Hello, hello! Biggest & bestest news first: ADAM has his flight ticket to visit me in May!!! I simply cannot express my excitement for May 9th to come around! Adam will be here in Brisbane from Friday, May 9 until Friday, May 23. On the 23rd we're both flying to Fiji; there until Tuesday, May 27th, then I fly back to Brissie and he to the US. An exciting itinerary is in the works: Wicked Campers trip to Uluru (click here), Whitsunday Islands sail
boating (click here), and then Nadi, Fiji (click here)!!! Oh, I get so giddy thinking about it all! I just can't wait to see him!
This week I've been going about uni (university aka school) and working on my tan. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Friday I made it to the South Street Parklands - a nice grassy area for sunbathers, near the man-made beach. This is the view of one spot where I like to lay out:
I love it! I pack up a snack, my ipod and novel, and some study materials and have a very nice, warm, sunny afternoon. I'm planning to go again tomorrow. Sunday I might go up to Noosa heads to hit up the National Park there - last time I tried I was rained out. I'd like to get some good photography of the park and some hiking in! I'm lagging in the exercise area (eek!).
Through the week a lot has gone on: met up with Inga for lunch at a pizza cafe. We had some really great smoothies, too! After class on Thursday I browsed Elizabeth Street: got my 18+ card so I don't have to have my Passport to get into night clubs and such, checked out an Australian Borders (they didn't have Brave New World by Aldous Huxley), checked out a Christian bookstore (kind of foreign to me in that there was a lot of Catholic stuff sold there - just different style of Christian bookstore to me, I guess), checked out an American bookstore (bought a German/English dictionary and The Great Gatsby (ONLY $5!). I'm obsessed with books, I tell you! I bought Bridget Jones's Diary the other day, and got 3 for $15 (quite a steal) at a bargain book store (The Hades Factor, Red Dragon, and a Mary HIggins Clark mystery). I also browsed a chic boutique that sold fisherman's pants - I'm going back with Inga sometime soon - I'll post more on fisherman's pants later, haha!
The Norsk Pub Crawl was a lot of fun! Iain, Richard and I met up with the crawlers around 11p; we were out until 2a. So, not a crazy 8 hours of partying for me like some of the flatmates! Some folks started pre-gaming at 5p and kicked until 4a! Insane! Any way, we met up at The Beach House, mosied over to The Brewhouse (my favorite stop of the night), then capped things off briefly at The Down Under Bar (aka the "Dunda Bar").
Me, Inga, Rudy & Neil at The Beach House:
They forced me to wear that hat, haha. Once they all got drunk enough I was able to "leave it somewhere by accident," haha!
Me & Rudy
This is the week of the summer babies; the March born flatmates! Inga turned 22 on Tuesday, Sara 21 on Thursday, Rudy 22 on Friday and Tom turns 22 on Sunday! Crazy partying for those folks, haha! I got Inga a card, some chocolate and a really cool bookmark in the shape of an "I" for Inga, since we share a love of reading. That evening everyone went out to The Fox to celebrate Inga's 22nd.
Alice, Sara & I
The group
Inga & James Boag (haha, I love this photo!)
Me & the Birthday Girl!
Toby, Sara & I
It happened! We had a barbie tonight (well, Friday night) in celebration of all the birthdays. It was my first Aussie barbie ever!
Views of the barbie folks from the upstairs balcony
Sara & I
Me about to try kangaroo meat! It was really good!
Here's me at the BARBIE!
Tom wanted in the picture so we had to take another one, haha!
Inga, Toby, Judith & I having a great time!
Random bit: Aussies advertise in a few different ways than what the US does. For example, they have people ride around the streets of Brissie on motorbikes with little trailer-hitched ads. Thought it was interesting:
I've been adding to my wall's photo collection. I printed off a bunch of photos of group fun I've had with the flatmates. I'm planning to fill an entire wall with photos, haha!
Here are my cards from the Going Away Party along with an Andy Warhol/GOMA poster/calendar that I thought was neato:
]Classes are going well. Two weeks down, eleven to go. German is proving to be quite a handful. I'm sure it's beneficial that I've been working with it a little every day. Australian Society & Culture is a lot of fun - a great way to learn about Australia. Core Project Management is pretty basic; it kind of shocked me how easy it will be. I think I'll have to teach myself how to use MS Project since I don't think it's a requirement that we learn in this course here at QUT. Any way, I like my group and I think it'll be a fun project. I had to add one course here in order to remain a full-time student back at Purdue (I was ONE itty bitty credit short, haha, go figure!). So I looked into both a photo-media course and a creative writing course. I ended up adding the latter - I enjoy both photography and writing but I feel like with the rest of my class load and the way the schedules would have worked out - the creative writing worked best for me. Updated schedule:
Okay, Aussie slang time!
-dead horse = sauce
-earbash = non-stop chatter
-fair dinkum = good, honest, truthful
-similar terms: ankle-biter, bail out, betcha, bozo, cabbie, chuck something, cop out, couch potato, croc, crook (also means ill/sick), cuppa (tea), deadbeat
In other Australian news: A teenage girl has delivered triplets. Again. "A 16-year-old Argentine girl has given birth to a second set of female triplets. The girl, named only as Pamela, had her first triplets at age 15, after having a son at 14. Authorities donated a house when the first triplets were born. The case has sparked national debate about making contraception advice more effective." Yeah, I know: wow.
Last thing: another photo album is up! Power boxes: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2332609&l=25ba8&id=13700420
Ah - I lied - last thing: tonight (Saturday night, technically) I taught most of the flat mates how to play MAFIA! It was a big hit and tons of fun! Turns out Iain has a knack for narrating, haha! Inga and I rocked as the mobsters during out last game, hehe! Rasmus was just like Uncle David when he said "You want to kill me? I'm just a towns person. I work from 9-4 every day and this is what I get in return?" Haha! "The pilla of the communi-tee!" It was a lot of fun!
News of loved ones back home: Adam and his team won their Ultimate Frisbee game last night! I'm so happy for them! Great job, baby! Chucky is off to Colorado for a Habitat for Humanity project! Have a blast, Chuggy!
Okay, gotsta get some rest! I have a full day of tanning and studying ahead of me, hehe! Check back for the rest of the photos soon!
-Amanda
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