Happy St George’s Day, Happy Zombie Jesus Day, and Happy ANZAC Day.

First off, Happy Saint George’s Day to all back home for Saturday just passed, I know nobody did anything for it, but I’m just mentioning it as (even though I miles away and don’t really miss it too much) I’m still proud to be English. And let’s not forget the dragon slaying, the fact that he is an early Christian Martyr for defending them against the romans, and the fact that he was from Cappadocia (which is now Eastern Turkey). Regardless, I think we should still use it as a time to celebrate being English!

 

My hot cross buns that I didn’t eat on Good Friday, I saved them for Saturday’s St George’s!

Happy Easter to all too, hope everyone enjoyed their really long weekend! I realised whilst I was talking to Dan that this is my third Easter in a row out of England. I had to work Friday night, and Australia has some really strange laws on Good Friday “No drinking unless you buy a substantial meal”, made work empty, but also meant we couldn’t buy any beer last Friday, so we stocked up on Saturday so that the same wouldn’t happen to us on Sunday and Monday! I also did come home this afternoon to the most awesome Easter present ever!

Thanks Mum and Dad. Love it! As soon as I steal some pins it's going up!

I love how needlessly big our international stamps are!

And a Happy ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) day to all Aussies and Kiwis “Lest we forget”, a day to celebrate the veterans of past wars, starting from the veterans who fought in Gallipoli, Turkey during the first world war. It seems like a day to celebrate and commemorate what they did…whilst getting wasted, sadly I was working (but it was worth it so that I can get this Sunday off!!!!).

So anyway, today is the first morning that we have woken up in our house without having Bryony here. It was kinda weird, she’s been crashing out on our (very comfy) sofa for the last two weeks. We did give her a good send off from Brisbane last night….thanks for dragging us to a gay club! But we did have a good couple weeks with here! Including a good couple of messy nights out (we have a new “House for Rent” sign in our apartment,

A trip up to Mount Coot-tha with a pretty sweet view of Bris Vegas,

And a road trip to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, about an hour and a half north of Brisbane (it was good to finally get out of Brisbane, as this was mine and Dan’s first time since we’ve got to Australia). We went up with Tom (this is the area he grew up in) and spent the night with his parents for BBQ..and more Kangaroo…seriously, roo tastes sooooooooo good!

Thanks for leaving your tub of marmite here Bryony!

Work’s been going pretty good over the last two weeks too. Worked for Dell the other week in the Sun Corp offices, and looks like I’ll be doing some more work for them next weekend, easy money! I’ll take my camera next time as there is some amazing views of Brisbane in these skyscrapers that I was working in. And not once did I wake up late and have to blame “my idiot roommate for getting too drunk the night before”, not once! Also, here’s the Groove train that I work in:

And my view from work:

It looks better when there’s fewer people in the way of the river! There’s a pirate ship in the waters at the moment right outside the restaurant Dan works at (right by me), I wanna get a photo of that too!

I’ve also been getting the travel craving again, so Dan and I have been planning our adventures for the next few months, and it is looking like we will leave our apartment when our contract ends in October (but a lot can change in 5 months), either way we’re getting out of Brisbane and touring Australia!

Also thanks to Tim (Bryony’s brother) for getting hold of my camera from the Hong Kong bus company and sending it back to me here.

Also I would like to say, fair play to the Tampa Bay Lightnings, I can’t believe you pulled that back to make it to the next round of the Stanley cup playoffs! But much more importantly…COME ON YOU SAINTS, 3 games left, 7 points guarantees us promotion…and derby days! Year 2 of the 5 year plan is so nearly complete! And as for the Brisbane Lions and the Boston Red Sox….well maybe it’s best not to mention anything, fortunately there’s a lot of games left in the AFL season, and A LOT of games left in the MLB season!

Australian television has no watershed

Australia TV is great, at 5:40 this morning (aka half time of Man United Vs Chelsea) I thought I’d have a quick flick through our six channels, and I came across one that I HAD TO STOP ON. It was a morning chat show (kinda like a Richard and Judy thing), with the old man of a host fitting a breast rest onto a young mother, full boob out on morning TV, before grabbing a baby out of nowhere (I can only assume/hope that it was hers) and breast feeding it. Before she just walks off the stage/set with the baby just randomly still attached to her tit. Random, but it did give me a craving for my cereal.

Anways, since my last blog I’ve had two trails at two bars, both on the waterfront of Brisbane river (and yes, they were both flooded out back in January), The Groove Train and Boardwalk. And on Friday, within the space of 15 minutes I got offered both jobs. I also got offered temp/contract work through an agency with Dell, doing work for Suncorp. I was gonna try and juggle all three jobs, but figured both bars would need me at weekends, so I decided to take the job at The Groove Train, as it pays more, I’ll get more hours, and I preferred working there. But I will be helping out at Boardwalk on Saturday night after working my shift at Suncorp cos I said I’d help, plus it’s extra money! I almost earn as much here doing bar work, then I was doing my actual job back home! My full time job back home seems to have become my part time/casual job, and my fun/casual job back home seems to have become my full time job here. Sweet! Also getting trained on Barista work and making cocktails.

Bryony, my only English friend in Jasper, Canada, is heading to Brisbane from Sydney by train overnight, and is meeting up with me tomorrow morning, sadly I’m working a lot over the next week, but hopefully after that we’ll be able to head out for a few road trips around Queensland, I wanna see more of Australia. Although it is great here, it’s still really warm and working here and living here feels less stressful, it’s awesome! It’s great now, where we both have jobs, I’ve finally been able to send the invites out (which I had been promising for years to some people) to come out to stay in Oz for cheap. Also soon (after I get paid) I’l be able to pay my own clothes to wear to work.

Anyway, here’s some more pictures of Brisbane:

The ants that used to plague our kitchen carrying a stone away!

See, I should do interior design.

Friday night’s celebrations…’we both have jobs!’

Our new pet, our little mosquito catcher!

Both me and Dan are getting more into Aussie Rules, although I still don’t fully get the rules, it’s pretty simple to follow. I haven’t bothered joining a gym here as it’s “$100 to join, then $30 for your card….but it’s only $19.99 every fortnight after that”…na you’re alright think I’ll just use the free gym in our complex, it’s small but it’s free and empty.

Who said that Queenslanders can’t spell!!!

Not really too much exciting to right about at the moment, but that’ll change soon. I did head down to STA to try and get some ideas for things to do, some exciting things ahead possibly. Although we did try some Kangaroo burgers the other night, pretty juicy! And it didn’t just taste like beef (or chicken).

The Kangaroo Whopper

Just wanna add, how chubby is the coco pops monkey over here!