I spent the last Saturday of July in the snow My officemate was so eager to see and touch the snow so we booked a day tour to Mt. Buller. Mt. Buller is a couple of hours away from Melbourne CBD. Our tour organizer required us to be at the pick up point at 4AM. It was really early and at that time there were no trams yet so we had no choice but to walk. We knew that the walk would be long and cold so we decided to meet up at around 3:30AM. The bus finally arrived and we we’re on our way to Mt. Buller. There were several stops/pick up points on the way but we didn’t mind since the time was spent sleeping. By 9:30AM we we’re at Mansfield and had to stop for a quick breakfast/toilet break and ski/winter gear rentals. I was wearing a lot of layers at that time but I still decided to rent proper winter clothes because of fears that I might not enjoy the trip because of me freezing to death. I rented shoes, pants and a jacket. I did not buy any snow gloves anymore since I already bought one prior to the trip. As we reached Mt. Buller we were on our own and we were a bit lost or maybe overwhelmed because we didn’t know where to go or what to do first. Majority of the time was spent walking and walking. I expected that there were be places to hangout for someone like us who doesn’t ski. Like a small snowy portion where we can just play around, build a snowman, create snow angels. A place where we won’t be bothering those skiing or snowboarding. We couldn’t find a place where we can just sit on the snow and take some photos. I envy those little kids who knew how to ski. I felt bad that we did not try skiing or snowboarding. It seemed a lot of fun! There were lessons being taught on the mountains as well but as I watched it didn’t look fun anymore. It looked very hard! But overall I enjoyed the day at Mt. Buller, although we did not ski we we’re able to ride a couple of cable cars which they call lifts. My officemate seemed to enjoy his first encounter with the snow as well. I promised to myself that the next time I get to experience snow that I would try skiing or snowboarding. Or at least have a photo of me in ski gear (complete with Smith Snow Helmets)

I didn’t realize that it has been almost a month since my last blog entry. For some reason my personal laptop got infected with a virus. I guess that’s what happens when you have hundreds of users sharing one network and my anti-virus doesn’t update its definitions automatically. I was so paranoid that I decided not to use my laptop until I’m able to reformat it. It took me a couple of weeks before I finally had the time to reformat my laptop. My laptop is now running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS – the Lucid Lynx. I have Windows XP but it won’t install properly on my laptop because of some compatibility issues so I tried to install Ubuntu and it worked/installed properly. I’ll settle for now with Ubuntu because the prices of the Windows OS here in Melbourne is a bit expensive compared to the prices in Manila.

Aside from the virus problem, I also returned to Manila 2 weeks ago for a short vacation. I returned to Manila last 6 August 2011. I had a week off and spent it with friends and family. I was able to finally meet Gel because I purchased an iPhone 4 from her which my sister now uses. Too bad we weren’t able to take pictures to document the day It was nice meeting you, Gel. Sa uulitin!

Will share more stories of that week on my next blog post, so watch out!