Holiday and assignments

Hey everyone,

As usual it has been a little while ago but I believe it just keeps it interesting that way ;) You're all probably wondering what has been going on over here, so here's what has been happening on this side of the world. I last left you all just before I went to Melbourne and the area around the city. After I returned I had to go back to classes and been busy working on some major assignments. Strap in because this is going to be a long one.

Well lets talk about the spring break first. And while we're at it, why on earth do people here call it a SPRING break! It's autumn, not spring.... but yeah, that's probably just a pet peeve of mine, okay so I got that part out of the way.

Day 1:
Our holiday started with a slightly bumpy flight to Melbourne due to the strong winds but nothing to write home about... (pun intended). When we arrived (1 guy for germany and a girl from denmark) we met up at the airport with a friend of ours who went a day early. After seeing some pictures from Peter and Jolette in Melbourne I was really stoked for this trip (Jolette is a classmate who is also studying at Griffith and Peter is another classmate and good friend who came to visit her here).

We got our rental car and started our adventure on the great ocean road, we drove for about 2 hours, while every so often stopping at some view points, until we say our car battery light turning red. The good citizens that we are we decided to stop at a nearby car park in a small city that we just happened to be driving through. It was 16:50 at this time and yes this is an important detail. First thing we do is pop open the hood and have a look, after some intense looking and debating what on earth could be the cause we still had absolutely no idea because the battery was fine, although something (the fan/timing/driving belt) did look a little 'shredded'. So we called the roadside assistence number we got and had someone come over, that took about an hour and a half an it was now 18:45 and it was getting dark and the AA man told us the car would not be going anywhere without some major repairs. In short: call the company for a replacement car.
Well and now we're getting to the good stuff, apparently a major car company does not have a 24/7 line, apparently the company closed at 17:00 and after that there is no way that you are able to contact them until the next morning at 8:30. So yeah, there we were stranded in a small city about 100Km away from our booked hostel...
Just as we were mentally preparing to sleep with 4 people in a small corola we managed to get a hold of a super small hostel somewhere in the city and the boss was kind enough to pick us up. We got a room for the 4 of us and some reasonably comfortable beds and we were able to go to sleep. So all's well that ends well right? Not so fast.

Day 2:
I wake up early so I call up the company at 8:30. Me: 'Hey, we're stranded in X and our car is going nowhere, we need a replacement car'
Her: 'Oh that is unfortunate that it happened so early'
Me: 'well, actually it happened yesterday but we unfortunately we couldn't reach you anymore since it was after five, but for now we would just like a replacement car'
Her: 'Yes that is certainly unfortunate... well I will see what we can do about this and we will get in contact very soon. But since it is a sunday it might take a little longer than usual' *hangs up the phone*

Yeah no shit sherlock that it was 'unfortunate', but since I am fairly good natured in heart and knew it wasn't her fault we waited.... and waited... and waited a little while longer. So now it was 11, still had not heard from them. We called them up and they said the towing company was underway to them and afterwards would drive to us. He should be there around 15:00.... so we waited some more ;)

Well you can see where this is going and luckily we managed to finally get a car after being stranded for almost a full day. Also we were very lucky to be able to move up our booked accommodations one day up but we had to skip one.

So after getting stalled for some time we went on with 'goede moed'. This evening we arrived in a small town called apollo bay, with the horrible weather we decided to stay in the hostel that night. Lovely fire place and a really good common room and after having some cider and beer I was content and having a good time. All of a sudden I hear: "heeeeeyyy kerel! Ruben! Wat doe jij hier?". So I slowly turn around and who do I see? Peter and Jolette! We both knew we would be travelling around in this area but nothing more than that. So we talked for a while which was pretty fun. Somewhere during our chat the power went completely out which was interesting, luckily the hostel had some back up power for a total of 15 lights in the whole hostel. But after already having survived being stranded me and my friends weren't very fazed by this. We finished our cooking on top of the fireplace, which was interesting. It was a big metal fireplace with a flat top so why not really, took a little longer but managed to work out perfectly.

Day 3:
This day we travelled along the great ocean road towards the twelve appostles (although there were only 9 left but there have never been 12... so yeah don't ask me why it's called that). During our trip we went to different viewpoints and repeatedly bumped into Peter and Jolette which was funny. The day went smoothly and got to our next hostel.

Day 4:
This day we went to Halls gap, a nature park inland. We intended to stay here for one night but ended up skipping this hostel so we left early in the morning so that we still had time to drive there and afterwards go to the Yarra valley. Some of the best pictures of this trip were made from viewpoints in Halls gap as it was a truly stunning area. Late that evening we arrived in the Yarra Valley at our motel.

Day 5:
We got a taxi and drive us to a winery where we went for a tasting. Beforehand we had planned a route where we could walk from winery to winery because we all wanted to drink today, obviously. That day we visited 4 wineries and found out that the concept of walking is completely foreign here in Australia, but we managed by walking just next to the wineries and I estimate it took us about 30 minutes tops to walk from one to another. This day we tasted some unique wines and some that I was glad about that it was only a tasting glass, all in all we had a good time here and ended our day with a traditional aussie BBQ back at the motel.

Day 6:
We retuned our car and after inquiring if they would do anything about our lost day they simply said the manager wasn't there and that it basically was our problem. So yeah, do not rent a car at Ace ;)

Finally we arrived in Melbourne and went to explore the city, and as it usually goes we wandered around and saw lots that day.

Day 7:
Again we went into the city to wander around and simply have a good time, we ate at some nice places and had drinks here and there. In the afternoon the guys wanted to visit a casino but I didn't exactly feel like that so me and Henriette (the danish girl) decided to go the museum and feel cultured. The museum was pretty big and quite interesting, nothing much to say about it honestly, we've all been to museums ;) We also visited some of the more historic sites around the city.
That evening we had some delicious korean BBQ to round our trip off because next day we would fly back home.

Day 7-8:
Huh, why did you say day 7-8? well.... Because our trip had started with some drama someone obviously thought it was funny to end with some as well. At 3:30 we get woken up by a truly insanely loud fire alarm going off..... as if we hadn't had enough going on so far. So obediently we all shuffled down and outside where we had to wait 20 minutes before the fire department arrived and if there had actually been fire the whole building would have been ablaze by now. But alas we had to wait until the whole building was inspected, after half an hour we were allowed to go back inside and went to sleep, again.

Day 8:
Luckily this day everything went according to plan and we arrived well on time at the airport and caught our flight back to Brisbane. We all got home safe and sound and tired from our trip. Even though we had some unfortunate events happen to us I still had a good time, I guess the unfortunate events make it more interesting to read about.

If you want to see some pictures of our trip you can use the link below the blog post to scroll through my google drive.

I've been back for 2 weeks now and been rather busy with school, finally. I also have to admit that until this point it has been interesting but nowhere close to busy so it is good to be able to really get to work again.
I'm currently working on two assignments and one 'speech' for a UN simulation. One assignment is for the work and employability course and involves me making a LinkdIn profile and such. If you are reading this and have a profile yourself, please feel free to add me as it will make my profile look better with more connections ;D ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruben-joosse-086b1412b/ )
The other assignment is for my political leadership class where I have to talk about leadership theories. It might sound boring but it actually is very interesting, it involves a lot of research and an even bigger amount of referencing. Funnily the subject I chose references back on itself an incredible amount, luckily the HAN has prepared me for this tedious referencing and research work. One of the skills I didn't appreciate until now.

Well that's been a "small" overview of what has happened over here, next week I have to hand in my assignments and then it is time to prepare for my exams.

Talk to you all next time!


Pictures: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2yfZOY3x98FdUpXWC0xdXNJeFE