Dresses and Spring Rolls :)

This week has been a bit more eventful than the last two. :) YAY!

Classes have begun, and the campus is buzzing with people. I don't have any classes, but I did meet with my advisor today about my Research Paper. And he informed me that my paper does NOT have to 12,000 - 15,000 words! :) Nope! It only has to be 8,000-12,000!!! He's looking for something around 10,000 words. Soooo much better than 12-15. So I'm feeling better about it. This week is all about finding a solid topic and writing up a proposal to show to my advisor next week. So lots of reading coming up this week.

Sunday was a great day. Sharon and I got to go into the city and begin "the dress" hunting. :) It was SO much fun. I felt like a princess! And I decided that I'm going to take full advantage of this situation and try on as many dresses as possible. However extreme they are, however poofy they are, however expensive they are (and I have already)... because I only get to do this once. And I love the feeling of trying on these dresses. I seriously felt like a Disney princess in one of the dresses. Big, poofy, taffeta and organza up the wazoo. It was fantastic. Who wishes we could get to dress up like that AT LEAST once a year?? Who wants it to be more like 5 or 6 times a year?? Anyone want it every day??? :)



After trying on dresses we went up to Portside Wharf to check out the Chocolate and Coffee Affair that they were having next to the river. There were booths set up all along the water with... well... chocolate and coffee. We just caught the last half hour, but we were able to get some free iced coffee and snag a few chocolate covered strawberries (which were not free unfortunately... but $.50 was worth it). It was a really fun day.



Tonight my new flatmate Vu (Vietnamese) and his friends made us all dinner. It was authentic Vietnamese spring rolls. They cooked (boiled) pork and beef and what we did was add it to rice paper with lettuce and a slice of cucumber. Once rolled, we dipped the spring roll in a type of fish sauce with chile and garlic. It was actually really good! :) We finished off the meal with an apple each. Quite a meal... and GREAT company. I took video of Vu explaining how to wrap the spring roll, but for some reason it's not transferring to my computer with audio. So pictures of the night will have to suffice for now. I'll work on it again tomorrow and see if I can get it working.





Hope you all have a great rest of the day!

Just keep swimming..... just keep swimming....

The original title of this post was going to be something along the lines of "Keep on truckin'" or "Moving right along"... but in keeping with the theme of Australia I've chose a line from Disney's 'Finding Nemo' to explain this post...

Sorry for the lack of posts.... but I honestly don't have anything to write about.
This past week and a half has been pretty uneventful. With the exception of seeing the newest Batman flick (twice) and working (about 20 hours last week and 9 hours so far this week - which is an incredible amount compared to what they normally give me) life has been pretty boring. I haven't even gone shopping (!), in hopes of not spending any money (not like I really even have money to spend.... kinda spent it all when Bryan was here).

So all in all... this past week has been that of recuperation: physically, emotionally, financially.

I've spent a lot of my time sitting in front of my computer, looking through websites and pictures trying to envision what I want my dream wedding to be like... and I think I've found a few ideas. But most of it, pretty much all the BIG stuff, is going to wait until I get home in December. Basically, the engagement happened, and Bryan and I are stoked, but it'll pretty much seem like we got engaged all over again when I get home... cause that's when all the REAL fun begins (ie: announcements, parties, planning!!).

Next week is the beginning of the next (and final) semester.
I have no classes to attend, but I do have a HUGE paper to pour all of my energy into. I'm to meet up with my advisor next week to go through all the criteria and completion dates and to hopefully muster up some kind of idea of what I'm supposed to write about. :)

Hope everyone is well.
I leave you with a few pictures from the past week...

Sunset taken from the walk to work across the busway...


Taken while on the phone with Bryan, just before work...


What I get to look at every single day!!! This is possibly my favorite view of it...


Although... this one's not so bad either :) (THANK YOU BRYAN!)

Australia says goodbye Bryan...

Bryan left this morning. And today was the longest day I've had in over a month.
But having him here was incredible. And I wouldn't have changed it for the world.
Only five months left!!!

:)

The picture above was taken at Surfers Paradise this past weekend. Esther was kind enough to drive us down on Saturday. We got to walk up and down the endless beach, window shop on the Esplanade, and found the Gold Coast Hard Rock Cafe and took in a nice dinner. A good night.

Yesterday we were able to attend church together one more time, which is always such a blessing. And afterwards a couple from church invited us over for some lunch, which was really nice. The evening consisted of laundry, packing and a few tears. And then this morning we were off for the airport. He seemed to get through okay... I saw him go into the security area, but that was it. Though I haven't received a call from him asking me to come back to the airport to pick him up. :) So I'm assuming he made it on the plane okay. He should be flying right now as I write, with another 8-9 hours to go until he's back in California.

:(

Kinda really sucks.
Just have to stay busy.
Back to work again tomorrow.

More Whitsundays!

So you got to see Bryan and my first adventure while in the Whitsundays.... but it only got better from there.

We FINALLY got our luggage around 10pm on our second night (Thursday, July 3) - this was the same day as the Seaflight cruise. So we finally got clothes, toothbrushes etc :) We were thrilled, to say the least.

Friday, July 4: A "free day" - nothing planned for the itinerary. So we took a walk along the Boardwalk to Able Point Marina and on towards... well... I forget the name of the beach... but it was a nice long walk. Pretty sure it was about 3km... Bryan might have to correct me on that. After getting back to Airlie Beach we decided to take in a little bit of sun by the lagoon (which I, regrettably, did not take pictures of). That night, so that we could celebrate the 4th of the July properly, we found the closest thing to American as we could and ate dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant :) where I finally found a descent margarita. :) We also discovered that Absinthe was on the menu, and - seeing as how it's illegal in the States - thought it'd be something worth trying. Fearful of its potency, however, we split the shot in half :)

Saturday, July 5: Today we boarded the Camira, a smaller, sailing catamaran destined for snorkeling and Whitehaven Beach. It was a nice, relaxing trip. The wind kicked up a bit, but this was more than welcomed by the crew. The cruise included snorkeling, buffet lunch, morning and afternoon tea and also an "open bar" that consisted of two brews of Aussie beer and a Chardonnay. This became interesting as the ship had a large group of men that seemed to be enjoying themselves more than others. But it was all good fun. None got too out of hand. In fact, they happily welcomed Bryan in a game of cricket once we arrived at Whitehaven Beach. It was hilarious! They kept calling him "USA" whilst trying to teach him the ways of cricket. Although, I'm pretty sure he has yet to really understand the game. Whitehaven was BEAUTIFUL. The beach consists of 98% pure silica sand. It's protected from the currents from the ocean bringing in any other material, keeping it white, powdery and beautiful. We were able to come back to it during our final outing. Tonight we transferred to an Island Lodge on Long Island (within the Whitsunday Islands). Again, we were less than satisfied with our living arrangements, but made due with what we were given.

Sunday, July 6: Now on Long Island and with another free day, we decided to go for a morning Bush Walk with the hotel activities staff. Nothing spectacular, but nice to get out and see a little more of the island. Following this we took in the sun at the beach, and I gained enough courage to jump into the water and do a little waterskiing with the watersports crew that was stationed with the hotel. I fell.... a lot.... but it was still really nice to get back onto the ski after two years.

Monday, July 7: Our final outing... Ocean Rafting. Today got cloudy and was even more windy... but it made for an exciting ride on the water. :) We returned to another section of Whitehaven Beach called the Hill Inlet.... you'll see the pictures for this... where the sand bars just run into each other and the water curves back into the mountains. After the lookout, we ate lunch on the beach. This sand was even whiter than the sand from the previous Whitehaven beach!! It was beautiful!!! After jetting out on the water again, we found a prime snorkeling spot where we were able to see more Reef and an abundance of beautiful fish. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures of this yet - as we haven't developed our underwater pictures yet... but I'll get them up as soon as I can.

Tuesday, July 8: After a delicious buffet breakfast at the Long Island Resort, we were off, back to Brisbane.


The trip was amazing!! I would go back in a flash and would recommend it to everyone!

Click on the picture below to go to slideshow of all the pictures from the trip.

The Whitsundays (July 2-3)

Bryan and I are back from our trip to the Whitsundays... and, man, it was an amazing experience. However, getting there was another story. Let me begin...

We had booked a "Lite Saver Package" with an Australian domestic airline called JetStar. This meant that we couldn't check any baggage, but only carry on. So all morning when we were packing we were trying to figure out what we COULD bring and what we COULDN'T (what with the strict airline regulations). So we packed light in our carryon luggage packing only a few things - sunscreen, lotion, shaving gel - with our fingers crossed, praying that they'd make it through so we wouldn't have to spend the extra money.

We got to the airport, no problem.
We checked in at a computer kiosk, no problem.
We got through security, no problem (except Bryan had to go through twice due to the shaving gel, but it made it through perfectly fine).
We were an hour and fifteen minutes early for our flight.
No problems.
The plane was late, but we got through and boarded, no problem.
We put our carryon luggage in the overhead compartments, no problem..... or so we thought.

As soon as we sat down, and I buckled my seat-belt, one of the stewardesses walked up to us and said that our luggage was too big. What? I've flown with JetStar before, I've carried on this luggage with them before, what's the problem? Apparently it was too big because the luggage had been extended, according to the stewardess. Okay... well... mine wasn't extended, and Bryan could smoosh his down. That wasn't good enough for them, and now the luggage was too heavy, exceeding the 10kg weight limit. How did she know?? She proceeded to remove our luggage from the overhead compartment, asked us for our boarding passes and my phone number. Said she'd talk to another stewardess and come back to us. She brought it to the back of the plane. Then brought it to the front of the plane. I assumed she'd hold it up there for us while we flew... you know... in the section they hold strollers, or wheelchairs or something like that. A minute later a huge man in a neon yellow vest with reflectors on the sides walks up to us and hands us two small tickets that say "RUSH" on them and asks us where we're staying, then tells us we'll receive our luggage tomorrow. WHAT?! Apparently the luggage compartment was already locked, so they couldn't store it in there, and it was too big for the overhead compartment even though I've flown with it as carryon before and it was standard carryon size. Stupid. After freaking out completely, I realized we couldn't walk around in tennishoes and jeans all day tomorrow, so I ran up to the front and grabbed a few things out of the luggage (not even thinking about bathingsuits). What was also wonderful was that we would be out on the water all of the next day with a Reef Tour that we had already booked. So when we arrived in Airlie Beach - which is the city on the mainland that we stayed at for the first three days of our time in the Whitsundays - we had to purchase bathing suits, a beach towel and a few other necessities. So... the first night was interesting, to say the least, and we spent more money than we had anticipated. What more is that we had to pay $25 for our luggage to be transferred to the place we were staying... oh... and it didn't get there until about 10pm the next day (July 3). But the Reef Tour was amazing... and the luggage thing was the only real hitch we had in the trip.

So we'll focus on the good from now on.

Our first trip was aboard the Seaflight - a large tri-level catamaran that went out to Knuckle Reef, a section of the Outer Great Barrier Reef. Our destination was a large pontoon boat situation right on the reef where we could snorkel, view fish from an underwater observatory, ride in a glass-bottom boat, and enjoy the sun on the sun deck. We also got morning and afternoon tea as well as a full buffet lunch. It was going to be a great trip. Little did we know, there was even more that awaited us out on the water...........





more to come...

Koalas... Emus... Kangaroos.... Oh My!

Today was Bryan's turn to experience Lone Pine in all it's splendor. And what a wonderful day it turned out to be... with so many unexpected surprises!

We got to the park and upon arrival Bryan's energy kicked into high gear and he was super excited for it all. Every time we saw a new animal he just beamed. :) We saw dingos, pythons, kookooburras, bats, sheep dogs, kangaroos, wombats, emus (ugly creatures), baby chicks, ginormous pigs, miniature horses, dixie chicks (yeah... that's really their names, they're furry chickens), sea eagles, owls, wallabies, lizards, crocodiles and of course... koalas. :) Bryan loved the koalas. And what was awesome was at the end of the day, just before we were going to leave, we got to see a baby koala come out of its mother's pouch. It was the cutest thing!!! It crawled all over her mom and then when it was done and all her energy was spent, it just crawled back on inside the pouch. Amazing!! We also got to see a baby joey inside her kangaroo mom and got to see her pretty much jump right out. What was hilarious was the joey was so big!! You wouldn't have expected it to be inside her mom's pouch.

We also got to see the sheep dog show - which I just think is amazing. The dogs are so well trained and it's so cool seeing them in action, steering sheep wherever they want them to go.

In addition to the sheep dog show, we saw the Birds of Prey flight show. That was fun, except one of the birds decided he didn't want to fly... so that was kind of a bummer.

All in all, it was a really good day.
And Bryan got his picture with the Koala. You'll see the picture that was taken from my camera in the photo bucket pictures, but here is the actual picture

(he also has a website! - http://www.koala.net/photo/0107026693en.htm)

The following link will take you to the photo bucket pictures:
LONE PINE PICTURES

Tomorrow we're headed for the Whitsundays. I don't know if I'll be bringing my computer, if I do it's more than likely I won't have internet, so we'll just have to post pictures when we get back.

Have a wonderful week!!!! :)