Plymouth, MA

The last few days has been spent in Plymouth, Massachusetts. You know, where the pilgrims landed. I even saw Plymouth rock. Although there are discussions about whether it's the real one, the one the pilgrims actually landed on, or not. If you ask me, it was a rock, I'm fairly certain or that. Apparently the rock at Plymouth is only about a third or its original size, people have been taking pieces of it to keep as souvenirs, which is why it has a fence and everything around it now.

Plymouth is a nice little town to wander around, it's quite small so it doesn't take long to see everything on the main streets. I actually went for a walk in some residential neighbourhoods the other day, I was trying to find out where I am going to take the bus back to the airport from. I enjoyed seeing the private houses. Like Norway the houses are usually built with wood, but they didn't remind me of Norway at all, the building style was so different! From what I've heard New England houses have a special look. I've not really noticed enough houses in other parts of America to know whether that's true or not. 

I had been looking forward to see the 4th of July fireworks while I was in Plymouth, but unfortunately they were cancelled because of the weather. It was the only day the weather was bad while I was in Massachusetts! I still had a really nice 4th of July though, I was at a party with my friends Anne and Nathan as well as a big part of their family and friends.

The reason I went to Plymouth was to attend my friends' Anne and Nathan's wedding. Anne and I got to know each other through a language-learning website about 10 years ago, we then became pen-pals and I started thinking of her as one of my close friends, but we didn't actually meet face-to-face until last year! Which is also when I met Nathan. I got along with him as soon as I met him and it was as if the three of us had been friends for ever. 

I was very happy they wanted me there for their special day. They are both Christian and so it was a church wedding. The ceremony was nice, and much shorter than what it is in Norway (from what I can remember), my bum didn't even have time to start getting restless from sitting down! The reception was in a really nice location overlooking a small lake, and I had a lot of fun getting to know some of the other guests. I spent most of the evening on the dance floor, which was really fun! Except from one, people seemed to have been scared of the dance floor at the other weddings I've attended.

I was sad to say goodbye to Anne and Nathan as they headed off to their honeymoon at the end of the night, we have however loosely planned the next three years, hopefully we can follow it all through! Next year the plan is for them to come to the UK since I've been to the US two years in a row.

The first pictures of 2013....

Happy New year all!

You don't think about how low the clouds are actually hanging until something get's hidden in them.

My Christmas

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas! I know I did!

It was really nice to go back home and see my family as well as my best friend, I will have to try and get up there and see them more often while I'm still in Norway.

In Norway, as I might have written before, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. When we get up in the morning Santa's been to fill up the stockings with sweets and put one present for each under the tree (My family usually puts the rest of the presents under later in the day).

After we've had a nice Christmas breakfast, and as long as we're not working (downside of not celebrating on the 25th I guess), we read Christmas comics and watch some TV. The Norwegian Brodcasting Corporation (NRK) every year show some Disney favourites as well as two films that I have been watching pretty much my whole life. I think I will have to get them on DVD as I missed watching them when I lived in England and Australia. I also want to get them on DVD so that when I have kids they can grow up watching it as well, no matter which country I live in.

One of the films is a Czech version of Cinderella. Cinderella gets 3 hazelnuts and in each of the hazelnuts there is an outfit; a hunting outfit, a ball gown and a wedding dress. Even though it's a rubbish film by today's standards and it's dubbed with only one man doing all the voices I just love it! I guess it's because I've been watching it probably since the year I was born. The film itself is from 1973.

The second film that's traditional to watch is "Reisen til julestjernen" (Journey to the Christmas Star). This is a Norwegian film from 1976. It's about a little princess who wants the real Christmas star on the top of the Christmas tree (we have stars not angels on our trees). Her evil uncle tells her to go out and look for it in the middle of the night and so she disappears, so does the queen, and so the king curses the Christmas star so that it disappears too! Years later some travellers come to the city and with them is a young girl, Sonja, she tells the king she will find the Christmas star again and when it appears the princess and queen will come back as well. Sonja gets some help from Santa, The evil uncle finds out that Sonja is the missing princess and tries to stop her. But all ends well in the end.

They have also made a new version of this film earlier this year, I'm not sure I want to see it, they've removed the song everyone loves in the original apparently, but then again I guess it's hard to be impartial... I at least hope that if they decide to start showing that one on TV Christmas Eve that they also keep showing the original.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

At 5pm the church bells rings Christmas in and a lot of people goes to church, we on the other hand have our dinner at 5pm. At Christmas we dress for dinner. I almost got a bit stressed this year as I was making my own dinner. In Norway Christmas dinner is often lamb or pork ribs, or both as my family has, I've never really liked either so even before I became vegetarian I usually had rice porridge for dinner. This year I made potato and leek soup, very simple but quite filling because of the potatoes. The reason I got a little stressed is because I was getting ready while cooking dinner, so I had to run into the kitchen a few times as I was getting ready to make sure I got everything I needed into the soup. I wasn't just getting dressed, I was also doing my hair, which I didn't decide to until one hour before dinner was supposed to be done.

My grandparents on my mum's side both had dinner with us this year. They get along really well with each other even though they're divorced. My sister was also celebrating at our mum's instead of our dad's this year. It was really nice to be able to spend time with everyone.

After dinner we stayed at the dinner table for a while, everyone was too full to move! That's the problem with Christmas, to much tasty food, it's hard to stop eating! When we were able to move we just moved over to the sofa while some put the dished in the dishwasher. We had a really simple dessert, after all that food I don't think it's possible to have a heavy dessert as well! It's difficult to say what we had because it's all very Norwegian, although one of the things was home-made rice pudding with strawberry sauce.

After dessert we often play boardgames, like Trivial Pursuit,  but this year because there was so many of us (in my family 6 is many) we would have had to move to do that, which nobody wanted, so instead we had a little quiz (my mum, sister and I played a board game Christmas Day instead). I read the questions and whoever answered first got a point. It was really fun, even though I was the one reading the questions I didn't know who was winning because my sister was the one writing the score down. My mum's partner won with 17 points.

We stopped the quiz at 8pm to start opening presents. It kind of varies when we open the presents depending on how old the kids are and how many presents there are but as far as I can remember it's usually always after 8pm.

I have found out that every family opens their presents differently. In some families everyone opens their present at the same time, while others might make the brother open all his presents before the sister opens all hers and the the mother and so on. I my family one person gets the presents from under the tree, usually my sister as she's the youngest, she reads the label; who it's to and from, and then gives it to that person to open while everybody watches. My sister of course gets the most as she's still fairly young, and it's really nice to see her open her present as she's so excited!

The way we open our presents of course means that it takes a while to finish all of them, which means I was really tired by the time we finished. I usually go to bed at 9pm! It was nice though, I love watching people's faces as they open their presents, not just the ones from me but other ones as well. Some people stop giving presents to their siblings or parents as they get older, they focus on the kids, nieces, nephews, grand-kids, etc instead, which is understandable, it can get quite expensive if you have a big family, but I hope I will always give to my parents and my sister, even if it's just something small, it doesn't have to be expensive, just to see the look on someone's face when they get a present they like. You can't put a price on that.

When we did finally finish with all the presents we all just sat and chatted for a bit, or played/looked at our presents before my grandparents left and the rest of us one by one went to bed.

How did you celebrate your Christmas? Do you have any special Christmas traditions?

Chesterfield 02-05.11.12

02.11:

I took the train from Holyhead to Chesterfield, well, trains. The scenery from the trains were amazing. I didn't realize how many ruins there were on top of hilltops, especially while we were still in Wales... I wonder what they were used for? Maybe like the Great Wall of China they used them to alert each other of danger? On the last train, from Stockport to Chesterfield the train was PACKED! Standing room only. I was standing to a nice girl who had also been to Australia though so we passed the time chatting together about what we'd seen and where we'd been. It's really cumbersome to have a giant suitcase when you travel by train by the way, it's just in the way most of the time.

After I dropped my things at the hotel I went to the pub I used to work in, Yates's and said hi to some of my old co-workers.

I met up with my friend Nicky at the Abacus for dinner. It was lovely to see Nicky again, it was like I had never even left, we just picked up right where we had left off. We talked about her plans to move to Turkey; just like I feel more at home in the UK than Norway she feels more at home in Turkey than in the UK. At least she feels at home in a warm sunny country, unlike me who wants to go to a country that's just a couple of degrees warmer than Norway. I hope she gets to move to Turkey asap without having to work herself to death. At least I've got an excuse to go on nice sunny holidays when she moves there, and she'll be able to show me all the non-touristy things!

It was good that seeing Nicky again was great because the food was terrible! Seriously, neither of us finished even though we didn't have much on our plates. We left the Abacus and went back to Yates's where we shared a bowl of chips and cheese while having a few drinks with my old co-workers.

03.11:

It's kind of nice to  be in a place that I used to live: I've seen everything and I can actually relax instead of run around and see as much as possible. Hence the lack of pictures. I had a relaxing morning before Nicky and I went to Meadowhall (aka Meadowhell) today for some shopping and dinner before I met some friends for drinks back in Chesterfield.

04.11:

A nice relaxing day again before heading to Nicky's for some Chinese take-away. Followed by drinks with some of the people that couldn't come out last night. I think my liver will be happy when I leave... But it's nice to feel like I actually have a life again!

05.11:

I had a great dinner with the family I used to au pair for here tonight. It was great seeing the girls again, they've grown so much!  Although the girls have grown, it still feels like I never even left! Their new au pair seems really nice, she's also studying child psychology, so I guess the job is helping her with her studies as well.

November 5th is Bonfire night in the UK so we heard fireworks being sent up everywhere we set off a Chinese lantern. I've never done it before, it looks really beautiful, they even gave me one to take home, maybe I'll sett it off on New Years Eve if it's not too windy.

I had a great time catching up with friends in Chesterfield. I wish I was still living there, I actually manage to have a life there, I have friends to go out with, to talk to. I need to get back to the UK!

Saturday

I've never been to Aas before. It's a really small place. If the university wasn't there it would probably be smaller than where I'm from! It's a really pretty place though and only half an hour from Oslo by train, so it's fairly central. You'd think that because it's such a small place it would be cheap to live there, but because of the university and the proximity to Oslo it's apparently quite expensive.

Anyway. It seemed like a nice place. It was raining heavily on Saturday so we didn't really walk around much, we'll save that for another time I go to visit her. We stayed inside and watched a few movies until it was time to head out for the Royksopp concert.

When we were heading toward the place where the concert was held we bumped into some other student that were going to the concert as well, but they were stopping by a house party for a few minutes first, and they dragged us along with them. We only stayed for a short time, but it was really cool. It was a choir of girls and a choir of guys, both dressed in special "uniforms" and singing to each other. It was a lot of fun listening to them and it reminded me of when I was studying music.

There wasn't that many people at the concert when we got there, which was just when it started, but I think a lot of people did like the choirs and had a before-party and then just showed up whenever since the doors didn't close.

The concert was okay. I'm not really a bit Royksopp fan or anything, but it was fun to do something other than just hang out and watch a movie, which is what my friend M and I usually do. But part of me wish I had just saved the money and hung out with M during the day and gone back home Saturday evening. I think if I go to a concert again it will have to be someone that I actually like performing. I'm not good with crowds, and after a while we moved a bit closer to the stage and people were practically standing on top of me. I didn't like it. I don't really like people touching me, especially strangers so when I have to stand so close to someone that we're touching I get really uncomfortable. Oh well, all part of the concert experience I guess.

I need to learn to not pack a handbag, it's usually just in the way in events like this, no matter how small it is. Another problem was my shoes. I was wearing winter boots because it's getting quite cold, but they are a size too big for me so I was a bit uncomfortable.

After the concert we went to a different part of the student community where there was like 20 small bars. It was quite cool, all the bars had different themes and some had different music (depending on how far away from each other the bars were). It was fun but after an hour or so I'd had enough and we went back to my friend's and went to bed. It was still about 2am by the time we left though, which is the latest I've been out in AGES!

It was an okay weekend, but I'm glad I went back to Oslo early today so that I can chill out and spend some time alone.

Almost party time!

I feel like I have no life lately... I don't really do anything after work or have anyone to hang out with after work. It's my own fault of course, I should find something to do outside work, I'm just too lazy. After work all I feel like doing is just plonk down on the sofa and watch some telly, same with weekends. I actually feel like a really crappy friend as I have one friend fairly close by and I've not been to visit her yet since I moved to Oslo. I will try to see her next weekend.

I did get two free concert tickets from my dad for Friday, not for someone I'm actually a fan of or anything, but if I had had someone to go with it would have probably been a nice night out regardless of who was singing. Unfortunately one of the people I wanted to invite was away and two others that it would have been nice to go with was working late. So I just told my dad to give the tickets to someone else at his work. He got them at work in the first place, and before you say that I could have gone with my dad; we don't really have that kind of relationship so it would have had to be a concert with someone at least one of us really liked for us to go together.

All of the above is just making me look even more forward to my holiday. Only two more weeks now and I'm going. It will be nice to see friends again, and to actually DO something! That was the nice part of moving around so much for the last few months in Australia, I got to do lots because I just had to since I was in each place for such short amount of time! It will be the same now. I'm going to 4 different places in two weeks so of course there won't be heaps of time in each place.

I am just finished arranging two events for when I'm in Chesterfield. Going out to dinner and drinks with my friends there. I am REALLY looking forward to it. Even just going for a proper night out again will be nice.

I will also visit the family I au paired for there, it will be nice to see the girls I looked after again. I've not seen them for nearly two years! I wonder if they'll remember me.

Courthouse wedding

My dad got married yesterday. It was just a quick affair at the courthouse. After the long Tamil ceremony at the weekend it was very different with one that only lasted 10 minutes. I think the Tamil one is better for kids though, they don't have to be quiet and sit still, which is good as that would be very difficult for them to do for so many hours!

Anyway.

I think the biggest reason for my dad and his girlfriend to get married was because his girlfriend is waiting for her permanent visa (or something) and a piece of paper that she got from the Philippines stating that she isn't married was running out (it only lasts 4 months), so instead of having to fly back to the Philippines to get a new one it's easier to just get married.

At the courthouse there was me and my sister, a friend and an aunt of my dad's now wife and some colleagues of my dad's as well as one of the colleagues son. I think the little boy was happy that the ceremony only lasted about 10 minutes as well, and that the seats are much more comfortable than in a church!

After the ceremony at the courthouse we went to Vigeland sculpture park and took some pictures of them. I would like to go back to the park one day and wander around as I haven't done that in about 10 years and I've never walked aruond at my own pace and looked at all the sculptures, so the next day I'm off (or feel like it after work) and the weather is nice, I will head down and take a look around and share the pictures with you.

It stopped raining for the pictures so we were very lucky!

After we had taken some pictures we went to Christiania, a restaurant in the city for the wedding dinner. It was only my sister and me as well as my dad's wife's friend then as the others had left after the ceremony. The restaurant didn't have anything vegetarian on the menu, but when we asked them they had a lemon risotto that I could eat. I don't normally like risotto but I have to admit that that one was really nice!

After dinner we went back home and had some cake. Some more people came today for dinner and cake, but we've still got cake leftover. There is always too much cake in any party arranged by people from the place I'm from. If the cake gets eaten up it means it was too little! 

Tamil wedding

This weekend I was in London for my friend's Tamil wedding. The wedding was over 2 days, with the ceremony and dinner on Saturday and the reception on Sunday. I've never bee to a Tamil wedding before, it was quite different from the western ones that I've been to. 

The wedding and decorations were beautiful, the bride and groom were beautiful and the guests were very pretty,I wish I owned a sari! I also really wish I had a digital SLR as the pictures would have turned out heaps better.

One thing I found really strange was how little attention people paid the ceremony. The ceremony was going on for a few hours and people were just walking around and chatting to each other and showing up when they felt like it. At the same time that was quite nice... Not having to sit still and quiet on an uncomfortable church bench for hours was really nice. I do wish I understood what was going on in the ceremony though, why they did the things they did and what the things meant etc. I should have sat down next to someone that could have explained it all to me! 

First the groom and my friend, the bride's, brother sat down together for an hour and had to do some things. Then my friend walked in with the groom's sister (and loads of other ladies) and she sat down next to the groom and they had to do some things to do with the ceremony. Then someone walked around with a sari that the guests had to bless, someone told me it was a sari from the groom's family, so I'm guessing we all had to bless it to kind of bless the union between them or something. Then my friend changed into that sari while her brother sat with the groom again while they waited.


When my friend came back there was some more ceremonial stuff and the groom gave her a necklace and at the end all the guests went up to where they were sitting and blessed them by putting some rice with some spice in it, turmeric I think, on their arms, shoulders and heads three times each. When they did that they also gave the couple gifts, but unlike most western weddings there wasn't many presents but more money gifts, which is a good way of doing it really, so that that way the couple can buy whatever they want and need instead of getting 50 coffee cans, AND it's easier to transport!

During the ceremony, and at the reception on Sunday, I sat on a table with some other Norwegians, it was nice since I didn't really know anyone in the wedding but it was a bit confusing at times to have to change so quickly between Norwegian and English. I also sat next to one of the groom's friends (hence the quick change between Norwegian and English) who was very nice, although I didn't think he was nice in the way that the groom wished I'd found him, haha!

On Saturday they only served vegetarian food, which was great as it meant I didn't have to ask what was in the food, I could just eat everything! Someone said it was because the priest was there and someone said that it was because it was the first day of the wedding that the food had to be vegetarian, I don't care, I could eat it and it was really yummy which was great. It was also great to get to taste so much new food! We also got snacks during the ceremony which was quite cool. I'm not really sure what the snacks was or the food or the desserts, or the strange thing we got for after dessert, but, with the exception of the thing wrapped in a leaf for after the dessert, it was all really tasty.

On Sunday at the reception my friend wore a third sari, apparently it's always supposed to be three saris in the wedding, although I don't know why. After we had some starters (more new food to try!) my friend's brother held a lovely speech and had made a video montage of the bride and groom, both were beautiful and really touching.Then the newly weds cut the cake and exchanged rings before we had some dinner. Sunday it was both vegetarian and food with meat, I can't speak for the food with meat but the vegetarian options were delicious and I got to try even more new food! I want to go to Sri Lanka now just to taste some more of the food!

While we ate the dancing started. Unlike the western weddings that I've been to the wedding couple didn't start the dancing but someone called up the names to two people that then had to dance, this went on for a few songs before everyone got on the dance floor. I have to say everyone was a much better dancer than me (so I was unbelievable happy that I didn't get called up for the "couple" dancing!), and it was so fun that it wasn't just waltzing and those dances, everyone really went all out. Also unlike the western weddings that I've been to people weren't reluctant to get up on the dance floor, you almost had to fight for a spot on it! It was so much fun, I wish I had stayed longer, but I had to get up at 4am the next morning to get my flight so I thought I should at least get a couple of hours sleep. Although, in hindsight, I probably would have been less tired if I had just stayed up all night and gone to the airport straight from the reception, only stopping to get my bag and check out of the hostel.

Before this weekend I hadn't seen my friend in about 10 years!! It was really great seeing her again even though of course we didn't get to talk that much, I really hope it won't be that long until next time! I will really try harder now to get to see her more often, it should at least be slightly easier anyway now that I live in Oslo.

After the shoes are gone...

Do you know what's great to have when you have one present that's made up of loads of little things?

A shoebox!

I don't like the stickers they put on ribbon rolls to keep it from unwinding... Makes the ribbon ugly.

The gift is for a wedding I'm going to this weekend by the way. I'm really looking forward to it. One of my closest friends, who I haven't seen in about 10 years is getting married in London. I'm looking forward to seeing my friend again and to meet the man she is marrying and seeing what their wedding will be like.

Ladies Night - Oh what a night!

Some friends and I went on a ladies night last night at North Leagues and Service Club in Kallangur outside Brisbane (Their cheesy garlic bread is to die for!). The Sydney Hotshots were preforming. For those of you who don't know who that is (like me before I got my invitation to the girls night), they're male dancers... That just happen to take their clothes off...

I have never been to a show with male strippers before, or female strippers for that matter. It wasn't actually that good. I found it mostly awkward, but maybe that was because I didn't drink much as I haven't been feeling well for a few days. Some ladies in the audience got pulled up on stage and got to kind of dance with the men or help them take their clothes off. I'm sure glad I wasn't among those ladies. Don't get me wrong it was a fun night and a good laugh and it was nice to do something other than just going for dinner or to the pub for a drink or whatever. The guys weren't that great though to be honest. Nice bodies, but I think at least 2 of them (there was only 4) were new and the times they preformed together they kept looking at the other guys for what to do. The Mother, which was one of the ladies I went with said that she'd seen them before when they were much better.

Part of me would like to go see a show like that again, when I've had a bit more to drink and when the show is hopefully better, just to see what's that like, but another part of me doesn't really want to as I feel uncomfortable seeing people take their clothes off. And yet another reason I'm not sure I want to see another one: the guys only stripped down to a thong so you never saw their gear, I don't really get the point as I can just go to a beach or whatever to see that.

But it was a good laugh. Until one of the girls passed out sick in the ladies room. She was okay, she had someone to drive her home. I don't get the point of drinking that much though. Drinking so much that you're sick when you get home, fair enough, but being sick while you're still out? You're just ruining the night, not just for other but for yourself as well. I don't understand teenagers who judge the greatness of the night out by how sick they were.

Another one of the girls was sick in the car on the way home... Yuck! She didn't even say anything. Luckily the girl that was driving had noticed that she didn't look very well and opened the window. Then one of the other girls asked if she was feeling sick and she said yes, but then she was sick straight away before the driver could pull over. Some of it got inside the car.. Eurgh! TM was kind enough to deal with it and clean it up. Mostly because the rest of us is no go dealing with spew. The girls that threw up did give the girl driving some money though as she felt really bad about it. What I don't understand though is why she didn't shout out for the driver to pull over when she felt she was going to be sick!? It might be embarrassing, but as she probably now knows it's even more embarrassing to be sick in someone's car.

Melbourne - Day 3 and 4

(Day 1 and 2. )

Day 3

A boring start to the day: I decided to sit down and charge my phone all the way up. At least it gave me some time to answer my e-mails and post some of my Melbourne pictures to Facebook.

After my phone was fully charged for the first time since Canberra I wandered around town for a few hours. I started with taking the free tourist shuttle to Queen Victoria Market, which was starting to close up when I got there. I bought a couple of plums and then I just started randomly walking down a road. I did ask a police officer that I walked past if I was heading towards the city centre, just to make sure I wouldn’t end up too far away, and I was. Once I knew that and I noticed a street I recognised I knew how to get back to my hostel, but I didn’t want to go there yet so I turned left and right down some random streets. My sense of direction is quite good, so I didn’t get LOST.

Anyway. I came across some alleys with some street art; some was being made as I was watching. It’s amazing how good some people are, and it’s really nice that they’ve got somewhere to do it. It should be like this in all cities, because when it’s done properly it can look really nice!

 My friend Mai had been on a wine tasting tour all day, and when she got back we bought a cake and some wine to celebrate her birthday. We sat in her hostel at first, where we met a couple of guys who, when we had finished our wine, we went out to Melbourne Central with for a couple more drinks. This is one thing I really like about hostels; you meet so many new people and so many nice people. Everybody is a potential friend.

Wine in mugs... We're just SO classy!

Day 4 – Luna, Kevin and Antonio!

Today is the day I’m meeting Luna and her daddies Antonio and Kevin. They are the first people (and dog) who I only know from the blog world that I’m actually meeting face-to-face. I “met” Kevin over a year ago through his blog “52 Characters in Search for a Script”, which he’s sadly not writing on anymore. When I got twitter we followed each other on there and then when he and his partner Antonio started a blog for their dog Luna, “Luna,A Dog’s Life…”, I started reading that. When I decided to come to Melbourne I asked if they would like to meet up, and they did!

As I was meeting them a little bit outside Melbourne I had to get a train ticket. I am so used to using my go-card in Brisbane it’s a bit strange having to get an actual ticket. As I was sitting on the train I realized that Kevin, who was picking me up, doesn’t know what I look like! I figured that I would see him when I got off, but just in case it was busy and I didn’t spot him I sent him a tweet telling him what I was wearing.  I needn’t have worried, I knew him as soon as I saw him.

Kevin took me back to their house, it was really strange to meet someone I’ve only known online, but he’s a nice guy. When we got to his and Antonio’s house I got to meet Antonio and the famous Luna as well. Both very nice! Luna was very friendly and jumping up on me and giving me kisses, I’m glad she isn’t a Doberman or something big and heavy like that! Haha! 

Antonio and Kevin left Luna at home in the back garden and we drove into the city and went to the aquarium. Antonio even paid for my ticket! Thank you again for that! They had penguins at the aquarium, I think they just want to make more money after the Happy Feet movies, but then again they probably got some new things after the Finding Nemo movie as well.  But it was cool to see them anyway, except for the penguins in St Kilda, I have never seen penguins before, not that I can remember anyway.

 There were loads of pretty, funny, weird and some ugly fishes at the aquarium.

Spider crab! Yuck!

 After the aquarium we crossed the river to Crown Casino. Antonio was dying for a coffee! The Crown casino is one of those places you can tell is really expensive as soon as you step inside. They had a decoration for the Chinese New Year that was really nice. The picture doesn't do it justice!

 We had some (non-alcoholic)drinks, again I didn’t have to pay my own way! THANK YOU!  And then Kevin and Antonio walked me to my hostel before they went to one of their friend’s birthday party.

 I really enjoyed my day with Kevin, Antonio and Luna. It was strange in the beginning because we don’t really know each other, but after we got over the initial “awkwardness” or what I should call it, I had a really nice time.

In the evening I met up with Mai and the guys from last night again. We had some of Mai’s left over birthday cake and just sat at her hostel and chatted for a few hours.

To be continued...

Canberra

Day 1

The Canberra City YHA seems okay. They’ve got a swimming pool and spa (just a fancy word for hot tub, not an actual SPA), pool table, big tv and key card instead of a normal key. I’m staying in a room for 10 people, it’s the biggest dorm I’ve seen so far and it’s got lots of floor space, but we have to keep our belongings under or on top of the bed or the cleaner will (re)move them. Which is fair enough I guess, at least that way it stays clean and tidy. This is also the first mixed room I’ve stayed in. So far I know there are two other women in the room and one guy, but I don’t know what the other 6 are… Not that it matters. As long as my pyjama top stays in one place!

There is also a big balcony with a clothes line just for this dorm, which would be handy if I had loads of washing. No pegs though, so it would probably just fly away.

 Canberra is the quietest capital I’ve seen. It’s just seems like a strange place to be honest. I’m not sure why, very pretty though. There are hardly any people here! But then again, I guess it’s not very often that capitals actually gets designed to be capitals. I think it would be very hard to get lost here as well. I walked around in Canberra Shopping Centre for a bit. It’s HUGE! At least I know I can go window-shopping if I’m bored.

 I’m loving the weather today, makes a change from yesterday’s grey wall. Apparently it’s unusually hot for Canberra today; I hope it stays like this until I leave.

Day 2

I walked up to Mount Ainslie today. It was a long walk, 11-12kilometers there and back, I’m glad I remembered to bring some water! There weren’t footpaths all the way, but I managed to find my way. I was a bit worried about spiders and snakes when I was walking up Mount Ainslie Drive, but except for a lot of butterflies and a dead kangaroo I didn’t see any wildlife or creepy-crawlies. On the way down I found a walking trail and I was even more worried about snakes and spiders, I almost wished I had just walked on the road, but I didn’t see anything there either.

 The view was really nice from the top of Mt Ainslie, I could really see how planned the city is. I was almost surprised there wasn’t a café or anything up there, but at the same time it was quite nice that there wasn’t anything up there to take money from tourists.

 I didn’t meet anyone else walking up to Mt. Ainslie today, but there were quite a few people cycling. I almost wish I had rented a bike myself so I could have rested my feet on the way back down, but it would have been hellish going up.

 I pretty much just relaxed the rest of the day as I was too knackered to do anything after my long walk. I do have to say though that Canberra seems like a nice city and I wouldn’t have minded living here. It’s not too busy or full of tourists and it’s pretty and clean. There are also so many statues and sculptures that I would probably be able to discover a new one every day if I wanted to. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the city tomorrow.

Day 3

I was in a really bad mood this morning. It just didn’t start right. So to calm down I lost myself in a book for a few hours. By 1.30pm I had calmed down and the rain had stopped as well, so I went out to see the Captain Cook Memorial Water Jet as it’s only on between 2 and 4pm.

 After I had taken a couple of pictures of it I walked around the lake to Kings Avenue Bridge and from there up to Capital Hill. I could not see a single shop on that side of the bridge, only government buildings, but then I guess that was the plan of it. Or maybe it was because I only walked within the “triangle”.

 I wandered down Federation Mall and from there to Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. I was thinking about looking at some more things on the government side of the lake, but my feet are absolutely killing me from my long walk up Mount Ainslie yesterday, and since I walked just as far today my feet are not happy. But I got to see all the things that were on my "must-see"-list in Canberra so I'm happy,

I went out with someone in my dorm tonight for a couple of drinks. Canberra is not really very busy on a Monday night! It’s rather dead actually. But the two places we went to still had their music on so loud that we had to shout to hear each other.

I’ve liked Canberra and I wouldn’t mind spending more time here, but I’m also looking forward to going to Melbourne and seeing what’s there, and also meeting Luna and her daddies while I’m there. Mai, who came to Byron Bay with me, is also meeting me again down there. I've got a feeling it's going to be a busy week in Melbourne!