Wednesday 30 June 2010

Month One Wrap-Up + Leigh’s Adventures in Trans-Global DIY!

Yes you heard it first, it's LEIGH'S EXCELLENT DIY ADVENTURE PART 2 - fresh from the production company that brought you such enthralling episodes as "the poo valve" and "rebuilding a drive shaft in the snow" comes... GERMAN APARTMENT RENOVATION.

I can feel your excitement growing already.

But first, a few words and pictures about the first month.

Shortly after arriving we made a dash for Berlin. Amongst other things we attended a Zen seminar and visited the famous Panorama Bar and Watergate clubs.

There are no photos allows, so instead we present you pictures of our Berghain stamps:

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That's pretty exciting right? Correct.

We also drank some beer, went on a little river cruise and were circled ominously by pigeons.

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Right. That's Berlin. Next up we headed over to Essen to meet up with our art director Marc and sniff around the more local scene. Good times. Cept for the EUR80 cab ride home (*glares at Daniel*).

The weekend after that was Munich. Munich is a delightful city, with lots of beautiful women. That is all. I grow tired of this waffle about travel.. for now… it is .. on to the EXCITING STUFF!!!

First a little tour of my apartment.

The view that is presented to you when entering:

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Kitchen. In this picture it’s full of Ikea boxes. Now it’s less full of boxes and more full of stuff.

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The delightful looking box in the corner is the gas heating/water unit.

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This will be the living room. It was empty, now it’s FULL of empty Ikea boxes and plastic packaging and the like…

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Another shot, but backwards. Note carefully placed camera bag and excellent 1970’s lighting feature.

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This will be the studio. It’s now less full of boxes.

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This is the bedroom – you can see the skeleton of my bed being laid out on the floor. Obviously this was the first piece of furniture I completed… 

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Another view, looking back out.

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Another view of the studio.

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This is my 4th room. Haven’t quite figured out what to do with this yet. Think it will be the formal dining area (hah!) or will be a spare room for any longer term guests or housemates! 

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And finally the bathroom.

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Just wanted to highlight a few of the special features of the house. I love the 70s lighting…

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…and the toilet is a cracker!

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That’s all for today. Tomorrow’s SCINTILLATING update will be more DIY focussed…

L.

Friday 28 May 2010

Flying high...

Gold I tell you!


Things that have been interesting about this journey:

1. People's innate inability to cope with anything on planes. For example: row/seat numbers, tray tables, entertainment units, cutlery, toilets, manners and the list goes on.

2. That the 3 way split journey (MEL/KUL/DXB/DUS) was actually a relatively pleasant way to fly. 1-1.5 hours is just enough time to swan about the terminal doing whatever it is that fancies you and not long enough to get bored. Jolly good I say.

3. Watching the landscape pass by on the downwards facing camera!

Several things that have made this trip excellent:

1. Batman eye-mask - this little beauty was also the facilitator of my famous 17hr sleep from the other weekend. I can't recommend it enough.


2. Earplugs - combined with item above the cacophony that is an intercontinental flight fades into the background.



3. Sleepers - Thanks Mel.


So here I am, after day one - kind of jet-lagged and lacking blog inspiration. Big thanks of course go out to Christian, Dan, Steffen, Eva and Bruno for making the first 24 hours great!

Until the next enthralling post...

L.

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Outta here...

Nearly time.

Thanks to all who've contributed to my final days in Melbourne, it's been a blast. Love you all!

See you on the other side of the world!

L
xox

Sunday 23 May 2010

T-Minus 2 days and counting...

For some reason I have very little to say. This is quite a rare occurrence as you might know.

I'm more or less ready for the shipping uplift tomorrow afternoon, after which I have a few bits and pieces to tidy up (and a suitcase to pack) and then.. well.. off we go!

To all that have attended the seemingly never-ending procession of farewell functions I can but only say "thanks". It's been a blast and I will miss all of you!

Tally ho!

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Next Stop: Germany

It begins on 26.05.

Looks like there's a reason to re-start this blog ;)

Lotsa love,
Me.

Friday 1 January 2010

Nappy Hew Year

Happy New Year everyone. 2009 has been... interesting.

Roll on 2010!

Thursday 8 October 2009

Since Easter....

As my nearly-4-months of unemployment draws to a close, let us reflect on the serenity that is provided by not having to every day go to some annoying place filled with people you wouldn't cross the road to piss on if their heads were collectively on fire.

I am truly thankful for this interlude. I like to think of it as a prototype of my retirement.

I look forward to the events of the following months including:

1. A small trip to the Gold Coast.
2. Starting work (I may be lying about looking forward to this).
3. Record label launch.
4. Positive Cash Flow (I vaguely remember this from some time ago).
5. Moving Out of Hawthorn (I also may be lying about looking forward to this).

Until the next mindless, infrequent update. Au revoir!

Wednesday 24 June 2009

What a fucking tool...

Not only is this guy some fucked up god-botherer he's now decided the planet isn't worth saving.

Good thing he's putting his family first!

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-warming-isnt-real-says-senator-fielding-20090624-cwe9.html

Dickhead!

Monday 11 May 2009

Stacey Pullen @ QBar

So the Old Man and Poppsie Collins headed down to QBar last Friday to see Stacey Pullen.

All I can say is wow. And also wow at how young the kids. Or it's just that we're both dirty old men.

Woo!!

Monday 20 April 2009

A Short Interlude in the Fatherland

Well as you may or may not know over the easter weekend I decided to take a small jaunt to Germany. Correct, not your average weekend away, but thanks to the power of the Lords of Qantas we can make it so. 48 hours of traveling, 5 days of chilling. What more can the international man of leisure want??

Wednesday - Primed for Launch

A normal morning, aside from the fact I am sporting a suit bag and my camera backpack. Was going to walk to the station, however the sweating and immense load dictated otherwise.

A small taxi ride, a little working, another taxi ride, and the next thing you know I'm meeting Kat's dad to pick up the weird Staff Travel paper thingy they sent him. He looked very official in his overalls and shiny vest thingy. I was impressed.

Next stop the check in counter at which I was handed straight off the bat a shiny business class boarding pass. Yay for the Global Financial Crisis.

The next thing you know, I'm at Changi Airport in Singers. Smells the same, looks the same. It's a smell I will always associate with SE Asia. I stop past the transit counter (never had to do this before) and the kind bearded man after about 10 minutes gives me my second business class boarding pass.

A quick trip to the chemist for my favourite Singaporean product, melatonin and voila, here we are in Frankfurt!

Thursday AM - Frankfurt to Dortmund
Ahh Germany. Land of sausages, techno, the autobahn and fast trains. It's good to be back. For some perculiar reason it feels familiar, like home away from home. My bag flies out of the plane, my shiny EU passport lets me fly through immigration, and I totter down to the DB office which feels like it's heated to 35C.

I get myself a ticket to Dortmund, and head down to the station.

Interesting fact #1: In Germany they sometimes have two trains that are going to different destinations (in this example Brussels and Amsterdam) joined together.

I only discovered this because I got on the wrong end of the train. Thankfully the nice conductor lady told me that I could get off the train at Koln and go down the other end. Phew.

Interesting fact #2: The ICE travels at over 300km/h. That's kinda cool.

At Duisberg I changed to a strange overnight train for my final two stops to Dortmund.

Herr Marcial met me at Dortmund Hbf and we returned to the freshly decorated Schloss Marcial to be greeted by Eva and a very excited Bruno. Someone had told him that presents were coming from Australia. He was cheekily peeking out of the window and waving as we arrived.

Thursday PM - Chillin' in Dortmund
First things first. The presents must be delivered! Kat had kindly bought a kangaroo and a koala (which played a small excerpt from "Waltzing Matilda") for Bruno. At first he wasn't keen on the presents, but this would change later on as he got used to them...

Having a shower with fine German water was luxurious. We had some lunch, and then headed out to the shops for some groceries.

I suppose we were in the equivalent of David Jones, but the selection of charcuterie, cheese, organic and fine foods was amazing. I've never seen so much delightful fat in one place!! When ordering gruyere we were asked whether we wanted "normal" or "cave aged". What kind of a question is that.. pfft!!


For dinner we made schnitzel served with potato salad. In the potato salad was a vinagrette of white balsamic and a funny herb called bear's garlic. Oddly enough it tasted extraordinarily like garlic. I would like to try to grow some, as it was a great flavour combined with the fact it was leafy.

After dinner a little photo shoot. First up Mr. Koala, Mrs. Kangaroo, Bruno and Daniel:

Secondly, the happy family:

Surprisingly I was still feeling OK. We headed down to Dortmund airport to pick up our rental car, a grotesquely underpowered E-Class. A supercharged 1.8L is NOT big enough to power this car let me assure you!! Still it was a relaxing drive, although the tiredness and tight streets were a bit hair raising at first.

For our final stop for the evening, Big Dan and I wandered down to Domicil - some gay bar (kidding) that the crew hang out it. We were joined by the one and only Herr Borgmann of the famous Borgmann Industries. That was pretty much it for Thursday. As you can imagine, quite a long day!

Friday - Spring in Germany
Glad I packed my shorts ladies, as the weather was faaaaaaaaantastic. Trees were blossoming, the sky was blue. Ahh.. this is the life.

First stop here. Schloss Cappenberg. There was supposed to be a wildlife park. It was closed, despite the website saying otherwise. The old manor was pretty cool though. It's strange for us children of a young country to just wander around buildings that were put up before the white man even arrived in our country.

Second stop was Münster for some zoo action with Bruno.

Was a great day to be walking around, although the sun (and my poor selection of lense) deprives you of the animal pics I just KNOW you were hoping for...
After returning home I prepared the menu for Friday's Asian Feast:

1. Hainenese Chicken & Rice (with firey chilli sauce that will feature again later on!!)
2. Char Sui
3. Ants Climbing Trees

Amazingly even in Dortmund there is an asian grocery (with the silliest website in the world) so we took another stroll to grab some supplies (including some Tsingtao!).

The rest of the afternoon we drank our Tsingtao, some Franziskaner (awesome!), roasted pork...


...and prepared for dinner.


Served with only the finest of champagne and wines (I forget what they were, Dan can add in the comments).... Here we see Dan and Ene contemplating the meal ahead...

Rockin. After dinner whilst the grown-ups chatted, Bruno and I retired to his castle to play Duplo. The young fella kept talking his native tongue to me, so I smiled a lot and nodded. By this time he was loving Waltzing Matilda. Again... and again.. and again.. and... again.. and again..

After many drinks, it was bedtime. Ahh... bed...

Saturday - Shoppin', Drinkin', Chillin', Grillin' and Spinnin'
We got up relatively late and dropped Eva and Bruno at the hauptbahnhof as they were heading up to the North Sea for a little break. Bruno took Mrs. Kangaroo with him. Hope he didn't go swimming!!

Dan and I grabbed some breakfast and headed down to the market to grab some meat for the BBQ.

Second cool shopping experience - Dortmund market.

All the produce you can imagine, and plenty you can't. Lamb? You want lamb? I'll give you three kinds of lamb young man! "Normal", "milk-fed" and "salt bush" (I think). Rabbits, hare, more kinds of poulty than you can think of. Lots of shit I have never even seen before. Awesome. We grabbed some lamb (to be marinated in the leftover chili sauce) and pork.

For the rest of the afternoon we sat in the sun and drank beer. I squeezed in a quick nap, and then it was off to Uwe's place with two crates full of Detroit classics.

I met Uwe (second from left) back in the day when he used to work for Dan, so it was good to catch up after so many years. What transpired was an evening of drinking, grilling and techno. What more could you want? Good times... must get some of those records sampled to mp3..

A couple of spliffs later and we were heading down to see the famous DJ Dash. Steffen is first on the left in the above pic. Many more drinks (well a couple I think?) and it was time for bed.

Sunday - Dortmund to Eltville
To the soundtrack of Marc Romboy, TLBJr and the Wighnomy Brothers (all Germans by coincidence!!!) it was time to tackle the famous autobahn.

We took the A2 down to the A45, briefly hit 200km/h and did 275km in a couple of hours....

Strange autobahn fact: most are 2 lanes each way for most of their length. 2 lanes children, "unlimited" speed in the left lane. Germans know how to KEEP RIGHT.

Next stop: Eltville and our hotel - Schloss Reinhartshausen.

Well this was all pretty spiffy being next to the Rhine, and in amongst the vinyards.

So what else to do but some fine dining and a lot of drinking. By the time we went to bed we were both a little loose.

Monday - Seedy, Wandering, Departing
Needless to say the next morning we both had ferocious hangovers. I really felt mostly on the verge of puking for the whole day. We tried the brunch buffet at the hotel, sadly this was wasted on me I'm afraid.

Dan and I wandered for a bit:in the delightful olde town set by the Rhine River....


Special Teutonic Pigeon:


Ahh springtime in the Fatherland.


We showered, checked out, went to a couple more vineyards (here and here) drank a lot of apple and grape juice (gosh was I dehydrated) and ate some of this. A tasty non-Italian pizza analogue!

Sadly it was time for us to head back to the airport, which we did. Dropped the car off, checked in and had some dinner. Then it was time to say au revior... until next time.

So the week drew to a close. It was amazing how much we got crammed in, but the strange thing was that not once did we feel rushed or busy. Such is the magic of Dan and Leigh.

Thanks to Mark, Kat, Dan, Eva, Bruno, Ene, Uwe, Dash and of course the fabulous crew of Qantas.

And there you have it. Next thing I was at work, living the dream. Little did I know the weekend would have something a little more dramatic in store for me... but that's a story for another time!

(P.S. FUCK THIS BLOGGER INTERFACE IT SUCKS BALLS!!!! THANKYOU!!!!)