Immer eis meh :-)

Last week I wrote something about our car experiences, this week I want to write something about the two villages Coolum and Noosa. Coolum was the location of our stay and Noosa is a beautiful place and quite famous as a surfer paradise.

Coolum Beach & Noosa (for the interactive map click on the picture)

Coolum Beach

the red yellow flags at the Coolum beach.

The small village along the beach is quite touristic, but the location is also a favorite place for the locals. The main attraction is, of course, the beach! The beach has a length about 5 – 6 kilometer (or more, I didn’t measure –> if you want, look in Wikipedia). Compare with the mediterranean sea, the ocean in Australia is more rough and dangerous. Easily you underrate the high-risks like poison jellyfishes, strong drifts into the ocean or sharp rocks (sharks aren’t really a big deal). If you want to take a bath, you have to consider the special areas. At almost every beach, you can see different flags from the Australian life guards service (named: surf life savers). You’re strongly suggested only to enter the water between the red-yellow-flags.

Noosa

the outlook from a path in the natural park in Noosa

Noosa is, of course, the best-known village at the sunshine cost. If Coolum Beach has a lot of tourists, Noosa would be overcrowed. But, Noosa is still quite impressive, the very large beach, a beautiful pedestrian area with a lot of small (but expensive) shops, nice cafés and a very magnificent natural park. The park includes a lot of natural plants and animals (we discovered a large lizard and a sleeping koala  top on the tree). We paths crossing the park are quite interesting, on the one side you see the wild and open sea, on the other side you are able to notice some new creatures. Besides visiting the park, we ate lunch in a large restaurant in Noosa, owned by the surf life savers. If you like burgers, this restaurant is a strong advice (also suitable for vegetarians). We also bought two hats for the soon summer – the best action against sunstroke.

In conclusion, this weekend was very relaxing and exciting. Cheers…

The last weekend, Maggi and I drove to the sunshine coast with a hired car. The decision to do this “holiday in the vacation” came up in mind last thursday. To discover the beautiful beach and collect some experiences of “driving on the false side” were the key arguments.

We rented a car for three days at a car renter at the brisbane international airport. Afterwards, the location “airport” was not a great decision, not because of the car rental company, but the trip to the airport is very expensive. (not the whole trip, only the way between the last station before the airport and the airport.) If anybody wants to hire a car in Brisbane, we advise to hire a car at an other place (except you do want to hire a car directly after flight arrival). The woman behind the car rental company desk was very friendly and explained all the things we have to do different the next time :

• you have to carry a print of your voucher
• you have to be at the corner at the time you have ordered (and not 2 hours later as we did)
• it’s better to go to the other corner (at the domestic airport)
  notice: in the booking info wasn’t any information about the exact position of the corner

After about half an hour of explanation, we were able to get on the car. We hired a little Toyota (Maggi knows the exact type, but I don’t). The distance between the airport and our hotel was about 140 kilometer. It was important not to drive to long for the frist time. We arrived our hotel in Coolum Beach on time and without any serious damages. But, what are the key challenges to drive in Australia:

• the roundabouts are a bit different compared with the ones we have in Switzerland. Most of them are bigger (most have two lines). Also the way of indicating the direction is divergent: Before you enter the roundabout, you have to show the direction (left blinking for the left exit, no blinking go straight away, and right blinking for the right exit).
• Keeping the car in the middle of the street could be a little challenge. Because you’re having the seat on the right side, you have to be aware not to drive too much on the left side.
• The most serious problem was the mistake between the windscreen wiper and the blinking operate stick (or however this thing is called :-)).

In conclusion, the experiment of driving in Australia wasn’t that serious as we expected. Of course, driving in Australia needs more attention in compare with driving in Switzerland. We hired a automatic car (the best invention in car engineering), therefore we were able to focus in the different functions and environments here in Queensland. As a non-rountine driver, I must be attentive all the time, also in my hometown.

Beer and Australia are strong related. Although, the unbelieveable high prices and the the very strict laws around this topic, Australia is a great beer nation. Lets begin with the the costs.

Alcohol and especially beer is very expensive, you can easily combare with the prices in the northern countries in europe. Depend on the time of the consumation and the location, you have to pay between 7 and 11 australian dollar for one pint or sometimes even for only a little bottle. A lot of restaurants have happy hours. So, if you are a clever tourist or even a Australien citizien you can take advantages of this information. In lots of the suburbs or in small town, a lot of the australians are member of some community clubs, in which you can buy cheap food and drinks (including beer and other alcohol).

To drink alcohol in the public is not allowed in whole Australia. Therefore, you can only drink alcohol in the pubs or in your private home. The law is settled to prevent public drinking parties. The police practice is quite similiar with our law about canabies. If you only drink one beer beside a normal meal in a park, the police won’t give you a fine. If a group of young people are hanging around with forty bottles of beer, the police will stopp this dinking party.

The choice of tasty beers are huge. The majority of the beers we have tried were absolutely tasty. The Australiens like strong aromatic beers. Of couse, you can also drink some less flavor beers, like the xxxx-beer, but I recommend definitly the the Ale-Ones (e.g. little creatures, pacific ale). Most of the bars or restaurants offers a wide rage of different beers, usually more then four brands. The most impressing topic about the beer culture is the ale-bank, just fascinating.

One of my aims in Australia is the improvement of my english skills. This summer I reached B2-level and after the six month stay I intent to pass a C1 exam (advanced certificate in english). Languages in general are definitely not my strength. Therefore I have to invest a lot of brainpower and time to get better in a language. Recently, I read a book about the comparison of intelligence and patience. The author – Matthias Sutter – claims that patience is more important than intelligence and showed a lots of evidence for his assumption. In the academic world and also in my topic (e-learning) english is fundamental.
Because of these two reasons I want to invest personal human resources. (The fact that Maggi passed the AEC years ago could also be a reason.)

Two weeks ago, I joined a class names “English for academic purpose”. My primary course “Preparation course for AED” didn’t ran (I would have been the only student). We are quite a small class: two engineers from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, a pharmacist from Italy, a young guy from China and a female architect from Brazil. The main target of this course is to prepare people for the studies in Australia. But only three of us share this aim – the other students have already finished theirs degrees.

The course is different to the last course in england four years ago: more discussion, more academic staff, more interaction. Till today I’ve learnt content in three different areas:

1. interesting facts about Australia (politics, education system, health system, typical sports in Australia, differences between Australia and Britain, organized crime)
2. academic skills (taking notes, academic writing, presentation skills)
3. english (grammar and vocabulary – but this topics we learnt by the way)

This course is very helpful for me, because I learn exactly the skills and the knowledge which will be useful in the future. Our teacher is really open-minded and collected a lot of experience by travel and live in the whole world.

Recently, I wrote about sharing in restaurant. In this post I want to report some general topics about go eating in Brisbane. The Australian eating culture is not that big, therefore you can find a large variety of foreign restraurants. Theres quite a lot of italian, chinese or asia restaurants.

One typical thing is the food corner. This is separate place (often in a supermarket) with a lot of tables and chairs and a huge amount of different fast food corners. There you will find all the international food brands like Subway, McDonald, Kentucky fried chicken and more, but also a lot corners which sell kebabs (or something similar), sushi and also tasty asian fast food.

One other really australian thing is the process of order drinks or foods. Quiet always, you have to order drinks directly at the bar. It’s really uncommon to wait for the waitress in case you want to order drinks. Often, also the meals have to been ordered at the bar. After you ordered the meal you will get a number to pick up or the waiter will bring the dishes directly to your table when the meals are prepared.

your meals are ready to pick up…

In this post I want to tell you which things I and Maggi like in Brisbane. Of course there also excists things we don’t like, but Brisbane is a very cool city and could absolutly be a great place to life.

restaurants

We ate in serveral restaurants till now and in quite every restaurant you can share your meals. Perhaps you would say in Switzerland you’re also able to share your food, but in Brisbane (and I guess in whole Australia) it’s normal. You can read especially “share foods” in the menu and you usually get three plates (one or each person and one with the meal). We found that’s a great thing – you can discover more dishes.

Another very great thing here in Australia is the tap water for free and the huge number of musicians who are playing in the restaurant.

go card

This name stands for the debit card for using public transports here in Brisbane. Every time you enter and leave a railwaystation you have to put this card on an electronical reader. The costs depends on the distance, your specific target (if it is a tourstic place, it’s more expensive than an living area) and also the time (in the rush hour you have to pay more). After you reach 9 trips in a week you can use the public transport for free.

coffee culture

The Australian love good coffee. Nespresso and Starkbucks had to make a lot of effort to enter the australien market. You can hardly find a coffee in restaurant or a bar who is made with instant coffee powder. All restaurants own very expensive, high-quality coffee maschines like in Italy. Furthermore the baristas are very well educated. If a students wants to work as a barista he has to join a five week course for coffeemakers. The coffee offer is quite similiar to the swiss selection within two exeptions: long blank (black coffee without any milk) and  flat white (espresso with milk).

the people

Before I traveled to Australia, I read a book with the name “Fettnäpfenführer Australien”. I read in this book that the Australien citizen are very open-minded but the waiters aren’t very friendly. Fortunately I disagree with the opinion of the author. Also in a restaurant you are warmly welcomed. Ok, sometimes you have to order the drinks at the bar, but the people behind the bar are very pleasant. The previous experiences with other Australians were very positive. Our landlady (a muscian) is very open, explains us a lot of things and wants us to help, whenever she is able to.

We could add more things we like and for sure we will do that later. But for today we soon will eat in a nice restaurant, enjoy the shared food and the great view and the tasty coffe afterwards.

I decided to write more focussed in the future – so one topic for one post. Today I want tell you something about the botanic garden in Brisbane.

If you think about a bontic garden, probably you think about a lot of differents und uncommon plants, which are all labled und explained with small signs. Here in Brisbane, I didn’t see any plates with names or descriptions. The garden is more like a parc. It’s build for relaxing, not really for studying botanics. You can drink excellent coffee (like mostly in Brisbane), you can read a book in the shade of one of the beatiful trees or just enjoy the springtime. Now, you can see a lot of people in the parc who are doing some study work or even just lying in the grass. The University of Quennland is only a short hop away from the this area. The botanic garden is next to the Brisbane river, so if you visit the parc you have to go the shore and enjoy the fantastic view of the amazing skyline. The Australien like to be outdoor – therefore you can find a lot of benches all around the parc (not only in front of the river).

For all this reasons Maggi and I spent the most of our free afternoons in this parc. Ok, there isn’t so much evidence for this claim (only one week), but I could guess that we will pass a lot of our free time at this place.

After two long flights we savely arrived in Brisbane friday evening. On Saturday we went to the citycenter to buy some important things like two australian simcards, one energy adapter (Jonas) and lots of knitting wool (Maggi) 🙂

Our view 🙂