Friday - Sunday .... Sorry for the Delay

So I admit, I got a bit lazy over the weekend and failed to update my blog, and the world of my whereabouts (my parents would not be happy to not know where I've been). But I promise, as my previous timeline stated, I did not manage to get arrested on Sunday, and I had a very good and law-abiding weekend. So I'll break this post up into its four respective parts starting from Friday and leading into today.

Friday
To be quite honest, I don't think Friday was all that exciting. So non-exciting, that I have to go back to my planner to remember what I did....Ah yes. So my morning was pretty much the same story as the rest of the week. My morning hours was spent by commuting into the city and then going for my 1-hour or so meeting with some local government official. However, since it was a nice day, and I wanted to have some side enjoyment of Brisbane, I decided to take the CityCat Ferry to campus. Since Brisbane is the "River City" it's only fair that they have an elaborate ferry system, which they do. But it was a beautiful day outside, which made the ferry ride really enjoyable. I met a young guy who was from the US who happened to be spending his last few days at UQ before heading back to Virigina. Nice guy, but not the most conversational, maybe he was ready go go back to the US. My afternoon at work was relatively short, about 2 hours, before heading back to Indooroopilly (which I've come to find out means some kind of leech in native terms??) Back to indooroopilly for a quick trip to the gym and some bike maintenence.

Saturday...work and play
So since much of this trip, I basically have no advisor watching over my work (since he ironically is in Berkeley, CA) so my hours and workdays are basically set by myself. Saturday was for the most part, a rainy boring day. So I spent the morning in the office trying to get things taken care of here and there, the afternoon cleared a bit, so I decided to take an adventure into the city to see some of the parts which were still a little foreign to me. After taking the bus into downtown, I spent pretty much the next 7 hours walking from one point to another. I trekked through Fortitude Valley (the nightclub district), and also to Chinatown. How thrilled was I to go to Chinatown and go shopping? ... THRILLED. because... I was able to find a cheap heater to warm my 50 degree room at night. When your away from home... it's really the little things that make your day. So after that hike, the journey continued to the Brisbane Powerhouse in New Farm (it's a art venue that was an old powerhouse along the river), really nice and fancy place after you take into account the 2 hours of walking it took me to get there, for that kind of work, it shouldn't have the blessing to even have the name Brisbane in front of it. But once I arrived, the exhibit was really worth it (World Photo Tour 07), which is a collection of the top photographs taken my press photographers over the past year. So around 5pm or so, it began to get dark, so I decided to try to make my way back. Luckily for me, the City Cat Ferry runs near the powerhouse, so I caught that... only in the wrong direction, oops. But it wasnt' so bad, I figured this way I could get my tranist passes' moneys worth. So I stood at the front of the Ferry as we cruised along away from my final destination, we saw the mouth of the river where it pretty much empties out into the ocean, and some other nice things along the way. But to make a long story end, I arrived at home about an hour and a half later. That night, a friend and I decided to check out the more cultural side of Brisbane by attending the Queensland Symphony Orchestra who was playing Carmina Burana (you would know it if you heard it), the performance was great, they played some Wagner and other modern pieces beforehand, and I am really into that stuff, so it was worthwhile.

Sunday: Sun and Surfing

So I decided it would be a good idea to bring my wetsuit from home on this 8000 mile journey. Sunday, that decision finally became worthwhile as we went down to Surfers Paradise (yes, that's actually the name) for the afternoon. My friend Ying joined me as we took the 2 hour transit journey to travel the 70km down to the Gold Coast. Imagine Miami Beach, only cleaner, safer, and with an Aussie accent. Surfers is quite the tourist trap, but it's a pretty one at that, and has plenty of places to rent surf boards. After taking a walk along the coast and checking out the water, I started talking to a kitesurfer (I've been dying to learn to kitesurf since last year), and asked about local lessons and if any were offered. And the guy, went on to give me an hour lesson about kitesurfing, talk about awesome. I took down his contact info because he may lend me a trainer kite to practice with if I come down again. But after that, I rented a board for about two hours. I realized why I hadn't seen many other surfers in the water... because the current was moving about 2 miles an hour from south to north. So what does that mean? I surf about 5-7 runs, then have to get out and walk 100 yards along the beach back to the point where i set in. A little annoying, but not too bad. The surf was pretty good though, pretty much one great break after another. I definately want to try to get back on another weekend.

Monday. Back to Work
So today was a fairly normal day, I woke up around 720am and headed down to breakfast. The weather has been kinda crappy since it's raining outside, and will be again tommorrow. But continued on my normal routine going downtown and then back to campus. Another good meeting this morning learning about the history of Brisbane Transport. But I want to focus this post on my long interaction with my office mate... who loves to talk. but is also the most risk-averse person I think I've ever met in my life! I should preface, he is a great guy and has been super nice and helpful. But I almost was laughing at some of his stories of avoiding things like... swimming in shallow waters because they contain fish which could lure sharks... Ok, so that is semi plausible, but then to go on to explain how he has tried certain sports, and then moved on because they are too dangerous. Soccer was the first, (too dangerous, contact), they he moved onto cycling (also too dangerous), then badminton (too dangerous, your partner could hit you), but he is safely settled on softball, which on my danger hierarchy lies somewhere above cycleing and badmintion.... but different folks different strokes.

Well that's about it for today, have a great day!