Farewell

My time in Australia has come to an end-tear!  I never thought that I would be so touched by all of the people that I met. I can't say enough nice things about the people I met or the places I went.  This is an absolutely wonderful place and I will never forget it.  I was able to survive without my friends and family back home and at times it was very challenging but my new friends and family helped me pull through.  I learned a lot about myself while I was here and this was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life.  I feel very blessed to have been given this opportunity.

Started out my day with a final fat burning session.  Florian surprised me with a bottle of French red wine and a picture of the two of us and a nice note that he wrote.  All of the trainers also gave me a card with very heartfelt notes written inside.  I can't say enough amazing things about this gym and the people that work there.  I worked very hard (as you can see my face is bright red) and got some wonderful results.  

Had a farewell happy hour at a rooftop bar.  

It was nice to see everyone and have a final Australian beer with the team.

This is my buddy Kyla.  She organized the happy hour.  She is a doll and I'm gonna miss our girl chats at work.  She had also organized a morning tea that the team attended and they gave me a really nice card that everyone signed and a boomerang for my desk back home.  

After the happy hour a few of us went out for supper at a Korean BBQ place.  It was fun because you got to cook your food at the table.  

I definitely took advantage of living here because in 6 months I drove 6148 km which equates to 3820.19 miles which is farther than driving from Seattle to New York-impressive I must say!!!  I did miss out on some major attractions so you know what that means....I'll have to come back:)

Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed telling you of my weekly adventures.  

This now concludes my Australian Adventure!

Final Weekend Down Under

In case you didn't know, I LOVE BIRTHDAYS!!!!  My friend Phill was going to turn 50 so when I got the invite for his birthday outing I immediately contacted his girlfriend to say that I wanted to take care of the cake.  It would be my gift to Phill.  I stopped by a French bakery that I pass everyday on my way to work and placed my order.  I also had them write Happy 50th Phil on the top.  On Tuesday everyone received an e-mail from Phill with the details for Saturday.  He wanted everyone to come to his house early for dinner and drinks before we went out.  After reading the e-mail I had a mini panic attack because he spells his name Phill not Phil, which is what I put on the cake.  I raced back to the bakery and had them change it, they said it would be no problem because it was so far in advance.  Friday comes along and a few of us had decided to go to Phill's to decorate for Saturday.  I stopped into the bakery with my buddy Dave to pick up the cake before heading to Phill's and the cake said Happy 50th Phil on it.  I looked at the girl and said his name is spelled wrong, I came in and had them change it.  She said, oh yeah--I was the one that changed it, oops.  I said um...can you add another l please?  She said no, the cake is from the bakery there is nothing we can do.  I almost started to cry and then Dave says, breathe in, breathe out Tiffany--it's going to be ok.  After leaving I said...I need a drink Dave!  We hit up a happy hour and then headed to Phill's.  I was going to deal with the missing l at a later time. 

 

We went to town on the decorations--we had a fun time putting them up.  I was the tape girl since I'm so short and definitely can't reach the ceiling!  Phill was very pleased with our work:)

 

Debbie, Phil, Yadranka and myself taking a little break from decorating. 

 

Saturday arrived and I had gone to the store and bought some chocolate icing and tips so I could fix Phill's cake...what do you think?!

 

 

I told Phil the story and of course he said he would have been fine with it saying Phil because people spell it like that all of the time, but I said, well that's not the correct spelling and I wanted it to be right!  The cake was fantastic I might add and everyone loved it!

 

I went to my first burlesque show on Saturday night.  I didn't really know what to expect.  I have seen the movie with Christina Aguilera in it, but I've never seen the real deal before.  I was completely blown away.  They did a classy job and all of us really enjoyed it!  I think Phill had a wonderful birthday which is what counts:)

 

Woke up on Sunday and headed to go play Lawn Balls, which is an Australian thing apparently.  It reminded me of Bocce Ball.  There was a group of us that had lunch and then played all afternoon.

 

 

You played barefoot, talk about F-U-N!

 

Brad, Brian, Debbie and Dave on the sidelines.  The course as you can see it pretty big.  At the end of the day Brian was the big winner with Dave in a close second. 

 

I must say that my last weekend in Australia was a lot of fun!!!

   

 

Anyone Want a Hug???

Went to the Daisy Hill Koala Center (you know I love me some koala's) and check this out...

There was a koala that was awake and I thought awww, he's so cute and when I went to take his picture he put his arms out to HUG ME....(ok, ok, this is not true, but I'm going to tell myself that to make me feel better.  He was actually getting ready to scratch his back).  I still am impressed I caught him in this position.

As you know I work out quite a bit during the week with my trainer Florian and if you wonder if I really work up a sweat or not, here is the answer. If you look at the screen behind us you will see that the entire bar under my name is red which means my heart rate was at 90% or higher for a long time (as long as it took the bar to be all red).  I also burned 400+ calories (the number in the upper right hand corner which I can't quite read) during my workout.  Florian posted this picture on the gym's FB page and challenged everyone to do what I did--he showed me the post the next day since I don't have FB and I thought it was pretty cool that he did that.  

I got home the other day and looked out my balcony at the bridge and thought it was pretty cool that it was green and red, but I'm thinking they forgot that Christmas is in December, ha.  The light up the bridge different colors every couple of days so I always look forward to see what colors will be next. Sometimes they are solid and sometimes they are moving lights which is fun to watch.  

Went to check out some rooftop bars over on Southbank (across the river from me, just a short little walk) and I thought this one had a really cool ceiling and atmosphere.  Those are bird cages hanging from the ceiling above the bar with Christmas lights hanging around them.  

I got Inked!!!

You're in a foreign country, you have some down time before going out for the night...what do you do--GET A TATTOO!!!!!

Ok, ok....I'll tell you the real story.  I wanted to get a meaningful tattoo while I was here so I looked up stuff on-line and I settled on a kangaroo which I thought totally summed up this place.  I did have some time to kill on Saturday so I thought it would be the perfect time.  I pass a tattoo shop everyday on my way to work, so I stopped in and they had time to get me in.  For any of you that have a tattoo you know that the word painful isn't how to describe the experience of getting a tattoo but more so annoying--am I right?!  It's a small needle going in and out of your skin at an extremely fast rate.  The only problem with the tattoo that I chose is that it only took an hour--there goes wasting a few hours-ugh!  If you can't tell where this is on my body, it's on my right side at my pant line.  No worries, it can totally be covered up with clothes;) 

A group of us went out for Debbie's birthday Saturday night.  Had dinner in Chinatown which was quite tasty.  There were some folks there that I haven't seen in a while so it was nice to catch up.  Fun day I must say!

I signed up with the social club to get a guided tour of the Gallery of Modern Art which was a short walk across the river for me.  One of the directors' at work is on the board there and she volunteers there and gives tours so she gave us one.  I'm not an artsy person and most art I don't get so it was wonderful to get the story behind the artwork and what it meant.  Afterwards some of us went to eat at a pizza joint close by.  It was really nice out today so it was nice to get outside and walk around and do something that I normally wouldn't do.  

I keep thinking of random things that I want to tell you guys.  When you are sick you say you are crook.  Isn't that funny?  Someone missed work and I asked them the next day if they were ok and they said, yeah--I was crook.  I'm sure you can imagine the look I gave them, ha.  

I went to Subway the other day and I got a fountain soda and when I went over to the machine there wasn't an ice dispenser.  I turned and said to the worker, where do I get the ice at and he said, oh it's cold, we don't have ice.  WTF?!?!  I was NOT a happy camper about this, I did survive--barely, ugh!

Not sure if I've already told you this, but you can't buy alcohol in the grocery store.  They have separate stores for alcohol.  Talk about not being able to minimize your errands when you're out.  

A new gyro place opened across from work called yiros, so I set up a group lunch so we could go check it out.  They put french fries on their gyro's--talk about taking a healthy sandwich and totally making it unhealthy.  Yes....I ate every bit of it and it was delicious, it was just pretty weird to eat a gyro with french fries on it.  

Hot Chocolate Anyone?

Of all people to tell me where to go to get hot chocolate, it's Florian!  It's quite fun, they give you a beaker of the chocolate of your choosing, I got the highest % of dark chocolate you could get, a glass of milk and a marshmallow.  They made my milk into a heart...awwwww:)  It was quite delicious I must say!   

Set up a b-day dinner for my buddy Dave.  It's nice to break up the week with an evening out.

Brad, Debbie, Dave and me

Received a text from Brad asking if I could help take his son and some of his friends paint balling on Sunday.  Apparently none of the boys' parents were able to help out.  I said of course I'll help.  I'm a nervous driver over here as it is, but then add in 3 15 year old boys and I was nervous nelly.  I told  myself it was good practice and that we'd all survive, ha!  Dropped the boys off for their day of paint balling and then Debbie and I went out for a girls day out which I was really excited about.  We went to some local markets and then headed to Mt. Glorious for a little hike and then had lunch at this restaurant which had this breathtaking view.  It was just lovely.  Then we received a call from the boys saying they were ready to be picked up.  As we were leaving the paint balling place a wallaby hopped across the road (I'm sure you can imagine my excitement).  The boys in the back didn't have the same reaction as I did, and I said sorry boys--I know it's not exciting for an Australian but it sure is for an American.  They all laughed. 

Big Shrimp

Took a road trip down south to a different state.  I live in Queensland and I went down to New South Wales (this was a big deal to me), haha.

Saw this big shrimp and had to stop to take it's picture--can't say I've ever seen a shrimp this big in my entire life!

This was a beach that I stopped at that was half way to my destination in a town called Currumbin.  Since it's winter the water was a little cold, so I just walked along the beach.  

Went to some markets in Bangalow which someone had recommended.  Lots of vendors, people to watch and good food to eat.  On my way home I got stopped at my first ever sobriety check.  I had to count from 1-10 into this machine and then I was off on my merry way.  Unfortunately there was a line of cars of folks that didn't pass, not such a great day for them:( 

Random Stuff

Thought I would share some random things with you!

Sorry this is a little blurry.  I took it as the car was in motion, but this is a sign you would NEVER see in the States.  We might see deer or moose crossing signs but not koala or kangaroo crossing.  How cool is that?!

Apparently I go to the movies so much that they've upgraded me to VIP status.  I got a card with my name on it and one of the benefits is endless popcorn refills, sweet! 

Finally found a Mexican restaurant that has homemade chips and salsa that is comparable to the salsa back home.  Only took about 6 tries, but I finally found a place, yippee!  I still had to pay like $10 for this and this was all I got, but I was pretty gosh darn happy:)

I referred someone at work to my gym so I got to put my name in a drawing that they are having that has really cool prizes, hope I win!  As you can see I was pretty pumped to put my name in--fingers crossed my piece of paper gets pulled out!

Lipton Tea Bikes

Friday night I got to go to my first Broadway play over here which I couldn't wait for.  I saw We Will Rock You which was the music of Queen.  It was...wait for it....FANTASTIC!!!  The crowd was totally into the show, singing and dancing in their seats.  It was really funny and the singers were extremely talented!  Such a lovely evening out:)

Saturday there was a big centennial celebration for work out at the RAAF Air Force Base so headed out there for the day. 

Brian, me, Mehnaz and Dave with an F/A-18 behind us (gotta support our local STL product), haha.

Went inside a C-17 and above the seats were these bags--made me laugh that they'd have barf bags on this plane.  I always check for the barf bags when I get on a plane!

This is a C-17 in the background with a cool 100 sign they had that you could take a picture with.  Dave is the front and Brian and I are behind (I of course had to do something fun and get in the middle of the 0), haha.

Sunday went for a bike ride on these bikes that are all around town.  I call them the Lipton Tea bikes because that is the logo on them.  Felt like Dorothy riding it because of the basket on the front, ha!

You can see the city behind me.  It was an overcast day, so it was perfect for riding!  

Medieval Festival + Mt. Barney Hike

A co-worker of mine does medieval reenactments and he told us a few months ago about a big festival that was coming up.  I thought it sounded like fun so I sent out an e-mail and got a group of us excited about going so we went and purchased our tickets in advance so we wouldn't miss out.  The festival was called the Abbey Midieval Festival and they were expecting something like 17,000 people to attend each day (it was Saturday and Sunday).

This is the castle where we watched a lot of the events at.

This was the opening parade where each of the groups walked by in all of their getup.

This was Turkish oil wrestling.  They covered themselves in olive oil and wrestled.  This was one of the events I wanted to watch;)

We went to a jousting match which was really fun to watch.  I think it's probably a lot harder than it looks.

This is my co-worker Nigel in his tent that he made.  It was very impressive!  They had a bunch of little villages that you could walk through and learn about different things.

There was a cannon that they shot off and they warned us that it would be loud, but I had no idea--it was so loud my ears were ringing afterwards.

We all agreed that it was a lot of fun and it reminded me of my favorite show Game of Thrones, haha!

Sunday I woke up early and headed 1 1/2 hours south to Mt. Barney to go hiking.  Someone at work had recommended it so I added it to my list of things to do.

The scenery started out like this through what I would call a pasture.

Then it went through a rainforest.  The temperature changed drastically, it was probably 5-10 degrees cooler in the rainforest.  

At one point I came across this.....I decided to just walk through the water and let my shoes and socks air dry as I kept going.  

Saw a few mountains in the distance at one of the peaks I walked up.

Driving back to Brisbane I pulled over because I saw this....I said what in the world is this, it looked like a cow and a camel in one.  I asked at work today and come to find out it's a Braham cow.  I have never seen one of these in the States--totally awesome if you ask me.  I thought he had scoliosis or something, haha.   

Another fun weekend Down Under!

Lots of Balls

Woke up on Saturday, went to the fat burning session at the gym, and then off to the driving range to hit some balls!

Had to practice for the game of golf I was going to play on Sunday.

Had a few hours to kill before my evening plans so I decided to catch some rays.

I will inform you that it is illegal to tan in a tanning booth in Brisbane (they don't even have them), so I made my own tanning booth on my balcony.  I only get rays for a few hours in the am before the sun goes behind some buildings so I have to catch it at the right time.  I don't want to lose my tan from vacation, so I gotta do what I gotta do.  

Saturday night met up with some friends and went to the Eat Street Markets.  Think of a festival with ALL food--it was a foodie's dream come true!  I decided on the Greek stand and got a lamb kabob and a chicken kabob.  I've been on a health kick lately so I went light on the dessert.

Decided on a mini alcohol infused cupcake.  I chose an orange one and you push the little syringe and it infuses the cupcake with alcohol.  You had to be 18 in order to buy one (that is the drinking age here).  Let me just say, it was fantastic and I was quite impressed with the concept!  Such a fun night out--thanks for suggesting the idea Claire:)

Brad, me, Ross, Debbie, Dave & Claire

Sunday was the big day of golf.  Headed to the town of The Gap (I shit you not).  For proof I took a picture off of my phone of the weather.  I also wanted my Gap buddies to see this fun town that exists in Australia! 

Dave, Brian, me, Ross and Brad

Since there were 5 of us we split into teams.  Brian and Brad vs Dave, myself and Ross.  We still did a scramble so we could keep the game going at a steady pace.  I will let you know that we used my ball on more than one occasion (remember how I told you I was Tiger back in his days of glory), well I wasn't kidding (well....kinda) ;) 

I am not the best golfer, but I can hit the ball and it's a lot of fun.  I have already contacted a few friends back home to play when I get back.  I have clubs, might as well use them--right?!  I will have to go shopping for some actual golf attire though-ha!

Another fun filled weekend in the town of Brisbane!