To Noosa Con Inga

Oh, I hate it when this happens. This post is about my trip to Noosa with Inga from the 14th of March - ages ago. My apologies for falling behind a bit with my blog. Also, no photos in this post because I can't upload at my house. But it's okay! I've posted the Noosa photos and many others to Facebook! Here are the links:

South Bank http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2339742&l=326a5&id=13700420

Chucky's BDay http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2339762&l=a30ee&id=13700420

Lily http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2339792&l=73337&id=13700420

Random in Australia http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2339810&l=20158&id=13700420

Sam's Wrestling http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2340148&l=7e56e&id=13700420

Surfer's Hard Rock & Cheers http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2340214&l=8e45e&id=13700420

Surfer's Club Hopping http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2340203&l=653eb&id=13700420

Surfers Beach http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2340238&l=51aad&id=13700420

Maroochydore YHA and trip to

So for the trip to Noosa Inga and I left on Friday, and, because Noosa was totally booked, we stayed at the Maroochydore YHA, a favorite hostel of mine. That night we hung out at the pool, had some great discussions about life, love and everything in between. Inga shared some Norwegian "Sour Patch Kids" with me; they're called Laban Sure Skrikerunger. No idea about pronunciation, but she helped me with the spelling. = ) They're really good - just like Sour Patch Kids (which I added to the list of things I am requesting Adam bring over when he visits, haha), but they're gummier.

Our hostel room was shared with some German girls. I had some reviewing to do so Inga randomly picked phrases from my German-English dictionary and I worked them out. One of the Germans jumped in and taught me a few things and helped me out. It was fun. Inga was obliged to share the only German phrase she knows with the girl who laughed quite a bit. The phrase Inga knows is "I have sauerkraut in my leather pants." Haha, she is a goof.

There was also a Danish girl in our room. She was working and traveling and about to leave for the US. She quizzed me about what fun stuff there is to do in the US, and I helped her out. Inga helped, too, as she's spent a year more than I on the West Coast. Learning about and telling about fun stuff to do here and there is a fun aspect of staying in hostels. You meet all sorts of people and it's so interesting to see how you change them and how they change you just after knowing them a night or two and probably never seeing them again.

Saturday Inga and I tried walking to the Sunshine Plaza but an oncoming bus driver pegged us as totally lost (which we were) and let us hop on for a two-stop ride to the plaza. Of course "we had our tickets." = ) At the plaza Inga and I indulged in some smoothies. She always gets a banana one (I got to try it - very yummy) and I opted for a berry blend. We looked at a leather purse shop and I almost lost my handheld camera, haha. Luckily some kind person turned it into the Police Beat for me (thank you whoever you are!). We were waiting for our bus to the Noosa National Park but had some time to kill so we smelled all sorts of perfumes. There were several I liked, but I think my favorites were Jennifer Lopez's Deseo and Estee Lauder's Pleasure's Intense. Other top scents of all the ones we tried are Salvator Ferraguamo: Incanto Shine, Incanto Charm, Incanto Dream, Versace Medusa, Gwen Stefani's LAMB, Miracle So Magic!, Euphoria Blossom, Kate Moss' Kate, Kylie Minogue's Darling. So ladies, if you wear any of those, I say you have a great sense of perfumes!

So we finally caught our bus to Noosa. We walked along the path to the park and saw this gorgeous beach; of course we stopped for a couple hours, haha. It was so nice - Inga loved the waves and my polka dot bathing suit top strap decided to break, haha! After the pit stop at the beach we go to the park. We went on a nature walk and enjoyed the Australian woods. We saw a koala, a little lizard and a really cool spider. It was very nice. I was hoping our path would take us along the ocean, but we were on another side of the park, I guess. We also were cramped for time since dusk is around 6pm here, and we didn't want to get caught in the woods when it became dark.

So we headed back, caught the bus back to Maroochydore and hung out at the hostel. Oh, on a side note, my diet this weekend was absolutely wretched, haha! I don't recall ever eating so poorly in my life! Started the trip with donuts, chocolate at every opportunity, Whopper with fries, cream & shortbread cookies, ice cream, smoothies, more chocolate, crinkle chips, lime and black pepper chips (so good, though!), cheeseburger and milkshake, pizza! Horrid! The only positive items in the diet were 3 apples over the course of the weekend, haha.

Sunday we checked out of the hostel and went to Mooloolaba for the afternoon. I bought a nice, purple bikini since polka dot had to be trashed. The new one is an $90 suit that was on sale for $40! Poifect! And I love it! Any way, Mooloolaba was nice (especially since it was sunny this time). Too soon we had to head back to Maroochydore to catch our Greyhound back to Brisbane. We got back with some time to spare so we had dinner at Hungry Jack's, right across from the bus stop. We decided to head to the bus stop at 4.10. The bus was late and we decided to check our tickets - go figure we'd missed the last bus to Brisbane! Whoops! So we trekked back to the Maroochydore YHA, haha, and booked one more night. Same room, same girls, haha! We picked up some drinks and chips and had another evening of fun. We chatted and made the best of the rotten situation. We got another bus ticket booked and left Sunday morning. = )

On the way back to Brisbane I finished Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's also a film that Michael (my Study Abroad advisor) recommended I watch sometime. It's an Australian film based in Melbourne. I saw the book at the library one day and decided to read it before I saw the film. I also read reviews about it before I started the book. The reviews gave me a bad taste in my mouth about the book since they were saying the film was so much better and that the book was really slow and had an awful ending. The plot is that a group of school girls go on a picnic at Hanging Rock, but some of them are doomed to never return or be found. It's actually a true story of the events that took place in 1900. After finishing the book I realized I really did like it after all, even with having read the negative reviews. The way the author depicts the nature, and explains the horrors of the tragedy is really done well. I wouldn't recommend reading the book unless you want to get into some Australian literature, but it was still a good book, nonetheless.

I'm currently reading Brave New World. Started it while in Tasmania. I'm off to a slow start due to Easter Holiday, but I plan to get into it tomorrow when I lay out. Adam has three favorite novels: Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code, and Brave New World. I'd already read Dan Brown's books (A&D is an all-time favorite), but I'd not read the latter. I am excited to get into the book more since it's one of Adam's favorite books. = ) I think reading people's favorite books is a great way to get to know them a little more. So far I'm really enjoying the world Huxley imagined.

The week before Easter Break I ran and began eating right again. I logged 3.5 miles before leaving for Easter Break to find that I am very behind now, a week later, haha! Mom and Adam are WAY ahead of me but I'm really happy for all the miles they've logged! Way to go, guys! = ) I had my first Assessment at QUT: German. I got the score back today, and I did very well! I even got a sticker to say so, haha! I'm really proud of myself for tackling another language! It's challenging but fun, too! Sunday I had to post a closed form poem for my Creative Writing course. I wrote a sonnet about the coin my Daddy gave me the day I left on this trip. I'm certainly no poet, but I do enjoy writing and am loving the course.

Random: in V Block (aka the Library on campus) there are 3 Salvador Dali paintings. One is Landscape with Butterflies, another is Clock, and the last is painting of things that compose a face but I couldn't find it via Google. Any way, really great painter and I know Adam likes Dali, so I wanted to share. = )

Okay, that's the post for now. There's another one coming after this!