The Edge Of Madness

So took 2 weeks to book in my virgin media broadband installation timeslot. 1-6pm on friday. Waiting, waiting, waiting. 6pm rolls around, still no engineer.

Get a call at 6:30, sorry guy can't come out today, we can do saturday, will call up to confirm in half an hour. 1.5 hours later, still no call. So I call them.

On the expensive 0845 number. 15 minutes on hold, passed around to 3 departments. Finally get told, we don't know why it was cancelled, you will have to wait another 2 weeks for the next free slot. WTF? You don't show up, you show up the next day. You don't make me wait another 2 weeks, with again no guarantee of anyone showing up. So screw Virgin Media.

I'm doing my Masters of Astronomy at Swinburne University. Remotely. Rather enjoyable so far.

Managed to get 78% in both subjects so far, just managing a distinction in both. Considering that was the best mark I ever managed at uni when I did my IT degree, I'm rather happy. Much more work than I thought, if I wasn't working during the last two weeks of the semester, I don't know how I would have managed. Next semester I plan on only doing one subject. One will be fine as a hobby, otherwise all I was doing was work and uni.

Anyway, here's my first two projects. I really need to work on my academic writing within them. I can write bullshit, but I really need to formalise my writing style.

The Fermi Paradox

Life in the Solar System

21/30 for Fermi.

My time dilating explanation is a little confusing. And my supervisor had a great point of humanity does do generational work - Gaudi's Sagrada Família for example. I should have remembered that, I've been there.

25/30 for Life in the Solar System.

I'm missing some explanations on what is life - specifically in regards to viruses, why fire is not life, prions. And my explanation of the MHZ could be extended.

On how life started on Earth, I'm missing talking about stromatolites and fossils.

Anyway, enjoy, and swear at my writing style. Lana did, and I was too stubborn to change it all.

http://twitter.com/bjayakody

Seems to be suiting my laziness in posting erratically.

I still need to update based on trip to Edinburgh and Venice. Plus all the house headache.

Hopefully after I finish my uni stuff next week. After this I'm switching just to doing one subject a semester, much more fun. 2 with work was just too full on.

This post is a little long and rambling. I've left out stuff that should go in, and I'll edit it later. Just needed to get most of it down.

So for Christmas, my parents were going to Sri Lanka. Lana's never been, nor met most of my rellies. Last time I went I was 15 (so 17 years ago). So off we decided to go.

Plan was a couple of days in Colombo for a big family christmas with the extended family, fuck off down south to laze around on a beach for a few days, then back to Colombo for another week of catching up with everyone.

To start with, I will never ever fly Sri Lanka Airlines again. Only people who fly direct to Sri Lanka though. We bordered the plane an hour late, and were then stuck on the tarmac for another 4 hours. This was due to non of the toilets working. Of course they kept on handing out free drinks. I ended up sneaking in and pissing in the sink.

Apart from that, the airline itself was fine.

And the day before I had the runs and was throwing up, due to a bad reaction to the swine flu vaccine.

Got to the other end, out the doors into the chaos that is Sri Lanka. They are recently recovering from a civil war, so tourism is down. So the touts are fairly aggressive. And for whatever reason, not once was I mistaken for a local. This is the first time that's ever happened to me. Normally I blend right in.

Airport is a good hour away from Colombo. My cousin had a car pick us up, and off we were whisked to the number 1 hotel in Colombo, Cinammon Grand. This hotel was fantastic. Huge entrance room, live band playing, a dude making crepes. Complimentary drink on arrival, the whole nine yards. And dirt cheap. Think we paid $US55 a night, including breakfast. And breakfast was great. Both Sri Lankan and Western & Japanese, all you can eat.

Christmas lunch was good. Apart from my cousin, no-one else knew me and Lana were coming, so it was a surprise. Just a usual day of lazing around, eating and drinking too much.

After that, we headed down south to Weligama. About a 4 hour drive. Stayed at a place called Weligama Bay Resort. Owned by a Czech couple. The resort was in a great location, own pretty much private beach, with soft waves. Which was why I picked it, so Lana wouldn't get swept out to sea. Only downside, was a bit of a hike to any stores, no real other places to eat around there. Plus while it's been open for a year, they hadn't got everything down. For example, they run out of towels a few times, still trying to fine tune the menus. But when they had BBQ's for dinner, with a view of the ocean, you could put these minor complaints to rest. Fresh lobster whacked on the BBQ. Delicious.

And the room itself was huge. The only other downside was there were no blinds for the curtains, just those roman slat blinds. So I was getting woken up pretty early.

The hotel was also very expensive for Sri Lanka. Cheap compared to anywhere else in the world, expensive for there. All in all I wouldn't recommend it.

Here's a picture of Lana asleep....at about noon...

And some cows just wandering past the beach.

Lana was also highly amused at the fact the resort had a bunch of Russians there. She did end up swearing at some of them who were having a late night party on the balcony. The balconies are also cheaply done, no walls between apartments, just a blind. So if one person is noisy, the whole row can hear.

One day we did a trip to Galle. An old Dutch Fort town.

Just did a bit of wandering around.

Lana bought some old (200+ year) dutch coins. At a vastly inflated price. But hey, who cares?

Did a walk around the wall, which was pretty cool. Then ended up at some military festival. Finally got some groceries, and bought some fireworks. Which at a later date I took great pleasure in shooting them at lana while she was swimming Bloody hilarious when she stormed out of the water to yell at whoever was doing it, only to realise it was me.

Went out to Udawalawe National Park.

On the way there, saw this cool 50 foot Buddha statue.

Great trip, got in a 4wd, drove around with a tracker looking for animals. Saw lots of elephants. Even had one baby one charge the car. The driver gunned the engine to scare him off, then he turned around and tried to kick the car.

Some pics.

At one point the 4wd drive got stuck. I debated getting out to push, but decided my sitting on the back wheels for extra weight was probably best.

The funny bit is the place we got stuck, we spent 30 minutes helping another car get out. Of course Lana said we'd get stuck, of course we did.

Also saw lots of peacocks, a few eagles, a turtle or 2, a hyena, a wild cat, spotted deer, and prob a few more I missed. Great trip.

That was about it for Weligama. Mainly a lazy, get your bones warm before London week. I did teach Lana how to surf....well enough that she caught 2 waves

On the way back to Colombo we stopped off at a turtle hatchery. Basically these places buy/find turtle eggs, hatch them and release back in the wild.

There's a lot of security checkpoints in Colombo. Mainly get your passport checked and away you go. 90% of the time if they saw Lana's white face they would wave us through (unless the President was in residence). So I had great fun telling Lana to poke her white face out the window. Mainly as I'm normally the only brown face on our trips.

Back in Colombo. My mum arranged with the hotel for some goldfish to be in our room instead of the fruit bowl.

She even named them "Bonnie and Clyde".

Sounds like a good idea? Except they didn't change water, so one ended up dying. Leaving Lana rather upset.

New Years Eve had an all you can eat sea food buffet. Which was good value for £25.

But it was a "poya" day, or a buddhist holy day on New Years Eve. Which meant no booze until midnight. My Dad and mate kept running back to the hotel room for a quick nip. I ended up eating too much, that as soon as midnight came and I skulled a beer, my guts felt like they would explode. Plus I was taking immodium due to a bad reaction to the swine flu vaccine.

Next day headed off for a wander around town. I kept getting busted just strolling through military checkpoints without showing any id.

Ended up on some peddle boat swans. These peddle boats always seem cooler than they are. Too much hard work peddling.

Ended up in a buddhist temple. Cool King Elephant outside. King Elephants need to have 7 points touch the ground, 4 legs, tail, tusks and penis.

Now I was slightly pissed at the buddhist due to them stopping me getting pissed on New Years. But then we went into the temple. The head monk gave me and Lana a present. It was a picture of the buddha, lucky coin, 20 rupee note, 1 $US dollar picture of the buddha and some scripture. Which was cool. $1US dollar is prob the equiv in buying power of $US10 over there, so I was happy again. I do rather like the buddhists (apart from the reincarnation stuff). So ended up at the airport buying a few books on buddhism to read.

Back to the Hotel. Fantastic chaos going on again inside. Some dancers going on.

Final big trip, a trip to Pinnawala elephant orphanage and the Temple of the Tooth.

Not at the orphanage, my Dad tried to sneak me in as a local. Locals pay 100 rupees. Tourists pay 2000 rupees. Didn't work. They picked me straight away. I acted dumb, Dad tried to say I was a student (a great damn big one). I kept my mouth shut, but we ended up paying the 2000.

Orphanage was great. They feed the baby elephants, then take them down to the river to bathe. They just wander around playing. Spent a good 2 hours watching them.

Then we found a place that had elephant rides. Lana wanted to ride one.

Granted she wanted to ride one, but she was petrified on top. So she's in front of me, my cousin Shamara is behind me. Lana's screaming at me to hold on to her, Shamara is hanging on behind me for dear life. Was rather amusing. Good fun though.

Here's the youtube video of a bit. Lana screaming at me to hold her.

YouTube

Temple of the tooth was a bit of a let down. 1000 (£5) rupees to get in. But you don't get to see much.

And that's about it. Lots of other family dinner's and get togethers. But I don't think anyone wants to read that apart from me Good to catch up with ppl I haven't seen in over 15 years.

Lana reckons it was the best holiday she's had. I'd rank it up there in the top 5.

BTW, there's also lots more pics on facebook.

Thankfully my passport with renewed visa came back in time (3 more years, expires Dec 2012).

I bought tickets for Rammstein 6 months ago in Katowice. I was cycling through their tour dates, picking interesting cities. I didn't realise until after I booked it that Kataowice was an industrial town with no direct flights. Oh well.

So off we go, 5 hour trip, changing in Frankfurt on the way there, Dusseldorf on the way back.

30 minute trip from the airport to the hotel. We get there around midnight on thursday.

Wander around a bit on Friday. Pretty much, see all there is to see. Town is fairly small. No really great architecture. Nice shopping mall though. Try to book some tours. There's nothing in winter. Oh well.

So we've been wandering around the town, and I've yet to see another brown face. Or asian. Or anything non-white. Which then to the amusement of Lana, proceeds to be my goal for the rest of the trip. And nope, never found another. Did find a half asian woman though.

Now on to Rammstein. Tickets said it opened at 6. So we got there then. We were rather confused as to which queue to get in, so just picked the shortest one.

Now our tickets said we were sitting in H section. But there was a word next to the H. "Sektor czerwony". There were 3 H sections. Red, Black and Blue. Within a day Lana had managed to pick up bits and pieces of polish. Prob due to her being able to speak Ukraine and Russian, she was muddling her way through. So we worked out it was red.

Get to seats, great seats. Standing is in front of us. Wheelchairs in front of us, but perfect view.

2 hours later the support act plays. Good, but not great. Lead singer wasn't loud enough.

1 hour after that, Rammstein plays. And yep, they were good. And loud. Mix of new stuff, and old classics (Du Hast and ending with Engel). Pyrotechnics were great. All in all, great fun.

But I am damn thankfully I'm old and sensible enough now to both not go into the mosh, and wear earplugs

The crowd was interesting. Nothing too freaky. Also surprising, there was an almost complete lack of police presence. And no trouble from what I could see (apart from ppl smoking in the toilets).

Next day we got up fairly late, wandered around the city. Everything was shut apart from one art museum, which was fairly average.

Did find a place that sold 1 litre beers. And that was pretty good.

Onto the flight back. Tiny plane leaving Katawice. Couldn't take any carryon luggage on, too small.

But getting through customs on the way back was a pain in the balls. For some reason the bloke in Frankfurt hadn't stamped our passports. So the guy in dusseldorf didn't want to let us out. But he called his supervisor who was cool, saw we'd been in the UK for 3 years, with a new visa for 3 more, and told us it's a minor problem. But to make sure we get it stamped next time.

The onto Heathrow customes. I've been through customs now at Heathrow maybed 20-30 times. Everytime they have been cool, even when there has been problems. This bloke was a dick. First tells me off for writing "indefinte" for time intending to spend in the UK, because our Visa expires in 3 years. Even though Tier 1 is a migrant track and is only intended for those who want to spend indefinite time in the UK i.e. migrate.

Lana's RF-ID chip ain't working. So he had a big question and answer about where she kept the passport. Then he stamped mine, sent me on the way, and kept Lana behind for further questions.

It wasn't his questions, just his attitude. Lana had a similar problem with her passport before where it didn't scan correctly. That guy was fine, friendly, courteous, got it triple checked. Didn't seperate us or do any power games like this guy was doing. I should have written down his name and complained after, but oh well. 1 out 20 can't complain.

In the end told Lana to get another passport. Which ain't really an option, since new visa is in this one, which will cost a hefty chunk for new passport and transferring visa.

Oh, and btw, one thing I absolutely love about getting off the plane in Sydney. You walk up to the customs desk and you hear the twang of the Aussie accent, and you know you're back in Oz. And even though I've been searched a couple of times by Aussie customs, those guys have never been dicks about anything either.

Lana's got pics, so those will be up on facebook shortly.

All in all, going to Katowice was not worth it for the city, but Rammstein was great.

Debating doing a christmas markets run to Prague for the weekend in December.