Lucky lucky, I'm so lucky!

WOW.

You can learn and experience a lot by not going to university. Not that I want to promote that lifestyle now (I feel really bad about being so lazy at the moment), but today was just so amazing.

Did I tell you about Tobias already? Probably not.
Tobias is a CouchSurfer from Germany. He stayed at our place for 2 nights - my first real life couch surfing experience ;-)
Today it was time to say goodbye, and I brought him to the north of the city, so that it would be easier for him to hitchhike.

After that, I went back to the city center to meet Chrisu, an Austrian couch surfer who had contacted me recently. Our couch was "booked", but we agreed to meet for a coffee/tea/whatever. We did not find a place that was good enough for us (hehe), and so we then went to the place where he had stayed for the last night, so that Chrisu could get all his stuff and would not have to carry it all the way to the city center (I have got a car, you know..).

This place was very cool (Unfortunately I did not have my camera(s) with me..). It is one of the oldest houses in Hamilton (over 100 years, they said), kind of crappy inside, but with a lot of positive energy. All of the people there are musicians/artists, and you can definitely feel that when you enter the house.

Met vegan in Hamilton
One of the guys, Justin, was actually a vegan raw food eater, and I enjoyed to talk with him about it. As some of you might not know, I have been eating raw for a couple of months, about 2 years ago I think. At the end, Justin invited us to stay for lunch, and I couldn't refuse that. I have to say: it was amazing! We had raw bread (which you can actually buy in the organic store here), various sprouts, raw hummus, cucumber salad, sea weed, different flakes and spices, and some coconut stuff - and a bunch of other things I can't remember at the moment. It was a very colorful and fulfilling lunch - Chris, you would have become raw foodist again right away :-))
My part of the lunch was the Indian cucumber salad, and the hedgehog-shaped mango as a desert. Justin told me that they have a potluck every week, and he invited me to join them. (YEAH!)


Oh, and I learned something today: there are (non-vegan) people in this world who think that being vegan is hip (thanks, Sam :-)).


On a day like this I feel very lucky. Without planning, good things are showing up, as if I would be a magnet for them. Hopefully I am not stealing other peoples luck..

Current mood: relaxed, but tired

Beautiful people

Last weekend I have been to Auckland again.
The plan was:

• take the bus to Auckland on saturday
• attend an Animal Rights demo (no more battery eggs at Subway)
  
• take the bus back

The trip was too spontaneous to do couch surfing, and so I planned to go home on the same day.

At the end, it turned out to be different.
The beginning was according to plan though. I got up at 6, left at 7 and took the bus at 8. Slept all the way to Auckland (which was wonderful) and was there at 10. The demo was a bit outside of the city center, and I decided to walk there. It took me quite a while, but I went through a beautiful park, saw loads of children playing cricket, other guys climbing trees, and many others just watching like me.

After arriving in the right street, but going all the way up in the wrong direction - spotting a Swarovski store on the way though (TIROL, TIROL, TIROL, du bist mein ... !! *sing*) - I finally arrived at the demo and started helping right away. We were collecting addresses that we would then give away to the Subway people.
Well, Jesse (one of the demonstrators) was quite impressed that I came from Hamilton just for the demo, and so he invited me to join a dinner of the SAFE animal rights people. I didn't have a place to stay, but Alice and Billy invited me to stay at their house. That was an amazing offer, and I couldn't say no :-)

The dinner was just awesome! About 20 vegan people eating Indian food :-) Four of us were sharing, and so I could taste a lot of different dishes. Highlight: vegan mango lassi (which is soy joghurt and mango pulp).

After the dinner we went to a comedy show. Newbies telling their newest jokes. Some of them were even funny ;-)

On Sunday we had putluck at Alice's and Billy's place. What can I say, it was very fascinating. Nobody knew what the others are going to bring, and still the food was as well-balanced as it could be. Salads, main dishes, sweets, bread, everything. And it tasted soo good!
Besides that, the people were all so caring and full of spirit. I felt as if I knew them for long, and forgot about being a foreigner.

It is good to be here.

My friend the Kathmandu

Today was the BIG shopping day. We, Alex and me, spent quite a bit of money at the Kathmandu store here in Hamilton. It was the start of the big clearance sale, with bargains up to minus 60%. Our day to get all the stuff we thought we could need someday. All the things that I bought had 50 to 60% discount :-)

That's what I got:

• sleeping bag. The best synthetic bag they have there, minus 60% for members (what we are)
• an extra compression sack (that one was not reduced, I fear ;-))
  
• rucksack. for 50 liters I guess.
• cotton liner
• microfibre towel
• monocular
• mini tripod

All in all I spent 250$ today..

Back home we had to try out if the sleeping bag is really compressable. We heard different things about it, but the Kathmandu person told us that it will work. And she was right! It is compressable. NICE :-)

Oh yeah, Alex checked the quality of the bag. Very hot, he said..

Not blogging = busy?

I am really forgetting about this blog-thing at the moment. Actually, I have quite a bunch of pictures that I have to sort/delete/edit in order to put them online. And telling stories without pictures is kind of boring, isn't it?

Well, we have been to Auckland for the weekend. It has been a very lucky and beautiful trip. I will write another blog about it later on.

And: this week I started to be kind of productive at uni. I try to get used to going to the lab in the morning and get some work done. I made it for two days in a row now, so we'll see how I get along.

Today I was in the office at 7 am already. Did some reading and organizing, and managed to use up all the money on my UniCash account. We have to pay to use the Internet, and we have to pay for printing. But Masood told us that he will refill our account in case we don't have any money left. We'll see if that works.. In the meantime I am using Jernej's account. He is travelling on the south island with Moni at the moment, so he does not need his account anyways.

At 11 I went to a talk of Ian Witten, one of the most famous researchers working in the CS department here. He did his sabbatical in 2005 and went to a lot of different places (even Vienna). He showed pictures and told about the research he had been doing. And he played an audio sample of Woody Allen playing the clarinette. Quote: "That was the worst clarinette playing I ever heard." Funny :-)

Afterwards I went home. It was a very hot and humid day, so I felt tired. Maybe I should have stayed in the lab. It is quite cold there, so I even wear a scarf sometimes.
Anyways, I was baking bread again today, which took some time, and afterwards me and Alex made pumpkin and apple strudel. Was ok, but still with potential to improve ;-)
Now I am really tired. But no time for it. Pilates starts soon.

Introducing other stuff: Pilates

This week I started doing Pilates in the fitness center. As Yoga did not work for me, and I was not able to continue doing some excercises at home by myself, I decided to join Lauren and have a look how Pilates is going to be like.

And I like it. It has some Yoga and dancing elements in it, and it is not that stressy workout thing that I don't like. Breathing is quite a challenge, as it is the complete opposite to the breathing you learn as a singer.

Anyways. It is fun.

Yet another weired geeky unusable but still funny webpage

4 second fuse is a kiwi band I actually never heard playing. But the guitarist is Bill Rogers son Sam (hehe).

Oh, and to continue my "Introducing people" series (and if you are unable/not willing to navigate through their page, this is Sam playing in the band (on the left).

Current mood: fine, avoiding work by surfing the net..

Rugby: The Chiefs against the Crusaders

Last Friday, Alex, Jernej, Moni and me went to the stadium to see the Chiefs playing. We did not get tickets before, so we hoped that we could still get good seats there. After some confusion in which line to stand in order to get good tickets - and a woman changing the text on the information notes - we finally managed to get 4 of the last 12 tickets in the black zone. So we cold go and see the game.

Summary:

• Family game. Lots of families and children there.
• Still a lot of beer-drinking, yelling joungsters (right next to us). But funny.
• Hard to see anything at all. Most of the times it is just a big "accumulation" of people. Sometimes it looks like hugghing, sometimes it looks like the thing we called "Sauhaufen" in our school..
• Cheerleaders don't help to learn the game rules.
• Little Chief is a special guest.

Been there, done that. Worth seeing, but I don't have to go there regularly..

ps: Some news stuff

Yet another sunset

We made sunset pictures some days ago while the Americans went watching Narnia at the Campus Movies. I preferred the quiet evening to being inside..

Introducing people: Tim

Tim Elphick. We first met him when we were attending the BBQ at his and his wife Jacqui's place (where we made the first sunset pics). He is a very nice, and especially funny guy and we kinda liked him at the spot.
The second occation where we met him was the Department of Computer Science introduction day. He was the one guiding us through the building and showing us around. Very funny too :-)

Today I found his homepage, and I have to say: it is worth looking at. I would assume that at least Wolfgang could like it, too..

Eat eat eat

Made pizza today - or should I say vegetable bread?
Without cheese of course, but with yeast flake sauce instead. And wholegrain dough (had no other flour at home). Tasted ok though :-)

And now: Lauren is making vegan cookies at the moment. With peanut butter, chocolate chips and bananas. I'm very very curious and looking forward!

Current mood: good, relaxed, with a full stomach

Honda cruising

I finally made it!
Was riding the car today for the first time. And actually it went better than expected. I still have to change some habits, but all in all: it's fine!

To remember:
Turning on the windscreen wiper (on the left) does not help the driver behind me to see what I am planning to do. Rather use the blinker (on the right).

Beach trip

Yesterday we went to the beach with the international students. It was three busses full of people. Many Chinese people, the rest mostly Americans or Germans. The place we were heading for was Mount Maunganui, which means something like "big mountain". Not for Austrians ;-)

2 1/2 hours of bus ride to get there. A Chinese girl (who called herself Sissy) wanted that we all will be friends, and so we had to stand up and tell everybody our names, majors, and where we come from. Well..

It was kind of rainy when we came there, but the day turned out to be quite nice. Went up the hill, took pictures, ate falafel, went to the hot water pools, went out of the hot water onto the beach and into the sea, and went back to the hot water pools again. Nice and relaxing. Pictures will follow..

Full house

At the moment it is six people living in the house. Us 5 and Jernej's girlfriend, who is here for 2 weeks or so. She is a nice and friendly girl, but she seems to cook meat every day.
Today I felt like living in a slaughter house. It smelled really ugly in the whole house. Moreover, she tends to cook too much, and so she gives away the food to the other people living here. So also the others are eating more meat than normal.

Most of you might not understand why that bothers me, but some probably will..

Don't know what to think

Today we had our "Special Topics" course with Bill and Masood. I was not as prepared as I should have been. I did most of the reading, not really carefully though and without going through the exercises. Have the feeling that speech recognition is not the field I am most interested in. Anyways.
We were talking about the course outline and dates. And they told us that we are expected to work on a project until the end of July.

That was kind of shocking for us. The normal A semester ends somewhen in June, and we thought that we could use the last month to travel around New Zealand. But now it seems that we have only one week before we fly home :-(

Well, maybe we can change this fact. At the moment I don't know what to think..

Introducing people: Masood

Masood Masoodian is our supervisor and THE person to talk with if anything is wrong in the exchange program. He is responsible for us being here, enrolled as normal students.

His office is the tidiest in the whole building. He was thinking of bringing some engines or old bikes, so that his office doesn't look too big for just one person..

Introducing people: Bill

Bill Rogers is one of our HCI course teachers, and he was one of the first people that we met at the university here. Bill wrote TRAED, the speech recognition tool that we will probably work on.

I think that he is a very smart and social person. I could not work in his office though. Kind of very chaotic way to have your stuff organized. But it seems that this is the way you should do it here. If you tidy up your room, people could think that you have too much space, and they would place another person in your office.
Therefore: don't tidy up!

Joke intermezzo

Q: How many vegans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: I don't know, but where do you get your protein from?

Q: What do you call a vegan guy who likes to pleasure himself?
A: A non-dairy creamer.

NZ english: Kumara

Getting European style potatoes in a supermarket here is quite hard. There is usually one kind of potatoes, and I did not manage to cook them correctly. We would call them "mehlig" probably.
And then they have loads of vegetables called "kumaras" in the supermarket, which look like red potatoes. And actually kumara is the Maori word for sweet potato.
Learned something..

Blogs of Note

blogger.com has a column saying "Blogs of Note". Browsed some of them, and want to mention one of them:

Vegan Lunch Box

Recipies for food that fits into a lunch box, with pictures. Worth a glance, as I think.
For all German speaking readers out there searching for recipes, this is my all-time-favorite: The recipe database of veganwelt.de, where you can search for category, region, season, properties and ingredients. Helped me out quite often already..

Waikato Youth Choir: here I come!!

Alex was reading about auditions for the Waikato Youth choir in a magazine recently, and so I wrote them an email if it is possible to join them for just one semester.
Julie, the conductor of the choir wrote back that we should come to her office at the university today. We did that, and now we are invited to sing with the choir on Monday. Very much looking forward to that.

First car day: addendum

I did not take pictures recently. But Alex did! Look at those funny faces, enjoying their crappy car ride. (We went as far as to say "Good Morning" to the car today - BigW will probably understand ;-))

There are more car pics on his page.

Current mood: well rested. Had a 2 hours nap recently.

First day as a car owner

I did not think that I would be a car owner that soon. But now I am. 22, forgetting about the environmental issues and taking the comfortable option.

But, in defence, it is quite hard to get around without it. Supermarkets are at least half an hour walk, public transport is not good in comparison to Austria. And travelling by train is normally not an option for Kiwis, as far as I have seen. So it was basically a decision between seeing the country or not.

Anyways, Alex and I bought the car. Lance the landlord was not too happy to give it away. He had a problem with another car this morning, and the (future?) owner of that one would have paid him 800 NZ$ for our car. But we had agreed to pay 400 NZ$, so he had to give it away for half the price. Good for us :-))

Fortunately, Alex agreed to be the main driver, and so he started right away in the middle of the city. Not that easy at the beginning:

• driving on the left side
• shifting gears on the left side
• blinker on the right side

.. and other different stuff to think of.

I really want to drive on a parking lot before driving in the city. I am frightened..
But Alex did a very good job. Only one error this day: driving on the right side - and we both did not realize until another car came in the opposite direction :-)

Managed day 1.

Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Manuela Hutter, Master of Science?

Maybe most of the Austrians reading have heard about the title change thing going on in Austria. I mean, it is a good thing that the Bachelor is called a Bachelor, and those studying a Master's degree recieving a Master degree. But, how the f*** do I have to write my title then??

I have this Diploma Engineer thingy already (ugly title), I would have got another one of that type in a year. That would then be:

• Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Manuela Hutter, or hopefully
• DI (FH) DI (FH) Manuela Hutter, or maybe even
• 2DI(FH) Manuela Hutter

But now? Is it:

• Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Master of Science Manuela Hutter, better
• DI(FH) MSc Manuela Hutter, or the other way round
• Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Manuela Hutter, Master of Science, in short
• DI(FH) Manuela Hutter, MSc

Any better suggestions??

I guess I'll stick to

• Manuela Hutter

as long as possible..

ps: the most confusing PDF I've ever read is this

Insulation

I might have mentioned the some house specialities already. This time, I want to spend some time telling you something about NZ house insulation.

Basically, most of the houses don't have any. When it is cold outside, it is cold inside - at least, this is my personal experience. Our house seems to be a special case of this rule:

• cold outside = cold inside
• warm outside = cold inside
  

Anyways. The biggest problem about that was one glass part (we stopped calling it window) in the kitchen. It is basically 3 glass plates that can be tilted. If the non-window is closed, the plates overlap a little bit. But basically the wind comes through and it gets cold in the evenings.


Our plan
We wanted to do something about it. So we took a yellow blanket and put it over the glass thingy. The blanket was moving about 20 cm back and forth because of the wind. So it did not help too much.
We even went to TheWarehouse to buy some plastic to stick onto the glass, but they did not have what we searched for.




So if we don't get professional plastic foil, why not take plastic bags?
We have a lot of not used shopping bags!

Said and done. We stuffed all our plastic bags into the chinks. And there it is: our own private insulation! Looks crappy from the outside, but quite nice from the inside :-)

Comments notification

I got a complaint about having to access the webpage to see if there are new comments. I did not find a solution to add the comments information to the RSS feed (tell me if I am wrong). But: I recieve the comments notification via email, and I can forward them to anyone who wants to have it.

So, just tell me if you want to be added :-)

Achievments of the day

1) the first family pack of toilet paper is used up
2) we agreed to buy the car and already got the insurance
3) we have a wireless router now! (Jernej's girlfriend arrived, by the way)
3) I made sweet bread, with coconut, apple, strawberries and kiwi in it

Yoga - Workout?

Yesterday, Lauren and I went to the first yoga class in the Uni Rec Centre.

It was very different to what I was used to. First of all, the location is not good. Right next to a step aerobic workout, you could hear techno music and the woman shouting all the time. The plastic mats.

Then: the excercises.
For me, yoga is a mixture of body, breath, and mind. In this course, it was all about the body. Almost nothing about the right breathing, and nothing at all about the thinking. Moreover, the excercises were all very similar and covered only a small range of muscles.

I want to start practicing yoga at home, though..

Current mood: relaxed

Picture treasure

I now managed to put all my pictures online (except the panorama footage ;-)). Some of them I did not upload since two weeks, so you will probably find a lot of new pictures!

Just click on the Photos link on the right..

My Passport

This is what I have in my passport: two NZ visa, one saying that I can work but only as an Intern, one saying I am a student, but I can work up to 20 hours. Bizarre, isn't it?

But anyways, I think it's cool to have two visa in the passport. Before that, the only thing that was stamped into it was my trip to Talinn.

Car offer

A few days ago Lance, our landlord, told us about a car he could sell to us. All in all (with insurance, ..) it would cost about 700 NZ$. I mean, it is what they call a shitty car, and you never know how long it will take until it breaks. And I am not a big fan of cars anyways..

What do you think guys?

New page design

Finally I could not look at the standard design of the page any more, and I invested a bit of time to redesign it. Just a pic and different colors basically. Please leave your comment for further suggestions. Thanks :-)

ps: I just realized that the page looks a bit different in IE. Therefore: optimized for Firefox ;-)

And now all together: I don't kno-oo-oow!!

The last band-night of the O week is over. Today was The Exponents day. Which means an old famos NZ band gets together again and sings old hits. Like the NZ version of STS, playing rock songs, sung by Rod Steward (he has the looks and the voice of him, really!). Well, not my favorite band of the week. But it was impressive how many people were singing old songs, waving and jumping and shouting and drinking..

Their supporting act was a band called Autozamm. Their music was quite nice, at least better than The Exponents - and they are younger ;-)




And, guess what: They threw a CD into the crowd.
And, guess what: It was me who got it :-)

Resume:

• 6 evenings in the Hillcrest Tavern
• 10 bands
• 80 NZ$
• 2 CD's (one signed)
• contacts to OdESSA
• a lot of fun and dancing
• exhausting

Harddisk countdown

T.E.C. date: March 2006. Which would be: NOW. Which would mean: my harddisk will probably fail in a few days. Which means: don't blame me if I am not responding to emails or updating my blog..

Officially and correctly in New Zealand

Yes, today we finally got the student permit stuck into our passports. Now we have a student and a work permit. The work permit allows to work at Waikato Uni, the student permit allows 20 hours of whatever work per week. Not that we want to work, but nice to know that we would be allowed to do so :-)

Do you festival?

We (Alex and me) just came home from tonight's concerts, and it was just awesome! Tonight it was the day for the headliner, which was Bomfunk MC's, with OdESSA as opening act.

First surprise: almost any people. Nobody interested in those groups, it seems. And in fact there were NO people in front of the stage when OdESSA started. I went there right away and started dancing - there has to be at least someboy to support them, right?

And it turned out to be a really nice concert. They are actually my favorite O week band until now. They definitely win in the categories:

• best vocals
• best dancing performance
• most favored music genre

Then it was Bomfunk MC's time, the guys from Finland. I was kind of prejudiced about what I am going to hear. Techno-HipHop mix, what is that gonna be like?? Only two DJ's on stage? But: they surprised me with quite nice songs and a good performance. And: they were quite many people: drummer, guitar player, bassist, keyboarder, singer and DJ. They win the category:

• best guitar player

I liked one moment in the concert, where the singer asked the crowd: "Do you festival?". Nobody really knew what to answer, and it was quiet. Hihi..

The weired part
Almost at the end of the concert, the singer of OdESSA comes to the place in the crowd where I stand and thanks me for dancing at the beginning of their concert! The band was amazed by the fact that one would have enough courage to stand on the empty floor and start dancing (quote: "you made our evening"). I told him that I enjoyed the concert and wanted to know if they sell CD's. He went off and gave me one for free!!

After the concert, we somehow started to talk with some of the band members, and after about an hour of talking we even went with them into the backstage room. The Bomfunkers were also there. We had a really nice chat, and somehow we managed to impress them enough that the bassist gave us his number and invited us to stay at his place if we should ever come to Wellington. Pretty sweet!!
.. and I have all the autographs on the CD, written with a marker that comes off when you touch it. I guess I have to take a picture before it is gone (and no, I did not ask for the autographs, the singer offered them to me).

NZ specialities: no black trousers

I heard that one of the German guys could not get into the Outback (pub in town) because he was wearing black jeans. Reason: Guys in black jeans are rowdies.

I think that I can wear black trousers though..

I met Freddy Mercury

.. singing at Waikato Orientation Week ..

Lauren's pictures

A new link to look at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurennz
Funny flat pictures :-)

Catching up

Wow, time passes by that fast, and I forget updating the blog..
It is O Week, it is concerts every evening, it is fun program in the afternoons. I managed to upload some pictures (and at the moment I am uploading old pics from the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival last week).

All the bands that played this week were quite nice. Yesterday was the pop-evening. First it was a girls band (Foamy Ed - definitely not my favourite band), and then it was Elemeno P. It was the concert with the most enthusiastic people on the dancefloor. Everybody jumping and singing. Quite nice, even though I felt quite tired..

The day before it was more the reggae/hiphop section, if I remember correctly. Anyways, those bands were more my taste.

Two days of concerts to go. My voice has left me, hopefully it will be back in the evening. Today we should get our student permit, and afterwards it is Wine and Cheese gathering with all the Master's and PhD students of the Computer Science department.

Ah yeah, and we are planning to eat Mexican dinner together in our flat. Cool!!

Current mood: good, a bit tired and cold