Sweet Baby Jesus it had been a long time since I’ve put up another entry on this guy. I like to keep all of you on your toes in anticipation for new updates. And/Or I am just really lazy. More than likely the latter. Anyways, here is a recap of what I have been up to over the past few weeks, including a special visit from K8 and M@...
As mentioned in previous entries, sweating has been an interwoven theme that seems to show its ugly head throughout all of my Australian experiences thus far. Cleverly enough, if you take the S and the W away from the beginning of sweating, you’re left with eating. Since K8 and M@ touched Australian soil, there has not been more than a 15 minute period where food was not consumed, purchased, or at the very least, discussed. From sweet chili and sour cream chips to Tim Tams, and from cupcakes to kebabs, and everywhere in between, very little of the Australian cuisine remained untasted by the end of K8 and M@’s trip.
They arrived in Brisbane on Wednesday the 7th, and they stayed here until the morning of Friday the 16th. Although their time here seemed short, we really made the most of the week or so they were available. After getting their car rental situated, they headed right to campus. In a failed attempt to find my dorm at 9am, stress overwhelmed them and they gave up and went to their hotel to settle in and grab a quick nap to remedy their jet-lag. They came back to campus at 3pm to meet me. They were finally here! I gave them a tour of my campus and naturally, we stopped to a “light lunch,” which, as many of you may know, a non-existent phrase in our vocabulary. So a sandwich and a salad later, we were off to their hotel in Burleigh Heads. The room was impressive and the view was like a postcard. Just imagine how crappy of a hotel they might have ended up with if K8 had a real job to occupy her internet time with. We walked down to the center of town for dinner, because it had been over 2 hours and we needed to re-fuel.
On Thursday they picked me up from campus at 4pm after my classes, and we headed to Pacific Fair, which is basically an outdoor mall. We walked around PacFair for the better part of 3 hours, grabbed a milkshake, because the chips and muffins we had before that couldn’t hold us over for another half hour, and headed back for dinner. This was one of the more interesting dinners I have had in my day, however. K8 was planning on making us a chicken stir-fry, although I am fairly confident that she might have bought the chicken from the pet food aisle in the grocery store. She made about 30 pounds of rice, and on top of that was a heaping pile of what I imagine was Alpo. I ate it as fast as I could just so it would be over, it was like a Fear Factor challenge. Afterwards, we relied on our contingency plan of cookies and chips, and stumbled upon the Australian version of “Beauty and the Geek,” and then the season premiere of “The Amazing Race,” which made the dog food settle more easily in my stomach.
Friday was a highly anticipated day, as we were going on a winery tour through the Australian hinterlands. We got up pretty early to catch a bus to my campus where we were to get picked up. After expectedly being side-tracked by brekky, we headed to the bus stop where Trevor, our pinky-fingerless wine tour guide picked us up. He was a delightful Australian bloke who seems to know a lot about Australian nature and stuff. Also, he could have told us anything and we would have believed him, but a wine is a wine is a wine, right? Our first winery was awesome.
They take pride in being one of the only wineries in the world that has the license to make their alcohol with the use of honey as an ingredient. The lady who was serving us the wine was very fun. After four tastes of wine by 11am, I thought we were headed to the next winery. Nope. She took three more bottles of liqueur out. Blueberry and butterscotch were two of the flavors. The butterscotch one was really good, we had it with some milk, just so I could inform my mom not to waste her time worrying about my calcium intake while abroad. After these three bottles, the broad whipped out four more bottles for us to try from! Needless to say, Trevor could have been blind and armless and he would have been the best candidate for driving us to the next winery. Winery number two was twice as awesome in terms of scenery, but the wine was iffy and the lady who was pouring it was as boring as NASCAR. After the second winery, we were off to the top of Mt. Tambourine for lunch. The roads that led to the summit of this majestic mountain were treacherous. K8 thought we were going to die, and Trevor was taking hairpin turns and dodging other cars while simultaneously breaking the sound barrier. We finally made it to the site of our lunch, when K8 and I realized we could put away the rosary beads, as we had survived. Lunch was served and the birds were eyeing us no more than an arm’s length away. As they were the topic that got the ball rolling on the Australian wildlife conversation, K8 was really able to hit a home run when she asked of anyone had ever seen a Tanzanian Devil. Tanzania’s in Africa. Tasmania. Lunch was served and Trevor dropped us off in a small little town on Mt. Tambourine, where we all naturally headed to the Mt. Tambourine Brewery, to polish our wine and lunch down with a cold glass of I have no idea what it was called. Trevor was nice enough to drop us off back at the hotel, when we immediately left for some kebabs, and came back with two seafood dinners, a Thai dinner, three bags of chips, a pack of cookies, and a pack of Tim Tams. Winter is coming for K8 and M@ to I took it upon myself to help them pack on some pounds for insulation.
Saturday we spent the majority of the day in Byron Bay, which is a small, Northampton-like town right on the beach, about one hour south of my school. As we situated our plans around when we were due for our next meal, we headed to the Byron Bay lighthouse first. K8 thought we were done with steep, windy roads, but we managed to discover yet another route that showed us the face of death. We eventually made it to the top, and walked our way to the lighthouse and saw some whales and some hang gliders. We also had the opportunity to make it
to the easterly-most point of the Australian mainland, so that’s about as close to you guys as I’m getting until winter. As a storm was fast approaching, and we were on top of a mountain, our luck didn’t look too impressive, so we ended up having to run back down to our car in the rain. It was a perfect excuse to say we exercised before lunch. We made our decision on the Hog’s Breath Café, which is what I imagine to be the American equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese. As we were displeased with our meal, it was only natural to rid our mouths of the taste with two large servings of gelato. We returned to Burleigh Heads as dusk approached, and seized the opportunity to stay up past 9pm, and head to one of the local bars. It wasn’t crowded at all, which was good. There was a band playing all of M@’s favorite jams, and I got to introduce him to all the different kinds of brews served here in Australia. Our final stop of the night was K8’s dance performance in the foyer of Domino’s, before we returned back to bed.
Sunday was a rainy day here, so we headed to the Robina Shopping Centre, and grabbed a movie to watch, as the next day we had to be up unnervingly early. Monday morning we left for Moreton Bay. We set the alarm for 4:50am, and were driving to Brisbane by 5:15. We experienced out first “other-side-of-the-car” drive-thru as well. It was really special. We were in Brisbane by 7am and boarding our boat to Moreton Island by 7:30. Now, as many of you may know, I have never been one to be too fond of people younger than about twelve years old. There was a baby on the boat with us, who was the most annoying creature I have ever been near. It screamed from point A to point B. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t upset, he would just scream, with an emotionless face. Every time we saw him for the rest of the time we were on the island, we was, without fail, making some sort of hideous noise. After the boat was docked, the fun started. Some lady met us at the boat to give us a tour of the island. Now there were a few things going on here:
-She had a very thick Asian accent, accompanied by an Australian upward inflection; we didn’t understand a word.
-She gave us the tour during what could have been considered category 5 winds.
-She walked around the island faster than a cheetah. I was waiting for a group stretch and a Gatorade when she finally dropped us off at reception.
Reception was another accomplishment to survive through. The lady at reception told us that our room was not going to be ready until 12:30… it was 9:00. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have access to our bags for another hour for unknown reasons. And on top of that, the bar didn’t even open until 10. Moreton Island was really one of those places, where everything is so ridiculously bad and overpriced, you kinda just have to laugh about it. When booking the trip, we were told there was a list of over 30 free activities to do on the island. K8, knowing this list was a scam, decided to pass some time by asking for it. The lady at the reception’s face went pale and she spent about 20 minutes looking for this list, that K8 didn’t even really care if she got or not. I guess we could consider making people who work on the island frantically run around could be considered one of the free activities. By 11am, we were in the bar drinking our money and Moreton island sorrows away. After we finally got into our room, we headed to the shipwrecks, about a mile down the beach. They really were pretty cool. After the wrecks we pr
etty much hung out all day. We got to see a pretty scenic sunset, which was made even better when we saw some dolphins frolicking around in the waves. In the meantime, K8 changed our return the next day to the 9am booking, so as to get off the scam infested island as early as possible. Seriously, a bottle of water was $5 and a can of Pringles was $7.50. It was insane. 6:30 was dolphin feeding time. M@ and I got the opportunity to walk out to the dolphins in the water and feed them. It made the whole trip 100% worth it. K8 was going to feed the dolphins as well until she muttered that if a dolphin, for some reason bit her, she would punch it in the face. Dinner was soon after the dolphin feeding, and we were in bed rather early. The boat ride home was about as smooth as a ride on the Cyclone at Riverside, but we were back on the mainland by noon.
We decided that since we were already in Brisbane, we might as well head to a zoo, because you really shouldn’t leave Australia without seeing a Koala Bear and a Kangaroo. This zoo was awesome. We saw walla
bies, lemurs, ostriches, and a llama that has the same haircut as my mom. The donkeys were really excited to see us too. Along with some other zoo visitors, there was a group of I would say first graders on a field trip with us. We saw one of them picking up and pulling on a kangaroo’s tail, chasing it around, and then petting its joey while in its pouch. We were really hoping to see this kangaroo knock this kid out, but we weren’t so lucky. After the zoo, we headed to downtown Broadbeach to look around and grab some lunch of course. We all sampled a Mesopotamian kebab. K8 and I were ready for another one after two bites. As rain once again encroached on our day, M@ went to get the car, while K8 and I bought three cupcakes and two pieces of cheesecake, as a side. Montezuma’s Mexican Food was for dinner in Burleigh Heads. I’ve had better.
Wednesday was my day to go to class. K8 and M@ spent the day hiking around Burleigh. They even encountered a wrestling match between two lizards. They picked me up from campus at around 6, and we went to grab some food before we went out. Mexican was on the menu once again. We went back to the hotel and had some good times before we headed out to meet up with a few of my friends. We met up with them in a desolate bar in Broadbeach, played some pool, had some laughs, lived, and argued opposing sides of the Nantucket/Martha’s Vineyard rivalry. It was a lot of fun, until K8 almost cried over a case of the hiccups.
Thursday, unfortunately was the last full day of K8 and M@’s Australian adventure. We spent a portion of the day back at Pacific Fair, so they could grab some last minute knickknacks. We
then trekked it over to their first experience in an Australian drive-thru liquor store. They were enthused, to say the least. As this was the final night, we went out for a nice dinner on Gram. Thanks Gram! M@ got a steak, K8 got a salmon, and I got a rack of lamb, since Gram was paying for it. It was awesome. Dinner was great and dessert was fast approaching. K8 and I split a family sized ice cream with Oreos, Tim Tams, Peanut M&M’s, and Snickers. K8’s confectionary anxiety couldn’t wait until we got back to the hotel, so she got an extra topping when we were walking underneath a flock of birds. I’ll let you do the math on that one. She still considered eating through it though. Determination is key when it comes to food consumption.
Friday morning was a somber day in Australia. K8 and M@ had an 11am flight, with 32 hours of travel ahead of them. We said our goodbyes and they were off. It was the best week so far in Australia. Thanks K8 and M@!!!
As mentioned in previous entries, sweating has been an interwoven theme that seems to show its ugly head throughout all of my Australian experiences thus far. Cleverly enough, if you take the S and the W away from the beginning of sweating, you’re left with eating. Since K8 and M@ touched Australian soil, there has not been more than a 15 minute period where food was not consumed, purchased, or at the very least, discussed. From sweet chili and sour cream chips to Tim Tams, and from cupcakes to kebabs, and everywhere in between, very little of the Australian cuisine remained untasted by the end of K8 and M@’s trip.
They arrived in Brisbane on Wednesday the 7th, and they stayed here until the morning of Friday the 16th. Although their time here seemed short, we really made the most of the week or so they were available. After getting their car rental situated, they headed right to campus. In a failed attempt to find my dorm at 9am, stress overwhelmed them and they gave up and went to their hotel to settle in and grab a quick nap to remedy their jet-lag. They came back to campus at 3pm to meet me. They were finally here! I gave them a tour of my campus and naturally, we stopped to a “light lunch,” which, as many of you may know, a non-existent phrase in our vocabulary. So a sandwich and a salad later, we were off to their hotel in Burleigh Heads. The room was impressive and the view was like a postcard. Just imagine how crappy of a hotel they might have ended up with if K8 had a real job to occupy her internet time with. We walked down to the center of town for dinner, because it had been over 2 hours and we needed to re-fuel.
On Thursday they picked me up from campus at 4pm after my classes, and we headed to Pacific Fair, which is basically an outdoor mall. We walked around PacFair for the better part of 3 hours, grabbed a milkshake, because the chips and muffins we had before that couldn’t hold us over for another half hour, and headed back for dinner. This was one of the more interesting dinners I have had in my day, however. K8 was planning on making us a chicken stir-fry, although I am fairly confident that she might have bought the chicken from the pet food aisle in the grocery store. She made about 30 pounds of rice, and on top of that was a heaping pile of what I imagine was Alpo. I ate it as fast as I could just so it would be over, it was like a Fear Factor challenge. Afterwards, we relied on our contingency plan of cookies and chips, and stumbled upon the Australian version of “Beauty and the Geek,” and then the season premiere of “The Amazing Race,” which made the dog food settle more easily in my stomach.
Friday was a highly anticipated day, as we were going on a winery tour through the Australian hinterlands. We got up pretty early to catch a bus to my campus where we were to get picked up. After expectedly being side-tracked by brekky, we headed to the bus stop where Trevor, our pinky-fingerless wine tour guide picked us up. He was a delightful Australian bloke who seems to know a lot about Australian nature and stuff. Also, he could have told us anything and we would have believed him, but a wine is a wine is a wine, right? Our first winery was awesome.
They take pride in being one of the only wineries in the world that has the license to make their alcohol with the use of honey as an ingredient. The lady who was serving us the wine was very fun. After four tastes of wine by 11am, I thought we were headed to the next winery. Nope. She took three more bottles of liqueur out. Blueberry and butterscotch were two of the flavors. The butterscotch one was really good, we had it with some milk, just so I could inform my mom not to waste her time worrying about my calcium intake while abroad. After these three bottles, the broad whipped out four more bottles for us to try from! Needless to say, Trevor could have been blind and armless and he would have been the best candidate for driving us to the next winery. Winery number two was twice as awesome in terms of scenery, but the wine was iffy and the lady who was pouring it was as boring as NASCAR. After the second winery, we were off to the top of Mt. Tambourine for lunch. The roads that led to the summit of this majestic mountain were treacherous. K8 thought we were going to die, and Trevor was taking hairpin turns and dodging other cars while simultaneously breaking the sound barrier. We finally made it to the site of our lunch, when K8 and I realized we could put away the rosary beads, as we had survived. Lunch was served and the birds were eyeing us no more than an arm’s length away. As they were the topic that got the ball rolling on the Australian wildlife conversation, K8 was really able to hit a home run when she asked of anyone had ever seen a Tanzanian Devil. Tanzania’s in Africa. Tasmania. Lunch was served and Trevor dropped us off in a small little town on Mt. Tambourine, where we all naturally headed to the Mt. Tambourine Brewery, to polish our wine and lunch down with a cold glass of I have no idea what it was called. Trevor was nice enough to drop us off back at the hotel, when we immediately left for some kebabs, and came back with two seafood dinners, a Thai dinner, three bags of chips, a pack of cookies, and a pack of Tim Tams. Winter is coming for K8 and M@ to I took it upon myself to help them pack on some pounds for insulation.Saturday we spent the majority of the day in Byron Bay, which is a small, Northampton-like town right on the beach, about one hour south of my school. As we situated our plans around when we were due for our next meal, we headed to the Byron Bay lighthouse first. K8 thought we were done with steep, windy roads, but we managed to discover yet another route that showed us the face of death. We eventually made it to the top, and walked our way to the lighthouse and saw some whales and some hang gliders. We also had the opportunity to make it
to the easterly-most point of the Australian mainland, so that’s about as close to you guys as I’m getting until winter. As a storm was fast approaching, and we were on top of a mountain, our luck didn’t look too impressive, so we ended up having to run back down to our car in the rain. It was a perfect excuse to say we exercised before lunch. We made our decision on the Hog’s Breath Café, which is what I imagine to be the American equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese. As we were displeased with our meal, it was only natural to rid our mouths of the taste with two large servings of gelato. We returned to Burleigh Heads as dusk approached, and seized the opportunity to stay up past 9pm, and head to one of the local bars. It wasn’t crowded at all, which was good. There was a band playing all of M@’s favorite jams, and I got to introduce him to all the different kinds of brews served here in Australia. Our final stop of the night was K8’s dance performance in the foyer of Domino’s, before we returned back to bed.Sunday was a rainy day here, so we headed to the Robina Shopping Centre, and grabbed a movie to watch, as the next day we had to be up unnervingly early. Monday morning we left for Moreton Bay. We set the alarm for 4:50am, and were driving to Brisbane by 5:15. We experienced out first “other-side-of-the-car” drive-thru as well. It was really special. We were in Brisbane by 7am and boarding our boat to Moreton Island by 7:30. Now, as many of you may know, I have never been one to be too fond of people younger than about twelve years old. There was a baby on the boat with us, who was the most annoying creature I have ever been near. It screamed from point A to point B. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t upset, he would just scream, with an emotionless face. Every time we saw him for the rest of the time we were on the island, we was, without fail, making some sort of hideous noise. After the boat was docked, the fun started. Some lady met us at the boat to give us a tour of the island. Now there were a few things going on here:
-She had a very thick Asian accent, accompanied by an Australian upward inflection; we didn’t understand a word.
-She gave us the tour during what could have been considered category 5 winds.
-She walked around the island faster than a cheetah. I was waiting for a group stretch and a Gatorade when she finally dropped us off at reception.
Reception was another accomplishment to survive through. The lady at reception told us that our room was not going to be ready until 12:30… it was 9:00. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have access to our bags for another hour for unknown reasons. And on top of that, the bar didn’t even open until 10. Moreton Island was really one of those places, where everything is so ridiculously bad and overpriced, you kinda just have to laugh about it. When booking the trip, we were told there was a list of over 30 free activities to do on the island. K8, knowing this list was a scam, decided to pass some time by asking for it. The lady at the reception’s face went pale and she spent about 20 minutes looking for this list, that K8 didn’t even really care if she got or not. I guess we could consider making people who work on the island frantically run around could be considered one of the free activities. By 11am, we were in the bar drinking our money and Moreton island sorrows away. After we finally got into our room, we headed to the shipwrecks, about a mile down the beach. They really were pretty cool. After the wrecks we pr
etty much hung out all day. We got to see a pretty scenic sunset, which was made even better when we saw some dolphins frolicking around in the waves. In the meantime, K8 changed our return the next day to the 9am booking, so as to get off the scam infested island as early as possible. Seriously, a bottle of water was $5 and a can of Pringles was $7.50. It was insane. 6:30 was dolphin feeding time. M@ and I got the opportunity to walk out to the dolphins in the water and feed them. It made the whole trip 100% worth it. K8 was going to feed the dolphins as well until she muttered that if a dolphin, for some reason bit her, she would punch it in the face. Dinner was soon after the dolphin feeding, and we were in bed rather early. The boat ride home was about as smooth as a ride on the Cyclone at Riverside, but we were back on the mainland by noon.We decided that since we were already in Brisbane, we might as well head to a zoo, because you really shouldn’t leave Australia without seeing a Koala Bear and a Kangaroo. This zoo was awesome. We saw walla
bies, lemurs, ostriches, and a llama that has the same haircut as my mom. The donkeys were really excited to see us too. Along with some other zoo visitors, there was a group of I would say first graders on a field trip with us. We saw one of them picking up and pulling on a kangaroo’s tail, chasing it around, and then petting its joey while in its pouch. We were really hoping to see this kangaroo knock this kid out, but we weren’t so lucky. After the zoo, we headed to downtown Broadbeach to look around and grab some lunch of course. We all sampled a Mesopotamian kebab. K8 and I were ready for another one after two bites. As rain once again encroached on our day, M@ went to get the car, while K8 and I bought three cupcakes and two pieces of cheesecake, as a side. Montezuma’s Mexican Food was for dinner in Burleigh Heads. I’ve had better.Wednesday was my day to go to class. K8 and M@ spent the day hiking around Burleigh. They even encountered a wrestling match between two lizards. They picked me up from campus at around 6, and we went to grab some food before we went out. Mexican was on the menu once again. We went back to the hotel and had some good times before we headed out to meet up with a few of my friends. We met up with them in a desolate bar in Broadbeach, played some pool, had some laughs, lived, and argued opposing sides of the Nantucket/Martha’s Vineyard rivalry. It was a lot of fun, until K8 almost cried over a case of the hiccups.
Thursday, unfortunately was the last full day of K8 and M@’s Australian adventure. We spent a portion of the day back at Pacific Fair, so they could grab some last minute knickknacks. We
then trekked it over to their first experience in an Australian drive-thru liquor store. They were enthused, to say the least. As this was the final night, we went out for a nice dinner on Gram. Thanks Gram! M@ got a steak, K8 got a salmon, and I got a rack of lamb, since Gram was paying for it. It was awesome. Dinner was great and dessert was fast approaching. K8 and I split a family sized ice cream with Oreos, Tim Tams, Peanut M&M’s, and Snickers. K8’s confectionary anxiety couldn’t wait until we got back to the hotel, so she got an extra topping when we were walking underneath a flock of birds. I’ll let you do the math on that one. She still considered eating through it though. Determination is key when it comes to food consumption.Friday morning was a somber day in Australia. K8 and M@ had an 11am flight, with 32 hours of travel ahead of them. We said our goodbyes and they were off. It was the best week so far in Australia. Thanks K8 and M@!!!
I love you and miss you all...
-Brendan/Bren/Sully/Buddha/Dangy
