Hello from Australia!

This is actually not a photo I took (haven't got a new camera yet and the one in my mobile phono doesn't take good photos if the conditions aren't absolutly perfect), but I wanted you to have a picture of the place where I am staying and can't take just some old ones because I've never been to Australia before.

Right now I am just super tired, although it's only 4 pm here. Three hours time difference isn't much compared to the 12 hours between Europe and NZ - but it is something if you got up at 6 am after sleeping less than five hours.

Everything went just pretty well. I was taken to the airport by Tom, my flight was in time, Pele picked me up in Brisbane, I even got a cheap SIM card with 500mb data each day, we went to another's bridgeplayers place, I was invited for an amazing lunch with even more bridgeplayers from NZ and took a walk up a mountain with Pele. When I came back here and started my computer I actually thought it was 7 pm HERE (so 10 pm in NZ) because I just felt like it was - but obviously it isn't, so I might just lay down for a bit after finishing this entry ;-)

So again, an amazing place to stay, such great people and I am going to see koalas tomorrow. I found partners for the tournaments, survived the heavy turbulences on my flight this morning (quite relaxed as I experienced the ones over the Rocky Mountains) and managed to have a really good day after drinking very much wine the night before (not today, but on Saturday). I learned how the difference between "weird" and "strange", how to use "almost" and "nearly" and that you have to double with almost every hand after you open, partner responses on the one level and RHO bids 2 something.

I thought that going to NZ for a couple of times (not only because of me) and only wanted to be somewhere else when I woke up on Sunday morning (but not for long, after a good breakfast and a 2 hours beach walk I concluded that wine is probably safer to get drunk with than Bacardi). I ate fried fish and it was really good. I applied for some jobs which I'll probably not get anyway (because how would they know that I definitly CAN do them). Probably some of my clothes are missing (no idea where) and others are destroyed (no idea how), so I don't have much left - shopping time soon. I've played a bridge tournament with bidding boxes and found it kind of unusual in the beginning. I had a look at the scale, saw that I had gained a bit weight (the last month was a nice mixture of eating lots of chocolate and icecream and doing much more "exercise" - in form of walks - than usual) and didn't mind for a second.

I think I found the best reason to become a bridge player. You'll never be alone (sorry, only a little pathetic :D ).