rastplats

What pain.. a whole week without internet connection in my room. The bandwidth during the past week sadly enough brought sweet memories of the 2400bps BBS days back in the early nineties. This also means that I have a backlog of mail to answer, quite a pleasant problem though.

The weekend was spent without surfing for a change, we celebrated Lollo’s birthday with a really great party on saturday at their place in Preston. The theme and dresscode for the party was Pimps ‘n Prostitutes, I didnt bring my camera though so there wont be any photographic evidence of my Hugh Hefnerish outfit (phew).. Sunday was spent doing mostly nothing nothing except for some post-party cleaning and hanging out.

Today Lust, La Trobe University Snowsports Team, had a barbeque at the campus lawn. The thought of hanging around down under for two years without getting to do neither skiing nor snowboarding seemed to ugly to be perceived so I joined up. The winter season is coming along soon and the first mountaintrip will be around July at Mt Hotham, the only downside to that is that all my gear is about 20.000km from here.. time to start investigating shippingcosts (this may be a good excuse to get a new board.. new toys are always fun). The mountains down here are pretty lame compared to the dolomites where I prefer to ski but it’s way better than nothing, I’m already looking forward to getting up there.

Since Lollo had her 25th birthday this saturday the plan was to celebrate her by throwing a party.. plans which got discarded during the week since the surfclub had their last weekend trip during the weekend and thus couldn’t come. To remedy the cancelled party we decided to go on a surftrip on our own. The crew for this trip was me, Oystein (norwegian), Philip (german), Ted, Emma, Elin and Lollo. The travelarrangements (which came together at thursday night and friday morning) consisted of a rented crappy van, Oysteins car, a rented cabin and a partial map. Below is a rough outline of, and pictures from, a truly great weekend. Friday :: After having picked up the van and some boards from the surfclub we filled it with boards, gear and people and headed for the coast. The destination was set to Aireys Inlet where we had booked a cabin (a trailer without wheels) at a caravan park. Upon arriving we celebrated Lollos birthday a few minutes past midnight with a makeshift cake made of 5 Snickers bars. Early to bed.

Saturday :: The best surf is in the morning due to less wind and less people so the alarms was set to 6:15AM.. the crew around the sparse breakfast was a pretty sad sight. We hit the water at around 7AM and surfed accompanied by the sunrise for a few hours before returning for some brunch. Surfing is without a doubt the best way to start a day! After some relaxing, food and coffee we headed back into the surf. All in all we surfed for about 6-7 hours on saturday. In the evening we had a very nice dinner at a small restaurant close to the sea in Aireys Inlet. I’ve had a lot of pasta over the years, especially when skiing in the Dolomites but the pasta with roasted pumpkin and pesto I had was the best pasta I’ve ever had, finding a place that beat the italians in their own game down here was as unexpected as pleasant. Since the La Trobe Surfclub was staying at Geoff’s beachhouse just 2 minutes down the road (in Fairhaven) from us we headed over there after dinner for beers and crazy scooterstunts at the traditional surftrip party experience. Off pretty late to bed..

Sunday :: After checking out we yet again headed over to Geoff’s place, this time for breakfast. We split up during the surfing since Oystein headed for the big waves at a point break over a reef close to Torquay. The rest of us surfed beachbreaks at Anglesea before heading into Torquay for some dinner and shopping. From Torquay we left for Melbourne, tired and smelling of saltwater and wetsuits but with the feeling of having had the best time possible..

Sorry for the silent week, school has been pretty busy and not much else has happened. This will change starting tonight though, we’re heading out for a new surftrip over the weekend. This time we’ll go to Lorne since the forecasts predict the most suitable waves there, we had initially planned to go to Wilsons Prom but the forecasts spoke of 10-15ft waves (measured on the backside of the wave) which is way to hardcore for us at the moment. Expect some more pictures on monday or so.

By the way, for those of you who’ve known me for some time this may come as a surprise.. I’ve got a gymcard (and I’m using it). Well, I did come here to change a lot of things so why not go all the way..

As you all know I spent the weekend surfing at Phillip Island with the La Trobe Surfclub. The surf was great, the weather superb and the company great.. probably my best weekend so far in Australia. The fact that I got my surfboard didnt exactly make it worse. The events of the weekend was roughly as follows..

Friday :: Leaving La Trobe at around 7PM we headed by bus for Phillip Island, only stopping for pizza and supplies along the way. The aisle of the bus was crowded with surfboards as usual so entering and exiting using the windows was the preferred method. Unlike the last trip we werent camping but stayed at a YMCA campsite with real beds, waking up without being sore and stiff from sleeping on the sand was priceless. The evening was spent in the camp recretion room playing kubb (indoor) and having a few beers. Off to bed late.

Saturday :: Up early.. After a lesson on water safety we headed out into the heavy surf, the waves we’re massive and I got slammed more than once by walls of water. No mercy was shown but when you caught a wave it was all worth it.. After some lunch and lazy hours hanging out on the beach we headed back into the water for some more surfing. This time I surfed my own board which I had delivered to the camp around lunch. My board is a shortboard and several orders more difficult to surf compared to the longboards we’ve been using so far.. gotta love a challenge.. practice practice. I love the board though. In the evening we headed to the Penguin Parade which was quite tacky.. watching the japanese tourists was equally fun. They we’re pretty frustrated by not being allowed to take pictures. At getting back we partied by the campsite fire all through the night. Off to bed late.. again

Sunday :: Out of bed early.. contemplating the wisdom in heading to bed at 4AM. The day was spent cleaning the camp and surfing. The waves was a lot calmer than the previous day but it was fun as always. The sun burned like crazy and the quicksilver reached around 36 degrees, I probably wore more sunscreen in one day than I’ve done all in all during my 28 years in Sweden.. We left the camp at about 6PM in buses filled to the rim with gear smelling of saltwater mixed with sand and sunscreen. Off to bed late..

This has probably been one of the best weekends in Australia so far.. I came back from the surftrip a few hours ago, a surftrip which had all the right ingredients: good surf, great weather, nice people, beer, lazy days hanging out on the lawn, wet clothes, did I mention beer? It was great fun but tiring, my body aches from being slammed on the waves and I havent slept more than a few hours per night.. all in all a great weekend. I’ll sort out all the pictures and post them and a longer entry on the events tomorrow. Time to sleep..

In about 30 minutes I’ll be leaving Melbourne for a surftrip to Phillip Island over the weekend. Hopefully I’ll have some nice photos for you by then (and most probably a new sunburn given that the forecast says 36C degrees for sunday).

The university system here in Australia differ quite a lot from what I am used to. A big difference is that we study four subjects simultaneously which is a bit distracting. Another thing is the importance of assignments, in Sweden an assignment can be handed in almost anytime no matter what the deadline says.. nothing like that exist here. Deadlines have almost divine status and any attempt at handing in late gets punished severely. This however is a good thing, having spent quite a few years in the industry I know the importance of respecting a set deadline.

The biggest and most disturbing difference is however not related to any academic procedure.. its the keyboard layout in the computer labs. I’ve been using a swedish keyboardlayout for 20 years.. my fingers ache..

The first week of classes has passed and so far most things look good. The courses I’m taking are all interesting although the combined workload will be pretty fierce. I’ll return to a more detailed blog of the course outlines in a few days when I’m not this tired..

In evening went to Jespers place down in the Melbourne CBD for some beers before catching the tram back home to the northern suburbs. Check out the pics below for some skyline views of Melbourne.