Thursday, September 18, 2008
Quick Update from the Road!
Andrea and I are in Alice Springs. We just got back from our 3 day / 2 night camping, hiking, bushwalking tour of Uluru/Kings Canyon/the Olgas. We had an absolutely fantastic time, and the weather has been perfect! Hot, but not ridiculously so. We are hanging out here for another couple of days, and then we catch a flight down to Melbourne! Enjoy some pictures:
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Day Two: Friday
After breakfast, Andrea and I headed into the city. We walked around for a little while and took some crazy pictures:
And then we decided to catch the city cat (the ferry) to go down the river. View from ferry stop:
On the CityCat:
Two stops later, we got off and went to the City Botanic Gardens:
We ate our peanut butter sandwiches while sitting on a bench overlooking a very pretty pond and were almost attacked by all the hungry birds:
More walking around:
And then we saw this guy sitting on his post:
Afterwards, we went to City Hall to climb the clock tower. Unfortunately, it had already closed for the day, so we just explored the museum instead. One of the exhibits was this random floor in this room:
From there, we came back home, got ready to dance, and went dancing!
And then we decided to catch the city cat (the ferry) to go down the river. View from ferry stop:
On the CityCat:
Two stops later, we got off and went to the City Botanic Gardens:
We ate our peanut butter sandwiches while sitting on a bench overlooking a very pretty pond and were almost attacked by all the hungry birds:
More walking around:
And then we saw this guy sitting on his post:
Afterwards, we went to City Hall to climb the clock tower. Unfortunately, it had already closed for the day, so we just explored the museum instead. One of the exhibits was this random floor in this room:
From there, we came back home, got ready to dance, and went dancing!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Andrea is here!
She arrived this morning, after a very long time of traveling - 29 hours from getting on the plane in Tampa to arriving here in Brisbane!
She said all her flights went ok, and that she was able to get some sleep on the flight from San Fran to Sydney because it wasn't very full. Her last flight from Sydney to Brisbane ran about 30 minutes late, but I was still waiting for her when she got off the train from the airport:
Of course, I couldn't have her come all the way here without bringing me stuff from home. And one of the things I requested was a powder drink mix: Crystal Light. I have really missed it, and there really isn't anything similar here. Andrea, being the wonderful sister she is, brought me a tonnnn of it, maybe 8 canisters with 6 tubs in each. Sounds perfect, right? Except that she didn't pack them very well, and most of them broke open during the flight. Which means that sugary powder got all over her clothes and her bag.
Andrea inspecting the damage:
The bottom of the bag:
I managed to clean it all up, and salvage about 95% of it, which is fantastic. I also started a wash for all her clothes. While I did that, she showered and changed, and then sat down at my computer and got to work (Being a salaried employee now, if she works one hour a day, it counts for a whole day, which means she wouldn't need to a vacation day).
After she got an hour of work done, we got ready for tonight's dance (so we wouldn't have to come back to the house).
Then we headed into the city. We checked out South Bank, and the "beach" there, and walked around for a while.
Afterwards, we did a little window shopping at the Queen Street Mall, and then caught a bus to the dance. It started off pretty slow, but it became good later on (the dance was only from 6-12pm).
Andrea dancing:
We left about 11:30pm, and had to wait a for a couple of minutes for the bus, and the entire time Andrea was being narcoleptic, which was pretty funny.
But we made it home with no problems, and were soon asleep!
She said all her flights went ok, and that she was able to get some sleep on the flight from San Fran to Sydney because it wasn't very full. Her last flight from Sydney to Brisbane ran about 30 minutes late, but I was still waiting for her when she got off the train from the airport:
Of course, I couldn't have her come all the way here without bringing me stuff from home. And one of the things I requested was a powder drink mix: Crystal Light. I have really missed it, and there really isn't anything similar here. Andrea, being the wonderful sister she is, brought me a tonnnn of it, maybe 8 canisters with 6 tubs in each. Sounds perfect, right? Except that she didn't pack them very well, and most of them broke open during the flight. Which means that sugary powder got all over her clothes and her bag.
Andrea inspecting the damage:
The bottom of the bag:
I managed to clean it all up, and salvage about 95% of it, which is fantastic. I also started a wash for all her clothes. While I did that, she showered and changed, and then sat down at my computer and got to work (Being a salaried employee now, if she works one hour a day, it counts for a whole day, which means she wouldn't need to a vacation day).
After she got an hour of work done, we got ready for tonight's dance (so we wouldn't have to come back to the house).
Then we headed into the city. We checked out South Bank, and the "beach" there, and walked around for a while.
Afterwards, we did a little window shopping at the Queen Street Mall, and then caught a bus to the dance. It started off pretty slow, but it became good later on (the dance was only from 6-12pm).
Andrea dancing:
We left about 11:30pm, and had to wait a for a couple of minutes for the bus, and the entire time Andrea was being narcoleptic, which was pretty funny.
But we made it home with no problems, and were soon asleep!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Andrea arrives tomorrow morning!
I have been tracking her flights since she left at 3pm her time (which was 5am my time) and so far, so good! She is currently somewhere over the Pacific, and will arrive in Sydney about 630am. But she has a 2 hour layover there, and then another 1.5 hours to get to Brisbane, so she won't be here until 10 am. So 17 more hours and I will be meeting her at the train station!
I spent the day today at home, which was very nice ^_^. My supervisor and I had a discussion yesterday about the paper that I need to be writing, and he gave me a lot of ideas about it. And then he told me that there was no point in my coming all the way to the hospital to work on my paper, so I might as well stay home and write. At this point, my actual research in the lab is predominantly finished (yay!) so I've just got to write the research up, and create a new Powerpoint presentation, and that will be my entire grade. Crazy.
Although I should have at least written a little today, I haven't yet. (But I still have time! And I will get to it today!). Instead, I kinda putzed around, straightened up my room, read my Lonely Planet- Sydney guide, put together a shopping list for food, and wasted time on the computer (ie, 100 games of freecell and hours on facebook). I did go through some of my things while thinking about what I am going to be sending home with Andrea. And then I started cleaning the house, because I don't want her to be as disgusted by it as I am ^_^. I wish I had "before" pictures, but you will just have to imagine everything as being disgustingly dirty - like so dirty you would be afraid to touch it for fear of contracting hepatitis. =) *not kidding*
"After" pictures:
Overall view of the kitchen/entry way:
I scrubbed down the front door (ewww dead bugs everywhere! and all sorts of dirt!)
I cleaned the sink and under the dish drainer (hello, slime!):
See that backsplash? It was so covered in grease that you couldn't tell what colour it was. The same thing for the stovetop. But thankfully, one of my flatmates saw me cleaning, and offered to help. So he scrapped off all the burnt crud until the thing shines now. I give it about a week and then it will be gross again.
And then I lysol'ed down the sink, mirrors, and walls in the bathroom:
I haven't yet gone near the toilet (which is in a different room than the bathroom). I am leaving that for tomorrow morning. Yuck.
I spent the day today at home, which was very nice ^_^. My supervisor and I had a discussion yesterday about the paper that I need to be writing, and he gave me a lot of ideas about it. And then he told me that there was no point in my coming all the way to the hospital to work on my paper, so I might as well stay home and write. At this point, my actual research in the lab is predominantly finished (yay!) so I've just got to write the research up, and create a new Powerpoint presentation, and that will be my entire grade. Crazy.
Although I should have at least written a little today, I haven't yet. (But I still have time! And I will get to it today!). Instead, I kinda putzed around, straightened up my room, read my Lonely Planet- Sydney guide, put together a shopping list for food, and wasted time on the computer (ie, 100 games of freecell and hours on facebook). I did go through some of my things while thinking about what I am going to be sending home with Andrea. And then I started cleaning the house, because I don't want her to be as disgusted by it as I am ^_^. I wish I had "before" pictures, but you will just have to imagine everything as being disgustingly dirty - like so dirty you would be afraid to touch it for fear of contracting hepatitis. =) *not kidding*
"After" pictures:
Overall view of the kitchen/entry way:
I scrubbed down the front door (ewww dead bugs everywhere! and all sorts of dirt!)
I cleaned the sink and under the dish drainer (hello, slime!):
See that backsplash? It was so covered in grease that you couldn't tell what colour it was. The same thing for the stovetop. But thankfully, one of my flatmates saw me cleaning, and offered to help. So he scrapped off all the burnt crud until the thing shines now. I give it about a week and then it will be gross again.
And then I lysol'ed down the sink, mirrors, and walls in the bathroom:
I haven't yet gone near the toilet (which is in a different room than the bathroom). I am leaving that for tomorrow morning. Yuck.
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