Accidents do happen

And in this case it happened to be another car colliding into mine last Tuesday, causing it to spin across another lane onto the footpath.

Yes, I was involved in a car crash. And before you start making remarks about my driving skills: no, it was not my fault 😉 And yes I’m fine. Mostly.

What exactly happened I will most likely never remember – and maybe that’s for the best. In fact it’s one of those things, no matter how much you mull over it in your head, in the end there was nothing I could have done differently, and neither could the driver of the other car. Classic ‘accordeon’ effect: first car slows down, second car reacts a little bit later (brakes harder), third car even later (brakes even harder) and so on. Before you know it you’re going at around 50 an hour and see everybody in front of you hitting their brakes full on. I hit the brakes and instinctively looked in the rear view mirror to check the person behind me. Surely my heart must have skipped a beat, judging her speed it was unavoidable and not even a close call. She tried to divert onto the other lane, smashed into my right rear, which caused the spin and catapulted me to the left.

Continue reading Accidents do happen

Happy rats!

First of all, happy Chinese New Year to everybody, especially those é¼  amongst you 😉

And yes my friends…it is raining in Sydney! Though we’re no longer talking monsoon-like showers for days in a row, it still seems as if the gods are mighty angry at us – and if I knew of any Noah I would ask him to start building an Ark!!!

Hard to imagine I know, especially since I last left you with an account of hot sleepless nights. But the weather can change around pretty quickly here. Good thing predictions are quite accurate, so at least you know what’s coming. To be honest, I was more than happy to cool off for a bit 😉

Oh and the best part: it was dry and sunny on Saturday, perfect for a stroll to nearby Paddington. I visited the ACP. Hosted in a magnificent gallery (the space! the light!), I was swayed by their current exhibition (i.e. visual onslaught) to subscribe to one of their workshops. They also have a wide range of facilities (the library! the studio!), so I am very curious and excited to get started this Saturday!

Most of Sunday evening was spent Skyping with the home front:

Bittersweet. I am always happy to spend time together with them. But just ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ seems to stress the lack of any of the other senses. It was especially weird seeing Bram on the other side, playing with my cousins, it was hard not to get jealous. But without this technology I wouldn’t be seeing them at all! Does anybody know a good application for multi-videochat? Sightspeed’s audio is a bit wonky on the home laptop apparently…

It’s already bedtime for me here… Busy workweek as we are preparing for a sales conference next week, exciting stuff! And I get to go to Melbourne, woot woot!!

A million tiles away from home…

Bram told you last time about the festivities of Australia Day! Much fun and sun to be had.  It was great to have a long weekend together… Especially with everybody in a holiday atmosphere, soaking in the sun! Sunday was spent relaxing on our very own roof terrace, much needed for me to get used to the house and calling it ‘home’.

On Monday we took the ferry to Manly, probably the second most popular beach in Sydney (after over-rated Bondi). It is a 30 min boat-trip, but by far my most preferred way to travel! As you depart from Circular Quay, located in the heart of Sydney, you pass the Opera House within arm’s length and sail through Sydney Harbour on to Manly Cove. You can see the cityscape slowly evaporating into the sky, making way for little bays and rugged coastlines. It’s only then that you truly get to appreciate the unique location and surroundings of Sydney…

Tuesday morning the doorbell rang: the handyman. Only 1 week after handing over our list of complaints (how Belgian are we ;-)), impressive! With most of the rooms still empty, the conversation quickly veered towards our origin and purpose of our stay. Bram and I repeated our story for the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time, we could see our questioner’s face light up. Almost everybody here comes from ‘overseas’, whether it is 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation. Or they have family overseas and often visit them. You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who has no family there or has never left Australia.
Turned out the handyman has Sicilian roots. And he is taking his wife on a Disneyworld cruise from Miami to the Mediterranean. Apparently, if you want to make money, buy yourself a timeshare in Disneyworld as it doubles in value every couple years or so – please remember me when you’re rich ;-).
Also, when he learned Bram was leaving again for a couple of months, he cautioned me, saying I should go to the real estate agent and ask for an alarm! That night I kept all doors and windows closed. Alas, I hardly slept, as the temperatures that day rose as high as the emotions around Bram’s goodbye -> a humid 35 degrees!

Oh and the title of this post? It refers to the Sydney Opera House. Bram had a bit of trouble believing it took more than one million tiles to build… so I made sure to take a zillion pictures to convince him.