March 25 - New Zealand Day 2

Queenstown is known as "The Adventure Capital of the World" for good reason:

My first Canyon Swing (I jumped backwards off the platform into Shotover Canyon)



Here is my reaction during the swing:



For my second Canyon Swing I decided to do the "Gimp Boy" position where they hang you upside down. You'd figure that I wouldn't be scared the 2nd time around but the guys there have a way of playing with your mind (definitely need the audio on this one):

March 24 - New Zealand Day 1

Najib, Danny, and I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand late on Friday March 23. Since the NZ immigration authorities found it odd that a Moroccan, a Greek, and an American were traveling together they took the Greek & the Moroccan for interrogation while thanking me for my patience. After 30 minutes of questions about drug-smuggling they let us go. We drove into town and went out for a quick drink before retiring to the hostel since we had a long day of driving and hiking ahead of us.

We woke early on the 24th and drove 5 hours through picturesque countryside to the Franz Josef Glacier in the middle of the South Island to do a few hours of glacier hiking.

The beautiful NZ countryside:






We arrived at Franz Josef Glacier to do a heli-hike where they fly you up to the glacier in a helicopter for a few hours of hiking.












It was going well until we were in a crevasse and I took the wrong step, falling into freezing water up to my neck. Here is Rhino (the hiking guide) helping me after I've climbed halfway out:



And me freezing after getting out:


However, we remained in good spirits:




Najib even slid through a small tunnel to get wet himself:



After finishing the hike, we took the helicopter back to the base and continued our drive to Queenstown, NZ.

March 20 - FINA Water Polo

Once again we were at Albert Park, but this time for the FINA Water Polo tournament. In an early round match Greece was playing Russia, which was a big deal in Melbourne since it is the largest Greek city in the world outside of Greece.






Greece thoroughly outplayed the Russians, which was not much of a surprise since they had their traditional pre-game meal of lamb souvlakis and baklava. Also because they are a top-5 team in the world.



We literally had front-row seats to the match so we were able to see how dejected the Russian coach was at the end:

March 18 - Melbourne Grand Prix

Yes, I know its been about 2 months since I last uploaded some pictures. Anyway, here we go...

Formula 1 racing came to Melbourne on March 18! I've never attended a car race of any sort (NASCAR, Indy Car, or F1) but we luckily had trackside seats.



We were seated at one of the turns so the cars slowed down a bit by us, but they were still ridiculously loud:


One of the best parts of the race was when the Accenture-sponsored car was wrecked in a crash in front of us! This is the car that it crashed with:


After the race we ran onto the track to celebrate the massive amounts of fuel consumed in just a few hours:


And to re-enact famous scenes in F1 history:

March 15 - Basak's Roll-Off

Here's some of the project team out for Basak's roll-off. ACN is sending her back to Turkey to some project in Ankara.

March 10 - The Outback & Ayers Rock

We went to central Australia to go camping in the Outback for a few days and visit Ayers Rock/Uluru, a sacred Aboriginal site and the world's largest monolith:


Uluru is 9.5km in diameter and 350m tall. We hiked around the base in the early morning since we would have died doing so in the afternoon heat. Well, probably not me, but someone not in peak physical condition. Some people also climb to the top of Uluru but doing so is disrespectful to the local Anaju so we didn't.

Here's me wearing my newly purchased Crocodile Dundee hat (made of kangaroo leather) standing in front of Uluru:


In various locations Uluru has traditional cave paintings such as this one:


We also went to Kata Tjuta, known as The Olgas:


Since we were in the Outback, we were roughing it and had to endure a relentless swarm of flies throughout the day. Everyone bought bug nets to wear, and since I have an irrational fear of bugs, I was no different:


An interesting fact is that Australia has over 200,000 feral camels which are used for both food (not bad as a burger) and touristy fun (Simon & I on the left):


We then drove into Alice Springs and flew back home to Melbourne.

March 4 - Go Karting

We went go-karting in Port Melbourne:

March 3 - Gone Fishin'

The expats went fishing on a private charter in Port Phillip Bay! This was actually the first time I've ever gone fishing and ended up catching 2 small fish (not pictured).

March 2 - Footy!

On Friday night we went to an Australian Rules Football match (known here as "footy") between Western & Brisbane. It was a 2nd round match of the NAB Cup, which is the preseason tournament. There are basically 30 people running around on the field doing a few things:

• Running with the ball
• Trying to tackle the guy with the ball
• Getting open to catch a kick or pass
  
• Covering the guys trying to get open

Feb 24 - Jennie's BBQ

Jennie had a BBQ at her building's garden area. We ate ALOT:


Jennie, Weerapong, me


TJ


TJ, me, Krista


Weerapong, me, TJ, Danny, Krista