Fun in Brizzy (aka Brisbane)

The weekends pass by far too quickly. Suddenly it is Monday morning, and time for tutorials. My trip to Brisbane started off a little differently then expected due to me not reading the terms and conditions well enough (Ooops...). 

My newly booked flight to Brisbane left at 6:10am on Friday (March 28th), which was perfect. Or so I thought... After the last lovely night Isabelle and I spent at Melbourne airport, I promised myself that I wouldn't sleep at airports anymore. Well, it didn't take long for this promise to be broken. I headed to the Sydney airport and got there at around 12:30am, only to realize that the airport was CLOSED! I couldn't even get in the check-in hall. Thankfully, there was a Macca's (McDonald's) within a 10-minute walk. I sat there with some other travel refugees, working on my paper, until the airport opened at 4am. 

A bench all to myself. Luxury! 

I flew with the Star of the Jets (i.e. Jetstar) both ways. Airport security has been far less stringent than I'd like. They screen people, but they don't really SCREEN them. I'd prefer everyone get a good pat down, are asked a bunch of questions, and not be allowed to bring anything on the flight. Everything goes through the X-ray machine and metal detector, so that's good at least. However, they don't check ID, like AT ALL. They have no idea who is getting on these flights. Gah. 

After a looong night and an hour and a half bumpy ride to Brisbane, arriving at Casa de Heidi y Martin was fabulous. The oasis that they call home, is located in Fortitude Valley, just a few stops away on the AirTrain. They have a 2-bedroom, which meant I got my own room with a double bed. Ahhh, the glory of sleeping in a double bed after almost 2,5 months sleeping in twin beds. Devine! Great start to the weekend. 

Ahhh... So nice to be able to spread out! 

They also had a nice pool and BBQ area. It was supposed to rain while I was in Brisbane, but the Weather Gods decided to cooperate and provide sunshine (and super high humidity levels, but we can't complain). Love it! 

My flight arrived early, and I got to Heidi's place by 7:30am. Martin was just getting up for work, and was headed for a weekend bachelor party trip to some island with his some friends afterwards. Only got to see him for a little while before he headed off. Another downside of arriving a day late! 

Though I ended up with half of the funny duo, it was a fabulous weekend. I love knowing someone in the places I visit. It makes everything so much easier and fun. Heidi has been a grand tour guide these past few days. She knows so much about everything and anything. Lots of interesting/funny/weird trivial knowledge, too. After grabbing coffee and a quick bite to eat at a restaurant by the river, my tour guide took me to the City Botanic Gardens. I haven't been to any botanic gardens while in Australia, and it was really just like a big park area. Beautiful plants and trees all around. 

Pretty flower that I don't know the name of

Ficus beghalensis - Banyan fig 

Stoic water dragon

When Isabelle and I were traveling in India last year, we came across a happy goat that looked like he was smiling. I feel like this smiling water dragon is giving the smiling goat a run for it's money. Don't you agree? It's adorable! 

Look at that little face! 

Such a happy little goat 

Smiling Heidi is also pretty adorable, I'd say.

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was just around the corner from the Botanic Gardens, so we stopped by. They had huge interactive screens that would give you info about underwater specimens. The Virtual Reef was pretty nifty! 

On the tour of the city, we also stopped by the casino to try our luck. This proved to be a fruitful journey as Heidi won $7 on the penny slot machines (aka the "pokies"). Yep, a new pokies gambler was born that day. I almost had to pry her little hands from the machine when it was time to leave (not really, but could you imagine how funny that would be?). 

Treasury Casino & Hotel

Big spender

 I'm making my way down the list of most populous cities in Australia; Brisbane in the third most populous. Brisbane is more inland on the East coast, and has a winding river flowing through. We walked all around South Bank on my first day there. Such a nice place to take a stroll. Not being close to the (real) beach is not a problem in Brizzy; the city has created a  beach area for their inhabitants. This is Streets Beach at South Bank. 

Doesn't this kind of remind you of the fenced area in Jurassic Park?

There was some kind of race going on when we were at South Bank. All the runners were wearing little red Speedos (or "budgie smugglers" as they are sometimes called). A budgerigar is a type of bird, similar to a parakeet. Lots of bird smugglers running around! 

Go, go, go, budgie smuggler! 

We took the City Cat home after all the sightseeing. The City Cat is a ferry boat that goes up and down the river. A convenient way to get from A to B while seeing some beautiful views of the city. 

If you look closely, you can see more budgie smuggling runners

Beautiful skyscrapers

This weekend was filled with culinary experiences - some new, some old. Heidi was shocked (more surprised, but shocked sounds more dramatic) that I hadn't had a sausage sizzle. It turned out I had tried this, I just didn't have the lingo down. A sausage sizzle is a grilled sausage with grilled onions, served on a piece of white bread. You can imagine how healthy these are! Sausage sizzle are very common at the Macquarie BBQs (that's where I've had them). We fired up the barbie (well, we pushed a button), and had these for dinner my first night in Brisbane. Heidi's friend, Laura, joined us for this fabulous evening. 

Next: A visit to the jacuzzi! Ah, this is the life. We spent a good few hours in this great place. We discussed all of life's dilemmas. Among other things, what's the difference between spa/jacuzzi/hot tub? 

Culinary experience # 2: Lamingtons! These are an Australian dessert, and consist of a white sponge cake that is covered with chocolate and coconut. These were jam-filled, but you can get them plain, too. Heidi said the plain ones can get a little dry though. We don't like dry white cake, so jam-filled was the way to go! Our other dessert-y item this weekend was Norwegian chocolate. Ahhh... Norwegian Firkløver (milk chocolate with nuts). Tusen takk igjen, far! 

Culinary experience #3 was in liquid form. Heidi, Laura and went to one of Brisbane's best espresso spots, LTD Espresso, for coffee in the morning. Laura mentioned that one of the baristas is really into latté art (i.e. making a picture in the milk foam). We got three coffees, but as you can see, only two of them are pictured. The third coffee wasn't PG-rated enough for my blog. Check out @ltdespresso on Instagram for more of the latté art. You can guess what Laura got in her coffee! 

Surfer in my Australian coffee

Poor Heidi got a worm in her coffee 

We went to a market for culinary experience # 4: Curry puffs! These were remarkably tasty, and contained sweet corn, potato, carrot, and curry powder in a wheat flower pastry. The market was a lot of fun. Such a great place to people watch! 

Heidi and Laura at Davies Park Market  

They also had lots of fresh, cheap vegetables and fruit at the market. We ended up buying a few things. Can't quite remember if Heidi ended up getting the cauliflower that was as big as her head. Hm. 

Drum roll, please. Culinary experience # 5 was the most exotic and likely the best of the whole trip. We went to Tukka Restaurant for brunch on Saturday (March 29th), and had some delicious Australian food. Unfortunately, they were all out of crocodile, but we did get to have a kangaroo steak sandwich and a spiced emu burger. The kangaroo steak sandwich was served on sourdough bread with beetroot red wine relish, roquette and wholegrain mustard mayonnaise, and asiago cheese. The emu burger had caramelized onions and quandong tomato chutney. I'd have to say the emu burger was my favourite, but the kangaroo wasn't bad either. As expected, the kangaroo tasted very gamey. I didn't know what to expect of the emu burger, but it was much better than I thought it would be! 

Emu burger 

Kangaroo steak sandwich 

In many places in Australia (all over?) it is socially acceptable to walk around without shoes. I remember meeting my friend, Anne, at Bondi Beach one of the first days in Sydney, and she wasn't wearing shoes. I'm used to wearing shoes everywhere, so naturally this seemed a little odd to me. But don't knock it 'til you've tried it! Heidi and I decided to go shoeless on our trip to Wooly's to pick up some things for our next culinary experience. We didn't go without shoes the whole way... We took them off in the parking lot. My feet are far too delicate to walk the whole 7 minutes to Wooly's (and I didn't want my feet getting super dirty, haha). 

There we were, in Wooly's shoeless, and no one even noticed. It was like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was expecting people to gawk at our feet. But no, they just went along with their day. No biggie. I wonder if it is socially acceptable to go shoeless at the Macquarie Mall? I'm don't think I'm curious enough to find out. 

When in Australia...

It was actually quite comfortable. Like a vacation for your toes, as Heidi would say! 

The last culinary experience was one I was highly familiar with: Norwegian waffles! I'm not sure how, but Heidi found both the Toro waffle mix and REAL Tine brunost (brown cheese). I mixed up the batter, Laura provided the waffle iron, and we were on our way to waffle heaven. Norwegian waffles are the best. You can eat them with whatever you like, but it is common to eat them with sour cream and jam or brown cheese. Or my favorite: butter and sugar! Helloooo, diabetes! 

My brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law love the waffle and pancake mixes from Toro. I love seeing their faces light up when I pull the mix out of my suitcase when I visit. They are really convenient; all you have to do is add butter and water. Neither recipe is very complicated though, so it's easy to make from scratch. My Norwegian friend, Julie, once gave me a horrified look when I didn't know the pancake recipe by heart. That's how simple it is; if you don't know how to make it from scratch your friends give you dirty looks. 
(I know how to make them now, Julie.)

After eating all these yummy things, we realized it was time to get some exercise. What better exercise than some "lawn bowls"? This sport was new to me, but turned out to be heaps of fun. We headed to the New Farm Bowls Club, paid the $7 rental fee, and got an intro lesson from an adorable man called Spoons. You play on a flat, natural grass surface, and the objective of the game is to roll bigger balls towards a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". The ball is weighted, so it influences the rolling pattern. Whoever gets the closest to the jack/kitty, gets a point (I'm sure there are tons more rules, but that's the main one). This is a very popular sport in Australia, especially within the elderly community. It reminded me a lot of Bocce ball. 

I won my first ever game of lawn bowls. Oh yeah! 

The pace was very relaxed and only demanded light physical demands. Though Laura demonstrated som great lunges while rolling her ball, I think I will have to go for a few runs to burn off all these calories from the weekend...

I got home yesterday morning. I was feeling particularly energetic (despite having woken up at 5:30am), so I headed straight to the State Library of New South Wales in the city to listen to some lectures. I'm sure that if I would've gone home, I would've crashed and taken a looong nap. The library was quite nice. I think I may check out some of the other ones in the city. It's nice to have a change of scenery once in a while. In the evening I had dinner with Anne and her boyfriend, Charlie, while watching stand up by C. K. Louis. He is insanely funny. Check him out. He's even on Spotify! 

Spring break (i.e. mid-session break) is in less than two weeks, and there is lots to do and write before Isabelle, Sydney and I head to New Zealand and Cairns (north of Queensland in Australia). In other words, time for some studying instead of blogging! 

Love, 
Suzy

Shark Diving: Remember to read the fine print!

Devan, Caitlin, and I woke up at the crack of dawn today to go to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary (was only 6:45, but it felt way too early after a long night of writing). The activity of the day: SCUBA DIVING WITH SHARKS! The theme music from Jaws has been going through my head since we booked this last week. Last night I almost started Googling shark attacks... But I managed to refrain. 

We weren't diving with Great Whites or Tiger Sharks, we were diving with Grey Nurse Sharks. Though they look terrifying, they are not dangerous. They don't eat people! They are unable to tear flesh with their teeth, so they only prey on animals that will fit in their mouth. They can grow to a maximum length of about 3.6 meters/11.8ft, though average length is between 2.5 - 2.8 meters/ 8.2 - 9.2ft. As a result of commercial fishing, these sharks are critically endangered, and are now protected in Australia. Fun fact: It was the first protected shark in the world when it was protected under New South Wales legislation in 1984. 

Looks harmless, right? 

Once we got to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary, we were taken on a brief tour of the oceanarium (saltwater aquarium). We went through the under water viewing tunnel and saw the massive sharks, stingrays, and turtles that would soon be swimming within close proximity of us. The oceanarium is approximately 4 meters/13.1ft deep, and holds 4 million liters of water. Isn't that amazing?

After the tour, we went to an office area to fill out information and liability forms ("No, I will not sue if my arm is ripped off"). This is when I realized that I made my second booking error  while in Australia (the first being booking the wrong date for the wine tour). Devan and I were originally going to do the dive a few days ago, but decided to do it Thursday so Caitlin could join us. When they asked me if it was a problem to do the dive before flying to Brisbane later in the day, I thought that it might actually be a good idea. You know, take the edge off, and do two scary things in one day (I'd say diving with sharks and flying are equally scary). However, I totally forgot about the tiny detail that you're not supposed to dive and fly in a plane within the same day (because of decompression sickness). How did I not remember this?? This is common knowledge! I KNEW THIS! The instructors said they couldn't let me dive if I was getting on a flight in the evening. 

So, my options were: 
1) Don't go diving with sharks and catch the 6:20pm flight to Brisbane. 
2) Go diving and book a new flight to Brisbane in the morning. 

Since they clearly inform participants about the dive-no-fly thing in their terms, I probably couldn't rebook my dive. Besides, I didn't want to do this by myself at a later time even if I could! Luckily, Heidi didn't have any huge plans for us this evening, so I booked a new flight to Brisbane, and will be leaving early in the morning. I felt like such an idiot! I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of decompression sickness. Oh well, now I have learned my lesson. Always check the date, always read the terms, and try not to fit too many things in one day. 

None of us had been scuba diving before, so we were a little nervous. We were given ample training/instruction in before getting in the water and got to try everything out in a little instruction pool. They told us about the equipment, taught us the hand signals that were necessary, and how to equalize the pressure in our ears (very important!). They also reassured us that the sharks were harmless. 

We put on our wetsuits (which was much easier said than done) and adorable dive booties, before being given a weight belt, buoyancy control device (BCD), air tank, and mask. The BCD can establish three different buoyancies, depending on what the diver wants to do: 

1) Negative buoyancy: when the diver wants to descend or stay on the seabed. 
2) Neutral buoyancy: when the diver wants to remain at constant depth, with minimal effort 
3) Positive buoyancy: when the diver wants to float on the surface. 

Did you know that SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Aparatus? I learned this trivial fact at a quiz-night at UiT from my classmate, Jonas. 

We had two instructors, Harriet and Rhi. Both of them were great, and without them I don't think I would have managed not to freak out. They were both so calm and reassuring. I'm not afraid of the water at all, but breathing under water is so weird. And much more difficult than I had expected! The fact that huge creatures would be swimming around me probably didn't help either. When we were in the instruction/practice pool I kept asking Harriet if my equipment was working properly. It just felt wrong.  She assured me that everything would be fine, and that things would feel more "normal" after a little bit more practice. Such a sweetheart! 

Harriet and Rhi

We were told that we couldn't bring our cameras with us, but that one of the instructors would take pictures and videos of us during the dive. The video from our dive makes me laugh. Harriet mentioned that we should wave or do something when she was filming because a lot of people just stand there staring. So that's what we did; every time the camera was pointed at us, we would just wave. The fourth person to dive with us, George, is hilarious in this video. You can tell that he is thinking "Is she filming? Should I wave? More waving? Ok." 

The pictures from the dive are equally amusing, if I do say so myself. We look like complete dorks. It also looks like we're having a horrible time and not enjoying our dive the least bit. It's hard to smile or look good when you have a breathing device in your mouth! 

Hello there, I am a dork!

In addition to the Grey Nurse Sharks, there were also sea turtles and stingrays in the oceanarium. The stingrays were HUGE, and would swim over you. You wouldn't notice them until they swam over you and it was suddenly dark. Scary! 

We weren't allowed to touch any of the animals, but this one sea turtle, Sea Biscuit, was very friendly and liked to cuddle. She was brought to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary in 2009 after being washed ashore with a severely injured flipper. Sadly, she had to have the flipper amputated. Fortunately, however, she was able to recover at Manly and learned how to swim again using only her three remaining flippers. We were allowed to scratch her back. 

We all look so excited about this experience, including Sea Biscuit.

Sea Biscuit

This hand signal technically means that they want to go to the surface. Just saying. 

So serious. 

I love that we're staring blankly ahead and there is a huge shark behind us. 

Last picture of the dive. I made it! 

Though it did feel much better after being under water for a bit, it was still pretty weird and I was pretty anxious during the dive. The breathing got easier after a while. I was thinking of getting scuba-certified before going to the Great Barrier Reef, but I may just end up snorkelling. We'll see. Scuba diving can't be for everyone. At least I tried it!

Post-dive selfie. Finally able to smile and show that we did in fact enjoy ourselves! 

Today was a great day. I can't believe we were so close to sharks, stingrays, and sea turtles! What a great experience. The list of adventurous activities is getting shorter, though I am sure that we will be able to find some more fun things to do before we go home in July! 

Love, 
Suzy