Georges Hall, 08 Mar 2008
Hey, I haven't talked to y'all in a while! A looot has happened since last time I wrote here.
A couple of weeks ago I moved to another house, now I live in unit 11 with three Malaysians, an Indian and a guy from Qatar.. Feel much better here! Now I have my own desk next to my bed, I put a lot of pictures and postcards I've been receiving on the wall, as well as a big Australian flag.
Andrea left for Barcelona the day before my birthday. We went to Zachary's in Kings Cross the weekend before for her farewell. I brought Gurmesh with me and we went for a pizza and had a couple of Drinks and had a chillax time with friends of Andrea and James. This was on Friday, but on Sunday Andrea came with James to my place for a last good bye! They took me for a walk in a park near Bankstown, actually next to the river we overfly when we take off from YSBK on RWY29. Guess what, LOL, there are several signs at the river that warn you from Sharks!
Well, then Andrea left on the 27th of January over Hong Kong and Zurich, all the way to Barcelona, where she's going to stay for a whole year! She stayed for less than a week in a crappy hostel but then quickly found a shared apartment in Gràcia... Good for yoooou =)
On my birthday, which was on the Thursday 28th of February nothing exciting happened and there is nothing in particular to write about, but two days later, this is, on the following Saturday, I went for dinner with my two best friends Gurmesh (who is in my class and lives in my house) and James (Andrea's bf) to the Spanish restaurant En Casa in Sydney, but only after having seen the Mardi Gras parade, which is one of the biggest events in Sydney and is totally oriented to gay people (....yeah, I know) ....See pictures. In the Restaurant we ordered Tortilla, Pulpitos, Pan&Tomate, Gambas&Ajillo and Sangría. We had James completely sober, Gurmesh a bit Tipsy (he had started drinking Whiskey before lunch, followed by beers), and I was way more than tipsy from having finished a whole bottle of champagne by myself. We were sharing a longer table with about six ladies and guess what, one of the girls proposed another girl marriage... Super awkward situation followed by the Happy Birthday singing for me by all the present folks in the restaurant with a microscopic cake with icecream, but hey I got a cake nonetheless.
Later on we met up with other guys from college to go to Pontoon, a club in Darling Harbour which turned out to be pretty cool. We left for McDonalds at around 3 and then catched the first train in the morning to go to sleep at 6 in the morning, just before first light.
21st Birthday & Mardi Gras
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Ya no quedan machos, se pintan los labios los muchachos
Quien habria dicho que se casarian dos bomberos
Se noh están quedando los armarios vazíos
Está muy llena la asera denfrente
Mucho hombre perdiendo aseite
A menos hombres, más para cada uno
This week on Tuesday I went with my instructor Luke Shepard for my first Navigation flight to Cessnock, in Hunter Valley. I had been planning the flight meticulously and looking forward to the moment for weeks, it was awesome to fly outside of the training area boundaries and watch out for landmarks, observe the coastline, other reference points and airports. And most exciting of all, landing at a different airport! The Cessnock aerodrome (YCNK) is a very quiet place in the middle of nature 100NM north from Sydney where CTAF procedures (Common Traffic Advisory Procedures) are required since there is no control tower. Anyway, we landed in Cessnock and after sitting for a coffee and cake we headed back to Bankstown (YSBK). Pretty sweet flight!
Only two days later I went for my second Nav to Bathurst (YBTH), which is further west, with an elevation of 2400ft ASL! This time though we didn't land. We did about three touch&go circuits on CTAF and headed back. On the way back I got briefed in-flight about basic instrument flying, which means I had to fly for a while with a cap covering my sight so I could only see the instruments. Feels pretty weird! Anyway, I wrote down 0.6 hours of instrument flying on my logbook.
I am looking forward to my first circuit-solo next week... As soon as Luke thinks I'm ready =)
Nav1 Cessnock
Nav2 Bathurst
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Georges Hall, 14 Mar 2008
Today we had no class but I went to school anyway, simply because I feel better if I sign in the register every day. And plus, I woke up early anyway to watch polònia over internet live stream, like every Friday morning (=Thursday evening back home).
I used the chance of no obligations to fill in some endorsement questionnaires, starting with Socata Tobago, since even if I don't have to fly this plane now i will be able to choose which plane I want to do further navigation flights with!
On the afternoon I went with Biju (my Nepalese classmate) for a walk inside the airport. I like to do this from time to time because I always discover something exciting. Like today we saw an USAF WWII fighter plane parked in front of a hangar and took lots of pictures of it. Then we saw several half-disassembled firefighter helicopters from Canada, Tasmania, etc. I guess the NSW government has either just bought them or has rented them for the summer and is giving them back now... I don't know! And to loop the loop we could photograph a parked Cessna Citation II and the taxiing VH-TEN, the famous Cessna 750 Citation X which I would say is one of the most expensive aircraft that lands regularly in our airport (that aircraft costs around US$19.000.000 (from what I have read on the internet).
Bankstown Airport Sightseing Samples
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