Going BALL-istic all the way to Heron Island

Its been a crazy past few weeks (nothing new there really) and I've got loads to update on. Two weekends ago I travelled up to Hervey Bay for our Ask Weekend with the other Lockley guys and all of our partners for Ball. It was about 5 hours of travel but my friend B1 has an awesome house right on the beach that definitely made the trip well worth it. The gals had already had a bit to drink on the ride so we were all rearing to get our weekend started by the time we finally arrived.

We quickly unloaded the two cars (the third would come later because a couple of the people had exams to take that day and ran out to the water and played out there for a good few hours. The water got a bit chilly for us so we went inside to get some dinner and to play some good old drinking games (Taylor and I had been put in charge of those since being the resident Americans it was assumed we had an extensive knowledge of them :P). The next day a few people had to go back to college because of school/work obligations but the rest of us spent the start of the day lazing about watching TV and laughing at the pictures from the day before.

Eventually we managed to corral the energy to go outside but since it was low tide we had to walk a good couple kilometers out to even get to the water. B1 and Boomer taught Fuster and I how to play a backyard version of cricket which was alot of fun as well. We had a fire that night on the beach and we introduced our Aussie friends to the best version of s'mores that we could create. Apparently they don't have graham crackers here!? So we had to improvise with some cookie/cracker things I figured would do the trick. And their marshmallows are about the 1/3 of the size of ours so we had a bit of difficulty roasting them over the fire but we made it work and everyone was quite happy with the result.

Took us about 9 hours to travel back because of troubles with the train schedule but it was all well and good as I got to converse with B1 quite a bit. He's a pretty chill guy and we had endless chats about the weekend, his friends who had visited us and the shenanigans they used to have, and he taught me quite a bit about how the Australian government works. Needless to say, its got some similarities to American government but its got quite a few interesting distinctions (a part from being a part of the commonwealth of course). People vote for parties and not the candidates that the party endorses so if a party is voted in and they decide they don't like what the candidate is doing then they can oust them for somebody new. This happens even to the Prime Minister, most recently Kevin Rudd having been replaced by Julia Guillard.

Anywho, thats a whole conversation and a half to itself that I shant be getting into now. This last Friday we had our Ball and everyone first gathered in the Dining Hall for some predrinks and hors d'oeuvres. Everyone was up in their finest and looked absolutely amazing! It was still a secret at this point as to where we were going but we piled onto the buses and eventually found ourselves at the Rydges Hotel downtown. An elevator took us up to the top floor where we were greeted by waiters with champagne and the most beautiful view of the city and the river that I could've imagined. There was a live jazz band playing, two balconies, an endless stream of wine, beer, and champagne, a delicious meal of steak and potatoes, an amazing brownie type dessert, basically a phenomenal evening all around. I sadly didn't have my camera but others got pics and I'll be sure to get some up once I've gotten them myself.

The next morning we all got up early for the day after event called Recovery, basically a fun hair of the dog kind of idea. Everyone got dressed up in absurd clothing, started drinking out on the front lawn and then hopped on a bus to a local pub called the Down Under, aka the Dunda.

Sunday I travelled down to the Gold Coast with Fuster and Jeeves where we stayed with our friend Mussels. We had really only expected a ride down there but she and her family were wonderful enough to let us stay with them and Mussels played tour guide to us through Tuesday (now). We were well and knackered after two solid days of drinking but we managed to get out Sunday night to enjoy the beach a bit. Monday avo we went out to the Hinterlands (bushland = country) where we drove up into the mountains and did a fair bit of hiking. The Gold Coast and the surrounding area was actually a massive volcano some 20 million years ago but has since eroded leaving a web of rivers and a circle of mountains. We went to a place called the World's Best Lookout which though a rather immodest name it offered a spectacular view of the entire area. We also went on a 4km walk around a sweet waterfall before having a nice picnic lunch in the park. After an afternoon power nap we went into the city to get dinner with our friend Echo on the beach. We also ran into another Cromwellian Towel, who was having dinner with his parents.

Its been a busy past few weeks with class, trips and such, and it continues tonight. I'll be leaving for Heron Island in bout an hour and will be up there for bout five days snorkelling with the fishies, turtles, sharks, and such! Should be a great time and there'll be plenty of pics and stories once I return at the end of break. Until then, I bid you all adieu!

Ugh its sparkling water!

So I started this post a good week ago but forgot to post it... whoops! Anyway, here it is now:

Saturday marked the beginning of Brisbane Festival, which is basically just three weeks in September with a bunch of random concerts, theatre performances, etc. semi-organised throughout the city. The real exciting thing was the fireworks display to kick it off Saturday night, known as Riverfire. Met up with Taylor and Megan at South Bank and we decided that we had a pretty good spot right where the City Cat stop was. We were promised an aerial show at 5pm but unless one helicopter appearing for about 2 minutes is something to get excited about, it was pretty lame/nonexistent. So we chilled on the waterfront for another couple hours waiting for the fireworks and watching the area fill up with people thousands of people.

Eventually 7pm rolled around and any doubts that the show wouldn;t be worth the wait vanished instantly as a F-111 jet flew overhead and performed a "dump and burn". Basically the F-111 has its fuel tank located behind its afterburner so literally the jet dumps some of its fuel which is ignited behind it in a gigantic stream of fire! People complain about it being wasteful (which it most certainly is) but I have to say it was freaking awesome to see this jet all of a sudden disappear into a gigantic fireball cruising through the sky! Supposedly this will be the last "dump and burn" performed in Australia as the F-111s are being phased out of their air force and its also mad expensive/wasteful.

Then began the actual fireworks, accompanied by a soundtrack. Not sure if I'm just that much of a country bum but I had never seen fireworks that were actually synchronized with music so between having just seen the flying fireball and this new novelty I was already blown away. Every public event in Australia is begun with an acknowledgment of the "rightful land owners", the Aboriginals, so the first music that was played was a beautiful Aboriginal song. Very nice and all but I couldn't help but be amused by the irony considering it was following a performance that consisted of burning fuel and blowing up tens of thousands kilograms of fireworks over a river. Thanks for the land guys, we're gonna go blow some shit up over it k? The comparisons to America never end!

But in any case, the fireworks display itself was easily the best fireworks show I have ever seen. There were 6 barges (3 of which we could see from our spot) shooting off fireworks from the river, fireworks being launched from the bridges crossing the river, and even fireworks being launched off the tops of the skyscrapers downtown! The F-111/ball of fire cruised around at different parts as well. Best free entertainment I've had here/possibly ever.

Afterward we realised that getting onto the City Cat back to campus was not going to be easy as we'd thought despite being right next to the stop. There were literally thousands of people waiting to get on and the system wasn't even running because apparently the river had become clogged with people watching the fireworks from their boats. So after about 40 minutes of indecision, we decided to fight our way through the crowds and get some food since it was after 8pm and none of us had had dinner. Taylor had remembered some pizza place so we grabbed that and chilled in the grass. This is only the second or third time I've had pizza here but I have to say, it sucks. Apparently Australians don't believe in sauce and there's just something about the pizza itself that just isn't great. It confuses me because the Australians I've talked to get excited about this chain called New York Slice which sells good old American pizza. So why they don't just all make good pizza, I have no idea.

The next morning, Taylor, Maia, Megan, Liz, and I got up earlyish to check out the "French" Sunsupper Breakfast. Basically we were pumped for a free breakfast that wasn't at college. We got to the Goodwill Bridge where it was being held and got excited because they were giving away free water and we were all really thirsty. Little did we know that it wasn't plain water, but in fact sparkling water. There was a big line for the food and I had had to go to the bathroom for some time so I volunteered to take all 7 of our bottles (we'd taken a few extra, we were THIRSTY) and dispose of them while they stayed in line. Didn't find any recycling or rubbish bins on my way to the portapotty so the people to go in after me were probably pretty confused by the bottles that were taking up half of it! The event itself wasn't quite as cool as I'd expected but was still good. Basically the gave out free croissants, strawberries, yogurt, and cheese, had some really good sidewalk chalk drawings of French places/paintings, and we bought some crepes (decent) before making our way back to college. Spent the rest of day doing homework, woohoo!

Monday brought the usual class, homework, and our last two basketball games. Got our butts handed to us by International House which was a bit demoralizing as they're not usually good at sports but apparently that wasn't the case for basketball. I had contemplated going to the gym between games but ended up staying for the ladies game, GREAT DECISION! It was their last game and they didn't really have anyone who was good or had played much ball before and they were fully aware of it. So they instead decided to just have a good time with it. Memorable quotes included "IMA GET ALL UP IN YOUR GRILLS!" (Bounty jumping around like a crazy) and my favorite came from the ref, "Foul is on... Giz!?" That put me in a good mood for our next game against Kings (one of the all guys college's), which we knew we were going to get spanked in whether we liked it or not. Was a little worried at first because we had mysteriously lost some players and were down to four. Then Kplus showed up to save the day so we had a whopping five players, one of whom didn't even know the rules. Despite this, we held our own and played a decent game.

One final note, My pics from Riverfire and the dump and burn didn't turn out too well but I recommend just doing a youtube search. It'll be well worth ten minutes of your day to check them out a bit!

Peanut Butter and Vegemite!?

I'm getting pretty used to hearing that on a daily basis. The Australians are very happy that I am one of the few nonAustralians who likes (in my case, love) Vegemite and despite the fact that they pride themselves on using it in strange combinations, I've apparently broken the limits by creating PB & V. Thus, every morning when i make my typical bfast of toast with PB & V and often an egg or two on top, I'm met with awestruck faces and "You eat peanut butter AND vegemite!?" Yes, yes I do. And its freaking delicious thank you very much :P

In other news, it is now September. Holy shiznit. One of the girls on our program actually counted it up and we've been here over 50 days now. On one side this is cool because I definitely feel like I've fallen into the rhythm of school life here but it also means that our number of remaining days is rapidly dwindling. With that in mind, my recent dilemma has been trying to figure out where I can both afford and have time to travel to. Places on the list of possible travel locations include: Tasmania, Melbourne, Uluru/Ayer's Rock (the huge red rock sticking up in the middle of Australia), Cairns, more NZ, Singapore, etc. etc... Basically everywhere and anywhere which is causing me some prioritization issues. That and I won't know what free time I'll have during the exam period cuz we're at a bloody large university that doesn't post exam dates and times until freaking october. But as the Aussies say, "She'll be right" and I'll get it all figured out... eventually.

Aside from that all is going well. We've reached that point in the semester where there are all kinds of assignments due and my procrastination is catching up with me but its nothing I haven't dealt with before. People are getting more and more excited for Ball here at Cromwell now that there are only three weekends of Asks left followed by Ball. Fuster and I were invited to our friend Boudjoo's house for a weekend over midsemester break but unfortunately its during our trip up to Heron Island. Other than that there's not all that much to report. Finally won a basketball game, sang "Party in the USA" with the other Cromwell Dson folk at karaoke last night (we rocked it), going to be accompanying Impulse on the song "Stars" from Les Miserables on Tuesday, and hopefully jamming with a couple guys sometime next week. Just gonna keep on rocking down under!