I did a lot of sightseeing already, e.g. I have been on the Sydney Tower:
Eastern Sydney, seen from the Sydney Tower (see shadow)
Then I made a day trip to the Blue Mountains, about 100km to the west of Sydney. There are really beautiful landscapes!
Waterfall in the Blue Mountains
Naturally, I have met quite a lot of other nice exchange students on all these trips, unfortunately not so many Australians. But I often meet these on the many student parties!
To buy groceries here is the cheapest at Aldi. For everyone who does not want to believe that there are Aldi markets in Australia as well, here is the proof: ;)
Aldi, in the middle of Sydney
Unfortunately, not all the people here are friendly. Thus one night my bicycle was demolished after I left it only for short time in front of the university in order to check my e-mails:
My bicycle, demolished...
Unfortunately, here are really not a lot of bicycle shops, and the few which are here try to rip me off. For the cheapest and worst rim I had to pay 75 aussie bucks and they also could not repair my rim. So I thought I simply try to repair the wheel by myself and surprisingly, it actually worked! Now I am riding cheerfully through the city and to the beach with that wheel.
Apart from all the fun there is still the university, naturally. I did not forget about it... But it is nevertheless rather interesting. Gordon, my friend from Berlin, and I are now busy practicing the handling of electron and cathodoluminescence microscopes and a cathode spatterer. Later, if we can control everything properly, a project will be assigned to us on which we can work independently. We already have our first successes, but the best thing is that we can manage our time by ourselves.
Me working on an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope
Don't forget to look at my photoalbum (link at the top right)!
