Travel Blog: Day 172

Since it's been a while since the following events actually happened, I must rely on my diary, my fading memories and the blessings of digital photography. But I'll give it a shot.

So after I came back to Sydney on March 12th, 2010, I spent a couple of nights in a hostel in the Kings Cross district and then got on a train to the Blue Mountains. Met three Dutch people there and we went hiking together and found a geocache. It's really beautiful up there and easy to reach from Sydney. If you are in the area you should go. I came back to Sydney in time for St. Patrick's day.

Two days later I started my hitchhiking adventure.

My goal was to hitchhike from Sydney to Melbourne. I took the train to the station Loftus which is located on the edge of Sydney and close to a highway. I positioned myself at the side of the highway and unpacked my little sign that said "Won't kill you". I must admit that this was not my idea but something I read somewhere on the net. But that sign worked wonders. Over the next few days people laughed at me, waved at me, honked at me, took pictures of me. And some people actually gave me a ride. Some of those had already passed me and came back because the sign made them laugh. And one young man actually gave me a ride even though it was actually in the opposite way that he was going. He said he had some time and didn't mind.

For my first ride I had to wait about 25 minutes. I was picked up by a guy who was probably in his forties how was a native from Samoa. He must have had German relatives because his name was Heini Rasch and his brother's name was Fritz. He gave me a ride to the city where he lived and actually did a little detour to show me a great viewpoint.
I only had to wait 6 minutes until the next person picked me up and then 2.5 minutes for my third ride. Only the the fourth and last ride of the day was a little tricky. Nobody would stop for a long time and I figured that I probably picked a bad spot. So I moved it a bit and then it didn't take long before Bill stopped and let me hop on. We had some good conversation and after a while he offered to sleep in his guest house in the garden. That was awfully nice of him. He introduced me to his wife and we had dinner together and then breakfast the next morning. Really awesome people. On said morning Bill gave me a ride to nearby Hyams Beach, supposedly the beach with the whitest sand in the world. It was pretty white, I must admit.

On this day it took me 4 rides to get to Narooma where I walked around a bit and looked at the "Australia Rock". The average waiting time on this day was 18,5 minutes. Not bad at all. Next stop: Lakes Entrance!

Travel Blog: Follow Up #2

So, as I am currently recovering from an ankle surgery, I have the time to finally finish up my series of "Travel Blog" posts. Well, of course I've had enough time to do that in the last 2.5 years since I finished that trip (geez, has it been that long?) but now I feel that I really have no valid excuse not to do it. Lets start off with some more pictures that belong "at the end" of the "Day 170" post. As before, click on the picture to see the full gallery.

A Number of Annoying Things #3

At 175cm (~ 5'9") I'm not exactly a giant but not a midget either. In fact I'm only slightly below average both in Germany and the US. But when you think about it, it means that half of the male population is taller than me. In general I don't really care but there are situations where it can make the difference between seeing something and not seeing something (so well): in theaters, at concerts and at sports events. And that's when tall people can be slightly annoying....

A Number of Annoying Things #2

Missing a Tram/Bus/Train Even Though You Were on Time

I do have a short list of things that I meant to write about in this series of blog posts...but 'luckily' fate basically handed me another good one on a silver platter this morning.

The company I work for recently moved some of their offices to the other side of the river which makes for a longer commute for most of my colleagues and myself. So far I've been good and have used my bike every day since the move 2.5 weeks ago....putting up with lots of traffic (and the accompanying noise) as well as 19(!) traffic lights on the short 4 mile ride.

Today, however, I opted for the tram for various reasons - one of them being the weather. People who know me can tell you, that I have a special relationship with time and punctuality. I try to be on time whenever possible but I also try to minimize my wait times. And while public transportation in general is pretty good in Germany, I have already wasted countless hours waiting for delayed trains and trams. So this makes it even more annoying when you come to the station on time and see your tram depart 90 seconds early, as happened to me this morning....while it was raining, of course.

A Number of Annoying Things #1

Things That are Closed When You Think They Shouldn't Be

Some time ago I had to renew my residential parking permit. The opening hours of the relevant office are not exactly what you would call customer friendly: Monday through Friday 8am - 12pm and Thursdays an additional 4 hours in the afternoon (2pm - 6pm).
So making it there during opening hours is hard enough, but when I finally managed to go there before work I was dumbfounded by a sign saying that the place was closed for the day due to the yearly office excursion. I have not the slightest idea what kind of excursion or field trips the city's employees get to do each year, but for me it was slightly annoying.

A Number of Annoying Things

This is another try to reanimate this poor excuse of a blog. For quite some time I have been following the wonderful blog "1000 Awesome Things". So I thought since the positive side of life has been covered sufficiently, I might just write about small annoying things that can and do happen.
The idea is not to complain or whine, but maybe to make someone smile about the little mishaps.
All of the posts will be based on personal experiences.

Lyrics Snippet #21

A few weeks ago I went to karaoke night at the Irish Pub in Ludwigshafen (it's on every Thursday) and as always I was impressed by the quality of the singers. This is not your usual karaoke event where it's mostly drunk people bawling into the mic. Here you will see a lot of very talented singers. A couple girls sang the song "My Medicine" by "The Pretty Reckless". It was not a great performance but the song got stuck in my mind. I hadn't heard it before and, I must admit, until that evening I had not even heard of the band. I am very out of touch with today's music. Anyways, I thought the song was somewhat funny and it does have "ear worm" potential.

Somebody mixed my medicine

I don't know what I'm on

~ "My Medicine" - The Pretty Reckless ~

Making Use of Calendar Web Feeds

Finally a new post in this blog! Basically I just wanted to try if the iPad can be used to create blog posts conveniently. Luckily an interesting topic popped up: calendar web feeds. A few days ago I was looking for a way to automatically include all the EURO 2012 games into my google calendar. I found a very convenient solution that also made me aware of some other applications. One thing before we start: I didn't come up with all this. There is plenty of guides and blog posts out there covering this topic...I'm just compiling this info and adding some nice screenshots (btw, some (if not all) the screenshots are in German, but I'm sure they are still helpful).

So, what are some possible calendar sources:

• Google calendars: makes sense if you want to show your google meetings and appointments in another calendar application (see next list) or to include additional calendars like public holidays into your existing google calendar
  
• Facebook: you can include calendars for your contact's birthdays or your Facebook events
• All kinds of other sites that offer calendar feeds (like the one I found for the EURO 2012...more info later)

And what might be the calendar applications that can use those feeds? I'll cover the following:

• Google calendar, obviously
  
• The calendar on your iPhone or iPad
• Lotus Notes

So, how do you get the feeds addresses? In your google calendar you just click on the little arrow next to the calendar and then select 'calendar settings' (or similar). In the following window you click on the ICS button to display the calendar URL. Be aware that this only works if the privacy setting of the calendar allow this).

Google also offers some calendars you can include by clicking on 'search interesting calendars'. These includes public holidays of dozens of countries, calendars of sports events and even a calendar for your google contact's birthdays.

As mentioned before, another source is Facebook. To get the feeds for your events, go to the events page and find the 'export events' option:

To get the feed for the birthdays you first need to switch to the birthday view....where you will then find the 'export birthdays' option:

And now for everyone who kept reading until now just to find the feed for the Euro 2012 - I found it on http://www.sportycal.com

The feed address is http://www.sportYcal.com/cal/get/ctgId/2281/hash/21455/ct/any/sportycal.ics

 

The second part of this post will deal with how to insert the feeds into your personal calendar app. With google just use the 'add via URL' option:

On your iOS device go to 'Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendars --> Add Account... --> Other --> Add Subscribed Calendar' :

 

And now we quickly finish off with Lotus Notes: