EEEEK!!!

Having an EEEEK moment.

I start my new job tomorrow. Training for 7 days and then....!!!!

First paid job in 1.5 years.... very scary!

After being free for 1.5 years (with the occasional financial worry), I've enjoyed swanning around, bumming around and enjoying my life. It's been wonderful. It all ends in 9 hours.....

Exciting, but scary! Time to meditate, breathe in.... breathe out....

Wish me luck!!!!! I know I can do it!!!

PS lucky the job is only part-time!!! :-D

Human story

Gosh, what a day.

I found a new bikeway/pathway for rollerblading along (thanks to my friend Ben and sister Vanessa). So I decided to check it out this afternoon as the sun was shining and I needed to get out and about.

Track was pretty good, a few blind corners on gradients which makes it a little scary coz you're going fast, not a lot of room to slow down and can't see what's coming.

I didn't do a full circuit, just went to a point and realised I had to mosey back due to time. On my way back I passed a family with 2 young boys. As the young boys were scampering about I slowed down, said hello then sped up after clearing a safe distance. As I sped up one of the young boys started running after me saying ' stop, stop'. I kept going a couple of strides as I thought he was just playing and it's a stranger's kid. But he kept running and kept yelling after me so I thought I'd be rude not to. So I slowed down, turned around and the kid caught up to me.

Instantly he opened his hand and said 'I've got a rock'. So I admired his rock as he stared at my roller blades. Then he threw the rock away and continued to stare at my roller blades. He said nothing but continued walking, so I backward skated so I could face him and skate at his rate. His father called out to him to let me continue skating. So eventually I just said bye and he energetically waved me goodbye, while staring at my skates.

It was quite a nice feeling having that interaction. I guess this is why my friend Ben says he likes people.

I continued my skating quite happily and with a warm smile on a face from that experience.

Enjoying the sun

Brisbane winter is AWESOME! 20 degrees on average, sunshine and blue skies nearly every day. I think its rained 2/3 times in the last month?

I've been catching the sun's rays each morning in our backyard. Great way to start the day.

This morning, I was joined by a young Magpie (sleek, medium sized bird with black and white plumage, the young ones are noticeable with their grey feathers). He/she flew down and landed nearby on the grass and walked to be in front of me, I think it was waiting to be fed (my parents feed the birds). I wasn't going to feed the birds (they should find their own food) so it just stood in front, plumped up it's feathers, cocked it's head to one side and just stood there catching the sun. It was funny watching the bird sun bathe while I was doing the same thing.

It's gone off now to find it's own food in our backyard. :-)

Other days, there's a cheeky butcher bird who comes and sits until I finish breakfast. It came right up to me last time and took the sultanas on my plate that fell from my toast. The plate was next to me and it was there, hopped up and snatched the sultanas. It sat on my bowl of cereal first (had to throw that out), while I was fetching my toast, I tried to shoo it away and it sat happily on my laptop screen!!! Cheeky bugger!!! :-)

Post 100 - I have a new travel website!

I've not been posting here, but I have been very busy setting up a new travel blog website:

http://travelbunnyblog.com/

Also you can like travel bunny on Facebook:

Follow Travel Bunny on Twitter (name: Travelbunnyblog):

I've also updated my personal photo website of pictures from recent trips, I'll eventually work my way backwards to my great latin american trip of 2006! :-)

www.mirandasiu.com  <-- for personal photos! :-)

Universal Studios rudeness

Cannot believe the rudeness of other tourists/people at Universal Studios.

Disneyland people were absolutely fine, with all the kids and parents etc I had no problems with the people there.

But Universal Studios where the majority are adults, what the heck?!

Example no. 1:

So I line up for my universal studios tour. They're clear to say, stand on a star and that'll be your seat on the car. There are 6 stars per row and about 8 rows and 4 cars more or less. I move to the end carriage and there are 3 asian girls on one row speaking in a foreign language but they seem to understand/speak English too. So I just take the next available row and stand on the first star - happens to be 42 (great number!) :-)

Then after a short while one of them goes into the row behind me and stands on the first star so they keep talking across me but never ask if we can swap rows or anything. I find it all a bit odd and I don't offer because I wanted to stay on my row 42.

So when we come to board the cart, what does she do? Steam ahead and take my seat. I mean, really? She gave me this funny look as if waiting for me to say something. But as everyone is just pushing and crowding to get on, I just go ahead and take the seat next to her. I'm put out at the rudeness and then obviously I can't take good photos now because I'm one seat in.

Then, what's worse is, that her doing that, puts a group of people who were trying to sit altogether out. One person in their party suddenly can't board the same row because of what she did, so he goes to the row behind, where there are 2 seats still untaken, but then the 2 people that were standing on those stars in the queue, are now put out and can't sit anywhere together. So they have to wait for the next cart/train for the tour.

Then during the tour she'd be leaning over me to take photos on the other side. *Sigh*

So I just can't believe that girl caused so much consternation for other people. Not even a sorry or a 'do you mind?' It's just rude! All she had to do was ask and I would have changed stars/positions with her instead of her barging in like that. What's wrong with humanity and common decency?

Example no. 2:

Shrek 4D show. So everyone is milling about to enter the auditorium. Then when the doors finally open, boom, everybody goes surging through. I got shoved and pushed from both sides and could hardly walk myself. It was ridiculous. Then the people shoving and pushing in front of me just stand right in front of the seat rows while they try to work out where to sit. So I have to then walk around them pick a row and go and sit down.

Now, the staff clearly announce that you should walk all the way to the other end to make sure the people behind you can also sit down. Most of those rude people plonk themselves down in the middle of the row so other have to shuffle over them to get to more spare seats. Just stupid.

Example no. 3:

On the Jurassic Park ride I asked one of the attendants which seats get soaked the most, he said the end seats and recommended I ask the people to move over so I don't sit on the end.

I was the last to get on and asked 3 guys 3 times to move over more so I'm not right on the edge and they move over about 10cm at most, there was a spare seat they could have moved into, but no. They make some movement to budge but hardly move.

Nice. Thanks guys.


ARGH! Never fails to get me how STUPID some people are and RUDE!!!!

But on the upside I did encounter some really nice customer service people. So had a pretty good time all the same, but man those people really, really, really annoyed me. So rubbish!!!

International affairs

The last 3 weeks have been very eventful. My last post touched on my interesting and enjoyable time in Montreal and Quebec, after which I was off to London for 2 weeks.

It's been non-stop since I landed. I genuinely feel like a world traveller right now, hopping from my country to the next. It makes writing arrival cards/landing cards interesting enough, but they also keep me in check with where I've been and where I'm going and today's date! :-)

Recent events:

1. Margie and Craig got married in Brisbane, Australia! YAY! Unfortunately I was in London sorting out a Hen's night and missed this beautiful event.

2. Tanya's Hen's night - the ever-changing itinerary went from a weekend away, to overnight in London to the threat of a burlesque class and show to finally high tea and an amusing comedy show in a large inflated upside down purple cow (Underbelly) at Southbank.

3. Load's of catch ups including an awesome pub & sushi tour of Brixton, pub crawl in Soho and finding the best flat white in London (Notes music & coffee - 31 St Martins Lane). Just so many awesome places - but Barrio Central in Poland st is still my favourite bar in London!

4. Alex & Tanya's wedding - what an awesome day - just fabulous! Great company, great food and great dancing!

5. MY SISTER GAVE BIRTH! Yes! My penultimate day in London and her daughter decides to pop out in Brisbane, Australia.

6. First time ever, I was charged excess luggage fee at the airport of £195! OUCH! Canadian Affair/Thomas Cook budget airlines - caveat emptor! I did check the baggage restrictions but unfortunately of Air Transat who I thought I was flying... What a nightmare. 1 hour in the queue to find that out then another 45 minutes in another queue to pay the bloody thing then a quick 10 minute run through security to the gate to make my flight.

7. Omaha has been flooded with ice melt from the north and above normal rainfall - I may not actually depart on Tuesday! The view from the plane as I was landing was incredible. I was astonished to see so much flooding! Roads have been blocked. I saw the Brisbane floods weeks after the banks broke and the view from the plane was just mesmerising as it was shocking.

8. My cousin's wife gave birth on Thursday! So many babies popping out all over - more to come!

9. I introduced the great Australian film: The Castle to my mid-west American friends. It was a hit! Such a funny movie. It's the vibe.....

10. Battling the outrageous fortune of having a new Apple MacBook Pro that has a region locked DVD player. VLC does not work around this and currently there is no firmware that I can find to get around this for the new MacBook Pros, only older models so far. ARGH! I have DVDs from UK & Australia... this is just ridiculous. I want my old G4 back... *sob*

My cousin recently asked me what do I do with myself in mid-west America. I wasn't really sure what I'd been doing for 3 months in America, but now that I'm here I'm back to my happy pastime of backyard bunny watching. :-)

Now that it's summer we have a gigantic inflated pool in the backyard to enjoy and fortunately the sun is shining today!

Actually I have been doing a lot of work trying to get sponsored for work in the USA. I'll need to write another post on the bloody E-3 visa and the joys of being an alien in the USA unauthorised for work.

But for now, back to the bunnies....

Beaver Tail

The Canadian dessert delicacy: Beaver Tail

- Take some dough,
- stretch it out
- throw it in some hot oil until it's cooked
- take out, let cool for a second
- lather some butter on top
- then the toppings of your choice (chocolate, maple butter, cinnamon etc)

= delicious treat or recipe for a quick heart attack.

also

= easy way to charge $6 off consumers! What a rip off! It was good but not the most amazing thing I've had for $6!!!!!

On a related matter:

FRUCTOSE!

It's really really bad for you!

Here at my cool hostel in Montreal, I have learnt from my Chemistry graduate dorm buddy that the body cannot break down Fructose. It's very bad. It just converts to fat and puts a lot of strain on the liver (which is the only thing that can break it down). Unfortunately most american foods (particularly Soda/carbonated drinks) include corn fructose/corn syrup as a sweetener. Partially due to the fact that the American government subsidise the corn market and the corn farmers are heavily dependent on the large widespread adoption of corn syrup in food production.

If only other corn products produced as much income, Americans might have a chance of being a lot healthier. Interestingly there seems to be some use of corn as biodegradable cutlery/tableware. I have used/seen coffee cups, lids, forks, spoons and knives made from corn. Much sturdier than plastic and biodegradable! One university in Pennsylvania use it throughout the campus. If there was a wider adoption of it, perhaps this would reduce the need for corn syrup and be substituted back to glucose (which the body can break down more easily, as long as you're active!).

More interesting hostellers:

Global Development Studies

In Quebec I met global development studies graduate who definitely is in the process of doing something special in this world in helping the developing countries one way or another. It's great that there are people out there studying this and focussing on what can help. Educating and spreading the word is a great start. Only by collectively working together can we make a positive and greater impact.