Nearly a whole week

Well.Well well well well well.
Tuesday was my first day here, and I have to confess that I slept most of it away. I didn't get up till about half past twelve, which was a bit surprising. But then again, I had been up for longer than 24 hours with the plane journeys and such, so I was completely knackered. Well anyway, after getting up and waking myself up a bit, I spent a happy half hour dangling my legs in the pool and adjusting to the 33degree heat. I found that I needed a Uk-to-Australian plug adaptor for my electronics, plus some toiletries so Nicky and Kirsty took me to a small town called Strathpine where Nicky and Sharon both work, and there is shopping complex or mall. 


I don't think I was expecting Australia to have so many of the same brands (and some shops) as the UK. I saw a GAME, Subway, McDonalds, KFC, and there were items such as Palmolive, Dettol, Rimmel London, Pantene and others. When we went into a supermarket called Coles,  Heinz sauces were available, as were McCains chips (or fries, as they're called over here) and Quorn food which is apparently a fairly recent thing in Oz. 
Well anyway, I got my travel adaptors. Once I leave Oz I'll put them on eBay or something, but they shall serve me well for my time out here. I also managed to find a (you'll never believe this) My Little Pony beach towel! Yeeeaaaaah boy! It is beautiful. Apparently ponies are bigger in Oz than they are in England - that's how it looks anyway with all the merchandise available. I really had to restrain myself from buying Pony stuff unnecessarily, but I managed to do it. Bestie, you should be proud :')
There's a national bank holiday coming up called Australia Day, where people celebrate - you guessed it - being Australian. As such, they have got the flags out - literally. You can buy loaaaads of stuff with the Aussia flag on - I got myself a pair of flip flops, which are called 'thongs' out here, for $2. That's about £1.20. Crazy much? I also bought myself an Aussie bikini for $16, and an Aussie tank top for around the same. Bikinis are quite cheap over here, whereas I bought mine in the UK for around £20. Which is maybe $45? So you can tell that stuff is pretty good value over here.


Also, there is a pet store at this shopping place. Which is fine, and everything. BUT! THEY SELL PUPPIES AND KITTENS AT THESE PLACES! How insane is that? You could literally walk in, and then walk out with a puppy. So bizarre.
We got a McDonalds each, and then made our way back home. Had a lovely meal of barbequed chicken, chips and baked beans. Very English :) 
After that, Kirsty needed to be driven to her pole-fitness class which she attends every week, and whilst she was there Sharon and I went shopping at WOOLWORTHS! How awesome is that? One of the main supermarket chains is called Woolworths :') How that brings back memories.


That night, we watched Tangled. Yes, I know that I watched it on the flight over, two days before, but Nicky and Kirsty hadn't seen it! They had been put off by the trailer, which made it look... 'lame'. Well, their tune has certainly changed now! Pascal is a hero, and Maximus is a HILF, apparently... I don't know how that works, but hey. When Beauty and the Beast comes out in cinemas in 3D later this year, there'll be a Tangle short movie before it, so we are definitely going to see that :) Killing two disney stones with one bird, or something like that...


I only got three and a half hours of sleep that night. I think it was because I hadn't yet adjusted to the time difference, but for whatever reason I was up at 5 o'clock. So I got myself up on Skype, and found that my parents were online :D So I phoned them and had a lovely 50 minute long chat. After I'd hung up with them, Maddy was online :) So I phoned her and had a lovely 40 minute long chat. After I'd hung up with her, Bestie was online :) So I phoned her and had a lovely hour long chat. I was pretty busy that morning.
According to Bestie I have a bit of an accent already... I am ashamed to say that the one I was using was completely fake and totally forced.


Nicky, Peter and Sharon all had work that day, so it was just Kirsty and I in the house. It was 36.9 degrees that day, so we basically just lounged around the pool as it was too hot to do anything else. Coloured in some Pascal origami (ohhh yes!) and had a very chilled out day. We watched Bolt, which I hadn't seen before. It's very good, the only thing I disliked was Miley Cyrus voicing the lead girl. But she is the VA they picked, and no matter how much I dislike her nothing is going to be done about it.
I ended up lolling around on my bed after that, at around four o clock, and  fell asleep. Slept till around nine pm, and as such missed dinner. Nic, Kirsty and I had also planned to go to the cinema that night, but as I was sleeping that didn't happen.
Grabbed myself some toast, and then we settled down in the living area and watched Scott Pilgrim VS the World. It's a very nerdy comedy, and I rather enjoyed it :) I don't think I'd buy it on DVD but I'm glad I saw it.


Thursday Kirsty and I went into a part of Brisbane called Southbank. It was a 40minute train journey from Strathpine, and the train was very squeaky. In Australia they have a train ticket system called a Go Card. You buy a card, load it with money, and then swipe it on a electronic reader. Get on a train, get off at your destination and then swipe it there so it knows where you've gone to and from. Only thing is, we forgot to swipe our cards, so they fined me $10. It's okay though, I have a phone number I can ring to hopefully get reimbursed.
Southbank is beautiful - very green and lush. Lovely parks, with free swimming pools lining the path that runs along-side the Brisbane River. And they weren't shoddy square tiled pools that we get in Britain - they were curvacious, lined with rocks and boulders, with fountains and water shooting out of the ground, and innovative play devices to encourage fun. And it was entirely free. I couldn't believe it. They were absolutely beautiful; how could they be free? Alas, my British eyes did not believe the sight before them.
We didn't go swimming, but enjoyed walking around the pools, and I may have ogled a few life guards as we strolled. We eventually made our way to a little shopping area, and found a sweetshop which sold English sweeties. Naturally, I bought $3.10 worth of peardrops. Gotta keep a bit of home with me! 
After that, we went across the road to a restaurant called Max Brenner. Now, this place... Only. Sells. CHOCOLATE!
Yes, my little ones. We were at a chocolate restaurant. How insane is that?! Max Brenner clearly is a genius. There's nothing like that in England that I know of! Well, as tempting (and expensive) as the menu was, Kirsty and I opted for a little something off the 'Extras' bit of the menu. We each got a Chocolate Lick, which is just a pot of pure melted chocolate, with four melted white choccy buttons in it. As an extra to our extras, we both got a scoop of ice cream and a hot drink with it. Kirsty had milk chocolate, and ordered a cappucino, and I had vanilla and ordered a white chocolate mocha. 


My friends, you have never lived until you have eaten at a chocolate restaurant. It was pure heaven, let me tell you. Southbank is now one of my favourite places of all time, mostly because of that restaurant. Everything was amazing. Seriously. And I think the fact that I don't eat chocolate all that often made it that much tastier. I really think they ought to branch out to the UK. They'd be a big hit.


Well after our little taste of Heaven, we went and bought some postcards and stamps, but on the way we stumbled across a little dance troop. Now apparently this isn't odd in Australia, but what was odd was that a kid dressed as a carrot - face paints and everything - rocked up and starting dancing with this crew. What a way to attract attention, eh? As if the dancing alone wasn't enough, they had to have someone dress as a carrot.
The music that was playing in shops in Southbank really tripped me out - it mostly out X-Factor Failures. It would seem like Australia has adopted Cher Lloyd, One Direction and The Wanted. Apparently One Direction are the biggest boy band in the world at the moment. What?


Kirsty and I went back to the paths next to the river, and there is a little section of rainforest in the park (don't ask me how or why). We went inside and merrily strolled along until we came across a random buddhist temple (again, don't ask). It's not funded or looked after, but there's no graffiti or vandalism on it at all. I have noticed that Australia is a very clean country - you don't see gum or litter on the streets, no cigarette butts lining the paths, and no engravings on seats.
Well we marvelled at the temple for a while, and then made our way up the paths, and crossed a big bridge to get to another part of the city called Queenstreet, where all of the shops are. Got totally ripped off at a foreign exchange place - I gave them £20 and they gave me $23, and it should have been nearly double that. But I won't complain too much as I now have a totally Aussie-money purse which is a lot better for me. I still have some Malaysian and English coins because they only took notes, and nearly gave some to cashiers at souvenir shops (thankfully they know their own currency very well), but I feel much better having just dollars, than sterling and RM too.


Well we did a bit of shopping, and I bought a new pair of high-waisted denim shorts on sale for $10. That's about £4.50, I think. I also bought another tank top, and this cute polka-dot-waist-coat-thing-that-ties-in-a-knot-over-a-tank-top-thing. Bestie, that's in honour of you! Since I know how much you love that style, and I thought it was very you :) I'll have to show/lend/give it to you when I get back :) 


We hung out for ages, and it was amazing that even at 6pm in January it was warm enough to be comfortable in shorts and t-shirts. In an open space, we parked our bums on a bench and there was a huuuuuuuuuge tv screen hanging off the edge of an open bar, showing a cricket match. Cricket is the biggest sport here, with football (they call it soccer) coming up as a close second.


Nic came up on the train after she'd finished work, and we met at a cinema, planning to watch the film we couldn't see the night before due to my sleepyness. Unfortunately, Happy Feet wasn't playing in the evening so we just went and chilled on Southbank parklands. Kirsty and I bought a Subway (they don't have brown sauce out here - I am disappoint), and Nic bought an ice cream from Cold Rock, the Aussie version of Shake Away. Basically you choose an ice cream from loads of different flavours, and choose something to go in it. So Nic had a cake-batter-mix ice cream (it tasted AMAZING!) with bits of fudge mixed in :') Next time I see one I am soooo trying that.


On Friday, we were planning to go out on the Williams' family boat for the weekend. This involved packing on friday afternoon, although I forgot important things such as pyjamas. I also forgot a spare set of clothes. Idiot. 
Well, I mulled around writing some of this blog on friday afternoon, and in the evening Sharon and I took the dog to one of their friends' house for the duration of our trip. The door was opened by a young, very fit lad dressed only in shorts. Well, I tell you... If all young men in Oz open the door dressed like that, there's no way I'm getting on a plane back to the UK. 
Went shopping at Aldi's for food for the boat - we bought lots of lemonade and bacon and stuff, and the guy at the till sounded slightly Irish, which I found quite amusing.


We spent the night on the boat in the marina, and set off for Moreton Island on Saturday morning. Because their boat is a sailing boat, it's not particularly designed for speed. As such, it took us around four hours to get there. Mum, I tried steak and actually liked it! It was a proud moment.
On the way, we saw two dolphins out in the distance, which was quite cool :) As we got nearer the island, the sea got bluer and bluer, and when we got quite close, you could see where there was sand close to the surface because it was more of a turquoisey-green colour. 
Well eventually we rocked up at Tangalooma on Moreton Island around quarter past twelve, and didn't waste much time getting into our swim gear and heading out on the dinghy to some old shipwrecks where fish gather and congregate.


Maybe one of the most courageous moments of my life was when Sharon said "Right, so who's going in first then?" to which I promptly back-rolled off the edge of the dinghy into the water.


We had snorkelling gear on, and after we fixed them to not-leak, we were off. Well, nearly. Where we jumped in, the current was too strong, and we nearly got swept away. Cue some tough swimming to keep ourselves from not being carted off by the tide. Thankfully Pete and Kirsty's boyfriend were still on the dinghy, and they threw us a rope to hold on to. Thus, we were dragged around the shipwrecks by a dinghy, whilst holding onto a long rope. We were snorkelling pretty much the whole time though, and it was awesome. So many cool fishies down there, all inquisitive and such :) If you floated long enough, they'd gather some courage and swim very close to you. 
There were lots of schools of very little fish, and I spent a few happy minutes simply swimming along behind them as they darted around the outskirts of the wrecks. We even saw an octopus which was very cool. Kirsty saw a parrot fish, which I missed, and two other snorkellers saw a turtle but we missed that too.


We spent ages there, but after swallowing an unhealthy amount of seawater it was time to very very gracefully and elegantly get back into the dinghy. Cue a lot of laughter as I failed miserably.


We then headed to shore, because at seven o'clock, wild dolphins come to the jetty to be fed. We waited at a good spot on the jetty, and sure enough six wild fishy-mammals rocked up :) They are amazing. So elegant and intelligent. I mean, they figured out that if they turn up at a certain place every night, they get free food. One of them has been going there for (I think) around fourteen years. That's a long long time. It was absolutely incredible.


We hung around for a while, watching the hotel-people feed a fish to the dolphins, and then made our way back to the boat. We had a lovely meal of potatoes, beans, chicken and sausages (isn't it amazing what can be cooked on a boat when you're way off shore?), but being at knackered as we were we went to bed pretty sharpish. It was strange trying to get to sleep with a boat rocking and swaying the entire time, but I got an alright nights kip.


In the morn, we left Tangalooma at around quarter past nine. It was lovely, as just in shore we could see two dolphins swimming about. But then something even more amazing happened - there was one swimming in front of the boat! It was absolutely magical - I've never experienced anything like it. It was on it's back, on it's side, and I know it wasn't but it looked like it was looking up at me at one point. Truly a memory worth keeping.


Unfortunately the ride back to the main land was not as smooth as the ride to the island, and me, Nic and Kirsty all got a bit seasick. Typically, I was the only one that was physically ill. That wasn't too fun. I blame part of it for swallowing so much salt water, and the rest for not having sea legs. Just thinking about it now makes me queasy. I'm actually still rocking, if you can imagine that. My mind is swaying side to side and it's quite off-putting.


We got back at around midday, and I've been slowly writing this blog ever since. It's half past ten at night now, and I think that's all I have to say :) I'll post another one next Sunday, I should think. Adios!