At Ogilvy & Mather marketing agency they told me to give them a call next time I am in Peru. And I will! One of the missions for this years visit to Peru was to see how it is like to work here and make some useful contacts. Mission accomplished, next time I am likely to come here for even more time.

So now I have sorted out my bases... One in Slovenia, another in Australia and now I have one in South America too.

I am brimming with confidence today. Life is easy if you play it right!

Lunahuana

2011-09-05T13:48:00.000+10:00

I tagged along with Cesar's family on a trip to Lunahuana. It was a welcome break after working from morning till late night to get the web project I am working on done. Luckily, due to other circumstances, I have another week to tweak it and get it done. Then I am, so I told them, going to Bolivia :D

Anyway, Lunahuana is a surprisingly nice place. It is another little oasis in the middle of barren rocks, and a reasonably popular weekend getaway for people living in Lima.

The thing I'll remember most is rafting down the river, I was paddling at the front and on side where I received pretty much every drop of water that I could, but it was great fun and in the end I wanted to do it again. I'd say it is better than rafting on river Soca in Slovenia, the rapids are a little faster, but probably a little bit less demanding. This didn't mean the whole trip was without little funny incidents. At one point we rammed deep into the bushes on the river bank and all we could do is just duck down hehe. At some other point we missed the "nice" part of the rapids and had to take a wilder ride. All in all, it was pretty cool and I somehow learned a new nickname. The guide called me "Flash" in the end :D

The weekend was rounded up with a nice lunch/dinner at one of the haciendas. They had an amazing garden etched into the rock. And the food was amazing.

Huancayo: Viaje en Tren

2011-09-03T15:54:00.000+10:00

Also called "Viaje en Suroche Tren" by some people as quite a few end up suffering from altitude sickness when taking this, officially, 11 hours long train trip. Unofficially it took 14 hours in the end but it would have been 13 hours if we didn't go back to train station in Lima to have the locomotive changed. Makes for quite an interesting start to the trip, doesn't it? :)

The truth is that the voyage is only exciting until you reach the highest point of the railway at roughly 4800 meters high. After that, you soon start to wish you were in Huancayo already. Tahe bus back to Lima turned out to be a great idea... Much more comfortable!

The interesting stuff of the first day did not end after I got off the train in Huancayo at 9 PM. My plan was to walk around and find a Hospedaje to sleep in, but everything was, to my surprise, full and I only got lucky after about 6 or 7 tries. This place was possibly the worst dump I've ever slept in in my whole career as a backpacker. No water on tap (the owner explained to me that there are buckets with water if I need it) and, who would have known, my room was right next to the corridor with a window that the owner picked as his favorite means of communication with the people below on the street. And I should add that the guy never seems to go to sleep.

So why was it so hard to find a place to stay in? It turns out there was a some kind of sports championship held in Huancayo and that meant there were very few spare rooms available. Nevertheless I was able to find a room in the city center the following day and that saved my nights.

Got to be honest that there is little to see in the city itself, it is probably best to take a city tour with one of the agencies like I did as you are likely to miss some places otherwise. It is cheap, as pretty much everything in Huancayo, but more than the city sights itself I remember some stories our guide told us. I used all my spanish skills to chat her up a bit and it worked to a certain extent as she must have told a few nice things about me to some of the other girls at the agency as some behaved like they know me the following day when I took another tour with them :)

I think, I've been lucky with the tours I've been taking. I managed to avoid foreign turists (not that there would be many in Huancayo) and ended up in another group of people from Peru. One girl had a suspiciously yugoslavian name - Darinka, but she turned 100% Peruvian, it is only her moms friend that is from Croatia and that friend's name was, you guessed it, Darinka. Then there was a guy, whose team lost in the championship mentioned above and thus had time to do some touring and there was a family who was impressed with the number of places I have already seen over my three visits in Peru. Just like in Australia I appear to have seen a lot more of their country than they did.

And I guess this is why I liked the place. And the beauty of Mantaro valley. Andean views never dissapoint. Anyway I wish I could stay a day or two more as I would like to do Huaytapallahna hike and see more of Valle de Mantaro, but since I have a web project to finish until Saturday I have to go back to Lima :( But, on the upside, I am taking good memories with me and it is not completely impossible that I will go to finish up my homework there in a few weeks time when I set course for Bolivia.

Working in Lima

2011-08-22T13:31:00.003+10:00

Just as I was getting used to slacking I got myself a web project to work on.

Completely my fault! I was too nosy and thought it would be cool to be able to add a project from Peru to my CV... And an international digital marketing agency with an office here in Lima took the bait.

So my easy going, relaxed holidays have turned into working holidays now. Eeek! But making progress and I am quite proud of my typing speed and the resulting code. I think I am a pretty awesome geek. Hopefully Luis (a guy who works for Cesar and does some web designing as a side job) will finish transforming design prototype into CSS and images tomorrow so we can start putting it together and have some kind of demo ready for the client by the end of this week. Oh yes, a small detail, they want to go live in 2 weeks...

But who knows, it might open new opportunities for me.

Ceviche

2011-08-08T10:06:00.002+10:00

I am writing this purely because it was so good that I don't need dinner today...We haven't managed to catch any fish after the lunch anyway so there is nothing to cook either :)

Anyway, Ceviche is a meal made of raw fish marinated in lemon. Take my advice and speak about it as a Peruvian dish while in Peru and as a Chilean dish while in Chile. Same with Pisco. It is like Turkish Coffee and Greek Coffee - same, same but different.

The restaurant we went to was "Mi Barrunto" (a peek at the menu available here), a pretty interesting place located in an ugly suburb with plenty of garbage on the street and houses that look like they are going to collapse anytime and then you see the restaurant with a brand new facade and plenty of nice cars parked in front... quite a big contrast, but then again Lima is a city of contrasts. The Ceviche just melted in my mouth and the fish stew that followed was awesome too! And as always sent down with little help from a bottle of Cusquena :)

Fishing for dinner with Cesar afterwards yielded no results. I think we both agree we are lousy fishermen and given that we couldn't stomach putting some of the wiggly bait on the hook it doesn't look good for the future. Next time the bait will be something from supermarket... a deluxe dinner for fish, salami or maybe some European cheese, I bet the fish will like that. To top it off the whole exercise ended on lousy note after the weight got stuck and we had to cut the line.

When the world ends I'll become a vegetarian. It is far easier to pick fruits for living :D

A bit of Austria and Prussia in Peru

2011-08-02T03:55:00.006+10:00

Just came back from an awesome 5 day trip to Oxapampa and Pozuzo! Both of these towns are located in high jungle and have some rather interesting history...

Over the last 7 years this was my third time in the Peruvian jungle and I can say that these areas are my Peru favorites. The vibe, nature and one should not forget, in my opinion, the worlds highest concentration of hot chicks! :D

Oops, getting a bit of track :) The thing that makes Oxapampa and especially Pozuzo interesting are their first settlers. Some 152 years ago Peruvian government made a deal with a German Baron who promised to get 10000 people who were willing to settle in the area and develop it a bit for commercial purposes. In 1859 some people finally moved permanently into Pozuzo. These days both cities are a mix of Austrian, German and Peruvian cultures. The way Wiener Schnitzel is prepared has changed somewhat and you might not get what you expect but they can still perform traditional Tirolean dances and stuff. And it seems that Peruvians have grown to like it too!

Oxapampa is not a destination that would be well known to foreigners and in these 5 days I got noticed quite easily as I stood out of the crowd. Dasa and Cesar always manage to make my holidays here special by showing me something that is not on the main tourist pilgrimage. Speaking of which, I've been told that the restaurants around Plaza de Armas in Cusco are mainly pizzerias these days due to demand from tourists.... I don't get it. You go to visit a country and then you eat pizzas instead of trying out what the local cousine can produce. Luckily seven years back it wasn't like that yet and it is a very good thing that Oxapampa is not like that and the above is the reason why most of the time I prefer to go to places a bit off the beaten track. At least they are authentic and the improvisation you generally have to put up with in these places makes the experience even better.

We went on this trip with a 4x4 club from Lima. They are true 4x4 enthusiasts and a couple of time we were crossing the river just for fun even though there was a bridge somewhere :) Apart from that they shown us some places around Oxapampa, Pozuzo and Villa Rica and while at times it felt a bit too scheduled it was still a good idea to have someone with previous experience in this part of Peru guiding us.

Some of the roads in the area are quite rough and you can see that the road gets eroded away during the rainy season quite often. One gets an impression that while these places are an awesome place to be at during dry months they become quite depressive during the rainy season. I bet this is the time when kids are being made :D

Another interesting thing was just experiencing the road from Lima to Merced. This is a windy, mostly narrow road where it is very hard to overtake. And there are lots of slow moving trucks and buses which results in numerous risky overtakes. It is a bit of an art really, and I have tried myself a bit on the easier part when we were returning to Lima. While risky it is kind of fun. And no, I didn't overtake into blind corners, but the "art" requires you to observe the road far ahead and know where the gaps are at which point you go for it on the outside of the truck through corner not seeing ahead until you pass it and similar stuff... I am kind of surprised I didn't see any accidents anywhere along the whole road. Probably down to slow speeds. When they do happen they don't end up well though.

And here are some pics...

First impressions of Lima

2011-07-26T05:04:00.005+10:00

Well, not first really. It is my third time here and I am starting to feel like I've known Lima for years now.

The city is evolving quickly and is starting to feel a lot safer now. Ok, that is if you stick to city center and areas around Miraflores where my friends live.

Yesterday we drove to the north of the city and the picture there is very different. The gap between haves and have nots is big! We were going to pick up Cesar's parents there as I tagged along on their Sunday family trip. I have to say that I have great respect for Cesar for managing to rise from that environment and succeeding. It was very interesting to see that he did not want to drive up to his parents house and we waited for them at a petrol station instead. He has two cars and the neighbors have only seen the other one. Apparently sometimes people try extortion to get money from others and Cesar did not want to put his parents in such position.

We were heading towards Lachay, a national park about 100k north from Lima. Those who have been in Peru will probably that the coastal areas are dry, a desert, but not in Lachay... during the winter months of July to October in becomes lavishly green. Unfortunately it is often accompanied by niebla (fog) so the views were not really that great. But it was nice to go there nevertheless as the company was great!

I am going to stay in Lima for two months and I want to try to get a short part time job here, for fun really, to see how software development looks like in Peru. I have seen an opening for a Software Architect at Microsoft Peru though, that wouldn't be too bad as a permanent job. Applied although I probably don't have any chances at all :)

To be honest I am not completely opposed to trying to live here for a while. The place feels like home to me and I love throwing challenges like this at me. Moving to Australia is easy (yet another country with western culture), but living in Peru would be a completely different thing. Not to mention that almost every girl on the street has jaw dropping looks :D

Almost forgot! Cesar's friend Ernesto called Cesar yesterday as he had tickets for the opening of the new Estadio Nacional. I think they rushed it a bit as Peru recently achieved 3rd place at Copa America and they wanted to greet them in style. There was a bit of everything, a speech from Alan Garcia (current president of Peru), fireworks, U21 football game against Spain, national team Parade (the crowd went wild) and lots more... It is awesome to have a chance to be a part of these things! :)

Hasta luego San Pedro, Hola Lima!

2011-07-21T00:23:00.009+10:00

Where did I left off last time?

I spent the last two days in San Pedro visting the rest of must see things. I am going to admit that Salar de Atacama is a little bit dissapointing. Don't get me wrong it is a great place, but I can't shake of the feeling that the tour operator could have shown us more. They definitely had the biggest vehicle by far, it was one of those 4x4 trucks they sometimes use for Safaris in Africa and can be seen full of backpackers in remote Australian outback too. The most impresive thing on the truck? It has a built in barbecue, breakfast was awesome :)

Earlier that morning when I was sitting outside of the hostel for the tour agency guys to pick me up I met Amanda, only that I didn't really meet her that morning because I thought she only speaks Spanish and my Spanish is quite lousy so I kept my mouth shut. So I only met her later in the afternoon when I had to change my room in the hostel and we both had a laugh realising that we both speak English.

As it turned out everybody in our room was going to Los Géiseres Del Tatio the following day. Which was great as we all had to wake up at 4AM in the morning and it just made it so much simpler for anyone, no toe tipping around and so on..

Aparently Los Géiseres Del Tatio are the highest located geysirs in the world (but I never belive guides a 100% so who knows). An amazing place, especially since it was the first time I had a chance to see a geysir in action. Always amazes me what the nature can come up with. And knowing that we were in a Volcano crater was kind of cool too (and no, no danger at all, not every volcano has lava flowing on the surface).

It is amazing how quickly you can become a friend with some people sometimes. Amanda was great company on my last day in San Pedro. I tagged along in the evening when she met with some Chilean friends to watch Copa Americana quarter final game between Chile and Venezuela. To the dismay of the girl working at the reception Chile lost, like Brasil lost earlier that day and she didn't take that easily either as her boyfriend is Brasilian.

Incidentally Peru just lost their semi finals game against Uruguay yesterday too. No luck for teams I cheer for. Although don't tell anyone that I cheered for Chile in Chile and then for Peru in Peru. That is sensitive stuff, I might get beaten up :D

Anyway, I was kind of sad to leave San Pedro which is a very touristy place but so beautiful that I was willing to ignore that. My next stop, Arica, was not even nearly as pleasant. Luckily for me, Natasha who I've met on the trek a few days before was stopping there too so I had some very good company to get through the day before crossing the border in the evening. An impressive girls she is, she dares to travel on her own and she wants to have a motorbike. I wish all girls were like that :D And to top it off she offered to show me around Moscow when I am there sometime in November.

The town on Peruvian side of the border is even less pleasant than Arica so after me and Natasha got out of the Collectivo and said goodbyes to each other I headed straight to the airport and wasted some time there until the flight to Lima was leaving.

So now I am in Lima and this blog is probably going to become a little bit quieter as my main goal is to learn Spanish now.

San Pedro de Atacama, parte III

2011-07-16T10:36:00.005+10:00

San Pedro keeps getting better and better :)

Today I went to a little trek, nothing really big, but it was a great day out. Most people go to "classic" tours around here in San Pedro, so the people I meet today were not your ordinary tour group. We pretty much clicked immediately and the day was just getting better and better all the time.

The trip got even better once we realized that the path eroded a bit recently so we were forced to descend down to the river and cross it. Pretty cool!

The longer I stay here in San Pedro the more unbelievable this place is. It is completely out of this world. If you ever end up in Chile and you choose to skip San Pedro... then you are a big fool. You need to come here for at least 4 days, one day more if you like cycling to and perhaps another few days if you want to climb Licancabur vulcano. San Pedro is calling! :)

And as usual... some photos to make you drool more:

San Pedro de Atacama, parte II

2011-07-15T09:45:00.005+10:00

One of the ways to discover the surroundings of San Pedro is to rent a bicycle and pedal around for a few hours. Some people decide to do Valle de la Luna this way, but I think you probably miss out on certain things if you go there without a guide.

But for everything else bicycle is the perfect way to do it. Just bring lots of sunscreen and water and even be prepared to get a little wet at river crossings (they are not huge but deep enough that sometimes you just don't have enough speed on a bicycle to splash across...).

Most rental places give you a simple hand drawn map depicting places of interest and then they send you out. Gotta say that for some things you have to use your brain a bit, like when you get of the "El Tunel" after which, apparently, you can cross Valle de la Muerte and somehow end up on the main road to San Pedro. I'll be damned if I know which direction to take, though. In true Bear Gryls fashion I pushed my bicycle to the top of the highest hill around there to have a look around and try to figure out where to go but all I could see was just this arid landscape. I opted to backtrack my steps instead, but it wasn't all in vain, the hill I climbed to had a pretty nice view onto the valley beneath.

River crossings are an interesting thing as well. The river is not very high, only about 20 cm or so but if you get stuck in a rut while crossing you have to step down and the noise when you walk afterwards is kind of funny. I had a short chat with a local horse riding guide and he was telling me I was unprepared in my boots. Point taken.

Interestingly enough riding in a hot dry climate is not that hard. You don't sweat a lot since the air is mostly dry and for some reason pedaling seems almost effortless. Perhaps because the air is a bit thinner here - San Pedro is at 2400 above sea level and the barometer says the air pressure is around 760 mbar (gotta love my watch to tell me this kind of stuff)

Overall a pretty awesome day out (yet another one). Stay tuned for more!

San Pedro de Atacama, parte I

2011-07-14T11:12:00.007+10:00

When I think about it... if I followed my initial plan to go from Melbourne straight to Lima I would never discover this little gem that San Pedro de Atacama is.

So back then, when I was looking for ways on how to get to Lima cheaply I decided to do it by bus to Peruvian border and then fly to Lima from Tacna. The downside? The trip to Peruvian border would take 32 hours! A bit of googling revealed a perfect place to break the trip at - San Pedro!

I think I can easily add this one onto my top 10 places in the world. A very chilled out atmosphere and I am not surprised that quite a few travellers actually settled down in this place. The nature around it is just awesome, a desert with a little oasis where San Pedro is. One of those places where your heartbeat almost stops, so laid back it is.

A here are a few pics to make you drool...

Grinning. And the doctor says it won't stop for 5 months!

2011-07-11T08:04:00.006+10:00

On the road again. And every time I go on a trip I start grinning :)

It wasn't without any issues though... Tuesday's flight to Santiago was cancelled and I was rebooked onto an L.A. flight on Friday and changing onto a flight to Santiago there. The L.A. flight was onboard of an A380 and I was wondering how this plane looks like, but nothing has changed... the seats are still cramped and the only interesting thing was a thing called SkyCam. Pretty cool to have a view from top of the fin and watching the big bird touch down in L.A.!

BTW: L.A. airport still sucks, everytime I've been there I've heard Qantas pilots making derogatory comments while the plane had to wait while taxiing to the apron. This time the personel could not make the bridge to work (the thing that they attach to the plane so you can get off).

One jaw dropping experience though. I was sleeping on a bench at the airport and when I wake up I see three awesome looking chicks walking my way. I seriously though I was dreaming but then realized that I am sitting on pretty much the only bench that still had a few empty seats left. They got of at Lima and I reckon my 2 months there are going to be pretty cool!

Ah yes, the stopover in Lima is somewhat ironic. Initially I was supposed to fly straight to Santiago and then make my way to Lima. With the flight change I kind of get to fly too far and then make my way back up :)

But it is cool. Aparently it was just snowing in Atacama desert and that is where I am heading next. Should be a pretty unique experience since it doesn't snow there that often! The photos from Atacama the hostel owner here in Santiago shown me looked awesome! He is a bit of a photographer and I was told I am not going to be disappointed! :)

And a few words about Santiago. Much more modern that what I expected. My only South American experience so far is Lima and that is a place where you have to watch your back. Santiago feels quite European though. The place I like best? Cerro de Santa Lucia. Just because it is colorful and my camera liked it too. Quite a few demonstrations going on around here atm too. A burning issue right know seems to be the subject of free education (from what I could gather), the government is moving towards school fees apparently. So I got to see quite a few fences around the Government Palace. There is one thing that Santiago has in common with Lima though. The presence of police on every major square. Actually there are two things! Pretty much every girl here is muy caliente!

Alpha Lima Echo Sierra out!

Next report from San Pedro de Atacama.

BTW: A few photos below...

Road tripping Melbourne to Sydney

2011-04-26T15:10:00.008+10:00

This time from Melbourne to Sydney and back... and while this may not sound very exciting it was made that way by riding my motorbike there.

No photos this time, though... just no room to pack my camera :) In a nutshell, there are two main ways to get from Melbourne to Sydney (and a whole lot of other variations, but there was no time to experiment in the last five days) - Princess Highway and Hume Highway. Arguably, the ride along Princess Highway is more interesting, lots of fast flowing corners, and lost of nice sea side towns once you get to New South Wales. Victorian side is, most of the time, less interesting, but I did discover one gem - Cann River, a nice little town with population of about 200 souls and a nice vibe... Ironically my phone's internet connection worked better in Cann River than it does in Melbourne.

Anyway, it took me 14 hours of riding over two days to get to Sydney... luckily I was staying at friends place for a day or so and did not have to ride for the third straight day :) My behind was extremely grateful for that!

The ride on Hume Highway is, compared to Princess Highway, rather boring, but it is a lot faster... about 10 hours and a hugely worn rear tire afterwards I was home... They've used some really abrasive tarmac there as the tyre does not look very round anymore (imagine a new motorbike tyre and then use sand paper to scrape off the rubber in the middle and you'll get the picture).

Happy to be back though... and now that I managed to scrape of all insects from the bike helmet and other gear I can get finally get a nice afternoon sleep!

Kilimanjaro

2011-01-16T14:26:00.006+11:00

While on the way to Slovenia I stopped in Tanzania for 2 weeks. In terms of my flight I ended up doing quite a big detour on my way to Slovenia because of this (Melbourne-Perth-Johannesburg-Dar Es Salaam-Kilimanjaro-Dar Es Salaam-Doha-London-Venice), but it was well worth it.

Two weeks in Tanzania is not much really, all I had time to do was a Kilimanjaro climb and a (too) short Safari afterwards, but I was quite lucky with it and saw 4 out of "The big Five" animals which include: Lion, Rhino, Elephant, Cheetah and Leopard. Which one I did not see you might ask... Leopard, they are very hard to spot during the day. The ones I found most rewarding to see? Cheetah and Rhino. What you won't have difficulties to see at all? Zebras and Elephants.

A proper visit to Tanzania would include Zanzibar as well, but I did not have enough time to do it this time around.

The main reason for Tanzania stop over was a minor ego trip that I wanted to do, that is I wanted to climb Kilimanjaro :)

I booked my trip directly with one of the tour operators in Moshi, Tanzania - Zara Tours. They do a lot of tours for bigger agencies as well and have pretty good reviews on various forums. They are not the cheapest option though, but this being Africa I preferred to go with someone who had a good reputation.

Most tour operators offer various options to climb Kilimanjaro, initially I wanted to do Umbwe route, but settled for Machame route in the end. And I am glad I did as I would probably suffer quite badly from altitude sickness if I decided to do Umbwe route because it ascends quicker. Lemosho route seems to be popular among people too and there is Marangu route as well for those who hate camping and prefer to sleep in huts.

If you have enough time then I'd recommend to pay for an extra day on the mountain to help with acclimatisation. On Machame route this means completing the trek in 7 days instead of 6 days. Altitude sickness can affect anyone, it has nothing to do with how fit you are at all. I started to feel symptoms of altitude sickness as soon as we reached 4000m above sea level and the headaches did not go away until we got back to 3000m on our way down. If it gets very bad you will not have any other option but to go down (the other option can be death) and the guides are experienced enough to know when it is enough for you.

They are awesome people and will do everything in their power to help you get to the top and I had a lot of time to get to know them better during my 7 day trek. Mosim even taught me this little song, chorus actually :)

Jambo

Jambo bwana

Habari gani?

Mzuri sana

Wageni wakaribishwa

Kilimanjaro

Hakuna matata

The important phrase here is Kilimanjaro, Hakuna matata which means Kilimanjaro, no problem!

Some other guides like Said are massively experienced and have been climbing Kilimanjaro for 20 years. After day three when most of us started suffering from altitude sickness and he came along to check our pulses his reading was 45 and that was at 4000m high! Mine read close to 80 which is 20 heart beats more than what I normally have and two other guys had well over a 100 heart beats per minute! Said is somewhat of a legend among the guides and he apparently thinks that today's porters are wusses as they are allowed to to carry only 15kg compared to about 40kg he had to carry when he started as a porter those many years ago :) BTW: if you wish to climb with him, leave me a comment and I can give you his email address.

The whole trek is a great chance to hang out with other climbers and I was very lucky with the group I was in. I ended meeting the same people even latter when I was on a Safari (which incidentally means journey in Swahili) and that always ended with quite a few drinks in the evening :)

Anyway, back to Kilimanjaro. The first few days, up until the day you reach the base camp at 4600m high are pretty much just a preparation for what is about to come. Did I say preparation? That is overstating it. Nothing can prepare you for that last night... unless you have done some high altitude training prior to going to Kilimanjaro. As for myself I do not have any mountains around Melbourne and the highest mountain in Australia is only 2228m high, which is not really high enough to call it high altitude preparation (to clarify I only consider proper preparation mountains that are at least 4000m high). An option would be to climb Mt Meru near Arusha before going to Kilimanjaro, but I did not have time for that. I wish I did!

The summit attempt starts around midnight to give you a chance to reach the top at sunrise and get that perfect photo that you always wanted to show to your friends. A side benefit of this is that you do not see how steep it really is as I am sure it would cause at least a few of us to just turn back... You have to get over a very steep section that takes you to Stella Point at 5700m and then the task at hand gets a bit easier for the last 200m of climb. I started off pretty well and was confident the climb won't be a problem at all. I even sang the song above so confident I was :) Then the tube on my camel back froze leaving me without any drinks for the last 4 hours of climb. Closer to Stella Point Mosim noticed that I was struggling and took my backpack which helped a bit, but by then I also had trouble breathing and felt quite dizzy. I am not sure how but somehow we got to Stella Point where I really wanted to sleep but Mosim wouldn't let me. Good on him! So I had to continue, only for a few meters though, because I felt the need to empty my stomach right there. Unbelievable! But leaving my dinner right there actually made the last 200m easier and at 7 AM after 6 hours and 20 minutes of torture I was at the top smiling and posing for the photo! It is a bit ironic that getting back down to the base camp only took me an hour and 45 minutes. I really wanted to get to that tent and catch some sleep...

That last night taught me a few lessons:

- camel backs are useless at low temperatures

- why the heck was I carrying my DSLR weighting 3kg to the top and never use it at all?

That is on top of what I learnt in the days before:

- pole pole or slow slow makes a lot of sense, don't go and tell your guide to go faster like I did on day 3 :)

- drink more water (that is unless your damn camel back tube is frozen)... apparently it helps to avoid altitude sickness if you drink more water than your body needs, not sure if it is true but the guides have a lot of experience and there is no reason not to believe them

- if your backpack weights 13kg that is no help at all, I was shocked to see how much it weighted when I put it on the weight scale at the base camp, again that darn DSLR!

- why did I have walking poles with me? I never use them and I did not use them on Kilimanjaro either!

Make no mistake though, this was one great experience and I take back only good memories. I use the bad ones only to spice up the story :)

Home away from home

2011-01-15T18:57:00.005+11:00

I have just returned from a holiday in Slovenia and been thinking a lot about where my true home is.

There is absolutely no doubt that Slovenia is and always will be my number one home, but having said that I do refer to Melbourne as home now and I get that homely feeling every time I am sitting in the back seat of a taxi going through the city on my way from the airport. I do admit that having to split my affection between these two is causing some hard time for me, though.

This recent visit to Slovenia was only my second visit since moving Down Under and I am starting to notice that saying goodbyes when going back to Melbourne is getting harder and harder each time. It is like reliving the day I was on the airport with nearly 40kg of baggage waiting to board the plane that would take me to Melbourne where I was about to start a new chapter in my life. A moment that was full of mixed emotions, anticipation of what was about to come and realisation that I am leaving behind so many great friends among others.

I like to keep goodbyes short, but that is simply impossible unless you are a people hater with no friends. So this phase of my holiday starts way too early and somewhat kills the fun I am supposed to have while on holiday. And then it takes another couple of days to get back into the rhythm once I am back in Melbourne. Not to mention that I am never able to get rid of jet lag until I am well into working week.

I won't go into what I've been doing while in Slovenia, but I would like to thank all my friends for making me feel so welcome. But I am not thanking you for the week I spent saying goodbye to everyone! I do hope that some of you will come and visit me here in Melbourne before I get a chance to make another visit to Slovenia.

Long term I wish I can buy an apartment in Slovenia someday while keeping my apartment in Melbourne and then perhaps live my dream - spending time in Australia when it is summer here and going to Slovenia when it is summer there.

Dreams, nice to have them, isn't is so?

Melbourne from 2000 ft above

2010-06-13T19:46:00.003+10:00

I've been taking flight lessons for a while now and today after about 4 or 5 practice landings my instructor got a little bit bored and asked me if I wanted to see who is playing at the MCG today...

Unfortunately the game was already over so we headed towards the CBD instead... It is the first time I've seen the CBD from above and it does appear quite small from there :)

Here is a photo:

At the very bottom in the left corner where you see the orange helicopter pad, that's where I work... at the top of the photo you can see Albert Park Lake (I live not too far away from there), right before the lake you can see Eureka Tower (the highest building in Melbourne), Botanical Gardens are on the left right beneath the wing and you can see Victoria Market at the bottom of the photo somewhere in the middle. A trained eye can also spot Etihad Stadium on the right of the photo and not too far away from there is the Southern Cross train station. And of course you can see Port Phillip bay in the background.

Slovenscina at work

2010-05-18T14:02:00.005+10:00

Wow! Google translate works better than I thought!

I've sent an email like this to a colleague at work today:

Subject: RE: Unit test issue
Seveda sem mislil AreEqual
Google can translate this for you ;)

And the smartass responds with this:

Subject: RE: Unit test issue
Vi ste sramota za vaš plemena, morate kupiti vroče čokolade za celotno ekipo P4

Hats off to Google!

Mt Kosciuszko

2010-04-05T09:15:00.004+10:00

Quite likely you will find it a bit hard to pronounce the name of this mountain in English :)

Personally, I've only learnt to say it properly when I've heard Midnight Oil's song named after it. I'll leave it to those of you curious enough to look it up on YouTube.

So what is it all about? Mt Kosciuszko happens to be Australia's highest peak at 2228 meters high. Therefore climbing it means you can say you've climbed the highest mountain on one of the world's seven continents, that leaves only 6 left :D

If you live in Melbourne, like me, you will need to put aside 3 days to do this. And a fair bit of that time will be spent in a car as the drive there takes about 8 hours. You can base yourself in either Jindabyne or Thredbo or opt to camp in Kosciuszko National Park - which I'd recommend. I've pitched my tent in Kosciuszko Mountain Retreat which has a fantastic serene location and is conveniently located near the road to Charlotte Pass.

The hike itself is not very difficult, the shortest route starts in Thredbo, but if you are after something longer you should start from Charlotte Pass which gives you another two options. You can either follow the old road to the top (this can be done on a bicycle as well) or pick the more interesting Main trail where you will have to cross Snowy River and walk by a few lakes, which were originally created by a glacier. Yep, unbelievable as it sounds now, Australia used to have glaciers!

And as a last thing, try not to do it during Easter Holidays like I did! Too many people attempt to do the same and the top of the mountain becomes somewhat crowded...

Walhalla

2010-02-21T12:05:00.011+11:00

Walhalla is another small town from the gold rush era. If the name rings a bell it does for a reason. The name does come from Norse mythology :)

These days Walhalla does not have an operational mine anymore and lives mostly from tourism. It is nestled in a narrow valley and feels very tranquil. It is quite close to Melbourne, about 180km east from it, making it an ideal candidate for a day trip. I wouldn't mind spending a holiday there as there are plenty of hikes that you can do around the town. I couldn't help myself getting an impression that renting a cottage there would not be a cheap undertaking though.

More about Walhalla here.

Roadtrip across The Nullarbor to Perth

2010-01-04T20:46:00.009+11:00

Mad Max movies are my personal favourite, one of only few movies I can watch more than once without yawning. The other movie like this is Shrek :D

My car is nothing like The Interceptor, but hey, I bet The Interceptor can't do a 100 km on 7 litres of fuel like my trusty old Elantra can do :D It deserves the mantle of the least costly car I ever owned. It is really good that I don't care about shiny metal anymore. The exception being the shiny thing from my previous post of course! :)

So it was road trip time again! And this one was a big one, packed into only 9 days I drove from Melbourne across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth and back... roughly 8000 km in total. Call me crazy (you wouldn't be the only one hehe) but I can drive for hours and hours and still enjoy it, just like this grandma. If only she was 60 years younger (sigh) :D

So what is there to see on the Nullarbor Plain? The name comes from latin for nullus and arbor meaning the treeless plain when put together, therefore there is not much to see apart from enjoying the driving experience :)

The whale watching season starts in June and lasts until the end of October and at the Head of Bight, which can be found at the eastern end of the Nullarbor Plain, you can see them really up close. I've seen them from a greater distance before at Logans Beach in Warrnambool and they are impressive to watch. But since it is beginning of January I did not see them this time :)

I did see remains of the telegraph station at Eucla, amazing beaches at Esperance (WA), Wave Rock at Hyden, visited a few mining towns in double-u-ay and paid really high prices for fuel at some road houses in the middle of nowhere.

The mining industry in WA is really big and getting to know more about how miners used to work and live a 100 years ago really gets imagination going.

Did you know that in 1903, the longest fresh-water pipeline in the world at that time was completed to supply Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie with fresh water?

The old telegraph line that connected Perth to eastern Australia is another thing that shaped WA's history. It is amazing to know that over a 100 years ago men who operated the telegraph stations travelled with a camel and a bicycle about 700 km over the arid landscape to get to Eucla telegraph station. If you know that the average temperature on Nullarbor Plain during summer months is 40 degrees celsius you would probably think only once about doing it yourself :D

Then there are towns like Dundas that died as soon as a better mine field was discovered and, more recent, The Super Pit - an open pit mine operation of massive 1.5 x 3.5 km size where they still mine for gold these days.

BTW: The photo of The Interceptor replica was taken in Silverton, NSW. Getting there was a little adventure in itself. Let's just say that now I fully understand why there are so many "Floodway" signs on Australian roads as I got stuck towards the end of one of them and I had to push my car out of it, but the Elantra came back to life after about 10 minutes of trying to start it again. From now on I will slow down when I see one of these signs if it was raining recently (and eventually get a proper 4x4 to take me a bit further into the outback) :D

No Comment

2009-09-06T16:03:00.007+10:00

The Great Ocean Road; Six years later

2009-07-22T20:53:00.007+10:00

It's been six years since I've last been to The Great Ocean Road... Too long. I've been waiting to get a bigger motorcycle first but then Ksenija and Alex made me go there even before that when they decided to have their wedding in Warrnambool, right at the end of The Great Ocean Road.

It won't take me too long to go back there though... Soon very soon there will be a Yamaha XJ6N parked on my parking spot...

Anyway, I had to listen to two drunks on the way to Warrnambool last Friday. It is interesting how some just cannot resist to have a shot of Viljamovka and then another one and then another one.... The stories they start telling afterwards are interesting too... including the one about 850 kg heavy kangaroo... :D

Back to The Great Ocean Road though. You can sort of break it down into two parts... The part from Torquay to Lavers Hill and the part from Lavers Hill to Warrnambool. The former will impress you with the road sweeping right next to the ocean while the latter will impress you with it's cliffs including the Twelve Apostles. And sometimes one of them crashes into the sea. Can you spot the difference between 2003 and 2009 version?

One place I did not stop at 6 years ago is Cape Otway. The sea along The Great Ocean Road is riddled with shipwrecks and is indeed also known as The Shipwreck Coast. That is why they built a lighthouse at Cape Otway in 1848 and it was in use until 1994 when they replaced it with a boring solar panel powered modern version.

And lastly but not least important... We had a great opportunity to see Southern Right Whales at Warrnambool. Every winter they head north, away from cold waters of Antarctica to warmer waters. It was impressive to see these animals jumping out of the water. I don't really have any good photos but this video will give you an idea.

More photos on my Flickr account.

Which horse won the 1930 Melbourne Cup?

2009-07-01T12:38:00.003+10:00

If you know the answer then you also know the answer to a question you may come across when sitting the Australian Citizenship Test.

I had mine today and finished the 20 multiple choice questions test in 4 minutes. Which puts me in the same league as a friend of mine who completed her's yesterday in roughly the same time and with the same 100% score. You are given, in my opinion, a very generous 45 minutes to complete the test but, honestly, if you read Becoming an Australian Citizen booklet then you really should not take that long to complete the test.

Seriously, they've probably made it a bit too easy. There is almost no point in doing it when the answer to the questions are sometimes extremely obvious as all other possible answers to the question just don't make a lot of sense. In my humble opinion it should be a written, essay type, test to make people sweat a little bit more :)

As for me, now I have to wait for up to 90 days for them to finish processing my citizenship application and then... well then I'll be an Australian and Slovenian Citizen.

BTW: The answer to the question in the title of this post is Phar Lap.

A Few Beer Commercials

2009-06-21T20:59:00.004+10:00

Just something we discussed when drinking beer after a game of golf...

Note the scene where a guy pushes his girlfriend into the water in the next one ;)

Cape Shanck, Take Two

2009-06-08T18:44:00.006+10:00

This was a repeat of my first trip that I made when I came to Australia two years ago. The plan today was to continue another 10km further but the weather was really bad so we turned back at Bushrangers Bay and just after we got back to my car it started pouring rain. Perfect timing! :)

Cape Shanck is on Mornington Peninsula and on the way there it makes perfect sense to stop for a coffee at Arthur's Seat and enjoy the views of Port Philip Bay and Melbourne CBD in the distance, some 60km away.

Cape Shanck National Park does not have many walking tracks. In fact I know of only two :) The ones it does have will take you along cliff edges and offer some spectacular views while you do so. There is also a board walk that takes you right down to the sea level where you can observer the power of waves. And today, with the bad weather they were hitting the cliffs quite hard. But personally I think the other one that leads you Bushrangers Bay is better because you have to stretch your legs a bit more.

Close to Melbourne and well worth going there!

Lake Eildon

2009-06-08T18:16:00.005+10:00

Lake Eildon is Victoria's second largest water storage. Or should I say was. The once popular holiday destination is nowadays just a shade of what it used to be. The Wikipedia states that as of May 8, 2007 the lake was at only 5.3% of it's capacity.

It is still an interesting destination for a hike, although it does take about 2-3 hours to get there from Melbourne. Our walk started at Wallaby Bay, continued to School Point and then we ascended to the top of Mt Blowhard (a very descriptive name for a very steep walking path) and then went down back to Point Cook and from there returned to the carpark at Wallaby Bay. Roughly 20km in total.

Rumours are confirmed!

2009-05-10T19:46:00.003+10:00

AC/DC are coming to Australia in February and March next year!!!

I am 100% sure I will be waiting online to click on the Buy button when the tickets go on sale on 25th of May :)

Wish I was there....

2009-05-03T21:25:00.007+10:00

What was supposed to be a weekly feature in Gaceta Ucayalina has been skewed a little bit. Quite obviously it took them more than one "semana" to publish a new "La Chica Ucayalina de la Semana". Oh well... at least they haven't forgot about it. Enjoy!

Source

IMHO this photo is a special one as there are two good things on it, la chica y la cerveza. A man's dream!

Wilson's Promotory NP

2009-04-26T15:07:00.010+10:00

Wilson's Prom is the southermost point of continental Australia as well as a very popular national park. With it's combination of rainforests and beautiful beaches it makes the 220 km drive there from Melbourne more than worthwhile.

The main activitiy on the peninsula is hiking on one of it's many walking tracks. To fully experience this place you have to take one of the overnight hikes though as a day trip will only make you hunger to see more of this amazing place. Like it happened to me yesterday :)

Unfortunatelly I forgot my camera at home and my mobile phone only lasted for about an hour before the battery had enough...

Our hike was about 20 km long and took us to Sealers Cove, a secluded beach where, once upon a time, a sealers community lived and thrived until they've caused seals number drop to just about 100! Some more information about this can be found at Parks Victoria. Hiking wise the walk is moderately difficult and takes you through some beatiful parts of the rainforest, some of it being affected by the recent bushfires, until you reach Sealers Cove where it is best to stop and enjoy the quietness of that place. It is a good thing that some beaches are only reachable by foot as it means less people around (no photos here though, my phone was dead before I got there).

And to give you a glimpse of how some of the beaches look like take a look at this one and drool :)

Photo source here. The beach on the photo is called Squeaky Beach which is a typically Australian name (the best name I've seen so far though was a road named Endless Loop Road). In the past the beach was also called Singing Beach, all because of the sound the white sand makes when you walk on it...

Mad Max Remixed

2009-04-16T20:57:00.004+10:00

When I was still living in Ljubljana my favourite place to go out was Metelkova. Places like Global just weren't for me. The poshiest place I would go to was Kavarna Macek, because of a waitress that worked there. We nicknamed her 'Avstralka z Bizeljskega' because she was from Bizeljsko and so cute that she could not possibly be from anywhere else but Australia....

Anyway, in Melbourne, we have Brunswick Street. This is a place you need to go to if you don't like trendy places and if you want to socialize with down to earth people whose insight goes beyond what to wear on a night out.

Yesterday, Bar Open had a show which was part of this year's Melbourne Comedy Festival. A bit of an underground thing so the audience numbers were not huge. What they did was: take a few Mel Gibson movies, pick scenes that suit your story, remove the sound, put it all together and put your own sound effects and a story on top of it. The end result was a story about a guy who wants to become a dancer. Puzzled? ;)

The whole thing was just hilarious, at one point in the story Mel was fighting (dancing) with someone else and the sound effects were coming from one of the sound effect guys smashing a pumpkin with pieces of it flying into the audience :D

I'll finish off this post with this:

The Great Alpine Road

2009-04-11T16:18:00.007+10:00

Quite a few people think of Australia as a country where everybody surfs or spends their time at the beach in one way or another But we do have a few mountains around here too. Yes, real mountains not just hills. A few month ago I mentioned an apparently fascinating road through Victorian Alps that I haven't seen yet.

So I was out to amend that yesterday. To get to the start of B500 a.k.a. The Great Alpine Road you have to get to Bairnsdale first which is about 280km away from Melbourne. This is a minor road trip by itself already, but not a very exciting one if you are just following Princess Highway. But as soon as you turn onto B500 things change. The road becomes twisty and narrow and starts to go higher and higher. The road's highest elevation is 1850m at Mount Hotham which is one of most popular Australian ski resorts. And the road section around there is the highlight of this roadtrip in my opinion. After that the road starts descending and after the town of Bright (which seemed like a very nice town, but it was late in the day already so I skipped it) you are back in familiar Australian Outback. From there on it is just an easy drive to Wangaratta and then another 240km along Hume Highway back to Melbourne. A few photos follow....

Does something like a bearable airport exist?

2009-03-09T14:55:00.006+11:00

Probably not. Finding way through terminals and all those security checks is the worst part of every trip. Even worse than trying to get some sleep during the flight if you ask me. But I remember some airports as worse than others while some are remembered for other things. And this is a post about the few airports that will stick in my memory for a while.

Without a doubt the worst airport I ever encountered is Los Angeles International Airport. While clearing the customs is the same at all international airports in USA I will still write a few lines about it before I continue ranting about other crappy things at this airport. I can only compare US customs procedures to those I experienced at the Moscow Airport a few years ago. It is even worse actually as the Russians don't take your fingerprints and they do not require you to pick up your baggage even if you are only transiting through just so they can rescan it (this is only required when you are entering USA though). And some of the custom officers in both countries (well, in most countries to be honest) could get rid of their "you could be a potential criminal" look they give you when checking your passport. Anyway I've been warned that LAX sucks before I even arrived there so I guess I was sort of prepared for that. The list continues, though. In all fairness some of the things I will mention next could be due to the fact that parts of the international terminal are being renovated, despite that the signs telling you where to go when you are trying to catch a connecting flight could be better so people don't have to ask airport employees for directions. There were quite a few of them around - I suppose it is because there are a lot of people who are puzzled by this airport. Security checks are another thing... the queue that I was waiting in when I was returning to Melbourne was on one side but the boxes to put your laptop and other junk were like 10 meters away from us so people had to leave the queue to get them and then come back. It don't think it takes much energy to put them in a more convenient location. And once all this is done you find that you can not find anything but tasteless sandwiches to eat at international terminal. And then the flight was delayed by one hour as we waited for the ground team to get their aircraft engine starting equipment to work. A quote from the pilot: "I never experienced something like this in my career before". In my humble opinion a city like LA should have a better airport.

The next airport where you get the Big Brother feeling is Moscow Airport. A few years ago I arrived there late in the evening but my connecting flight was due to depart only next morning so Aeroflot took as to a hotel near airport which was an unforgettable experience. This one falls into the funny category though. So there we were in the hotel and they took as into this secured part of the hotel with guars in the hallway. I settled myself in my room and I was kind of curious how the hotel looks like so I decided to go out a little bit but as soon as I walked out through the door I was told to go back immediately and I duly obliged as the guards were armed. Yep every passenger is a potential terrorist. The irony of my stay in that hotel is that I had less sleep than I would have had if I slept on a bench at the airport but they did provide us with a big dinner and three hours latter with a big breakfast :D

It is the little things that remind me of other airports. Like the "Hooooold on! The train is arriving to our final destination. Tuuuu Tuuuu!" recording they have at Denver International Airport. It brings a smile to your face :)

Continuing, Lima Airport is the only one I know of where airport tax is not included in your flight ticket so you have to pay it before you can leave the country. It would save them money and time if they got rid of this practice. It is just an annoyance that you have to take care of when it really isn't necessary.

At Venice Airport they always require that you put your backpack into a plastic bag if you haven't run it through one of those foil wrapping machines you can find at most airports which I

never do but I really should start doing it at this airport. I promise I will next time!

I also remember the airport in Iquitos very well. Partly because the stewardesses that, now defunct, TANS Peru had were mind boggling. Never before or after I flew with a company that would have stewardesses that could rival theirs. Peru Mucho Gusto! :) And then, as often happens in poor countries, a swarm of taxi drivers started yelling "Taxi! Taxi!" as soon as we stepped out of the airport building. They wouldn't stop even while my friend was smoking a cigarette as we were the only gringos around and thus a great opportunity to earn some money. That was one nervous cigarrete break :)

And there are other airports that I remember for little little things, like the one in Casablanca Airport (because of the train station where you take the train to the city), Dubai Airport (because it was 50 degrees celsius outside at 5 AM in the morning), Singapore Airport (because it was during SARS scare and a lot of people there were wearing one of those breathing fliters), Sydney Airport (just beacause this was the first airport in Australia I've ever seen), Melbourne Airport (because it is my home airport now) etc...

Anyway, I find it hard to like airports at all. Apart from the reasons I mentioned in this post it is also because sometimes you know you are saying goodbye to people you love for quite a while. But on the bright side there is a feeling of happiness when people you haven't seen for a long time come to pick you up from the airport!

Colorado

2009-03-08T06:15:00.009+11:00

The last part of my world tour... And this time I have to describe it a bit more in detail as I can not rely on a certain person to describe it on her blog :)

5 days in Colorado turned out to be great. A slight dissapointment was the lack of snow there but I've been told that it is snowing there today so I've missed it by a whisker. The land there is quite dry which surprised me a little bit as I though it would be moist but instead it is quite similar to what I am used to here in Australia. There was even a wildfire near Colorado Springs while I was there, even though we were in the middle of the winter. Later, the firemen from Colorado who were going to Victoria to help with the fires we had in Victoria and sat next and to me on the flight back to Melbourne told me that those fires are often caused by military manoeuvres as the military often ignores the fire warnings.

While I didn't see much snow I did see other things. Plus I tasted Pleskavica in Denver and then ate Cevapcici at a birthday celebration dinner in Colorado Springs. Good old balkan's food... Yummy!

Colorado Springs, where I spent those 5 days, is a modernly designed city with not many skyscrapers but very good traffic infrastructure which is on completely other side of the spectre when compared to my previous holiday destination, Lima. There is not much to do in the city itself (other than completing the World Mini Beer Tour to which I will return later) but there are quite a few really nice places around Colorado Springs. One of them being Pikes Peak which towers in the background of the city, but I didn't go there this time round.

Instead my friends took me to The Garden of Gods which is an impressive piece of landscape. I just love those red rocks, it is sort of like Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) that we have in Australia only on a smaller scale. And would you believe it, there is no entrance fee to go there as the guy who donated the land to the city of Colorado Springs wished it would remain free to the public for ever. The beauty of this place can only be expressed in pictures though...

A few days later (and beers) we did a small roadtrip to the Royal Gorge. This is where you can find the highest suspension bridge over water in the world (Wikipedia says so). It was built in 1929 some 300 metres above the Arkansas River Gorge. They also claim to have the world steepest incline railway which takes you to the bottom of the gorge but a google search reveals some other places that claim the same so who knows if it is true? Nevertheless it is a fascinating place to see. Then we made the trip even more interesting by taking a detour on the way back to Colorado Springs, the paved road stopped and then we were driving higher and higher through another gorge on a dirt road that was becoming narrower and narrower. Looking at the landscape we were passing I couldn't help imagining how life used to be there in the days before Cristopher Columbus discovered America, for some reason roadtrips always spur my imagination and that is why I like them so much. I would love to do a roadtrip from East coast to West coast of USA one day, time and money permitting....

Later that day I completed my World Mini Beer Tour and earned this T-Shirt. My work in USA was done! For this time though, I got just enough taste of it to make me want to see more.

Time to board next flight

2009-02-28T02:27:00.005+11:00

My time in Peru is over for now. Lima has changed somewhat in 5 years since I've last been here but still remains a city with a very distinct character and if I win the lottery I wouldn't mind buying an apartment in Miraflores.

Of the rest of Peru I've only seen Pucallpa this time round (my friend, Dachita, will post more about this trip on her blog) but I've done the traditional tourist route before. Peruvian jungle is often overlooked by tourists in favour of doing the traditional tourist trip to Nazca, Cusco etc... But for me La Selvia beats Machu Picchu easily. Having said that doing the Inka Trail and see Machu Picchu after three days of walking is still a great experience. Back to La Selvia, though. The fact that these cities are not big on tourism makes for a unique experience. The "tours" there are more or less about finding a local who is willing to take you around and show you things. Or you can just kick back and relax even though that can be a bit hard sometimes with all those moto taxis around. Those things are really noisy but at the end of the day it is all part of the experience. I still prefer a swarm of moto taxis to a horde of tourists - sometimes you feel like a star in these isolated cities in the middle of the jungle as you are the only gringo around.

Where are the photos you are asking? Check them out on Flickr.

Anyway, regardless of if I win the lottery or not I will be coming back here in the future because I like Peru. Peru Mucho Gusto!

My world tour continues in Colorado. I am visiting another good friend of mine there. Robi is another slovenian expat that I know from my uni times. Slovenians are everywhere! :)

Doing nutin'

2009-02-24T06:52:00.004+11:00

I am on vacation in Peru and I realized two things.

First, I need to learn to speak Spanish. Quiero comer (I want to eat) and Quiero dormir (I want to sleep) is just not good enough. It is time to get serious about spanish language so next time I come here I can talk to people. Luckily for me my friends from Lima are saving my arse this time round :)

Secondly, Chicas de La Selvia (from cities in Peruvian Jungle) are gorgeous so I am going to start periodical posts with photos published in Gaceta Ucayalina... La Chica Ucayalina de la Semana for this week is (tada!):

Fires

2009-02-10T21:39:00.006+11:00

Just a few links to show how even animals have sought help from people during the heatwave we had and now during the bushfires we have in Victoria right now...

Full article here.

Some of the fires are quite close to Melbourne. Just two weeks ago I was riding through Marysville, one of the towns that are gone now, 15 people died there... I am sure it is gonna be a creepy experience the next time I find myself there. And one of the guys at work has lost his home during those fires. Some of them have been deliberately lit, those arsonist should be hanged by their balls when they are found.

Oldies Goldies

2009-02-06T19:22:00.007+11:00

I went to two concerts in just over a week, both by musical legends who have both been inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Neil Young last week and Leonard Cohen yesterday.

It was interesting to see the kind of crowds these two guys attracted. Fans at Neil Young's concert were kind of evenly distributed accross baby boomers and younger generation while Leonard Cohen attracted mainly older people, but the guy kicks ass even at 75 years of age. The guy is simply incredible and the concert was one of the best I've ever seen if not the best one ever. And he just wouldn't stop play, other musicians could learn from this guy and that includes Neil Young who ended his show after about one hour and a half of play. Leonard stayed on the stage, except for a few short breaks, for around 2 and a half hours! It made me think that he could not possibly be that old, in his soul he is probably younger than many of his fans.

Just to give you a taste of his music here is one his most well known songs:

But this cover by Jeff Buckley is probably even more known. And if it still doesn't ring a bell then just watch Shrek :)

Sweating it out

2009-01-30T20:39:00.011+11:00

It has been a record breaking hot week for Melbourne. For the past three days the mercury soared to over 43 degrees, topping 45 degrees today and then all of the sudden the temperature dropped by 8 degrees in 8 minutes (Check out the graph for 30th of January here) which is simply incredible but it did happen before so it doesn't leave me with my jaw dropped any more. Cycling back home from work felt like being in a climatized room after that even though it was still close to 35 degrees out there :)

It has been a good idea to avoid public transport these days as you simply could not know if the train is gonna run or not. There has been a massive amount of train cancellations for various reasons, one of them the fact that the tracks simply buckled :) The tarmac in my street was literally melting these past few days as well. On Wednesday when I came home I looked at my motorbike and it seemed to stand under a weird angle. A closer look at it explained it all - the foot stand simply immersed into the tarmac by a couple of centimetres :)

I've been trying to buy a fan for the past two days but guess what? Finding a fan is like finding gold these days. I almost made me laugh looking at the empty shelves in Big W. Ah well, I'll have to sweat out another night but I am getting used to it now. The solution is simply not to wear much at all :D And most other people have a way to cool down too.

It is gonna be only 37 degrees tomorrow and then the temperatures will drop into low 30s which should be a lot easier to handle. In fact I believe it is gonna feel like somebody is blowing cold air in my face...

Moving places again

2009-01-24T10:58:00.003+11:00

If I count all places I lived in so far the total count comes up to 13 different places. This means that on average I moved every 2.4 years :) And over all that time (my own family excluded) I've gone through around 25 flat mates so I've had a new flat mate every 1.25 years on average :)

But finally I've got an apartment that I actually own! Feels great, and I am really glad that I am no longer paying for someone else's mortgage. When you look at the rents in Melbourne it does not really make a lot of sense not to pay a bit more per month and have your own apartment.

Settling in was pretty smooth, thanks to IKEA :) There were a few minor hiccups, though.... the fridge I've got more or less for free from a friend was to big to fit into the cavity provided for it so I ended up buying a new one. And the wait for internet connection was a long one as well. I wonder if Telstra's workflow for ADSL activation in any way resembles Telekom's workflow which I am intimately familiar with. I bet I can still draw it out from top of my memory :)

Anyway my friends, now you really have to come and visit me. I've got free accomodation for you! ;)

Edit: Due to demand from some people... here are some photos of how it looks right now... some furniture still missing :) And if you are after an outside photo of the building then have a look here. Happy? ;)

Simplified guide to Melbourne (and around it)

2009-01-03T11:34:00.009+11:00

Over the past week I had to act as a little bit of a tourist guide and that made me think of the main attractions in Melbourne and the area around it. So I decided to compile a little list (in no particular order).

This list came more or less from top of my head so I know I have missed a lot of interesting places. Sorry about that, I might remember more if you come around :D

Now that I am done with the disclaimer let's get on to the list itself :)

I'll start with things around Melbourne first:

Penguin Parade on Phillip Island. The little penguins are just so funny when they waddle accross the beach. I've seen it three times already and I know I will see it at least three more times!
The Great Ocean Road. A massive fun for a motorbike rider! Apart from that it offers spectacular views, beautiful sandy beaches, national parks and, of course, The Twelve Apostoles.
Grampians National Park. Just after The Great Ocean Road ends at Warrnambool you can point your car towards Grampians spend some days hiking in the mountains there and then continue towards Ballarat.
Sovereing Hill, Ballarat. Sovereign Hill is a place where Victorian gold rush started. Nowadays the gold mines are gone and a living museum took their place instead. Actors dressed in 1850s style walk around, you can try your luck gold fossicking and you can watch how they pour a big bar of gold in front of your eyes among other things.
Bendigo was another gold rush center in the 19th century and is worth of having a look at. They don't have anything as flashy as the museum in Ballarat but the city itself has a very nice relaxed feel to it. And it probably has a better selection of restaurants, too.
Same goes for Walhalla and while you are there you just might ascend to the top of Mt Baw Baw as well.
Ninety Mile Beach. Not many tourist wander there as all there is to see is a long, long beach. It is the third largest sandy beach in the world. You just cannot see where it ends and that is why I like it.
Mornington Peninsula. It boast some interesting roads with the coastal road between Mornington and Dromana somehow reminiscent of Great Ocean Road. Do not miss the scenic view from Arthurs Seat and if you happen to be there around 5 PM you will probably catch a glimpse of The Spirit of Tasmania ferry entering Port Phillip Bay. Another nice spot is Cape Schanck with it's walking paths. And lastly, but not least, the sandy beaches are ok too :)
Mount Dandenong. The nearest "mountain" around here. The walking path to the top is poorly marked so be well armed with maps if you are not familiar with the area. I manage to find a different route to the top everytime I go there :) At the very top there is a restaurant which offers a nice view of Melbourne. The view is probably best in the evening after the sun sets. Big cities look best at night! Apart from that the roads in the area are a motorbike rider haven :)
Wilson Promontory National Park. Sadly I haven't been there yet but I am increasingly more inclined to go there as everybody tells me it is a great place. And the best way to experience it is to camp there.
The Great Alpine Road. Another item still on my ToDo list, the mountain equivalent of Great Ocean Road.

And here are the things to do and see in Melbourne city:

Eureka Tower. The highest observation deck in the city. Again I would recommend to go there in the evening and do not forget to experience The Edge, a glass cube that is pushed out of the building with you inside. The view straight down is fascinating. The whole experience will be even better if you go there in windy weather as the building moves a little bit and until you adapt to it it feels like on a boat :) I've been there twice so far, sadly it was only windy the first time I was there :) And if you do get scared by all of this you can have a beer or two in Belgian Beer Cafe at the ground floor of the building.
Rialto Tower has another observation deck, but I haven't been there yet.
Southern Star is another option to see panoramic views of the city. This time from a lower height though. Southern Star is a giant wheel with cabins that slowly rotates and was just opened for public recently. While the previous two options offer a good look at CBD and suburbs around it, Southern Star will give you a better look at the suburbs to the west of CBD.
Then there are the obvious things that are mentioned in every travel book like Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, Royal Botanical Gardens, Albert Park, Shrine of Rememberance, Parliament House and various museums.
One of the parks I really like is Yarra Bends Park. It boast two old boathouses where you can hire a boat or just have a nice cup of coffee and a cake. There is a nice bike path between the two of them and it continues all the way to the city (it is about a 40km ride from City to Faifield Boathouse and back). Close to Studley Park Boathouse there is a small lookout overlooking Dights Falls. Not an impressive fall by any means, but the area is still nice and the lookout itself is a rare chance to enjoy a few peaceful moments in a busy city like Melbourne.
And do not forget about St Kilda. Luna Park and cafes in the area are a must see. So is The Esplanade and St Kilda Pier.
MCG... The home of sports. Try to catch a game of cricket in the summer or an AFL game in the winter. But if you can't you can still have a look around National Sport Museum.
You will probably miss it otherwise so I'll mention it now. Just opposite Flinders Street Station there is a pub called Young & Jackson, one of the oldest Melbourne pubs. And they serve their very own beer too.
If you are after a night out then the most obvious spots to look for fun are the CBD (something for everyone), Chapel Street (trendy stuff) and Brunswick Street (more to the alternative side).
In the summer the best way to watch a movie is outdoors (you won't get to see latest titles though). One place like this is Rooftop Cinema on Swanston street and it is a great place to have a beer and watch a movie on top of a relatively low building among skyscrapers. The other option is to lay down a blanket and watch one in botanical gardens.
Just around the corner from Rooftop Cinema in a small alleyway there is a parking lot turned into a bar. You can sit on wooden boxes listen to non mainstream music and enjoy a beer. All sorts of people wander there, from punk rockers to reggae people.
Athenaeum Theatre on Collins street hosts stand up comedy shows and other shows quite often.
When it comes to dining you have endless options. Lygon Street is facinating because of it's atmosphere It somehow feels very Italian, New York style :) (though the reastaurants there are no longer just Italian). If you'd like to tickle your tastebuds with something latin then you can try to find something on Johnston street and it's surrounding area. And if you have problems finding something Asian, be it Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or something else then you are just weird. Finding an Indian Curry won't be a problem either and same goes for lots of other stuff. Your tastebuds will definitely not be bored in Melbourne!

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-01T12:20:00.007+11:00

I hope 2009 turns out to be a great year for everyone!!! (well we know that the economy is stuffed but there are other, more important, things that count too)

And I hope you had a great NYE party! We partyed at a huge dance party event called sensation where the dress code was "wear white clothes". So I showed up there with a white T-shirt that said "Rocking out. That's what I do" and white pants that I had to buy just for this event :D

As you can see most people wore white...

And some people did not bother to wear much at all...

Happy New Year again everyone!!!

Penguin Parade, take III

2008-12-30T09:10:00.004+11:00

Seen it for the third time yesterday... and that is, most likely, not the last time. Those penguins are one of the major tourist attractions in Melbourne area so I'll probably end up going there with some other friends eventually which reminds me... Where the bloody hell are you guys!???

Anyway up until yesterday I was certain that seeing those little penguins for the third time would be a major drag but Sasha and Jernej haven't seen them yet so I went along and then found myself enjoing the show again.

Definitely a must see if you find yourself in Melbourne!

Fine Cuisine

2008-12-18T20:08:00.002+11:00

This is a picture from page 110 of The Great Aussie Barbie Cookbook. Looks delicious and poses a dilemma. Which one to start with - the beer or the chicken? A tough one, but personally I would go with the chicken as the beer looks a bit too warm, but if it was a Coopers Pale Ale I would give it a more serious thought.

It is called Texas drunken chicken. You can find the recipe here if that beer looks too tempting to resist.

Elf yourself

2008-12-06T11:06:00.000+11:00

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/JKDZM5c2mrM3s1ze

And btw, donations on movember site are still open :)

HBA Great Australian Run

2008-11-30T13:20:00.003+11:00

After quite a long time I decided that it is time to get movin' so I entered the Great Australian Run. The result was within expectations - I am "only" about half an hour slower than Haile Gebrselassie over a 15km distance :D

The downside to these things is always the need to wake up early. It felt so cozy in bed this morning... But the start was at 8:30 so I had no choice.

I warmed up myself with a 5km fast walk to Albert Park Lake where the start finish line was, dropped my baggage in what are otherwise F1 pits during the F1 race (being the last garage in the pit lane I would say that is where Force India F1 is located) and lined myself for a start. There were about 3000 runners at the start so it was not as big as Melbourne Marathon or The Run For Kids but it was the first time this event was held here in Melbourne so expect a bigger crowd next year.

Well anyway, an hour and 15 minutes later I crossed the finish line. Even though I was half an hour slower than the winner I still managed to finish in first third of competitors which is not too bad :) And I didn't feel that tired at all. The 5 km walk back home through Royal Botanical Gardens was just a pleasant end to a pleasant morning...

See you next year at the HBA Great Australian Run!

Movember is coming to an end

2008-11-20T20:39:00.006+11:00

I blogged about Movember in one of my previous posts. We are only 10 days away from the end and the mo is becoming itchier and after drinking milk a white mark remains there.

The point is you can still donate if you want to (read the previous post for details). Our team at work has been quite successful as we raised over 1000$ so far!

And just for fun here are some shots from a photo story about a bunch of guys with a mo that is rolling on the screens in our office... There is no point explaining the story but you can find me on these photos as well!

Bendigo

2008-11-16T21:29:00.006+11:00

So far I only drove through Bendigo once but this time I had a good reason to have a closer look since two of my friends moved there recently.

It is a quite a charming city actually. Feels very quiet compared to the buzz of Melbourne but it still has everything that a city should have. Some good restaurants included - the lunch was great :)

Bendigo's history began in 1850's with the gold rush and some of the buildings cleary indicate that gold was aplenty back then. There are some very nice victorian style buildings in the city centre. Another thing to notice are the old trams in the city which now mainly operate as a tourist attraction. And there are trees everywhere. From the lookout the city looks like someone build a big bunch of houses in the middle of the bush. Sort of like in Canberra. Very greenish but can get very hot here. Apparently it was 48 degrees here on NYE 2008 - for comparison it was 'only' 41 degrees in Melbourne back then but luckily for me I was on Tasmania at that time and only had around 30 - 35 degrees weather there :D

Globalization

2008-11-15T10:08:00.007+11:00

... And after Carl Barron I went to a friend's going away drinks. She is moving back to Slovenia. Have a nice time there Nina!

Now I have less and less Slovenian friends living in Melbourne almost on a monthly basis :D Ok, I am exaggerating a lot but over the last year I had one friend who was forced to go back because of visa problems, the other one went back to go to a cooking school in France and plans to come back, and two others have recently moved to Bendigo.

I also have an Indonesian friend who moved to Singapore about half a year ago and another Canadian one who is moving back to Canada in a couple of months time.

My friends are now scattered all over the world. I am going to Peru in February to be El Padrino at a friends wedding there and then heading to Colorado to visit an old friend of mine there. And I've just recently been asked to come to a wedding in Laos. My mother said that I am going global :D

It would feel nice to keep more friends closer to me though. But at least I've got Facebook to keep in touch :)

Carl Barron

2008-11-15T10:00:00.004+11:00

Everyone likes a good laugh. And Carl Barron is funny. Maybe he is not a Ross Noble but he is funny. Check out this video on YouTube. We went to see his show yesterday.

Austin-Healey owners meeting

2008-11-10T19:58:00.006+11:00

A while ago I blogged about Porsche 356 owners meeting in a park near me. Como Park is popular for meetings like that. As I walked by this Sunday I noticed there is another meeting going on and the cars looked good. They turned out to be Austin-Healeys.

I just love old sports cars. They are much more raw than modern sports cars and looking at them I just can help having nothing but respect for engineers who designed them using what were, compared to modern car engineering, very modest resources.

Here are a few photos I took with my mobile phone...

Yay! Obama won!

2008-11-05T21:41:00.002+11:00

I don't normally write political post but...

Bush is finally gone. I hope there is going to be less shit going on in the world over the next four years.

Flying Penguins

2008-10-21T21:05:00.002+11:00

This years 1st April is long gone but this BBC prank is just so funny...

I can't wait to see what they will come up with next year!

Movember

2008-10-19T10:17:00.007+11:00

Movember is nearly here! It is a charity event taking place in the month of November each year.

Funds raised go to Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue. For participants the goal is to shave at the start of november and then start growing a beard, moustache, well any form of facial hair for a month while trying to come up with something creative. Perhaps something like Mr T or Borat :)

Our Movember team at work has 11 members. That is 11 different styles at the end of November :) One thing is certain there will be lots of laugh :D

Anyway, if you feel like your wallet is dragging your pants down or making your purse incredibly hard to carry around then DONATE HERE and enter 1364986 in registration number field :)

Australian tourism ads

2008-10-13T20:47:00.004+11:00

We got a new advertisement campaign to lure people to come to Australia. There has been a debate going on about the quality of the previous campaign and the appropriateness of it's punch line "So where the bloody hell are you?" and there are some people who criticise the new campaign already. Personally I like the previous campaign simply because it is different, direct as most Australians are anyway. I have seen the latest ad on YouTube today for the first time and I kind of like the previous one more. But the message of the latest one - "come walkabout" is still pretty cool.

Just to compare it with the new ones here is a commercial from 80s starring Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee). Apparently this one was a huge success and made Australia one of the most popular destinations for Americans...

Let's continue with Lara Bingle...

And finish off with Baz Luhrmann's ad...

Wohoo! AC/DC newest album is almost here!

2008-10-13T20:30:00.005+11:00

Finally, after 8 years the guys have created a new studio album. And apparently it has been leaked to internet already. But the best news is yet to come... according to the article they will go on a world tour and they will come to Australia early next year! Bloody awesome!

A few months ago I mentioned to somebody that all the bands I listen to are either disbanded or their members dead :D Well, I am glad I was wrong, first I will get to see Neil Young live in January and then hopefully, if the date does not clash with my vacation plans, AC/DC live!

As one AC/DC song goes... You can't stop rock 'n' roll!

Cranbourne GP Run

2008-10-05T09:22:00.007+11:00

Cranbourne GP Run is an annual event that coincides with MotoGP race on Phillip Island. In fact there would probably be no event if it was not for MotoGP race. But quite honestly most people join and then just ride to Cowes and not see the race at all.

The event is hugely popular. Several thousand of bikers gather together and then ride to Phillip Island together with people standing beside the road and waving to us. Being part of this is just amazing... all kinds of bikers come along from people with heavily chromed custom choppers to people with Ducatis 1098. A casual visitor to Phillip Island would think everybody there is riding bikes :)

Yep, the warm weather is here and so is the bike rides season! And this is one of the main goals for this year: The Great Ocean Road. Seen it already but never before from a bike seat!

Found something!

2008-09-25T19:44:00.007+10:00

Still pending signature from vendor but it is mine - a one bedroom apartment in block of 8 apartments in St Kilda area. It seems like I am getting closer and closer to the sea each time I move places :D

I am probably not gonna move in until January next year though because there is a tennant living in there at the moment, but I am not too fussed about it.

The apartment itself has been completely renovated just two years ago and is close to all the action St Kilda offers... cafes, night clubs, live music venues, beach... I charted my running track on Google Maps already and it includes a lap around Albert Lake. In a year or so I will have completed a similar number of laps around the lake as Formula One drivers do in their race :)

St Kilda is often descibed as vibrant which means at least a few different things. It can be dodgy or posh. It is probably the Melbourne suburb with longest article on Wikipedia and that I suppose says it all. It is fun!

But they say pictures say more than a 1000 words... here are a few links about St Kilda.... City Traces, I Love St Kilda, St Kilda Today, St Kilda Village (well this one is actually not about photos) and one more about Melbourne - Melbourne Today.

First auction experience

2008-09-20T16:05:00.004+10:00

I saw this cool apartment in St Kilda a couple of days ago so I decided to give it a go.

The auction took place today and as usual there were a few people only interested into seeing how much the apartment will be sold for and a few who were actually bidding. Eventually I lost out to a woman in a business suit. Probably a real estate investor.

No regrets though. I've set myself the maximum amount I was willing to pay for this apartment and I have stuck to it which is the most important thing when going to these things. The winner looked like she could have forked out even more so it would make no sense to make a higher bid.

I'll have better luck next time :)

Back in time

2008-09-17T21:31:00.003+10:00

I was riding to work this morning... stopped at an intersection and as I waited for green light I started looking around and noticed a small sign on the window on the top floor of the building to my right. It said "Socialist Party"...

Flashback...

A couple of years ago I was in Barcelona with a couple of my friends and we went out on Saturday night. There was a night market going on where there were supposed to be different flamenco groups from all parts of Spain dancing. But Unified Socialist Party of Catalunya also had their own tent. And they had the best party going on. Awesome mojito. And drinks were served by a couple of funny retirees. One lady had her hair dyed in violet. Hilarious. I remember coming back to our hotel room at around 6 in the morning. Dasa and Iva came back even later. One of the best nights out ever!

Hello, who is there?

2008-09-14T13:34:00.003+10:00

I check blog visit statistics every once in a while. Curious by nature, that is me.

There are a few quite frequent visitors but the stats only go to certain extent and the rest is left to guessing. So for quite a few of those I do not know who they are.

So make yourself heard. I have a feeling that there may be people reading my blog that I have lost touch with so it would be nice to hear from you!

Talking about dreams

2008-09-14T13:23:00.003+10:00

A friend of mine has been to Antarctica recently. Antarctica is a destination I always dreamt about seeing but never really believed it would be possible to see without having to cash out big time. But having talked to Anna I now know that there are ways to do it with reasonable costs! Not easy to do, though. She went there as part of a crew on a sailing boat. Probably not feasible for me :)

So I googled for jobs on Antarctica and surprise surprise it is actually possible to get a job there. Here is an US site which is probably out of the question for me as I doubt they employ non US citizens. But hold on! Australian goverment has a research station over there too! And there are some jobs available :) For 2008/09 season it is already too late but I can't do it this year anyway :D

Of course applying for a job does not automatically mean getting it but one has to have dreams...

In worst case I'll go to Chile or Argentina and book a tour on one of the boats that go there.

I am back!

2008-09-07T19:48:00.005+10:00

The flight back was friggin tiring. I will never get used to spending 20 hours on a plane. I think I managed to close my eyes for at most 4 hours or so. The cute chick sitting next to me however had no such problems and she decided to use my shoulder as a pillow. Not that I would mind though :)

Melbourne city lights look beautiful from the sky. And looking at the city from the back seat of a taxi started getting me into that "I am back home" feeling. Girls running across street in high heels, a group of punks in their rusty car in the next lane making funny faces... Yep I am home!

Now that I've finally got some sleep I am full of energy again. I had a huge grin on my face when I fired up my bike and rode out of the driveway after three weeks away. Then I went out for a run and I can't wait for the "Ales, wanna play a game of foos?" from either Joe or Troy at work tomorrow :)

Impressions of Slovenia

2008-09-04T21:14:00.003+10:00

My vacation in Slovenia ends tomorrow. It is weird to come here only for a vacation - after all I lived here for nearly 30 years.

Not much has changed after a year and a half away. The nature is still awesome, having drinks beside Ljubljanica river is still great.

So after the first couple of days I was really thinking it wouldn't be too bad to move back here in a couple of years time.

But when you let the initial feelings sink in a little bit you start seeing the other side of Slovenian reality. Low salaries and Australian like prices.

Average salary for June 2008 was 883 euros (source here) and a not too big apartment in Ljubljana would cost you around 150000 euros. Go and figure out how to afford it.

Prices in supermarkets are very similar to prices in Australia too, going out though, is still cheaper although I expect that to change by the next time I come here, which should be in around 2 years time.

So after just over a week my enthusiasm was dampened a little bit.

Nevertheless Slovenia is still a great country and a great holiday destination. So if you haven't visited Slovenia yet I strongly recommend you do - you'll like it for it's nature.

For me the main reason to come here was to see my family and catch up with my friends. I've got to say I have some really awesome friends here and I have spent a lot of great time with them in the past three weeks. Living so far away helps me to appreciate my friends here even more now.

I do wish some things would turn out differently though... Polona you will be very hard to forget!

Well, my roots are definitely in Slovenia, my near future though, is not.

I am off to my vacation. See you in Slovenia! (EOM)

2008-08-16T10:46:00.000+10:00

A fortnight in the cinema

2008-08-10T10:18:00.011+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is coming to an end this weekend. The event itself is quite similar to Ljubljana's LIFFe, the atmosphere is somewhat different though.

I have always found LIFFe just a little bit posh, especially the screenings in Cankarjev Dom. MIFF feels a bit more relaxed. To start with, just like in almost any australian cinema, there are no seat allocations which means you have to arrive early to get a good seat and secondly some cinemas feel really old which makes the experience just a tad more special. One of the venues I especially like is The Forum - the place is designed to look sort of like a roman palace and when you look up at the ceiling you get this illusion that you are looking at the sky.

Back to the essence of MIFF - films. I've seen ten films, they were the usual mix of weird, average and really good films.

Surveillance is a movie by Jennifer Lynch - David Lynch's daughter. Her films are full of bizzare twists, just like her father's. So if you liked Mullholand Drive, Twin Peaks etc then you'll love Surveillance too.

Desierto Adentro (The Desert Within) is a mexican movie about a guy who feels guilty for the masacre that occured in his village and moves to the desert with his kids to build a church and redeem himself. The presentation of the story is quite shocking and can be interpreted in two totally different ways. I see it as a story about a religious fanatic while others may see it as a story about the belief in god. See the film and decide.

Another one worth looking at is Frozen River, a film about a mother who is on the brink of losing her family's new house and strays on the path of smuggling people accross Canadian - US border. Worth having a look.

Then there is The Bank Job, a more mainstream film about a bank robbery which occured in early 70s in London and people who did it are still unknown. Some suggest that it is because they found some incriminating photos of royal family. There is an article about the robbery itself on wikipedia.

This one was part of George A. Romero retrospective. Knightriders. Can't comment much on this one. Best to see it for yourself, the story is about believing in your ideals, but some people in the cinema just found is plain and simple funny.

Ashes of Time Redux is a Hong Kong movie about a mercenary living in a desert who kills people for money. The story takes you through how he got here so there are a lot of flashbacks mixed with his current life. As you can imagine the reason why he is there is a woman :) All in all a good movie.

And here is an Australian movie from 70s which was screened as part of Australian retrospective - Roadgames. It is a typical 70s criminal movie, sort of like Steve McQueen movies :) Not too bad.

And lastly One Night in the City, a czech animated movie consisting of a few short movies. Reminds me a bit about all those czechoslovakian cartoons I used to watch as a kid :)

There was one more film but it is one to forget so I won't even mention it's title.

Looking at the world through googles

2008-08-06T20:28:00.006+10:00

Google has just launched their controversial street view here in Australia. It raises questions about privacy but at the same time it is a very useful tool. There was an interesting article in The Age about people finding themselves on photos. Some of them are quite funny, like the story about a guy who denied parking his car in front of his neighbour's garage and oops his car is on street view in front of that very same garage he denied parking in front of :D

Don't forget to check out the photo galleries on The Age as well. Click here and here to see them.

Talking about cars, mine is on the photo as well, how cool is that!? :) The photo must have been taken more than 6 months ago because the antena is still there in one piece - some bastard broke it just for fun since then.

The other reson why I find it useful is because now I can check properties on sale from the comfort of my home :)

100th post!

2008-08-02T18:07:00.001+10:00

And it is gonna be a short one too as I am in celebration mode. I am not an L plater anymore! Today I passed my motorbike licence test!! Woohooo!!!

A funny stock trading error

2008-07-30T19:04:00.005+10:00

This article has a story about a funny error that happened today on Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). A trader entered the price for QBE stock incorrectly as 0.02 AU$ and as a result the stock lost nearly all of it's value which also caused a big drop in value of S&P/ASX200 index as you can see below (notice the big drop near the end) :)

Duathlon

2008-07-27T13:06:00.005+10:00

Only one post in July so far... I need to post something new, so here it is.

Lately I've been trying to get myself in shape for a Duathlon race, but I didn't really manage to achieve a level of fitness I would be really happy with. Anyway, today I didn't quite know what to expect but I still forced myself to wake up at 5 am (!) and drove myself down to Knox Athletic track, registered myself, set my bike in transition area and started the race at 8 am. The first running part went really well and I was doing well later on the bicycle right until I heard a "Pfffft" sound from the rear tyre. Bloody Hell! I did a lot of riding in the last 7 years or so and this was only my second flat tyre ever. At a very inapropriate time. Luckily for me I wasn't too far away from the end of bike leg so I just started to run and pushed my bike along and then even managed to recover one place in the last running leg to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack :)

Good stuff this duathlon thing.

IPhone craze

2008-07-11T20:53:00.003+10:00

Read this! Unbelievable isn't it? All this just for a phone!!?? Would it matter if they bought their funky iPhone a couple of days later? I don't think so.

Or perhaps I am just a stupid guy who doesn't understand the importance of having an iPhone...

Settled in I guess

2008-06-26T21:52:00.005+10:00

Hmmm... the more I think about it the more I realize that I am more and more slipping into some sort of routine over here, down under.

That is kind of scary for a person who always dreaded the routine, but surprise, surprise I don't find it intimidating at all - meaning that I am not looking for a new place to move to but instead planning to settle down.

I've been doing a lot of research about Melbourne's real estate market for a couple of months already. I am trying to find that little reasonably priced suburb close to CBD. As one could expect this is not an easy task, prices have gone up everywhere but a two bedroom apartment is still within my reach and now it is more or less a case of determining what gives me the best price/comfort ratio. I suppose I am in the last stage of my research now, I narrowed down my options and started going around to inspect places and get a feeling for what my dollar really can buy - the advertised prices are very rarely final prices. I hope to have a New Year's eve party in my own apartment this year!

The rationale behind everything is that sooner or later I need to get out of rental market, because it is going crazy lately. I am lucky though, sharing my friends apartment for a very reasonable price. As weird as it sounds it will feel much better when I will be repaying my very own mortgage. It won't change my life that much anyway, I won't have to give up anything I like doing and I'll get to do it in my own apartment :D

Beware!! A Toyota driver is near! :)

2008-06-17T22:07:00.006+10:00

It is amazing how many traffic offences one can see even on a short 5 km ride back home.

I was heading back home from work and waiting to complete one of Melbourne's infamous hook turns... the lights go red and I see this girl in her Toyota continuing into intersection anyway. The intersection was jammed even without her, not to mention that you are supposed to stop when the light are red. Anyway the guy in a car in front of me did not see her and he turned right - a near miss. And like doing a traffic offence is not enough the girl in Toyota gets a serious case of road rage. I could hear her yelling even though she had her windows closed. Geeze! She managed to jam the intersection even more, but being on a motorbike I somehow got around her and continued.

Only a couple of kilometers later on a similar scenario. Red lights, a Toyota, driving straight into intersection. The BMW in front of me spotted the Toyota in last moment. It is good that the instructor at the motorbike course and my bikie friends warned me about all those weird people in cars :) On a different note, I find the fact, that a lot of bike riders will give you a nod when you are passing by, both interesting and cool - feels almost like I am a part of big bikie family now :) Anyway, from now on I am gonna give special attention to Toyota drivers :)

What is wrong with people driving Toyotas? Those cars are supposed to be dull cars for people who obey road rules! :D

It is amazing how different traffic can be from one day to another. Yesterday, I had a nearly empty road while today I had to battle a lot more metal. It looked almost like collective bad karma! :)

Turisticna pasteta

2008-06-09T15:30:00.004+10:00

I was thinking how to translate the title into english but this is the best I can think of: Tourist paste... and it sounds a bit too lame to use it as a title.

I tried to google it and couldn't find a translation. I like to say that if you can't find something on Google then it probably does not exist and you can quote me on that.

However, there was one hit which led me to the very same person who gave me turisticna pasteta on Saturday in the first place. Thanks Nina!

The turisticna pasteta made up a great breakfast on Sunday morning and also made me think of the meals I still have to include on the menu I am about to give to my mum when I come to visit Slovenia in just over two months time. This is what I've got so far (again I won't be bothered with translation):

Idrijski zlikrofi (my mum makes great ones as she should since she was born in that region)
Struklji
Prsut & teran (nothing beats prosciutto and Teran wine from Karst region)
Jabolcna pita
Pasulj (yeah, yeah... I will be farting a bit afterwards, be prepared)
Slivovi cmoki
Ocvrte deznikarce (I am probably only dreaming - can't find mushrooms in the middle of the summer)

The list is still incomplete because I keep on forgeting to write ideas down, but hey, I've still got 2 months of time!

Did it!

2008-06-02T19:19:00.003+10:00

It happened....

I was riding my motorbike to work and I was nearly there already, had only about 10 metres to go to stop and park my bike but there was this truck in front of me... and he stops....I stop too... then he changes into reverse and starts reversing. Aaaaaaaa!!!! He didn't see me and I had nowhere to go, so I dropped my motorbike and started waving at him, luckily he noticed me and stopped - 10 cm away from my motorbike!!! Whew.... my hart was thumping big time... there was my baby, lying on the ground, just centimetres from disaster! :)

Epilogue? Miraculously there is no damage on my bike. Apart from a bent brake lever there are just a few tiny scratches. I'll buy a new brake lever tomorrow, but I learnt a big lesson :)

Ain't life fun? Learning new stuff everyday...

Healeasville Grand Hotel

2008-05-25T17:16:00.004+10:00

There is nothing too special about this hotel, it is just one of those places that kept some of it's old charm (just check out this photo). And it is popular with bikers.

We stopped there today while on a ride and one of my friends said during lunch that you can only find places like this in Australia. It caught me by surprise because I thought places like this can be easily found in Canada (he is a Canadian), but apparently not.

The ambient certainly makes you think that the time has stopped a bit here. The hotel itself was established in 1880 and after I saw that writing images of carriages and horses in front of the hotel sprung to my mind. Nowadays horses are replaced by motorbikes and carriages by cars though :)

One other thing about these kind of places in Australia is that they will always have excellent steaks. Australian cousine is all but non existant, however you will always find excellent steaks if you veer into any country town :)

Did you know?

2008-05-24T21:15:00.004+10:00

That Melbourne has the largest tram network in the world? Yep, the network has about 250km of track and Yarra Trams, the company that runs the network, has 500 trams in their fleet of which about 450 are in operation each day.

Trams give Melbourne a distinctive character, the city would certainly be quite a fair bit different without them. The familiar sound of bell when they start moving reminds you that you have to pay attention to trams too. Even the new trams have that bell sound, but not from a real bell. And apparently the hook turn, a special road rule used in some intersections when turning right (keep in mind that we drive on left side of the road here), was designed to give trams priority. These kind of things make driving on Melbourne roads a unique experience, so unique that I know a few people who rather avoid streets with tram tracks and intersections with hook turns while driving.

As nice as trams are, public transport in Melbourne is far from perfect. Melbourne is growing by nearly 1500 people a week and that is putting a lot of strain on public transport. Connex, the company that runs Melbourne's train network, has got to be the least popular company around here. People just don't like being boxed like sardines on a train during the morning and afternoon rush hours. You can't blame them, who would?

However, there are no such problems if you ride your motorbike to work :)

Sort of dunno nothin'

2008-05-17T20:32:00.003+10:00

The company I work for at the moment had a big corporate event this weekend aimed at team building and presenting the company's goals. It was great fun and a chance to get to know the people better.

But anyway, during one of our team sessions we watched this video by an Aussie Folk musician Peter Denahy... Good old Aussie humour!

Spaghetti Harvest

2008-05-06T21:35:00.003+10:00

This was an April 1st joke broadcasted on BBC in 1957. A great hoax :)

More about it here.

Some veeeery deep thoughts

2008-05-04T09:42:00.009+10:00

Funnily enough ocassionaly I do meet people who do want to move out of Australia.
A friend of mine had a farewell party yesterday as he decided to go back to Indonesia. The main reason for his decision being the inability to find a job that would tickle his brain enough... which I completely understand as accounting seems boring in any case to me :) I've got to admit that it feels weird to see someone actually moving out of Australia, though.

As you can imagine there are quite a few people in Australia who want to travel or even move overseas. I suppose there is a bit of fascination with far away places in everyone of us and I am a perfect example. I was never interested in traveling around Europe and I still don't plan to do it any time soon. There are plenty of other less familiar places to see before that. Anyway it is interesting to see that a lot of people overlook what they have just in front of their eyes. Even I feel there is a lot of things in Slovenia that I should have seen but I haven't. But discovering those places will be something I will do during my holidays there every couple of years or so.

I do enjoy living down under in Melbourne and I guess I find it difficult to accept that some people don't like it the same way I do. I would say I had very realistic expectations when I came here and that is why I like it. Some things turned out even a lot better than I thought they would!

It is probably very different if you come here with high hopes only to see that everything is not perfect here - as it is not anywhere in the world. The most important thing is to have the ability to adapt to Australian way of life. And believe me there are things that can be annoying. Even their easy goingness when you want to have something done quickly. My point is that if you plan to move to another country have realistic expectations about it. You are not gonna be an instant success in the new environment!

There you go finally something that is not related to my new motorbike... which is waiting for me to go for a ride today :)

My new toy!

2008-04-26T15:59:00.011+10:00

A few photos of my new favourite toy :)

I just picked it up today. Ain't it a beaut?

Went to the bike shop early this morning to sort out the paperwork and most importantly sort out the insurance before I sat on it! :) After half an hour I was ready to navigate my way out of Melbourne's CBD towards my home.

The bike looks really good and looks more like a 500cc bike rather than a 250cc one. Surprisingly I find it easier to ride than the 125cc bike I rode at learners permit course last Sunday. I only managed to do about 40 kms today as the weather is not too fantastic this weekend here. It was a very pleasant ride and I am looking forward to doing some more soon. The sound of the V-Twin is music to my ears!