My dear readers,

I’m still kind of stranded in the nothingness that is daily life with a slow Internet connection. Please, don’t take this too seriously, for it is just the introduction to the first thing I want to bring up.

Isn’t it ironic, how you can pull yourself down because of something, that is not crucial at all? Hell, when I first planned my karma improvement trip, I thought I’d be living somewhere in Africa or South America – basically without any “modern world technology”. I even thought about selling my laptop and my smartphone beforehand. But now that I’m living in Australia, a country where I expected to have the same luxuries in terms of mobile and internet services, I’m actually struggling. Seems to me that it is easier to have no internet and cellphone at all than to have a bad reception (nearly everywhere) and ridiculously expensive (and limited in terms of volume and bandwith) Internet acces, even at home. Well, life’s hard (again, don’t take this too seriously!) but I’ll survive.
You guys must be patient though, I won’t be able to upload any of the promised pictures till Saturday night.
The current setup is as follows:
I have a prepaid Telstra SIM for my cell, including 1GB of data volume (only UMTS/Edge speed) for the next 30 days. After 30 days, no matter how much Internet or call/texting budget is left, it’ll be reset to zero and I have to recharge again.
Anyways, my number is: +61 (0) 439474307
And because I’m online 24/7, you can reach me again via whatsapp (German number still works, because it’s linked to the whatsapp registration on my cell) and mail (nikbinr@gmail.com). So much for the small world, now to the promised blog info.

I decided that it would make more sense to describe the last days in a text-only post and upload the pictures later. I’ll make sure to add titles and descriptions, so that the pictures speak for themselves

As far as I remember I still have to sum up my weekend and explain my working/living situation. It might be easier to do it the other way around, so:
Up until Christmas I’ll be staying at the so called Summit in Trafalgar from Monday evening till Thursday afternoon. It’s quite hard to describe the Summit, because I’m not actually involved in their core business, but for those of you who are curious, it’s this place (http://www.thesummit.net.au/). They work in a partnership together with Salem Australia and I’m spending a few weeks of this year to sort out funding of a few cooperating Salem/Summit projects and a few of the finances of the Summit guys. But up until then, I’ll be helping out with whatever comes up, for example helping to build a house tomorrow and the day after tomorrow
The lucky side effect of course being my presence in this cool place. They have a paintball field, a giant(!) swing, a lake, several outdoor activities and actually two (fully functional) real tanks from WWII. I have no idea what that has to do with my work as CFO (still can’t write, say or think it without shaking my head) for Salem but hey – life’s hard, I’ll just have to accept it…

The rest of the week takes place at Louise’s (my boss) house in Woodside. Thanks to my boss being pretty cool when it comes to work ethics, I’ll have two days off each week, but…to be honest, that is pretty useless until she gets another (company) car for me to use, because Woodside is pretty far out there – even in Australian measurements – and I can’t really do anything besides lay around at the beach, go for a run, read a book or play with the kids.
Besides doing a little bit of accounting work for her and act as a personal assistant until I find a real one, I’ll be laying the groundwork to found the actual charity and another business by registering it as an Australian charity and/or business. After that I’ll have to recruit a few employees, plan some of Salem’s projects and work out the funding and finance plans. All pretty interesting and challenging, but I’m still excited and am looking forward to it! I think that basically brings you up to speed about my working situation. Keep in mind, it’s all “a moving target” (can see you smiling, V) and nothing’s fixed yet.

Back to the promised weekend description. Saturday was a pretty warm and nice day so Louise decided to drive the kids to the beach. Offered a car instead of a 10km walk I gladly joined in and had a crazy “dog&kids-at-the-beach” afternoon experience. Including an introduction to Cricket via the “more-fun-way” of Beach Cricket. I even went swimming in the pretty cold water (after they called me a whuzz) and did a little bit of body boarding. It’s safe to say, it was close to an actual vacation day. Afterwards it was their usual Saturday family tradition day. Pancakes, movies and popcorn. And yes, you guessed right – with three kids the first movies choice were animated ones. I watched Inspector Gadget, something with Bugs Bunny and a piece I didn’t even know.
On Sunday Louise, the kids and me went to Yarram, a town nearby, for a city show/festival. It was pretty cool, even though it rained the whole time. But rain at 18° is tolerable and the fun stuff made up for it. Nothing special or fancy, but the kids (and me) had fun nonetheless – you’ll get an idea as soon as the pictures are online.
The remarkable thing about this weekend is the fact that the two adopted kids are special need kids. I can’t really compare, for being an uncle is half as exhausting as a parent, but in comparison to my little nephew Niklas these kids can be the definition of a nervous breakdown. Still, it is unfathomable cute when they enjoy themselves, laugh, goof around and are just plain happy – especially when you keep in mind what kind of background, conditions and experiences they had and have.

Well, after my organizational day today, with me driving around for hours to get a bank account and my Australian SIM, I spend the rest of the afternoon at the Summit in Trafalgar and will start tomorrow with some honest work – hopefully without killing anyone with a nail gun or setting something on fire.

Hope you had fun and again, I promise I’ll upload pictures!