Australian Open Grand Slam

The Australian Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. It was held for the first time in 1905 and since 1972 it has been held in Melbourne, Victoria. The Australian Open was last contested on grass in 1987, before it was moved to its current location at Melbourne Park in 1988, becoming a hard court event. The tournament is held in Melbourne in the Australian summer, in the last fortnight of the month of January (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Open).

It’s a nice suprise when arrive at the venue in Melbourne Park and discover that you actually do not need the grounds pass you just bought 3 hours before! J It turned out that being an ANZ Bank customer one can get the grounds pass for free, however would still need to pay additionally if interested in matches on the two main arenas – Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena. Fortunately I knew someone who did not have a grounds pass, so I was quite happy and as we were not in for the main arenas this time, all was good. 13th court was our destination as Kaia Kanepi was up against Ekaterina Makarova (RUS). It was my first time to see Kaia Kanepi play live, in fact it was my first live professional tennis match ever. Unfortunately Kaia lost, but not because she was playing badly, she was just tired, visibly. Just days after winning the Brisbane Tournament she obviously would have wanted some more time off. Makarova later also defeated Serena Williams (USA), but had to retire after losing to Maria Sharapova (RUS) in quarter finals. It was a good game though and I am quite happy to have gone. Especially because of the whole atmosphere at the venue and in the city. Melbourne is all about Australian Open in January. And as I heard the organizers have put a great effort to make the event more than just a tennis festival, so there is a huge fun/entertainment open air area for concerts, live broadcasts (if you just want to sit back, enjoy your drink and have a good chat while watching the games) and shopping.

 The second match for Kaia was a doubles game with Julia Goerges (GER) against two Americans which showed a whole different result. The girls enjoyed their game, had a laugh and with a nice support and loud encouragements from about 20 Estonians (not to mention the other supporters) in the audience, they won! J Too bad they did not give their autographs for us...

Oh, when speaking of us, I mean a great bunch of people – Andrew, Sirli, Tuuliki, Jeff, Katrin, Eva and ME! And then other nice Estonians we met during the day. J

Melbourne vol 2

I had a good feeling when I left Queenscliff on Thursday and headed to Melbourne to see my friend Martin. Firstly because just to see somebody from back home, secondly to have a good time out in the city, thirdly to meet some new people and last but not least, get out of the daily work routine for more than just a day or two. To start with I had a couple of hours to spend before heading to where we all stayed and this time I just wondered around the Docklands area, took the City Circle Tram for the whole circle to look around and just enjoyed the day. The place we stayed at was in Ferntree Gully, a suburb about 1 hour away from the CBD with the train. As I arrived I was expecting to see Martin and the hosts but instead I was faced with a bit of a suprise. It turned out we had a fair bunch of people there – Kaja and David, our hosts, Martin and his relative Janely and the latter friend Maarja. What else to do than to get to know each other and head out to the city for some drinks. The one thing that really turned me into a madman was the public transport system in Melbourne. On our way back we aimed to catch a midnight train home and as we were already running down the stairs onto the platform the train took off. A minute later an announcement was made that no more trains are going towards our required destination that night! Now, it is Melbourne, a metropolis of several million people, it’s summertime when you have a fair amount of tourists visiting and on a Thursday night the public transport seizes to work in midnight!! That’s just STUPID! Well, the bright side was we still had a chance for a taxi which eventually costed us 75aud in total!

True! :)

Docklands, CBD behind

What better way to get over the frustrating encounter with the expencive taxis than to head out to the Yarra Valley wine region and taste some goodies the next day! First stop Yering Station, then Punt Road Wines and finally Chandon! Each and every one of them a pearl of their own. An interesting discovery was Punt Road where they beside wine also make cider, a very good cider! And as I found out, also a sparkling wine out of pears using the champagne method! Now that was a very interesting and fine drink!! Couldn’t leave the place without buying one! J Chandon is the wellknown maker of sparklings and these were immaculate! That night I finally saw an opossum, a creature looking like nothing else than an opossum. He (or maybe she) seemed to be very keen on having a snack from the table, so we decided to be polite and hand him (or her) a Mesikäpp bonbon. And we named him (or her) Possu.

@ Chandon

Margus & Martin @ Yering Station

Saturday was a good day out in the city with David showing us around and taking us all to a T20 cricket game between two Melbourne teams on the MCG (read: Melbourne Cricket Grounds), also known among the locals as the Church! T20 is a new, short version of cricket that only lasts for one evening instead of a test match that goes for 5 days. It was created to get more people attracted to cricket and make it more spectacular. While test matches are between nations then a T20 match is between city clubs. There is also a third type of cricket in Australia where states compete against each other. After the cricket match was halted due to weather (read: rain) and eventually terminated we headed out the highest lounge/bar/restaurant in Melbourne. Earlier we had a chat about the highest pub in the world, Püssirohu Kelder in Tartu and I guess David wanted to match that with something of his own! J It was something like Vertigo – a very chic, elegant place up on the 55th floor of a highrise. And indeed it had a high ceiling! Fortunately it was no match to Püssirohu Kelder, because by far it was not a pub! J The toilet was a sight of its own. The urinal behind a window from floor to ceiling, facing the CBD and the MCG in their full glory at nighttime. Final stop – a brewery. James Squire brewery is something similar to our Beerhouse. But there’s nothing similar at all except the fact they make their beer on site. And it was good! Managed to get a free taste of some ales and stouts, quite liked them, especially as they were really fresh!

@ the MCG

No comments! :)

Sunday began with the aim to visit the Queen Victoria Market! Open daily usually from 6am till 4pm, except on Monday and Wednesday when its closed. Well we made it, just barely! J Got myself some bits and pieces for almost no money at all (read: considering the costs in AUS). We also had a nice walk to the Melbourne Park where 2 weeks later the Australian Open Grand Slam was about to start. To finish the day we headed to St.Kilda beach and got there in time to watch the sunset. It felt kind of good to see the sun set into the sea as most of the time here you cannot really witness that.

The meeting point

Monday morning at 11.50am I opened the door to the Medibank office to have the x-ray and medical examination done for the second year visa. The reason I need the second year visa is because of the upcoming work in the Seppeltsfield winery. To cut the long story short, the visa application and medical checks costed me about 600aud, but it only took 4 days to receive my visa grant! Super fast considering some people wait for theirs for months. Later on I met up with Martin ad Janely and headed to the Eureka Tower for a look over the city. Eureka Tower is a just under 300m tower on South Bank in Melbourne opened in 2006. When completed, it was the world’s tallest residential skyrise, now on the 6th place, it also is currently the building with the most floors available for residential occupancy in the world. It has 556 appartements with the highest one of them at 273m above sealevel. The sight over the city was magnificent!

The Eureka Tower

Looking over the Albert Park (F1 season starting just there in March)

MCG & Melbourne Park

Melbourne CBD

It sure was  a good 5 days in the Melbourne, this time with great people and loads of good memories! However, I was not done with that city yet because of Australian Open. I made up my mind to come back and finally see Kaia Kanepi’s play live!

Christmas and New Year's

It’s about time to settle the debts of last year! About time to write something about Xmas and NYE as more new things are coming up and at some point it’ll be too much to remember all at once.

Last time I finished with pre-Xmas gettogether which was a great success! Christmas was really good aswell. I took off towards the farm in Shelford on Saturday after a good night out with some people from work! As I said, here the Dec 24th is not as important as it is to us at home, but we still had a great dinner at James’ & Terhi’s – seafood evening. Ridiculous amount of incredibly delicious food and to top it all up – estonian home made mushrooms! What a feast! Apparently every gettogether here is crowned with great food and grog (read: booz (read again: alcohol)). On Dec 25th everyone came together again already at 11am and started unwrapping their presents. No poems or songs or acts, just straight to presents. I was told not to bring anything along, but as I was given some things (3 good red wines to be exact) I felt a bit stupid. Nevertheless, as I did not have a clue what to bring then it wouldn’t have made much sense and as I heard, they have had many overseas guests over for Christmas, so they already have kind of a tradition to treat them aswell. So it was all good!

Interesting feeling this however, having Christmas during summertime and 30degrees outside. Did not feel like the real thing to me! J One real thing from home was still there, except it was the incorrect date, but who’s counting. Sirli brought along some lead and everyone poured their luck for next year! My figure looked like either a tree or a cactus, depending on which side I looked. So my interpretation is that either I will spend my next Christmas at home or traveling. Seems doable, doesn’t it. J

Andrew, Jared, Margus

Andrew, Jared, Brydie, Sirli, Andrew, Barbra, Robert, Terhi, James, dog,
dog, dog, Margus, dog

Boxing Day, Dec 26th is THE day for cricket. This year it was Australia vs India playing on the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds). It is a popular event for the whole nation, the stadium is usually packed and many-many more follow the game on TV. As it is a test match, it lasts for up to 5 days. Read more: http://www.mcg.org.au/History/Cricket/Boxing%20Day%20Test.aspx

What concerns the Boxing Day shopping, then that was correct – most retails have their busiest day of the year just that day! And the prices can drop to ridiculous lows, therefore I was happy not to go shopping, it would have been a madness!

New Year’s Eve was a bit of a dissapointment for me. Not that it was boring or anything – I was spending that night with a good bunch of people from work and we had a good time, but somehow I hoped it would be more significant. I guess in the cities it feels more real, because of the fireworks and loads of people, however in the suburbs you really cannot have big fireworks because of fire bans, the TV does not offer such entertainment as I am used to at home. So it was a good night with good company, but nothing significant. Moreover, the next day was a working day so I was preparing myself for a calm night. Did not happen though! It was a BAD hangover! Lucky me I did not start at 8am as some of us did, I actually went to work at 11am and was still feeling done and dusted. And all of us were still lucky! Monday, Jan 2nd was the hottest day I’ve experienced here yet and we had the busies day ever in the park! 45 degrees was recorded in the park and we had totally almost 8200 people through the gates (NB – full capacity is 7000)! I would not have made it that day with a hangover. J

More photos again available at Picasa, (soon). J

Within the next days I will also get myself together again and write about the great 5 days I spent in Melbourne.

A quicky to Adelaide

Pühakiri

In the beginning of December (01.12 - 05.12) I had a quick trip to Adelaide and back. There were plenty of reasons, all of them excellent! Even considering the driving of ca 800km within a day.

First up was the Adelaide Estonian House pre-Christmas dinner. I just could not have missed that – bloodsausages, sauerkraut, ovenbacked potatoes, selfmade mustard (important ingredient was estonian vodka), Saku Kuld and great people. As I arrived early I was glad to help out in the kitchen with the sausages. And they were big! Not those small tiny ones were are getting used to at home, but huge, thick and extremely tasty, cooked together with chunks of bacon. DELICIOUS!

Secondly I was not going to miss the Foo Fighters concert I had bought a ticket for. At some point I was hoping to get rid of it and buy a new one for Melbourne concert. However, I sticked to Adelaide and it was worth it! I’ve never been to a concert with 3 warm-up acts. Moreover, when one of those acts is Tenacious D starring movieactor Jack Black (or maybe he’s a singer who also makes movies), then what more can you want. Foo Fighters themselves gave a 3 hour show which was just mindblowing! Some time later I read an article that FF concert in New Zealand managed to have an effect on the system that measures seismic activity (earthquakes). The rythm and vibration of the music was very similar to a small earthquake. So that’s how these guys rocked!!!

Last but not least was my meeting with the head winemaker in Seppeltsfield winery. I applied for the vintage job there and told I could come for a visit / interview when I was in Adelaide. So Monday morning 10am I was knocking on the door. Fiona, the head winemaker took me for a quick tour around the premises and showed the place where the casual vintage staff will be working. Great place, great feeling and to top it all up, great success! She offered me the position, I accepted the offer! J Induction will take place for a couple of days in the beginning of Feb, the work will start some time later in Feb, depending on the weather. Good stuff! J