Melbourne & Friends

You see, the problem is I don't like people. Not in a personal sense, I love them, but pictorially. In my blog, I have made an effort to get shots of people doing the things that I've done, and in the places I've been. But I really like pics of things - buildings, scenery etc, and I'm not good at pulling out the camera every time I go out to dinner.

So unfortunately not everyone I caught up with in Melb made it onto film. And lack of practice of indoor people photography meant that some of those that did make it were blurry, or too dark, or too red...so, to those of you who didn't make it, I'm sorry, and to many of you who did, apologies also.

BUT you can get your revenge - I'm sure I'm on some of your cameras, so please send in any pics you have.

My Family: Tom (farsan), Paul (lillebror), Ervin (morfar), Anne (hans sambo), Erika (morsan)

Sissi, Sachiyo, Martha, Michaela, Steve, Karen, at Sachiyo's flat (sorry Josh!), after a great meal of sushi. A discussion of akward kisses and hugs when greeting/farewelling people (ie. work colleagues at work compared to work colleages at a social event, where go the hands, etc) resulted in... akward hugs and kisses upon farewell.

Holding a mini-moose

Andrew and Debbie at a fez infested middle eastern restaurant.

From front to back clockwise: Francis, Katy, John, Sarah, Count Skögg, and Eloise. in front of a hot pancake breakfast. Does it matter which child belongs to who? And where is someones little sister hiding...

With family Friends the Hermanns, Magda and Jancsi in the middle.

Other than going to Ikea for a party (again), the closest venue thematically to Scandinavia was the Belgian Beer Cafe, where I had a general catchup.

Liam & Sarah, and Aki

Matt Brewer and the 3 week old Frederic.

Eva, from Swedish class. Thanks for the lurgy, btw. Still got it.

Sissi (animated)

Lucy

Tanya, Kai, and Nick. Kai took his first ever steps while I was there.

So what else did I get up to in my week in Melbourne? I ran around like crazy trying to catch up with people, which was a bad idea as sometimes I had barely half an hour with them. Next time I won't tell anyone I'm back. I ate alot of food that I couldn't here, yum cha being the main thing I was looking forward to. I also did some boring stuff like my taxes, recover data from my hard drive. It was cool to go visit my house and my dog Zara, and I also managed to see a visiting japanese taiko group Tao, in concert, which was fantastic.

A bit of video of Tao (not that I took)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-M0QhBAI2s

Or check out the website: http://www.drum-tao.com/e_index.html
and watch the movie (center left) to see what stuff they do. It's great.


Of course my time home was all too brief. A week skiing with the family, a week catching up with friends, and then it was back on a plane for a 23 trip back to... Berlin