Regardless of how wonderful life can be (you'll see when you read the next post) - there are these moments when it all seems hopelessly unimportant. Thank God, or better, that guy in Syria a mere 3400 years ago who allegedly wrote the oldest piece of music to date - at least of which we know, for music. One and a half year ago I wrote and recorded a song (with the title Alles) as a wedding gift for my wife Christine. Yesterday evening in a melancholic mood I cut a small non-pretentieus video clip for it from video and photo footage on May 11 2007 (our wedding day).

Hope it makes you feel as good as it did me!

PS: The audio quality of the youtube video isn't very good, Download a much better version right here!

... and still, we (my wife Christine and I) have barely scratched the surface of all the wonderful things to see, do and experience in Australia. First the bare facts: Melbourne - Launceston - St Helens - Launceston (both Tasmania) - Melbourne and subsequently Bairnsdale - Nelligen - Sidney - Canberra - Beechworth and back to good old Melbourne in time for the fireworks at new years eve.

Our travels first led through some of the most pure unspoiled and oldest landscapes on the planet. Although unlikely, if there is one place where you wouldn't be surpised if an iguanadon or T-Rex came wondering about from the bushes, it would be along some lagoon on the Tasmanian eastcoast.

Most people take road trips along the golden coast, from say Cairns to Brisbane or even further, to Sydney. That's definitely on my list too. But for those who already did this, or ones who are interested in an equally beautiful and spectaculair alternative, travel from Melbourne to Sydney via the Victorian / New South Wales coast. Rain forests, national parks, tiny little communities with pittoresk guesthouses, and widescreen views of rocky outcrops and white sandy beaches. And at the end of the trip, there is Sydney ...

... with its beautiful botanical garden, fantastic zoo, opera house, harbor bridge and also its line up of literally hundreds of eager Japanese in front of Gucci, Ferragano and Vuitton shops on Boxing day. Help! The pinnacle of consumerism, in line for 150 dollar bags which can only be used to to put more expensive stuff into. On Dec 27, via boring and rainy Canberra and - what a place! - authentic, beautiful and heart-warming Beechworth ...

... it was back to Melbourne. Admittedly, Sydney has got the better zoo, the more impressive botanical garden and the best fireworks. But Melbourne has a more pleasant CBD with better bars and cafes, better soy lattes, it has better universities, better food in general, and most importantly, many more genuinly friendly people. I'm gonna miss this place! 

 

 

First touched by Dutch VOC explorers in the 17th century (Dirk Hartogh and later famous Abel Tasman), Perth was firmly established as a permanent settlement 2 centuries later by the British after - as in the east - vast quantities of gold were found basically laying around for the taking. Back then - and still today - the capital city of Western Australia (WA) is far, far away from everything, every one and everywhere. Thank God for them and too bad for us. Aside from a series of showers on day two of our visit there to the 30th CAITR conference at the Uni of WA, the only possible conclusion is that this is the closest you get to paradise - city and landscape-wise.

Where else would you see Pelicans chill out on lantarn posts?

would you enjoy a 60 AUD room in 19th century victorian Townhouses

with a view like this

and your private chapel should you need it.

We had a lovely and very useful three days, well organized by the WA Uni (thanks Doina!) ...

... and we couldn't help but enjoy the laid back but cosmopolitan feel of Perth,

and the vibrant seaside town Freemantle 

with its beautiful and historicaly set harbor

its museums and beaches

and its excellent bars and restaurants

some of which even had wood-ovens named after visiting professors ... 

A taxi ride from Tullamarine Airport in grey showery and 17 degrees freezing  Melbourne put our feet firmly back on the ground. The most profound novelty of the week came about in the evening when I had my first ever Chinese-made Italian style Pizza (which was excellent by the way)

 

On saturday, we (Majid, Rob, me) went on a mission to visit the Nobbies, two rocky outcrops on the South-western edge of Philips Island located about 130 km South of Melbourne.

Of course, this involves (like most activities in Australia) 2,5 hours driving - thanks Majid!

Philips Island is (world) famous for is daily penguin parade, where at sunset, thousands of satisfied penguins who have spent the day fouraging at sea, wabble back to shore to rest and (if in the right season) feed their offspring.

To divert mass tourism from harrassing these busy little fellas, a decade or so ago a second eco-tourist attraction was set up: The Nobbies. Two rocky outcrops where large hurds of furry seals enjoyed sunbaths and shelter for their youngsters. A truly mesmerizing and awsum spot, although we did not get to see any furry seals at all. We did see many seagulls ...

... and probably a zillion blowflies, who would do great as pets, since they manage to follow you for several hundred meters, and are resistent to any slapping unless it kills them - in which case they multiply. But dealing with annoying flies is less of a burden when there is so much beauty to look at:

Ozzies take conservationism very seriously - and we owe them for it, since their country is home to many unique and invaluable biotopes and natural resources. They also have to, since they live on a continent where climate change has a very serious impact on the here and now. Water is rationed in Queensland as we speak. Although we may seriously overestimate the human role and influence on climate change on a longer time scale (the climate has never been more stable than in the last few thousand years), if the "Al Gore-doctrine" leads to more awareness and to more responsible and sustainable use of our planet, by all means, believe what you will. And so it the right thing to do to spend 5 dollars in the Nobbies giftshop, even if it makes you look ridiculous

 

 

Things have changed quite a bit since the last post. First of all, I have got a room mate, in this and the next week I will share my appartment with Robert Bertini from Portland University, which up till now has been a pleasure. It does feel a bit like going back to our student days. Good talks, good food and drinks, and good fun. The major difference between then and now is that now the dishes generally get done before they turn into living organisms. Yep, it just takes two responsible grown ups Or - preferably - a dishwasher, thank got for that thing back home.

Secondly, now that the summer vacation (!) is approxing and most of their exam marking has been finished, and of course because of Robs arrival there is more time for interaction with Geoff, Yibing and Majid. On Sunday Geoff invited us to their beautiful home in Melbourne...

... where we were treated to fond memories of The Netherlands by Kate and Jennifer (that's Holland for you in a nutshell: klompen and Remia Frietsaus - Geoff spend his sabbatical two years ago with us in Delft) ...

... and a wonderful Ossobuco (how do you spell that) and dito Sauvignon blanc

On monday, Geoff and Majid organised a succesful workshop (more than 30 attendees from both uni and the authorities) where Rob, Yibing and I gave in total five presentations (mine were on the Dutch DTM practice and a second on travel time reliability).

On monday evening we had a typical Ozzie meal in a nice restaurant which advertised its food as Asian Fusion, which is not a bad term for some parts of Melbourne in general. Great stuff: Fish, Curries, Veggies, you name it

On monday night the skies seemed to approve of all of this as Venus (top), Jupiter (right) and the Moon crossed paths to form a giant celestial smiley. You can google several more spectacular pictures on the web, but this one popped out of my camera - a bit shaky not bad I think  

 

 

The problem with making weekend trips is of course figuring out when to organize the zillion photo's you've made, make a decent selection and then recall the where's and why's of each of them. Last Friday me and Majid went up Mt Dandenong (with 630 meters the highest peak of the Dandenong Hills), which you might still consider within the Melbourne metropolitan area, albeit this area is mostly used by retiries or seasonal visitors. Nonethless, on top of the thing is a beautiful observation site, which on a clear day gives you a pretty spectacular view over the Melbourna area. Great way to spend a friday morning.

note below the tiny high-rise area, that's the CBD. Monash uni is somewhere in the middle.

On Sunday I was picked up by Jenny and Neil for a road trip toward the other side of the Melbourne area (Geelong and the Great Ocean Road).

This truly was an apetizer for the trip me and Christine will make in a month or so. Ozzies mean business when going for a ride. If you would take this trip starting from Delft towards the West you'd be having fish and chips in Norwich, to the South you would be paying toll in Amiens and to the east be driving 200 km/h on the Autobahn past Dortmund. Anyway, distances are looked upon differently here and understandably so. There simply is a tremendous amount of distance between places. Then again, the worst that can happen is having to stop for a coffee ...

or play around with your board a bit

walk the dog

or stay on dry land and enjoy the views

and after a couple-a-hour drive up and down the Great Ocean Road you take the ferry from Queenscliff to the eastern side of the bay-area "embracing" Melbourne and a final 80 km freeway trip back to Clayton.

Yep, although the Melbourne weather this past week has been pretty much like home (in a summer that is), this was a wonderful Sunday trip with great views, talks, drinks and food. Thanks Jenny and Neil!

To emphasize that I'm not in Melbourne just for coffee, zoos, beaches and what have you more, I will regularly update you with some of the essentials regarding the native version of the English language. For example, Ozzies (australian people) will immediately understand if you want them to pass you the dead horse (hand over the tomato ketchup). If not, they'll most likely tell you to wreck off or if they're offended to spit the dummy (ease up). If (God forbid) you wind up in some remote camping ground, you might have to take a leak in a Dunny (outside toilet) where you might possibly encounter a Dunny Budgy (a blowfly hanging out in a dunny), which according to the locals here is the most disgusting insect on this island and possibly the planet. But hey, another day, another dollar, before you know it you'll be fresh as a daisy

Todays trip - one I had looked forward to quite a bit - is the Melbourne Zoo next to the Royal Park, a few miles North of Melbourne CBD and in true Melbourne fashion a little over 50 minutes by train from Clayton, the Melbourne suburb I'm living in. I have always had a keen interest in and fondness for zoos, of which in my mind Burgers' in Arnhem, Noorderdierenpark in Emmen and Blijdorp in Rotterdam are some of the finest examples around the world, and this I say without any chauvinism. Zoos in my view have little to do with preservationism - although they might in the not so distant future - but are there for us so that we can gaze at creatures we scared out of our immediate habitats (in some cases with good reason), and learn and wonder what wonderful creatures have evolved before we accidentally fluked out of the evolutionary equation.

One of the things I get from wondering through zoos is some perspective on the mindless hurry we're all in - at least the one I'm in. Take lizards and lions. Both are exceptionally good at doing as little as possible. The first because it is cold-blooded implying it needs the environment to gear it up into action, and the second because it has little incentive to do anything other than sleep 20 hours a day.

 

Any one maintaining that zoos are essentially cruel institutions depriving animals from their wonderful wild habitats, I recommend reading Life of Pi, written by the Canadian novellist Yann Martel. Although the (by the way wonderful) novel is of course entirely fictional, Martel poses the clever question what damage (proper and caring) zoos exactly do in sheltering animals from the blessings of daily survival such as running for your life, a zillion deseases and fierce competition for space, food and spouses. If that is a morally wrong thing to do we might want to rethink medicine, food aid programs, piece talks and many other things.

 

I like zoos. But I am somewhat dissapointed by the Melbourne zoo. In true Melbourne style, it could have been large and spacious with savannahs full of hopping kangaroos, impressive croc enclosures, aquaria full of queensland wonders and the likes. Don't get me wrong, the zoo takes good care of its animals, the enclosures are clean and neat, but most space is in fact allocated for homo sapiens, particularly the small and noisy ones. I didn't pay 26 dollars to hear their quif clamours. More over, it closes (on a sunday in summer!) at 5 o'clock and sells lousy coffee - if at all, the coffee corner shuts its doors at 4 o'clock. A clear 1-0 for Blijdorp ...

There are many things that Melbourne (the metropolitan area as a whole) has in common with the randstad. The populated area is about the same size, approximately the same amount of people live there and there is a wonderfull beach area. For example, in bot cases you might encounter these images:

On the other hand, there are many differences, for example, you'll be hard-pressed to see these grow in Scheveningen

nor would you look about 6 miles to the North and see this (remember skydeck?)

or find crocodile dundee and his sons throwing a line or two

In fact, you can not set one foot past the next without accidentally bumping into a palm tree or some other proof that this place is serious about its climate and its desire to force its population into shorts and t-shirts, and total relaxednes.

Wasn't there any bad news? Only very temporarily ...

But no worries mate, next friday it'll start to rain again

 

Sunday evening and time for some reflection. If you're in hurry, you might want to skip the text because there's probably a lot coming 

I have been relocated to the Clayton Monash "Motor Inn", a very pleasant motel with everything a person needs: a two-person bedroom and a spare bed room for guests (my collegue Winnie was the first this weekend), a spacious living room with a bureau and couches, a bath, a kitchen with pots and pans, a plasma TV + DVD player, a railway station at reasonable walking distance, enfin: everything the first place didn't have (not that I was too bothered by that but a bit of personal space does help you to both relax and be productive), except for friendly hosts and the fact that this place is - like the previous place - at walking distance from Clayton campus. What can I say, I'm pretty happy.

Friday I discovered a bit of the metlink municipal public transport system and took a first trip back and forth from Clayton to the center. I picked up Winnie around 6 (the first night she had booked a hotel, since when we discussed her popping over I was still in the other appartment), had a nice (but overpriced) dinner (grilled tuna) and then returned back home (yep - that's what it feels like!) around 11:30. Yesterday I returned to Flinders street (big railway station in the south-east of the CBD) where I met Winnie again. Strolled around CBD, the Docks, had a cold beer, strolled around some more and ended up at the south bank for a pretty reasonable risotto. Below some evidence of our wanderings - needless to say, Melbourne is a very pleasant place to stroll around in.

 

On the train trip back home I inevitably got involved in a lively conversation with a completely pissed but very sharply dressed aussie and his wife. Interestingly, besides them, there were at least two people in seats around us who happened to know what the Bulldog and the Grasshopper are (coffeshops in Amsterdam) - and I did not bring that point up. I'm not sure if aussies could handle weed - they sure know how to drink. The occasion for the sharp dress code is "the races". Horses that is. Where in the world do you find so many people (young and old) dressed up in slick 1920s clothes (at least the women), happily loosing a truck load of money waging on horses without the slightest idea of which has a chance to win and - because of this or more likely regardless of any of it - getting totally drunk in the process. There you have a pretty concise definition of what australians are and what they do - in serious numbers.

Today we strolled around the Clayton area and the campus, which although all shops and coffee corners are closed on weekends is still a very agreeable walk. After that we gradually made our way back to Clayton railstation where I took the oppurtunity to do some shopping for my first serious attempt at living here: cooking my own meal (instead of the quite horrible microwave crap I lived on last week). As it is, my fridge and cupboard are now full of fresh veggies (from a veggie supermarket with about every conceivable piece a fruit, herb and vegitable growing somewhere on this planet), chicken and minced meat (for the ridiculous price of 5 dollars, which is 2,5 euro) and potato's, pasta and dried herbs. And of course some beer, cereals, soy milk, nutbars and - what can I do - a bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet). I made a wonderful vegitable/chicken/potato meal with lots of herbs (basil and oregano and tomato's and was so content with myself that I cleaned up and did the dishes. Ha!

 As far as i'm concerned tomorrow I'm going to make a head start with my research - first an overview journal paper on state estimation / data fusion. I look forward to it!

 

What can I say other than that the transport institute consists of a bunch of the nicest people around - particularly Jenny (who refuses to be photographed), the manager of the civil engineering graduate program, psychologist, travel agent, and whatever comes up in a day (and that's quite a lot), has been nothing but kind and helpful. Same goes for Geoff Rose. Anyway, more info on the group can be found here. I have been placed in the temporary vacant office of teh department head - not bad! Meanwhile I'm also going to move to another place to live and tomorrow I'll meet with Winnie Daamen who's been in Adelaide the past few months.

The biggest challenge now the jetlag has slowly faded away is to make a plan and get some research done... (and in the meantime score the 5804 exams and assignments).

Enjoy the photo's below (the weary look on my face has everything to do with jetlag - please forgive me )

Back to the student days - just settled into my appartment for the coming weeks on Arnott street, oposite the Clayton / Monash campus. many thanks to Geoff Rose (head of the transport department here) for showing me around and getting me up and running. This being the first day without an afternoon nap I kind of feel if not . However, the fact I'm writing this post proves that I was nonetheless capable of setting up a prepaid wireless usb account thingy with Australian telco Optus using Geoffs telephone number and drivers' license number (no, they don't need anything, you just pay and go ... NOT - telco's are the same everywhere). Tomorrow then the first office day, I look forward to that!

cheers all

Hans

I can think of quite a few, and Melbourne certainly is not amongst them. There are two things which come to mind when strolling around:

1. it's vast way beyond Dutch proportions - Tokyo is vast too, but there live 30 million people, in Melbourne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne) live a little below 4. Monash university (Clayton campus), where I'll be staying, resides in the Clayton area, which is about 30 km from here (the city center) and still Melbourne.
2. the central business district (CBD) - i.e. the city center - has every look and feel of a classic grid-based american city but (in contrast perhaps) has all the right proportions and genuingly feels very relaxed even in the morning peak hour.

My hotel is on the southbank of the CBD - below just a few pictures to give you a taste of what I mean ...

 

 

After having spent 24 hours in sweaty smelly airplanes and 1 hour of serious interrogation by customs about two packs of filter coffee it has finally happened: I have arrived in Melbourne, my home for the next 75 days! Expect pictures and reports here, and who knows what else. First though, a stroll along the Southbank and some breakfast.

cheers!

Hans