Sydney - now for reals :) (part 1)

Wake Up - the place I’m staying at

 So, how about Sydney, HUH?? :) Everybody has a lot of questions, so I will start to introduce you to the most important places that I have already visited, and as I go tell you a few facts and feelings I have about the place.

So honestly I don’t know much about how I got here, and when did I sleep and for how long and when did I not sleep, but the point is, that after Charlie’s I’ve decided to stay at a hostel for the next four days until I could move into my dorm.

Charlie suggested wake up, I wanted something close to central, and I could not find anything that would have been any cheaper, so I’ve decided to stay at the Wake Up hostel which is just opposite to the central railway station of Sydney. I don’t really want to talk much about it, just the basics:

            - it’s a nice international crowd, always in rotation with people coming and going

            - the place itself is like a better dorm in Hungary, but not like Schönherz though…

            - there is a bar, and all the entertainment and programs you could need for the day

            - it’s 40 bucks a night if you are staying in a mixed 4bed bedroom

Just a few pictures for you so that you would know what I’m talking about:

So, this is a room inside, perfect for sleeping, and what else would you need it for?

 The view from the window: Sydney Central Station - cool, huh? :)

 Bathrooms side 1.

 Bathrooms side 2.

Sydney and your money - or should I say the money you have had once

Well let’s see the dirty business of money first. So that I would not start with anything bad, let’s see the money itself. Australia’s currency is the Australian Dollar. One dollar breaks into 100 cents.

They have silver coins of 5, 10, 20, 50 cents and gold coins of 1 and 2 dollars. The money itself keeps it value quite good, since I have quite a few coins from the 1960s and ‘70s. The back side is easy, because it’s always a portrait of Elizabeth the II. You know, the English queen, since, Australia was “invaded” by the British, when they decided to send here prisoners and of course guards to keep an eye on them. I will talk about Australia’s history in another time, mainly because I don’t know much about it yet either. So back to the coins: as I said the back is easy, but how about the front? Well that’s a completely different question… I have already seen 4 types of the 50 cent coin, and I currently have two types of the one dollar bill, and I’m sure that that’s not even all.

If we are talking banknotes, the situation is much better there: they all look the same, and they are all printed on some plastic based material, so you can’t wash them away or brake them or anything. That I like very much. There is a 5, 10, 20 and 50 dollar bill for sure and I have not seen anything higher yet.

You can see a few of them down here, on these pictures:

 The Coins, sorry for the flash light, but there is not enough light today to do it any other way.

And the notes.

As for how fast you can spend it here? Well, the short answer is very fast. One dollar is about 230 forints nowadays. And the first few prices that I have found were the following:

            - train ride from the airport to the city center: 16 dollars

            - bottle of water (1,5l) at a deli: 5 dollars

            - bottle of water at another deli (0,6l): 1 dollar

            - the same as the last one colled down: 2 dollars

            - one night at a chep hostel in a 4bed room: 40 dollars

            - one cheap meal for dinner/lunch: 10-20 dollars

            - one meal at a more popular place: 30-90 dollars

            - tickets for walking through the harbour bridge: 160 dollars

And I could continue… So I knew that this will be expensive, but that it would be this expensive would hit even me… I mean come on… 1000 Forints for a liter of water? Or 230 for cooling?? Come on…

Fortunately the second day I did manage to find the supermarkets and the fresh food markets as well, so now the situation got much better - even though much better does not mean anything got cheap, but now I can be happy for prices like the following:

• certain fruits and veggies can be bought for a dollar on a kg, so that’s not bad… but you can get almost anything in season between 1-2 dollars, at least at the freshfood market (there are supposed to be bigger markets as well, until now I have only been to paddy market in inner Sydney)
• you can get a liter of water, and just as well a liter of orange juice of milk in one of the inner Sydney supermarkets for 1 bucks, so that’s not so bad (and by the way, even though it has a little bit too much chlorine in it, Sydney tap water can be drank and it’s not bed either Sydney tap water is not so bad, and you can drink it.)
• you can get 700 grams of sliced toast bread (there is basically no other type of bread around here…) for 2,50 which is not that outrageous… and also something that I like really much: you don’t have to choose between breads based on the money that you have because every vendor makes white bread, brown bread, full of seeds bread, etc, etc, and they all cost the same… so living healthy is not that hard around here - even though living itself might be :)
• and one more important thing, at least this is important for me: a BigMac Meal can be bought for 7,85 and for another 50 cents they will upgrade it for you to a large Meal, and you get a surprise glass to that as well. So that is a not so bad deal, given how much everything else costs around here, and that you even get a glass which surely will have a good place in your dorm’s kitchen once you move in

So that’s about it. Once I will know more about the prices, and find out what is there to eat around here, and how much clothing or transports, or electronic goodies cost, I will make another entry about that.

For now I’m scraping by, and yes I’m eating well, now that I have found the supermarkets and fresh markets, and yes I’m OK, but yes I do take donations from anyone :D Anyway, it will be better if I manage to get a job, or just when they will be able to transfer my scholarship, hence that won’t happen until my classes commence.

Let’s move on to Sydney itself

My first impressions were very good. Sydney is a real metropolitan, so it’ huge. I was just thinking whether I ever was somewhere similar, but I have to tell no. Budapest is a small little village compared to the size of Sydney, and so are most of the European cities that I have visited. Only two places crossed my mind, Barcelona, and Mockba (or as you know it Moscow :)) I think that these great cities - Moscow for sure - could take the challenge against Sydney, but somehow they don’t. If you walk in the inner Moscow territories, everything is quite close to the next thing, there are not so many really great skyscrapers… And mainly there is the tourist attraction center, and there are the other parts of town, and the two don’t really mix. So somehow I don’t feel like I’ve ever really have been in a big city like Sydney.

The place is great and spacious. Everything is huge, you always find yourself in a big ass and super green super nice parks in the middle of the city. It’s completely multicultural, but instead of mashing everything together like it’s usual in most of the places, here everyone just lives next to the others. I think the best word would be, that everything mixes here. If you go down any street, you will find yourself walking next to Asian, American, Europian, African, and Aboriginal Australian people. All skin colors, hair colors, and all kinds of everything. There is nothing that you would not find here. Everything is full with small restaurants and shops, and boutiques, run by all kinds of nations. Another thing that shows how everything is mixed instead of mashed, that all the old buildings - you should not think European old, just Australian old, so 50-100-150 years old - are standing next to or at the feet of the brand new skyscrapers. It is certainly a strange view, but I liked it right from the beginnings. Most of the people speak English, even though there are so many different English languages around here that you better be on your feet if you want to understand everything. It’s rare that people start talking on their native tongues and they only do it, when there is no chance for anyone else to be interested in the conversation - and no by that I don’t mean eavesdropping, because everybody gives to the others their space. :)

So as I said everything mixes… migrant girls holding up the slow and stop sign at roadblocks, businessman and woman of all nationalities, tourist, schoolchildren, students, artists, street performers, the Southern Slavic butcher, the Chinese restaurant owners, or shopkeepers, Arabic deli runners, everyone really: basically if you go into a McDonalds and you can’t count workers from at least three planets than you are probably not in Sydney :)

As I said, the spaces are big, whether we talking the size of roads, the inside of buildings, space for parks, or whatever. I don’t think that I have been anywhere where I felt claustrophobic yet. Although it was strange to be a pedestrian at the beginnings. So imagine a bunch of people using the sidewalk, mixed as they are here. Quarter of them not knowing which side should they be walking, another quarter of them not caring, the third quarter just trying to go on the right side, and the last of them constantly just gazing around hence they are tourists. So imagine walking in that environment. It did not take me long to realize, that it does not matter which side I’m going there are always going to be people right in front of me, so what matters is confidence that also shows on the way you walk, so that people would decide to get out of your way instead of just you having to change the course of your walking all the time. So that’s that.

Another strange thing is as you probably know, that Australians still drive on the left side. That’s nothing major, it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but it is still strange for me, and I never know what side should I look to when crossing a road, so it’s a good thing that:

a.)    I always look both sides because you can never be certain enough.

b.)    Most of the pedestrian crosswalks have big subtitles on the pavement LOOK LEFT or LOOK RIGHT depending on which side are you coming from.

Ok, as long we are here: crosswalks. These are strange things here in Australia. If you only see the lines on the pavement as you see in Hungary, so basically a good old “zebra” then there is no traffic light, so the cars have to give way to you which means “elsőbbségadás kötelező. If there are two lines and nothing in between them than that in between is the place where you can get through once you have a green light. You can find out whether there is a green light from the star wars like voices made by the big megaphones - I’m guessing that’s the thing helping blind people move around. And what’s interesting, at least it was interesting for me, that sometimes there are crosswalks in the middle of the road. No intersection, nothing, sometimes not even a plaza entry - because yes, I did manage to notice, how at every plaza entry there has to be a crosswalk. One more strange thing is that whenever you are trying to get into a car you will probably get it wrong… I did it many times :) And after a while you will start getting used to it, and the automatic correction - that you started to do, so that you would end up on the right place - will be the problem :)

Ok, so we had basics, traffic, money, and some of people, but let’s see more of people: here as at many other places people are really-really open and nice to each other. Not because they want something, but because it is much easier and healthier to be in a good mood and like others than it is to always just growl around :) So you can talk to whomever, even at an intersection - of course after they had their adjusting period, because everyone is coming from somewhere, and they arte carrying their baggage with them. They will always ask you how are you, and if you ask them the same they will tell you how good they are. Nobody complains much around here, and there are generally more smiling people. The Australians also like to call everyone Mate :) but that’s just how they are.

Ok, what else… Honestly I’m a little bit out of things to say, but it’s my fifth page, so I think that’s kind of OK. But I did not do what I promised, I told all about the way of life and the things that came to mind, and nothing about the places, so let’s see the places.

Couch Surfing - just an afterthought

So, as I said at the beginnings I want this blog to be informative and interesting for everybody, not just my best friends or family, and I have not yet shared too much generally useful things - apart from a few. But now this change, because in the next entry I will tell more about Sydney, my first thoughts about the place, and etc, and right now, I intend to make a short entry about what Couch Surfing is.

So as I mentioned earlier, I first heard about this community in Andy’s blog. Let me tell you about the basics:

• CS is rather a community than a place to find a free bed for yourself
• it is much better than just finding a bed, since it comes with a friend who is usually happy to get to know you, and hear all about you, and you can ask yourself, so you will have a basic knowledge of the place where you are through the words of someone already living there
• it is free, so it’s really good for your budget as well
• it’s very open minded, and usually the best people get together there, since only curious and good people are willing to let a stranger sleep in their house

It is quite simple isn’t it? Three thing usually happen on CS:

• there are organized gatherings of couch surfers in many places: this is a good place if you want to find a few friends, hear about someone’s journey, etc
• you can host: meaning you can let CS-ers spend a night or two on your couch/bed/floor or whatever
• you can surf: meaning sleeping at other people while you are traveling

So that’s more or less it. Charlie’s couch was the first I have surfed, and as you can see I loved the experience. If you would like to know more visit the website: https://www.couchsurfing.org and read the things there, or get registered, and after that you can find the closest CS gathering to your place and visit it. Or be adventurous and start hosting or surfing. It’s a great experience I think, and also a great community.

So all-in-all thumbs up for CS, and for whoever had the idea for it. Hope it will have a nice long life, and it won’t go into something that it wasn’t intended at the beginnings.

Charlie's

So as I said I met Charlie. He had an early breakfast in the city so he picked me up in one of their cars - which was huge by the way but not the hugest as I later found out, and it was that size because they need it to be able to go around rough terrain as well, and to be able to toe a trailer full of racehorses. Charlie is 21, studying at Sydney Uni, has been a little bit around Europe, and most importantly is a horseman deep to his bones. His family on all sides has a long line of horseman. His parents have some racing stables in the city and a ranch up in outer Sydney.

Just a picture I've found while looking through them all... Maybe just I'm crazy, but why would anyone want to walk around on the plane's wings? :) I know that they need maintenance, but please use a letter and don't walk around on them...

At first we went to their townhouse and met his stepfather Paul - a good old Irish bloke, who proved to be a great race horse coach (at least based on the finish photos that they had on the walls) - and Charlie’s little brother Tally. We loaded up a few horses on one of the trailers and headed out to the ranch which became my home for the two days.

We talked a lot through the way, just about the usual stuff, countries, past journeys, Sydney, etc. Charlie is a really good guy, and he really told me a lot about Australia as well. Oh, I almost forgot: Charlie offered me breakfast, and since I was after all that traveling not so hungry, I just had toast and water. The point of the story is, that Charlie introduced me to Vegemite, an Australian specialty. Well I did not hate it, but it’s not gonna be my new favorite either: it is the saltiest thing I have ever tried, including salt itself, which is quite a paradox. Vegies is supposedly yeast extract in quite a pure form - well I could tell…

As we got there I met Charlie’s mother Martha, and her friend Sally - if I’m not mistaken. After a while of talking and getting to know each other, Charlie said that he has to ride out, and he invited me with him, so I took the great opportunity, and hap in the settle.

Tally on his pony - it's quite normal around here to have at least one horse, and for children: a pony of course, for example, Tally has two since he rides too much for one :))

So you would know what to try if you see it :)

The horse I rode was called Milan, a beauty bay horse - who was supposed to be the easiest ride. After the first round of anxiousness and scares on the horses part, and clumsiness on mine, we were fine with trotting and for the second and third ride it was a dream come true. As it turned out eventually he was a little bit frustrated and anxious because he had not been ridden for a week and he was a little bit lazy - at least I think - because Charlie’s mother - who usually rides Milan - weighs quite a few pounds less than me.

All in all it was a great experience, out in the endless fields. I have seen wild kangaroos, dams, horses and cattle. Did chat with Charlie and with a few more friends as well through the rides - hence a rider team of the Brister farm has arrived by my third run. I met two ladies, and my terrible name recall won’t allow me to tell who they were… :( But one of them is a currently out of job Process Reengineering professional, who decided to leave work for a few month to live to her newly found love: horse riding. And the other one - a reporter for sky news in employment of Australia’s media mogul Rupert Murdoch - who usually does reports on and with celebrities, and is a proud mother of two, whom I also met during the two days.

 Me trying to look like someone who knows what he does.

 Just a picture of the surroundings.

 Another one with the dam this time.

 Charlie - looks a bit better on the horse, but I'm sure it's just the lifetime of training :)

 Me having fun herding cattle

 Same as before.

With the horse riding done, I was invited to a lovely dinner, something similar of our Hungarian vegetable soup, and some well seasoned meat sticks, and steamed vegetables and chips, and as some company through this, I’ve got a cold beer from Charlie - and boy. it was a good one. As an after dinner special I watched an old Irish tale in an old Disney implementation which was on for Charlie’s little brother Tally. Paul explained to me part of the Irish folklore, and as it was over, I’ve decided to invite them all - except for Tally of course - for my grandfather’s good old Hungarian pálinka, which is usually known as a schnapps, but after the first shot it also got known as the Hungarian moonshine - but much better than the Irish one made of potatoes up in the hidden huts of the mountains, because that only burns, while the Hungarian burns first, but you can feel the taste of the fruits - plums in this case - afterwards - as they said very much correctly.

After that I had a good night sleep, and wake up at 8 in the next morning. Helped around a little bit, went up with Charlie’s Mum to help Charlie with the jumps, where I had to witness his horse forgetting to think and bashing through half of an oxer. Thankfully he did not have any permanent injuries, but he is not racing for the next few months, and this makes Charlie’s life much harder, since he has to use a spare horse on his next few competitions.

After that Charlie took me to her grandmothers, to Bathurst. The way was amazing, you can see a few pictures below. Charlie took me through the bit longer but much more beautiful way, and I had the chance to make a few good photos, and also we stopped to have a great view over the Blue Mountain range and the Great Dividing Valley.

At Charlie’s grandmother we got a good meal and after that we had done the horses hoofs - at least Charlie did, while I and Neal helped him. Neal is an Australian guy who is currently renting the lower part of her grandmother’s house. He was the first guy whom I had trouble understanding, since he had a real good aussie accent. After that Charlie took me around the mansion because I must call it that :) As it turns out her grandmother runs a bed & breakfast in the summer. The house is quite old, with a lot of memories for Charlie, and I’m sure for a lot of other people as well. I have seen an original in the library from 1867, so they have quite a collection.

A dinner when we got back, some shows that are also well known at home, and finally some work for me that lasted more than I expected it, but at least my tender was closed and reported back about, more or less finally.

 Charlie jumping

 The Road to Bathurst.

 And once more :)

And the Blue Mountain Ridge - interesting fact: I know from Charlie, that the bluish color of the mountain is a consequence of the oil made by the many Eucalypti trees 

The next day was just the same old same old, but one thing that was really fun for me: driving the gator :D this was the point where my feelings stacking up for quite a few days burst and I’ve decided - not for the first time in my life - that even if I’m not gonna be an farms men till the bone, I must have a farm, with everything that comes with it. After lunch I had my goodbyes with the family and Charlie dropped me off in Sydney.

After that didn’t happen much more on that day… Had a little walk, found that McDonalds is the only place that has free internet… And that’s more or less it. I had great tours around Sydney the next days, but that’s another post once again.

You see that little green buggy on the picture? That's the gator :)

Byyeee, have a beautiful day. :)

Everything from arrivals, through a few forgotten thoughts and up until the end of first week. It was fun :))

Soooo, hi everyone.

I've been doing OK, just I've got a little busy and for most of the time I only had a mobile internet connection through my prepaid simcard, so I only had a few megabites to throw around, and I wanted to save at least a peace of that up until I've got something that is more permanent.

The flights

So as I wrote, the flight was quite OK. I was not impatient, angry, or anything, I had a good sleep on each plane except the first one because it was only a 2 hour flight, so I wasn't even tired. Most of the airports were nice, and I managed to get internet everywhere, even at the Frankfurt airport, where the airport wifi was a piece of sh** and it did not work properly.

On the Bejing airport I did give up though at least about writing a new entry, since blogger was unavailable and I could not write in the name of the Chines free press rules :)) One other interesting thing that happened in Bejing: I was really-really thirsty, and I've decided to buy some bottled water. Right up until I saw the prices. One half liter bottle costed around 3-400 Forints, or 10-15 yens. The one liter bottle costed 30-40 yens, which makes it 1100-1600 for one liter of water... If I'm correct you get 22-32 liters of bottled water for that much money in Hungary. And that would be something with a good brand not the shitty ones. And after that I saw the Coca Cola products which costed 4yens a bottle, so they were basically cheaper than they are in Hungary, and much cheaper than the bottled water - which by the way my dear Chinese friends does not make any sense, because Coca Cola products are like 98% water, so if you would just try to import the same water that is used to make the CC products I'm sure that even with a good margin you could sell it for 3 yens... But never mind.

The flight after was not so good. It was quite boring and since I had a two hour nap at the beginning, I could not see anything through the flight, because it got dark by the time I woke up, and the sun was barely even coming up when we landed, so I could only see the lights of Sydney and nothing much else. And the airplane food on this flight was one of the nastiest I have ever seen, even though I was not been on so-so many flights.

Sydney - the begging

When we landed I had to go visa control and customs which was not bad, but a bit long... They were really nice because opened Australian lines to all foreigners as well, because there weren't many Australians anyway. So that has helped a lot. I did not have any problems with my medicine that I have taken through, even though they asked what it was, and I showed my papers about it as well. But since they are trying to protect all Australian nature, they check for every kind of interesting thing. For example if you have any outdoors sport equipment you should report it. So I did, as I had two hiking boots, which were highlighted as examples. The quaranteen officer took them away and thoroughly inspected the bottom of them for any soil residue or anything like that so that when I will use it in the Australian wilderness, I would not transfer it there. It was fun... He did wash clean one pair of hiking boots for me, so thanks for that, mate :)

I managed to get accommodation and company  through Couch Surfing - thanks for the Idea Andy, by the way, read his blog, it's great: http://fel-ut.blogspot.hu/ I met a great guy called Charlie, and he said I can crash with him for two days. As I got through customs and everything, I got a prepaid cell, which has ridiculously good rates, compared to most of the Hungarian options, even though it's only a prepaid. My number is - if you would like to reach me by phone for any reason - 0451003201 So I called Charlie and we set up a meet at one of the train stations.

Sydney's public transportation is great. There are the twenty something train lines which are all really great, and also a little bit expensive, especially if you do not have a student ID, and you happen to only need a one ride, one way adult ticket... But other than that it is great, and I've got from the airport to the middle of the city in just 30 minutes.

There is although a really great mystery for me. I could not use any POS terminals since I arrived. I'm starting to think that this is some kind of an Australian network, and it shouldn't even work with anything else... When you plug your card in, you have to choose whether you have a savings, a credit or a debit account, and I tried it with all possibilities, but yet it always rejects the card... Well, does not matter anymore, because I will go to the banks tomorrow, and open an Australian account, and I will also have the chance to reveal this great mystery with someone's help from the finance sector :)

After my train ride I did manage to meet Charlie just fine but that is a story for another post so bye for now and take care.

On my way

13:30

So I have started this eventually. I'm on the airport - thanks for the ride to Szabi: and good luck with the new changes. I managed to wrap my checked luggage and also had them sent stait to Sydney airport, even though for some informatic incompetence, my last bording pass of the 3 was unable to be printed - something with the air china, lufthansa, my australian visa triangle (no, I did not buy my visa on the black market I do have it and it can be checked through onine VEVO. ;) )

Right now I'm still closing a tender, which is not fun from the far, esoecially because a new detail emerged about the financial reporting. Some more fun huh? :) I did have my tearfull goodbyes with almost everyone who matters in a tearing up way :)

Now I would like to have the gate number where my plane stays, because it depsrts in 30 minutes, the boarding should be going on for 10 minutes, yet the plane seems missing - or at least the information of it's whereabouts is.

18:00

Finally in Frankfurt with all of my boarding passes, checked by customs once again and by a very nice border patrol officer - or rother coper - as well. Frankfurt airport is absolutly hughe and you have to be a 12 time international scout champion to find your way to the air china desk ;)

If Tibor ever read this, and once gets in a position when numbers are not like they suppoed to be - I know, I know: impossible, but still - I want to give you a helping hand why that is (don't know whether your bosses will be happy about this though)

Why it won't work...

 Anyway, I'm starving, and also I never though that it will be much more complicated and just generally anoying process to get an internet connection in Frankfurt, as it was in Budapest... Hungary became a good place - when did that happen?? Well, I'm off to search for my gate and board in 30 minutes. Best to you all, KIT, next report from Bejing China. Bye, Attila

0:23 - budapest, 8:23 am on Saturday sydney

The blogger.com was unavailable from china... what a surprise :) Anyway, I will start writing again when I'm settled, rested, and everything else, because I'm already in Sydney, and I'm through customs and everything. Best of all to everyone. Bye, Attila

My First Entry

Let's get started

So this will be the first post in my first blog - no pressure. I will make it long, so that you dear reader can get the hang of it - because usually that's what I do as my dear penfriends (or rather e-mailfriends) already know.

So as I promised this blog will tell you about my abroad experiences. Well right now I'm headed for Australia.

A little bit about the why and how and all that

I was always curious about different cultures, different parts of the world, and as my father I can't spend too much time in the same circumstances... So it was written that something has got to go... This something for me was a complete change of everything.

I started to look for exchange programs and scholarships that will allow me to spend a semester abroad. I applied to 2 at the end, and actually won both of them, and at the final say I choose Australia. All the reasons sided with this one, even though the other - American - scholarship was a good opportunity as well.

I will be studying at UTS (=University of Technology Sydney - don't let the name misguide you, it's not a strictly tech university) with a full course load of 24 credits (The Australian websites all say that this is not easy at all, and that these credits can be converted to ECTS credits with a 1.5 multiplier - and that means they are worth more than a Hungarian semester at BME (at least creditwise) even though I will only have 12 hours of school weekly... :) - I have already started to sweat.)

I got a UTS Business Scholarship with some grant money and a waiver to my uni fees - which is a big thing hence a semester would cost around 15-30 thousand $ That said it's also important that because of this I can only take courses held by the Business Faculty, which is a good thing for me, hence I've got enough informatics, and engineering during my Bachelors - thanks BME :) (or BUTE as they call it everywhere other than Hungary) I will write some more about that when I will my courses start in just a few weeks, because in Australia the semester - which will be the spring semester there - starts with July the 30th.

I think that for now this will be all with that, since this is only a starter entry, so I wouldn't have to send around an empty blog's address.

Where will I be, how will I go

So now that you know all that a detailed travel itinery about this trip - mainly because I still have the motivation to write it, and probably with time passing by they will get shorter and shorter anyway.

I will set off at 15:00 local time from Budapest Ferihegy International Airport (which is now called Liszt Ferenc International Airport, but never mind...) first to Frankfurt, but only to change planes and set sail - or wings or I don't know what we say for airplanes - to Bejing and with another quick transfer to Sydney the destination of my current journey. If all goes well, I will land on the 14th of July around 7am local time.

But now I have to have an intermediary break, because I am actually swamped with todo-s before I start, and that will be in roughly 12 hours...