TOP GEAR!!!

Saturday the 5th of March Phil and I went to the Top Gear live show at the Brisbane entertainment centre. It was the present I gave Phil for his birthday.

We found our seats in the stadium and a few minutes later the lights went out. Every one thought the show started but actually it was just a live advertisement for Shell V Power. A Ford Transit van arrived on the stage and stopped to get gas. Then suddenly, the front of the van goes up and a little car comes out the van and did some drifting. In the end they said "Bring out the best performance in your car"...
I found a video of a previous show that was very similar: click on Promo Shell V Power

Then Jeremy Clarkson and and James May did their into: intro Clarkson and May
They didn't take little Hammond with them, but they had one of the presenters of the Australian Top Gear.

They showed a little movie of the new Stig: Top Gear's top secret Stig Farm So funny!!!

My favourite part of the show was where 4 cars drove synchronically and did some drifting and some other nice trics. You can see this part here: Movie of my favourite part!

There was also a challenge in the live show: each presenter had to build a car with electrical appliance that one could find a house. THe Australian guy used an Iron Board and an Iron. James used washing mashines and Jeremy used 12 blenders to imitate his V12 engine. Then they had to do a race. Jeremy took the lead... however, he was using a power cord that was not long enough for the whole challenge so he stopped moving... THe Australian presenter won and Captain Slow ended second. 

Watch here: Green challenge

There was also a part where all the people could vote on cars if they like it or not. 

In another part 2 cars were drifting around a  flamethrower girl: Cars and Flames

ANother funny part was a soccer game with cars: Australia against England. In previous shows they used real good cars, but the the factories didn't like that their cars were used for the soccer game so now they used reliant 3 wheel cars. You can see some parts here:  Car soccer

There was much more (motorbike stunts, more drifting, show of new cars, ...)! We enjoyed the show a lot! It was so funny and we saw some nice stunts! 

Click on all the links to see some Youtube movies! 

ENJOY! 

Coolangatta

Last Sunday I went with 2 roommates (Pierrre from France and Gabby from Mexico) and another friend from Sweden to Coolangatta for the Quicksilver Roxy Pro contest, a surfing competition. We enjoyed a bit of the surfing event and hanged around a bit. Some pics:

Nice view from the car park

Surfers Paradise

Roomies enjoying the view

Snapper rocks and surfing competition

Quicksilver Roxy surfing competition

After a bit of walking, we went to the Snapper Rocks to swim. The Snapper Rocks is a small rocky outcrop on the northern side of Point Danger at the southern end of Queensland's Gold Coast. It is a famous surf break and today the start of the large sand bank known to surfers as the Superbank. This was so cool! I loved it! The water was warm and the sun was shining. We climbed on and over the rockers, we jumped in the water, we went to different water pools, we had natural showers caused by the big waves braking on the rocks! Awesome and refreshing!

Flying Jessie

Jessie & Pierre

Chilling

Rock Pools and Surfers Paradise in the background

Jessie and Pierre waiting for the waves to brake on the rocks

Rock Pools

After swimming in the rock pools, we went to D-bar for a Smoothie and then we drove to the Currumbin Beach Vikings Surf Club. This is a nice clubhouse with a restaurant and a terrace with a very nice view! We had a late lunch here and we enjoyed the environment.

View

Amazing!

This is life!

Sunset

 After sunset we went back home. It was an amazing day!

Jessie

PhD & weekends

When I came home Jill was also staying at our place! Woohoo! I love to have a good friend with me here. Unfortunately, I don't have much time to spend with her during the week. But we enjoyed our first weekend after Melbourne. It was so warm so: Time for the pool!

 Breakfast at the pool

Jilling in the pool (thx Bie ;-))

Last monday Jill left us :-( She went 600km West from where we live and she is in the middle of nowhere working in a the oldest bar of Queensland! After 3 days without news of Jill, and I couldn't reach her because she doesn't have phone reception, I started to worry and I decided to call the bar to make sure Jillie is ok. And Jillie is ok! No reception, internet hard to access, a lot of insects, dirty rooms, BUT nice people and a lot of hours to work which is good money! I think about you Jill! And we miss you here!

That is what happens in the weekends... but during the week I am working hard. And also in the weekends I try to get some things done. The last 2 weeks I have been working hard on my PhD.  It was not easy and a lot of decisions had to be made and thus a lot of hard thinking work. A PhD is really like an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes I feel so great about my research and then, because of one comment or thing that happened... I feel so stupid and I have no idea what I am doing... For the first time, I was thinking... Jessie, just go home and find a job! But I know that is not what I want to do. I want to finish my PhD. So I work more. At the moment I sorted out all the problems, I know again what to do and how so START! DO IT!

Last Saturday I went to the Currumbin Rock Pools with Philippe on the motorbikes. It took us half an hour to get there. It is like a river with rocks where you can swim and jump of the rocks! We spent a nice afternoon there!

Currumbin Rock Pools

Jumping of the rocks

We definitely have to come back to this place but apparently we have to drive a bit further on the road to the currumbin pools national park, where it is even better and nicer! So I am already looking forward to go there again!

On Sunday, I worked a bit, I read in the book about Andre Agassi (it takes me so long to finish it because I don't have time to read!). We did groceries and the laundry... In the afternoon I decided to go kayaking on the lake, but with Philippe on the pier... because I am a bit scared to fall in the water or to be attacked by the Bull Sharks that live here (that's what they say... never seen one). I enjoyed my little kayak trip! It is so cool to see all the houses from another perspective. Today I also realised how big our house is if you see it from the water!

Me kayaking

Apparently another PHD student lives in the red house :-)

She recognised her house on a facebook picture

Philippe, ready to save me if sth happens :-)

Our huge house! I love it!

As most nights, Philippe is working at the restaurant again! I had some time to write on my blog, and now I am going to work a bit more on my proposals and method chapter! 

Cheers,

Jessie

Final!

Oops! I see that I still have to make an update of my last days in Melbourne!

On Saturday I went quite early to Melbourne Park. I saw An-sophie Mestach playing the junior finals in the Rod Laver arena. She played well! Nice slices and good variations during the rally! She won her game pretty easy! 16 years old... it must be so amazing to stand on the big court and win The Aussie Open

Juniors and Wheelchairs

After the juniors final I went to the oval, the place where all the sponsors have there stand.

Nice painting for Kim

Me :-)

At 7.30pm the women's final Kim Clijsters - Na Li started. Just before the game the cast of Hairspray did a short performance which was nice.

I had a good seat, not too far from the court, second raw of the higher part. Then a Chinese group came that was sitting in front of me. I thought... PERFECT! All small people, so I will have a good view... NOT! THey were so fanatic... They had a big paper with something written in chinese on it. They were leaning forward all the time and holding the paper in the air.... But then some other people next to me made some comments about it and they understood.

Kim won the first 9 points of the game :-) It seemed that it would be an easy match for Kim... But then Na Li won her first point... The people in front of me reacted if she had won the whole match... You would think that the people in the stadium would be all supporting Kim, but there were so many chinese people! And they were all the time shouting... Na Li, Kai o (or something like that) which means Na Li, come on! Na Li started to play better and Kim started to make a lot of unforced errors... She lost the first set... Now me and my Aussie neighbours were getting quiet... In the second set Kim still had trouble but then she came closer and she went over Na Li. Set set. Wohooo! Go with the Belgian Flag! Even my Aussie neighbours were proud to hold my flag with me.

 THe third set was a bit easier. Kim won!

I had a great time at the Australian Open! It was amazing! I hope I can go back next year!

On Sunday morning I went to the Fitzroy Gardens but it was soooo warm that I didn't see much there... I went through the shopping streets and bought a little present for philippes birthday! It was 40 degrees on this Sunday, I think the warmest I have ever had so far.

Then I went back to the hostel to get my luggage and to wait for the pick up bus to the airport. When I arrived at the Gold Coast, Charlie picked me up and then we went to the restaurant where philippe is working. We had dinner and a nice dessert to celebrate his birthday. And then I gave my present... A little toy car wrapped in a paper of a Top Gear magazine... Philippe didn't understand it.... Till I gave him a paper with a scan of 2 tickets for the Top Gear live show in Brisbane on the 5th of March!

So back home... back to work....

Aquarium & semi-finals

Thursday morning we slept a bit longer and then we went for a breakfast-lunch to a little restaurant in one of the cosy little streets in Melbourne close to our hostel. We had a good breakfast and coffee, a nice start of the day. 

Breakfast-lunch with morning eyes

Then we walked on Southbank to the Melbourne Aquarium. The Melbourne aquarium is huge and very nice! First we saw some penguins, then we went saw a lot of stone fishes, crabs, jelly fishes, sharks,... They also had some baby hammerheads in the aquarium. The last part of the aquarium was a big tunnel so you could walk through a glass tunnel with fishes on your left, right and above you! We spent more than two hours watching the fishes and we enjoyed it!

The Penguins

Look well and you will see the stone fish

Huge stingfish

Aquarium tunnel

In the evening I went to the mens semi-final @ the Rod Laver arena. Federer played against Djokovic. The first set was very close and Djokovic won in the Tie Break. Djokovic was playing very well. In the second set Federer was leading 5-2 but he could not finish the set and Djokovic won 7-5. In the third set Djokovic was leading 4-2 and the crowd went crazy when Federer came back to 4-4! What an atmosphere in the stadium! But then he lost his own serve... 5-4 and then Djokovic served for the match. I hoped to see Federer playing his best level...

Djokovic was better today!

After the mens semi-final there was a legends double match. Henri Leconte and Pat Rafter against Haarhuis en Elting. Henri Leconte was so funny! He was making jokes all the time! And he is still a good tennis player. It was a good game and lots of fun to see. 

Legends doubles

Elting/Haarhuis - Rafter/Leconte

But Rafter left Leconte for a while!

Crazy Frenchy! Leconte!

Now I am back in the hostel,  waiting to hear how jill enjoyed the pub crawl that was organised by the hostel!


I am having trouble to upload pictures at the moment... but I will add them as soon as I can!


Cheers,
Jessie