Schwelmo's Welt

Well, I am back in Palmy. Nothing really seemed to have changed. What you would expect in a town like Palmy (been only 10 days away, anyway). Oh… it seems to getting closer towards spring as it is warmer than Melbourne and I found a rotten chicken wing in laundry, which must either be part of the famous French cuisine or a traditional Pakistani storage method.

The Cairns Conference was kind of successful. I think I left an acceptable impression and got a kind of a job offer in Perth. Perth is about as far away as New Zealand from anything else but has better weather. Anyway, I first finish here I guess.

Cairns in winter has lovely 29 C but it was freezing at night. Beside that, it is a touristic place with the same kind of non-quality clubs as in Palmy. You can’t swim in the sea cause of crocodiles and jellyfishes. So there is a pool in front of the sea. Die spinnen, die Australier! They have funny smoking laws as well. In a pub you are not allowed to smoke anywhere else than in a designed outside smoking area. OK in the tropics I can live with that. But you are not allowed to eat or drink in that area. So you can’t bring your chips into the outside area and have a beer and smoke with it.

In Melbourne (Victoria) you were allowed to smoke everywhere, even inside pubs. They seem to be more open minded there anyway as they have sex toys as handles in the trams. (And the “locals” I asked about that were only disturbed by the colors as they didn’t match).Yeah, they have trams! A public transport system! And it works! And there is a street called “AC/DC Lane”! How cool is that!

I was kind of surprised how big Melbourne is. I lived to long in Palmy. There are about a million of vegan food options, so I could even go out for dinner. Everyday at a different place. I even had vegan cakes. There are a lot of subculture groups and a lot of beautiful women in every color. I think I would like Melbourne.

I didn’t know too much about Melbourne before besides it is full of Italian people. Seeing the World Cup-cheating-designer players in every window was a bit of a down-side though. On the plane to Melbourne I thought I would make pictures of the famous opera house. Than I realized that the opera house is actually in Sydney. So I decided not to tell anybody as they might think I am an American.

Peace out!

While big grey clouds covering the New Zealand sky, I am preparing to go to Cairns in Australia. I am getting accused to be constanly on holidays , but I actually have to work there. I will try to say some clever things to probably more clever people (well not sure about that, but they have titles) at a conference. Well, my talk is at the first day of the conference so I will find time to spent at the beach and will have a short holiday in Melbourne seeing a friend... and maybe looking for a job over there. They pay fruit pickers much better as in New Zealand!

I am back in Aotearoa, the land of the big white cloud. That it deserves its name became quite obvious as soon as we reach the airspace of Auckland airport. Due to fog we circled for 1.5h over the sea. Every 15min the pilot told us: “We can’t land right now. Due to bad visibility but we are expecting to land soon. We have enough petrol to circle for another 2h..1.75h…1.5h.” I got worried when he said: “I would land but the visibility would make it illegal to land right now but it is clearing by the minute. We have enough petrol to circle for another hour and if we can’t land then we need to go to Sydney.” Sydney??? Was he kidding? That’s a 4h flight! How does he make it with petrol for 1h?

Anyway, we could land early so that I didn’t need to find out. My French seat neighbor actually seemed to have another explanation (no...just a funny accent) as she asked: “ Wee caant land becoise of the fuck?”.

After the Biosecurity check at the airport I soon realized that the domestic airport was completely unable to deal with the fog situation as no plane could land or start before noon in Auckland or Christchurch. I wasn’t even able to get in the airport to check in again as the people from the 9:30 flights were still lining up (it was 2pm). I probably would have helped if their open more than only half of counters. Anyway I somehow made it and catch a train from Wellington to Palmy. By then I was so tired that I just tried to keep awake until the ticket officer checked mine. In the time between I saw him coming into my wagon at the other end and reaching my seat I fall about 10 times into (a second) sleep.

Having my own room and bed again what feels good. But it is raining and cold and I miss you guys in Germany heaps! Good to caught up with you!

I could give you a complete description about my time in Germany but that would bore you and it would make it too long to read. But I want to say I loved to see each of you again, realized that not much changed between most of us and more important: Nobody turned into a completely asshole. And all the new partners of you I met seemed to be very cool as well. So I see, I don’t need to look after ya. I would have loved to spent more time with each of you. But that’s life. You should go when its best and I really enjoyed the last three weeks. The wedding of Buzzer and Kati was a real good ending. I couldn’t have wished for a better one (Big kisses also go to the secretary without glasses!). I didn’t want to leave after. I just left the country because I couldn’t drink as much beer for another day! Tomorrow I will look for a detoxification opportunity or just go to the pub. Anyway, on the plane I decided that I don’t want to wait another 3 years to see you again.

After I stopped shitting in my pants (I still hate flying) my trip to Singapore was eased by my neighbors which were very nice and we basically talked for 12 hours (one a 30 years old beautiful Serbian women, married to a 50 year old German diplomat, who is responsible for all Germans in Indonesia, East Timor and a few other Islands. Themselves living in a high security area in Jakarta, not having a real relationship as he was quite busy the last year (Tsunami, Earthquakes, Civil Wars, Volcanic Eruptions). They can’t get out without bodyguards and even there are 17 million people living in Jakarta they don’t have any contact to Indonesians. Apparently the air is so polluted that you don’t see much of them anyway. After she told me that she always has huge accidents (ran over by busses, trains etc.) without major injuries and I got worried again that our plane might crash and she would be the only survivor).

In this time in Singapore I got a bed without bugs, which was good but didn’t make want to stay in Singapore even for the 30something hours. Unlike in Germany or New Zealand I really feel in Singapore that I don’t belong there. Actually it made me feel not to belong to this world. So I spent my time with lying awake at night watching movies with plane crashes, looking at strange fruits in a weird city and having beer and noodles with stuff in vegetarian restaurants. I have to say stuff as I do not really know what I was eating. But it was really nice and I even looked for a bookstore to find some recipes (bought a T-shirt instead). They assured me it was all vegetarian and even vegan. But it was called vegetarian “chicken” ,“sharks soup” , “shrimps” etc.. I don’t know I guess a lot of it was a kind of Seitan (“Praise Seitan”) or marinated and/or smoked Tempeh or Tofu…it definitively was not fish/meat.

I seem to be kind of hooked now as the first breakfast I made here was noodles with veggies and tofu! I loved it!

Big hugs and kisses!

P.S.: Viele Baeume, eine Strasse! Allee, Allee!

How the fuck could Italy become world champion??????

Labels: flying, French, Germany, people, Singapore, vegan

Das wars schon wieder.
Bin morgen auf dem Weg zurueck. :-(