It's all going to be alright, as long as you dont listen to any good advice.

It was a nice Sunday in Sydney. The weather was beautiful, the water lovely and the people we shared breakfast with made our morning perfect. What could possibly go wrong after such a start into the day? But let me start from the  beginning.
We had planned to leave Sydney on Sunday around midday to head up north to visit my family, first stop my aunty Ann in Armidale. We went out on Saturday night which was great because I got to see almost all of the guys before I left. It was Dylan's birthday on Saturday and we where invited to an after-birthday-breakfast at the Young's place on Sunday. It was a beautiful breakfast and we had a great morning with those lovely people. After that Bekki and I went down to the beach and had a short swim, got our surfboards and wetsuits from the Barbers and finally hit the road.
The Navi calculated the trip to be 5 hours and a bit so we would reach our destination at about 9 o'clock. It all started well. It was a clear day with not much traffic and we where keen to get there because our loving family, a warm bed and a self-made spinach pie where waiting for us. But then we reached the point where the Navi told us to leave the Highway and take the faster way through the countryside. It would have been the best way if it hadn't rained like hell the previous days which had caused to flood the street in that area and made them impossible to pass. All of that wouldn't have been a problem if we had just listened to Ann or had taken a little more interest in the signs on the Highway. Ann had told us to take the Highway which would take us a bit longer because she had information from the internet which said the faster road would be closed and signs on our way where saying that the "Thunderboltsway" was closed. A little bit of research would have shown us that the "Thunderboltsway" was the way we wanted to, but shouldn't take. Ignoring even Bekki's intuition we turned of the Highway straight into a blind alley. That D-tour took us a few hours because our failures didn't stop there. We misread the next sign and thought the nearest town on another Highway was only 34 km from there but found out that it was another 130 km on very bad roads. With not much petrol left we turned around to go back to the Highway, passed a few towns where the petrol stations closed before 7.30pm and finally found one right next to a store where I could get something to eat (I hadn't eaten properly after the breakfast which made everything worse). After a bit more trouble with the Navi we reached the Highway about 20 km further north than we left it. What a great fail... The time we should reach our destination had shifted from 9pm to 1.30am so we decided to sleep somewhere and arrive at Ann's place for breakfast. We kept driving til we where 1 hour from Armidale and the frost on the windscreen made it impossible to continue the trip. It was 1.15am and so cold that we had to sleep under two blankets and in our clothes. We arrived Armidale safely the next day and had no trouble finding Ann's place which was a nice exception to all the things that had gone wrong on that trip. The whole drive took us almost 10 hours, twice as long as it should, and I must say well done Bekki because she was driving the whole way. Not because I wouldn't drive but because she wouldn't let me.
Anyhow it is really nice to be here (we had a very nice day) and see my family again after 4 long years and I'm really looking forward to spending some time here.

The bag!

As I said, I'll hand in some pics of our bag, here they are. We just started working on an inner pocket for books 'n stuff but are still on to that. We had some free time this morning to start it because we had another of our beautiful mornings down at Bilgola, having breakfast and hanging around in the sun.

This is what our bag was in its previous life.

That's the button I made. Note also with how much accuracy the button-whole is manufactured. 

That's how it looks now. Isn't she beautiful? We're planning to put heaps of stickers and buttons on it from each country we've been  to.

This is it in action. Nice modeling by the way...

I also have another story for you. Do you remember how I told you about this ice-cream place "Cold Rock"?
Last night we (Remy, Jake, Bekki and I) met at Joel's place in Newport and got a huge pot of ice cream and lots of chocolate bars, gummi bears and smarties and had a "COLD-ROCK-NIGHT"! It was soooooooooo good. We mixed all of the stuff together and had the best ice cream ever! Unfortunately I didn't have dinner that night and I ate so much that I felt really sick after a while. Nevertheless it was the best thing ever and I'm going to have heaps of  cold rock parties when I get back to Germany.

We didn't have much to do this morning so Rebekka got the camera out and started to annoy other people (me) by taking pictures. And so I thought I'll shock you with some more pictures of us.

Bekki sunbathing. It is still so warm once you get out of the wind.

I didn't want this pic to be taken but Yoda was just showing of...

Catching up

It has been a while since my last update and I therefore have a few things on my list I wanted to tell you about.
I will start with last week. As you recall I was complaining about the weather and how cold it was around here. I was starting to get sick. I came out of a horrible night on Thursday with a tremendous hangover and felt like sh** for the whole day. My head was close to exploding and there was no way to lie down properly in the car to relax. I sort off collapsed on the Barber's couch on Sunday afternoon with a bad fever and a huge headache. I slept on the couch that night which was good because I don't think I would have survived that night in the car. Janelle set up a bed for me the next day and let me stay in the house til I was better. That was a great help and it was such a good thing to have the chance not having to stay in the car all the time. It would probably have taken me a lot longer to recover if I had to stay in the car all day.
The weather was terrible during that week. Rain, wind and thunderstorms dominated outside and the house got cold as well because Australian houses don't seem to be made for cold seasons. Anyhow I had my layers of three blankets that kept me warm and cozy. It still took me til Friday to get out of bed and til Saturday until I started wandering around outside again.
The weather had changed into beautiful blue skies and sunshine on Friday and the wind had gone down. That mean that the swell that had been created during the windy week was being sorted and shaped into a few nice rides. I however was still too weak to go out which really pissed me of. Everyone was out telling me how good it was afterwards and I couldn't go. I got over it. I still wasn't able to hit the waves on Saturday but had my first walk in the sun which felt so good! There is no better medicine than to chill in the sun...
Sunday was relaxed as well. After a slow start into the day I met up with Tuck (one of the cool Newport guys) and we chilled, I had my first swim after the illness and we watched Oli, another mate, play football.
My first day back in the surf was Monday. I had two short sessions because I ran out of energy so quickly. My first session was at Bilgola with Dylan and the second in the afternoon at Newport with Dylan and Rebekka. It was nice to go out with her because it has been a long time since she was in the water with us. I hope she'll join me more often now where she has more time.
In the evening Rebekka and I went out for dinner in Manly. We where celebrating our 4th anniversary which was on Wedensday  during the time I was sick. It was a lovely dinner at an African place with very good Moroccan dishes. On the way back to the car we had dessert at this place called "cold-rock". You get to choose an ice-cream flavor and as many ingredients as you like (that is stuff like gummibears, chocolate-bars, M&M's and heaps of other cool sweet stuff) and they mix it all together and you have the best ice-cream ever. I'll open a shop like that when I get back.
Tuesday was Rebekka's first free day so she took the opportunity to sleep in. Then we had a late but superb breakfast at Bilgola beach. Porridge with fruit (in this case pineapple and grapes) and a coffee from our coffee-machine which makes very good coffee, in the sun. We stayed there the whole day, cleaning the car and fixing the bag we are making. I started, back in Germany, to sow a bag out of the rest of an old deck-chair and sent it to Rebekka with my Christmas-Gift in it (it was her chair before I broke it) and she continued it attaching a shoulder-belt to it. Now I made some buttons out of a stick and we attached them as well and made holes for the buttons so that we can now close the bag. I'm heaps proud of it and we're going to continue improving our self-made travel-bag with new ideas. I'll take some pictures soon and upload them so you can see it.
We slept at Remy's place today after a relaxed evening in front of the TV and are going to make dinner for the Barbers tonight. We're making Canneloni which I've never made before so wish us luck.
The weather is meant to stay beautiful the whole week which is good for us.
I'll try not to wait as long with the next blog entry. I'm really loving the feedback I'm getting here so keep it up and don't be shy. I also appreciate comments in German if you think it is too much English around here.

And does anyone have connections in California? We have to start planning our flight there and it would be great to have a base where we can get started from. We would much appreciate some advice.

Brrrrrr......

It's getting cold! It seems to me, that I tell you that in every blog but you just cant get around noticing it. I'm in Dylan's flat right now, wearing two jumpers, thick socks and a scarf, feeling sick and cold. But as you all know me I'm a Grinch and it's probably not as bad as I think but IT'S COLD!!!
Anyhow...I might get to do some work next week (only a day or two) which would give me something else to think about. We had a couple of nice days last week but even though the sun was out the wind chilled everything down again. I also feel a bit floppy. I've been having too much sleep and rest-time lately and I think my muscles are just not getting enough to do.
We had some stuff to do with the car today which meant we could at least go for a walk but today was very cloudy and wet and windy and the walk wasn't very enjoyable.
I'm not taking as many pictures at the moment but I have some here and even one with the two of us. It was the nicest I could find...

Looks a bit gray to me... The view from the Bilgola Lookout over North-Newport Headland and beach.

And again. The Lookout is our favorite spot on the northern beaches to sleep, cook and chill in the sun.

We found our future house! We chose it from the beach and saw, driving up to the Lookout, that it was for Auction. Dad... can you lend us some money???

And finally. The first picture of us on this blog. The timer on a camera is a tricky thing...

Here is another little update from my trip but there is not very much to talk about. Rebekka started her next job project (she has 4 different places where she works now) and is away from 6pm to 4/4:30pm which leaves me with a lot of time for myself. The last days where beautiful but it's still getting colder from day to day. I went for a long surf on Sunday in small but clean conditions and for a even longer surf on Monday in even smaller waves. It was a good thing to play around in an easy surf since the end of last week has been pretty heavy. That surf at Bilgola is still stuck in my bones and it felt so good not to care about a wipeout or takeoff.
I'm still loving it here even though it could be a bit warmer. But warmer places are waiting for us... I'm really looking forward to seeing my family again and spend some time with them. And of course Byron Bay... And Indonesia after that... And so on and so on and so on. There are so many places to be seen and so many people to be met that I can't wait to get going but I'm trying to take it slow and enjoy every moment because everything else will come soon enough.

What's happenin' ?

OK. I guess it's time for a new update.
The last week was dominated by rain and cold winds. It started last weekend and didn't really stop til Thursday. It would have been really hard for us to survive these days without our lovely and generous friends. We stayed at different places around Newport and Mona Vale and were supplied with hot showers, food, a roof over our heads and good company. We didn't really do much than sit around, watch TV and chat but it was nice to get out of the rain. A huge "thank you" to those wonderful people that helped us out!
The weather is much better now and even though you can feel that Winter is slowly arriving the sun still shines and warms everything up again. Because of the strong ESE-winds earlier this week the ocean is pushing some big swells towards the coast. Unrideable til Thursday but then the wind changed to side-/offshore on friday morning. I went surfing at the peak in the early afternoon and it was big. It is always hard to surf the peak when it's working because there are heaps of people out there and the takeoff area is very small so I had some problems getting my share of the waves.
We had dropped the car off at the mechanic in the morning to get a service and picked it up in the afternoon with new break pads and a cleaned engine.
I had an early morning surf with Will and AJ at Bilgola where it was barreling at the south reef but the surf was really heavy and it took me quite an effort to takeoff on my first wave and all that went through my head was: make the takeoff, stand good so you don't fall and get the hell off that wave again.
Now I'm back in Newport with no plans and a big hungry belly that hasn't eaten jet so I'm going to make myself some breakfast.