The Best Day!

I am a bit of a Neighbours fan - those of you who read this blog regularly may have been able to deduce that information for themselves... (By the way, for those Germans that read this blog - and I know I have a few - you might want to look at this post, just to find out what I'm talking about).

Anyway, knowing this, my sister booked us places on the... wait for it... official Neighbours tour! I know! (And she laughs at me for liking Neighbours so much, but I couldn't help but notice that she'd also booked herself a place on the tour...). It was the coolest day. And here's why:

So, departing from the centre of Melbourne, the tour drives out to the suburb where Neighbours is filmed. First stop, Erinsborough High School.

The next stop was the famous Ramsay St. Now, this wasn't my first trip to Ramsay St, so I already had all the photos of me standing like a total tool in front of each house (see my first ever post for an example). So we thought we'd have some fun this time and show off our skills just in case a casting agent happened to be walking by...

Ok, so we did a couple of cheesy photos first:

My sister on the Ramsay St. sign (?!): But then: Sad outside Steff's house.Oh no! A fight outside Paul's house...Shocked outside Paul's house...Dead outside Karl and Susan's...
And they were filming their Christmas episodes, so look out for these guys! (Although, thinking about it, that won't be until about March 2008...)

Anyway, you should have seen my face when my sister told me that as part of the tour we got to... wait for it... meet an actor from the show! So we were standing at the studios (Stop Three) and then a big 'G'day guys!' comes from behind, we turn around and see Frazer and Ringo (or Ben and Sam as I call them...) coming round the corner. Apparently it's unusual to meet two cast members - they must have heard I was coming.Us with Ringo and Frazer.

Autographing.

I'd assumed it would just be a quick handshake and autograph or something, but we had like half an hour just chatting with them. They were very nice guys and really down-to-earth. And don't worry, I played it cool.

As you can see.

This is Frazer's head. He's actually doing an autograph here (for the second time, the first one said 'To Don'... I corrected him, then made a joke, he laughed. It was a good joke.)

And does anyone know any Neighbours fans called Don? (Although I doubt that anyone called Don is a Neighbours fan.)

Australia is only about two/three months ahead of us with its episodes, but I managed to catch a couple while I was there and it's completely changed... The theme tune's been jazzed and funked up (ok, maybe 'funked' is slightly too strong a word) and they've changed the way they film it (apparently it's digital now), which means that it looks like a film. It's all very dramatic.(Neighbours: The New Generation it says on the trailers). They've got rid of a whole heap of characters and got some new ones in. And now, do I tell you what happens? Hmm... Well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you, but there's a dramatic wedding, a surprise pregnancy (it's not Harold - it's not that much of a surprise), an English policeman and a new family...

It just keeps on delivering the goods, doesn't it? :D

And I think my sister may have enjoyed it after all...

Australia (and a few other things)

And why the long pause in blogging? Well, I've just come back from Australia, where I went to see my sister, my brother-in-law and all the family over there (and there's a lot). We spent some time in Melbourne (where my sister lives), went over to Tasmania and then some more time in Melbourne. Now, no-one likes looking at other people's holiday photos (I particularly hate it), so I'm just going to intersperse a couple of them with this blog. Because it's fun to share.
Now Australia is a great country, as anyone who has been there will probably tell you. It's got it all - sun, surf, beaches full of fun, beautiful, sporty people, platypuses (I checked with wikipedia and apparently you can say platypuses, platypi or just platypus), Dame Edna, etc. The list goes on.

But it can't be all good, can it? Is Australia really an earthly paradise? I decided to compile a list of 12 great and not-so-great things about Australia. And not the kind of things that everyone might think of. And here it is:

Great Things About Australia

1. Australian animals are pretty cool, aren't they? Wombats, platypuses, kangaroos? It's unfair that one country got all those. This is me with a wallaby. We'll call him Squishy and he will be my wallaby.
2. Only Australia would give a road a name like this: 3. Only Australia would make stamps like this: 4. Australians are so proud of their country and I find that kinda cool. And it's great how they try to preserve their history - anything older than ten years gets a special plaque on it as an historical building. 'Australia's oldest Post Office, built 1976', etc.

5. On our first day (man I was jetlagged) we went to an Aussie Rules football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. And Aussie Rules is actually pretty cool! Contrary to popular belief, there are rules, and once you've got the hang of them, it's a good game to get into. Me and my brother decided we had to choose teams to follow and we bought football shirts. I went for Carlton, being the team my cousins follow, only finding out later than Carlton are permanent fixtures at the bottom of the league. But, I am a man of my word, and I'll keep following them. And I'm sure my support will make all the difference next season.

6. And now the greatest thing of all. Australia still has this:
Not-So-Great Things About Australia

1. Australian English. Now, I'm a big a fan of Australian English as the next guy and, although I do say so myself, my Aussie accent is amazing. And I love the way that no-one calls anyone by their proper name and that you can just make up a word and put it in a sentence and no-one will notice and will still understand it anyway. And Aussie English and Essex English aren't really that far removed. BUT there are traps - we get fooled into believing we're ok with Aussies when they speak, but no. Don't get shocked when a guy tells you how comfortable 'thongs' are and if an Australian tells you that they have a great 'park' next to their house, don't be surprised when you get there and see it's just a parking space.

2. The fact that Australia has Vanilla Diet Coke might tempt me into making the big move over, but the fact that Australia has no yoghurty Special K means that I won't be ringing removal companies just yet.

3. You probably believe Australia to be a civilised country. But it's not true. Hardly ANY Australians have locks on their toilet doors. What's that about?!

4. They may have had great success with Neighbours and Kath and Kim, but Australian TV sucks. You're sitting there watching a morning TV show and all of a sudden it turns into the Shopping Channel, telling you that you can buy five LegMaster 3000s for the price of one and if you order within the next ten minutes using a blue credit card, they'll chuck in another 5 and a LegMaster 3000 hat. There are only about five different adverts that just repeat constantly and every other one will be for a mobile phone ringtone. You get the picture.

5. And Australia gets cold. I'm a big fan of cold weather, but I wasn't expecting it there! I knew it would be a little colder in the south (it was their winter after all), but I never expected snow! (Ok, we did have to go up a mountain to see it). And I was the idiot who didn't even take a coat...And this second picture is the view we actually travelled up the mountain to see. This is an aerial view of Hobart. Enjoy. (And the stupid look on my face is due to the fact that my sister's husband, Brett, pulled down my hood just before the photo was taken and it was UNBELIEVABLY cold.
6. Ok, I'm out of negative things for now.

Ok, all in all Australia is pretty great after all. And it's a pretty beautiful place (This is the view you were supposed to see in the previous picture).
And for one last thing before I move on, meet Scott and Charlene, the platypuses:
And now for some other things:

1. It's always cool when you've been away to have a little look to see what's been going on in the blogosphere. And what has been going on? Well, at first glance, nothing, but after looking a little harder: Glyn has MORE than made up for his recent (but fairly lengthy) lack of blogging; Andy has updated us on his fireplace (?); Daniel has remembered that he has a blog (and maybe he could remind Patrick) and Anna has posted a photo of me looking a complete tool (but she looked good!). And, speaking of people from Switzerland (Anna's from Switzerland, if you hadn't seen where I was going), Philipp Hutter has now joined the blogging world. Good stuff!

2. And speaking of Philipp, as we were, thanks to him and Lizette, I now have the William Booth quote in Chinese and Igbo (there aren't many people who can say that). The list is growing! (By the way, you might not be able to see the Chinese characters, but I can see them on mine - and that's what counts).

3. Somehow, Alex and Owen (of www.worldinonecity.blogspot.com - recently interviewed by George Alagiah) have discovered my blog and seen that they won a Mitchie. That's quite funny really. They left a comment on that post - and I'll be keeping them to their word!

4. I have become a MASSIVE Scrubs fan - what a great show. How did I not notice that series before?! Would anyone else join my Elliot Appreciation Society? (And did anyone else notice she was the second Becky from Rosanne?)

5. And congratulations to my sister for getting into The Salvation Army's Melbourne Staff Band. Now my sister and her husband are the first married couple in the band's history. Well done! (On being in the band, not on being married. Lots of people are married.) :)

You'll notice that I've been quite bloggy today. Unfortunately I'm entering another period of exams, so I'll be missing from the blogosphere for a little bit again, but I think I've given you enough to be getting on with...

An Englishman in Plön

What a motley crew...

Ok, it's taken me a while, but I thought I'd just put up a few pictures and say a few things about The Salvation Army's Music School I went to in Germany a few weeks ago (as promised!). I've been to a fair few Music Schools in my time, but there's just something about the German one that's really cool. And it's great to be at a Christian camp with so many different types of people - and of course seeing old friends and meeting new ones. And here's a little of what went on!

The big football tournament is a pretty big tradition at Plön. I'm the fine specimen in the middle, wearing the blue Faroe Islands shirt (that must be a first). This was shortly before I had my lights knocked out by a goalkick to the face (thanks Oli!)... I don't really remember the rest of the game...

Soaked with a tray (the photo descriptions write themselves really).

P Paddy. Patrick does rap.

Yes, this is me as a pirate (man, to anyone who wasn't there, this music school must seem a little weird...). One of the team events was to dress some people up as pirates in about twenty minutes, using whatever you could find. I think we did pretty well! Yeah, the colour of the headscarf isn't particularly manly, but as we didn't have so long, we couldn't be choosy (and at least mine didn't have flowers on it). And the most impressive thing? I didn't actually have a beard then - Clara did it with a mascara brush. I think she has a fine future ahead of her in the fake-beard mascara industry.

This game hurt.

The youth choir. We're laughing because we were doing 'Let's Get It Started' as a fun item at the Vorkonzert (basically like a talent night and a time to perform all those pieces that weren't quite good enough or didn't fit into the final concert at the church) and we'd just sung the 'Let's get it started, HUH!' bit...

Ruben - my room-mate. Oh the parties we had in Room 210...

Daniel steals my thunder...

One very cool thing that they do is an open-air concert on the Saturday in the town centre (done by one of the bands). We don't do that enough. I'm the good-looking top baritone player...

The final concert is in a great church in the town centre. This was the youth choir singing 'O Happy Day'.

My observations...

1. Germans don't like Marmite (and who could blame them?)

2. NEVER order an After-Eight Ice Cream Sundae.

3. A lot of Germans do this when they're thinking about something...

Sarah can do it better than I can - and Daniel does it even better, but he does it anyway, so that's not so impressive. I'd never noticed it before (nor had many Germans), but I left a trail of self-conscious people behind me...

4. Translating into German on the spot in front of like a million people is HARD!

5. And for all British guys, German girls seem to really like the way we pronounce the name 'Chandler' (worth remembering).

Thanks to Rebecca for most of the photos! (Not entirely sure what I'm doing here...)

The lake at the Army camp. Pretty cool, huh?

An Englishman in Plön (Introduction)

Howdy! Ok, so a week has passed since I got back from Germany and I haven't been able to write anything about the Plön Salvation Army Music Camp yet, but I know you guys are busting for a little bit of what went on, so this is a little introduction and a proper post with pictures, etc. will follow:

So, a little taster:

Herr, Deine Güte Reicht So Weit

This was our newly-formed male vocal quartet giving it some on the talent night - check out the beat-boxing courtesy of Andrew Mackereth. And it doesn't get much more international than this group (an Englishman, a German, a Moldovan and a Swiss... actually, that would be a pretty catchy name for the group).

So, if you need a male vocal group to special at some event, look no further ;)

That was Plön:

Credit to Patrick for uploading the video - cheers!

Rostock

Ok, so now I'm being told off for not blogging in a while - but if you look at my last post, I did warn you that that would be the case! But, Philipp Reutter, your words have been heard, and here I am!

Well, I've just come back from almost two weeks in Germany - the biggest part of that time was spent at The Salvation Army's music school in Northern Germany in a beautiful little town called Plön, up in Schleswig-Holstein. The last few days were spent in Rostock, visiting friends I had made when I was living and studying in Sweden. As I'm still waiting for some pictures and things from music school, and I still don't know exactly what I'm going to write about that yet, I've decided to give you a little recap from Rostock first. You'll just have to wait for the other stuff - don't worry, it'll be ok.

Anyway, even though I was absolutely shattered after music school, it was still really good to get to Rostock and see Grit and friends. This is us:

(You can see that I look a little tired!)

Going to meet someone you haven't seen for two years and then falling asleep for 12 hours at their house may seem a little rude, but Grit was very nice about it! We had a really cool time - it didn't seem at all like two years had passed since we saw each other. And the best thing we did?

Jungle Speed

Jungle Speed is actually a French game we got addicted to in Sweden. It's fast, fun and potentially lethal. I used to be really good at it, but I'm not as young now as I used to be and some of my moves were a little rusty... Here's some action shots (this may have been the only time I've played Jungle Speed and not ended up bleeding, which was nice):
Grit, Katja, Diana and Volker

Katja, me, Diana and Volker

We also played Cluedo (or Clu-ay-do as they say there). I was certain that it was Frau Weiss in the Billiardzimmer with the Pistole... so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that I had in fact done it.

Another strange thing was that as soon as I arrived in Rostock, my German was amazing! If only the people from music school could have heard me then...

And the stupidest thing I did? Yes, I was pretty stupid. Now, imagine that you have a particularly heavy allergic reaction to a certain fruit... we'll say strawberry (I'm not going to tell you what fruit I actually do have a strong allergic reaction to, because that would be like Superman writing on his blog that Kryptonite kills him, and that's just stupid). Now, if you have an allergic reaction to strawberry, then the last thing you should do is probably drink something called strawberryade. Which is exactly what I did. Not the cleverest thing I've ever done - and believe me, I've learned my lesson now!

So thank you to Grit and Diana for a great time in Rostock. If anyone ever spots Jungle Speed for sale in England, let me know!