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	<title>imrich.net &#187; English</title>
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	<link>http://imrich.net</link>
	<description>It&#039;s not just a blog. Is it?</description>
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		<item>
		<title>Wasser</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/11/wasser/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/11/wasser/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2005 07:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/2005/11/wasser/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The German news programme by the SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) radio brought an interesting report today: the people of Canberra are now allowed to fill their private swimming pools, wash their cars in the driveway and admire public fountains. Why this is newsworthy? Canberra has been going through a severe drought in the last few years, but in the last 6 months (apparently while I was here) there was apparently a lot of rain. Enough to lift the water restrictions that Canberra had been on for three (!) years. Google Maps still has some pictures of Canberra that must have been taken during the drought. Right now, Canberra doesn&#8217;t look like a desert capital, everything is lush and green. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>book review: down under</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/10/book-review-down-under/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/10/book-review-down-under/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:32:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/?p=258</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bill Bryson&#8217;s book &#8220;Down under&#8221; is probably one of the best-selling Australian travel diaries of the last years. Bryson writes about his travels in a very entertaining and easy-to-read style. Down under is quite entertaining and full of supposedly well researched peeks into Australian history, geography, foreign relations and politics. However, while &#8220;Down under&#8221; might be an entertaining read, Bryson hasn&#8217;t done a great job in portraying the places he visited. Even though Bryson seems to have done a lot of research, he hasn&#8217;t done a great job in planning his itineraries and researching the destinations. While his approach of just going to various places and looking around might lead to unexpected discoveries and some entertainment for the reader, Bryson also managed to miss interesting and important aspects of some cities. This is perhaps most apparent in Canberra: Bryson stayed at a hotel that is just a couple of minutes&#8217; walk from the Civic center, but he almost entirely missed it. A short glance into any decent travel companion shows that hs description of the Aussie capital is wholly inaccurate. Had he had a decent guide book and a map, he wouldn&#8217;t have gotten lost and frustrated. Another example of bad planning is that the Author visited Cairns (and Palm Cove) in summer. It is common knowledge around here that summer in northern Australia is &#8220;stinger season&#8221;, when the most poisonous box jellyfish can be found in coastal waters, and &#8220;cyclone season&#8221;. Even the wikipedia article states that Cairns can be inaccessible in summer because of flooded roads. Moreover, Bryson is seemingly paid by a newspaper for travelling around in Australia. Many tourists who come to Australia won&#8217;t want to afford a train ride in a sleeper that can cost over a thousand dollars. And they certainly won&#8217;t stay in nice hotels all the time (and seem to mock about having to stay in a roadhouse or pub in the outback). Conclusion: use the Lonely Planet for travel planning and read other books. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<title>The Parliamentary Triangle</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/10/the-parliamentary-triangle/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/10/the-parliamentary-triangle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:46:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/2005/10/the-parliamentary-triangle/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I went to the Parliamentary Triangle today&#8211;a part of Canberra mostly occupied by Parliament House (=Parliament Hill), government offices, embassies and very expensive residential properties. Now that most of the trees have leaves and some are still in bloom, Canberra is getting nicer than it was in those cold rainy november (&#8230;umm&#8230;July) days. I felt as if I was cycling on a highway that had been built right through a park. Of course, highways wouldn&#8217;t have bike lanes. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>&#8230;just the bare necessities of life&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/09/just-the-bare-necessities-of-life/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/09/just-the-bare-necessities-of-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:57:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/2005/09/just-the-bare-necessities-of-life/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We don&#8217;t have any water. We didn&#8217;t have water in the morning, and nobody knows when the water supply will be working again. S***. It made me realize how accustomed we get to having water all the time. I hope it will be repaired soon. When I went to see my research project supervisor at 2pm, the repairmen seemed to be busy cutting down a tree so that they could dig down to the water pipe. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Newspapers&amp;TV in Oz</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/09/newspaperstv-in-oz/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/09/newspaperstv-in-oz/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:27:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/?p=248</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I bought a newspaper last weekend. I normally don&#8217;t buy newspapers here, because B&#38;G has a subscription for the Australian, the Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald and these papers are usually lying around on the tables in the kitchen. However, I felt I needed to spend the $2.20 (1,43 Euro) on the weekend edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. The price may seem a bit steep, but in fact the paper had 402 pages altogether and weighed a couple of 100g. Of course, the carreer and cars sections were quite large. But still-one could really spend more than a weekend reading it. The downside is that most Aussie papers are surprisingly light when it comes to international news. The Sydney Morning Herald had a special on the dire consequences of global warming, but as Oz is the nation emitting the largest amount of carbon dioxide per capita, and also very affected by droughts, I won&#8217;t really classify this as international news. They also don&#8217;t really follow the convention of having politics on the first couple of pages, followed by national and international news. Instead, everything is pretty much mixed up. We do not get any Austrian newspapers or magazines here, which is not really surprising. There are a couple of British papers around, like the &#8220;Guardian weekly&#8221;. I found a copy of &#8220;Die Welt&#8221; in a newsagent in Cairns and would have bought it (even though it was rather expensive), but I was turned away by the fact that it was almost two weeks old. They were also selling the previous day&#8217;s edition of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age. Surprising at first, but consider that these papers needed to be transported a few thousand kilometers. The TV and radio is a bit more international. Radio news are often supplied by the BBC and sometimes by Deutsche Welle (in English). A government-owned station, SBS, broadcasts news in a couple of foreign languages (notably including German, Mandarin and Portuguese). I could even watch &#8220;Inspector Rex&#8221; if I was desperate. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Le blog de Sebastien</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/09/le-blog-de-sebastien/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/09/le-blog-de-sebastien/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:08:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photos]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/2005/09/le-blog-de-sebastien/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sebastien a beaucoup de photos dans <a href="http://sebaupaysdeskangourous.blog.expedia.fr" title="">son blog</a>.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The annoying things about driving on the left side of the road</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/08/the-annoying-things-about-driving-on-the-left-side-of-the-road/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/08/the-annoying-things-about-driving-on-the-left-side-of-the-road/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Aug 2005 16:46:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/?p=237</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As you all know, Aussies drive on the left side of the road (and say that they&#8217;re in fact driving on the right side and everyone else was driving on the wrong side). The weird feeling when being in a car took me a day or two to get used to. It took me a couple of days longer to get accustomed to looking right and then left when crossing a road. Once or twice, I nearly ended up waiting at the wrong bus stop. That might be a bit annoying, but I can live with it. What annoys me most, is another effect of people driving on the wrong side, an effect that is totally unrelated to any means of transportation&#8230; &#8230;and that is how people avoid bumping into each other by stepping aside. Pretty much everyone in Europe (well, let&#8217;s forget about the British Isles for a moment) takes a step to the right or tries to stay on the right side. Pretty much everyone here in Australia takes a step to the left. And it&#8217;s really hard to get used to that, seemingly this behaviour is somehow similar to a reflex. From this point of view, it is really not too bad that Canberra is sometimes quite devoid of people. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Parcels arrived</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/08/parcels-arrived/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/08/parcels-arrived/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:49:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/2005/08/parcels-arrived/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The two parcels from Austria arrived yesterday- &#8220;sain et sauf&#8221; and faster than I had expected. My parents had to declare the contents of the package and wrote it onto the outside&#8211;clearly visible to anyone. Seemingly, the customs authorities did not have to open the packages, maybe because of the detailed description, maybe because they x-rayed the parcel. I don&#8217;t know. &#8220;Socks (used)&#8221; made me chuckle (I had asked them to send me my running shoes and a pair of special running socks-i figured they don&#8217;t really weigh much and are more comfortable). druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Mail and Parcels</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/08/mail-and-parcels/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/08/mail-and-parcels/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:06:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/?p=231</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A couple of people had their relatives at home mail stuff to them. From the others&#8217; experience: -Packages sent via airmail may take ages to arrive. (Surface mail will take even longer.) -It is better to send stuff with a service that provides a tracking number. -Sending stuff with UPS is damn expensive, but quite fast. -The Australian customs authorities search for food and other quarantined items and remove them. While sweets (like from Haribo) have come through fine, mayonnaise* and beef jerkey have been confiscated. *apparently there is no kind of mayonnaise here that is not sweetened. This makes mayo taste quite strange. As for myself, I am waiting for two parcels from Austria. They have tracking numbers, but apparently they are not tracked outside of Austria. The track and trace page says &#8220;Sendung wurde ins Ausland weitergeleitet&#8221; (Parcel has been forwarded to a foreign country). Damn. Track and trace would have been interesting to see whether the parcels are stuck with the customs authorities or not. Even though the Austrian Post can be quite incompetent, I knew they&#8217;d manage to forward the parcels to another country. I hope they&#8217;ll arrive in the next couple of days. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Vorlesungen und andere Dinge</title>
		<link>http://imrich.net/2005/08/vorlesungen-und-andere-dinge/</link>
		<comments>http://imrich.net/2005/08/vorlesungen-und-andere-dinge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2005 15:22:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[down under]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://imrich.net/?p=229</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It took me a couple of days to get used to the way that lectures are held here at ANU. Most lecturers prepare their lectures as Powerpoint presentations or use Adobe Reader. This is very convenient for me because it allows them to offer the slides for download on the internet and I do not need to stare at the blackboard to decipher whether that scribbling on there is a p or a ? (or w/?). Also, ANU tries hard to accomodate those who cannot attend one or more lectures by sometimes offering recorded lectures (although that is not the case for those courses that I attend). Still, i&#8217;ts good to be able to download the slides in case I miss a lecture. The downside is that it allows the lecturers to skip over an immense number of formulas in almost no time. druckerfreundliche Ansicht]]></description>
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