A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

I am not mad or rambling... well... not that much... turns out that in Spanish there is an expression or idiom to denote ‘is a small world’ which is 'the world is a handkerchief'

Reading Nena’s blog, I started wondering for how long I was wishing to come to Australia and then I remembered the very first time I meet someone moving down under.

I was a lot younger (high school kind of young) and I was chatting with one of my best mates (He was 5 years older than me, smooth with the ladies, careless, cool kind of guy... He was to me a big bro) what we were planning to do... College or Uni... The magic formula to be rich... You know... stupid stuff... And it was at that precise moment when he told me ‘I am moving to Australia, bro... My dad and I were planning to set a good transport biz in Darwin and I told my dad I want to move there...’

To which I asked if he was referring to the same Australia at the other side of the world... Wondering why my best pal wanted to move here, when the more exciting event I had ever read about Australia was that it was supposed to host the Millennium Olympics Games.

My mate moved to Darwin... and then went back to Venezuela... And here I am... 15 years later... Living in Sydney... totally in love with the Aussie society (with its ups and downs, pros and cons)... at the other side of the world... Now the world doesn’t look that big... It looks like petite, small, little, teeny tiny; like a hanky that looks bigger when is flat open, but very small when is folded and stored in your pocket.

Yeah... I know... it was an useless post... Shame on me...

Almost two years ago I said ‘I don’t want to see boxes anymore... not in a very long time...’

But apparently the owner of my unit thinks otherwise...

Ever since we arrived to Oz we have been living in the same flat... We rented from Caracas to arrive to our friend’s home, but with a place in which we could leave our boxes, bags and luggage.

This flat saw us picking up two sofa chairs from the rubbish and a wood dining table used by our mates, and their mates and the mates of our mate’s mates. I think it also hated us filling up two beanbags (our very first furniture acquisition) and then trying to get out of unimaginable place the f-ing little beans.

The glass tables weren't among the rubbish... But you can see both sofa chairs :P

We had our first job phone-interview, helped us to receive more friends, shared it cool things (and not so cool). It helped us to imagine how our Aussie life could be, what we want to improve and what we want it just like it is.

It waked us up with birds singing.

A magpie singing...

It waked us up sweat up and afraid of the crushing, earth-quake alike sound of the freight train passing by at full speed at 3 AM.

Little difference... Mine... sometimes... is longer.

It gave us amazing sunsets.

One of the outstanding sunsets... The entire sky orange-reddish.

It gave us amazing sunrises (but I couldn't find any of my pictures to show you =S ).

But at the end... it... wasn’t the flat... it was Australia. And so we decided to move out and go far away from this flat on the ground level of a building in Hornsby...

That’s why we are going to move to the 9th floor of the same building =D

Woohoo!

So... boxes are back... ‘Freaking boxes’... with crates and bags and luggage again... so, we will see how it goes =P

Till next time ;)

Yeah, yeah, I know I haven’t put a word in the blog related to this year Australia Day (or any Australia day as the matter of fact)... But I got pretty cool pictures to show you...

The Australia Day is celebrated every January 26th and is one of the coolest events in the Aussie society...

And you may ask, why?

For starters, is the anniversary of being found... or I should say the day in which the first fleet arrived to Sydney; because the term ‘found’ could be incorrect for people with aboriginal background... to them ‘Australia Day’ is known as ‘Invasion Day’ (an educated guess tells me the British did exactly the same as the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and British people when they arrived to America... Obliterated everything local; raped every single woman – to ‘purify the local race’ – and stole every valuable item they could find in their way...). In any case, fortune or disgrace, that day marked the birth of a great nation, blessed with tons of natural resources, ease mind people willing to enjoy everything and great sense of patriotism. If you want to read a bit more, click here.

Nice couple amused with the beauty of the harbour bridge

Also... Australia Day is a perfect day in the middle of the summer (well... almost in the middle) to share the company of mates, family, neighbours or strangers... Why not to spend it walking around getting amused with ten (or more) different distractions? Or visiting some friends? Anything... but outdoors...

See? everybody outside having a great time

Then you have the beautiful beaches waiting for you... to lie on its sand, swim or surf...

Not to forget the parks everywhere equipped with good barbies getting hot to cook that fillet, t-bone, or any type of meat you may want to eat.

Beautiful green areas to take a sit and rest

And what about events in every corner of the city? Those charming events that keeps your mind busy so you can be worriless.

I was trying to be artistic... and Failed

And the awesome weather... Doesn’t matter if is raining or cloudy... at some point the sun will rise and shine (although right now we have a hell of a cyclone on the north coast).

Sweet girl, enjoying the sunny day

Plus... some people gets the chance to say ‘I do’ on holy matrimony to the state and the country... becoming Australian citizens.

Kathy said this image left a mark on me... 'You were thinking that's gonna be me in 3 years, right?'

And last but not least, (maybe the most important reason I could think so far) is a bloody public holyday! So NO WORK!

What can I tell you? I couldn’t resist starting taking pictures and try out our new camera. Well, I have to be honest... I tried to get cool pictures. You’ll tell me if I did a good job or not!

Our Aussie Day begun with some 'Lazy Town'... (Not very exciting for us... but it was outstanding for most of the kids there)... Then we moved to more interesting things... like site sighting... and vintage cars...

And I give you... the Stang! Kathy loves them... I am still waiting for her to get one =D

These things are really teeny tiny... I could wear a couple of those as shoes!

A Parliament visit... which I must confess... it was thrilling to be inside, in the same place where the laws are conceived and defined... and a bunch of people grabs tons of money to tell others how to behave... In any case, it was very nice.

If you want to take a look to the details, click on the image.

A panoramic view of the legislative assembly room

A chimney in the Jubilee Room

And a fountain... I was really trying to get a bird flying around...

Also mirazozo...

Yup... Mirazozo... is not a Japanese word and is well-written... Mirazozo is an exhibit of the architects of air, very impressive and highly recommended by the way, that shows structures made of simple materials that create immersive and mesmerising alien environments. It really is a dazzling experience (but the queue is not... took us one hour and ten minutes to get in... I recognise the waiting time was aggravated by the day and the volume of attendees).

Mirazozo is filled with nice spots to sit to stare the colours, shapes and optical illusions.

The colours inside are the consequence of captured light in optic fiber!

But once inside... you can't really associate the exterior with the internal structure...

The picture above shows you the external structure of the blue and red picture previously displayed.

Thankfully the tubes are big enough so I could walk freely.

I couldn't help to feel inside Tron a little bit...

Having as ending fireworks launched at Darling Harbour. It was packed at the time we got there... but we managed to get a very good spot and take some pictures, a video and the panorama at the end of this post...

I took a bit of my time to take this panorama of Darling Harbour with its lights and everything. Click on it to view it on its full resolution (well... the down sampled version, because the real image is bigger than 17000 pixels width :P)

Well boys and girls... Hope you liked my pictures... I tried hard to get cool images (as well to extend my skills as photographer). I am going to stop writing so you can get new underwear or recover from this.

Cheers and till next time.