Lazy Sunday...

Today I wandered over to the Botanic Gardens after picking up a flat white (like a latte) at Riverside and perusing the Eagle Street Pier Sunday markets. I found a nice sunny spot and spent a couple hours reading - the weather was beautiful today, nice and clear with a high around 68 degrees.

A few pretty things in the gardens:

When I was done I headed over to the river path and walked alongside it - this view is looking backwards towards the city:

Looking forwards in the direction I was traveling, you can see my apartment building situated at the top of the cliffs (smack in the middle):

As I walked along I heard something in the trees, and looked up to find this Laughing Kookaburra:

The river path is bordered by this mangrove when you reach the southern side of the gardens:

Fun In The City

Last night was really fun! A few weeks ago I made plans with Val (who I met when we went sailing in the Whitsundays) to go see Edward Scissorhands - The Musical at the Queensland Performing Arts Center. We went over to the West End and had a really nice dinner at Sling Lounge beforehand, and I got to try that cool cane toad drink that I mentioned previously. It was really good! After dinner we wandered over to QPAC, which is located in the 'Cultural Center' complex (this includes the state library, museum, and art museum).

I was expecting a full-on musical with singing and dancing and the whole bit, and that wasn't exactly the case. There was definitely not any singing (or speaking) during the whole performance, but it was still really good!! The sets were pretty intricate, and I think my favorite part was a bit that involved dancers dressed as his fancy topiaries. Their costumes were great!

Tonight I had plans with my friend Jess to go to this tea and coffee house called Batavia in Southbank. It is so cool! I'll definitely be taking all future visitors here. It's very cosy on the inside, with big comfy wicker chairs to sit in. I could easily spend hours here. Their menu includes lots of different teas and coffees, and everything is served to you in your own little china set. They keep everything separate (milk and coffee or milk and chocolate) so you can mix your concoctions to the desired concentration. There are also a bunch of yummy desserts to sample. I had a café au lait and a slice of chocolate mud cake, and I think Jess went for a chocogato (chocolate twist on an affogato, which is espresso and ice cream) and apple pie. Yum. They also give you these huge mugs, which I love!

After gorging ourselves on yumminess we wandered over to Little Stanley Street, where the Southbank markets are held every weekend. I love wandering around the stalls here - there are people selling jewlery, clothing, food (including corn on the cob, yum!), massages, etc etc. The atmosphere here is great - I'll say it again... I love Southbank!

A little bit later we wandered back over to the city to check out Brisbane Square, which is where they have salsa dancing every Friday night. It looks like so much fun! I've never actually gone, but I'm sure we'll get around to it someday. There is a DJ here every week and people just shake their booties off - some are totally clueless and some are really fantastic dancers! It was fun to watch - I think we're all gonna go back and actually take part sometime in July.

WoooHooo!

I got a job! :o) My friend Leah called yesterday to ask if I wanted it - she's working for a PhD student at the School of Public Health on a project called 10 Small Steps. Part of the project involves a health survey that was mailed to something like 8,000 people. They've gotten around 3,000 back so far and need a couple extra folks to help enter the results into the computer. That's were I come in! (thanks Leah!!) I can finally start making some plastic money...!

Tiny Visitor

I walked upstairs this evening and saw something dark on the wall - luckily it wasn't a spider! Instead, it was this tiny little gecko, cute isn't he? I snapped a few pictures and then put him outside on my lettuce plants.

Think Gas Is Expensive?

It's expected to reach $1.60 per liter here later on this week, which is AUS$6.06 per gallon. Anyone up for a road trip?

Also, I couldn't resist...and I cuddled another one! His name was Neon, and he was big, fat, and fuzzy!!!

Back To Lone Pine...

Today I ventured over to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for my 3rd visit, this time with my friend Jess who had never been before! I love visiting and seeing all the animals :o)

A rainbow lorikeet (more of these later...)

Our friend the sulfur crested cockatoo -
he was so funny, when we walked away he even said 'goodbye'!

All of the videos I posted should have audio - if they don't, try reloading the page.

Then it was on to more of the cuddly bears!

mmmwwwwffff can't fit this weef in my moufh!

And then on to the kangaroo and wallaby field...

Can you see the joey in her pouch? I think he's folded in half!

Very sleepy dingo

We were lucky enough to be at Lone Pine during feeding time, so I actually got to see the wombats come out of their log houses for the first time!

I love this bird!

Twice a day at Lone Pine they have a lorikeet feeding, where they fill these bowls with goopy porridge for the lorikeets to feast on. It's insanity! They come from everywhere and go crazy! Mind you these birds are as common here as starlings or crows are in the US. I see them everywhere, everyday, and I love it! Their colors are so stunning up close. That said, they are absolutely deafening in numbers like this - the audio in the video below just doesn't do it justice!

I was obviously very comfortable here...

Little border collie puppies! I wanted to hold one so bad!!

Lone Pine also has daily sheepdog shows that are fun to watch. I took a bunch of videos of the one that we saw today! The dogs are so cute :o) The first two are border collies - a mother and son team (mom is the slower black and white one). Oh, and by the way, the whistling you hear is not a weird bird but the man giving directions.

Mom hopped right in the water when they were finished! It was a pretty cold day today (relative to Queensland, of course) so it must have been a bit of a shock! The next two dogs he uses are Australian Koolies - this time a father/daughter team. These dogs are used for 'backing sheep' which means they hop up on top of the sheep and bark to get them moving when they are in close quarters.

And yes, his accent sounds completely normal to me now.

In other news, I am still unemployed, and gee...it feels pretty good! I don't need to get used to this!! I booked the trip for Fraser Island and we'll be leaving on the 29th of this month...I can't wait! Hope everyone is happy and well - I miss you guys!!!

There Is Nothing Better...

Than getting flowers when you're feeling a little lonely and blue:

Just had to brag a bit! Thanks Jer, I love them! :o)

I'm Done!

Hi everybody!!

I'm happy to tell you that my first semester here is officially over...I can't believe it! I had my one (and only) exam online Monday, and it went just fine.

I've had the last week off, and it's been great fun! On Monday night I ventured out to dinner with my friends Jody and Regan, and Regan's friends Raul and Luis. Regan met Raul at a restaurant that she used to work at - Raul and Luis are both from Mexico and have been in Brisbane for 5 or 6 years now. We decided to eat at Vroom Cafe on James Street in Fortitude Valley. This part of the Valley has a really great collection of chic cafes and expensive boutiques. Vroom is really nice, and has a great dinner deal - $65 for any two mains and a bottle of wine! Jody decided to try kangaroo for the first time here, and I got a little taste of it. It's quite chewy, but it was good!

Regan, Luis, Raul, Jody, and me

Tuesday Jody and I had plans to lunch with a friend of ours from school. Mary is a doctor from the Philippines who is also in her first semester of the MPH program. She is the sweetest, and I think she is our favorite classmate in the whole program! Mary endured a really heartbreaking loss a couple months ago, and Jody and I hadn't seen her since then as she'd taken time off from school. It was so good to catch up with her!! We can't wait to see her back in Herston next semester.

Jody, me, and Mary

That night I had dinner plans again, this time with Jody, Leah, and Ina. We went back to a different part of the Valley to Spanish Tapas Bar. This place was cute, but no Mas! The food was decent - we split a really good seafood paella and also had some really yummy empanadas. The best part by far was the sangria! It was fantastic, and a steal at $15 a bottle. We finished the night off with some gelato from Shlix, which has great flavors like lemon mint and jaffa (orange and chocolate).

Jody, Leah, me, and Ina

Wednesday I woke up early and met Jody and Regan on the train at Southbank. We rode down to Robina to meet up with one of Jody's friends from home. I've mentioned Kate before in previous posts - she came to visit Brisbane a month or so ago and took the neat pictures in my previous post. Kate is a student at Bond University, which is in Robina, a suburb of Surfer's Paradise. Bond is a private university, and the campus is really pretty!

We hopped a bus to Surfer's Paradise and spent the afternoon on the beach and doing some shopping at Pacific Fair, a huge outdoor mall halfway between Surfer's and Robina.

After returning to campus we fixed dinner and then headed out to meet up with a few of Kate's friends. We walked across campus to a student housing building called Varsity Towers, which sits right on the edge of one of the canals that are scattered through this area.


The building has a nice lounge on the ground floor where people meet up, and the night we went they had free sushi. The water that the building sits on is more like a really calm lake, and you have a really pretty view of the campus from across the water. The difference between this student residence and the dorms at UVa or Hollins? Occasionally students will pull something out of the water that looks a bit like this:

That's right! The waterways all around the Gold Coast are the home to several thousand bull sharks, and apparently the water surrounding Bond University is no exception. A few years ago some students at Varsity Towers threw a hook into the water from their 5th floor apartment and pulled out a bull shark that was 3 meters long! Bull sharks are also the species responsible for a number of attacks in the area, including one that killed a 16 year old boy about a month ago. (although in my opinion you shouldn't be in the water if you know there are sharks in it!) Apparently they use the rivers and coastal canals in these areas as safe breeding grounds, and it looks like their numbers are increasing. It is so odd to look at the water in the picture above and realize that there must be a few sharks swimming around underneath it! Just tonight the news showed aerial footage from the Gold Coast of three big sharks swimming near a bunch of surfers out on the water this afternoon.

We spent the night with Kate and then headed back to Brissie on Thursday evening (after watching the Stanley Cup Finals and talking about maple syrup with all the other Canadians!). Friday I had dinner plans again with Leah, Jess, and Ina. We went over to the West End and had a really nice meal at a Greek place called Ouzo. After we finished we wandered across the street to a bar called Sling Lounge, which is where my flatmate John's girlfriend was having a birthday party. I had read a little bit about this place online the day before, and was excited to see it in person. It's been open for about 1 1/2 years now, and has received a lot of attention for the huge drink menu. The bartenders at Sling do a twist on molecular gastronomy with their drinks - they call it molecular mixology. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it involves the use of science to explore cooking, so cooks use molecular gastronomy to create weird foams and manipulate food using different cooking techniques. The drinks are wild and their cocktail menu is like a book! There are over 250 different ones to choose from (glad I'm not a bartender there). The Cane Toad sounded really good to me, although I didn't get to try it: pureed fried banana, lime juice, Disaronno amaretto, Bundaberg rum, pineapple juice and lychee juice. Yum! An example of a molecular mixology one is the 10,000 Mile Journey: jogi berries, lemon myrtle, vodka, tequilla, lemon juice, kaffir lime, and pickle ginger foam. At $14 to $16 a pop they better be fancy AND good! Corinne, I'm dying to take Tom here - I know he would lose his mind :o)

We made it an early night on Friday so that we could wake up early and head to the Stradbroke Races. These are held every year at Eagle Farm, which is 10 minutes outside of the city. Everyone dresses to the nines and there is a fashion show held by Myer (like Nordstrom) called "Fashions on the Field". All the ladies here wear either a crazy fancy hat, or a smaller adornment called a fascinator. On Tuesday Jody, Leah, and I wandered into a shop that happened to have these, and the lady did an excellent job of selling them to us. I think we looked pretty good!





I wish I had gotten more pictures of what everyone else looked like! You can't really tell from these pictures, but nearly everyone had something crazy on their heads. One lady had a fascinator that had an entire peacock made out of feathers! Jody immediately decided that we needed to participate in the "Fashions on the Field" show, so we entered and actually walked up on stage in groups of ten just like this:

It was good fun but unfortunately none of us won any prizes! The people who placed in the top 10 were ridiculous and must have spent a fortune on their outfits!!! The rest of the day was great (despite how it looks in some of the pictures it was bright and sunny most of the day) and we had a lovely afternoon there.

Last night I said farewell to Jody and Regan, who are now off on a 5 week trip to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and maybe a few other places if they have the chance! I'm highly tempted to join them, however I'm pretty sure that I'll be securing some work for the next few weeks. Regan will return to Canada afterwards and Jody will come back to Brisbane and try to find a new apartment! I'm going to book a trip to Fraser Island with a few friends at the end of June, which I'm really looking forward to. It's the largest sand island in the world, and has some really unique features. The only mode of transportation on the island is 4x4 vehicles, which you drive right up and down the beach and along sand tracks across the island. It's also home to a population of dingoes, which are regarded as the purest strain remaining in eastern Australia. More on that soon...

Finally, a big huge THANK YOU to my Aunt Mara and Anne for the care packages they sent me!! Yesterday was like Christmas! Among the highlights...my favorite tea and a can of beefaroni!!!! You guys are the best :o)