A long week-end

It is currently Tuesday, and i have decided to reflect on my long weekend full of activities. It all started off last week Friday evening, Penny had managed to pull some strings and get Tim, Scott, Jonno and me to attend an orchestra performance in the Sydney Opera House. The orchestra, rePlay: symphony of heroes, played many songs from a variety of games, ranging from the legend of Zelda to Kingdom Hearts, all the way to Halo and Portal 2. Every symphony was accompanied by a short cutscene of the game, depicting its genre and style. In between cutscenes, wonderful graphical animations of the Scottish island from the game Dear Esther would be displayed along with a short narrated story of what was to come next. Overall, I really loved listening to the symphonies played in Final Fantasy or the deep bass songs of the Bioshock series. Moreover, i managed to get a good look at the Sydney Opera House from the inside, an i must say, i was really impressed from seeing it all up close. I also got around to reading the various architectural methods used to construct such a great Opera House that really represented Australia's drive of culture. I read about how they designed a model of the sails, cut out of a spherical shape in a circular order, in such a way that exact precision would be maintained. It was all really impressive, both the building and the orchestra itself.
The next day, Tim and i went to our last tennis training, barely playing any tennis as the scorching sun rays burned anything it touched. As soon as we got home, i got changed into casual clothes and decided to spend the day at the aquarium, i would have to go by myself as Tim was taking a nap after a bad headache that he'd developed on our way back from tennis. Chris agreed to drive me out to Darling harbour, where the Sydney Sea Life aquarium is located, i would make my way home by myself afterwards. The aquarium was one of my main items that still remained on my to-do list, i wasn't disappointed by what i saw. The aquatic collection of nautical creatures ranged from the blue-ringed octopus to the white shark, the platypus and even the gigantic Japanese deep-sea spider crab. The entire complex consisted of a collection of smaller fish and sting rays in salt water tanks and multiple transparent, glass-made water tunnels that provide a panorama view of the sea above you, enclosed by nets to prevent the sharks from escaping. I was flabbergasted by the entire experience that the aquarium delivered with its amazing fish and crustacean collection. After finishing off a tour of the Sea Life nautical zoological park, i made my way to George street, picking out appropriate souvenirs for my family members. As soon as i got home, i changed and got ready for the Derby of Sydney grudge match between the legendary, Del Piero-owed Sydney FC and the newly created underdogs, the Western Sydney Wanderers. We arrived at the match about 1 hour before the great match began, and i went through the usual pre-match rituals of buying a club scarf of the home team. The match itself was extremely exciting and tense, with the Ono scoring the opening goal in the second half for the Wanderers, before receiving 3 goals against from Sydney FC. We watched through to the end of the game and i can very well say that the Western Sydney Wanderers supporters match if not even overtake some clubs' supporters in the Eredivisie. I just loved the passion with which they cheered on their club as if it was a grand final, even encouraging them to perform when goals against were scored. After the final whistle, we all made our way back home and i got into bed directly because i was extremely exhausted, after a day of waking around Sydney my legs were too sore for walking. The next day we all headed out to the park for the Altis family fun day, where we hired Kayaks, went fishing and played football. It was a great day to be outside, the sun was shining and we went for swims in the bay and enjoyed a good 'yak' around the docks. Monday i went on an excursion with the english boys from Newington, Jasmine from our school, two boarding Japanese girls and Tim, to the featherdale wildlife park. Here, we got to feed kangaroos on our laps, touch koalas, emus and even wombats. We got to see pythons, lizards and tasmanian devils, they even had a giant salt water crocodile. After our visit to the park, we headed out to the Sydney University to look around campus and check out the university building. That pretty much sums up my long weekend of endeavours and adventure

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Late Update

The past week has been long and awesome! I participated in activities ranging from boomerang throwing to sheep shoving to watching sheep being sheared. This all was part of an excursion organised by Newington and PLC for all exchanges, including Tim, Josephine, Jasmijn and me from The Netherlands, Jake and Alfie from England and two shy boarding girls from Japan. We assembled in the morning at 8:25 at PLC together with the other exchanges and Mr. Bennet. We then endured what would be a long and warm bus ride that took 1,5 hours. By the end of the ride we had only just left Sydney and already the Blue Mountains were in clear sight in the background. We had arrived at a real Australian sheep-shearing station, which was more of a farm than an actual shearing holdfast. A man landed Nick was assigned the tedious job of handling the tourists and he started off by explaining to us just how huge Australian sheep farms can get. It turns out, they're pretty humongous. Apparently there are farms the size of the UK, The Philippines and Indonesia combined! This is mostly because deep into the Australian desert, the rule of 1 sheep per 10 acres of land (but mostly even more) is taken into account when establishing a sheep farm. However, because this farm, the Tobruk Sheep Station, was so close in to Sydney and had fertile and grassy fields, the rule of thumb that was taken into consideration was 5 sheep per 1 acre! Now you can imagine the amount of money they made on selling wool, selling meat and selling bio fuel. So we were then demonstrated how sheep are sheared, tried throwing a couple of boomerangs and were taught how to use real whips. After a tiring day at the farm, we had some sausages and made our way back into Sydney.

An exhausting weekend

I have had by far one of the most tiring weekends since my arrival in Australia, packed full of activities and action. It all started on Friday after school when Scott and I decided to organise a get together with the Haberfield boys and go for a swim in the bay. We called up the guys and had everyone meet up at King George's park around the cove, which was about a 3km jog away from Haberfield. Although Robson park is much closer, we decided that King George park would be much greener and calmer. As soon as we all arrived at King George, we decided to have a swim first and then play some rugby later on. The cove wasn't too sold and the water was rather clean but Scott would't let me stay in longer that 10 minutes, this was because of the regular presence of bull sharks in and around Iron Cove. After our quick dive and swim, we made teams and played touch rugby, this would mean that no tackling was allowed and instead we would just tap each other. Nevertheless, it was extremely exhausting and my knees were completely bruised by the time we had shuffled the teams around. Eventually, i sprained my ankle and had trouble with even walking. I sat out the rest of the of the match and then we all went for a last and final dive before all walking back home in the dark. The next day i could feel every single muscle in my body, ranging from my legs all the way to my shoulders. I was exhausted. Scott and i spent the morning sleeping and playing cards on the veranda until we were told to dress up and get in the car because we were going to witness the world challenge NRL grudge match between the Eastern Sydney Roosters and the mighty Wigan Warriors from England. This was the descisive match of the NRL  world. It was the best in Australia against the best from England. However, a couple of minutes into the game i noticed that the English weren't as great at NRL as the Australians were. Eventually after a complete domination by the Roosters and a lack of resistance from the Warriors, the game ended in a large 36 to 14 edge on the match for the Roosters. After a great introduction game to the NRL, i could not wait to go to bed and have a good sleep. No sooner did i close my eyes and around came Sunday morning, with a big day ahead. Today was the day that we would finally get to admire Australia's native wildlife. We all got into Lorraine's blue Skoda, who was kind enough to drive us up to the Zoo, and soon arrived at the Sydney Zoological Park. We started off by visiting the nightlife exposition, seeing all the little rascals that come out at night in the wide open Australian desert, except now they were in small desert-emulating sections surrounded by glass. Here we saw a couple of different types of rats, some flying others sprinting across the vast sandy plains. We then continued to see the extremely popular platypus and of course the endangered Tasmanian Devil! We then went on to see humongous crocodiles, cute koala bears, fluttering penguins and of course Asian elephants. After a good day at the zoo, we grabbed a ferry across the harbour and proceeded to buy some indian food. Upon arriving home, Chris volunteered to drive Tim and me out to a relaxing beach that had a naturally sculpted basin on its side. All in all, it was a rather spectacular week-end.

The 6 foot Track

Last week friday after school, i embarked upon a journey of discovery together with the Packett family. I had already packed my bag the night before, taking in consideration the fact that there is no electricity and that it would definitely rain. I was told that we would be staying in a an eco-lodge, a lodge purely based on solar panels and large water reservoirs. This lodge was apparently located in the Blue Mountains, a ring of huge hills surrounding Sydney and blocking access to the rest of the Australian desert. However, 1 hour into the car trip and i realised that we had not even left Sydney itself. Never mind the drive into the mountains, we haven't even made our way out of the city! I then realised that the best way to pass the time would just be enjoying the view. After having stared out of the windows for some time, i was beginning to wonder where the mountains where. I had this image in my head that it must be at a very high altitude, covered in snow or simply rock and dust. However, to my surprise i discovered that the Blue Mountains are actually rather overly vegetated, much like a mix of a topical jungle and a European forest. It was truly a strange image, you could be driving over huge fields and ranches one minute or on a road surrounded by tropical trees towering closely over your car and the next minute find yourself slithering around mountainsides with completely vertical tree trunks. We arrived at the lodge about half an hour after having entered the forested area and i immediately started unpacking and meeting new people and friends from Haberfield. We had some sausages and played poker and hung around the fire the rest of the night. The next day we were up and going with some early breakfast, grabbed our fishing spears and were off down to the creek. I spent the entire day diving into pools, climbing rocks, hunting for carp and catching lizards. We moved from one pool to the other, each time hooping from rock to rock, over small streams and swimming through string currents of water. We never managed to catch any fish that day but did get very close twice, unfortunately the fish managed to outsmart us every time. We returned back to the lodge only once for lunch but return back to the creek for some more relaxation in the downstream pools. In the evening we had dinner, washed up and played a couple of games of cards and went to bed exhausted. It was Sunday morning and most of us were already up and going at 9, ready for the big event that we had all been looking forward to; the six foot track! I packed my bags, grabbed my water bottle and pocketed my phone. After some delicious breakfast, i headed out with Chris, Pam and Penny as well as Tim and the Haberfield boys on a long journey through the blue mountains of 8 km. On the way we had sprinting challenges, sang Newington songs and i managed to take some nice Photos. Do keep in mind that it was raining all this time, sometimes a mere drizzle and at other times it completely poured. However, the rain didn't seem to bother us because of the rather warm climate and the contrast in temperature balanced it all out. So after a good and exhausting 3 hours of walking, we had finally arrived at our destination where the parents awaited us and spoiled us with wraps and drinks. We were all drenched to the bone so all of us quickly changed into some dry clothes, hopped into the cars and drove off. The Packetts and i however, were going to first stop at the three sisters, a nice viewing area that gives an overview of the valley in which we had stayed for the Week-end. It was truly wonderful, my phone was out of batteries but nevertheless i simply absorbed the breathtaking view. The sight of fog slowly rolling out over the dense tropical forest and then gradually soaking in was absolutely amazing. However, our appreciation of nature was abruptly interrupted by a heavy shower and so we ran back into the car and made our way to a local bakery. Here the Packetts treated me on a delicious potato and meat pie and a nice hot chocolate. That pretty much sums up my great weekend, yet another successful two days well spent in Australia!

The Powerhouse Museum

Alright, i know that i haven't updated my blog lately but rest assured, i am still enjoying my time at Newington here in Australia. My Australian cultural knowledge expands further every day. Yesterday, for example, Timothy and i visited the Powerhouse museum in Sydney. The Powerhouse museum is a truly fascinating museum that does not only portray the great achievements of humans in the field of science, but also manages to indulge and incline itself into other social topics of interest such as musical culture, fashion and design. We were extremely lucky to be able to visit the Powerhouse museum during a gaming exhibit. This special sight is only available for a short period of time and portrays the evolution of gaming like no other wikipedia page or text book. This exhibition allowed the user to engulf himself in gaming history by experiencing i himself, the exhibition itself was a collection of games and consoles that were available for the visitor to play. This included games ranging from pac-man, asteroids, super Mario and sonic all the way to Singstar, LEGO Star Wars and Starcraft. You could see and understand how gradual the change in computer gaming industry was, how it managed to evolve from the basics behind donkey kong, to the algorithms responsible for the action in Diablo 3. It truly was a fascinating experience. Other parts of the museum included a huge exposition about The Beatles visiting Australia, fashion through time and technologies that changed our minds. Below are some pictures.

Picture

Sorry for forgetting to include images in my previous post but i completely forgot. Anyway, here are some photos of the past couple of days. Luna Park

Harbour Bridge View

Newington

Uniforms

Darling Bay

Havaianas

Alright, so its Monday right now and today i have had an early start at 6 am followed by tennis training down at the Newington courts. It was rather nice to finally have a chance to play in the open air, in the shade mostly and with a cool breeze around you rather than the scorching heat. After a good 50 minutes of training, i got changed and continued my day as usual. Last weekend however, was a rather interesting experience. After our morning tennis training, Chris volunteered to take Tim and me on a field trip to the local Fish Market. Here we saw the most amazing sea creatures, ranging from giant Rock Lobsters all the way to humongous Tuna. Chris kindly treated us on some raw fish, fried fish and Calamari with the condition that i would try Calamari. I couldn't stand the temptation of delicious fish, I must say Calamari was a rather dull and tasteless experience, nevertheless Timothy insisted it was absolutely delicious. In the evening, Scott, Jonno, Tim and I decided to go to Luna Park. Luna Park is an attraction park in Sydney Harbour thats mainly known for its entrance, which is a clowns face. The entire attraction park is designed in an old vintage style. However, the rides were much too expensive and not anything we hadn't seen before. So we made our way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge while the sun was setting and i must say that i was amazed by the breathtaking sight of Sydney all around you, lit up and reflecting in the Harbour and the Sydney Opera House just floating in the foreground. It was truly an amazing sight. After we had crossed the bridge, we made our way to Chinatown, steadily and by foot. However, our long trip soon paid off as we arrived in Chinatown and admired the pre-Chinese New Year festivities. Fake Tattoos, Artists making portraits and Musicians playing out in the street. A while later, we were all tired of walking and hungry for dinner, so we fished out a cheap but delicious Chinese restaurant and had some Noodles, Prawns, Spring Rolls and Rice. Later that evening, as we walked home from the bus stop in Haberfield, we dropped in and bought some Gelato. What a great Weekend indeed.