Surf fever

Surfing at Torquay with Romain et al.,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

Looking forward to going home for Xmas, but before that I had to try surfing. Last Saturday a group of French, Germans, Austrians and locals went to Torquay and tried to learn surfing. Very challenging, but we had a great teacher. So I had a few stands already after a few hours (but still terrible technique and posture)
On Sunday we got up at 6am (can you believe that, me getting up at that time? voluntarily! ;-) The waves were small and clear, perfect for me to get a bit better.
Had a great weekend and still thinking of the waves. Definitely to be continued...

back from adelaide & kangaroo island

I spent a fabulous week in Adelaide & Kangaroo Island. The video (sorry, 38 MB!) shows my first attempt to use a snowboard on sand in the sand dunes of Little Sahara on Kangaroo Island - have fun and leave a comment if you like it :)
I also posted some photos on photos.subpersonic.net
More details to follow face-to-face. Btw: I will be in Austria from the 21st Dec. to 14 Jan. I think, looking forward to going home & cu all again

Trip to the Grampians National Park

panorama at the Jaws of Death,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

Just a quick blog entry: I did a day trip to the Grampians National Park last Sunday. The weather was fantastic, and it felt good to get out of town, and to be surrounded by nature and mountains. (I put a few more pictures on flickr)

beachvolleyball rocks!

panorama manly beach,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

Spent a lot of time during the last weekends at diverse beaches in melbourne and found my love to beach volleyball again (maybe because my performance in indoor volleyball is really bad at the moment, maybe it is the sun and the fantastic weather, maybe it is the nice and welcoming people at the beach :)

Thanks for the gifts :)

presents :),
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

I've been waiting for a package from Salzburg with gifts from my friends and former colleagues at the Uni Salzburg and today it finally arrived!! Yipieh!!

Just had a short look here in the office and will enjoy and read everything in the evening. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you guys in Salzburg - I miss you (and sorry to Cel for nagging her about that package :)

pics from sydney

meeee,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

Back in at uni in Melbourne and just put a few photos from Sydney online - unedited- but at least some quick impressions.

cheers

Celebration at the end of the volleyball season

trophy,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.

Yesterday my club (Melbourne Renegades) celebrated the end of the Victorian state league season. We had a fancy dinner and a few selected players received awards, e.g. for the MVP (most valuable player - which I was not :) However I was very proud to receive the prize of the Most Improved Player (MIP) for the Men's Honours team. My coach obviously meant that I made the biggest improvement of all players in the team, which is a big honour for me. But since I started really badly in the first game, I had enough room to improve afterwards (and I think in the last game I played really good :)

I also received the "Golden Fist Award", which is a fun award for the player with the best celebration in a game. I'm usually a quiet guy, but in games I can get very emotional and jump around and yell :)