Left Europe on the 6th of October for tropical Canada. Stayed with Peter and Nancy and the cousins Katie marie, Justin and Braden. Braden took this picture... he is very artistic. and nearly dropped my camera. Uncle Peter was good... taking lots of time off work even though the world was coming to an end and he was under lots of pressure to be helping out... good man Pete.
Went and saw the Toronto Argonauts play the edmonton eskimos in the canadian football leaugue. This was at the Rogers centre which when the roof is open like it was this night... has a good view of the CN Tower when you look straight up. Its the tallest building in the world... thats pretty tall.
Braden was excited I think. Argonauts won by 2 points i think... by the end of it i felt like i had ADHD and perhaps had become even stupider because of all the "entertainment" in between the plays. you are constanly bombarded with advertising and noise and sound and it was too much for an old man like me.









This is uncle Peter bringing a radical new style of play to the world of Ice hockey. I got up at god knows when to see this... it was worth it. bit cold next to the rink but i was impressed that they had a defribulator (speling?) at reception. thats a cool sport.










This is the view from the glass floor which is about 2/3 of the way up the CN tower... i felt a little uneasy standing there but i think its a cool picture.
I couldnt see mum doing this but next time we are both in canada at the same time... ill make sure it happens.



Also saw the Ice dogs play the bulls at the local rink... this was an Ontario hockey league game so they dont get paid as much but all want to get notices and recruited for the big leagues... soooo... they all like to hurt each other... that was cool. I think i would enjoy ice hockey but im not too sure that i could stand up by myself.... oh well... ill leave it to Peter.

I finished my Internship! six months went really quickly and there are a lot of reasons that I want to stay here. Celebrated with the guys from work at the local... had a few cold beverages.

and a few more for good measure

more hockenheim pics

I went to Hockenheim on the weekend, specifically the Hockenheimring for the first Formula Student Germany event where i was a design judge. It was an absolutly amazing experience, i learned so much and hopefully helped a few students out. Spent about 12 hours over the weekend in the design events just asking students about their designs and giving feedback. The venue was magnificent, we had the typical SAE track on the large flat area near the F1 pits and the F1 track was fairly close to this area so if there was a break in the action on the SAE track, u could watch the cars racing on the real track. There were a heap of porsches including a Carrera GT (OMFG it sounds so good), 3 lambos, several ferarris.... and a VW Golf. it was also fun watching ppl burn big money when they had the sudden realisation that they couldnt in fact drive like schumacher as in the photo below:





Thats helsinki polytechnic for those of u who are interested. they came second overall and won the design and acceleration events.

the winner was TU Graz from Austria with the car pictured below:




very sexy car






and here is the car from strathclyde taking a very interesting driving line. didnt work too well for them.







In summary, i had a great time and so did everyone else i think. Congrats to UQ for winning the dynamic events too. good to see the aussies doing well.
Til next time ppl

Guess where I went this weekend? Here's a clue:



Had beautiful weather for the weekend too. It's kinda surreal going to a place like that that you've seen on tv all your life. It was an absolutely stunning city with cobblestones everywhere, beautiful architecture and of course the iconic landmarks. Went down the main drag that i keep forgetting what its called and went to heaps of shops but didn't buy anything because it was all about 300% more expensive than anywhere else. Apparently there aren't any road rules in Paris either. The roundabout with the Arc De Triomphe in it is just a massive free for all with cars and motorbikes going in all directions. I was supprised that we survived actually. I took a video of it from inside the car (not driving) and we nearly rear ended a DB9.
The whole weekend cost me 70 euro because I drove down with 7 other people. I drove on the Autobahn too. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the vehicle was a turbo Diesel Ford Galaxy. Top speed I discovered, down hill with a tailwind, aircon turned off and all the windows wound up was 150km/h. It was the most gutless car ever made. It may sound far fetched but I swear theres no word of a lie, I spent the first hour driving that thing with the foot to the floor. Up hill the top speed is 70km/h. still it was fun on the downhill sections. And it was on the right hand side of the road. Wierd experience. At first when i got in the car i was just completely put off by the huge amount of space on my right. You get used to it after about half an hour though.
And here's some more pics:

Here's my building from the outside. Its not too bad working there. the ppl are nice and they all speak english. I kinda wish they didnt though cos then i'd have to learn german. At the rate im learning it now its gonna take a long time. I admire the ppl i meet here that can speak 3 or 4 languages (thats actually pretty common here). I feel kinda stupid struggling away with German. Meine Duetsche sprechen ist kaput aber ich sehr langsam lernen. I can also say "Ein Pilsner Bitte". Very helpful that one.

What is strange about Germany is that dispite being strict with stupid things like crossing the road when the red man is flashing, its perfectly ok to have a few beers on a break at work. Its also perfectly to have a cigarette in an enclosed space. Ppl will spark up on a crowded bus and nobody complains. I dont do this cos Im not comfortable with it. Having said this, most Germans still have a bit of "the N word" in them just in their general attitude to most things. It's a bit different to Australia I suppose in that respect which is why its hard to get used to.

You find sometimes that ppl are complete squares for most of the time but they will have one thing that they do which is completely wild. For example, the guy i sit opposite to at work, Reimond has a Phd in fracture mechanics or somethin, writes political articles for some newspapers and drives a citroen berlingo. This is obviously fairly boring so to compensate he is a regular base jumper! his favourite spot is the old gas tower in Oberhausen which is 117m tall!

I tried to take a photo of a deer in the park the other day. This is close to the road so I can get away from the crazy men from Koln more easily. I think the shutter speed was a little slow on this one.