15 posts tagged “australia”
HOME!!! Left Brisbane at 11 am on the 10th. Got to LA at 7 am on the 10th. Got to STL at 5pm on the 10th.
This day lasted 40 hours.
That was our plane. It was 2 levels. And awesome.
We got recognized TWICE at the airport for being on the Today Show Australia! Here's the link to the video. The guy's face at the end is priceless.
Paisley missed us. Jess painted her toe nails pink:
That's all for now. More tomorrow. Hopefully good news will be included...
We were in Sydney for part of the day.
We went to the Apple store.
Got some yummy candies from Darrell Lee.
Flew back to Brisbane. Got to the hotel. Finished the scarf.
It was FREEZING today. We headed to Darling Harbor. I took some pictures, but they're really not very interesting. So, I'll skip them. There would have been a few awesome ones, but damn untrained children ruined them. I tried to get good ones of me in my central park hoodie, but it didn't work out.
After the harbor, we went to Cupcakes On Pitt, which Empress was correct about - totally overrated and completely not worth visiting. The Cupcake Bakery was MUCH better. We also went to a local yarn store that sucked. Bit of a bummer. To make it up, we went through Lincraft and I got more awesome buttons. And we went to one of the opal shops and I bought myself a sweet opal pendant to remember the trip by.
Now, onto the bridge: Holy koala poo, it was quite the thing. And by 'thing' I mean terrifying. Because I'm terrified of steps. Even steps that aren't a 40 story free-fall above water. But, we did it. My only angst on the the whole thing was that I couldn't take my own camera up. Because those shots would have made the entire journey here worth it. But, since I couldn't (and no one else could either), here are the two shots we paid to get:
I was having a bad bang day today, which is a bummer, but it's OK. I think I hid the terror on my face pretty well too. :D
Tomorrow is our last day in Sydney, well, actually it's a half day. We fly back to Brisbane in the afternoon and then spend one night there and head back to the states Monday morning. I've had such an awesome time here, it'll be great memories forever.
Maybe when I get back the few issues in my life will be worked out as well. Now, if I could just get this scarf to knit itself...
Today we took the ferry to Manly and took a look around. We went to Oceanworld and the beach. There was ice cream involved. It was super.
Bridge climb tomorrow!
We got to Sydney about 10 am or so today. Took a cab to the hotel which is right in the middle of everything. Got our things to the room and headed out.
The Opera House was smaller than I thought it'd be. But, it was really neat-o on the inside. The cupcake shop was neat. They looked at us like we had 8 heads when Scott wanted milk with his cake. Just regular, cold milk. I guess no one does that here? The streets tell you which way to look for traffic on the curb. I guess they have lots of people from other places (like us) where everything is opposite.
I had a really good sandwich for late lunch. Chicken and avocado. We were going to go out to dinner, but when we started moving around I was feeling no good. :( So, we're in for the night.
More tomorrow!
Today was Scott's speaking day in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast. Not a lot of pictures, mostly just exhaustion. :)
No pictures of the actual speech, unfortunately. I didn't want to move around a lot and distract everyone. They recorded the whole thing, and the Today Show Australia was there too, so we should have plenty of good stuff from them. :) Sydney tomorrow!
Today was hands down THE greatest day ever. There was work in the morning, but none of you care about that. Let's get to the good part:
We cuddled koalas and fed kangaroos today. I took about 500 pictures and videos at the Lone Pine Koala Sancutary. Here are my favorites:
Do you see the Joeys sticking out of the pouches?
I cannot even begin to tell you all what an awesome experience this was. Amazing does not even describe it. And we'll have pictures and memories forever.
This was, hands down, the greatest thing I have ever chosen to do. It was worth every penny to get a snuggle with Aussie animals and help them out with the fees we paid.
Happiness.
Having been here only two days, the days are already blending together.
In the morning, I had an "American Breakfast."
It was good, but the waffles tasted more like a waffle cone than regular waffles. I liked the bananas on top. I give it an A.
Scott had a photo shoot and interview with MX (a newspaper). While he did that, I took a wander into the Queens Street Mall, which is extremely large and deceptive.
The managed to fit a 3 level target in there though! It's NOTHING like the Targets at home. The clothes are all very different, dressier mostly. There's really no food or stationary section or anything.
That's a map of the mall of deceptiveness.
When Scott was done with the interview, we were supposed to go to the koala sanctuary, but we missed the bus because I didn't know you had to hail it like a taxi. But, the bus stop was across from the library which is super neat. Here are some pictures of that:
Instead, I showed him the mall and we wandered in there a bit. I had a mushroom and pepperoni pizza, but it was really strange because the sauce wasn't tomato. It was sweet, and kind of good, but I felt a little sick after having it. When we were getting ready to leave, we tried to cut through a store to get to the elevator. A few steps in, I stumbled upon isles and isles of YARN! It was a big box craft store! Scott let me touch everything and then we left. :)
We started to get hungry, so I looked for a restaurant that served kangaroo while Scott worked out. Found one, and we headed out. As we left, I stopped at level 8 to snap a quick shot of the heated pool we swam in yesterday:
It was really pretty at the restaurant, it was off the water by the Story Bridge. Here was my dinner:
I thought those yellow things were potatoes. They were NOT. They tasted of poison and it was horrifying. But the steak was good. They wouldn't do it up well or medium well because it's a tougher meat, so I ate around the fleshy bits. I don't like to see that the meat had blood.
When we left, I took a picture of the bridge:
Tomorrow we'll go to the sanctuary for real. Scott's got two big interviews and I'll get to visit a local knitting group in the evening. More pictures tomorrow!
We arrived safely and the plane ride was actually quite enjoyable. I got some knitting done on the ride from St. Louis to LA, but not a lot from LA to Brisbane. After being served what Scott and I called "Second Dinner," they had the cabin lights shut off nearly the entire flight, and it seemed really terrible to turn the lights on while literally everyone but me was sleeping. So, I watched several movies and TV shows, and then after having been up for 27 hours straight, I managed to sleep for about 3. Then we all got breakfast on the plane. There were tons of snacks in between the meals, they'd walk around every 2 or 3 hours, and you'd get another snack pouch. It was awesome. They also gave you a little care package when you got to your seat. It had a blanket, headphones, socks, and some other stuff. I guess when your flight is several thousand dollars, it's not that much to add in things like that. :D
The airplane safety booklet was pretty funny. Here was my favorite part:
When we arrived in Brisbane, it was 6 am on Sunday the 2nd. We went through customs and Scott's client met us at the airport. After we loaded up, we went to the hotel to drop off our stuff and headed out to second breakfast and a wander around the town. Here are a few of the shots I took in the area that I think they call the West End. It was really pretty.
I think we may take a ride on this wheel sometime during our stay.
A lot of the buildings are really ornate. This was across the street from China Town.
Managed to find a yarn shop. Shocking. :D
That's all for now. You can see more pictures on my Flickr album for day one, here.
Today, Scott has some interviews and I'm going to wander to the next plaza where there's a Target! I am interested to see how different it is. I'm also interested to see how the heck they fit it inside of this crazy layered shopping mall type building. :D
I think that today is also the day we'll go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
But not really, because our flight leaves at night. So I don't even think I'll be out of the US by midnight, but whatever.
I'm gearing up and getting excited. But you'll hear more about that later in the week and tomorrow.
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Today was my last day in my contract position. It was a really good day. They surprised me with doughnuts and cake and a little shin dig of people stopping by to see me off. My managers were even awesome enough to get me a going away present! They got me the coolest knitting journal/notebook I have ever seen and a book about repurposing knitwear from thrift shops and the like. To make it even more over the top, they included a thank you note and a gift certificate to one of the local yarn shops here.
It was super hard not to tear up feeling that appreciated. I really don't even have the words to say how awesome my time there has been and how thankful I am to have been able to stay there that long.
I've interviewed for two positions within the company that I should know about the week I get back. Please don't ask questions, I'm not really ready to answer them or get my hopes up, but everyone has said they have a good feeling about it. Happy vibes are welcome.
I hope that by heading to Australia and staying busy I can come back to the best news ever and be ready to jump in.
Fingers crossed and almost packed, I'll post again before I get on the plane tomorrow.
