Just ticking the blog over. Nothing much happening in POM, but the
financially miserable year that was 2008 was capped off with a
wonderful 2.5 weeks back in Brisbane.
I’m back now and into routine. This post is testing a new technique
of posting. If it shows up, it worked.
Hiya folks,
Just a quick update on the food situation over here. I’ve now got a kitchen, so am starting to do some cooking for myself. Starting back off slow with a pasta bolognese, and have done a beef stir-fry. The prawns are pretty cheap over here, so next on the list might need to be a prawn pizza. Food prices vary between being way over the top (juice, for instance - $8 for a 2L bottle), to being pretty darn good (raw large banana prawns - $15/ kilo). Haven’t found yeast for pizza bases yet… will keep looking.
My place is now all kitted out and feeling well lived in. Wine is too expensive for everyday consumption, so I’ve filled my fridge with beer (literally). It’s a very nice way to finish the hot day by having a couple of lazy beers with dinner. Anyway, back to work.
The rain has stopped for the last week, but it’s been very, very hot and sticky. Even the locals are saying it’s unusual. Methinks my heat resistance from growing up in FNQ has all but disappeared after acclimatising to Canberra. Sigh. Fortunately, the office is air conditioned and there hasn’t been a power-out yet where the generators don’t kick in quickly (approx 4-6 power outages per day). My bedroom at home also has aircon which I use for a bit before I crash and when I wake up. The aircon in the lounge is on the fritz, so I’ll go and speak to the land-lord this evening about that.
Hope all is well back home and around the world.
Cheers,
Bryce.
Yo folks. I have a phone whilst I’m over here. The number is +675 655 4774. The timezone is the same as Brisbane, so feel free to give me a bell (or SMS) at your leisure.
The move into my new place went well, and I am now settled and very pleased about it too.
Cheers,
Bryce.
I arrived on Monday 19 November 2007 to hot and dry Port Moresby. It quickly changed to hot and wet, and has stayed that way since. Today’s a wonderful day in the tropics: Hot, with crystal-blue skies and a smattering of irregular cloud. Below, I’ll briefly state my first impressions for the record, and then run through my first week.
My first impressions of Port Moresby are these:
• Wet and hot
• Roads are pot-holed and in poor condition (I’m assured this is just because of the substantial rains over the last few days)
• Noticable absence of visible wealth
• Frightfully expensive rent
• Plentiful parties
• Dramatic and beautiful landscapes
• My fellow expats are older than I expected
What have I been up to? Well, I went to an election party on Saturday. The lead-up to this was a bit interesting: As we were having our initial briefing by AusAID during my first week, we were invited to the party by the hostess (who was delivering the briefing). This would have been fine, except we’d all already been invited by other sources. I thought I’d let it slide, but one of the others cheerfully spoke up with an, “I’ve already been invited”. As you can imagine, there was a bit of concern from the hostess about this. “Who invited you?”, she demanded. To cut a long story short, she ended up thinking she was going to be catering for the masses, and indeed so it ended up. There were loads of people there, and it was a good night.
In other news, I’ve joined a choir and already performed in the lessons in carols service on Sunday evening. It went quite well, and we sung some quite challenging stuff that stretched my abilities to perform with one read through. I’ve also found a place. I am paying an exorbitant amount for a one-bedroom apartment (well above inner-Sydney prices), and this was the cheapest place that I could find. There is fierce competition for accommodation in Port Moresby, and I consider myself fortunate to both have found a place so quickly and also to be able to have it for a 6 month agreement (12 month is the normal minimum). All being well, I will move in on Sunday, 1 December.
Hi there.
Sorry about the unpleasant comments being posted in response to my entries. I don’t know how to stop the spam.
I’m currently in the departures lounge waiting to have my weekend in Germany to see my chums. It’s an overnight business class flight, so I should be able to sleep tonight, arrive in Berlin tomorrow and see Sandra, catch the train to Muenster to see Ying & Ali, and then fly back to Joburg Sunday night for work Monday morning. Phew!
My memory is dim about what I’ve been up to, it’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog. Sorry about that. Here goes:
After Sun City, I arranged meetings with some key stakeholders in Cape Town on Thursday and Friday, with the intention of staying on for the weekend too. I flew in on Wednesday night, was upgraded to a Mercedes and dined around the place. Meals are very expensive in Cape Town. Thursday & Friday were more or less working and going out for dinner. After work Friday, I met Ronald and his wife, and after I explained that I planned to climb Table Mountain by myself Saturday morning, Ronald’s wife volunteered him to be my guide. Off we trotted up the mountain, while I cursed my decadent lifestyle over here. It was a big climb - just under 1200m and 4.5 hours all up. I think we must have done alright, because we overtook about 6 parties, and only got overtaken by 1. We got to the top, had a beer, and caught the cable car back down again. Apparently this was the route that Jan Smuts used to always walk for fitness. He must have been a fit old bugger. I went back to the hotel to have a nap, and then took off to the Cape. Saw some baboons on the side of the street in the Cape nature park before getting to the Cape itself. I bought a return finicular ticket out to Cape Point to save time, because I had a fairly early dinner reservation at Baia restaurant (really nice). I got to the top with a bunch of sweaty German tourists and then poked around for a couple of hours. It was really interesting. The damned finicular closed 30 minutes early and stranded me needing to walk back. I tell you I was bloody sick of walking by this stage of the day. I hooned down riding on the coat-tails of my rage, got in my car and raced back into town. Got into town late, had dinner (it was superb), then went back to the hotel and crashed.
I got up Sunday morning and went off to Franzhoek, a wine region recommended by my hotel hosts. It was a long drive, and it was very pretty. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t worth going so far, as most of the wineries were closed because it was Sunday. I was surprised, shocked and dismayed. I did have some good wine and some really great cheese tasting, so it wasn’t a total bust. The lunch that I was looking forward to wasn’t worth the wait either. I swerved back to the airport, dropped off my Merc and got on-board. Flight was uneventful and I was back to a Volkswagen again.
Week of work…
The next weekend was a reasonably quiet one. Saturday was raining, so I aborted my original plans to go out the the meteorite crater near Pretoria. Instead I chatted up the hotel information desk girl and booked myself on the Sunday morning tour of De Wildt Cheetah park. I called up Anna & Peter and headed over to their place for some excellent chicken for lunch (Peter’s secret is to inject the meat with the spices - it works a treat). That was great, and then I went back to the Lion park to hear the lions roar at sunset. I didn’t want to pay again, so I parked just outside the entrance gate and talked to the girls who were on the gate. They were volunteers from around the world who came over to do a few weeks playing with the animals. I heard the lions roar and ended my evening.
Sunday morning I went to the Cheetah park and looked at wild dogs and cheetahs for the morning. I then headed out to the meteorite crater and walked about there. I got absolutely drenched on the walk back, and drove home through one hell of a rainstorm.
I did another week of work, and now it’s Friday night and I’m at the airport lounge waiting for my flight to Germany. I’m very excited to see my mates again - should be great! I made a good trade with Peter to borrow a heavy coat in exchange for bringing home some German spices for him (Peter’s German). Gotta get my flight now. I’ve heard Lufthansa business class is pretty average, so hopefully it won’t be too painful.
Cya,
Bryce.
Yo ho ho,
I’m here for a bit longer. I’ve been asked to stay until 15 December (instead of 2 December), and then come back for a couple of weeks 1st thing in January (until 13 January). There’s a good possibility of continuing on after this too.
This weekend I hope to write up a bit of a spiel on what I’ve been up to.
Cheers,
Bryce.
Wow, I
The big news of the day – I have a South African mobile phone number now, so I won’t be answering my Aussie number. The South African number is: +27 (0)76 546 8657.
The flight over was good – business class is the only way to fly, that’s for sure! I landed in Jo’burg and was met by my driver (Peter), and off we headed towards the Sheraton Pretoria. As we were chatting, he told me that he and his wife run a tour and transfers business, and between them, they’ve been hijacked 5 times! I think that it’s so high because they would need to go to places most people don’t go to. During the drive I sent off a couple of SMSs to let a few people know that I had arrived safely. When I got to the hotel, I called Keith. He’s a colleague who’s staying in the same hotel as me and kindly agreed to drive me to work and back for the first few days till I found my feet. We arranged to meet at 8:30am in the foyer the next morning. I then crashed.
The rest of the week was working, sleeping and eating.
Work is going well. We have a big presentation to the Commissioner this coming Friday (end of my 2nd week), so it’s a bit of a challenge to firstly understand everything, and secondly to create a high-level design of my solution by the end of my 2nd week! I think it’s on track, however, which is great. I had a very rewarding afternoon on Friday during which I chatted to some key people and they were very amenable to helping me out. Enthusiastic, even. That should make my job a whole lot easier. I spoke to one of the real big-wigs on Wednesday, with the hope of recruiting him as our sponsor. He was very keen to have my assistance too, and I think there’s a good chance of snaring him as the sponsor. I am in a very good position to be able to get people’s time, because the partner of our project is extremely well respected around the client. That means that I just drop into conversation that I’m a colleague of Brian Gorman, and doors open for me.
Sleeping is OK. The first couple of days were a bit of a struggle towards the end of the working day (1am home-time). I think I’m well over that by now. Now I’ve just got the jet-lag for the reverse journey to worry about! I’ve only had one call in the middle of the night (thanks Kerryn Blagdon from work!), so I think I’ve done alright. Thanks for your consideration people J
Eating has been absurd. I’m afraid that I’ve completely over-indulged. For starters, the portions over here are enormous – even for starters, haha. Every day, breakfast has been a problem to try to resist. Why must there be bacon, sausages, cheese, eggs, etc cooked for me every morning? I know, I know… cry me a river, you say. I have not resisted very well. Then lunchtime! Good God, the food. First day was a whole pizza; second day was a terrible dish called Angry Duck from a Thai restaurant – very salty and unpleasant; third day was sandwiches where there was a fight in the kitchen – we saw a spatula and a ladle fly out of the kitchen door and hit a waiter. There was much yelling inside and then two chefs took off in a huff. We asked if they had any more chefs because we were in a bit of a rush, being lunchtime. “We have many chefs”, was the confident reply. Needless to say our sandwiches were late, and sadly my side-salad came out as deep-fried vegetables. The manager who took off after the chefs returned with one of them about 5 minutes after they took off, and he still had a very black face… he was black anyway, but he was angry too. Fourth day was a prawn and calamari pizza, and the fifth day was sandwiches again – no fight this time, but still my salad came out as deep-fried vegetables. I’ve seen other people with salads, so I know they know what I’m talking about.
Dinner has been quite vast too. The first night I didn’t feel like eating, because I had been stuffed by the constant attention that business class provides. I was very full and reasonably drunk. The working nights were further vast meals. Monday, hotel buffet; Tuesday, al a carte pub dining, where I had a large frypan filled with grilled prawns, calamari, and mussels; Wednesday, a large crayfish with about a dozen king prawns, chips and a side-salad that was as big as a main; Thursday we headed into Jo’Burg to dine – I had snails in a creamy garlic sauce for starters (first time, they’re not too bad), and about 6 laubergines (I think it’s spelt like that – they are like a cross between a lobster and a prawn. Their flesh is more flavoursome than prawns), and hot chocolate brownies with ice cream for desert. I haven’t had a steak here yet, because they scare me. It is usually the case that the T-bones are 500g, and quite often there are 1kg ones. Anyway, last night (Friday) I didn’t have dinner. We all headed back into Jo’burg to visit the last day of the wine exhibition at the Sandton convention centre. Over 100 vineyards from across South Africa come to this thing, and the wines are pretty good. There were too many to get through (100 vineyards x average of 5 wines each = 500 wines), so I relied on my colleagues to steer me in the direction of the better ones. My dinner consisted of a large wheel of Brie and many crackers.
I didn’t drive back to Pretoria on Friday night, but stayed in the Hilton here. I’m not looking forward to the drive back today, after my calamity driving back on Thursday night. I got driven in to Jo’burg by Keith after work, and I picked up my hire car at the Hilton (where Keith stayed Thursday night). The plan was that we all go to dinner, and then I can drive back to Pretoria that night. I started off in Jo’burg (crime centre of the world, for those not in the know) trying to get back to the freeway. This was far harder than it should have been, for some reason. I ended up just cruising up and down random roads looking for street signs. There is a distinct lack of useful street signs here. I didn’t want to stop to check my map in case I got hijacked. My map was shit-house in any case, so it is highly unlikely that I would be able to locate myself on it. Eventually I pulled into a servo, hoping that it would be reasonably safe, bought a drink, and got directions. They were accurate, and I finally found the freeway and took off for Pretoria at about 150kph. I was still getting whizzed past all trip. I think I took a wrong exit, because I then found myself in an area of Pretoria that I didn’t know. I was just cruising around again, looking for some familiar landmark, but couldn’t see one. I saw a police car, so I just followed it for a bit. In hindsight, this was a poor judgement, because he drove into a dodgy part of the city, which I couldn’t find my way out of. I ran my first red light here because I didn’t feel safe stopping. Eventually, I stopped at another servo to get directions. This was a pretty dodgy servo, and as I drove out I saw it was next to a shanty-town. They gave me incorrect directions, but they at least got me to somewhere that I was vaguely familiar with (it was the suburb that I work in). This was a bit more upmarket, so I stopped at another servo and got more directions. These were accurate again, and off I went until I found somewhere that I knew, and could get myself back to the hotel. Phew! I got lost again coming to the wine event. These damn street signs! I took the first exit that I saw that said Sandton (the suburb I was going to). After getting off the freeway there were no more signs to Sandton, the road just went by a friggin shanty-town. I couldn’t even get back onto the freeway. Fortunately, I could see in the distance the skyline of Sandton (which Keith had pointed out the day before), so I just kept going in that general direction. When I got very close, I saw the big “Hilton” written on the side of a building, so I breathed a sigh of relief and set forth at about 2kph in very heavy traffic. I was there. Now here I sit the day after the wine exhibition regaling you with my tales of my adventures.
Today I was going to have a look around Jo’burg (might not happen, time’s running down) and then head back to Pretoria this arvo. Tomorrow I’m meeting Johanna’s sister and I think she’s going to show me a bit of Pretoria. Cheers all,
Bryce.
Location: QANTAS Club, Perth;
Time: 11am local time (GMT+8);
Activity: Waiting for my 11:50 flight to Jo
Hi all,
Long time, no write. Sorry about that. I am writing about a day-trip to the Gold Coast that is happening this Friday (24 October, 2003).
The trip will involve a bit of swimming, a bit of beach cricket, and some heavy-duty lazing around.
Departure time will be 1:30pm from my place. If you’re not there by then, you’ll have to travel out of convoy 
Return times are whenever people want to tear themselves away. BYO everything (except cricket bat and tennis balls).
If you’re keen to come, let me know either by email, sms or phone call.
Cheers,
Bryce.