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from James and Lena:
a tale of a crazy mouse, angry dogs & dinner by the beach
we haven't written anything for a while... probably because we've been rather busy. For my part, uni is driving me crazy, it's just soooo much to do, but anyway...
James is still looking for job, there are a couple of leads that he's following up - so keep your fingers crossed!! Apart from that he's doing everything around the house (bless him!!) and fitting in some sight-seeing whenever possible - see new uploaded pics.
so what has been happening the past two weeks...
we had our housewarming "party", which was more of a pre-party before going to the second poolparty at the MGM (first one was in my third week over here) which was an Oktoberfest party.... i. e. good german beer and free authentic south-german food :) It was great, especially when James, Vince and partly Luis where being filmed for about 10 minutes going all crazy on the dancefloor! I am quite positive that those scenes are now being circulated in China as a warning what Macao and the foreigners are like :P
The day after the pool party we had our first couchsurfer over - David. Great guy, awesome voice!! So soothing and mellow... could just listen forever to him telling stories about his life and travels! The weekdays pass just really quickly for me as I go to uni everyday at 10 and am there usually until about 5 PM, busy with classes and assignments. Every other day James comes to uni to have lunch with us at the canteen which is quite good, cheap and comfortable. The windows cafeteria, as it is called, has a terrace where no one ever goes (apart from the smokers who come out for a cigarette and go back in again) and as we find it waaaayyyy to cold inside and waaaayyyy to beautiful, warm and sunny outside to miss out on it, we sit there almost every day for about an hour or two, enjoying our lunch and having fun :)
Last weekend James and me enjoyed an evening alone (which we hadn't had so far) and decided to take the bus down to Coloane to the beach. We walked for a while, found the first small beach, which was still kinda destroyed and dirty from the Typhoon about a month ago, went up the hill again and found the most ridiculous yet sad thing ever... a mouse that was apparently trying to catch its tail - see the uploaded video - right next to the road. it did not get disturbed by us, passing cars or even the bus, poor thing really.... but also quite funny in a way. well, have a look at the video. so we walked further, aiming to get to the second beach - the bigger one. We ended up taking a wrong right turn, hiking up a hill... coming around the last curve, we saw a gate at the end and decided to walk back as we were definitely wrong... while taking a breather and taking in the amazing view, four dogs came running down the road, barking and VERY angry. we decided to back off (kinda the only thing we could do anyway), but that didn't seem to satisfay the dogs much as they came closer and closer. remembering to not show any fear we walked backwards, facing them, which at least made them not come any closer than a meter. haven't met such angry dogs EVER before... walking down the hill, a security guard, apparently walking to his shift came our way, maybe the dogs took over his role? however, it was quite scary and I'm not going to go back there again!! after passing a frog and finding the way to the beach we enjoyed the most delicious food and wine ever at a great restaurant out here. Fernando's!!! Never had such great steak in my life before. Anyone who comes visiting us - we'll take a trip down to Coloane!!! So that was certainly an adventurous night with a good ending! Not quite how I had pictured the evening ;)
About the beach: it's not exactly a great beach... it's not the cleanest one, the sand is quite hard and partly black, hence the name: Hac Sa Beach (sth like black sand beach). but is certainly is good enough for parties at night! There is a big picnic area with spots for bbq's and sport facilties... and that's what we did saturday night, we went to the beach with lots of exchange students from the Macao university (UMAC) and had drinks on the beach! We then caught the last bus back to Macao Peninsula and went partying at the Lion's Club in the MGM casino. It definitely was a great night! Oh yeah, we also took our couchsurfer, Uku from Estonia, currently on exchange in Beijing, with us. So you see, lots of stuff happening in Macao... there is also the international music festival going on and we went to see a great jazz big band from NY at the top of the Fort in the old city! It was awesome! The atmosphere, the view, the warm night with a light breeze... also took some pictures afterwards which shall be uploaded soon!
The week went by really quickly again. I finished my thesis proposal with the working-title: "Rock in India" - a journey to a green festival. I'm quite happy with it, hoping that it'll be fun working on that topic. So anyone who has input on CSR, green events/festivals, impact of festivals on nature, people, culture.... you're more than welcome to share your knowledge :) also had another couchsurfer over for a night, Mark from England who flew from here to New Zealand to spend his time there (until next june)... in a campervan... jealous!! but who knows, maybe we go and visit him there:) Just like we're going to HK next month to visit our current couchsurfers, Captain Rusty Rice and Jade, who are working for Outbound Bound in HK's national parks - I didn't know that HK had national parks!!! but on pics it looks just beautiful and green. They've invited us to come to go hiking and kayaking :) So that's November and in December we are going to the Philippines for two weeks!!
Last week, James and me met a guy from England who has been working and living in the area for 17 years. He said that it would probably be easier to find work in HongKong, but he's also given us some names and contacts of people who have companies over here and in HK and James is going to meet at least one of them soon :) Other students have also said that it might be much easier to get a work permit in HK, but with many new companies opening up over the next few months in Macao we might just get lucky!! Otherwise, HK is really just a ferry-ride away!!
So that's what's been happening over here... we can only say that we are enjoying this place a lot and would love to show you all around and share this with you!!!
Love,
us :)
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