Short European Trip - Thurs

On the flight from Singapore my travelling companions are a slightly older German couple from Göttingen, was it? Somewhere between Dresden and Halle an der Saale. They were returning from three weeks in New Zealand. I introduced myself in German, which broke the ice, but they wouldn't tell me their names. Difficult to make conversation with my very limited German but I tried. The lady spoke so quickly so it was a case of trying to get the gist of it.

No chicken left by the time supper was served so I had to have the braised pork which turned out to be fabulous. Mashed potato was inedible though.

By crikey the German girls seated behind me can yack and the one directly behind me kept bumping my seat. So close to me unleashing a bit of air rage.

Watched Lincoln which was great apart from the background aircraft noise which meant that it was very difficult to hear and detracted from the enjoyment greatly. Subtitles would have been handy.

Awake until about 2:30am back home (7:30pm Frankfurt time). Woke up about 1am destination time but listened to music on my mobile - glad I charged my mobile when using the laptop.

Landed about 5:20am and was able to find my way to Terminal 1 section A within an hour. Could've made the much earlier flight if I'd known how simple passport control and no luggage to collect was going to be. Funny thing at passport control - one guy was directing the human traffic flow for the foreigners and was getting a bit upset that people weren't lining up into two lines near the exit point. It wasn't marked, mind you. Then one foreigner behind me got angry with him for "treating people like cattle," and told him so. The guy called out to a passport controller. He started yelling at the protester, who spoke German well, and it was highly amusing to see them yell at each other. The protester suspected that he would be given quite a hard time afterwards but following some words with a security guy nothing more came of it.

Obtained my boarding pass, found my gate, and plugged in the laptop and mobile for a couple of hours of emails and charging. Internet charge was Euro 4.95/24 hours. Toilets were nothing special but some of the lounges were very comfortable. By boarding time for the flight to Vienna I had a headache. Not enough to drink on the plane, I guess. When I went to take my seat I noticed an older guy sitting in my window seat but thought not to argue and took the aisle seat. Later, another gentleman wanted a seat on the other side of the aisle which was taken by someone else who then wanted my seat and we found out that the first guy was in the wrong row! Couple of no-shows so a delay to remove their luggage was experienced.

Quite a few Asians working at the terminal - their German was fine. Don't see too many typical looking Germans doing the menial tasks at the airport. And Frankfurt Airport is enormous. It has a Camel Smoking Booth - but I didn't see any camels in there, only humans.

I don't see any camels smoking

Nice view of the Alps en route to Vienna. At one point I was able to spot five planes heading in the other direction at the same time. Quite a busy route. Saw a falcon or hawk sitting on one of the runway signs at Vienna International Airport. Supposedly only 3°C in Vienna. Lots of snow surrounding the city. Couldn't see any animals outside on the farms as we approached the airport.

Free WLAN in Vienna! Exited the arrival area and found the ÖBB Intercitybus counter. Cash only so had to change some British pounds that I had left over from the last holiday. Bought my return ticket but was too late for the 11:30 bus. Bought some sandwiches, a bottle of water and a block of chocolate @ Spar Gourmet for less than six euros!

Bus ride took less than one hour - free wifi onboard. Even got to call my missus for free. You can see Bratislavsky Hrad (Bratislava Castle) from so far away. Only waited about 15 minutes for my friend, Michal, to arrive although the bus was a little early. He had a conference to attend so took my luggage and asked me to meet him at the Danube Hotel @ 4:30pm.

Can spot Bratislava Castle from miles away

I headed off to Ondrezy Cintorin, a cemetery, and had a look around. Some famous people buried there, all of them dead. Then wandered around until I found Centrum - centre of town. Searched for the tourist info which had signs pointing to it but the building itself wasn't that obvious so I missed it the first time and did a lap of the city centre. Obtained a map and made my way to Michalska brana - St Michael's Gate, the only remaining city gate of four originally. It houses some very old weapons and war memorabilia, along with Slovak independence history, and there's a good view of the city from atop the tower. Had a bit of time left so walked up to the hrad. Good view of the city too. Didn't have time to check out the castle so walked around two of the walls and then went down. Passed the US embassy, which was a pedestrian-free zone, and saw the national theatre (divadlo) before making my way down to the Danube River. Visited the port to see if I could catch a sightseeing boat to Hrad Devin but they only operate from May. Discovered that there is free wifi in the city. Walked along the Danube until I reached the Park Inn Hotel Danube where Michal came to pick me up.

Michalska brana (St Michael's Gate)

View from Michalska brana

Picked up his son from school and then went to the Max Inn Hotel to meet his brother-in-law. I had fettuccine prawns and it was close to the spiciest meal I've ever eaten. Very nice though.

Back to Michal's house where I met his eldest son. We watched some golf, had pizza, helped his youngest boy with some English homework (reading) and saw the dog and cat.

Dragon Shaped Cloud on Chinese New Years Day

Look at what I saw today at lunchtime. Is it a coincidence or something else? Or do I have too vivid an imagination?

Dragon-shaped cloud on Chinese New Years Day 2012 (Year of the Dragon)

Dragon-shaped cloud on Chinese New Years Day 2012 with outline for those having difficulty in spotting it

Damage By Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos

There's a number of red-tailed black cockatoos, Calyptorhynchus banksii, about. Without looking I thought that it was obviously named after Sir Joseph Banks, the famous botanist, as a Latin name ending with a double "i" indicates naming after a person.

Enough language lecturing. These birds are noisy and destructive. They like eating gum nuts and throwing away the branches that were attached to them. If you look closely at the photos around the base of the trees you'll notice a huge amount of leaves and branches. And I think the birds have only been feeding on this particular tree for about a week. When I tried to get a photo up close the birds flew away before coming back to land higher up the tree. Little bit touchy and private.

Red-tailed black cockatoo feeding

Cocky high up trying to hide

Look at the mess of leaves and branches on the ground

Almost denuded gum tree

Did Somebody Get Dressed In The Dark?

Bit of a surprise on the bus in the morning yesterday. No, it's not a new style in clothing. I just reckon that someone didn't have the light on when they got dressed. Funny to sit behind them though, camera at the ready.

Did somebody get dressed in the dark?

Somebody's Got A Fat Cat

Either someboday has a fat cat or they haven't repaired their car from the hail damage in March 2010! I think it's the latter but it makes me laugh to think that it could be the former.

Fat cat paw prints?

Truckie Blockade Protesting The Carbon Tax

Some sort of debate going on in Australia at the moment regarding the introduction of a carbon tax. Some sort of as the Australian people won't get a vote that seeks their opinion. We have a prime minister who, only days prior to the last election, informed the nation that there would be no carbon tax under her leadership. I guess that it's too early to start believing that there could be such a thing as a politician that can be trusted.

One large issue is the application of the tax with regards to fuel. Apparently the normal consumer won't be paying the carbon tax on petrol. But there is no such luck for the truckies of this nation. They will be expected to pay some six cents per litre extra which will push up prices for everyone and drive down, if you'll pardon the pun, the demand for the services of the trucking industry. Coupled with the suspension of the live cattle trade to Indonesia the truckies have or will be doing it tough. Hence, their drive through the city this morning and blockade of the WA parliament. We thought that 40 to 50 trucks rolled past and the news article below backs up that figure. Quite a sight in the city where you see very few trucks.

News article - Truckies blockade WA parliament

Truckie Blockade

Trucks out the window

Photo scandal girl needs help: AFL

There's a rather interesting story at the moment involving a teenage girl in Melbourne and a nude photo of St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt. Although the girl claims to have taken the photo it appears that she may have stolen it. Didn't stop her from asking for $20,000 to hand it over before publishing it. Apparently this girl has slept with some 21 footballers and is pregnant to one of them.

The AFL issued a statement that the girl needs help. I'll say she does. A decent manager could have gotten closer to $50-75k for that.

Bees Are Busy Working At My Place

I did the fruit and veg shopping this morning and when I arrived home couldn't avoid hearing the buzzing of many bees. They're busy collecting nectar and pollinating our berry tree out the front. In fact you need to avoid them a bit trying to enter the house because there are so many of them. I did notice one who was a bit larger than the rest, his eyes appeared to be bigger and he wasn't doing a lot of work. Dashed inside to grab the camera and took a few pics of the bees close-up.

Do you see what I see B1? What do you see B2?

Bee at work

Bee close-up

Bee coming in to land

Bee hiding

Bee levitating

Bee not doing much collecting

Bee with big eyes

Bee with head down and bum up

Busy bee

Big Moth

I spotted a large moth on my walk to the bus stop this morning. Must be a storm moth although the storm that we had the other day was hardly noteworthy. Perhaps the weather conditions brought about this little fella. He's quite a specimen, don't you think? Would have made quite a meal for a bird. I left him alone.

Big moth

That's how big he was

Front view

Side view

Google Images - Phillipe Troussier

Whilst reading the news at lunch time today I spotted an article relating Everton's David Moyes stating that Australia deserves to host the 2022 FIFA (TM) World Cup although he didn't think too much of the pitches on offer in this country. To the right of the article was a poll for "Who is your pick to replace Pim Verbeek as Socceroos coach?" This caught my interest and I looked at whose names they were putting forward. Names included Graham Arnold, Marcelo Bielsa, Fabio Capello, Paul Le Guen, Marcello Lippi, Frank Rijkaard, Philippe Troussier, Aurelio Vidmar and Other. Had to do some searching with Google for Marcel Bielsa and Philippe Troussier as I wasn't sure who they were. Have a look at the search result, especially the images.


Images for Phillipe Troussier?

Judging from the pictures I think that Phillipe Troussier does a mighty fine impersonation of Bernd Stange, one-time much-loved Perth Glory coach. Well, there is a button to "Report images" but it's only for reporting of offensive material. Not to tell them that their image search is a little muddled.

Mistaken Identity In The Media

There's a test match being played in England at the moment between Pakistan, the home team, and Australia, the visitors. That's a funny story in itself being the first test match in England not to feature the home team in some 98 years or so. If you look at most of the English teams of late you'd be hard pressed to find any players that were born in England but that's another story.

What I found amusing was a report in The Telegraph, a respectable British newspaper, with a picture of left-handed Simon Katich. Or so they tell us. Make up your own mind. And they blame ACTION IMAGES as the source. I reckon it has more to do with poor editorial skills myself.

Left-handed Simon Katich?

Strange Lights In The Sky

Yesterday was warm. Warm as in 37.1C. Good weather for a dip in the pool. Upon our return I noticed some strange lights in the sky. They were still evident by the time I arrived home so I took some photos. Weird. It was almost like somebody was having a party or the airport had some searchlights during an air raid. Don't know what it was.

Strange lights in the sky.
Sunset 180 degrees away

Macro World - Curtin University

The other night the missus wanted to go for a walk. Not just any walk around the block but specifically around Curtin University. There are lots of well maintained gardens and it's quite beautiful. I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to take some close up photos of tiny things. So, here's my first post on Macro World objects.

Creepy Sunrise

I enjoy getting up early. It allows you to see some strange things at times and I thought the sunrise the other day was rather creepy.

Creepy sunrise