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