Setting up house

I’m currently cooking my first meal (spaghetti with tomato sauce, as I haven’t had the time to stock up on food yet) in my own little studio, using my own internet access (sadly no flatrate, but I hope it won’t be too expensive) after finishing enrolment at Victoria University. It’s official – I’m a student here, with two courses starting next week!

Actually, the summer trimester is very quiet, with only a reduced number of courses on offer, but luckily I can take both entrance-level courses for my Diploma. They’re both compressed, meaning that my first Human Resources class will only last until Christmas, and my first Management class will start in January – it’ll be quite intense! I’m also taking an Introduction to Information Systems class, which doesn’t count towards my Diploma but which will give me the credit points I need to be considered a full-time student (as my visa requires). The class will be held 100% online, which should be interesting…

I had to go back and forth between faculty and school, international office and administration, but in the end I got it all done, whee! Now I’m looking forward to giving my feet some rest, hang out in my room (which is lovely, small but comfortable – you can see the first photos on Flickr) before heading out again to buy some more household items. Yay for my own four walls! 🙂

Lisbon 2007

Sibylle and I went for a 5-day vacation in Portugal's capital, which was much beautiful than expected. Honestly, I can recommend Lisbon to anyone, especially off-season, when it's not crowded at all.

The city center has great charm, despite the obvious signs of neglect with many houses. It's just really, really pretty, and walking up and down the hills was totally worth the effort of taking it in at a leisurely pace. Even at the beginning of March the weather was great – we spent Saturday basking in the sun on the nearby beach in Estoril (much prettier than the one in Cascais, right next to it). Another daytrip was to Sintra – trains are very cheap, and the traditional little cakes alone worth the journey, not to speak of the cute town and impressive castles. It's not for nothing a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Also, the people are very friendly, a lot of them speak at least a bit of English or French – if we looked lost for even a second, someone always came to us and helped us find our way.

Lisbon 2007 . Lisbon 2007 . Lisbon 2007 . Lisbon 2007

You can find more photos in my Flickr album.

Como 2006

Oops, I seem to have forgotten to share the photos from my vacation with Sibylle! In June we went to Como in Northern Italy for a week, staying at a beautiful B&B in Erba (half an hour's bus ride from Como) and doing several excursions in the area. It was a great holiday – and I can heartily recommend Le Due Torrette, owned by the wonderful Adriana! 🙂

Lake Como . Lake Como . Lake Como

Click for full size and see the rest in my Flickr album!

Berlin 2006

I planned on posting about the family trip to Berlin much earlier, but things (i.e., my thesis) got in the way. Now I thought it might be nice to share the photos I took before the ones from last week's trip to Northern Italy… *g*

My parents went earlier and visited Dresden together with my aunt Leona, before all three met up with my brother and I in Germany's capital. I liked it better than I expected, truth be told, although the weather was quite dreadful and I was cold most of the time.

Highlights, roughly in chronological order: visiting the Pergamon museum; meeting and going to see X3 with her; yummy Chinese food in the historic Nikolai quarter; a boat trip along the Spree and the Landwehrkanal, past many of Berlin's sights including parts of the famous Wall; DVDs at good value; spending an afternoon with some distant but very nice relatives.

Berlin . Berlin . Berlin

More? Check out my Flickr album!

Scotland photos

Decided to stop worrying about how to post my travel pictures and splurged for a FlickrPro account – so you can see all 71photos I took during the week in Scotland here.

Scotland 2005 Scotland 2005 Scotland 2005

Quick run-down of what we did:

Friday
Travel to Glasgow. Exploration of the lively West End/university quarter (where our hostel was), including a very nice meal at a cute Italian restaurant and drinks at a renovated church.

Saturday
Glasgow all the way – seeing the sights (cathedral, university, The Lighthouse museum, Mackintosh House), enjoying the city. Tea with . At night out with Regina's friend Alex and some of his mates.

Sunday
Trip by train and ferry to Alex' home Inellan, near Dunoon at the Firth of Clyde. Absolutely fantastic weather, perfect for savouring in the sea. Spending the night enjoying the hospitality of Alex' parents.

Monday
Trip to Edinburgh by bus. Climbing Arthur's Seat for a fantastic view (and freezing wind). In the evening exploring the New Town, having Fish n'Chips and seeing In Good Company in the cinema.

Tuesday
First snow, then pouring rain as we continue to enjoy Edinburgh. Regina goes to explore the castle (which I've already been to last summer), while I go check out a bookstore. Then we walk down the Royal Mile, since the sun was out again, and have a look at the fantastic modern Scottish Parliament. In the evening we play Snooker, a strange version of Pool, at the hostel. I even win once. 🙂

Wednesday
Quick trip to Leith, which would have been nice if it hadn't been cold and raining. Then catching a bus back to Glasgow, where we unsuccesfully try to find a tearoom still open for scones. But I do find the 'Forbidden Planet' fantasy and science-fiction bookstore.

Thursday
A loong day, as I spend much time waiting around for planes to catch back home, while Regina takes the train to Brighton to see a friend.

Once again I discover I really love Scotland. And I finally come to the decision that, as a place to live, Glasgow is absolutely fantastic, much better than Edinburgh, beautiful as it is.

Scotland wallpaper

Märrie made an awesome wallpaper from some of our Scotland pics – thought I'd share it, because I still haven't gotten around to sharing any photos. Bad Eva! *g*

This is also a test of the upload image feature here – click the pic for the full-size version…

Scotland wallpaper

Visit to Märrie

I know that it's high time I finally post some photos from New Zealand and Australia – and I promise I'll get to it one of these days! But there are so many of them, it's kind of intimidating… 🙂

Therefore I thought I'd share some of the pics from my last visit with my German friend Märrie this November. We had, as always, a wonderful time, with lots of talk and laughter – and a couple of special highlights.

We went over the border to the Netherlands one day and spend a day sight-seeing in beautiful Maastricht.

Me in front of one of the buildings of the university there, and Märrie on the old city walls.


The church of St. Servaas was very impressive – I have never seen so many holy relics in one place! On the other hand there was this one church that had been converted into bike parking – and some really cute houses.

So I really liked Maastricht – but the climax of this visit was the day we spent at RingCon in Bonn. My very first convention and a day full of cool experiences and cool meetings with fellow Lord of the Rings fans.

We even dressed up (as Eowyn of Rohan and an unidentified dark Elf) – but ours were by far not the most original costumes, as you can see.

The con was also an opportunity to get to see and meet some people involved in the making of the movies.

Bruce Hopkins plays Gamling (King Theoden's right hand) in 'The Two Towers', and I had a nice chat with him. I also had the special task to give some of the guests tiny braids for the Fellowship of the Wee Scarvies, as a way of showing them our appreciation – so that's what Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad from the 'Fellowship of the Ring' prologue) and Roger and Carola from Weta Workshop (while turning a harmless girl into a really evil-looking Orc) are holding in their hands. 🙂

In the evening there we got to see the star guests. John Rhys-Davies (Gimli the dwarf) was amazing, and Craig Parker (Haldir – the Elf who dies at Helm's Deep) managed to crack us up in his show with Mark Ferguson. I filmed a couple of short .avi clips from their panels: Two clips of John Rhys-Davies, about a boating accident with a certain Elf, and one of Craig Parker trying (and failing) to get out of saying Haldir's line “The dwarf was breathing so loud, I could have shot him in the dark!”

There were many more experiences, of course, but I think that's more than enough. Except that I still want to post the pic from the birth house of Beethoven, which stands in Bonn:

Now that that's done, I promise to post pictures from down under soon! But first – a wonderful holiday season to all of you! *hugs*