Bondi to Coogee walk (Day 60)

Day 60, which marks the midway point of my stay in Sydney (not of my internship, that one was a little bit earlier), because it is the last day of March. Looking at that number really reminds me that times flies. And at the moment I don’t want to leave Australia. Lucky I still have 2,5 month.

Today I finally did the Bondi to Coogee walk, I delayed it a couple of time, (which I got called out about because I had said to friends that I would go :P) for fact that I never got time to do it. We didn’t make it to Coogee (note: from the future: we did make it almost there, but we didn’t release that at that moment) but it was still a nice walk and we saw a lot of the surroundings. During the walk, we (me and another fellow Dutch person) took some pictures that would be great for vacation photobook or Instagram. But at 2 am we decided to stop with the walk and go to Sydney park to do some volleyball. We arrived at 4 am because we went by the supermarket to get some cross buns ( Cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and some parts of the Americas and best eaten warm). They are really good! Pictures below:

Chocolate cross buns
Fruit free cross buns

Volleyball was great as always. This is been the 5 times i have been there and it just nice to blow off some steam in the park. It is just mostly for fun and so you are not forced to play to win. But of course, i always try to win, because that is in my nature. The game lasted for 2.5 hours.

Side note: I just noticed today that some of the clips I filmed for the Zoo and the blue mountain corrupted audio (and that are the ones I know about, I expect that some early video also got corrupted audio, like me visiting the opera house for the first time). It where all the clips where I had other people in the vlog. My guess is that the problem was caused by filming the footage with a selfie-stick, whereby the jack of the selfie-stick was plugged into my phone (this jack allows you to take pictures with the stick), which cause the software to not record the audio. The ones from the
Blue mountain, is really sad because that means that I need to change the way I wanted to edit the vlog. So I am a little bit miserable about it, but I hope that those lovely people will go before the camera more times, to film some stuff with me.

Side note: I just noticed today that some of the clips I filmed for the Zoo and the blue mountain corrupted audio (and that are the ones I know about, I expect that some early video also got corrupted audio, like me visiting the opera house for the first time). It where all the clips where I had other people in the vlog. My guess is that the problem was caused by filming the footage with a selfie-stick, whereby the jack of the selfie-stick was plugged into my phone (this jack allows you to take pictures with the stick), which cause the software to not record the audio. The ones from the
Blue mountain, is really sad because that means that I need to change the way I wanted to edit the vlog. So I am a little bit miserable about it, but I hope that those lovely people will go before the camera more times, to film some stuff with me.

Tangaroo Zoo (Day 59)

This will mostly be a quick update video, yesterday 29 march 2019 (Day 58), we did have a small picnic in Hyde park. And with we, I mean six other duchies. After eating in Hyde park and enjoying Sydney atmosphere, we went out to a bar called :”Scary Canary”.

Parting at Scary Canary, during the photo we got photobombed 😦

I arrived back at the apartment at 2 pm, where I did some video chats before going to bed.

Today, day 59, I went with Kim to Tangoroo Zoo. And I need to say, it is a really nice Zoo. It overlooks the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We got to see koala awake and getting feed. The original plan was to visit the tiger cubs. But sadly they were sleeping. It was the second day that the baby tigers were allowed to go out. So it was expected, but you still hope to see them. The Tangoroo Zoo has a cable car that allows you to do a sky safari over the Zoo. Sadly there wasn’t enough time to visit the Zoo completely, but I saw the highlights. And I am surprised, that there are a lot of species that jump a lot. But it was nice to see the place.

Learning note: What is the Tangoroo Zoo? Tangeroo Zoo is a Zoo located in Sydney, which was opened in October of 1916, and houses more then 4000 animals (this number doesnt include the visiting humans :P) from 350 different species. Tangeroo has eight zoogeographic regions, where one of them mostly focus on Australia wild life!). The Zoo is accessible with the ferrie and bus

Today i also prepared some Hutspot. But I expect it to be the last time, because i am little bit done with Hutspot. And if you are wondering, how you will eat Hutspot without rookworst in Sydney, then don’t worry, you can just buy rookworst at the aldi (locate in different places around Sydney).

Night at the museum (Day 56)

It is day 56, the halfway point of my internship. And during milestone, I was mainly read articles about CubeSats and Thruster type, so could add this information to my thesis. I mainly do this because I am currently waiting for the arrival of new equipment. This equipment should ensure that I ultimately can achieve the desired resolution to do measurements for the research.

View during dinner 😛

After the internship, it was time to explore the city. I had seen on a website that a famous art gallery was open until 10 am. So I decided to visit the gallery after my internship. I was accompanied by Kim and after eating dinner (picnic) in the Royal Botanic Garden, which overlooks the opera house and the Harbour Bridge(I made some timelapse for the vlog), we went to the NSW art gallery. In the Netherlands, my first choice wouldn’t be to go to an art gallery. But sometimes you have to step out of your confidence circle. And personally, I enjoyed walking through the art gallery. There were works of art that I did not understand and didn’t like. But there were also works of art that were so interesting that I was watching it for minutes, just to see if I could spot new details or just stood there, appreciating it.  I have placed a few of my favourite artwork down below.

This is my favourite piece, probably because I love space and the moon. This painting was made by an elementary kid, to cheer up childeren in hospital that coudln’t go to school because their illness. After the pieces went to the hospital, they are displayed in different Galleries across NSW. The painting is called :If the moon was made out cheese . And the caption says:”Doesn’t it look like the moon is made of cheese? If that ’s true, would mouse go to the moon for the cheese? I can only daydream about it!”
This was just a painting, the longer you were looking at it the more details you would find in it!

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Het is dag 56, de halve wegen punt van mijn stage. En tijdens deze histories dag zit ik  voornamelijk artikelen te lezen over CubeSats en verschillende soorten thrusters zodat ik deze informatie kan toevoegen aan me stage verslag. Dit doe ik voornamelijk omdat ik momenteel aan wachten ben voor de aankomst van nieuwe apparatuur. Deze apparatuur zou er voor moeten zorgen dat ik uiteindelijk de gewenst resolutie behaalt kan worden om de gewenste metingen te gaan doen.

Uitzicht tijdens het avond maal 🙂

S’ avond was het tijd om de stad te gaan verkennen. Ik had op een website gezien dat een grote art gallery open was tot 10 uur. Dus ik besloot na me stage de gallery te bezoeken. Ik werdt vergezellelt door kim en na wat eten (picknick) in Royal botanic garden met uitzicht op de opera huis (tijdens heb ik nog wat timelapse heb gemaakt voor de vlog), ging we naar de gallery. In Nederland zal ik snel niet naar een art gallery gaan. Maar soms moet je uit vertrouwingring stappen. En persoonlijk ik heb genoten. Er waren kunstwerken die ik niet begrepen, maar er waren ook kunstwerken die zo interessant waren dat ik par minuten zat te kijken.  Ik heb par van mijn favoriet kunstwerken hieronder neergezet. 



Dit is mijn favoriete stuk, waarschijnlijk omdat ik hou van ruimte en de maan. Dit schilderij is gemaakt door een basisschool kind, om op te vrolijken vooor ziekenhuiskinderen dat vanwege hun ziekte niet naar school kunnen. Nadat de tekeningen langs de kinderen zijn geweest, worden ze in verschillende galerieën in NSW (Dit is een provincie van Australie) getoond. Het schilderij heet: Als de maan uit kaas is gemaakt. En de bijschrift zegt: “Lijkt het niet alsof de maan van kaas is gemaakt? Als dat waar is, zou de muizen dan naar de maan gaan voor de kaas? Ik kan daar alleen maar over dag dromen van!”
Dit is zo schilderije waarbij als je langere kijk je meer je opvalt.

Voor mensen die dit fijn vonden dat ik het in Nederlandse versie heb, laat me weten, misschien zal ik dit vaker doen 😛

Filming and editing (Day 55)

Yesterday I decided to start by doing some editing work on the Blue mountain vlog. The process was mostly meant for me to get familiar with the software. And to be honest, after a few tries, the software was super easy to use. I don’t know if that was because I used other Adobe before, or that the adobe premiere pro is just super user-friendly. So you’re probably asking, “can you show what you have edited so far”. Eh not really, the finished product was rendered wrong and the premiere pro file got corrupted. So I need to redo the editing. But don’t worry, this a good thing. Now I can re-use the skills I learned and add them to redo this 2 minute travelling to the blue mountain video. So that was day 54.

Working on the blue mountain vlog

On day 55, I started my day by visiting the Medicare center and enroll myself in Australian Medicare. I don’t need to pay anything, because Australia and the Netherlands have a basic agreement (It is called Reciprocal Health Care Agreements). So I decided to enroll myself just in case, so if something bad happens to me, I am at least enrolled. I should still be covered by travel insurance and dutch medicare. But better be safe than sorry. So the appointment went real easy. The people were friendly and helpful and I was out of the service after 15 minutes. It went better than expected. Later in the day, after the internship, I went to the opera house, and watch the sunset over the harbour bridge. Saw also cruise boat leaving the harbour. During my time in the harbour area, I did some experimenting with timelapses. Sadly the cruise boat interfered in my plan of making a timelapse of the sun going done. So that is still something i need to plan. Probably going to bangaroo reserves, because it should have a better view that by the opera house.

When I finished experimenting, I went home and made myself a lovely wrap with tzatziki, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and corn. During the making of this dinner, a new Chinese roommate was continuously looking at the plate in amazement, because she never had seen a wrap (and tzatziki) before and seen it be fulled like that. She even wanted to make a picture of the wrap when I was finished filling it. It was a really weird moment. It just felt like I was making an eating vlog for youtube (the trend is called Mukbang, but the big difference is that I didn’t film myself eating a lot of food on camera.)

The Blue Mountains (Day 53)

Finally, the day that we are going to the blue mountains. The original plan was to go last week Sunday (March 17), but due to the amount of rain (it was pouring) that fell from the sky, we decided to cancel it. Luckily, we had seen it on time with the weather forecast app so we could make other plans. But that story will be told in the first few weeks blog (when it’s ready). But to give a brief overview, it involved a visit to the Dutch shop, a big problem and drinking green beer in Chippendale.

But back to the blue mountain story, what is the Blue mountain? The Blue Mountains is a rugged region west of Sydney in Australia’s New South Wales. Known for dramatic scenery, it encompasses steep cliffs, eucalyptus forests, waterfalls and villages dotted with guesthouses, galleries, and gardens. This region can be reached via the T1 train from Central. The train takes about 2.5 hours to go to the blue mountain (Katoomba station) from Central Station.


The blue mountain is a fairly popularly by tourists because of the great scenery. So ofcourse that is one of the few things you will do when your stay in Sydney for long period of time. So we decided to go this Sunday. And as you probably already read from the personal pronoun, I didn’t go alone. For this trip, I was accompanied by six fellow Dutchies. Because hiking through the mountains is much better when you have good company.

Note to future self: Download Guus Meeuws music, it makes hiking through the mountain much better for some reason. (For the readers, you will need to wait a little bit longer, because their is a story behind this one that will happend in about a month from now)

So I woke up early to meet the group at central (meeting time was 8 hours at the central station). During the morning, I had already turned on the camera to film some clips for the vlog, because I knew that I might want to film this as a separate episode. I even prepared some shots, but like every trip, it doesn’t always go according to plan. For some of the prepared shots their wasn’t enough time to film them. This is also a good time to explain why I am working on vlogs! Lately, i have been interested in photography and the process of making a video. So with this trip to Australia, I decided to learn the skill related to this topic. Of course, I expect to make enough mistakes along the way, but that is part of every learning process.

Again, I fall away from the main story. So when we all gathered at central (except two, but they would join us at a later station), we boarded the train to Katoomba station. After the 2.5 hours train journey, we arrived (around 11 am)at Katoomba station, where it was only a short walk to the three sisters, but before going to the three sisters, we made a quick stop at Coles ( Coles is a supermarket here in Australia) to stock up on some snacks and cross buns. After buying ,we walk to the three sisters, which has a beautiful view of the mountains. Here we decided to eat lunch and play “30 seconds”. For lunch, I had wraps with cheese, lettuce and tzatziki and corn. After that lovely lunch, we walked to the three sisters and then went down the stairs to Katoomba waterfall. It was still a 25 min walk down and two hour walk to get to the waterfall but when you then finally arrive, you at least have something. Unfortunately, we didn’t the blue mountains during a rain season, so the waterfall was a little bit dry, but still a great view.

After seeing the waterfall, we took another set of  stairs back up, which where better than the ones going down. From their we took the bus back to katoomba station. Where we arrived at 4 pm, just in time, because it started to rain. (note: In the train back we again did some “30 seconds”, because we needed to pass the time. :))

During the trip, I filmed as much as possible and tried to get my friend as much as possible on camera so that I can make a general vlog instead of a vlog where I am the only one on screen.  At the moment, I think that I don’t have enough clips to get this. But I will see what I got when I receive the other clips from the other people so I can start editing the footage.

That that was blue mountain recap, see you next time. : P

Side note: This area would have been a nice area to film with a drone, but I don’t have one, so I’ll check on Ali Express if they sell some cheap drone. 

The City Tour (Day 52)

Saturday is general the days I don’t have anything pre-planned and so it becomes the day that I try to the task I don’t have time for during the rest of the week. Do some groceries, do some cooking, doing the laundry. But Saturday is also the day I try to cross things from my Sydney bucket list. So my plan was to go to Bondi and do the Bondi to Coogee walk. It is a famous walk and almost every tourist is doing it. But things changed during the day. One of the housemates suggested doing a free walking tour. The tour is given by locals and tell you something about the history of the city and the buildings. So I decided to go, not that for the reason to see more of the centrum of Sydney, that I have seen multiple time at the moment. I went to hear about the history of this city. Because I have been here for 52 days and I still don’t know a lot about the history of the city.

During the tour, I learned some interesting facts, like:

  • The mint, the first hospital in Sydney was funded by selling the right to sell Alcohol in the colony.
  • The architect of the opera house was chosen by a design competition, which got 233 entries from 32 countries. The government chose to go for a Danish entree, Jørn Utzon. After delays and going over budget couple of time, the new government decided in 1965 to no longer pay  Jørn. So he resigned and move back to  Denmark. When the opera house was officially opened in 1973,  Jørn got never invited for the ceremony and never went back to Australia to see the opera house finished during his life. The final cost of the opera house was 102 million Australian dollar. What was 95 million more than they expected that it would cost.
  • The City decided to remove car lanes from the centrum of Sydney:
  • The part of the matrix was filmed in Sydney.
  • The fountain in Hyde park was made to show the relation between France and Australia with Greek mythology.
  • The Westfield tower is called “the golden bucket”, because it looks like a golden bucket. The Westfield tower has a bar that rotates, so if you drink slowly you have  360 degree view of Sydney.
  • Queen Victoria Building, has a statue of Queen Victoria that was made in 1907 and was located before Ireland parlement, but was in the mid-1980 moved to Australia, before this building. The Queen victoria building is part of a big shopping mall, that is connect by different basement that they didn’t use anymore.  When in the basement section of the shopping mall you can see on the floor tiles when you are leaving the Queen Victoria Building and going into another basement.
  • St Mary’s Cathedral was constructed in 1821, but was ruined by fire in 1965. Reconstruction was took 101 years, finishing in 2000 just in time for the Olympic Games.

After the tour, I quickly walked to the Royal botanic garden to catch some Pokemon. There was a community day event going on, where you could catch a special Pokemon for a limited time. When I arrived in the park I only had 15 min left to catch this Pokemon and luckily I catch one.

View from Royal Botanic garden.

Day before Day 50 (Day 49)

Wow, it is already day 49! Time really flies quickly. Seeing that number reminds me that I should add a day and time of day counter to the vlogs, so you know on which day I took the footage. But let’s not talk about the vlogs because I am still working on them. So what have I been up to? Mostly working my butts off with the internship. I am sitting around in the lab, trying to optimize the optical alignment of my experiment, but it isn’t quit working. But I will figure it out soon. At least that is my hope.

In other news, I went got some Thai food with Vera today. We mostly want to eat something in Newtown. Newtown is a place close to the university, so it has a lot of restaurants that have decent prices of students. We couldn’t really agree on which type of food we would go for, so we ended up eating at a Thai at the end of Newtown. The dish was around $14.50.

During the day, some early plans of the blue mountain were constructed, like doing a picknick together. The idea is also to bring some Japanese cheesecake that i came across a few time in townhall, back when I was living in the center. Also early drafts of Saturdays plans are drafted. We are probably going to ivy bar. But that is still up in the air. (Note: we didn’t go to Ivy bar, because we wanted to go early to the  Blue mountain)

To finish up this update blog, lets talk about some stuff of the last few days, because their are some stuff I didn’t record, but still like to talk about. So lets document it for now, so i know it for the future. So first thing first. I joined a lecture on general radiation. The lecture was for master student at the University of Sydney. But a Dutch friend (Mels, is a student from the Physics student from TU Delft) I met is currently doing that lecture, so I decided that I would join him, and see how a lecture at the University of Sydney would be.  The lecture didn’t teach me much, because I covered a lot of the material during my radiation minor back in the Netherlands, but it was still cool to see the different in the way the lectures are teach. The lecture room wasn’t big, it considered out of 3 row, with each row elevated before the previous one, so everyone could easily see the slides. The row where also circle instead of straight, and every two sitting places had a microphone, so you could easily give answer to a question from the professor.

Another story, is that I took my first Starbucks beverage. It was a mango frappuccino. But I don’t know what I was expecting, but it didn’t tasted like coffee. It tasted more like a smoothie. But it still was good. It costed me $6. So that was around €4. Little bit cheaper than in the Netherlands, but not that much. Still I did something that was on my Sydney bucket list, and now I can cross it off.  Would i drink more frappuccino in the future? Probably not, but i cant say it for certain.

Speaking about Starbucks, during ordering the bevarege I did a little experiment. How would the waitress write my name, when I pronounce it in Dutch. And as the picture shows, they didn’t got it right!  My name became Stone and Vera name turned into fvra/fura (Can’t make out which version it is, I leave it up to you to decide which one it is).

Finally, let’s finish with the dinner I last cook myself. It was burritos. As some know, and some don’t. My favorite food is burritos. So I decided to make it! And wraps are here a real thing, so I decided to buy a random large one, and use that instead of the traditional wraps. And I like this burrito more than the traditional wraps. It gave a different kind of flavor to it, I really enjoyed the burrito. Next time, I may need to add some more corn, to balance out the dish. But otherwise. Perfect dish! 

But that was the update blog for today, see you next time! 🙂

The first few weeks (Day 0 – Day 48)

Uitgelicht

I know, I know. You are probably thinking: “Stan where is that vacation vlog you said you were going to make?”. To be honest, I am still working on it. Editing vlogs are taking much more time than I previously thought. And with finite time to explore Sydney, editing has taken a back seat. At least for now. But don’t worry, I will try to fill you in with blogs instead! With at least weekly blog updates, maybe even a blog every few days. Isn’t that a great deal? I thought so.

So where shall I begin? The pub crawl story? The green beer story? Or celebrate carnival with Dutch music in Sydney? It is difficult too chose one….. So why not start at the beginning! At the day that this journey began. 43 days ago.

Snow at the Shiphol airport.

The journey started on the 30th of January 2019. The day of departure. It was partially cloudy, with a local chance of some snow in the afternoon. The last one is important because that meant when I was leaving the Netherlands it was freezing and would arrive in Sydney where it was 35 degrees warmer. But as always, when it start snowing in the Netherlands, there is a big chance of delays. Luckily for me, there didn’t fall a lot of snow, so my flight still departed on time (At 12:30 pm). Some KLM flight where delay, but not mine. Not that I was flying with KLM. But now, I am skipping forward to much in the story, let go back a little bit, back to the point where I arrived at the airport. We arrived early at the airport and at the airport, I change my winter jacket for my summer jacket. I removed the two suitcases from the car (one suitcases had a weight of 21 kg and one had a weight of 12 kg) and followed the signs to the suitcase check-in. The last time I flew was approximately 15 years, so I was intrigued to see that suitcase check-in was automated. After I check my suitcases in by KLM, we got some drinks at a local bar. And when I had an hour before my flight was scheduled to depart, I said goodbye to my parents and my brother (Max) and his girlfriend and moved myself to border security. Here again, i was taken back in how the installation has changed since the last time I flew. A big set up x-ray setup that make an image of your body, that is a little bit different than a device that detects if you are wearing any material. After I was though border security, I move towards self-check-in. Again I was taken back by this new technology. The last time I flew, they didn’t have this technology, that scans your passport and makes a picture to see if the two pictures match. I still can remember back in the day that a border security agent would check your passport, and would total mispronounce my name. And I would then get totally irritated because my name wasn’t pronounced in English, it was “Stan” in Dutch. But now I just let the machine scan the passport and make a picture of my face and it was done. After that, I was in the international section of the airport. I still had 45 min before my flight was scheduled to depart, so I decided to explore this international section. A lot of shops, but nothing I need. So I moved slowly to the terminal. At the terminal, I waited for the people to call that the gate was open, so I could check in and find my seat in the airplane.

My seat was located almost at the back of the airplane, next to a window. My seat was part of a duo seat and the person next to my seat was an older Dutch person, who was on his way to the Phillippians, which provide decent company during the 12 hours flight to Guangzhou. At this moment you are probably asking: “Stan where is that! Because I only know of flights that are flying through Dubai and Singapore to get to Sydney”. Now, Guangzhou is an airport in China. And now you are probably asking. “Why would you fly through China” . Good question, reader. The reason was mostly that I could fly back with my father back to the Netherlands.

I landed at 6:30 am(local time) in Guangzhou, after a good flight. Yes, there aren’t any good 12 hours flight. It is difficult to get sleep in your seat and there are always loud noises. But in airplane standard, it was good. Again, not that I have flown a lot in my lifetime to make a good judgment. But the food was decent, the stewardesses were friendly and I had a nice few of the cloud during the trip (which gave me some awesome clips for the vlog) So nothing that was a deal breaker. Yes, it was weird that dinner was served an hour after I departed from Schiphol and got breakfast when I was supposed to eat my dinner. But what would you expect? You need to change your time schedule at some point. So as I was saying I landed at 6:30 am local time. This was 30 min later than were suppose to land. So this left me with only one hour to arrive at my next gate to check in. So I ask the steward, to seat me at the front of the airplane, so I got more time to find the right gate. What I didn’t know then, what I know now, is that when you leave an airplane, and you are transferring, you still need to go through border security of that country. This border security had the machines I knew from 15 years ago. The most memorable moment during border security was that I needed to show my passport seven times and my flight ticket was stamped six times. But after that weird experience, I was in the international area of the airport. It was a really nice section, you could see that it was newer than Schiphol. It had a great view of the departing airplanes, while you wait at your gate to check in for your flight. So I quickly looked around, to let the blood move through my legs again, before I was forced again to sit in a seat for 12 hour.

This time, the quality of the airplane was less than the previous airplane. The seats were less comfortable. There were more Chinese, so I felt more out of place. I was also seated next to a Chinese couple. So I was isolated for the next 12 hours. Just like the previous airplane, I had another seat next to the window, which gave me a new view of the clouds. Almost the same events unfolded during this flight as the previous flight. But sadly, this time, the flight ended with a delay of 3 hours. The reason for the delay was that there was a windstorm in Sydney, what cause for a backstop in flights at the airport. So our flight was forced to fly to Canberra, to refuel and then fly back. So we landed in Sydney a little before midnight. But now I still needed to go to border security. But the ideas I had about Australian border security beforehand was the same what I experience. They just look at my filled in person card (Just a card you fill in with general information, like what are you going to do in Sydney, are you bring forbidden food with you, e.g), ask me what I will be doing in Sydney, and looked at my passport. I don’t know if the border security agent was also tired, and just didn’t wanted to ask any more question on this Dutchman, or if that Australian border security is as tough as they show on television. After I spoke to the border security agent, I picked up my two suitcases. Both arrived, whereby one of them was looked through in China because there was a power bank inside of it. With my two suitcases, I moved myself to the part of border security where they check your bag. Again, I don’t know if the agent was tired, but the agent decided that I could move to the exit, without looking through my bags. So I step through the door and found myself, officially being in Sydney. I quickly pinned some Australian money and took a taxi to the hostel. I arrived a the hostel at like 2 pm. And after quickly connecting to the wifi and WhatsApp the family that I landed, I fall asleep with my clothes on at 2:30 pm.
Side note: I was supposed to have internet for a day from Vodafone Nederland, but for some weird reason, Vodafone Australia didn’t want to activate the package.

So over the next few weeks, I slowly got adjusted to living in Sydney. To be honest, It was hard in the beginning but with each day it became more and more normal to live in a city on the other side of the world. I became custom to the local money they use or how the public transportation works and which bus or train I can best take to get to my home.

Fun fact: money in Australia is made from plastic so you can swim with it without breaking it.

So during my spare time, when I am not at the University of Sydney, I am mostly exploring Sydney. And what I have found out is that even on the other side of the world, in a city like Sydney, I still will run into Dutch people a lot. If that was something you would have said to me before I came to Sydney, I probably wouldn’t believe you. But it is true. If you just listen to your surrounding, the chance of encountering dutchies isn’t that difficult. So I encounter a Dutch person in the shopping mall, Dutch person on the bus and two dutchies on the train. The latter ones were the people I would do activities with during the next couple of weeks(Kim and Marije). During the conversation with Kim and Marije, they invite me to come play volleybal in the park, which would be held every Sunday. So for the last few Sundays, when i have spare time, after exploring Sydney, I will go to Sydney Park and will join other local for some volleyball games


But Kim and Marije aren’t the only Dutch people I have encounter during my time in Sydney. I joined a Whats app group with 33 dutch interns in Sydney. So with that group, we went out for some dinner and found by accented a great Japanese restaurant (the planning was to picnicking in Hyde Park, but that evening it suddenly started raining a lot). We also did go to the movie together, did some pub crawls together, celebrated Dutch canaval. (But those stories are for another time)

The first few weeks I mostly visited the center of Sydney for exploration. I went to the botanic gardens, the Oprah house, Watson Bay, Manly beach, harbor bridge, Centennial Park, Hyde Park, and Darling Harbor. Just to call some places, but each of the above places has their own stories. Besides, I played some pokemon go in The Royal Botanic garden, with a lot of people. In Centennial Park, I encounter black swans. In Watson bay, I found the best view of Sydney. And I can go on and on and on. But at some point, this blog needs to end. That that is this point.


Note: I will add more to this post when I have time, but it cost just to much time to write about 7 weeks, but if you have question, let me know and i will try to answer them.


With that I sign this post off.

Me at watson bay
Food at the Japanese restaurant.
Walking in hyde park at 10 pm
Ready for the trip. Me at Shiphol airport
At the university of Sydney. Ready to do some work.
At the Cinema with Kim and another dutch girl. Going to see Captain marvel.
My flight was making some circles, before going to Cambarra to refuel.
Taking the Ferry over the river.
Hyde park
Centennial park