This is our good friend Eloise, the first cockroach I encountered in Australia. We actually met her the night before when she scurried into our bathroom, where we would later uncomfortably pee knowing that she had crawled into a crack in the floor. But this is the little princess the next morning; on her back fluttering about. Later, housekeeping nonchalantly came in, picked her up and threw her away to the amazement and disgust of the onlooking backpackers.
And yes, that IS a long strand of hair in the top of this photograph. Sanitary.
But not to worry, there would many more cockroaches to follow in surprising places like on toilets, in bunk beds and even in luggage! Oh, and cockroaches fly here. The fun to be had!
Sitting in the library, hovered over my laptop, cackling like a mad woman over Aunt Shawnee and Uncle Ron's e-mail's; completely ruining the quiet library atmosphere.
Currently trapped in the library. As it began, it had to have been ninety degrees here and so I went touring, like the tourists do, and I was in a great gallery all day. I go to walk out and the sky is falling. As I'm standing there in the comfort of the gallery, watching people in shorts and tank tops run for cover as if it's the end of the world.
As I looked down at my shorts and tank top I decided to take another lap around the gallery until the storm was over.
By the way, the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA to those in the know, WHAT a HIDEOUS abbreviation), had an amazing fashion display. Three rooms of Easton Pearson's clothes. Fabulous.
And these were totally in the exhibit. I was like a kid in a candy store. A really mean candy store where you can't touch or afford the candy. Boo.
So you know how everyone was dying to know which way the water goes when you flush a toilet here.... Here's my much anticipated answer:
I just don't know.
And not for a lack of trying to answer this truly riveting question. I find myself, even when in a drunken state, whipping around to inspect which way the toilet flushes. I'm disturbingly fixated on this problem and it's become an obsession that I'm somewhat ashamed of. It goes straight down, I've yet to encounter an ancient enough toilet that does otherwise.
Although, now that I think of it, I guess I could just see which way the water goes in the sink. Hmmm. Wow. A month and a half I've been here. Have you heard? I'm a college graduate.
I went abseiling recently. I'm leaving a link to a youtube video of abseiling below so you can get an idea of what it is. This video is of Kangaroo Point, which is where I did it BUT I only did the descent part. And it wasn't at night. And I did it by myself. So really, it's nothing like the following video, so here goes nothing.
The video refers to abseiling as a "piece of cake." LIES! That wasn't cake at all! I've never been on the verge of tears, wind and rocks coming at me like hail while eating cake! Speaking of which, I could really go for some cake....
Not the point! Abseiling was really scary the first time, because you go off the side of the cliff backwards and you have to be ninety degrees from the side of the cliff before you can start walking down it. It feels completely unnatural.
BUT after the first time it was really fun. Still scary, but once I knew I wasn't going to die a comical death at a place ridiculously named "Kangaroo Point," then it was fun.
And I saw the Deep Blue Orchestra. Excellent. They're this completely nontraditional orchestra that put on a fantastic show. They play their instruments while dancing, and they wear costumes. And they were so good to the audience, they have you text in requests and they encourage videoing and taking pictures. It was so fun. I took like 80 videos. Ok, 8, but still, that was like all of my camera memory.
And I went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!
So get this, when I was next in line, the snake totally peed on the like nine year old boy in front of me. It was sooooo gross. It seriously looked like throw up. Eww. And the staff was like on the floor laughing so hard, and the boy looked like he was going to pass out. I mean, it's bad enough when you're holding a snake, you're already kind of in a vulnerable position. But then it pees on you. There's just no preparing for that.
Andthat cute cuddly Koala Bear, not so sweet! It was adorable, but it was like digging it's cute little CLAWS into me the whole time. And there I am, Smile!!! while the mascot of Australia pierces the skin. I totally have scratches from that little sucker. Hopefully that wasn't the one with Chlamydia. Because oh ya, koalas can carry Chlamydia. Kinda slutty.
Other than that I walk around a lot. Every once in a while when I'm crossing a bridge I see the majestic CityCats parting the Brisbane River. And in the corner, I shake my fist at said "cats."
LOVEyou guys!!!! I always look forward to hearing from you. Going to go see City Hall today. Apparently there is a clock tower that the people of Brisbane are all excited about.
Ohya, and I'm still in Brisbane. I originally booked my hostel for like 3 days, and I think I've been here for like 3 weeks now. Leaving tomorrow for Noosa. I believe I'm in for more beaches. Life is tough that way....
Sitting in my bunk bed in the hostel right now, it's about one thirty in the morning, and this absurd older man is under his covers eating. I swear, we hear him do this every night. First he rummages through his suitcase in the dark (because apparently it never occurs to him to get the food before we turn out the lights). This takes a while because it is dark in the room. Then he finally finds the bag, and just when you think it's quiet enough to go back to sleep, NO!!!!! he opens the crinkly bag and begins eating. Chomping and crunching, sounding like he's all but licking the inside of the bag. Now for the most part we're used to this, but tonight he saw me awake and started a one sided conversation with me about "why there are too many Chinese in Australia." Now, this is not a conversation in which I wish to partake, but he rattled on for like ten minutes by himself until everyone was awake. Hostel liven is just so glamorous.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb pictures make it look like it was cold, but that was only because it was night time and we were on top of the bridge where it gets pretty windy. It's actually downright HOT. I'd guess around eighty five to ninety degrees recently. It's insane that this is the beginning of their Spring. Me and all of my tourist friends can't imagine it getting any hotter. And currently all my friends are tourists.
It's funny because you're in Australia raring to meet all these great Aussies and then you get to the hostel where everyone else is a tourist, too. But then you think, "OK, I'll go out in the city and really see Australia." And then you do all the touristy things where you in fact meet MORE TOURISTS! I only legitimately made friends with one Australian and somehow immediately lost his number so will probably never see him again. Oh well.
Currently in Brisbane; this picture is from Mount Coot-tha Lookout. I've been heading North where it is hotter, but eventually I will go back South of Sydney where the weather will be cooler.
Australia is easy living. I actually feel like I'm just in a different part of the US. Except people are more friendly, and have sweet accents. Traveling is so much fun, I keep telling people that I'm on the "Working Holiday Visa," but it's heavy on theHoliday and light on the Working so far.
I've done so much, but I kinda don't even know where to start. I'm going to Australia Zoo tomorrow, actually in six hours. Australia Zoo is the late Steve Irwin's zoo and it's supposed to be pretty amazing so I'm excited for that.
And I toured Queensland's own XXXX Brewery today where we drank a bunch of free beer, big surprise.
Go ahead.... be shocked.... I can wait.
And then I went to the Young Designer's Market which was so fabulous. I could only afford the jewelry but it was so fascinating to see their fashion compared to what I'm used to seeing in the US.
And I went kayaking on the Brisbane River. That was really fun, mostly because my dad wasn't leaving me in the dust the whole way. It was a good thing I'd done it before though because they really just put you in the kayak and let you go. The only thing they told us was to be careful of the city cats. Now I'm on a river and genuinely wondering why I should be worried about a cat. To the point that I
almost asked why we should be worried about the city cats, but didn't for fear of receiving an obvious answer like "because they are the cats of the city." So I'm out there splashing and paddling along when I see a huge ferry come up from behind with the name CityCat across the side. CityCat is the company of the river ferries, and we were supposed to be careful of them because they have a huge wake that could potentially flip us. VERY GLAD I DIDN'T ASK WHY WE SHOULD BE AFRAID OF CATS.
