12 years ago
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Sunday May 31, 2009 - Random thought about "Sex and the City"
So I’ve been watching quite a bit of “Sex and the City” reruns while I’ve been here and I just thought about something the other day. How the hell does Carrie afford to live her life? I mean, I don’t think it ever says how much she earns (before she inks the book deal), but she certainly spends a lot. She is always buying 400 or more dollar shoes, she has this extravagant lifestyle where she is always going out drinking and out to eat and eats take-out like it’s nobody’s business. I mean, how can one afford to pay rent, shop as much as she does (for designer shoes and clothes!), pay for cigarettes, pay for food, go out and drink all the time? Plus she then buys her apartment after the Aidan fiasco, true, Charlotte gives her the ring for the down payment, but she would’ve had to get a loan to cover the rest, and we all know she’s not exactly the ideal loan candidate. She has hinted that she doesn’t really make all that much writing the column, so how in the hell can she afford to live this extravagant lifestyle? True, she’s probably ridiculously in credit card debt up to her eyeballs, but still. People I know who live in New York with decent jobs, have to work hard to manage to pay rent (with roommates) and eat and still be able to go out every once in a while. Forget about expensive shopping and dining. It’s just occurred to me that Carrie Bradshaw’s life is completely unrealistic, in terms of finances. It makes some people depressed to see these fabulous woman on tv and the lifestyles they live, where in reality it’s completely unbelievable (at least for Carrie, Samantha probably makes a decent amount owning her own PR company and Miranda probably does well as a lawyer). Hmph, just wanted to get that off my chest, although will I still watch, of course, after all it is tv and we all have to remember tv is not reality.
Sunday May 31, 2009 - Back from Canberra
Yesterday we spent our day in Canberra, the capital of Australia. It’s about 2.5-3 hours away from Husky. We started out by grabbing some lunch when we got there about 11:30 am. We then headed over to the National Museum of Australia. It has exhibits concerning the history of Australia from Aborigines to colonization to present day. The building the museum was in was interesting, very modern and surreal. I felt like I had stepped out of a Salvador Dali painting. There was this big wooden curly-Q thing outside that looked like a roller coaster loop-de-loop. There was also this strange courtyard in the middle with some weird stuff in it, but I do believe it was called the “Garden of Australian Dreams,” so I suppose it was supposed to be a dreamland sort of thing. After the museum we headed to the Australian-American War Memorial. It was a tall obelisk with an (ugly) eagle on the top. If was built to memorialize the cooperation/help of the America with Australia during World War II. Then we headed to the Australian War Memorial. It is also a museum with exhibits on wars the Australian were involved in. I don’t think we saw the whole thing, but we did see the exhibits on WWI and WWII. It was actually pretty neat. There were all the cool little diorama things that were neat and much better than just seeing a 2-D picture of painting. There was also a pool of reflection with an eternal flame, flanked on either side by the names of the 102,000 Australians who have died in wars since the late nineteenth century. Then at the end of the pool is the dome of the hall of memory, which houses the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. The whole inside of the dome is one huge mural, with 4 separate pictures, representing servicemen and women. My thought was, gee I wonder how many tiles were used to cover the inside of this dome, because it must be a hell of a lot! Oh, just was on the website for the memorial and here’s the answer to the aforementioned question concerning the number of tiles in the hall: The walls and dome of the hall are lined with one of the largest mosaics in the world, also the work of Waller, unveiled in 1959. The mosaic inside the dome depicts the souls of the dead rising from the earth towards their spiritual home, represented by a glowing sun within the Southern Cross. The figures on the walls – a soldier, a sailor, an airman and a servicewoman – recall the Australian experience of the Second World War. Over six million pieces of glass tesserae, or tiles, imported from Italy, were used in the composition; the installation was overseen by Italian craftsmen and took three years to complete. So there ya go!
After the War Memorial we headed to the Parliament building. We walked around inside and were able to see the House and Senate chambers.
We then headed to an ice hockey game. Yes, my first live sports event in Australia and its ice hockey, not Aussie Rules, not rugby, not even cricket…ice hockey. Turns out Australia has a national ice hockey league, consisting of all of 7 teams. There was a game in Canberra so we decided to check it out, it was only $15 to get in. The rink reminded of when I went to watch my high schools ice hockey games. Small place, no glass, just netting, hard wooden benches and freaking freezing. The game was pretty entertaining. Canberra lost though, to the Newcastle North Stars (Newcastle is up north of Sydney). Tom is definitely a vocal guy though, I had to keep reminding him, Tom, this isn’t NHL, the talent level isn’t as high. Also the guy who ran the zamboni between the 1st and 2nd periods was wearing a Detriot Red Wings jersey so of course Tom had to heckle him as he drove by, yelling out “Go Pens!” to which he received a dirty look. Then between the 2nd and 3rd periods a different guy running the zamboni was wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt! Eww! I did eat a hot dog at the game and mmm, it was good. A nice good old style American hot dog! We headed straight home after the game.
Overall impressions of Canberra: There’s not much there. Smaller and not as much to do as DC. However, the good thing is like DC, everywhere we went was free to go into (with of course the exception of the hockey game). It actually reminded me of Brasilia. It’s a manufactured city, designed around a man-made lake, in the middle of the country because a capital couldn’t be decided from current major cities. I didn’t like it as much as even Brasilia though. It just seemed like there wasn’t really much there, it was too quiet, too unassuming. There was plenty there we didn’t see though. The national mint, the archives, and other things that I think would be worth a return trip.
After the War Memorial we headed to the Parliament building. We walked around inside and were able to see the House and Senate chambers.
We then headed to an ice hockey game. Yes, my first live sports event in Australia and its ice hockey, not Aussie Rules, not rugby, not even cricket…ice hockey. Turns out Australia has a national ice hockey league, consisting of all of 7 teams. There was a game in Canberra so we decided to check it out, it was only $15 to get in. The rink reminded of when I went to watch my high schools ice hockey games. Small place, no glass, just netting, hard wooden benches and freaking freezing. The game was pretty entertaining. Canberra lost though, to the Newcastle North Stars (Newcastle is up north of Sydney). Tom is definitely a vocal guy though, I had to keep reminding him, Tom, this isn’t NHL, the talent level isn’t as high. Also the guy who ran the zamboni between the 1st and 2nd periods was wearing a Detriot Red Wings jersey so of course Tom had to heckle him as he drove by, yelling out “Go Pens!” to which he received a dirty look. Then between the 2nd and 3rd periods a different guy running the zamboni was wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt! Eww! I did eat a hot dog at the game and mmm, it was good. A nice good old style American hot dog! We headed straight home after the game.
Overall impressions of Canberra: There’s not much there. Smaller and not as much to do as DC. However, the good thing is like DC, everywhere we went was free to go into (with of course the exception of the hockey game). It actually reminded me of Brasilia. It’s a manufactured city, designed around a man-made lake, in the middle of the country because a capital couldn’t be decided from current major cities. I didn’t like it as much as even Brasilia though. It just seemed like there wasn’t really much there, it was too quiet, too unassuming. There was plenty there we didn’t see though. The national mint, the archives, and other things that I think would be worth a return trip.
Saturday May 30, 2009 - Driving to Canberra
I’m the car on the way to visit the nation’s capital of Canberra. It’s about 2.5-3 hours southwest of Husky. I figured now is as good a time as any to update the blog. Of course I am writing this in Microsoft Word and will later transfer it to Blogger, so I guess the blog itself still won’t be technically updated. The drive has been ice so far. First we drove through some mountains and I’m sure there would have been some beautiful views but unfortunately this morning when we left it was raining and foggy so we pretty much couldn’t see shit. One thing that amazes me is we are smack dab in the middle of fall and everything is still so green! Leaves aren’t changing, aren’t falling off the trees, which to me is weird. Next weekend is a holiday weekend here, it’s the Queen’s Birthday (yes the Queen of England) so Monday is a holiday and that’s the weekend that the ski resorts here in NSW and down in Victoria open for the start of the season, so I guess it’s also (whether official or unofficial, I don’t know) the start of winter. I wonder, when the Queen passes away and there is a new supreme head of the British Empire, will this federal holiday cease to exist and a new one (the King’s Birthday) take effect? Hmm, I wonder. Well let’s see, what’s been going on this week?
Wednesday (May 27) – I felt so disgraced about my poor performance Tuesday night at poker, I tagged along with Dave to the free entry Wednesday night league in Callala, determined to redeem a little bit of my dignity. Well I did even worse. Of course I had drank a few cocktails before I went, so I’m thinking that definitely didn’t help matters. After I got out (pre-break) I turned around to see if Dave was still in, but he wasn’t. I saw him over by the bar and went to see if he had signed up for a cashie, because if he had, I was going to as well. He had, so I decided to go sign my name up for the same game. Unfortunately, 2 women (who were at my table and were taken out the same hand as me) snapped up the last 2 spots in that cashie. Great, I went ahead and signed up for the next cashie and if it started relatively soon, I would play. It all depended though on how long it took to start and how Dave was doing in his game, I didn’t want to start when he was about to go out and then make him wait for me. Break for the tourney was called, but cashies play through the break and Dave was out of the cashie before the break resumed, so obviously he didn’t do too well in that game. We stuck around for a few minutes because at the break they redraw 3 people who got out before the break and they get re-entered into the game. Richard (the guy in charge) gets up and announces its ladies night again for the redraw. Dave gives me the hopeful eyes, like maybe I am one of the redraws. They announce 2 other women’s then the third name announced is… Dave Threlfo! Damn Dave, I guess I will be playing that cashie after all. Well, I did pretty good in the cashie. I didn’t get particularly good cards, but I was able to wait everyone out, until I was in the final 3. Now, it’s $10 to play, with 8 players, 10 x 8 = $80. The poker league keeps $10 to go towards tournament winnings throughout the year, then $50 goes to the winner of the cashie and $20 to the runner-up, there’s also points awarded but I’m not sure how those are broken up. So I am in the final 3 at the cashie with the significantly small stack when the guy in second place goes all in against the guy with the most chips and the second place guy gets taken out! So yay, I am going to get $20, because the other gentleman has like 20 times as many chips as I do, there is no hope for me. He then suggests splitting the money as long as he can get first place points, I say hell yes! I don’t give a crap about points (apparently you can gain points to qualify for some end of season shoot-out thing) but if we split money, I would get $35 instead of the $20 I would get for second place. So after playing $10 to play the cashie, I walked out with $35, making $25! So even though I feel like I had another no so great night, I still somehow managed to walk out making $25. I felt slightly better, after all making money, however slight is always a good thing.
Friday night we headed to the RSL to grab dinner during the Friday night raffle. We started chatting with the people sitting next to us and I big fear of mine was realized. They thought we were married. No we assured, we’re cousins. That’s one thing about always hanging out with Tom, I think people may think we’re a couple. I want to wear a shirt that says, “We’re not together. We’re cousins. I’m available.” Dave gives me shit about not going anywhere and says I should go down to the pub in Friday or Saturday night and try to pick me up a cute Aussie bloke. Well, that’s all well and good, but I am not comfortable going to a bar by myself but if I go with Tom, it would look like we’re together and then really, what’s the point? Same thing with Tom, it’s hard to pick up a woman when you’re with another female.
Wednesday (May 27) – I felt so disgraced about my poor performance Tuesday night at poker, I tagged along with Dave to the free entry Wednesday night league in Callala, determined to redeem a little bit of my dignity. Well I did even worse. Of course I had drank a few cocktails before I went, so I’m thinking that definitely didn’t help matters. After I got out (pre-break) I turned around to see if Dave was still in, but he wasn’t. I saw him over by the bar and went to see if he had signed up for a cashie, because if he had, I was going to as well. He had, so I decided to go sign my name up for the same game. Unfortunately, 2 women (who were at my table and were taken out the same hand as me) snapped up the last 2 spots in that cashie. Great, I went ahead and signed up for the next cashie and if it started relatively soon, I would play. It all depended though on how long it took to start and how Dave was doing in his game, I didn’t want to start when he was about to go out and then make him wait for me. Break for the tourney was called, but cashies play through the break and Dave was out of the cashie before the break resumed, so obviously he didn’t do too well in that game. We stuck around for a few minutes because at the break they redraw 3 people who got out before the break and they get re-entered into the game. Richard (the guy in charge) gets up and announces its ladies night again for the redraw. Dave gives me the hopeful eyes, like maybe I am one of the redraws. They announce 2 other women’s then the third name announced is… Dave Threlfo! Damn Dave, I guess I will be playing that cashie after all. Well, I did pretty good in the cashie. I didn’t get particularly good cards, but I was able to wait everyone out, until I was in the final 3. Now, it’s $10 to play, with 8 players, 10 x 8 = $80. The poker league keeps $10 to go towards tournament winnings throughout the year, then $50 goes to the winner of the cashie and $20 to the runner-up, there’s also points awarded but I’m not sure how those are broken up. So I am in the final 3 at the cashie with the significantly small stack when the guy in second place goes all in against the guy with the most chips and the second place guy gets taken out! So yay, I am going to get $20, because the other gentleman has like 20 times as many chips as I do, there is no hope for me. He then suggests splitting the money as long as he can get first place points, I say hell yes! I don’t give a crap about points (apparently you can gain points to qualify for some end of season shoot-out thing) but if we split money, I would get $35 instead of the $20 I would get for second place. So after playing $10 to play the cashie, I walked out with $35, making $25! So even though I feel like I had another no so great night, I still somehow managed to walk out making $25. I felt slightly better, after all making money, however slight is always a good thing.
Friday night we headed to the RSL to grab dinner during the Friday night raffle. We started chatting with the people sitting next to us and I big fear of mine was realized. They thought we were married. No we assured, we’re cousins. That’s one thing about always hanging out with Tom, I think people may think we’re a couple. I want to wear a shirt that says, “We’re not together. We’re cousins. I’m available.” Dave gives me shit about not going anywhere and says I should go down to the pub in Friday or Saturday night and try to pick me up a cute Aussie bloke. Well, that’s all well and good, but I am not comfortable going to a bar by myself but if I go with Tom, it would look like we’re together and then really, what’s the point? Same thing with Tom, it’s hard to pick up a woman when you’re with another female.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tuesday May 27, 2009 - I rode my bike almost 20 miles!
This past weekend Tom and I had planned to drive the 3 hours west to Canberra, the capital of the country. Canberra is kind of like DC, it’s its own little capital territory. The weather forecast however called for showers, so we decided to push it off till next weekend. We did however head back out to Silos Estate winery north of Nowra to pick up some wine. This is the winery he had stopped at a few weeks after I got here to do a wine tasting. I had liked the Riesling when I tried it but didn’t buy any so I picked up a bottle and Tom picked up a couple bottles.
Monday I decided to be ambitious and take the bike out for a long bike ride. There is a bay to basin cycleway here where you can walk or ride from Jervis Bay down to the inland lake of St. George’s Basin. It’s about 11 km straight down to Sanctuary Point. So I could go down to Sanctuary Point and back the same way for a round trip of about 22 km, or about 13.5 miles. Or there is a loop where you go down to Sanctuary Point, go along the basin a bit, then back up another road back to Huskisson. The loop is 30.5 km or 19 miles, so of course I decided to go for the long one. It took me about 5 hours and I swear was mostly uphill. Some were steep hills and some were long, slightly uphill parts. There was some parts that were flat, but I swear there were only a few 100 m or so spurts where I didn’t have to cycle at all. For all the damn uphill I did, there should have been more freaking places where I could just relax and enjoy the ride without having to work too hard, but no. It took me so long because with all the damn uphills, I got to the point where at some points I hopped off my bike and walked along side it. When I finally finished I was exhausted, my legs and butt HATED me and my arms were hurting as well. I did however feel a huge sense of accomplishment, especially considering I biked 4 or 5 times since I’ve been here and before that it’d been maybe 8 months since I’d been on a bike. I’m pretty impressed with myself I even did it at all. I do have plans to do it again sometime though, maybe next week. However I do plan on doing it the opposite way around next time, since I feel like I went all uphill this way, we’ll see if it feels any different doing it the other way around. Still people…19 miles…props to me.
Tuesday night I went to poker and after winning last week, I followed that up with my worst performance to date. It was horrible, I had crap cards the whole night and I just didn’t play well. Let’s hope I can do better next week. There is a free to play poker tonight in Callalla (just up the bay) that Dave usually goes to. I think I will tag along (I did play there one other time a couple weeks ago) with Dave if he goes and try to redeem myself from my horrendous play last night. After all it is free and I have the chance to win money, so why not. I will have to DVR “Chuck” though. I didn’t watch it back in the States, but they started airing the first season here and I started watching from the beginning so now I am hooked. It’s a good, show I am really enjoying it!
Random thought: An acquaintance of mine (a friend of a friend) is going through a pretty tough break-up right now and she mentioned that before the actual break-up they were on a break. I’ve also been watching re-runs of “Gilmore Girls” where Logan cheats on Rory while they were on a break, with him thinking they had actually broken up. Then of course there’s the notorious “WE WERE ON A BREAK” involving Ross and Rachel from “Friends.” This got me thinking about people in a relationship who go on a break. Now I can’t say anything definitively because I’ve never been put in such a position, I can only speculate. But…WTF is up with breaks? I feel like whether on tv or in real life, breaks just don’t make sense to me. I mean, both people in the relationship have to be on exactly the same page. Are you allowed to fool around with other people, can you talk to each other, do you cut off all contact? What are the rules of a break? It seems like someone always ends up getting even more hurt, and things usually end badly anyway, I mean, what’s the point? From what I’ve heard, people only go on a break when things are bad and they’re about to break up anyway. So why not just break up, why pick an undefined length of time, with undefined restrictions to see if things change? Do things for most couples ever change? Or is it just a detour on the way to a break-up? And who else thinks me writing blog posts on relationships is a byproduct of watching too much “Sex and the City?” Now all I need is 3 good friends to go out and drink with.
Monday I decided to be ambitious and take the bike out for a long bike ride. There is a bay to basin cycleway here where you can walk or ride from Jervis Bay down to the inland lake of St. George’s Basin. It’s about 11 km straight down to Sanctuary Point. So I could go down to Sanctuary Point and back the same way for a round trip of about 22 km, or about 13.5 miles. Or there is a loop where you go down to Sanctuary Point, go along the basin a bit, then back up another road back to Huskisson. The loop is 30.5 km or 19 miles, so of course I decided to go for the long one. It took me about 5 hours and I swear was mostly uphill. Some were steep hills and some were long, slightly uphill parts. There was some parts that were flat, but I swear there were only a few 100 m or so spurts where I didn’t have to cycle at all. For all the damn uphill I did, there should have been more freaking places where I could just relax and enjoy the ride without having to work too hard, but no. It took me so long because with all the damn uphills, I got to the point where at some points I hopped off my bike and walked along side it. When I finally finished I was exhausted, my legs and butt HATED me and my arms were hurting as well. I did however feel a huge sense of accomplishment, especially considering I biked 4 or 5 times since I’ve been here and before that it’d been maybe 8 months since I’d been on a bike. I’m pretty impressed with myself I even did it at all. I do have plans to do it again sometime though, maybe next week. However I do plan on doing it the opposite way around next time, since I feel like I went all uphill this way, we’ll see if it feels any different doing it the other way around. Still people…19 miles…props to me.
Tuesday night I went to poker and after winning last week, I followed that up with my worst performance to date. It was horrible, I had crap cards the whole night and I just didn’t play well. Let’s hope I can do better next week. There is a free to play poker tonight in Callalla (just up the bay) that Dave usually goes to. I think I will tag along (I did play there one other time a couple weeks ago) with Dave if he goes and try to redeem myself from my horrendous play last night. After all it is free and I have the chance to win money, so why not. I will have to DVR “Chuck” though. I didn’t watch it back in the States, but they started airing the first season here and I started watching from the beginning so now I am hooked. It’s a good, show I am really enjoying it!
Random thought: An acquaintance of mine (a friend of a friend) is going through a pretty tough break-up right now and she mentioned that before the actual break-up they were on a break. I’ve also been watching re-runs of “Gilmore Girls” where Logan cheats on Rory while they were on a break, with him thinking they had actually broken up. Then of course there’s the notorious “WE WERE ON A BREAK” involving Ross and Rachel from “Friends.” This got me thinking about people in a relationship who go on a break. Now I can’t say anything definitively because I’ve never been put in such a position, I can only speculate. But…WTF is up with breaks? I feel like whether on tv or in real life, breaks just don’t make sense to me. I mean, both people in the relationship have to be on exactly the same page. Are you allowed to fool around with other people, can you talk to each other, do you cut off all contact? What are the rules of a break? It seems like someone always ends up getting even more hurt, and things usually end badly anyway, I mean, what’s the point? From what I’ve heard, people only go on a break when things are bad and they’re about to break up anyway. So why not just break up, why pick an undefined length of time, with undefined restrictions to see if things change? Do things for most couples ever change? Or is it just a detour on the way to a break-up? And who else thinks me writing blog posts on relationships is a byproduct of watching too much “Sex and the City?” Now all I need is 3 good friends to go out and drink with.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Random thought about Kris Allen
Just caught The Tonight Show from last night, with Kris Allen. He said he played the viola for like 9 years! I mean, it's no violin, but the fact that he was a orchestra geek made me fall a little bit more in love with him. He totally should've busted out the viola on Idol! Talk about something new and different. If I was ever on Idol (assuming I all of a sudden stopped sucking at singing), I would totally bust out the violin playing on a country song or slow song or something. I think that would totally be cool.
Friday May 22, 2009 - Work Update
So I’ve been really conflicted lately about what I’m doing. I am going crazy being here and need to get out soon. When I originally moved here, I just planned on getting some part time waitressing/retail thing in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane, you know, enough to cover expenses. The more I think about it though, the more that’s just not me. I want a “real” job where I can contribute, not just be some slacky. Plus I miss being in a lab. I mean, I left ATCC in September. I miss being in a lab, doing science. But there aren’t any short term (<6 month) science jobs here. At ATCC we would hire people for 3 or 4 months to cover maternity leaves, or short term projects, but apparently they don’t do that here. Even maternity leave covers are for 12 months. My current visa will only allow me to work for a certain company for 6 months, so anything longer is out of the question unless they sponsor me for a visa. I was on Kelly Scientific (which we have in the States too, that’s who we usually hire our temps thorough) checking things out and there were a couple permanent jobs listed. I started thinking about applying for a permanent job, I mean even if it’s permanent doesn’t mean I have to stay forever. But if I wanted to applying for a permanent job I feel like I would have to stay I would stay for a least a certain period of time, like 2 or 3 years. That’s a long time though. It’s a long time to go without seeing my friends (all of whom now that I’ve left the DC area after living there for 3.5 years after college, want to move there) and my family, especially my niece and nephew. That led to some serious thinking about what the hell am I doing here? Leaving a stable job with a reputable company during a recession to move to another country where jobs are scarce as well. What the hell am I thinking? I am an idiot. What am I doing with my life? I’m 26, alone, as of 2 months ago, living with my parents, now living with a cousin, have no job, no property, nothing. I see other people, friends, people from college and high school who are getting married, having kids, buying houses, “growing up” and here I am, drifting. It’s just that I feel like I should be so much further along in my life then I am. I’m afraid being here I am going to use up all of my savings, especially if I travel like I want to and not having income, and go home broke and have to start all over again. I refuse to go back now though. I don’t want to go crawling back admitting I was crazy. I’m here and I want to stay until at least the end of the year. Travel, see New Zealand, see some of Southeast Asia, see the rest of Australia. I flew all the way here, I need to make the most of it. Plus people keep asking me, have you found a job, are you looking? I know people are just interested, but it also makes me feel like they’re looking down on me because I don’t have a job yet and I should. I decided that if I was going to spend a year here then move back to the US somewhere besides the DC area and only talk to friends and family on the phone from somewhere else in the US, then why not just talk friends and family on the phone from here? So I decided, what the hell, I will apply for permanent jobs. Now I think I would be able to start working at a company with the visa I have but for a permanent job a company would have to sponsor me for a long term work visa. To do this, a company would have to prove that there are no domestic applicants that would be better candidates. Now some companies now-a-days aren’t even willing to consider foreign applicants so I have no idea is these applications would even go anywhere. I applied for several jobs through Kelly Scientific in both Sydney and Melbourne. Here’s a weird thing about companies here, it’s uncommon for companies to advertise openings directly on their websites. They all do them through these 3rd party companies, which I think is strange. I got replies back from the applications I put in for the Sydney jobs (which I think was actually for a company, BTF that I had already been communicating with directly) saying “your application had been unsuccessful in this instance.” Not even shortlisted, for jobs I’d be perfect for. I got these rejections like the day after I applied. Who knows why, is it because I’m an international applicant, or because they didn’t like my resume? Was I rejected by Kelly or by the specific company (on these stupid websites it doesn’t even say what the actual company you’re applying for is, just a city and what they do)? I mean, did the actual company see my resume or did Kelly reject me before even sending the resume on? Who knows? I still have a couple applications in for a company in Melbourne and I applied for a part-time (15-30 hours a week) job in Brisbane. It’s listed as a “casual” position so I’m hoping that may mean I have a better chance of at least getting shortlisted for it. I mean, damn people, I spent over 3 years at freakin’ ATCC, a place that when I went to conferences and told people where I was from they oohed and awed like I was some sort of modern day Marie Curie. Shouldn’t that at least give me some leeway here, make people at least interested in what I can offer. I am smart, have a great company on my resume, and damn it, I am a hard ass worker. I believe in finishing what I start, doing it all out the first time (because if you have to do it over, why waste the time the first time around?), I would be an asset to any company! I hope people see that when I do come crawling back to the states begging for a job. I do think the one company, BTF, had some interest in me. I sporadically sent them a resume just to get my name out there (even mentioned I’d worked with Biomerieux, whom they are owned by) and got a response from a PhD., mentioning they were going to advertise an opening the following week through Kelly and Seek.com.au. My resume must have sparked at least some interest for me to get any response at all, that was encouraging. But I think what killed me was that I only have a visa where I can work for up to 6 months and they wanted someone for longer and weren’t willing to sponsor someone for longer. This is the company that I “think” I applied for through Kelly and got the “your application was unsuccessful in this instance” reply. But like I said, I am holding out hope for the part-time casual job in Brisbane, as I mentioned I really liked Brisbane. Also I haven’t been rejected by the Melbourne company yet, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed. Damn I just want to have somewhere to go during the day, people to communicate with. I think I need to set a deadline for myself, say June 15th or 20th or something as a cutoff date where if I don’t hear anything about a job, I will just up and move somewhere and find a retail/server thing, or at least set out traveling, attempting to spend that savings. The only thing more depressing then sitting at home in the US going I wish or what if, is taking that chance and then not making the most of it. If I have to spend my savings to have an amazing, life-changing experience, then I should just take that chance. I bitch about not being in a place in my life where I think I should be, but I keep reminding myself that we can’t compare ourselves to other people. We can’t let people dictate who we think we should be. I mean, there are so many people back home who wish they were where I am, I shouldn’t be bitching. I made the biggest jump of all by leaving my job, friends and family and coming here, everything else should be cakewalk, right? I should let life take me where it wants. I have always believed that things in life always turn out how they’re supposed to, call it fate, destiny, desire, kismet, whatever. We are all presented opportunities, we just have to make the most of what is presented us. So I will apply to places, travel, let what will happen, happen. Life will work out and what’s meant to happen will. I’m just going through a bit of a funk right now and I know I’ll bust out of it eventually. At least I can say that I did something crazy by even moving here in the first place, not many people can say that.
PS - Sorry about the lack of correct grammar and punctuation and it being one big paragraph. I have been writing for like 8 hours trying to get this damn blog updated because I was like a week and a half behind and I am tired. It is after 11 pm here and I am tired and too lazy to make my grammar correct and make sense, so deal with it.
PS - Sorry about the lack of correct grammar and punctuation and it being one big paragraph. I have been writing for like 8 hours trying to get this damn blog updated because I was like a week and a half behind and I am tired. It is after 11 pm here and I am tired and too lazy to make my grammar correct and make sense, so deal with it.
Friday May 22, 2009 - Getting Caught Up
Ok, so today I finally got caught up with writing about Brisbane and instead of trying to do a day by day recap of the days since then I am going to do one all encompassing post, hitting the highlights.
Sunday May 16 – Dave from next door took Tom and I out sailing on his boat. We sailed around the Bay, sailing right by Hyams Beach, named by Guinness World Records as having the whitest sand in the world. Had hopes of spotting dolphins or whales (whale season is just starting and there have been several sightings the past week), but alas, the marine mammals were hiding today. I don’t know how to work a sailboat, it been probably about 15 years since I’ve been on a sailboat (my aunt and uncle use d to have one), so Dave gave me some tips on how it works, how the sails are supposed to go, etc. We sailed all the way down to the southern end of the bay before heading back. It was a long day out on the water and I ended up curling up in the little area inside the boat and taking a little snooze as we headed back to Huski. It was starting to chilly too, so it was warmer inside then out. Had a great time though. I just love being out on boats and being on the water.
Saturday May 15th??? – Can’t remember which day I did this but since I went with Tom I assuming it was Saturday, but we saw “Angels and Demons.” I am a big fan of the book, I liked it better then “DaVinci Code.” Although…I didn’t dig the movie. The book is so good and intriguing and the movie just failed to live up to how good the book was. I think part of the problem was, and I said this after “DaVinci Code” is that I just think Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon is just totally wrong! IMHO Hanks is too old to play Langdon. Plus I think Langdon should be a bit more dashing. It just throws the whole thing for me. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Tuesday May 18, 2009 – Poker Night. As you know, on Tuesday I play poker. I only really learned since I’ve gotten here, but every time I’ve played I’ve placed top 15. (That’s important because you get points and everyone gets 100 points just for playing and you have to make top 15 to get more than 100 points). Well this night, I did it, I WON! Everything was working. I got decent cards, played them well and had a bit of luck, which every poker player needs. I did take Tom out though, making him come in 4th place, just outside the money. By winning I got a cool little card protector thing and $100 AUD (~$75 USD). Not too bad for a night’s work!
Misc – I sent out a couple applications for full time jobs because I just need to get out of Huski, I am going crazy. I have been struggling a bit about what I want to do, having a lot of self doubt, but I plan on doing a whole nother post about that. I mean, I’ve been here almost 2 months, I need to get out of this small town and see more. Don’t know if anything will come of them, but it doesn’t hurt to put it out there.
Misc – Got a haircut. My hair was looking pretty bad, full of split ends and breakage. I made an appointment with Tom’s hair stylist, Amanda, to get a trim. I just wanted a couple inches taken off, but keep the long layers. Well, it’s been a few days now and I just don’t think I like it. She gave me too short of layers and I feel like both sides aren’t even. I have the shorter layers which kind of flip out which I like, but then it doesn’t segueway into the longer part, it seems disjointed. I am seriously thinking about going back and getting the longer part just cut off, so then the longest part would come to about chin length. I haven’t had my hair that short in years but from what I am seeing now I think it would be cute and look better than it does now. I’m not sure yet though, maybe I just have to learn how to style it right.
Misc - They aired the finale of American Idol live here, so watched that. Bit surprised Kris won, but it's all good, I really like him. He's mellow, good listening tunes. I like Adam alright, great performer, great singer, but he's almost too over the top, too theatrical. Don't think I could listen too a whole album of that. Also, Kris performed with Keith Urban, whom I LOVE (best concert I've ever been to, I hope he comes to tour here in Australia well I'm here), singing a song I LOVE, I loved the whole performance. Adam's gonna get a record deal anyway, and now he doesn't have to release that shiteous song Kara wrote.
Misc - Shawn Johnson won Dancing With The Stars! Yay! I love her! She's so cute and she had the best technique of anyone. I know people love Gilles, but I always think it's easier for a man,they don't have to do as much when dancing. I truly believe its harder for a female "celebrity" to "get good", so rock on Shawn! You go girl!
Sunday May 16 – Dave from next door took Tom and I out sailing on his boat. We sailed around the Bay, sailing right by Hyams Beach, named by Guinness World Records as having the whitest sand in the world. Had hopes of spotting dolphins or whales (whale season is just starting and there have been several sightings the past week), but alas, the marine mammals were hiding today. I don’t know how to work a sailboat, it been probably about 15 years since I’ve been on a sailboat (my aunt and uncle use d to have one), so Dave gave me some tips on how it works, how the sails are supposed to go, etc. We sailed all the way down to the southern end of the bay before heading back. It was a long day out on the water and I ended up curling up in the little area inside the boat and taking a little snooze as we headed back to Huski. It was starting to chilly too, so it was warmer inside then out. Had a great time though. I just love being out on boats and being on the water.
Saturday May 15th??? – Can’t remember which day I did this but since I went with Tom I assuming it was Saturday, but we saw “Angels and Demons.” I am a big fan of the book, I liked it better then “DaVinci Code.” Although…I didn’t dig the movie. The book is so good and intriguing and the movie just failed to live up to how good the book was. I think part of the problem was, and I said this after “DaVinci Code” is that I just think Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon is just totally wrong! IMHO Hanks is too old to play Langdon. Plus I think Langdon should be a bit more dashing. It just throws the whole thing for me. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Tuesday May 18, 2009 – Poker Night. As you know, on Tuesday I play poker. I only really learned since I’ve gotten here, but every time I’ve played I’ve placed top 15. (That’s important because you get points and everyone gets 100 points just for playing and you have to make top 15 to get more than 100 points). Well this night, I did it, I WON! Everything was working. I got decent cards, played them well and had a bit of luck, which every poker player needs. I did take Tom out though, making him come in 4th place, just outside the money. By winning I got a cool little card protector thing and $100 AUD (~$75 USD). Not too bad for a night’s work!
Misc – I sent out a couple applications for full time jobs because I just need to get out of Huski, I am going crazy. I have been struggling a bit about what I want to do, having a lot of self doubt, but I plan on doing a whole nother post about that. I mean, I’ve been here almost 2 months, I need to get out of this small town and see more. Don’t know if anything will come of them, but it doesn’t hurt to put it out there.
Misc – Got a haircut. My hair was looking pretty bad, full of split ends and breakage. I made an appointment with Tom’s hair stylist, Amanda, to get a trim. I just wanted a couple inches taken off, but keep the long layers. Well, it’s been a few days now and I just don’t think I like it. She gave me too short of layers and I feel like both sides aren’t even. I have the shorter layers which kind of flip out which I like, but then it doesn’t segueway into the longer part, it seems disjointed. I am seriously thinking about going back and getting the longer part just cut off, so then the longest part would come to about chin length. I haven’t had my hair that short in years but from what I am seeing now I think it would be cute and look better than it does now. I’m not sure yet though, maybe I just have to learn how to style it right.
Misc - They aired the finale of American Idol live here, so watched that. Bit surprised Kris won, but it's all good, I really like him. He's mellow, good listening tunes. I like Adam alright, great performer, great singer, but he's almost too over the top, too theatrical. Don't think I could listen too a whole album of that. Also, Kris performed with Keith Urban, whom I LOVE (best concert I've ever been to, I hope he comes to tour here in Australia well I'm here), singing a song I LOVE, I loved the whole performance. Adam's gonna get a record deal anyway, and now he doesn't have to release that shiteous song Kara wrote.
Misc - Shawn Johnson won Dancing With The Stars! Yay! I love her! She's so cute and she had the best technique of anyone. I know people love Gilles, but I always think it's easier for a man,they don't have to do as much when dancing. I truly believe its harder for a female "celebrity" to "get good", so rock on Shawn! You go girl!
Thursday May 14, 2009 - Back to Husky
Nothing too exciting happening today. Got picked up at the guesthouse. Flew from Brisbane to Sydney. Its cool flying in and out of Sydney, you get to see the Harbour, the bridge and the opera house from the air. This time I had my camera all ready so I could take pictures from the air. Unfortunately I was right above the wing so I had a bit of an obscured view and had to act quick to get the shot. Was little bummed to find that when I picked my backpack up from the luggage carousel, the main zipper had opened and it was flapping open. Excellent. Luckily inside there is a kind of mesh netting that zips up as well. I had things packed up pretty well so at first I didn’t think anything fell out. After arriving home I couldn’t find a washcloth I packed this morning (I had left it out overnight to dry) or my razor. Nothing too huge, everything else seemed to be there. I bought my ticket for the train and rode from the airport to central station, then got on a new train from central to Kiama on the South coast. Then I had to switch trains at Kiama from an electric train to diesel to get to Nowra where I arrived at about 6 pm. Was met by the bad news of the Caps getting their asses kicked by Pittsburgh in game 7 of the series. Not a good end to the day, ah well, I guess there’s next year.
Final thoughts about Brisbane: Brisbane kind of gets forgotten about by us foreigners, after Sydney, Melbourne, Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rocks, but I really like the city. It’s a major city with all the benefits, pro sports teams, arenas, arts and museums, shopping, outdoor stuff of a big city, but (in my opinion from the short time I’ve spent in Sydney) doesn’t seem as spastic or busy as Sydney. It’s more laid back and relaxed, which I enjoy. The weather is more temperate. Plus it’s on the river and has ferries! Like I mentioned before I love cities on rivers, not just on water, but on rivers, for some reason they just seemed so neat to me. It’s small enough to easily get around in. Has a good public transportation system. Is close to beaches (the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are both an hour or so away, even though I didn’t go to either…next time! Was going to do a surfing lesson on the Gold Coast, but that didn't work out) Definitely a city I would like to return to, actually I really wouldn’t mind living there. So all in all a good trip (minus all the damn walking, but that’s my own fault) in a good city.
Final thoughts about Brisbane: Brisbane kind of gets forgotten about by us foreigners, after Sydney, Melbourne, Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rocks, but I really like the city. It’s a major city with all the benefits, pro sports teams, arenas, arts and museums, shopping, outdoor stuff of a big city, but (in my opinion from the short time I’ve spent in Sydney) doesn’t seem as spastic or busy as Sydney. It’s more laid back and relaxed, which I enjoy. The weather is more temperate. Plus it’s on the river and has ferries! Like I mentioned before I love cities on rivers, not just on water, but on rivers, for some reason they just seemed so neat to me. It’s small enough to easily get around in. Has a good public transportation system. Is close to beaches (the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are both an hour or so away, even though I didn’t go to either…next time! Was going to do a surfing lesson on the Gold Coast, but that didn't work out) Definitely a city I would like to return to, actually I really wouldn’t mind living there. So all in all a good trip (minus all the damn walking, but that’s my own fault) in a good city.
Wednesday May 13, 2009 - Movie Day
I got up early today to head out to go to the movies. I stopped by the office quick to set up my airport transport for the next day. After I got that figured out I headed down to the ferry pier. As I was walking I could see that I was going to be cutting it close, so I started to jog. I am running up to the water and I see the Ferry and as I hit the walkway I see the ferry pulling away. DAMN IT! I was literally like 30 seconds too late. If I had hit the walkway before they pulled up the bridge thing to step from the walkway to the boat I’m sure they would have waited but no, I was THIS CLOSE to making it. Damn was I pissed. Now I had to wait like half an hour for the next ferry. There was no way I was walking up to the bus stop to bus into the CBD, because then I still would have had to cross over the river to Southbank. So I am waiting at the pier, minding my own business and 2 girls come up and ask me where I’m going and if I know how to get to Queen Street Mall. I tell them I’m getting off the stop before but when I get off I’ll let them know their stop is next. They ask me to join them and we start chatting, I tell them I am visiting and they say they are staying at the New Farm Clinic. Now when they say this I’m a bit confused about what the hell it is, I just think it’s the name of a hostel or something. Well they are chatting with themselves about the rooms they are staying in and one says she’s next to the bathroom. The other says she wouldn’t want to be there because it would be too much of a temptation. I must have been really slow because they’re talking for like 10 minutes then it dawns on me, clinic, like hospital. Turns out they are in the looney bin, their words, not mine. One was bulimic and depressed and the other was bulimic and bipolar. Their parents had put them in this clinic in order for them to get help. So I was hearing all about the looney bin. The one girls parents were in town visiting so they were headed off to meet them. Not how I thought I’d start my day. Finally the ferry came and we made our way down the river. I got off at Southbank and let the girls know the next stop was theirs. The owner of the guesthouse had told me the theatre was near the museum so I get off the ferry and start heading towards the museum. I walk a couple blocks and see a map, turns out, no the theatre was the other way. So I turn around and head in the right direction. I finally get to the theatre and see that the movie I want to see isn’t playing here. Great. With missing the first ferry and then going the wrong way at the pier, I now didn’t have time to make it across the river for the 10:30 movie. So I figured since I was over here, I’d go to the museum then head over for the 12:45 showing.
I walked around the Queensland Museum which is kind of like all the branches of the Smithsonian all crammed into one, but much smaller. There was some Australian history stuff, some wildlife stuff, some aboriginal stuff, some old cars and planes, and various other diverse things. I grabbed a sandwich from the café and walked around a bit then headed over for the movie. I saw “17 Again” which was pretty cute. Even though I am a 26 year old woman and am a bit ashamed to say this, but I don’t mind staring at Zac Efron for 2 hours, he’s not too shabby. PS – the moving cost $16 AUD which is like $12 USD, for a middle of the day movie, and we think our theatres are expensive. This theatre was inside a mall, so afterwards I walked around the mall for a bit. I also was able to jump on the internet for like 20 minutes to check e-mail and what not at a public internet terminal. I think caught one of the buses the owner has told me about and rode back to the guesthouse, got off a block away from the guesthouse, mush nicer than riding the ferry and having to walk uphill. I hung out at the hostel for a bit just relaxing. I wanted to get back out, I hate visiting a place and spending the whole time inside the hotel/hostel/guesthouse, so I decided to go back out and see another movie. Yes, 2 in one day. I had been thinking about “Star Trek,” and decided I wanted to check it out again because I had really enjoyed it the first time. Plus I knew it wasn’t coming to Huski anytime soon so if I wanted to see it again, I should do it now. I headed down to the ferry one more time (PS - I love ferries, I love rivers, I loves cities on rivers) and headed to Southbank. At least now I knew where I was going. I bought a ticket for the 6:30 pm showing, which by the way at Southbank cost $8.50 AUD, HALF the cost of the theatre right across the river. This was at night too! All shows before 6 pm were only $6.50 AUD! Note to self, if I ever comeback to Brissy and want to go to the movies, go to Southbank, it really is cheaper, by half! I had an hour to kill and decided to grab some quick dinner. Stopped at a row of street food and opted for a chicken and chips basket. Of course when I ordered from this counter as opposed to the other 10 right around it, they needed to make more chips (aka fries). Again, I ended up waiting 10-15 minutes for these damn fries to be made. Why does food take so long to make here? First the crepe the other day and now fries. So when the fries came out I kind of had to scarf the chicken and fries down so I could make it back to the theatre in time. On the good side, the fries were fresh and very hot! I wasn’t able to finish my fries, which is probably good, save myself the extra carbs and calories. After seeing “Star Trek” again, just as good the second time and picked up some extra stuff I missed the first time. I’m not gonna lie either, Chris Pine, pretty fine to stare at for 2 hours, and I don’t feel as bad about saying I like to stare at him as I did when mentioning Zac Efron. I also want to point out, I thought he was hot when I saw him in “Princess Diaries 2,” and he is just getting better with age, yum-my. Zachary Quinto ain’t too shabby either. Is it sad I definitely take into account when seeing a movie if there is a hot man in it? It shouldn’t, I mean men sometimes only see movies with hot chicks in them, so why shouldn’t I see a movie simply if there is a hot guy in it? Anyway, in addition to the obviously man eye-candy in “Star Trek,” I enjoyed the actual movie as well. I mean, there are some stuff that make you go WHA…that would never happen, but since when are things that happen in movies, blockbusters especially, completely realistic? Not to darn often, that’s why they’re movies, not real life.
Anyway, after the movie, I headed back out and across the Victoria bridge to catch the bus. I was able to see the city all light up at night, as well as the ferris wheel (which reminds me of the London Eye, a ferris wheel right on the banks of the river with killer views of the city) all light up looking slick. I tried to take it all in since this was my last night here. I caught the bus back to the guesthouse, packed up my stuff and watched a bit of tv before going to sleep. It was a good day, low key, not too much walking, just what my legs needed.
I walked around the Queensland Museum which is kind of like all the branches of the Smithsonian all crammed into one, but much smaller. There was some Australian history stuff, some wildlife stuff, some aboriginal stuff, some old cars and planes, and various other diverse things. I grabbed a sandwich from the café and walked around a bit then headed over for the movie. I saw “17 Again” which was pretty cute. Even though I am a 26 year old woman and am a bit ashamed to say this, but I don’t mind staring at Zac Efron for 2 hours, he’s not too shabby. PS – the moving cost $16 AUD which is like $12 USD, for a middle of the day movie, and we think our theatres are expensive. This theatre was inside a mall, so afterwards I walked around the mall for a bit. I also was able to jump on the internet for like 20 minutes to check e-mail and what not at a public internet terminal. I think caught one of the buses the owner has told me about and rode back to the guesthouse, got off a block away from the guesthouse, mush nicer than riding the ferry and having to walk uphill. I hung out at the hostel for a bit just relaxing. I wanted to get back out, I hate visiting a place and spending the whole time inside the hotel/hostel/guesthouse, so I decided to go back out and see another movie. Yes, 2 in one day. I had been thinking about “Star Trek,” and decided I wanted to check it out again because I had really enjoyed it the first time. Plus I knew it wasn’t coming to Huski anytime soon so if I wanted to see it again, I should do it now. I headed down to the ferry one more time (PS - I love ferries, I love rivers, I loves cities on rivers) and headed to Southbank. At least now I knew where I was going. I bought a ticket for the 6:30 pm showing, which by the way at Southbank cost $8.50 AUD, HALF the cost of the theatre right across the river. This was at night too! All shows before 6 pm were only $6.50 AUD! Note to self, if I ever comeback to Brissy and want to go to the movies, go to Southbank, it really is cheaper, by half! I had an hour to kill and decided to grab some quick dinner. Stopped at a row of street food and opted for a chicken and chips basket. Of course when I ordered from this counter as opposed to the other 10 right around it, they needed to make more chips (aka fries). Again, I ended up waiting 10-15 minutes for these damn fries to be made. Why does food take so long to make here? First the crepe the other day and now fries. So when the fries came out I kind of had to scarf the chicken and fries down so I could make it back to the theatre in time. On the good side, the fries were fresh and very hot! I wasn’t able to finish my fries, which is probably good, save myself the extra carbs and calories. After seeing “Star Trek” again, just as good the second time and picked up some extra stuff I missed the first time. I’m not gonna lie either, Chris Pine, pretty fine to stare at for 2 hours, and I don’t feel as bad about saying I like to stare at him as I did when mentioning Zac Efron. I also want to point out, I thought he was hot when I saw him in “Princess Diaries 2,” and he is just getting better with age, yum-my. Zachary Quinto ain’t too shabby either. Is it sad I definitely take into account when seeing a movie if there is a hot man in it? It shouldn’t, I mean men sometimes only see movies with hot chicks in them, so why shouldn’t I see a movie simply if there is a hot guy in it? Anyway, in addition to the obviously man eye-candy in “Star Trek,” I enjoyed the actual movie as well. I mean, there are some stuff that make you go WHA…that would never happen, but since when are things that happen in movies, blockbusters especially, completely realistic? Not to darn often, that’s why they’re movies, not real life.
Anyway, after the movie, I headed back out and across the Victoria bridge to catch the bus. I was able to see the city all light up at night, as well as the ferris wheel (which reminds me of the London Eye, a ferris wheel right on the banks of the river with killer views of the city) all light up looking slick. I tried to take it all in since this was my last night here. I caught the bus back to the guesthouse, packed up my stuff and watched a bit of tv before going to sleep. It was a good day, low key, not too much walking, just what my legs needed.
Tuesday May 12, 2009 - More Walking in Brisbane, My Calves HATE Me!
Tom was leaving today to head back to Huski. He left early to head into work for a bit then off to the airport. I got up about 8-ish, gathered my stuff, checked out, stored my bags at the Marriott (where we were staying) and then headed off to catch the bus to head up to the look out on Mount Coot-tha that we had bypassed the other day. There’s a nice view from the look-out. Unfortunately it was bit of an overcast day. I could see the city and the river but apparently on a nice day, you can see all the mountains to the west crystal clear, and all the way down to New South Wales. Plus I could see a bit of the ocean but on a nice day you can see much more. I hung out a bit, then caught the next bus down to the bottom of the mountain to walk around the botanic gardens that Tom and I had briefly visited the other day after the koala’s. First I popped into the planetarium and walked around a bit. That part is free. You can also pay to see movies and presentation and what not, but I bypassed that to walk around the gardens. I did have to get back to be able to move my stuff to the guesthouse and then hit up my rescheduled abseiling. I walked around the gardens for a couple hours. Seeing bonsai trees, rainforest vegetation, a Japanese designed meditation garden (complete with a really cool big ole lizard sunning himself on the grass) and various other things. Since I had to plan my time around the bus schedule I didn’t have time to walk around the whole gardens, I only saw about half and I feel like I saw a lot!
I headed back to the city around noon-ish. I got my stuff from the Marriott then headed down to the river to catch a ferry. Now I had seen where the place I was going was on the map. I couldn’t decide the best way to get there. I could have walked the whole way bit with my backpack and duffle bag I didn’t want to lug that stuff all over town. It didn’t look that far on the map, but you never know, maps can be deceiving. There was a ferry stop that didn’t look that far away, so that’s the route I decided to go. I ferried down the river, underneath the Story Bridge (one of only 3 licensed bridge climbs in the world, the other 2 being the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Auckland Harbour Bridge) and hopped off at the Sydney Street pier then headed towards the guesthouse. It was farther away than anticipated and ALL uphill. By the time I finally got there I was exhausted. The owners weren’t in but left me a message to make myself at home and they would check me in when they got back. I plopped my stuff in the room and wrote then a note saying I was off to go abseiling and I would check in when I returned. Then I headed back down the hill to catch the ferry heading back to Riverlife. I made a mental note to ask the owners if there is a better way to get into the city then hoofing if up and down hill to the ferry.
I got to Riverlife right at about 5 minutes to 3, just in time. There was supposed to be someone else coming for the lesson, but after signing my life away again (and saying hi to cutie pie Canadian Mark) they sent me out to meet up with the instructor and the other person would catch up when they got there. I was told to head towards the cliffs then I would see someone with a Riverlife shirt who would flag me down and tell me what to do next. So I headed off with helmet, harness, gloves and camera in hand. I walked till I hit the cliffs, say a couple people doing climbing, but no one in a Riverlife shirt. Most people were also in pairs. I saw one guy sitting by himself so I asked if he was Dan (who I was supposed to be looking for), but nope, no such luck. I headed further down the cliffs, not seeing anyone looking like they were waiting for anyone, and no one flagging me down. I hit the end of the cliffs with no luck and turned around to head back towards Riverlife. Once again, going back I saw no one looking like they were waiting for anyone. I even hung out for a few minutes waiting to see if anyone would show up, nope. I was starting to think that I just wasn’t meant to do this. I mean, seriously, it shouldn’t be this difficult. I headed back to Riverlife and came in telling the girl at the counter that either I’m blind and stupid or the guy I’m looking for is not there. So she gives him a call (this is all after I’ve wasted 25 minutes walking and wandering) and turns out he’s waiting at the TOP of the cliffs. Well, would have been nice to know that. So I head off again for the stairs leading to the top of the cliffs. I’m already tired from walking so much today, then I have to head up a bazillon (actually it was probably more like a couple hundred) to get to the top and FINALLY find the guy to get started on the abseiling foolishness. Turns out it’s just me, the other person who had signed up apparently didn’t show up (which is weird because you pay ahead of time, at least I did, but I booked online, so if I’d already paid I wouldn’t want to be out the money). Anyway, after getting all harnessed in and getting the instructions on how to stop, hold my hands, etc, I was ready to dangle myself off the edge of the cliff. I started my first descent down (after having a few photos taken) and let me tell you, it was AWESOME! So much fun, just dangling and letting yourself walk or jump down the cliff. Definitely a rush. After I hit the ground I untied myself and headed towards the stairs to go back up for another go around. I could go down up to 3 times and darn straight if I wasn’t going to do it all 3 times, even if it did mean I had to keep walking up the damn stairs. The second and third times I got more and more adventurous, doing jumps and what not. After the third time down, I took off the harness and helmet and headed back to Riverlife to turn in my equipment. Sadly, hot Mark was not there, so alas I turned in my stuff and headed back to my guesthouse without one last look at the hotness, sigh.
I got back on the ferry since it was the only way I definitively knew how to get back to the guesthouse. After walking up the hills again, I finally arrived back at the guesthouse and was able to check in. I talked to the owner to find out the best way to get to/from the CBD. He said I could walk, take the ferry and get off at Sydney Street (which I had been doing and was trying to avoid) or take one of 2 buses that stopped half a block away. Hello buses! That’s what I would try and do from now on. I was also told I could get a transfer to the airport that would only cost like 12 AUD and would pick me up right at the guesthouse. That is about or maybe less then I would pay to take the train to the airport and I would have to walk blocks to get to the train. Score!
I then headed out for dinner. I walked in the direction of Chinatown to see if spotted anything promising. There were plenty of places, but nothing jumped out at me. I saw a couple tapas places, which sounded good, but I hadn’t eaten all day and tapas just wouldn’t be enough unless I got like 5 of them and that could get expensive quickly. Finally, after walking like 10 or more blocks, I just decided to stop and get a pizza from this one place in Chinatown. I wanted to sit outside, but of course it was full, so they led me inside, where I think there was maybe one other table of people. It was interesting I sat at a table where I didn’t actually sit on a chair, but rather a couch. The inside was almost like “eastern” or something, sitting on couches and cushions instead of chairs. They didn’t serve “eastern” food though, it was weird. I ordered a pizza, thinking I could take leftovers back and stick them in the fridge I had in my room (I got a single with a fridge, electric kettle with coffee and tea and a tv). I also ordered a peach Bellini (peach liqueur and champagne) but of course they were out of peach liqueur, because that’s how much luck is. I got strawberry instead. I ate a couple of the slices then asked if I could get a box to take it home. A, what looks like a cook, comes out with the box and runs through the rules of food consumption in Australia. Examples including that non refrigerated food must be eaten within X amount of hours, and if you refrigerate it, it much be consumed within 6 hours, according to law. He then says that if I keep it longer, it will probably be ok, but according to the law, you must eat it within 6 hours. I guess they feel the need to say this in case anyone gets sick, the eating establishment can’t be held responsible. Although I’ve gotten take away from plenty of places and never once have I been told anything about the law saying one must consume it within a certain amount of time. I mentioned this to Tom later and he said in the year he’s been here, he’d never had anyone say that to him either. I wasn’t too worried, so I paid my bill, took my box and headed back to the guesthouse. I pretty much just collapsed into bed when I got back. My calves were killing me, I mean really hurting. I decided that the next day I was just going to take it easy, not do too much walking. I asked the owner what the nearest movie theatre was because I figured going to the movies would be nice and calm. He suggested the Southbank cinemas because they would definitely be the least expensive. I had been wanting to see “17 Again” but it hadn’t come to Huskisson yet, so I figured I would see it while I was here. I had picked up a schedule for the cinema Tom and I had seen “Star Trek” in a few days earlier as well as its sister theatre. There was a showing at like 10 or 10:30 am, so I figured I would try to catch that one. But after the owner suggested Southbank I figured I’d go there first because there might be an early showing there too and if not I’d head out early enough to make it over to the Myer Centre (on the Queen Street Mall) in time to make the 10:30. Anyway, I made the plan to catch an early ferry the next morning over to Southbank. Yes, I was going to walk to the Sydney Street ferry station again the next morning, but going there was all downhill and it would let me off right near the theatre. So that was the plan for tomorrow. Since I had a tv in my room I decided to see what was on tv. Being Tuesday night, NCIS was on. Yes it’s on on Tuesday nights here too! And…they are actually showing episodes from the current season. I know because I saw an episode a couple weeks ago that I had seen right before I left the States. Anyhow, I watched NCIS then drifted off to sleep.
I headed back to the city around noon-ish. I got my stuff from the Marriott then headed down to the river to catch a ferry. Now I had seen where the place I was going was on the map. I couldn’t decide the best way to get there. I could have walked the whole way bit with my backpack and duffle bag I didn’t want to lug that stuff all over town. It didn’t look that far on the map, but you never know, maps can be deceiving. There was a ferry stop that didn’t look that far away, so that’s the route I decided to go. I ferried down the river, underneath the Story Bridge (one of only 3 licensed bridge climbs in the world, the other 2 being the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Auckland Harbour Bridge) and hopped off at the Sydney Street pier then headed towards the guesthouse. It was farther away than anticipated and ALL uphill. By the time I finally got there I was exhausted. The owners weren’t in but left me a message to make myself at home and they would check me in when they got back. I plopped my stuff in the room and wrote then a note saying I was off to go abseiling and I would check in when I returned. Then I headed back down the hill to catch the ferry heading back to Riverlife. I made a mental note to ask the owners if there is a better way to get into the city then hoofing if up and down hill to the ferry.
I got to Riverlife right at about 5 minutes to 3, just in time. There was supposed to be someone else coming for the lesson, but after signing my life away again (and saying hi to cutie pie Canadian Mark) they sent me out to meet up with the instructor and the other person would catch up when they got there. I was told to head towards the cliffs then I would see someone with a Riverlife shirt who would flag me down and tell me what to do next. So I headed off with helmet, harness, gloves and camera in hand. I walked till I hit the cliffs, say a couple people doing climbing, but no one in a Riverlife shirt. Most people were also in pairs. I saw one guy sitting by himself so I asked if he was Dan (who I was supposed to be looking for), but nope, no such luck. I headed further down the cliffs, not seeing anyone looking like they were waiting for anyone, and no one flagging me down. I hit the end of the cliffs with no luck and turned around to head back towards Riverlife. Once again, going back I saw no one looking like they were waiting for anyone. I even hung out for a few minutes waiting to see if anyone would show up, nope. I was starting to think that I just wasn’t meant to do this. I mean, seriously, it shouldn’t be this difficult. I headed back to Riverlife and came in telling the girl at the counter that either I’m blind and stupid or the guy I’m looking for is not there. So she gives him a call (this is all after I’ve wasted 25 minutes walking and wandering) and turns out he’s waiting at the TOP of the cliffs. Well, would have been nice to know that. So I head off again for the stairs leading to the top of the cliffs. I’m already tired from walking so much today, then I have to head up a bazillon (actually it was probably more like a couple hundred) to get to the top and FINALLY find the guy to get started on the abseiling foolishness. Turns out it’s just me, the other person who had signed up apparently didn’t show up (which is weird because you pay ahead of time, at least I did, but I booked online, so if I’d already paid I wouldn’t want to be out the money). Anyway, after getting all harnessed in and getting the instructions on how to stop, hold my hands, etc, I was ready to dangle myself off the edge of the cliff. I started my first descent down (after having a few photos taken) and let me tell you, it was AWESOME! So much fun, just dangling and letting yourself walk or jump down the cliff. Definitely a rush. After I hit the ground I untied myself and headed towards the stairs to go back up for another go around. I could go down up to 3 times and darn straight if I wasn’t going to do it all 3 times, even if it did mean I had to keep walking up the damn stairs. The second and third times I got more and more adventurous, doing jumps and what not. After the third time down, I took off the harness and helmet and headed back to Riverlife to turn in my equipment. Sadly, hot Mark was not there, so alas I turned in my stuff and headed back to my guesthouse without one last look at the hotness, sigh.
I got back on the ferry since it was the only way I definitively knew how to get back to the guesthouse. After walking up the hills again, I finally arrived back at the guesthouse and was able to check in. I talked to the owner to find out the best way to get to/from the CBD. He said I could walk, take the ferry and get off at Sydney Street (which I had been doing and was trying to avoid) or take one of 2 buses that stopped half a block away. Hello buses! That’s what I would try and do from now on. I was also told I could get a transfer to the airport that would only cost like 12 AUD and would pick me up right at the guesthouse. That is about or maybe less then I would pay to take the train to the airport and I would have to walk blocks to get to the train. Score!
I then headed out for dinner. I walked in the direction of Chinatown to see if spotted anything promising. There were plenty of places, but nothing jumped out at me. I saw a couple tapas places, which sounded good, but I hadn’t eaten all day and tapas just wouldn’t be enough unless I got like 5 of them and that could get expensive quickly. Finally, after walking like 10 or more blocks, I just decided to stop and get a pizza from this one place in Chinatown. I wanted to sit outside, but of course it was full, so they led me inside, where I think there was maybe one other table of people. It was interesting I sat at a table where I didn’t actually sit on a chair, but rather a couch. The inside was almost like “eastern” or something, sitting on couches and cushions instead of chairs. They didn’t serve “eastern” food though, it was weird. I ordered a pizza, thinking I could take leftovers back and stick them in the fridge I had in my room (I got a single with a fridge, electric kettle with coffee and tea and a tv). I also ordered a peach Bellini (peach liqueur and champagne) but of course they were out of peach liqueur, because that’s how much luck is. I got strawberry instead. I ate a couple of the slices then asked if I could get a box to take it home. A, what looks like a cook, comes out with the box and runs through the rules of food consumption in Australia. Examples including that non refrigerated food must be eaten within X amount of hours, and if you refrigerate it, it much be consumed within 6 hours, according to law. He then says that if I keep it longer, it will probably be ok, but according to the law, you must eat it within 6 hours. I guess they feel the need to say this in case anyone gets sick, the eating establishment can’t be held responsible. Although I’ve gotten take away from plenty of places and never once have I been told anything about the law saying one must consume it within a certain amount of time. I mentioned this to Tom later and he said in the year he’s been here, he’d never had anyone say that to him either. I wasn’t too worried, so I paid my bill, took my box and headed back to the guesthouse. I pretty much just collapsed into bed when I got back. My calves were killing me, I mean really hurting. I decided that the next day I was just going to take it easy, not do too much walking. I asked the owner what the nearest movie theatre was because I figured going to the movies would be nice and calm. He suggested the Southbank cinemas because they would definitely be the least expensive. I had been wanting to see “17 Again” but it hadn’t come to Huskisson yet, so I figured I would see it while I was here. I had picked up a schedule for the cinema Tom and I had seen “Star Trek” in a few days earlier as well as its sister theatre. There was a showing at like 10 or 10:30 am, so I figured I would try to catch that one. But after the owner suggested Southbank I figured I’d go there first because there might be an early showing there too and if not I’d head out early enough to make it over to the Myer Centre (on the Queen Street Mall) in time to make the 10:30. Anyway, I made the plan to catch an early ferry the next morning over to Southbank. Yes, I was going to walk to the Sydney Street ferry station again the next morning, but going there was all downhill and it would let me off right near the theatre. So that was the plan for tomorrow. Since I had a tv in my room I decided to see what was on tv. Being Tuesday night, NCIS was on. Yes it’s on on Tuesday nights here too! And…they are actually showing episodes from the current season. I know because I saw an episode a couple weeks ago that I had seen right before I left the States. Anyhow, I watched NCIS then drifted off to sleep.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday May 11, 2009 - Touring Brissy and "planned" abseiling
Today I had plans to follow the walking tour in my Lonely Planet and take in some sights of the city.
Highlights of the tour include:
~ City Hall- where I took a ride up the original elevator up to the bell tower, then the lookout. The elevator stops where the clock faces are, so you can see the inside of the faces. I happened to be there right on the strike of the hour, so I saw the mechanisms moving that control the ringing of the bells. Then continued up to the lookout and got a nice view out over the city.
~ Several historic squares with statues from various different wars, the Shrine of Remembrance
~Several old historic buildings, including the Parliament house
~ The city botanic gardens
~South Bank Parklands and Streets beach: A cool area along the river with trees and grass and a whole long arbor covered walkway, as well as a man made sandy beach along the river. Including a cool Nepalese Pagoda. They held the World Expo in Brisbane in 1988, so a bunch of stuff was built for that, including the pagoda and a rainforest area in the park.
~ Had lunch at a little Italian place in the Parklands. I had been craving pasta, so I ordered a chicken pasta with cream sauce and a glass of white wine. The pasta was ok, not really what I expected or wanted, but I was starving so I scarfed the whole thing down. I decided I also wanted desert so I ordered a banana/Baileys crepe with ice cream. Now I was eating a late lunch and I had to catch the ferry to be at my abseiling by 3, but I still had some time before I had to catch the ferry at the pier on the other side of the river, so I figured I’d be ok. Of course the crepe took about 20 minutes to come out. I was waiting and waiting and waiting, kept looking at my watch, going, uh, I am running out of time people. I mean, what the hell took so long? Crepe’s take like 2 seconds to cook, I know, I’ve made them before. And the filling was some cream, bananas and some ice cream on the side. What about it takes 2o minutes? I’m still convinced the waitress either forgot to put the order in or the cook forgot to make it then went oh shit and put it on much later after I ordered it. I mean, how else do you explain taking 20 minutes to make a crepe…when there is TWO other tables with a total of 3 people in the whole damn restaurant. It’s not like the place was hopping. Maybe the lack of timeliness is why. I was starting to get really worried that I wouldn’t be able to make the ferry and contemplated just canceling the order and peace-ing out. Finally the crepe comes. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait. It was DELICIOUS (still shouldn’t have taken 20 minutes) but still delicious. I scarfed the whole thing down in about 2 seconds. Paid my bill then headed over the Victoria bridge to catch my ferry. I did make it with about 10 minutes to spare, but still, I was power walking to get there and I don’t like to cut myself too close, I’d always rather have too much than not enough time.
I hopped on the ferry and headed over to the stop to get off and head to my abseiling lesson. I got to Riverlife and presented my voucher. I started to fill out the indemnity form, so I couldn’t sue them if I killed myself. As I am filling it out, a guy comes out and says he has bad news. He tells me that the guy who is supposed to lead the lesson (I was the only one signed up by the way) was supposed to be there 30 minutes ago but alas is not. He goes into how this has never happened before and the employee will be dealt with accordingly, and that I can totally schedule to redo the abseiling any other day free of charge. And since I was already there I could have use of any of their other equipment. This included kayaks, bikes, rollerblades. Well I didn’t want to bike, I mean, I do that at home. I wasn’t really dressed for kayaking, but I didn’t know how to rollerblade. The guy who came to talk to me, Mark, said he’d give me a quick rollerblading lesson if I wanted to. I said sure, I mean, I could learn something new, plus he was totally hot! So why not spend some time with a hot guy? We chatted a bit, he is actually from Canada, with both his parents being from the States. He also plays ice hockey so we talked a bit about the playoffs, including my boys the Caps (this was when they were down 3-2 to the Pens). So then we headed out to teach me how to rollerblade. I was doing pretty well, not falling down too much. I even had a save where I was flailing all over the place, it was a sure fall but I somehow managed to get it together and stay on my feet. I think it is due to all those years of fighting as hard as possible to stay on the balance beam. That pretty much impressed Mark, he said it was the best save from a sure fall he’d ever seen. Yup, that’s right, I’m trying to impress a guy by not falling on my ass. Good plan I think. After a quick lesson on how to propel myself, turn and stop, I was off on my own to enjoy the blades and try not to fall on my ass. I did pretty well, I only fell twice and both times I fell forward like you are supposed to. One because I got distracted and ended up going of the concrete path onto the grass (insert laugh here) and once when I tried to stop. I was pretty tired, afterall I had been walking around all day so I headed back to Riverlife to turn in my skates and reschedule my abseiling. I got signed up for the next day at the same time, 3 pm (that’s the only time of day they offer abseiling). So I headed back off to the hotel to get some rest.
Tom and I popped down to another Italian place just down the street from the hotel to grab dinner to bring back to the hotel. Tom got spaghetti and I just ordered a salad since I had eaten a late and quite large lunch. We stayed in again and got another pay-per-view movie, “The House Bunny,” which I’d seen before but is a cute movie. So I watched it then drifted off to sleep.
Highlights of the tour include:
~ City Hall- where I took a ride up the original elevator up to the bell tower, then the lookout. The elevator stops where the clock faces are, so you can see the inside of the faces. I happened to be there right on the strike of the hour, so I saw the mechanisms moving that control the ringing of the bells. Then continued up to the lookout and got a nice view out over the city.
~ Several historic squares with statues from various different wars, the Shrine of Remembrance
~Several old historic buildings, including the Parliament house
~ The city botanic gardens
~South Bank Parklands and Streets beach: A cool area along the river with trees and grass and a whole long arbor covered walkway, as well as a man made sandy beach along the river. Including a cool Nepalese Pagoda. They held the World Expo in Brisbane in 1988, so a bunch of stuff was built for that, including the pagoda and a rainforest area in the park.
~ Had lunch at a little Italian place in the Parklands. I had been craving pasta, so I ordered a chicken pasta with cream sauce and a glass of white wine. The pasta was ok, not really what I expected or wanted, but I was starving so I scarfed the whole thing down. I decided I also wanted desert so I ordered a banana/Baileys crepe with ice cream. Now I was eating a late lunch and I had to catch the ferry to be at my abseiling by 3, but I still had some time before I had to catch the ferry at the pier on the other side of the river, so I figured I’d be ok. Of course the crepe took about 20 minutes to come out. I was waiting and waiting and waiting, kept looking at my watch, going, uh, I am running out of time people. I mean, what the hell took so long? Crepe’s take like 2 seconds to cook, I know, I’ve made them before. And the filling was some cream, bananas and some ice cream on the side. What about it takes 2o minutes? I’m still convinced the waitress either forgot to put the order in or the cook forgot to make it then went oh shit and put it on much later after I ordered it. I mean, how else do you explain taking 20 minutes to make a crepe…when there is TWO other tables with a total of 3 people in the whole damn restaurant. It’s not like the place was hopping. Maybe the lack of timeliness is why. I was starting to get really worried that I wouldn’t be able to make the ferry and contemplated just canceling the order and peace-ing out. Finally the crepe comes. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait. It was DELICIOUS (still shouldn’t have taken 20 minutes) but still delicious. I scarfed the whole thing down in about 2 seconds. Paid my bill then headed over the Victoria bridge to catch my ferry. I did make it with about 10 minutes to spare, but still, I was power walking to get there and I don’t like to cut myself too close, I’d always rather have too much than not enough time.
I hopped on the ferry and headed over to the stop to get off and head to my abseiling lesson. I got to Riverlife and presented my voucher. I started to fill out the indemnity form, so I couldn’t sue them if I killed myself. As I am filling it out, a guy comes out and says he has bad news. He tells me that the guy who is supposed to lead the lesson (I was the only one signed up by the way) was supposed to be there 30 minutes ago but alas is not. He goes into how this has never happened before and the employee will be dealt with accordingly, and that I can totally schedule to redo the abseiling any other day free of charge. And since I was already there I could have use of any of their other equipment. This included kayaks, bikes, rollerblades. Well I didn’t want to bike, I mean, I do that at home. I wasn’t really dressed for kayaking, but I didn’t know how to rollerblade. The guy who came to talk to me, Mark, said he’d give me a quick rollerblading lesson if I wanted to. I said sure, I mean, I could learn something new, plus he was totally hot! So why not spend some time with a hot guy? We chatted a bit, he is actually from Canada, with both his parents being from the States. He also plays ice hockey so we talked a bit about the playoffs, including my boys the Caps (this was when they were down 3-2 to the Pens). So then we headed out to teach me how to rollerblade. I was doing pretty well, not falling down too much. I even had a save where I was flailing all over the place, it was a sure fall but I somehow managed to get it together and stay on my feet. I think it is due to all those years of fighting as hard as possible to stay on the balance beam. That pretty much impressed Mark, he said it was the best save from a sure fall he’d ever seen. Yup, that’s right, I’m trying to impress a guy by not falling on my ass. Good plan I think. After a quick lesson on how to propel myself, turn and stop, I was off on my own to enjoy the blades and try not to fall on my ass. I did pretty well, I only fell twice and both times I fell forward like you are supposed to. One because I got distracted and ended up going of the concrete path onto the grass (insert laugh here) and once when I tried to stop. I was pretty tired, afterall I had been walking around all day so I headed back to Riverlife to turn in my skates and reschedule my abseiling. I got signed up for the next day at the same time, 3 pm (that’s the only time of day they offer abseiling). So I headed back off to the hotel to get some rest.
Tom and I popped down to another Italian place just down the street from the hotel to grab dinner to bring back to the hotel. Tom got spaghetti and I just ordered a salad since I had eaten a late and quite large lunch. We stayed in again and got another pay-per-view movie, “The House Bunny,” which I’d seen before but is a cute movie. So I watched it then drifted off to sleep.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday May 10, 2009 - KOALA'S!
Today we headed off to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see the koalas! Lone Pine is about 20 minutes outside the city, so we headed out mid-morning to go see some fun creatures. There are other animals at Lone Pine other than koala’s but they do have over 130 koala’s. We saw lots of birds, kangaroo’s, wallaby’s, Tasmanian devil, dingo’s, wombats, and of course, the highlight, the koala’s. You have to pay extra to cuddle and get your picture taken with the koala. Of course that was the main reason we were there, so I shelled out the money (about $11 USD) to have the experience. I held a 4 year old female named Serenity. She was so soft! They really do just grab on a hug and she even lifted her nose up to my face to give me a kiss :) She didn’t smell at all and enjoyed just burrowing her head into my shoulder. It was so cool. Definitely an awesome experience. I had Tom take plenty of photos while I snuggled and posted them on Facebook. I wish I could have spent more time, but it went by in a minute or 2. They have pretty strict regulations on the koala cuddling. It’s actually banned in New South Wales, but still allowed in Queensland where we were. They do only let each koala get cuddled for a max of 30 minutes per day and each koala gets every 4th day off, that way they all have plenty of time to eat and sleep. They sleep a lot because eating so much eucalyptus basically gives them a buzz all the time. Koala’s are actually quite interesting. Eucalyptus is actually extremely hard to digest. It has a high fiber and low protein content and koala’s can’t break down cellulose, the main component in eucalyptus. The koala however has specialized bacteria (yay for bacteria) in their intestine that breaks down the cellulose. Eucalyptus is also 40 to 65% water and the koala is able to utilize the water from the eucalyptus to maintain its functions, so it doesn’t have to drink water. In an aboriginal language koala actually means “the one who does not drink water.”
There’s also a big fenced in area with kangaroo’s and wallaby’s that you can enter and feed and touch. They also have several different shows that go on during the day, a koala show, a birds of prey show, a crocodile and lizard show, a sheepdog show. We didn’t however make it to any of those. Just walked around and checked out all the animals.
After the sanctuary, we stopped by Mt. Coot-tha where there is a lookout at the top of the mountain, some hiking and botanical gardens at the foot of the mountain. We parked and headed out to go on a short hike to a set of falls, however when we reached the area where the falls were supposed to be, we found that the falls had dried up. Queensland, Brisbane area especially has been in a drought for a while. In lodging establishments there are signs asking patrons to limit showers to 4 minutes and a lot of houses have signs saying they use recycled water. Anyway, after the bust at the falls, we headed to the botanical gardens and walked around just inside the entrance (it is free to get into) for a bit, then headed back to the city, without going up to the lookout.
That evening, we grabbed some quick dinner at Subway then headed out to see “Star Trek.” Now I am not a fan of the original, I’ve not actually seen any of the movies, except for maybe some bits and pieces when I was younger. I was always more of a “Star Wars” fan. I did however love the new Star Trek. I loved the characters and the story. I really enjoyed it. Now not being a fan of the originals I have no idea how a Star Trek fan would react to it, but I loved it. I’ll have to talk to my brother Craig and see what he thought of it, he has seen all the other Star Trek movies. Plans tomorrow are walking tour of the city and doing abseiling.
There’s also a big fenced in area with kangaroo’s and wallaby’s that you can enter and feed and touch. They also have several different shows that go on during the day, a koala show, a birds of prey show, a crocodile and lizard show, a sheepdog show. We didn’t however make it to any of those. Just walked around and checked out all the animals.
After the sanctuary, we stopped by Mt. Coot-tha where there is a lookout at the top of the mountain, some hiking and botanical gardens at the foot of the mountain. We parked and headed out to go on a short hike to a set of falls, however when we reached the area where the falls were supposed to be, we found that the falls had dried up. Queensland, Brisbane area especially has been in a drought for a while. In lodging establishments there are signs asking patrons to limit showers to 4 minutes and a lot of houses have signs saying they use recycled water. Anyway, after the bust at the falls, we headed to the botanical gardens and walked around just inside the entrance (it is free to get into) for a bit, then headed back to the city, without going up to the lookout.
That evening, we grabbed some quick dinner at Subway then headed out to see “Star Trek.” Now I am not a fan of the original, I’ve not actually seen any of the movies, except for maybe some bits and pieces when I was younger. I was always more of a “Star Wars” fan. I did however love the new Star Trek. I loved the characters and the story. I really enjoyed it. Now not being a fan of the originals I have no idea how a Star Trek fan would react to it, but I loved it. I’ll have to talk to my brother Craig and see what he thought of it, he has seen all the other Star Trek movies. Plans tomorrow are walking tour of the city and doing abseiling.
May 9, 2009 - Off to Brisbane!
Got up super early (4 am) to hit to road to Sydney airport. Our flights left at 8 am, so in order to be there at least an hour ahead of time, we had to hit the road at 4:30 am. Got into Brisbane, picked up the rental car (convertible) and headed over to Dave’s house. Dave (not our neighbor) is another American who had Tom’s job before he came. Dave now works up in Brissy for the corporate headquarters of SAL (Sikorsky’s Australian branch). He is married and has an adorable set of twins who were celebrating their 1st birthday. That’s what the party was for. Here I thought it was just a regular BBQ, but no, it was a birthday party, if I had known I would have brought something. So we hung out there for a while, chatting and eating. I started to get really tired and mid-afternoon, when the present opening began, I just dozed off on the couch. Tom was getting really tired as well, so he woke me up and we decided to head on over to the hotel. We checked in, then headed down to a main shopping area, Queen Street Mall to look around. After peaking at movie times (we had the idea of seeing Star Trek while we were there since it didn’t appear it would be coming to Huskisson anytime soon. Which by the way, WTF, one of the biggest movies of the year and the cinema in Husky isn’t planning on having it anytime soon??? What?!?!) We decided against seeing Star Trek that night since we had had a long day and didn’t think we would be able to make it through to 10 or after. We grabbed dinner at a pub type place and then headed back to the room to crash. We did order from pay-per-view though, the movie Max Payne. It was ok, kept my attention for a few hours, and that’s pretty much all I ask for from movies.
Catching up on the past couple weeks (May 15, 2009)
So I’ve been totally flaking out on keeping this thing updated over the past few weeks. You know, because I do so much. Actually I have done quite a few things over the past couple weeks, leading up to my trip to Brisbane on May 9th, but I’ll talk about Brissy in subsequent posts. Let’s see, the highlights:
May 2nd – Headed up to Parramatta for the day (Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney) for the NPL Poker state finals. Did respectably I think. There started out with about 500 people and I made it to around the top 150. I’m good with that considering I had only starting playing like 5 weeks prior.
I bought a phone! I now have an Australian cell phone and number. If anyone has any desire to ring me up, ya know, chat, discuss world events, that sort of thing, my number is: 4 2768 8638. To be proceeded by 01161 if dialing from the US (011 being the international access code and 61 being the country code for Australia).
I opened a bank account. Yup, I now have an Australian bank account. I didn’t want to keep getting charged when I was taking money out of my American bank account. Plus if/when I eventually get a job, I should have an Australian bank account to do direct deposit and what not.
Work: I sent out resume’s to a couple random Australian microbiology companies just in the hopes that they have or may soon have temporary openings, or even long term openings. I did get a response from a company called BTF, which is owned by Biomerieux. I have experience worked with Biomerieux products and they are the ones who sent me to Las Vegas and Austin on their behalf to give presentations at conferences. They have a position opening up and a Ph.D. research scientist had been forwarded my resume and he e-mailed me to let me know about the position. That’s encouraging that I got any kind of response. I followed up on it and will write about it in a later post.
May 2nd – Headed up to Parramatta for the day (Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney) for the NPL Poker state finals. Did respectably I think. There started out with about 500 people and I made it to around the top 150. I’m good with that considering I had only starting playing like 5 weeks prior.
I bought a phone! I now have an Australian cell phone and number. If anyone has any desire to ring me up, ya know, chat, discuss world events, that sort of thing, my number is: 4 2768 8638. To be proceeded by 01161 if dialing from the US (011 being the international access code and 61 being the country code for Australia).
I opened a bank account. Yup, I now have an Australian bank account. I didn’t want to keep getting charged when I was taking money out of my American bank account. Plus if/when I eventually get a job, I should have an Australian bank account to do direct deposit and what not.
Work: I sent out resume’s to a couple random Australian microbiology companies just in the hopes that they have or may soon have temporary openings, or even long term openings. I did get a response from a company called BTF, which is owned by Biomerieux. I have experience worked with Biomerieux products and they are the ones who sent me to Las Vegas and Austin on their behalf to give presentations at conferences. They have a position opening up and a Ph.D. research scientist had been forwarded my resume and he e-mailed me to let me know about the position. That’s encouraging that I got any kind of response. I followed up on it and will write about it in a later post.
Hangovers and Kangaroos - April 26th, 2009
So today I woke up after a long day of drinking yesterday and pretty much had no plans but to sit around all day and recover. In the afternoon, Dave came by and mentioned he was taking his friend down to the southern part of Jervis Bay to the base HMAS Creswell, a navy training center and invited me to tag along. I’d been wanting to go down to that part of the bay, so I said sure, some fresh air would probably do me good. When we got to the base, we saw tons of kangaroo’s, everywhere, all over the golf course and the quarterdeck (I think that’s what it’s called). We stopped to see one and take pictures that was all by its lonesome by an officers building and Dave kept telling me to get closer and closer as he was taking pictures. It was a big kangaroo and when I started getting real close it started to stand up, which freaked me out a little bit. I mean, the thing was taller than me and they have these gnarly long sharp claws, they looked like they could do some serious damage should he get pissed. After getting sufficiently close, he decided he had enough and hopped off. We also stopped at the quarterdeck where there were probably like 100 or so gathered, just hanging out and resting. We got out and walked around, seeing how close we could get before they hopped off. I did get some good daylight pictures of kangaroos, which I will eventually post on my snapfish and facebook.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
ANZAC Day April 25, 2009
So haven’t written in about a week so thought I’d do a little update about what’s been going on this week. It’s actually been quite a bit. So Saturday was ANZAC Day and it started off with a parade through the main street in town of servicemen and women, school children, and a bagpipe band. They all ended up at the war memorial in town and there was a ceremony with a couple prayers, speakers, laying of wreaths and songs. Then headed up to the Husky Pub for some drinking. Now one thing about ANZAC Day, all the servicemen that just marched, they come up to the pub for a drink. They swarm it. Now this combines 2 of the most sexy things to a girl, men in uniform and men with accents. Let me tell you, woo, there was hotness all over the place. I was pretty beside myself. As most of you know though, I am pretty shy, so did I talk to anyone. No, I did not. I did make $10 AUD though, playing 2-up. 2-up is a coin game played with 1 cent pieces (which Australia doesn’t even use anymore). In casinos, there are 2 coins used and if the 2 coins land one head-up/one tail-up 5 times in a row, the casino wins all the bets people have made. At the pub, 3 coins were used, so there would be a heads/tails majority each time. The spinner steps up and gets the 3 coins put on a little board. There’s a ring of people around the spinner, like a cock fight or something. You hold up your money (however much, 5, 10, etc) and say 5 on heads, or 10 on tails, or whatever and someone will say, I’ll take that bet. The person who picks heads holds the money and after bets are closed, the spinner tosses the coins up in the air and whoever has picked what the majority of coins end up facing up wins. So I went over with $10, made 2 $5 bets and won both of them. Now I don’t usually do well with 50/50 things so I figure since I won twice, I should just take my money and go. Now I was betting $5, but people were betting 10, 20, even 50. You can also pay $5 to be the spinner and the money goes in a bucket. If you toss and heads comes up 3 times in a row, you win all the money in the bucket. I also chatted with a group of people that consisted of a British girl, her South African boyfriend, a Swedish guy, a Canadian girl and another girl. They were all about my age and basically had all done the same thing I did, left back home, wanted to live abroad, so picked up and moved to Australia. They all live in Sydney but were down in Jervis Bay for the holiday weekend. They were really nice, but unfortunately I didn’t get anyone’s contact info, I should have, so I could have some people to contact in Sydney. After a bit at the pub, Tom, Dave, Dave’s friend and I headed back to our houses, all of 5 minute walk away. We threw some meat on the barbi and grilled up some lamb chops for lunch/dinner, along with some more drinking. We then headed to the Huskisson Lawn Bowling Club (aka – the bolo) and proceeded to drink some more. So pretty much I drank all day long. There are parts of the night, after getting to the bolo where I have no recollection of anything. In all honesty I don’t think I have ever drank that much. I guess you can’t call yourself a true Australian though until you’ve been drunk off your ass on ANZAC Day. A big fat check mark for that one.
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