Category: Australia

Cheap Chewsday (Tuesday, 2 August)

 

On the evening of Tuesday 2 August, we went to an event we had heard about where international student associations make a big dinner that you can be a part of for a gold coin (as previously mentioned 1 or 2 dollars). This time, it was the Australia-China Youth Association (ACYA) that were making the food.

After class, we waited around til 6:15 pm at which point we met up with a whole gang of people that all were going on a chartered bus to the Cheap Chewsday.

When we arrived, we sat down at a table together with three American exchange students, and we were later joined by two Australian guys who knew the president of ACYA.

We were served a two-course meal. The main dish consisted of rice, a spicy vegetable stew, chicken wings and a tofu dish as well. We had seconds of everything except the spicy stew.

For dessert, we got Shui Guo Tang Yuan, which is a dish consisting of rice balls and fruit cocktail. It was nice and sweet, but the fact that is was served hot, and the rice and fruit combination was a bit unusual for us.

After dessert, we hurried through the rain to the closest bus stop and caught the 100 bus home with our stomachs full and sunshine in mind.

/ L&G

Ebb and Culture in Newcastle (Saturday, 30 July)

Our Saturday started by going into town by bus and walking to the Ocean Baths, right next to which we had spotted a good place for looking at shells and smaller sea life during ebb. We spent some time walking around on the rocks.

A man that was there with his children helped us spot both starfishes and a crab. Can you spot the three starfishes in the picture above?

Watching the sea life was really amazing! But when the waves started crashing in with the incoming tide, then we decided to head back up.

After the ocean bed exploration, we went to the Grain Store to have some lunch. We both ordered a burger and a glass of cider each. It was delicious!

After lunch, we first walked along the wharf but then decided to walk up Darby Street. A short distance up Darby St we found Newcastle Art Gallery, which we have wanted to visit. So we went in and had a look around. There were a lot of aboriginal paintings, but also some video exhibitions, as well as a collaborative exhibition of drawing on small stones. We both drew on a rock each. The motifs took some inspiration from the Aboriginal style seen previously. When we were done, we put our rocks in the collection. Can you guess which two rocks we painted?

When we went out of the gallery, we were in the mood for some fika. So we went to the wharf and the Mövenpick ice cream bar for which we had gotten a discount for a tasting on Groupon. So we enjoyed a “basket” of ice cream and a coffee each and relaxed before going back home again after a peaceful day in the city.

Hugs,
Linnea and Gustav

Gustav can’t wait to taste our freakshake ?

Gustav can’t wait to taste our freakshake ?
#lyxfika #linneaandgustav (http://ift.tt/2b4SovU)

It’s time for a Throwback Thursday!

It’s time for a Throwback Thursday!

In the end of June this summer, we spent a week in Germany and Switzerland “warming up” before going to Australia. We visited Cologne and Bonn in Germany and Zurich in Switzerland. We arrived in Cologne on Monday morning. We stayed with Linnea’s friend Rosa, who was an au pair in Zurich at the same time as Linnea. We’ve kept in touch ever since and Rosa came to visit in Sweden last year as well. It was really fun hanging out and catching up!

We went sightseeing in both Cologne and Bonn, which used to be the capital of West Germany. In Bonn, we went to a Haribo store (apparently “bo” in Haribo stands for Bonn) and we also dined at a popular Peruvian restaurant with Rosa and her colleague Maria. We had a bunch of delicious tapas to share and it was a great experience, all though we were rolling out of there cause we had so much to eat!

On Thursday morning we caught the train to Cologne/Bonn Airport and got on the shortest flight either of us had ever been on, we were only in the air for about 1 h 10 min. Arriving in Zurich, Linnea was overwhelmed with memories coming back to the city that had been her home for one of the best years in her life. We made our way with the excellent public transport into town to meet up with a bunch of Linnea’s old friends. We stayed with three guys that are studying at ETH in Zurich; Djalma, Gerson and Mattia. The other friends also flew in from other countries; Alex and “the other” Linnea flew in from France and Emma hopped on a flight from the UK. We had all gathered for Züri Fäscht, which is a really big city festival happening only once every third year, last time was 2013 when Linnea was living in Zurich.

As you can imagine, we partied most of the weekend. Only stopped to crash a few hours at the apartment each night, otherwise we stayed outside and looked at all the crazy events Swiss people with an overflow of money had thought out. A part from partying we made some time on the Thursday afternoon and on Friday to go sightseeing. Since it was Gustav’s first visit to Zurich we visited all the best look out points and highlights.

On the Friday we also met up for lunch with Linnea’s old host family. She was a bit nervous seeing them after such a long time, but that feeling quickly disappeared after they started talking about what they had been up to. A funny surprise was that the host family actually were going to Australia in just a few weeks for vacation, so we promised to be in touch about that.

Late on the Sunday evening we arrived back at Arlanda Airport. We were delayed even before we went on the flight, so it was close to midnight when we finally saw Gustav’s parents that greeted us at the airport.

Studying “fil-fak” style ?

Studying “fil-fak” style ?
#nomoremath #isweariamanengineer
#linneaandgustav (http://ift.tt/2bz0W9V)

Schedule maniac

The people that have been around me for the past year would probably agree with me when I say that I’ve become a schedule maniac. This year I’ve had three or four different part-time jobs the same time I’m studying to become an engineer full time and I’ve also been a board member running a café on campus. This has really pushed me to test what limits I have and how much I feel I can accomplish in one week.

Thus, let me give you an example of a week of mine this past semester at university in Sweden:

And this is a week in my schedule in Australia:

Quite a difference! And on this Australian schedule I even had to drop one course cause I’m supposed to read four courses that adds up to 100% and in this one there’s five which then adds up to 125%.

But I’m not saying that this past year has been easy, I’ve felt a lot of stress during some periods and my neck has been really tense. Several times during the year, especially during the exam period in the autumn, I thought about dropping one or two of the jobs to feel like I had some margins to other stuff than work, study and work out.

I wouldn’t exactly recommend working four part-time jobs while you’re studying. Having most hours of every day every week scheduled is not something you want to have long term. But short term I still feel like it’s valuable to test your limits when it comes to time management.

A guy in one of my group projects at university this past autumn asked me; Why do you work so much? My answer then was that I had gotten the jobs one at a time and all of them was fun so I didn’t want to say no to either of them. What I can learn from that is that I sometimes have a hard time saying no to things, especially when I want to do all of it. But I got to figure out where my limit is when it comes to work load in the long run. Still working on that.

It was also a valuable exercise when I had to quit the jobs in order to go overseas. I think it’s extra hard to quit a job when it’s one of your first ones, when you’re afraid that you won’t get a new one. Although when I come back from Australia I have managed to “keep” my two favorite jobs and plan to continue on those two during my master years at uni.

We’ll see how it plays out 🙂

Hugs,

Linnea

The first week at university (26-29 July)

Here’s a summary of our first week of uni! We both started at 9 am on Tuesday because we don’t have any classes on Mondays.

Tuesday

We biked to uni with a fair bit of time to go, but still, we arrived just in time for class. It’s about 5 km to uni when biking and much of the way to campus is at a slight incline, plus at one point we have to cross an extremely busy road. We’re still getting used to biking in Australia as it’s quite different from biking back home in Sweden.

Gustav had a lecture in Supply Chain Decision Support in the ICT building, aka the car park (as it is built on the third story of a car park). Linnea made her way to the Architect “island” on campus, where the faculty of Engineering and Built Environment has its headquarters. Three of her four courses take place there. The course she’s taking on Tuesdays is called Design Development and Management.

At noon, we met up and ate lunch together. UON was serving a “free BBQ lunch”, where BBQ refers to your choice of veggie burgers or sausages on a slice of toast bread. It was quite alright; it was after all free… and what student can say no to free stuff?

Gustav went to his second class at 1 pm, which was a tutorial in the same course as earlier. Linnea only had a lecture that day, so she stuck around and had some coffee with the Swedish crew on campus, and later went to play squash with a campus association called GOALSS.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Linnea started at 9 am and Gustav at 11 am. Nevertheless, we biked to uni together. While Linnea went to her lecture in a course called Furniture, Form and Function, Gustav went to study and prepare for his class.

Linnea’s lecture was over at 10 am, so she went home while Gustav went to his class at 11 am, a workshop in Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation. After that class, he had a break until 3 pm, when he had his lecture in Business Analysis.

In the evening, we bought some Thai food for dinner and went back to uni to Black Light Party @ Bar on the Hill, our first student party in Australia! It was interesting to see how Aussies party. Compared to Sweden, it started kind of early as it started at 7 pm and stopped at midnight. We had a blast, and we randomly found a doppelgänger for Linnea’s friend Svante. The doppelgänger both looked and acted like Svante, so we were stunned.

Since the buses stopped going quite early, we tried Uber for the first time to get home from the party. We were picked up by a guy who had been a student at UON before, and overall we thought it was a very convenient way to travel. We’ll probably try it again sometime.

Thursday

On Thursday we both had only one class each, although at different times. So, Gustav went to uni for his lecture in Leadership and Entrepreneurship at 10 am. After the lecture, he biked home again to find Linnea still anticipating her first workshop in Introduction to Management which didn’t start until 3 pm.

Overall, a bit slow (and hungover) day. Stopped by the store on campus to get some sketching materials. Otherwise, we had our hands full trying to get back into ‘study mode’.

Friday

Finally, on Friday, Linnea had her last introduction lecture of the week in Computational Design and Modelling. The lecturer in that subject reminded her a lot of a professor back home at Linköping University, so she felt quite at home in her courses already after the first lecture.

While Linnea was at uni, Gustav was home enjoying his day off.

When Linnea got back from uni, we ate lunch together and went into town. We stopped by the doughnut shop Doughheads and had some fika.

Then we continued walking out to the beach and made our way alongside Newcastle Beach while the sun was going down.

We walked all the way through the Memorial Walk to Bar Beach.

Once there it was dark, and we headed back into town to catch the bus home.

We went to bed early in order to get up for the low tide on Saturday morning, but more about that in the next post.

Hugs and kisses,
Gustav & Linnea

Our first live rugby game! Newcastle Knights vs Panthers. #NRLKnightsPanthers #StayTrueRednBlue #LinneaAndGustav

Our first live rugby game! Newcastle Knights vs Panthers.

Our first live rugby game! Newcastle Knights vs Panthers. #NRLKnightsPanthers #StayTrueRednBlue #LinneaAndGustav

Wine and Spirits Tour in Hunter Valley!

Wine and Spirits Tour in Hunter Valley! #aussiewinefest #drunkbeforelunch #linneaandgustav (http://ift.tt/2bpWFZ4)

Wine (and spirit) tour in Hunter Valley with Goonion ?? #16wineslater #LinneaAndGustav

Wine (and spirit) tour in Hunter Valley with Goonion ??

Wine (and spirit) tour in Hunter Valley with Goonion ?? #16wineslater #LinneaAndGustav