Il mio Overseas a Sydney, Australia (Gen-Lug 2007)... e il mio periodo di Tesi all'Estero a Rotterdam/Utrecht, Olanda (Ott 2007-Mar 2008)!

16th April - Blog interruption

Blog update is interrupted for an undetermined time due to an overload of University work and some further personal problems.
I will hopefully be back soon.

(Questa volta, vista la situazione, trovate la traduzione completa nei commenti sottostanti).

Postato da: DexterH46 a 10:21 | link | commenti (4)
announcements

4th March - Frisbee BBQ in Dee Why Beach

I just quote the words written by the Ultimate Frisbee president Sujeev after the great BBQ we had in Dee Why Beach. The UF people gathered in the afternoon to have some throws on the grass, a swim in the water and... a BBQ with some beers of course! UTS Ultimate Frisbee Club: the best club ever, definitely!

<<Firstly I'd like to thank Rosie for organising such an awesome bbq yesterday on Dee Why beach and the 4 or 5 people we had trying to cook sausages on a less than perfect bbq.

Those clouds in the morning cleared up to produce and amazing day. People were swimming, throwing discs around on the beach or just bumming around on the grass.

Then we all came together to sample the cuisine. Tasty!

Sadly we still had a slab of beer remaining, so that may make an appearance some time in the future :P >>

Postato da: DexterH46 a 08:21 | link | commenti (2)
sport, holiday, party, beach, uts

3rd March – Football Trials

After having slept a few hours it was already time to wake up and go and play the first football match of the UTS Soccer Team.
UTS Soccer Club has got two teams, so we had been asked in which one we wanted to play. It was a “random” choice: either the “good” team or the “low” team had players you didn’t know! You can see me wearing the number 11 in the following pictures in the match against Manly Team.

Here you can find one of my friends, Fabian, in a spectacular touch. Please also appreciate the great photographer I am!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 05:10 | link | commenti
sport, uts

2nd March – Harbour Cruise (2 – The People)

But the Harbour Cruise wasn’t meant to be only for good sights, it was meant to be also to meet new people! I have spent the first hours together with Germans and Italians, then I stayed with some of my friends you have already met.
Below you can find my “Little Italy” at UTS... all these three girls study in Milan, and they are exchange students as well here in Sydney.
After the nice cruise nearly all the people went to the 333 Pub in George Street. Here I spent a couple of hours chatting with my friends while drinking a beer, but no more, because the following day I had to play the first trial match for UTS Soccer Team.
In order: Claudia, Simona and Silvia! Claudia is from Cesenatico, Simona from Milan and Silvia from Verona. They may call me “terrone”, haha!

And after the three Italians, an International Group... you already know Maria (Germany), Samantha (Australia) and Eva (Austria), the fourth from the right is Kudrat, from India, she is doing a subject in the same class as me and, by chance, lives in the same flat of Maria and Eva!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 09:22 | link | commenti (10)
holiday, party, sydney, uts

2nd March – Harbour Cruise (1 – The Sights)

In the first Friday of March a good opportunity has been offered to all UTS International students, even it must be said that another day, let’s say either Saturday or Sunday, would have been better for all those who couldn’t come because they had lectures at that time in the evening.
Meeting point was Campbells Cove at 5.30PM, but the Cruise was scheduled at 6.00PM (of course only organisers knew it, and we didn’t, so I run from my house to the place and arrived there in a sweat, and I was not the only one.
The Cruise lasted something like 4 hours, and it gave us the opportunity to meet new people (see tomorrow’s diary) and have amazing sights that otherwise we would have only imagined. For those of you who couldn’t come I am offering you some... hope you like these pics!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 06:52 | link | commenti
holiday, party, sydney, uts

25th February – Football Trainings?

On the last day before the true beginning of the semester I was supposed to have football trainings with the UTS Soccer Team. Unfortunately it was raining, so I didn’t know if it was a good idea whether to go or not, but eventually decided to go there with Jean, one of the two French flatmates I have. We took a bus and then a train (the pitch is more than 1 hour journey far) where we meet Andreas, a German guy, also from UTS, who was going there for the same reason. When we arrived at the right station, Lindfield, the rain had become heavier, so we looked for repair for a couple of minutes before making our way to the field. Twenty minutes later (yes, we walked 20 more minutes!) we arrived at the pitch and there were just ten people (including us!) pretending to train, without a ball, a coach, the UTS Soccer President, the UTS Soccer Secretary. Just ten “idiots” according to Australians who, we discovered later, do not train if it rains in the morning or during the trainings. This is bullshit! I have played football (oh, sorry, they call it “soccer”) with snow, hail, rain, temperature below the zero, here it is something that can not happen.
So we went back our houses, disappointed and angry because we tried to call the responsible people but their mobile seemed to be off. I can only offer you this picture of the Harbour Bridge during a cloudy day in Sydney from Milsons Point train station.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 08:06 | link | commenti
sport, sydney, uts

21st February – O’Day (2 - The Evening)

The day wasn’t finished at all! During the evening the Pub Crawl was waiting for us, just after the Cocktail Party where we could have free beers. FREE BEERS! Yeah, cashback!!!
Later on we moved to The Rocks, an area close to the Harbour Bridge, when we started our pub crawl. It was great how we were going on and on meeting new people at each pub.
I started meeting Eva from Austria (she has been absolutely lovely, lending me money because I couldn’t pay my drinks with my card… we had just met!Really nice, not so common), then I joined a group of German people who were blaming me because “we destroyed their World Cup dream”… ahah, but “it was obvious that Italy would have won against Germany” has been my answer. The point is that anyway I was one against many (Pascal, Dominic, Nico, Maria, Daniel, Phillip, and a few more!) so it was hard to convince them. But it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been a great time! The opposite! We went on with the second and then with the third pub, sometimes losing someone in the group, sometimes adding someone new to our group. In the fourth pub, a typical German Oktoberfest atmosphere was reproduced with German beers. There we spent a lot of time, but it has been justified: there has even been a competition where the winner had to drink a beer before all the others!

I have a video of it with three people randomly chosen from those who were there trying to become the king for the night! Great stuff, it made us dreaming to gather all together back to the next Oktoberfest in Munich!
In the first picture you can see Maria (Germany) and Charles (Australia), in the second, from left to right, Samantha (Australia), Iurij (Italy),  Eva (Austria), Pascal (Germany), and Phillip (Germany as well) on the back. And we were not the only ones anyway!

In the last pic… a personal tribute to my German friend Nils who brought to our flat in Bologna the Franziskaner beer! “Cheers”, or, if you prefer, “Pros”!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 03:25 | link | commenti
party, sydney, uts

21st February – O’Day (1 - The Afternoon)

On Wednesday the UTS building was really overcrowded of any kind of people. Loads of Uni societies had their booths there to promote their groups and events for the coming academic year, but they were not alone, there was also a plethora of companies (Optus, Vodafone, Apple, and so on…) there to promote their products.

There was supposed to be another BBQ, let’s say free BBQ, running from the morning to 4pm. Unfortunately, astonished by so many societies (I think I have left my details to around 15-20 of them… mad man!) I went to the Alumni Green when it was 3 and… nobody was there anymore because the food was finished… DAMMIT!
Anyway it has been both funny seeing some parody of politicians (I guess the one in the picture is Howard, otherwise he must be Chaney) who are increasing the number of soldiers in Iraq (here in Australia the Government is full of idiots…) ...

...and also cool appreciating that some Engineering students every year build a car starting from nothing to compete at the end of the year in a race. I wanted to take a picture within the car: believe me, it has been really hard getting in since the room for the legs is just enough for them to fit in!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 10:05 | link | commenti
holiday, uts

20th February – Welcome BBQ and night at the Harbour

With all the activities and seminars going on, during the second week of orientation there has been time for a free BBQ organised by the UTS Union. When you link the two words “food” and “free” you know I go mad, and of course I couldn’t miss this opportunity!

The Alumni Green behind the UTS Tower was really full of people coming from everywhere in the world, and you can see it from the picture, and it has been a good moment to meet new people: thanks to Andrea I’ve met some Italian girls I will introduce you soon…
The same night a big ship was arriving in Sydney (I guess the name was Queen Mary, but I am not sure) so with Harrison and Majid I went to the Harbour area to see the spectacular fireworks and the great “welcome” that Sydney has reserved to the ship.

Unfortunately I couldn’t meet my friends (all of them were at the Opera House, while Majid convinced us the best place to see them was below the Harbour Bridge), but anyway I could admire another nice show.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 10:58 | link | commenti
holiday, party, sydney, uts

18th February – The Italian area of Leichhardt

On Sunday afternoon finally came the opportunity to meet some young Australians who have been exchange students in Bologna! Yeah, I got the telephone numbers of two of them (Gresham and Felicity) from Giacomo, my forerunner (http://www.aussiejack.blogspot.com/) who has been at UTS during 2006 Autumn Semester.
We spent an afternoon together to Leichhardt, the Italian area of Sydney, with the hope to find good and real Italian food. I had an icecream which wasn’t too bad, anyway is not like the Italian ones… and I have been told more or less the same about other food: we get closer to the Italian quality, but that is something that we can make only in Italy! ;-)
While walking, sitting and eating, we had long chats about loads of topics, ranging from Italian Uni to Australian Uni, from their jobs to my abroad experiences, ending talking about our favourite sport activities and music groups. A good afternoon, we should catch up again soon, in the meantime here you can see me with Felicity.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 09:21 | link | commenti (2)
holiday, sydney