Life is good.

School is good// it's nice seeing everyone again. I'm glad I'm on MAME committee too, the involvement is thrilling - I was totally a MAME wannabe last year, even going to meetings and doing more hours than some at booksales and bakesales! I find VP Internal will be pretty tough, but totally worth it. And my classes, I think, will be pretty interesting as well. I've got Fluids 2 (compressible fluids, might be hard, but interesting), Eng Eco (see if I like that stuff, then maybe I'll switch to Management....lol joking) and Electric Machinery (actually makes me wanna puke I hate electrical stuff so badly, so not actually excited for this one). I had a lot of things to do in the past few days, and got a lot of it done, so that's good; I like being busy. And soonish, I eventually need to get myself to the gym! haha. The only thing really putting me down at the moment is my cold which I most probably got from frosh with the lack of sleep, and lack of good food, etc. I'm trying to get better as soon as possible. Sure I miss Sydney, but it actually feels like a really good dream (though last nights dream was terrible, haha)... and it's enjoyable when some people want me to recount my activities to them in detail. Oh, I'm also a bit broke at the moment, so have to think of getting a part-time job. I'm supposed to graduate this may and most probably will so that's kind of scaring me a tiny bit. I'm carefully thinking about minors or masters, but so uncertain. I have a need to go to Europe, there are so many places I want to see. I've talked to some people and it seems one month of traveling on a budget, and 3 months of internship while traveling seem to cost just as much. So that's that. see u

It's getting better

I was going so crazy with my friends not returning my calls, not having anyone around that wanted to make the effort to see me, or just plain not having anything to do all of last week. But on Friday night, I finally got ahold of Silvia (through Josh!! arrgh) anyway, I felt like I crashed their evening as a birthday for Rob, but really on monday I was invited over to Etienne's for pre-boat cruise partying. Turns out Silvia didn't get us tickets (sold out) and I only found this out 3 hours before the boat would have left the pier.... So it turns out Etienne made a cake for Rob. It was an odd shape, but pretty yummy! people there: Etienne, Silvia, Rob, Josh, Nuri (civil girl), Mike (mech guy). And me. Oh and Diana came later. It was fun though. I wasn't having much fun alone in the house with my parents around. I had to get out. I even broke down earlier that night not being able to deal with how little the situation changed with my parents, etc.

After Etienne and Silvia went to the boat thing, I went with the rest of them to Brutopia for the rest of the evening. My feet were killing me from new shoes... But we ended up seeing Dana there, and also this guy Bertrand that went to high school with me. He was pretty nice, I mean, since I hardly ever talked to him back in HS.

Then I spent the weekend at my grand parents cottage and that was so much fun really. I had some cousins and it was great to be there again. I went for my first swim this summer. And we had strawberry shortcake (my first time in a while too) I got to play some piano (really enjoyable!!) and played Uker and Balderdash with cousins ;) heaps of fun.

Next week i'll be busy with training and discover mcgill and o-week and then it's uni and all the cool people are coming back from their vacationing so... YAY i'm happy again

and my parents are in France until sept 6th :) sweet as!

1st day in Montreal

Yes, I'm actually pretty happy to be back in Montreal. But in reality, it doesn't actually seem like I've been gone for 7 months. Everything is still the same or almost the same. My parents are the same, my sister's the same, the house, the streets, are the same and the cat recognizes me. The only thing that's different is the apartment building that's being built on Nun's Island that is now where the driving range used to be. That's about it.

Last week I was in 6 countries! Isn't that crazy??

There are still little things that I'm not used to yet. For example, I'm always catching myself walking on the left side of the sidewalk. In excalators too, I stop on the left side, but that's the "fast lane". I walk in zig zags pretty much ;)

Now that I'm back in Montreal I feel the need to talk more in french. I never really felt the need to because I'm more anglophone and my french sucks. But now I know I need to practice it if I want to get better at it! Being in Australia, where noone speaks french, you take every opportunity to read/speak french. It made me different, but I need to be good at it, and I'm not. I know Sam's gotten good from watching french movies so I def should watch more french movies. And I need to read more in french too, but it'll have to wait because i'm reading a book now (actually about France!) and the next one is Harry Potter :) Also, when we were in Thailand, there were heaps of French travelers. Everytime we'd hear french, I got excited that hey, I know that language. We talked a few times with some French that were traveling in the same area we were at. I was especially excited to hear Quebecois !! It was so much fun to meet so many travelers from Montreal (in Phi Phi islands)!!! And it was an opportunity to speak Quebecois!! haha Even here, when I got back, I hear some ridiculously funny Quebecois expressions and it really makes me giddy for some reason. I just really missed it I guess. It's such a unique language, makes you proud, actually, to know it. It seems some people from France are really intrigued by Quebecois as well, on how different of a language it can be. I guess it's like Canadian's are intrigued by the Aussie accent and vice versa! haha!! It's expressions that we use like "se pogner le beigne",and "peser sur le piton", that make me giggle! lol hilarious!

Last Day in Sydney

I arrived back in Sydney this morning, around 8 am, maybe sleeping 2-3 hours on the plane. It was a good plane ride, from Kuala Lumpur. We had 2 meals, and lots of refreshments including a Magnum bar!! and the pillows were soooo comfortable!! We probably had a choice of something like 50 movies, and 20 cd's to listen to, and tv shows etc. pretty cool. I watched the movie Shrek the Third (i'm glad I picked Transformers over that in Brisbane because it wouldn't have been as fun). I think the prince in the movie is Justin Timberlake - he looks and sounds the same... I also started watching this movie called Next with Nicolas Cage, but it cut halfway through because we were landing....

So yes, got to Sydney, and wow I was so happy to be back in Sydney. I was away for 2 weeks in Asia and really missed the Aussie world. I really missed hearing the accent. I was constantly thinking of all the places I really wanted to see again before I leave, but I obviously couldn't make all the locations today. My lack of sleep made me really lazy in the morning. I wanted to nap but when midday came around I really needed to get up and do something. So I got dressed up warmly (not as hot as thailand!) and went to Coogee. I walked threw Randwick junction then walked down to Coogee. I hadn't been there in a while and everything of it reminded me of the study abroad/exchange student group of friends from the end of semester; and our weekly barbies, hanging out at ppl's places, and chilling at the rocks. Mike, Courtney, Harry, Dom, Joelle. I took heaps of piccies... I wanted to have a gelato at Gelatissimo on Coogee Bay road and go enjoy it at tarahonga rocks but it turned out that Gelatissimo was closed for renovation :( Instead I had a smoothie from the juice place next door. It was actually pretty warm for a while, and I walked around in a tank top, but eventually the wind caught up with me and I had to pull out the hoodie once again. I walked along the beach and to the southern rocks. I walked around there for a while. I tried to go visit our time capsule, but it seemed impossible. I got to the left wing and there was no way i could manage to get lower... maybe if Dom were there... Well, anyway, I sat on the ledge for the next 15 minutes, looking at the crashing waves, at the spot I last did the same sitting with Mike many weeks ago. It's really been a while.

So after Coogee, I took a bus into the city, and walked around. I had no real purpose there, so I just went for some last minute shopping. I've gotten so many souvenirs in total... I hope not TOO many!! nah... no such concept! That part didn't last very long. I just went back home, did some repacking, went to meet up with Matt at uni, then ran up from lower campus to randwick in less than 15 minutes to go have hot chocolate with my ex-flatmates, Nitya and Bo, whom I will miss dearly!!! :(

It's been a pretty successful day; I've done a lot of what I planned on doing. But now, I'm actually really really truly leaving Australia for good tomorrow (actually, today, it's past midnight!!!) All my goodbyes have spread over the last 3 months, so I'm ready to leave.

I'm actually looking forward to being back home. I wonder whats the first thing I will do when I get home. I wonder how it will feel and how I will ever be able to tell everyone simply what an awesome time I've had in Oz. The only answer to the question "so... how was it?" is something like "it was SO totally incredibly awesome and worth it!!!!" with an infinity of exclamation points, haha. I wonder what's the first thing I'll eat when I get back, or how Julie will react, or how the weather is, or how awkward I'll feel, or if I'll be caught up in the aussie way that i've forgotten how to act canadian, or what music and clothing is fashionable in montreal, or how jetlagged I'll be, etc. So many wonders, but soon enough, I'll see for myself!!

In any case, hopefully I'll get over the jetlag and be up for a party as soon as I get back. I've already got more plans than I have time for, which in my opinion is awesome ;)

See you so soon!!! xoxo mouah!!

Thailand continued...

My initial idea to come to Thailand was when Joelle and I discussed about doing a 2 week volunteer program followed by a 2 week adventure tour. But not only were the presented dates inconvenient but also the whole application process wasn't clear. So that fell through. But then, Catherine and I decided that its the perfect thing for us to do as a vacation before returning home.

So we first arrived in Bangkok, which we found wasn't that spectacular since it's really polluted and the city is so dirty. The better part of Bangkok was the backpackers' district, Khao San road, where at night it was really hoppin'! There were bars in the streets and street vendors with 20 baht Pad Thai (about 40 cents) and markets lining the streets. We met a lot of travellers from all over ther world.

Shopping was good in Bangkok but not as good as in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai was so incredibly cheap. When we later moved to the beaches areas, I missed the cheapness of Chiang Mai. I didn't really have that many souvenirs to shop for but faced with so many inexpensive goods, I felt the need to buy something. I did buy something, but still had to hold back hahahah! Chiang Mai was really great though. We went on a full day trek, which actually didnt have that much trekking per se, but we rode elephants for an hour and did bamboo rafting for an hour too! And we got to visit my home tribe as well... one of the ancient traditional hill tribes in Thailand is called Karen!!! though the tribe is really poor and I definitely didn't feel like I was home ;) In Chiang Mai, also, we took a day cooking class - that's right, now I'll be able to cool thai food, if I find the ingredients in montreal..... We went to the markets with the cook and he explained all the different types of vegetables etc, very interesting!

After Chiang Mai, we flew to Phuker through Bangkok and then took a ferry to the famous islands of Phi Phi (pronounced P.P.) It's basically a party island. There are two Phi Phi islands actually - Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Phi pHi Ley. which I think mean big and small phi phi islands. Phi Phi Don is where the hotels are and where the partying happens. It's a really great place. It's defnitely more expensive than northern Thailand that's for sure, but it's a a great place to be! The hotel we stayed it was pperfectly central - a personal bungalow with a personal bathroom, breakfast included and a pool too. It was 800 baht a night for the both of us, but that's about 16$ each, which is really cheap for a nice place like that if you were to find the same place in Canada. Every 2nd shop in Phi Phi was a dive shop so it'd be stupid if we didn't take the oppprtunity! An intro course with two dives was about 1/3 of the price in Australia for sure. Apparently a diving certification is just a bit more than one intro dive day in Cairns (where the Great barrier reeef is in oz). SO naturally, we did go. I did have a hard time at first, but after relaxing, I finally managed and then had a great time. Though since I was concentrating pretty hard on breathing slowly, I sometimes forgot to take a look around, so I missed a lot of cool fish.... but I saw lots of nemos!!!! they were so cute!

So Koh Phi Phi Ley, the smaller and uninhabited island, is where the movie The Beach with Leo Di Caprio was filmed. I'll have to rent it so that i can say "I went there!" during the whole movie!!! hahah

we went to railay beach (so expensive) and are now in phuket (cheaper) and flying out tomorrow. I have to go, internet is out...

im back n montreal on the 17th!!!! miss u and see u soon!

Thailand emails i sent

July 30th

I just flew into Bangkok, Thailand safe and sound this evening. It's crazy to think I'm in Asia! We haven't been into the city yet, and I assume the city will actually look like a city. It's been a bit hard trying to communicate not knowing any Thai, but our guidebook has some helpful phrases. "kurpkoon ka" means thank you, and "sawut dee ka" means hello. Catherine and I found a nice place to stay, thanks to a Canadian couple we randomly met in the streets on old City. It's pretty clean (Cat is afraid of encountering cockroaches) and the room has air conditioning. The weather at landing was a humid 31 degrees, and that was about 4 hours ago, and it's still really warm - we couldn't wait to change into something more summery!

Catherine and I aren't sure about certain things like water. We'll try to drink from bottled water all the time, but the food is pretty safe I think. Thais really pride themselves with their food, so you're likely to get something good. My dinner was Pad se-ew noodles, which was really good. Thais eat 6-7 times a day, so thankfully the portions weren't as big as when you get take-out Asian food in Montreal. The exchange rate is that 100 Baht is about 4 Australian dollars, which means, dinner, at 80 baht wasn't even that much. I'm not used to thinking in Canadian dollars anymore, but when we exchanged our AUD for THB at the airport, it seemed like Australian and Canadian currencies are pretty similar at this stage. I'm not sure what this means for the economy, but at least it won't be as weird for me when I come back! But that's a bit off topic...

It seems the shopping will be very good. I don't have anything that I really need to buy but I'm sure I'm going to end up purchasing a couple of things. Cat inquired at a couple of places on prices and once they offer a price, which we were just interested in knowing so we say thanks and walk away, but they want to sell so badly that they instantaneously drop the price about 50%. And things are really cheap in the first place!! Everything is open for barter. I'm definitely not good at bargaining, but I think the walking away trick works really well, so far!

So it's only been a couple of hours. We're going to be in Bangkok for the next few days before heading north to Chiang Mai.


August 1st

Hey everyone! Sawut-dee ka!

I know it's only been a day or two since my last update, but so much has happened that I just feel like I need to update!

Health: Both Catherine and I have a cold, sniffling here and there, an occasional cough, but all in all, we keep ourselves hydrated, always buying bottles of water, and we buy fruit a lot of the time (mangoes, papaya, mangosteens, other weird thai fruit...)

Food: Thais eat 6-7 times a day so the small portions served make it really easy for us too to adopt that eating regime. Last night we had dinner from some of the many street vendors. The food is really good (and well cooked) and for such a low fee (about 20 baht = a bit less than 1 AUD). After dinner, we sat out in an outside bar, and met some other pretty cool travelers, and had some cocktails. One thing you can't really bargain for is alcohol, but the prices, however fixed, we still good. Tonight, we went to chinatown and ate at a seafood restaurant. I had seafood in thai soup which was excellent.

Weather: There are three seasons in Thailand - wet, dry and hot. All three of them are ahave temperatures between 25 and 35, but now it's wet season. It rains really hard for about 5-10 minutes around 2-3 pm then for an hour or two around 5pm. The weather is still really hot, so a little rain isn't a big deal. After the first whole day here, we decided today it was a good idea to bring an umbrella. It doesn't rain for too long, but it rains pretty hard.

Activities: We live in a backpacker area, on a street called Khao San Road. All day there are markets and food stalls, but mainly the street comes alive at night. We often buy food from the street vendors, or some souvenirs etc, but also there are bars on the streets at night, live music, and lots of enthusiasm! We spent the evening on Khao San every of the three nights so far, and we have one more to go. We've travelled in a tuk tuk a few times; tuk tuks are cute open 2 passenger-1 driver cars that are a bit unsafe and shaky but are heaps of fun! They're really cheap if you bargain and they can drive you around short distances and even wait for you for the ride back! Yesterday, we visited the standing buddha (stands 26 m high), the sitting buddha temple (nice and quiet, and a guy there taught us how to do a prayer to the buddha), and finally we went to the Grand Palace (where the king Rama 1 first lived) and the temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Wat (enclosed temple) where the Grand Palace and the emerald buddha is, is really well preserved and really beautiful!! I tried to do a prayer to the Emerald buddha but I'm pretty sure I did it wrong. The Emerald Buddha is the most sacred of the Buddhas in Thailand, so I'm sad I messed up that prayer. Today, we woke up bright and early to go to the famous floating markets. We tried a bunch of different fruits, but a lot of them had a similar flesh to a lychee. Our favorites are the mangosteens. There are purple on the outside, and spherical, with a dark pink peel the color of raspberries, but the flesh is white are parted just like a pumpkin, and look the same color as lychees. Very sweet. the vendors all have a boat and they are packed with heaps of fruit or other goods, and we get into boats of 6people and stop the boat or vendors when we want to buy something! It was quite an experience!! We rode along the Chao Phraya river (running through Bangkok) on the ferry numerous times today. We also visited the Wat Arun, also known as the Temple of Dawn, which is decorated by lots of broken pieces of porcelain. It kind of reminded me of the Gaudi buildings in Barcelona, I think, even though that was a long time ago. Tomorrow, the plan is to go the Dusit park, an area for monks with beautiful gardens, a palace and a zoo. Then we will go into downtown to do some shopping!

That's it I guess. Going to Chiang Mai on friday!

Tim Tam news

Ohhhhh I've been trying to taste all the different Tim Tam flavours and have just tasted Classic Dark - ohh man that's totally thebest one yet!! mmmmmmmmm

Ok off for a tim tam slam!!

Brisbane time

Hey, it really has been a while since my last update. And so much has happened since that i feel I should have written, and now feel uninclined to do so, in a way, because I'll be sitting here for a very long time. However, the last couple of weeks have been absolutely amazing, so much so that writing about it, will bring back the memories and I will smile :)

It's only been 3 1/2 weeks maybe since my last final exam? It feels like over a month. My last final was on June 29th, so within two days, I packed up a couple of things and headed to the Sunshine State, Queensland. The plan was to stay with Sam for 5 days, then head over to Byron Bay for the next 2 and 1 final day in Surfers Paradise before heading back to Brisbane and catching an early morning flight back to Sydney. That's pretty much what happened, but I can't believe all the awesome times and things I've accomplished every day!

Sam is an Australian who came to McGill last year on exchange. He was in 3 of my classes last semester so that's how I know him. Tanya and I did spend most of Heat Transfer talking about the exchange boys, but I didn't ever really get to know Sam (or Matt from UK, but maybe a bit more). So, we got in touch through facebook and msn. I suppose I made a point to return to Brisbane.

So I ended up in Brisbane around 8am, and explored the city with my luggage because I knew Sam was working and I didn't want to be a bother. After a little nap at the museum, and struggling with the payphone, I got around to calling him. So he met me at a corner in the city, at which point he handed me his house keys, gave me directions to where he lived, gave me the password to his laptop, and told me to go home, shower, nap and check my email. Wow that was super nice and trusting and so generous. I was to meet up with him back in the city after work so that we can go out with his work friends. Sweet as! It was the end of the financial year, so Sam's boss put a tab at the bar, and we all had a great time. I really got along with some of his workmates! After the party died down, Sam and I and three of the workmates went to a couple of places in the party district of Brisbane.

Well that was mostly fun, and I ended up sleeping a long 12 hours that night mainly based on my lack of sleep the night before. I made an albert-style omelette for breakfast (meaning lots of vegetables), kicked sam's butt in advance connect-4 and listened to Sam play the accordion. It's so awesome that he plays so many instruments. His apartment was equipped with a piano, a guitar, a base guitar, and an accordion. The song he played for me on the accordion is from the movie Amelie and everytime I hear him play it, oh I don't know, it's just magical. I have that song in my head a lot of the time. I'm going to learn it on the piano next time I see a piano...

Then we jumped on the train and headed north to the Sunshine Coast where Sam's parents live! We got there just in time for sunset. It was absolutely amazing sunset and the view from his parents' place was awesome ! We could see the Glasshouse mountains below and wow what a view. The place is really cute too; it's so cozy and warm and wooden like a cottage and it's family oriented with lots of rooms and warmth in all senses of the word. The outside had lots of plants and a pond and fruit and vegetable plants with a large field beside and a crazy dog. His parents were there, and his younger sister who's 15, Tessa, and his younger brother, 17, Dan. There is also an older sister, but she is in Mexico, Hayley, who is I think 24. Tess and the mum made dinner which was incredibly delicious!! While we waited for it to cook, we all played Pictionary together. I don't know if this crossed anyone else's mind but I felt like the older sister who wasn't there. Well, I wasn't as confortable with them as I'm sure Hayley would have been, but being in a family situation, my first family encounter since I left home in January, I felt part of it. awww haha! In Pictionary, I had a Canadian Disadvantage ("Ten-pin" bowling??? what other kind of bowling is there???? lawn bowling apparently. darn.) but Sam and I still kicked ass and won!!

The next day we had to wake up early to go to the Sunshine Coast (i.e. beaches) and be back in time to catch the 12h30 train into town to be able to go rock climbing indoors with some of Sam's friends. So we went to some beaches, one called Mooloolaba where we just went on rocks and tried to find crazy animals and plants and stuff between the cracks. We found a couple of crabs. The second beach was the one where we went swimming, called Dicky beach. Well, we played some frisbee on the beach and went swimming. We ended up missing the train because Sam read the schedule wrong - tsk. But it ended up good because in the meantime we practiced with my boomerang in the field for a couple of hours and it ended up being heaps of fun! When we finally caught the train back, Sam, Dan and I went ten-pin bowling with a couple of Sam's friends. That was fun :) After a long night out, we stayed in, I cooked dinner, and Sam and I played some ping pong.

Cyrus, Mech Eng at McGill, exchange at U Sydney was in Brisbane in passing so I spent Monday with him. We walked in the city and along South Bank. Also went to the museum for a bit before Cyrus had to go back to catch his bus to Fraser Island at 2h30. I spent the rest of the arvo day dreaming and updating my diary in a large green space behind the transit center. In the evening, I watched a movie with Sam and Dan, then they both fell asleep in the middle of it in the same position. It was pretty cute :)

On Tuesday I had a day with Sam :) He had to go to uni for swimming training so I took the hour to walk around UQ campus (University of Queensland). Afterwards we took the ferry to this area called West End, just walked and talked mostly about how we pronounce things differently - haha. We had lunch in West End, in this little cafe, sitting outside at a table along the footpath. Once we got our food and ate for a bit, a homeless aboriginal woman came up to us asking for food. Sam gave her the sausage that he had just dropped on the table, which she grabbed quickly, layed it on my plate and covered it with salt. She wanted egg or toast from Sam, he was having a brunch. It was scrambled eggs, so pretty hard to give to her some anyways, so he said no, sorry, but she still pressed on. Then finally she just put her hand straight into his food, rubbed her hand on his toast, grabbing it and saying that now that she touched it, he had to give it to her! Ugh that was so foul, she just rubbed her dirty hands in it, yucky. I kind of lost my appetite after that. Sam just continued to eat the parts she hadn't touched, but thankfully the waitress brought him a new meal. Wow crazy experience! We've told that story so many times, I think it's been a bonding experience! Hahaha!

We then walked to South Bank which is super pretty. Sam convinced me to go see the movie Transformers with him. I wanted to go see Shrek initially because I don't think I ever watched Transformers as a kid and thought it would be a nerdy boyish movie, but it ended up being really good. He was so excited about Transformers like a little kid, I just had to give in. I'm glad I did because it was a good movie. I would like to see it again.

Sam and I were supposed to initially show up at the pub around 5h30 for steak night but we both knew that by going to the movie, we were only going to be there by 7 minimum. Well, I suppose, since we still ended up going to the pub, we got best of both worlds :) It was trivia night which was fun, except I only answered one question - what are the two shapes of patches on a soccer ball! Aha, I know this one :) (hexagons and pentagons). Yup, so that's where the fun of that night ended...

I spent the day with Joelle and Andrea and slept over at Andrea and Bronny's that night. The next day my friend Lindsay from England was in town and we went zorbing. Zorbing is when they put you in a big plastic inflated ball and roll you down a hill. you should look it up on youtube because i think it's really weird. the whole thing lasts about 30 seconds, really short, but it feels like a waterslide when you're in it. Lindsay and I were in the same inflated ball so we were bumping into each other but it was lots of fun. I thought it was going to be so boring and not worth it, but it was fun, so i'm glad about that. She was leaving Australia the next morning, so Bronny and Andrea (they're sisters) came into town and we partied for a bit at the Lindsay's hostel's bar until it got dull and the music was bad. Lindsay of course stayed there to go to bed and the rest of us hit up some other bars in the city. We didn't stay up that late, and finished the evening off with some pancakes, yup, at the 24 h pancake parlour. Sam was supposed to come out that evening but he texted that he was taking care or some younger cousins so could not come. Aww sad :( I was going to invite Rajiv from McGill materials eng who's working in Brisbane, but since Sam didn't come, I guess I wanted it to be girls night in that case, so when Rajiv didn't pick up, I didn't bother calling twice. Especially since I wasn't using my phone in the first place since I lost mine.

From Friday to Sunday, Joelle and I travelled to Byron Bay. That's actually in New South Wales state, 2 hours south of Brisbane. It's such a cute little town with surf shops and little cafes and restaurants, with a beautiful beach and a lighthouse. I had a lot of fun there. it was so pretty. joelle and I played with the boomerang on the beach, and i got it to return to me. We randomly ran into some guys we knew from exchange at UNSW: Jonas, Luke, Matt and Pierre at the Beach Hotel. That was so random. I saw Luke standing outside the toilets and that's how we met there. We made plans to meet at a club called Cheeky Monkeys later that night, which joelle and I went to but the guys never ended up coming. Joelle and I made friends with a lot of people at the bar, so it ended up being loads of fun.

Got back into Brisbane on Monday and made a point of having dinner with Sam. I arrived at his place at 7pm and he and his brother and I went to eat dinner. We had indian food and it was really really good. We had wine too and i liked it. I was meant to take the bus into the city and Sam and Dan go home, so we took about 30 minutes after dinner to just talk about random stuff on the side of the road, while waiting for the bus. The bus arrived so we got on it. I didn't realize goodbye was on the bus; i thought I was going to get off with them and chill out at their place for a bit, but it was already 10 pm and i had to get up the next morning at 4 am to catch my flight back to Sydney. "ok well, this is us", and they got ready to get off the bus. I handed Sam a thank you card letter, hugged Dan goodbye, briefly said we should meet up in France in a couple of years haha, then they got off the bus and waved hysterically as the bus drove off, and then I was sad. that was too quick a goodbye.

Oh well.

This is Ali, Joelle and I at the Brisbane airport at 6h30 am!

Sam and I, below, at sunset at his parents' place! awww

Depression Days

It's winter. It's dark and rainy, especially at night. You can't go out without a rainjacket or an umbrella because days are always going to contain rain at some point in time. Well, that's how it was the week before I left for New Zealand and that's exactly how it is right now. I don't know how to deal with this constant depressive weather. There is no snow; the city will never be covered in a blanket of white. Sometimes, I even like rain, but this kind of rain comes with brutal winds. The last week of school contained harsh winds and left many broken umbrellas lying around in the streets and in rubbish bins. The ones in the streets were probably disposed of well and swept away by the winds. My umbrella is pretty good for a compact one and already a couple of the structural members gave way. It's terrible.

The depressive nature of the weather, though, seems to fit with the mood and comes at a good time. It's time for finals, which means lots of studying and less going out. It's depressing weather that makes you want to sleep in, and never go outside. The former may not be optimal conditions for studying, but the latter certainly helps. The temperature is not near freezing, but walking in the rain and wind, and getting your pants cold and wet is an uncomfortable feeling that's dreaded a lot of the time.

I had my first final exam today. I was pretty worried about it, not having prepared for it as much as I would have liked to, but in the end, it went alright. I think I passed, and that's what matters. I still have 3 more final exams left to study for, and even though I am really not looking forward to studying, this weather is a lot better than sunny rays that make you want to go out and play :)

Unfortunately finals also mean that the term is coming to an end. The realization that our friends are going back to their home countries hit first two weeks ago at the last day of classes. I had just had my last class at UNSW, ever. With Joelle constantly playing Nelly Furtado's "Why do all good things come to an end?" or it just plainly being stuck in my head all the time, the thought of this 'good' experience coming to an end is more depressing than anything else: more depressing than the weather, and more depressing than finals. In the last couple of months, I've gained a new group of friends. Harry (UVA), Mike (Purdue), Mike (Cornell), Courtney (Georgia Tech), Ania (UNSW), Dom (...Germany), Kris (...Denmark), Sarah (UNSW), etc. We used to get together so often and then almost daily during the last 2 weeks of class. Most of our activities were at the beach or having a bbq or at someones place or at the spot and the only alcohol ever involved was wine with dinner. I love spending time with these people and I'm really going to miss them when we all take our seperate ways. I get to keep in touch with Joelle since she is a McGill student, but the USA guys will be hard to see again. I'm sure skype will help but it's such a sad thought to think about. Time has gone by so quickly and it running out even quicker. Already some of my friends have left. You never know when it will be the last time you see them.

(picture on the above-right: Kris, Harry, Mike, Khalid and I)

(picture: Joelle, Courtney and I)

Tonight I spent the evening with that group and it was, as always, great fun. Joelle and I made cookies. Then Joelle, Mike (purdue), Ania, Courtney, Dom and I went over to Harry's, whose twin brothers Steve and Blair are in town, for dinner. It was a delicious meal. Chicken Fettuccine alfredo with cool salad (avocados, dried berries, lettuce, cherry tomatoes) and homemade strawberry pie and coconut cream pies for dessert. yum. I brought Traminer Riesling (see image on right), a kind of really good sweet white wine. Haha, courtney really enjoyed that! So that was fun. I thought a bit about how much I'll miss them next semester, and found it really hard to leave, even though I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. But I managed to leave. And yes, it was pouring rain and very windy and cold. My whole front of my pants were soaked by the time I got home (25 minutes walk), as well as my shoes. And the rest of me was moist. If only I had known, maybe I wouldnt have taken a shower 7 hours before because I certainly got one on the way home ;)

I'm pretty sure that I'll end up going to the barbie at the beach tomorrow, and out into the city with them on friday. I'm just like that, always putting priority on friends. Especially friends I may never see again :(

Steve, Blair and Harry-----------------Joelle and I ---------------------Courtney and I

*sigh* Good things always do come to an end. At least I'll have someone to visit when I end up in indiana or wherever Purdue is, haha!

Picture: Ania and Dominik

New Zealand

Hey I just got back from New Zealand on saturday, which was the 16th of June. It was only five days, but it was really awesome. It was me, Bryant (UTexas, USA) and Ryan (Queens, Canada); we rented a station wagon and zoom-zoomed (it was a Mazda) around the south end of the south island.

(picture: Milford Sound)

Lara (Spain) and I met up at the train station to go to the airport on the 10th, because she and I were supposed to go then, while Bryant and Ryan were supposed to arrive in NZ on the 11th since they went to Fraser Island first. Since I've already said we were only three, you know that Lara didn't come. In fact, at check-in, as they checked our visas, there was a problem with Lara's. She's been having problems with it since she got here, and according to the Immigration office now, her visa expired in May (3 months) . This would mean it was a visitor visa, which is impossible since you had to prove you had a student visa in order to be allowed to study at UNSW. And even then, she has to at least be able to finish her semester with a student visa. A student visa is automatically 6 months for one semester. Something obviously went wrong and Lara was punished by the lack of communication that happened. She was told her visa lasted until july, but received no confirmation of it. So, having 5 minutes until check-in was over, I decided to go. At that point, after Lara had been 30 minutes on the phone with the Immigration office, it was decided she was not allowed to leave the country.

Going to New Zealand alone, I wasn't happy for Lara, but I could deal since I knew Bryant and Ryan were heading over the next day. I had to do this also in Tasmania. I got to Launceston a day early then met up with Cyrus in Devonport the next day. At least this time, all I had to do was stay in Christchurch, only find my way to the hostel. Though having a last minute cancellation, we still had to pay the cost of Lara's bed. I got in around midnight, so I had a whole day to discover Christchurch. I rented a car, and drove to the gondola. It was the same car we were meant to rent so the price was divided by 3 instead of 4 and so our whole trip was 1/3 more expensive. The gondola was nice (see picture above) . Christchurch is surrounded by mountains. Not really big or anything, but brings a nice view of the city. I stayed there until sunset, which was really lovely as well. At night I went around the city to Cathedral square and then watched TV for a bit and showered waiting for the guys to arrive around midnight.

Left image: Cathedral Square in Christchurch

What the original plan was, was to drive across the island to the west side, to Franz Josef and Fox glaciers and then drive to Queenstown from there and drive around the east coast back to Christchurch. But then this dirty irishman warned us about the ONE road across to "franz-joz" that might be closed because of ice and also that roads are a lot windier and longer than it looks. So instead we drove to Dunedin (where there's the steepest street in the world: see image on right) then to Queenstown (wonderfully beautiful, plus we we went bungy jumping) then to Milford Sound (spectacular mountain views: see picture on left), then back to Christchurch. It was good. We didnt get to see the glacier (it's okay because I've seen one before) or Mount Cook (highest NZ mountain) but what we did see what amazing!

Picture: on the road to Milford Sound

Wherever we drove we saw sheep mostly. and some cows too. I don't know if you've heard of Ugg boots... they're made out of sheep wool and supposedly really warm. They're really fashionably in Australia, but they just look like tall slippers to me. One of the exchange students back in Sydney once said. "you'd probably need to bring back your Ugg boots for canadian winters" well, maybe it's cold, but those thiings aren't designed AT ALL for dealing with thick snow or slushy puddles, so no, I wont be bringing back Ugg boots. What kind of a word is Ugg anyways? probably native Maori?? I don't know. I saw a neat shirt at the airport that said "baa baa baa. bar bar bar. that sums it up. new zealand" very true. haha

Crazy thing is bars and restaurants. They serve water with lemons, which is alright in itself, but these lemons might have been sitting out a while, but they really make the water taste like spices!! very interesting...

(Picture: me at Milford Sound)

I guess, you're waiting to hear more about the Bungy jumping... Well the whole time, to Ryan, he had already in his mind paid for the AJ Hackett Nevis Highwire bungy jump (143m jump), so we knew we'd encounter the situation where Bryant and I needed to decide if wanted to do some bungy jumping too. Queenstown is a worldly renowned extreme sports capital so it's inconceivable not to do something crazy. I always thought I'd rather do skydiving than bungy jumping, but hey now was the chance! On the way in to Queenstown, we drove by and say the AJ Hackett sign so we decided to stop there. Ryan needed to check the times for the Highwire in any case. The guy who worked there was really convincing on how cool it would be. He was pressing for us to do it NOW. I kept repeating.. no... I can't... no... it's too scary... but I knew I was lying to myself; the truth in the back of my mind was that I wanted to go and do it. I could hear myself wonder why I was saying no. I think I was saying no because I didn't want to do it alone. But then Ryan considered doing the Thrillogy which included the bridge, the highwire and the ledge. So Bryant and I decided to do the combo: the bridge and the ledge sky swing. The bridge was NOW. we paid, got weighed and went to throw ourselves off a bridge. I admit I was scared, but excited too. Ryan was the first to jump. He requested to get dunked in the water. I wanted to at first, but then it was really cold and I didn't want to be wet. It was really scary being on the edge of the platform. I thought I was going to fall over. The guy there said, "Okay, are you ready?" to which I replied, "No..." and right away he added, "okay on one you jump. 3....2......1!" I don't know what made me jump. It was like diving into a pool... but then you realize it's not a pool and you're falling, though only free falling for about a second, until the bungy cord kicks and and then it's okay. But that one second when you're falling and accelerating a bit, and don't know how long you'll fall for is really scary. But it only lasts a second. It's really short. I wasn't scared enough to wonder very much. Then the bouncing around after that is just fun. The whole thing lasts maybe 3 minutes. Pretty expensive for 3 minutes where you fling yourself off a bridge, while being attached by 600 underwear elastics (I have a bungy cord sample as a souvenir!). Came out with my hands shaking slightly but overwise not really affected. I was really pumped after that though. So we drove into Q-town and got to the gondola, up to the top, where the views were AMAZING (see picture on left)! That's where the Ledge is. 400m above the city, with awesome views. The sun was setting. Ryan did the bungy right as the sun was going down. He screamed some curses as he ran off the ledge, very funny! He said he was a lot scarier since there was no bottom. You jump into nothingness with the city 400m below! Bryant and I did the sky swing. Instead of jumping vertically downwards, you just swing from one side to the other. For the swing, you still have to drop about 10 meters of free fall, so that part is scary too, but the views were sooooo nice. When Bryant and I went, it was night, and all the city was lit up. So nice. But it was really cold that night. After all that bungying, I was soooo exhausted and cranky that I just wanted to chill out and be relaxed. Though I still went out with the boys, but was pretty tired and only drank water (...water that tasted like peppered lemons). Good stuff. It was quite an experience. I'm glad I did them, but for the price, I don't think I'll do it again.

Last week and this week were wild. Last week was the week where I had 3 tests on monday and tuesday. So the rest of the week, I decided to have fun. Wednesday, my friends and I had our usual (new tradition) wednesday night barbie at the Coogee Beach. Heaps of people turned up, so it was pretty much a party outside :) It was a lot of fun!

On thursday, I agreed to go on a date with a guy I met at the fitness center, but nothing came out of that. I guess I said yes, but don't really like him in the end; we're very different.

Friday I visited Cabramatta, one of the cultural hubs in Sydney, mostly Vietnamese. I actually went to visit it because we needed to do our essay on it for my sociology class. Afterwards, I met up with Ryan and Bryant to talk about our trip to New Zealand, and then went out that night to a place called 3 Wise Monkeys. They had a band playing cover songs and popular music and oldies so it was a lot of fun. I went with Ryan, Bryant and Sarah. Joelle was the one who made us want to go, but she was too tired to come out :( Oh well, we had fun. Bryant introduced us to a really nice beer called St Anoud St Cloud. it was light and citrusy and refreshing, very nice!

This week, I had to write my 2000-word paper on Australian multiculturalism and vietnamese immigration... It was a big pain to write, since I really dislike writing essays. I also had to find lots of academic sources: Wikipedia doesn't count :( So I handed that in today and now I have no more assignments or tests to study for until finals! Woohoo!

I attempted to go for a run on tuesday evening. It turned out to be very unstructured between periods of jogging and periods of walking, for a total of about 20 minutes of which 15 were jogging! That's good right? But now, even 2 days later, I'm still sore: my calves and back :(

I still went to the weekly Coogee barbeque yesterday, and ended up staying there until 10pm! And still had to finish my essay! But I'm glad I went because I met some really nice people!! It's okay though, I managed to submit my essay on time, got 8 hours of sleep and spend most of today making Budinca de Spanac, one of my favorite dishes, yet didnt get to eat it :(

Last week I told Jonas I was going to make some spinach dish anyways and he wrote me on msn in big letters with a happiface and everything that he loves spinach so i thought it would be a good idea. I admit I kind of invited myself, but it's okay if it involves free dinner right? It could probably serve 6 people a good meal or 12 people side dish (I made it in a rectangular baking dish) but he didn't want me to come over in the end. I really like him and his housemates and his place, it's really homey! I understand he had to do work, but hey!! it's free food! and good food! with spinach! and me! One of his excuses was that it was his turn to cook. That's not a reason... it's an odd one anyway. Oh well, he just didn't want a guest. Maybe I should have called one of his housemates, but it's okay. Instead I went over to Courtneys, brought bbq chicken, and indulged by getting myself lamingtons, a magazine and a bottle of wine :) We were about 15 people and had a huge family style dinner. That kind of gathering makes me really warm and fuzzy and happy inside :) We ate and talked and talked some more! Then we watched Pirates of the Carribbean 2 and I ended up arriving home at 1h30 am! What a fun evening! Dinner parties, potlucks, barbeques are such good fun! Must have more of those back in Montreal.

xxoooo hugzzz

Sorry I had to...

Hey My parents had trouble downloading the pictures on http://karensb.myphotoalbum.com so I had to delete some of the older stuff so that they could see the newer stuff.

xo

MechSoc, the weather, fashion and food!

It's funny. Now and back in Montreal, I always have the bedroom that doesn't get the sun. I learnt in my PV class that having the sun in the window isn't the way to have an energy efficient house, but I think it'd be cool to wake up with the sun in my face. I never have that feeling. Maybe that's why I sleep in late all the time, because it doesn't get truly light in my room.

The weather in Montreal I hear, is actually warmer than in Sydney. Here, it's probably 10-15 degrees at night and gets warmer throughout the day and get's to be pretty warm, maybe 20 degrees, between 11 and 2 pm. It's always cool in the shade. The way to dress here is in layers. Very different from Montreal. where even in winter you don't really dress for warmth without the coat because everything is centrally heated. It's winter and there is still air conditioning in classrooms! haha pretty funny when you think about it.

Harry and Celine-----------------Hamish---------------------Mack and Will










I have Mech friends (see above). They're pretty damn awesome people, Mech Eng sort of makes people cooler I find :) Definitely not replacing any of my awesome MechEng friends back home, but I'm going to miss them when I leave. "when I leave" is a more common conversation topic nowadays. THere are 2 weeks left of classes before finals then everyone is either leaving or traveling or staying for a year or for a degree. I'm going to travel. I am defnitely going to Brisbane during the 2nd week of July and maybe longer, see Rajiv and Sam in Brisbane, then traveling down the coast of New South Wales back to Sydney with Joelle. I was thinking maybe I should do a trip to Northern Australia, because you can't come to Australia and not see Uluru!! But it's so far!! Plus, Catherine and I want to travel for 2 weeks after she's done work and I really want to go to Thailand. (or Malaysia or Indonesia). And that trip will be a lot of money as well...

I attended MechSoc (Mech Eng Society) staff-student meeting and it's very different to MAME meetings (not that I've been on mame council but i've attended a number of times!) It was so official, no real mech council positions except the president. And apparently there wasn't even a council until this year or the year before. The meeting was mostly about computing issues in the Mechanical Engineering building. the students addressing those issues to the staff and discuss what can be done. It was an informative meeting, but I want to know about the events!! Hahah There's an Eng Ball in October :( I won't be here. There's a Mech Eng Harbour cruise (maybe equivalent to mech banquet) next semester in august (Maybe i'll be there). Next week there's a homebrew competition haha that should be funny!


I've gotten to the point where I don't need to bring a map when I go anywhere. It's not just not that I stop bringing a map, but a month or a month and a half ago, but I just wanted to mention it. I know street names and where I am most of the time. I know which busses to take and I really feel I know this place, it's my home (for now).

Fashion here is weird. I assume it's the same fashion in canada too. But I don't like it. for girls... lots of leggings and dark tights, with long shirts as "dresses" and high waisted everything (which isn't so bad when it comes to skirts and business outfits but not for me) and suspenders. Though I really need to get a pair of flats because all I have are running shoes and flip flops and no in between. I don't know what men's fashion is, but I don't like women's fashion. It "gives me the shits". Aussie for it's annoying or agravating. ;)

I love cooking. I think I'm a decent cook :) I definitely enjoy it and try to learn as much as I can. I've made fudge for a party (and made so many friends because of it) And I made Anzac biscuits and managed to bribe someone (as a joke). I made fish at a barbie at the beach a couple of weeks ago and it was so good my friends wanted the recipe, which was basically, put a bit of everything you think would taste good. I think the rule of "add in whatever you have" is a good cooking rule. I bought a baking dish, so that I can now make things in the oven. Like lasagna or chicken.

I live with 4 asians. China China Korea and India. I can't really adopt what the Indian one makes because it involves so many spices that I have no idea what's going on. I'm not that big a fan of curry anyways. But I think I'm turning east-asian. In my cupboard I have rice paper, rice vermicelli, korean seasoned seaweed, aloe drink, soba noodles, those instant noodle packs (but everyone has those). I eat with chopsticks a lot of the time, and sometimes I'll even eat asian food for breakfast (like today) because i dont think they eat a different type of food for breakfast. Bo my Korean flatmate has rice or soup for breakfast. I had my left over chow mein from last night for breakfast today. And at the restaurant yesterday, I had to explain to Joelle all the different kinds of noodles. I made sushi a couple of times too :) I go to the oriental supermarket sometimes and there are so many weird things there, I wish I knew what they were.

A popular dip here is sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Sweet chili sauce is awesome. It makes chicken taste so good with rice, and it's so easy. I crave potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce (I'll make it when in canada). And things are flavoured always at least that, and also another different flavour is chicken. like for chips. that's so funny!!.

Skype is awesome. I spoke to Marco yesterday!!! I miss Marco!

I miss everyone HEAPS

Thanks to Loksun for the postcard!

Karen is up to this

I've been up to lots of partying especially last week since we had wednesday off because of Anzac Day. Jonas and his house mates (pat, dharma and julian - also fun people) had a house-warming party on that tuesday. And then on wednesday, after getting home eventually (I took a bed for the night at jonas'), my new Mech Eng friend Mack invited me out into the city with Hamish and Will and Lucas (also Mech Eng boys) to a couple pubs. We went to one called Jackson's on George (on George street!) because Mack's brother was actually there with his friends. Apparently on Anzac Day, you start early playing some betting game called Two... something... where there are 2 coins and you either bet both heads or both tails or one head and one tail. So Mack and Hamish and them were out since a long time. Joelle and I only joined them around 7 pm. Joelle and I said we weren't going to drink, but the guys kept buying us schooners so we kept on drinking them. A schooner is the size of one beer usually. Depends on what state you're in. Then we went on to another place called the Paragon, where we played some sort of game where if you put a coin in someone's glass they have to scull (chug) it right away. I got "coined" first so I had to chug. Blah, chugging is annoying. Joelle and I taught them our drinking song and they have one too.

Here's to _______, he's (she's) true blue.
He's (she's) a hasher through and through,
He's (she's) a pisspot so they say.
Tried to get to heaven, But he (she) went the other way.
Drinking down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down.

Lucas eventually got himself kicked out, he's pretty crazy. He's czech also and was impressed on my counting abilities hehe. Will went outside with Lucas. Mack left to meet up with his bro for a lift home so Hamish, Joelle and I went for pancakes. By then it was still pretty early (about 10 pm) but they had been drinking all day so it's been a long day for them. Pancakes at 10 pm seemed like a good idea at the time (really yummy!!!) but then when I got home, I kept on burping pancakes flavor and didn't enjoy it at all.

On saturday, some of our fellow exchange students had a party at their place. It was really fun. Most of the people there were exchange students so I knew a lot of people.

This week has been very warm. And by very I mean just about 23 degrees at the highest. But during midday and the sun is out, you just lie on the grass in front of the library and the heat feels so good. The reason it's a bit chilly and it's actually autumn nowadays is because of the more or less constant breeze. Yesterday I fell asleep in the grass for a bit and I was probably playing there for 15-25 minutes and then realized I got slightly burnt just being out there, at 11am by the way. I noticed a line on my skin. It wasn't really red and within the next hour, the line faded and the reddish hue became golden hue, so that's good.

Today Joelle and I and her friend Courtney (from Georgia Tech) had a barbeque at Coogee Beach. It was fun, even though it was dark. I figured I needed to buy fish so I got some of the cheapest ones at the supermarket. I don't know how to cook fish. I don't think I've ever even tried to. one of the fish piecces I got was african cod I think ?? Anyways, I wrapped it up in Aluminum foil and didn't really know what to put on it so I just put a bit of everything I had in the fridge : tomato, onion, garlic, oil, salt, pepper, paprika, spinach, lemon and wrapped it up and left it to cook for about 15 minutes and it was actually really good. It cooked nicely and the flavors were really nice. I also made them garlic bread. My stuff turned out delicious :) And I feel like bragging about it to everyone.

After that, we headed to Jonas' place as we promised them about a month ago that we'd come over and make them cookies. They had all the ingredients, well except for the chocolate chips, but everything else. Joelle and I made the cookies.. they helped a bit, but it was a lot of fun because they are a lot of fun and cookies make it so much better hehehe ;) They turned out pretty good. I ate a lot of them, and brought a few home... And I can smell them from a meter away and everytime I get a sniff of chocolate chip cookies I have to stop mysefl from eating them because i'm still so full!

So Tanya's in Swiss for the summer. That's crazy huh?! Yup.

Update

I've posted a bunch of Tassie pictures, although not all yet, because it takes forever and the internet wasn't working for the last week here.

I'm also studying for a test on monday.

Jonas is having a party on tuesday, I'm bringing fudge. I expect good times. Jonas is the exchange student from Sweden, one of my good friends, here.

Wednesday Apr 25 is Anzac Day, whatever that means... It means no school! Well it's not like I'm missing very much. Usually I just have a lab or tutorial for 2 hours. I suppose there'll be celebrations in the city.

Last Friday I went to Bondi junction with Joelle and met Steve there. We found this Hungarian cafe on the top floor near the cinema. They have cakes there that look like my romanian gramma's cakes. Ohhh looks so good!!! I was drooling right there. I was so tempted. I ended up giving in one little hazelnut cream filled biscuits... I don't know what they'd be called, but sooooo good!!!! I am definitely going back there!! They even had little chocolate rum balls like my gramma makes. Seriously, it's heaven there.

Tanya's going to Switzerland for the summer for an internship. She's leaving on saturday! thrilling?!

I got a landline. The number is +612 9398 7981

locally it's (02) 9398 7981

So call me. ........I suppose that's all for now.

Tasmania... as if I were there just yesterday :)

I just got back from a very wonderful trip to Tasmania. I left on monday morning, the one after Easter, on a morning flight. I have 2 midterms on tuesday, both of which I'm probably going to fail. They're about 20% each, but I didn't have any time to study. Actually that's inorrect, since I had all Thursday to Sunday of last weekend, before going to Tasmania.

So Monday morning I left the house around 6h30. My flight was at 9 am almost, but I ended up getting there around 7am. Oh well. So I landed in Launceston, Tas' 2nd biggest city after Hobart, and I visited the Cataract Gorge there. Then I took the bus to Devonport (3rd largest city), stayed overnight. Cyrus came on the Spirit of Tasmania on Tuesday morning, the ferry that arrives from Melbourne. So we rented a car, an oldschool black Mitsubishi sedan, and drove south, through the town of murals (Sheffield) and we visited natural Caves in Mole Creek. Very nice there: we saw glow worms with of course all the stalactites and stalagmites! Then we stayed in a hostel in Cradle Mountain Valley. The next day we did a day hike to the top of Cradle Mountain, a bit more than 1500 m, about 8 hours return trip. Nice view. Good climb. I'm so out of shape though. Cyrus didn't even wait for me to go to the top. He got there like 20 minutes earlier. The climb was really difficult and long and hard and tough and exhausting, but so totally unbelievably worth it!

Then we headed towards Hobart. The route from Cradle to Hobart is not recommended to drive at night, but we wanted to get to Hobart that night. But the roads were full of animals. Lots of roadkill on the sides. Saw a whole bunch of wallabies and kangaroos and and I almost ran over a wallaby but didn't. After that I was all freaked out and getting tired and we were running out of gas so we stopped overnight at the next town (called Bronte Park). We took 10 minutes or so to just look at the stars. I dont think I've ever seen so many stars before! It was surreal and absolutely amazing! It felt like you were strapped to the edge of the earth. But that is kind of true... we're strapped by gravity! I saw 2 shooting stars. One of which I wished I wouldn't drive over any poor animal in Tas. (which came true in the end! ) So that night was sooooo cold even though we had about 4 wool blankets.

The next day, we went through Hobart to the Cadbury chocolate factory. That was really fun! I love chocolate! We got some free chocolate and they sold some there for really cheap, but I didn't get very much because I knew I'd eat it really quickly! Then we went to Port Arthur, a historic village. We happened to go in for free (the entrance fee was 25$ but nobody checked)... we actually ended up inside accidentally. Well I've already been to a couple historic towns like that with my parents. So it didn't really interest us that much. We checked out a beach around there, as the sun was setting, so we didn't go swimming, but I was like a little kid running along the beach trying to find cool washed up shells .

So we ended up at this really cozy hostel somewhere up the East coast, in a town called Triabunna. The hostess there was really nice and the whole place was really cute and cozy with a fire burning. Met a whole bunch of people there. The hostess (Fran) made a fresh batch of cookies everyday. I think they might me anzac biscuits because they had oats in them, but ive never had anzac cookies so I wouldnt know. Anyways I had 6 that night, they were so good!!!! We slept in the living room that night beside the fireplace because the rooms were cold. but it still got a bit cold in the night.

Tasmania is really cold at night, like there was frost in the windows of our old school rented mitsubishi in the morning. But in the day time it gets really warm, like 20 to 25. We had really good weather the whole time. So after that hostel, I drove up to Wineglass Bay, where we hiked this mountain Mt Amos (only about 3 hours return) the view at the top was really awesome. I don't know if you've seen what wineglass bay looks like but it's way cool to see it from up there. I'll post pictures soon, but you should google it! I was wearing crappy skater type shoes (that's all I've got) so on the way down, I kept sliding and scraped several parts of my hands and legs. Cradle mountain got me really sore the day after and after this hike I was really really sore.

So that night we drove all the way back to Devonport, with good timing, just until the sun set, to return the car. Because that ghetto place we rented the car from doesn't have a rental place in Hobart. The next day we were going to take a bus to Hobart, which was 56$ each, then realized it would be cheaper to rent a car to Hobart. And that way, we could let it at the airport this morning before our flight. So we rented a car and it ended up being like 105$ with the gas, and with the bus to hobart it would plabably be something like $150 for the both of us with the shuttle bus or taxi to the airport this morning.

So yesterday we had some time to kill in Hobart. We went to the Salamanca market, which is a big outdoors market, with lots of handmade stuff and cheap things. I really wanted to get fudge, but again, the better choice would be not to. Lots of souvenirs, but nothing I needed. Then, we took a walk up the the Cascades brewery. But since it was Saturday, it was closed, but we still got to see the nice building from the outside and went into the gift shop. Cyrus makes his own beer back in Montreal so he bought some beer mix or whatever from there. That should be good. Our hostel that night was pretty cool. For the first time we got included linen and it was actually warm at night. We watched a couple of movies at the hostel (Double Jeopardy - good movie - and red october -- too long to pay attention) and took an early flight this morning and now i'm back in Sydney. Home sweet home.

And I have to study...

Banquets at McGill

Nobody really posted any pictures of Mech Banquet... I was really looking forward to that. Phillippe probably posted a dozen and Nick G's gf Lisa (from what I got from the Calabogie pictures) took some pictures, but since she's not my "friend" on facebook.com, I wasn't able to view the lot.

On the other hand, soooo many people posted Plumbers' Ball pictures. I went last year, since I was on the committee and that was fun, but there weren't THAT many people graduating that year. Dave Kruger, Tommy went, the Mals, Marie Eve... well it was fun, in any case!

So having it at the Intercontinental made example for this year again! that's an awesome venue:) it's so beautiful. Actually there's this building in Sydney called the Queen Victoria Building that looks like Marche Bonsecours from the outside and like the Intercontinental hotel and building from the inside. OK that's enough of relating Montreal to Sydney...

I looked at probably about 10 albums of Plumbers' Ball out of maybe 15 and honestly I felt the most homesick so far. A lot of my friends attended this one, some of which got their iron ring and some of which are EUS, and some of which are just friends and dates of them. I saw so many people I know looking absolutely stunning in a beautiful room, just overwelming. It really did look like a perfect ending for a B.Eng :) Tommy, Dean, Albert, Boyana, Matty, Jeff, Vince, Sarah, Simon, Cat P, Sam, Rhys, Jaci, etc.... etc..... I'm not even going to name everybody.

I just really wanted to be there. Maybe if I'd have seen pictures of Mech Banquet, maybe I'd have wanted to be there too, but that wasn't the case. Since I had a lot of fun last year at PB, i'd have had so much more with so many more friends there. I MiSS YOU!!!!!!

Ahhh well, I probably have to go to bed. I'm seriously slacking off!!! I'm such a lousy student now that I'm in Australia. I have so many things to do this week and I haven't been doing any of it!!! And I'm going to Tasmania on easter monday for 6 days with Cyrus (Mech ENG). Should be loads of fun! I'm also wondering if I should go to Australia Derby Day this saturday.... 40$... I have noone to go with yet.

x sending love

you should send me a postcard :) check facebook or earlier posts to find address

10 Weird things about Aussie Land, Part 2

1) Take-away food not Take-out
2) Cheese Toastie instead of Grilled Cheese, it's like that in UK too
3) I'm pretty sure "doggy bag" is never used
4) Beers come in sizes: middy, schooner, pint, jug
5) A B C D E F G "Haych" I J K....
6) jacket for anything that has a zipper and jumper for anything that's warm
7) dodgy, where McGill uses "sketchy" or "ghetto"
8) "tea" can mean anything from just tea, to dinner, or even going out for drinks
9) Aussie foods include: lamingtons, damper, anzac biscuits, pavlova, anything with macadamias 10) biscuits mean cookies, but say "bickies" instead

Australian Race Day

Australian Race Day is April 7th, which means that the Royal Randwick Racecourse will be swarming with race horses and fancy dressed ladies in a week and a half from now. I've seen advertisements for it: it's like from the movie My Fair Lady, where the men wear neutral coloured suits and the women wear elegant, fancy dresses with stupendous hats. Definitely not an event I have something to wear to. It would be quite amazing to see actually, and I can't wait to take a peak when that day comes.

Horseracing or racing in general is pretty popular around here. I get the see the racecourse every morning and every night, to and from school. Since the big race is in less than 2 weeks, practice is needed for the horses/jockeys. If you wake up early enough, say around 7h30, like when I was going to school for my monday class at 8 am, I saw lots of jockeys and their beautiful horses practising, running around the track. Of course, from where I live, it's not the best view around and the horses are probably the size of bees when I look at them from here, but all the same it's an awesome sight.

It may be because my sister, Audrey, loves horses. I grew up with her around, and my parents and I were trained by her to spot every horse that crosses our life paths. I indeed had to take a picture of the horse-crossing sign near uni, and of the policemen on horseback in The Rocks. It's just something I do automatically without thinking, just like a dog automatically barks to the door when he needs to take a leak. Trained! But I am not mad at this at all. Seeing the horses run made me feel a sort of happiness of freedom... it's not that easy to explain a feeling, but it was definitely good. The kind of feeling maybe, that you'd feel in a large field in the sun and with a warm wind blowing in your hair, a sort of euphoria.

I honestly wasn't prepared to find myself in such a state of happiness as I watched the horses gallop along the racecourse, not incredibly fast, but with a good pace, getting a feel for the track. I do say thanks to Audrey, because I don't think I'd have been so happy to see horses.

But it's not just that... I guess seeing horses, and not being able to point them out as usual to her, isn't normal. Sometimes, I do think about home, but not so much in a missing sense, but of a pride sense. Because I love my family, and I do want to share certain things with them. But the fact that I can experience these joys, regardless of if my family is with me, still makes me feel incredibly lucky and happy. I love Australia!

My CanaDad visits Sydney!

G'Day

Hmm i know I haven't updated in a while. Sorry, I've just been busy, you know, having the best time of my life!

So MAME (McGill Association of Mechanical Engineering) has elected a new committee, including me! Woo hoo! I'm so glad. Tanya helped me out a lot so thanks!!! Here's what she reported:

MAME student council 2007-08:
President: Derek
VP Internal: ME!!!
VP External: Eddy
VP Communications: Marco
VP Finance: Tanya
VP Academic: Catherine
U4 rep: Julia
U3 rep: ?
U2 rep: ?

Awesome!!! That means I get to organize Mech wine and cheese and Mech Banquet! Hey, actually friday was Mech Banquet this year! I'm really excited to see pictures. I already saw some pics from Volunteer Banquet, but to be quite honest, it didn't look like THAT much fun. Of course, it's because Cat and I weren't there! haha.

Speaking of photos, I updated lots of my albums on http://karensb.myphotoalbum.com so check it out as soon as you can! Updates include:

new albums:
-Melbourne
-CanaDad visits
-Bondi and the Coastal walk
-Other Contiki people's Contiki Pictures

updates:
- in and around Fiji
-out and about in Sydney
- living in sydney
- what we did when catherine came to sydney

So on thursday, there was the MechEng pub crawl, which is actually like our (mcgill eng-type) bar tours, but with less people than at frosh. its about 5 bars and spend an hour or so at each. I really wanted to go, because I should really make some friends in Mech, but I also had my roomate's, Bo, birthday celebration dinner. She's 25 but she says 15... She's actually very immature sometimes, in a good way. And other times she looks totally innocent, and unexpectedly says something completely opposite to innocent, very wild: Shocking! hehe, yup she's awesome, so I had to attend. We had rice paper rolls (real vietnamese spring rolls) nobody is vietnamese though.

Hey, come to think of it, I never really told you who my roommates were! So there's Bo, 25 y old, doing Law, Korean, studied undergrad at canberra i think???unless that's Li....???, went on exchange to China. Second, there's Nitya: i don't know how old but her bday is next week (24 maybe?) , I think she's doing a postgrad degree in creative writing. She's from India and is vegetarian. Next, we have Li, chinese girl, very cute and sweet. Her bday is in May, I don't know how old she is though, and I don't know what she studies. maybe she's the one from canberra. Li loves meat :) And lastly we have Judy, chinese, has a bf. Bday in July (the 3rd) and i don't know what she studies... I don't really know her because most of the time she's not home, or in her room with the door shut, and kind of reserved too. But all my roomates are really nice. I get along the best with Nitya and Bo. :)

So then after that, Joelle and I joined the Mech pub crawl. Actually I joined up with them at the beginning , around 4h30pm, just so I could get the info and get the main guy's number (very good looking mech eng student, but taken) I had a couple of beers with them before heading to Bo's bday dinner. So when we met up with them later, around 10h30 pm, there were lots of guys. I suppose that's mech for you! well there were some girls but they were not mech. I'm pretty sure I was the only mech girl there. We went to Bar Ace, they have 3$ drinks until 11pm, but quickly went to Scruffy Murphys. The guys were really drunk, and one dropped a glass so they got kicked out. Scruffy Murphy's is an irish pub. It reminded Joelle a lot of Hurley's in Montreal, and it kind of reminded me also, and a bit of McKibbon's too, but so not as awesome as McKibbins lol! It had a band playing on the main level, then downstairs there was a dance floor with radio-type music. Actually a lot of my favorite tunes... I enjoyed the music a lot, but it took me a while to start dancing, because I was shy in front of all those guys, especially since one of them was constantly monitoring my dancing levels... kind of creepy actually. He was weird. Fun night!

Friday was a packed day! Joelle and I went shopping at Bondi Junction, then we went to Bondi ("Bond-eye") beach. We were supposed to meet up with these guys Matt and Luke, but they probably just went surfing on their own, since they didn't call and didn't pick up the phone. Anyways, we left the beach around 5h30 and decided to walk to Coogee ("Could-gee")along the Coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee. It's about a 2 hour walk, but it was lovely. New pictures on myphotoalbum.com

Then I had a Tim Tam party with her, eating Tim Tams, for a while. Then I went to see Jonas' new apartment. Got home pretty late, long day.

Jonas is swedish, also on exchange to UNSW for one semester, and he's teaching me some swedish!! haha i now know more than just "ikea" hahaha

I'm thinking of buying a UNSW hoodie. The one I like is about 55$, dark grey, says "UNSW University of New South Wales". Ideally, I'd like it to say, "UNSW University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia", but none of them say that :/ I think I'll get it.

So on friday night, actually saturday morning, I spoke on msn with a couple of friends for a while, including erik. It was fun talking to him, I kind of miss him! Anyways, we talked until very late (early) then he got Skype and that was a lot of fun!! hehe Skype is definitely a good idea. I already called the Mals via Skype.

I went to bed sooooo lateeeee!!!!! and in consequence I slept until noon, though my dad came to sydney around 8 am. I didn't even realize he messaged me! I finally got up out of bed and met up with him. We went to lunch in the Rocks area, after a nice walk around there. We ate at some german place. It was pretty good. It's weird not to tip in a restaurant. I had a sort of german pizza and a raspberry smoothie, and my dad had a german breakfast and a beer. After that, we wanted to go to the zoo, but it was already pretty late, so instead we went on a harbour cruise, which included coffee and cake. It was very nice. Then we went back to the hotel. He's staying at the Radisson in the city - it's so nice there! It's really central (on Pitt near Martin Place)/. There's a pool and a spa and Joelle and I are going to go take advantage of the situation at some point in time! hahaha We had supper at an italian restaurant called Casa di Nico in Darling Harbour. yummy, but expensive!!

Hej då
that's swedish for bye

Little weird things, so different

See #5

1) most students I've met at UNSW are doing a double degree.
2) It's "Mr. Sheen" here, as opposed to our "Mr. Clean" cleaning product
3) Hungry Jacks is a fast food place with the same symbol as Burger King
4) Thickshake describes Milkshakes/smoothies
5) They have canned or bottled rum and coke, bourbon and coke, whiskey and coke, vodka and coke. Everywhere.
6) They spell it "tyre" those things on a car
7) a car has a bonnet and a boot, in Canada it's the hood and the trunk
8) everything is abbreviated to something ending with a "ie" sound "surfie" even though it's the same number as letters as "surfer"
9) Slice... that's cake in a pan, cut into squares. it's not slice of... just slice.
10) rhetorical questions followed by an answer containing "heaps". e.g.:
Aussie 1: How good is this slice!?!
Aussie 2: Heaps good!!
11) I heard a guy say "skooers" for skewers
12) this is not really related, but I also heard people talk about "impotency". it's impotence.
13) Ok something that really bugs me: there are elections next weekend, so there are loads of campaigns, not to vote for someone, but AGAINST!?! What the? that's so not the point of elections!!!
14) saying "ta" or "cheers" instead of thank you. Maybe I should start saying that...

Melb'n

This picture: Phillip Island Seal Rock at sunset

I just got back 2 hours ago from Melbourne. It was an overnight bus and I hardly got any sleep done.Maybe 3 hours out of 11? We got back around 6h30 am and I figured I should go to my 8 am class since I was awake anyways. I was passing out in class from being so tired so I had to get myself a coffee just to wake me up. at the coffee place during our class break, I met this guy (named Andrew) from Sydney, in Aerospace eng, he was kind of cute, but more importantly, when I told him my name he said, " I heard about you" then when I gave him a curious look as to how, he said something along the lines of "well, not a lot of girls in this class, so you get noticed pretty quickly" :) ahh that's cool, nice to know I've been noticed by some cute aussies in mech :)

I just faxed McGill with my classes, hopefully I'm going to get all my transfer credits. I wonder when I'll know!

Melbourne was awesome. Oh the Friday, we had this tiny tram tour of the city, which was cool but wasn't long, then Cath and I went on a Day trip to Phillip Island. We stopped at a winery on the way and had some wine tasting. I didn't really like them that much - I'm a bit picky - but the port wine was good. After that I had a bit of a buzz to that was fun :) Then we went to a petting zoo place (i think it was called Maru) where we touched a wombat, fed kangaroos, taught a sort of parrot to say "hello" (we like to think it didn't know it beforehand) and saw a bunch of other animals like koalas, Tasmanian devils, emu, wallabys, alpacas, a croc, etc. Lots of fun. Then off to Phillip island where we saw the penguin parade. they were a lot smaller than i expected, but also so much closer! they walked all the way up to the tourist center and we saw them so close to us! Too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures.

On Saturday, we had a day trip to the Great Ocean Road. the weather was amazing and the views too! wow. Soon I'll put my pics up! That was st patty's day so at night Cath and I and a few of her girlfriends we out and drank a lot but i had so much fun

On Sunday, I woke up at noon, hungover. Oh I slept at Cath's place. We went shopping around the city. It's really nice. Trams are cool. I like the little alleyways and the cafes and the sushi. Bought a shirt and some shorts. Fun! That day was the F1 but even though I would have liked to go, I chose to spend the day with Cath. later, at the hostel, with our group, we had a BBQ on the roof (yummy) then it was off to Sydney.

My dad is coming to Sydney this weekend from the 24th to the 29th, because he's actually working in Dubai for a bit and he's made his way back home to pass through Australia. I was actually planning on going to Hunter Valley on the 24th for the day. it's a winery just outside of Sydney. I want to go, and my dad says I should since he'll have been on an overnight plane from Dubai and he'll want to rest that day, but I don't know if I should. Ideally he'd come with me. I'll have to check if there are trips on other weekends.

I booked my plane ticket to Tasmania during easter break. Land in Launceston and leave from Hobart. I haven't figured out yet what I'm going to do there. Cath said she booked the tasmania trip at melbourne during the week off right before exams, and she said for 4 days its less than 400$, but I can't find any trips for that cheap. I'm in Tasmania for 1 week. I kind of want to go to Cradle mountain and Wineglass bay, they seem really nice. I'm going with Cyrus (he's in mech, on exchange to U of Sydney) but we haven't really talked about it much. he's going to melbourne first and i dont even know when he's getting to tasmania, but he'll arrive at devonport from an overnight ferry.