I forgot to put this in...
Lauren, Trina, Stephanie and I decided on Tuesday to do the "Master Cleanse." Basically this consists of drinking the most awful digestion tea at night, a quart of salt water in the morning which immediately makes you have to have a BM, and then the only thing you can have during the day is a drink consisting of water, maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. Now, we weren't doing this to lose weight, just to cleanse our bodies of toxins. I drank the tea the first night, which was the most HEINOUS tasting drink I've ever tasted, and after 3 hours I realized that I can't go without eating... and I was out.
It is now day 3 and Lauren, Trina, and Steph are all still going. They all crave food, and some of them are thinking about dropping out... but they're still going. Crazy people.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Latest
I figure an update is in order... and I'm waiting at the internet cafe for the last episode of The Office to finish downloading and I need something to do. This week was slightly more labor intensive, school wise. I have a group project coming up in my mental health class next week. I've been gathering information and putting my powerpoint together... shouldn't be too bad.
We are nearing the end of the semester, actually. Next week is our last week of class, then we have two weeks of clinical, then two weeks of finals, and then I'm on a plane home on June 29th. It's going to rush up so fast. I'm excited for class to be done, but slightly nervous for clinical. Lauren and I will be going to a TINY town (pop. 1000) called Mitchell for our clinical placement. It is 6 hours west of Toowoomba and is called "The Gateway to the Outback." At first we thought we were going to see absolutely NOTHING that involved nursing. However, everyone we have talked to said that because it is such a small facility, we will be involved with almost every patient that comes in. Instead of being in just a certain ward, we'll see everything. I've been getting more excited. I do still have to get my uniform though... so many things to do.
This weekend I will be traveling by myself to Cairns to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef for two days, thanks to Dad! I fly out of Brisbane tomorrow and will be diving on Saturday and Sunday, then coming home Monday. I'm incredibly excited... but this will the first time I've been alone since I've been in Australia. Hopefully I'll meet some cool people though. Trina and some of our friends drove to Cairns over Easter break and they loved it. Needless to say there will be HEAPS of pictures to upload once I am back.
I don't know if it's been in the news at home or not... but there has been some TERRIBLE flooding in SE Queensland. It poured constantly on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think we have maybe seen 5 passing showers up until now this semester. It was very hard to get up for 8am classes when it was pouring with winds up to 50kmh. Being that Toowoomba is 400-500m above Brisbane, we have not had any flooding. But the rain is so incredibly necessary. Toowoomba's water reservoirs were at 9% before the storm. I'm not sure what they'll be up to now, but I imagine it raised a bit. On Tuesday the Gold Coast received 250mm of rain... basically like 8 inches. In ONE day. That is 1/3 of their annual rainfall. The reservoirs in Brisbane went from around 16% to 70-100%. It's amazing how much rain there was. I was reading online and apparently the reservoirs haven't seen anything near those levels since 2002. I also heard that Brisbane hasn't seen flooding this bad since the flood of 74. This might not have meant anything to me a week ago, but while I was in Brisbane I saw a marker of the water level and it was easily 6' high... and that was at a point that was probably 30' above the height of the river. It's so weird to think that I was just there on Monday and that the next day buildings and cars were all flooded. That's mother nature for you, I guess.
I called Greyhound [No TT-Coaches this time for me!! :)] and they said that there weren't any delays today from the flooding, and if the rain holds off tonight service should be good tomorrow. So I'm hoping it doesn't rain tonight because I only have about 2.5hrs from the time I get into Brisbane until my flight takes off.
I think that's about it for now... not much else to report on. I would like to send a big Congratulations to Ben and Liz for finally getting engaged! It's about time!
Hope all is well at home!
Miss you all!
We are nearing the end of the semester, actually. Next week is our last week of class, then we have two weeks of clinical, then two weeks of finals, and then I'm on a plane home on June 29th. It's going to rush up so fast. I'm excited for class to be done, but slightly nervous for clinical. Lauren and I will be going to a TINY town (pop. 1000) called Mitchell for our clinical placement. It is 6 hours west of Toowoomba and is called "The Gateway to the Outback." At first we thought we were going to see absolutely NOTHING that involved nursing. However, everyone we have talked to said that because it is such a small facility, we will be involved with almost every patient that comes in. Instead of being in just a certain ward, we'll see everything. I've been getting more excited. I do still have to get my uniform though... so many things to do.
This weekend I will be traveling by myself to Cairns to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef for two days, thanks to Dad! I fly out of Brisbane tomorrow and will be diving on Saturday and Sunday, then coming home Monday. I'm incredibly excited... but this will the first time I've been alone since I've been in Australia. Hopefully I'll meet some cool people though. Trina and some of our friends drove to Cairns over Easter break and they loved it. Needless to say there will be HEAPS of pictures to upload once I am back.
I don't know if it's been in the news at home or not... but there has been some TERRIBLE flooding in SE Queensland. It poured constantly on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think we have maybe seen 5 passing showers up until now this semester. It was very hard to get up for 8am classes when it was pouring with winds up to 50kmh. Being that Toowoomba is 400-500m above Brisbane, we have not had any flooding. But the rain is so incredibly necessary. Toowoomba's water reservoirs were at 9% before the storm. I'm not sure what they'll be up to now, but I imagine it raised a bit. On Tuesday the Gold Coast received 250mm of rain... basically like 8 inches. In ONE day. That is 1/3 of their annual rainfall. The reservoirs in Brisbane went from around 16% to 70-100%. It's amazing how much rain there was. I was reading online and apparently the reservoirs haven't seen anything near those levels since 2002. I also heard that Brisbane hasn't seen flooding this bad since the flood of 74. This might not have meant anything to me a week ago, but while I was in Brisbane I saw a marker of the water level and it was easily 6' high... and that was at a point that was probably 30' above the height of the river. It's so weird to think that I was just there on Monday and that the next day buildings and cars were all flooded. That's mother nature for you, I guess.
I called Greyhound [No TT-Coaches this time for me!! :)] and they said that there weren't any delays today from the flooding, and if the rain holds off tonight service should be good tomorrow. So I'm hoping it doesn't rain tonight because I only have about 2.5hrs from the time I get into Brisbane until my flight takes off.
I think that's about it for now... not much else to report on. I would like to send a big Congratulations to Ben and Liz for finally getting engaged! It's about time!
Hope all is well at home!
Miss you all!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Brizzy
It's a rainy day in Toowoomba... so I'm sitting in front of the heater in the living room and using my down time to catch up on the blog! This last weekend, Lauren, Trina, and I took off on the Toowoomba Transit for a nice relaxing weekend outside of Toowoomba and into Brisbane. Originally, we had planned to rent a 4WD and drive around Fraser Island for the weekend, but we didn't book in time. After spending just a short afternoon in Brisbane the weekend before, we decided to go for a whole weekend.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and it was so nice to be there. Brisbane is much warmer than Toowoomba, there are TONS of people, and it is just a much more interesting place. After checking in to our hostel I went to a place, as recommended to me the weekend prior, to get my hair cut. The last time I got it cut was the week before I left the US. It was time. I was nervous to get it cut in Australia because Crystal does such a good job at home. I also refused to get it cut in Toowoomba because I knew I would end up with a rat-tail or a mullet. I am not exaggerating when I say that 70% of the males here have rat-tails or mullets. 70%. So Brisbane it was. The cut actually looks pretty good. It's short, which is a nice change.
After that we walked around Brisbane and headed across the river to the south bank where we perused a craft fair, went to a delicious Italian restaurant, had some ice cream, and then went out. We had some suggestions for a few clubs to go to. We, of course, forgot said list at home. We roamed the streets of the club district, "The Valley," trying to recall from memory some of the suggested places. When we got home we realized that we saw most of them, and actually made it to a few of them.
On Saturday we decided to go to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary, which is the first in the world. We took the bus out of Brisbane, for a mere $2.60 return - gotta love that student rate, to the sanctuary. I think the two main highlights there were the kangaroos and the koalas. They have a massive Kangaroo park... acres and acres of kangaroo and wallaby habitat. Now, the sanctuary is around 70 years old, so all of the animals there have been bred in captivity and are incredibly friendly. I pet SOOO many kangaroos and probably could have reached out and touched a joey poking his head out of his mom's pouch. I have some great photos! They'll be uploaded soon. What I found to be the most interesting was that they use their tails for balance, and they are almost solid muscle. I felt the tail on one of the biggest males, and it was rock solid. When threatened, they can lean back and balance on their tail and kick their opponent their there wicked-muscly hind legs. These legs have one HUGE claw in the middle, that can puncture important organs of their attackers. Also, one of the biggest species of kangaroos can jump as high as 4 meters... which is around 15 feet. After we had our fill of kangaroos and joeys, we made our way to the different koala exhibits. There were old ones, young ones, just males, just females, and the coolest one was of course: moms with babies. Watching that mom sit in the eucalyptus tree and having her little baby crawl all over her and in and out of her pouch was maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. We stayed there forever watching them, and the baby was staring right back at us. After that we made our way to the "hold a koala" area. We clearly couldn't leave the sanctuary without holding a koala. Now, this obviously isn't free. In order to do so, you had to purchase one of the 10 photo packages they offered. The cheapest of which being $15. I opted for the $25 selection which came with a 6X8 photo of me holding the koala as well as 8 postcards of the same. All of the money goes towards the koalas, so it was a justified purchase. The koala was so much heavier than I would have anticipated, and his fur felt almost like a scratchy wool blanked. We all took our turns having the little guy, Goblin, lay on our chest as we smiled/posed away for pictures. All in all it was a great day! I would have hated leaving Australia and saying I hadn't seen a koala! You can see my picture here for 60 days: http://photo.koala.net/1605029504.htm
As it was nearing sunset we hopped back onto the bus and made our way back to Brisbane. We again walked to South Bank and had a terrific dinner at a Thai/Malaysian place. The food was absolutely delicious. What we've kind of realized about most restaurants here though is that because there isn't any tipping, the waitstaff kind of serve every table. At the Italian place I think we had 3 different people serving us. At the Thai place they were a little bit more enthusiastic. At last count we had 5 different people offer to take our drink order... within 5 minutes of sitting down. It was comical. Also, it may have been THE fastest meal preparation I've ever seen at a restaurant. I ordered a drink and my meal at the same time... the drink came in 6 minutes... 2 minutes after my main course. That night Lauren and I went back to the Valley, while Trina went to bed early. Lucky her.
Lauren and I came back around 2am... only to be woken up by Trina at 5:30am screaming at us, asking if that alarm noise from the hall was a fire alarm. I was still slightly foggy and was very confused... but after smelling smoke and seeing people in the other rooms across the courtyard in the middle of the hostel getting up and moving, we decided that it was indeed a fire alarm. We got dressed, I grabbed my most important/valuable possessions and we started making our way towards the hall. However, when we got there, the staff came on the PA system and told us that it was a false alarm and there was no need to leave the hostel. We were all very relieved, yet still confused as there was no doubt that we were smelling smoke. No less than 3 minutes after I had climbed BACK into bed... we were told that "yes, you do need to leave the hostel." Clearly the fire department had a bit more intellect than those running the front desk. So all 400 people staying in the hostel that night filed out onto the surrounding street corners while we watched the sunrise, griped about the confusion, and waited for the go-ahead from the FD. It was interesting to say the least.
On Sunday we had heard about a free concert series that happens every Sunday with local indie bands. We hopped onto the city cat ferry and rode it up the river to the venue, an old powerhouse... it was a wicked cool place. The band that played was called Skinny Jean. They were a funky group, but we liked their music. As we were walking back down the river towards the ferry stop we saw the ferry racing down the river towards the stop. We had to do it - we started running. Now, we weren't just running... we were running in front of this massive park where, I think, nearly half of Brisbane was pick-nicking for the afternoon. The cheers, whoops, and hollers only made me run faster, I think. We made the ferry. Obviously. We spent the rest of Sunday enjoying various shops, cafes, and we also walked all through the botanical gardens. They were nothing like those in Sydney, but it was still nice to walk through the grass and see some flowers.
Sunday night we decided to be lazy and get cozy at the movie theater for... TWO MOVIES! We started with "Fast and the Furious 4." It was alright, but it wasn't great. After that though, we saw "The Boat That Rocked." It was amazing. Such an interesting and funny movie. If it's playing at home... go see it. Trust me, it's a good one.
Monday was pretty laid back. We went to the immigration office and had our physical Visas stamped into our passports for a memento (since ours are electronic.) After that we just did more shopping and eating before we had to get back on the Toowoomba Transit to head back up the range. It was a great weekend, and I think Brisbane is one of my favorite cities of all time. It is so laid back, the people are nice, there is an intense artistic feel to it, and we haven't been disappointed with the food yet.
Hope all is well at home!
Miss you all!
We arrived on Friday afternoon and it was so nice to be there. Brisbane is much warmer than Toowoomba, there are TONS of people, and it is just a much more interesting place. After checking in to our hostel I went to a place, as recommended to me the weekend prior, to get my hair cut. The last time I got it cut was the week before I left the US. It was time. I was nervous to get it cut in Australia because Crystal does such a good job at home. I also refused to get it cut in Toowoomba because I knew I would end up with a rat-tail or a mullet. I am not exaggerating when I say that 70% of the males here have rat-tails or mullets. 70%. So Brisbane it was. The cut actually looks pretty good. It's short, which is a nice change.
After that we walked around Brisbane and headed across the river to the south bank where we perused a craft fair, went to a delicious Italian restaurant, had some ice cream, and then went out. We had some suggestions for a few clubs to go to. We, of course, forgot said list at home. We roamed the streets of the club district, "The Valley," trying to recall from memory some of the suggested places. When we got home we realized that we saw most of them, and actually made it to a few of them.
On Saturday we decided to go to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary, which is the first in the world. We took the bus out of Brisbane, for a mere $2.60 return - gotta love that student rate, to the sanctuary. I think the two main highlights there were the kangaroos and the koalas. They have a massive Kangaroo park... acres and acres of kangaroo and wallaby habitat. Now, the sanctuary is around 70 years old, so all of the animals there have been bred in captivity and are incredibly friendly. I pet SOOO many kangaroos and probably could have reached out and touched a joey poking his head out of his mom's pouch. I have some great photos! They'll be uploaded soon. What I found to be the most interesting was that they use their tails for balance, and they are almost solid muscle. I felt the tail on one of the biggest males, and it was rock solid. When threatened, they can lean back and balance on their tail and kick their opponent their there wicked-muscly hind legs. These legs have one HUGE claw in the middle, that can puncture important organs of their attackers. Also, one of the biggest species of kangaroos can jump as high as 4 meters... which is around 15 feet. After we had our fill of kangaroos and joeys, we made our way to the different koala exhibits. There were old ones, young ones, just males, just females, and the coolest one was of course: moms with babies. Watching that mom sit in the eucalyptus tree and having her little baby crawl all over her and in and out of her pouch was maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. We stayed there forever watching them, and the baby was staring right back at us. After that we made our way to the "hold a koala" area. We clearly couldn't leave the sanctuary without holding a koala. Now, this obviously isn't free. In order to do so, you had to purchase one of the 10 photo packages they offered. The cheapest of which being $15. I opted for the $25 selection which came with a 6X8 photo of me holding the koala as well as 8 postcards of the same. All of the money goes towards the koalas, so it was a justified purchase. The koala was so much heavier than I would have anticipated, and his fur felt almost like a scratchy wool blanked. We all took our turns having the little guy, Goblin, lay on our chest as we smiled/posed away for pictures. All in all it was a great day! I would have hated leaving Australia and saying I hadn't seen a koala! You can see my picture here for 60 days: http://photo.koala.net/1605029504.htm
As it was nearing sunset we hopped back onto the bus and made our way back to Brisbane. We again walked to South Bank and had a terrific dinner at a Thai/Malaysian place. The food was absolutely delicious. What we've kind of realized about most restaurants here though is that because there isn't any tipping, the waitstaff kind of serve every table. At the Italian place I think we had 3 different people serving us. At the Thai place they were a little bit more enthusiastic. At last count we had 5 different people offer to take our drink order... within 5 minutes of sitting down. It was comical. Also, it may have been THE fastest meal preparation I've ever seen at a restaurant. I ordered a drink and my meal at the same time... the drink came in 6 minutes... 2 minutes after my main course. That night Lauren and I went back to the Valley, while Trina went to bed early. Lucky her.
Lauren and I came back around 2am... only to be woken up by Trina at 5:30am screaming at us, asking if that alarm noise from the hall was a fire alarm. I was still slightly foggy and was very confused... but after smelling smoke and seeing people in the other rooms across the courtyard in the middle of the hostel getting up and moving, we decided that it was indeed a fire alarm. We got dressed, I grabbed my most important/valuable possessions and we started making our way towards the hall. However, when we got there, the staff came on the PA system and told us that it was a false alarm and there was no need to leave the hostel. We were all very relieved, yet still confused as there was no doubt that we were smelling smoke. No less than 3 minutes after I had climbed BACK into bed... we were told that "yes, you do need to leave the hostel." Clearly the fire department had a bit more intellect than those running the front desk. So all 400 people staying in the hostel that night filed out onto the surrounding street corners while we watched the sunrise, griped about the confusion, and waited for the go-ahead from the FD. It was interesting to say the least.
On Sunday we had heard about a free concert series that happens every Sunday with local indie bands. We hopped onto the city cat ferry and rode it up the river to the venue, an old powerhouse... it was a wicked cool place. The band that played was called Skinny Jean. They were a funky group, but we liked their music. As we were walking back down the river towards the ferry stop we saw the ferry racing down the river towards the stop. We had to do it - we started running. Now, we weren't just running... we were running in front of this massive park where, I think, nearly half of Brisbane was pick-nicking for the afternoon. The cheers, whoops, and hollers only made me run faster, I think. We made the ferry. Obviously. We spent the rest of Sunday enjoying various shops, cafes, and we also walked all through the botanical gardens. They were nothing like those in Sydney, but it was still nice to walk through the grass and see some flowers.
Sunday night we decided to be lazy and get cozy at the movie theater for... TWO MOVIES! We started with "Fast and the Furious 4." It was alright, but it wasn't great. After that though, we saw "The Boat That Rocked." It was amazing. Such an interesting and funny movie. If it's playing at home... go see it. Trust me, it's a good one.
Monday was pretty laid back. We went to the immigration office and had our physical Visas stamped into our passports for a memento (since ours are electronic.) After that we just did more shopping and eating before we had to get back on the Toowoomba Transit to head back up the range. It was a great weekend, and I think Brisbane is one of my favorite cities of all time. It is so laid back, the people are nice, there is an intense artistic feel to it, and we haven't been disappointed with the food yet.
Hope all is well at home!
Miss you all!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Bunya Mountains and a Broncos Game
Last weekend we all rented an 8-seater van, and decided to have a few days of touring around Toowoomba. On Saturday morning we packed our lunches, put on our sneakers, grabbed our books, and made the 1.5hour drive to the Bunya Mountains. The Bunyas are located north-west of Toowoomba, and rise to an elevation of around 1300meters (Toowoomba is at 700.) Basically they are these steep mountains that raise up from the brown fields of the Darling Downs area. Essentially, they were like green islands growing out of the desolate land. The lush green grass and tall trees of all sorts were nothing like we had seen before around Toowoomba. We have grass here... but it's like grass at home that hasn't seen rain in a long time... kind of burned.
The plan was to do some hiking through the mountains. There are heaps of trails around the Bunyas, named for the tall Bunya Pine trees that make up the bulk of the trees there. These pines have pine-cones the size of soccer balls. There actually are warnings not to stand under the trees between December and April when they are falling.
As we were driving into the park we saw our first evidence of Australian wildlife... WALLABIES! Basically, wallabies and kangaroos are the same thing. The only difference is their height, kangaroos being taller. As a few of us chased a few around the grounds with our cameras, the others planned the hike we would be doing. After the wallabies retreated back into the woods, I laid down in the THICKEST most LUSH bit of grass I'd seen in a long time. It was quite hard getting up. Especially go go hiking.
The first hike we did meandered throughout the forest providing a few views towards the west as well as loads of informational signs on the trees, the wildlife, and the mountains. I think all in all we did 4km on this hike. We came back to the park and ate our lunch before driving further up the mountains to do another hike, which would bring us to the highest point in the mountains. We planned it perfectly, and we were able to watch the entire sunset from the summit. It was so beautiful. The sky went from a beautiful light blue, to yellow, to orange, and finally to the a deep red. It was gorgeous! We made it back down to the car just as it was getting really dark.
The drive home proved to be very tricky as the wallabies had all decided to come out to graze near the roadside. Now wallabies and much like deer, in the sense that they are (and Kep would agree with me on this one).... STUPID. Every wallaby, and I mean EVERY wallaby, would jump into the middle of the road when they saw our car coming... without fail. So a 1.5hour drive turned into 2 hours and 15 minutes... which was fine. I'd rather go 40kmh then hit one of those guys. The road to the mountains was also very interesting. Parts were only half-paved. This means that they paved directly down the middle of the road, and the other half (a 1/4 on each side of the paved bit) was left as dirt. The locals in their big off-roading-SUVs didn't seem to mind nearly throwing their vehicles into the ditch at 80kmh, but our Toyota van wouldn't have held up so well. We made it home safely though. :)
On Sunday we all piled in the van again, and drove to Brisbane for a Rugby game (not Aussie rules.) We were cheering for the Brisbane Broncos, and because this was like the rugby we have in the US, we actually kind of knew what was happening. Sadly, the Broncos lost the game... but it was incredibly close near the end. Regardless, it was nice to spend the day everyone in the afternoon sun, eating greasy food, enjoying a beer, and watching the game. We did a little walking around Brisbane... bopped into a few shops, and then called it a night and drove home. It was a great day, and it made me remember how much I liked Brisbane the first time we went. I think it may be my favorite city in Australia. Brisbane or Sydney... it's a close tie for 1st.
The plan was to do some hiking through the mountains. There are heaps of trails around the Bunyas, named for the tall Bunya Pine trees that make up the bulk of the trees there. These pines have pine-cones the size of soccer balls. There actually are warnings not to stand under the trees between December and April when they are falling.
As we were driving into the park we saw our first evidence of Australian wildlife... WALLABIES! Basically, wallabies and kangaroos are the same thing. The only difference is their height, kangaroos being taller. As a few of us chased a few around the grounds with our cameras, the others planned the hike we would be doing. After the wallabies retreated back into the woods, I laid down in the THICKEST most LUSH bit of grass I'd seen in a long time. It was quite hard getting up. Especially go go hiking.
The first hike we did meandered throughout the forest providing a few views towards the west as well as loads of informational signs on the trees, the wildlife, and the mountains. I think all in all we did 4km on this hike. We came back to the park and ate our lunch before driving further up the mountains to do another hike, which would bring us to the highest point in the mountains. We planned it perfectly, and we were able to watch the entire sunset from the summit. It was so beautiful. The sky went from a beautiful light blue, to yellow, to orange, and finally to the a deep red. It was gorgeous! We made it back down to the car just as it was getting really dark.
The drive home proved to be very tricky as the wallabies had all decided to come out to graze near the roadside. Now wallabies and much like deer, in the sense that they are (and Kep would agree with me on this one).... STUPID. Every wallaby, and I mean EVERY wallaby, would jump into the middle of the road when they saw our car coming... without fail. So a 1.5hour drive turned into 2 hours and 15 minutes... which was fine. I'd rather go 40kmh then hit one of those guys. The road to the mountains was also very interesting. Parts were only half-paved. This means that they paved directly down the middle of the road, and the other half (a 1/4 on each side of the paved bit) was left as dirt. The locals in their big off-roading-SUVs didn't seem to mind nearly throwing their vehicles into the ditch at 80kmh, but our Toyota van wouldn't have held up so well. We made it home safely though. :)
On Sunday we all piled in the van again, and drove to Brisbane for a Rugby game (not Aussie rules.) We were cheering for the Brisbane Broncos, and because this was like the rugby we have in the US, we actually kind of knew what was happening. Sadly, the Broncos lost the game... but it was incredibly close near the end. Regardless, it was nice to spend the day everyone in the afternoon sun, eating greasy food, enjoying a beer, and watching the game. We did a little walking around Brisbane... bopped into a few shops, and then called it a night and drove home. It was a great day, and it made me remember how much I liked Brisbane the first time we went. I think it may be my favorite city in Australia. Brisbane or Sydney... it's a close tie for 1st.
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