Who turned the heating up?

Who turned the heating up?

Technically this is an Australian spring… however Adelaide is sweltering in a record breaking heat wave, and Ipswich; inland from Brisbane, recorded temperatures this week of over 40˚C. When we had that European heat wave a few summers back scores of people were dying when the temperatures hit 40˚C! Let alone over and above.
However Australia is better designed for the heat, all the shops have air conditioning and the houses are cooler; all coming equipped with screen doors and windows so you can have everything open to try and create a draft without the wildlife getting in.

Talking of wildlife it’s been on the news this week that in Adelaide where it has been so ridiculously hot the Koala’s have been wondering in to houses to lay on the cool floors. If the indigenous creatures are struggling with the heat over there… it’s a good job as a legal alien in this country that I’m in the tropical Sunshine State where hot spells are generally broken with cool storms.
Although perhaps I shouldn’t be too pleased about that as the local paper this week came with a warning that the hot weather and heavy rain creates the ideal conditions for the Funnel Webb Spider; one of Australia’s most deadly. Apparently it’s mating season and the males, typically, are terrible with directions and get lost and wonder into houses.
Great! I have to admit I adapt to these possibilities by always wearing thongs (… I actually typed thongs there instead of flip flops... I’m being brain washed!) if I get up in the night. However all our light switches in this house are inside the rooms rather than outside them, and its one of my biggest fears that I’ll reach round the door to turn the light switch on and find something big and hairy instead of the switch. I may have to start carrying a flash light at all times just in case! Perhaps a can of insect spray just for the spiders too; I just discovered a few moments ago when a fairly standard English kind of size spider ran across my carpet that the insect spray is out. Not the best time to find this out I have to say!
Before either Kathryn W or Kathryn V kill me for the admittance that I’d of killed it if I could have… because I genuinely don’t know which spiders here are poisonous and which ones are not, I’m too scared of them to get close enough to catch them just in case! At least back home as much as I don’t like them I don’t have to be worried about whether they are going to fight back or not!
Before you all laugh at me, I’m not being as overdramatic as you would think, all of this week we have had a Redback spider; again one of the most deadly kinds, living in the light fitting in our lounge. Come to think of it that would explain why we are out of insect spray as we, and by we I mean my housemate Katrina because she’s braver than I am, have been trying to get rid of him. She succeeded just this morning (Thanks Katrina!) Again I know a few of you don’t like the idea of killing things, and I’d usually wholeheartedly agree, but if it’s a case of kill him before he kills us then I have to say I subscribe to the theory he just has to go!

Admittedly I’ve now managed to write half a page purely about spiders… but I’m not quite done yet. My friend Lynelle was arriving at Kathryn W’s place (I know it’s confusing that there’s two Kathryn’s; Kathryn Webb is the Kathryn I met back home, and Kathryn V is one of my new friends out here. I would refer to Kathryn Webb as English Kathryn seeing how I met her in England… But I’d fear her wrath if I did this so I’ll refrain!) and she wanted to play me a song on her car stereo, so I was leaning through the door of her little white car speaking to her when I see something out of the corner of my eye. My first thought was literally ‘No it can’t be…it’s too big!’ and upon leaning back out the window for a better look the moment I’d been fearing since my arrival was realised.
The biggest, fattest, ugliest, hairiest creature that you could imagine was casually sitting on Lynelle’s car, right by her door frame, making the grand distance between him (or her I guess!) and I approximately a grand total of two inches. I’ve never seen anything even remotely resembling that before in real life. I think they should be given a category of their own, kind of like how you have monkeys who are the smaller friendlier versions of gorilla’s; you should have spiders and another category for monster spiders!!!(I failed on coming up with an appropriately hideous sounding name, suggestions welcome!)
He was probably about the size of a side plate, although I didn’t hang around to take too close a look at him! He was fairly dark in colour, and so fat and hairy!!!
Needless to say I might have yelped a little bit and backed off fairly sharpish… much to the amusement of the numerous Aussie’s that happened to be in Kathryn’s front yard at that moment. Kathryn and Lynelle managed to encourage him to leave the premises with the aid of a broom… there’s no way I could have gotten that close to him! Although I have to say there was one or two yelps from the pair of them when he wasn’t cooperating, so they can’t mock me too much! I honestly had been dreading that experience since I arrived, so I guess its good that its over and done with now, I’m just hoping its not something I have to relive too often! (Excuse me whilst I go and check under my bed having written that!)

Like I said the temperature has been creeping up and up lately and as I write I’ve got the ceiling fan (oh how I love my ceiling fan, I have my bed positioned right underneath it!) going full blast and a pint of water on the go due to the fact I got burned today. Now before I get told off by my Grandparents who will be reading this, if I’m going out anywhere for the afternoon and it’s a sunny day I put sunscreen on. If I’m at the beach I repeatedly put sunscreen on! They have lots of adverts here about skin cancer, and those along with the older generation here that you see with skin that looks like leather have encouraged me to be sun smart. However this morning, it wasn’t even midday so I wasn’t being the stereotypical ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.’ All that I did was take a stroll down to the local bus stop to meet my friend Jen. It would have been no more than a forty minute round trip, probably more like half an hour. In that time I managed to get a sunburnt face, sunburnt shoulders and sunburnt chest. In half an hour!!! That’s how strong the sun is here. Or how much they lack an ozone layer I guess. Really quite frightening to think that if I did this much damage in half an hour what a day out in the sun without any protection would do to you.

However despite the increase in temperatures, Australia’s answer to their heat wave problems would seem to be for me to arrange a trip to the coast. As it would seem that on 90% of the occasions I plan to go to the beach, the weather turns!
One of the things I love most about this country is the people (although you will never catch me admitting that to them!); its so easy to make friends here, and the people really do live up to their reputation of being laid back, chilled out and friendly as it gets.
So one of the friendly Aussies I’ve met since I’ve been here, Kathryn V and I had planned a beach trip last Friday, it was forecast to be a hot sunny day as are most of the days here.
However, when Friday rolled round, it decided to be dark and overcast. Id like to say I brought a bit of the English spirit with me, and we decided to press on, since when has a bit of bad weather deterred the English from going to the beach! It turned out that the dull weather in Brisbane city was due to smoke carried up on the wind from a bush fire in the state; we thought they over exaggerated the bush fires on Neighbours and Home and Away, in actual fact it would seem if anything they do the exact opposite.
However as we arrived at the Gold Coast and headed for the water a big black cloud decided to roll in; so we decided that swimming was perhaps off the cards and we would look for something else touristy to do.
Whilst we decided we indulged in some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had; Kathryn had some sort of cherry chocolate combination, and I had a kind of sour apple martini.

Now whilst we were sitting watching the world go by the phenomenon of the meter maids appeared. Now this is where it becomes clear how much more liberal Australia is compared to the good old traditional UK.
Now meter maids, if I’ve got the story right here, were born out of the public outcry at the installation of parking meters at the popular tourist Mecca of the Gold Coast in 1965. So in an effort to win the public opinion round, Meter Maids were introduced. These were young ladies dressed in gold bikinis and tiara’s who would wonder round feeding coins into expired parking meters. As you can imagine the scheme although controversial was highly successful and was even used a few year later as a marketing tool to repair the tourism industry after some freak weather driving the tourists away. The modern day version of the meter maids still wear the gold bikini, although in a more modern design, and are sponsored by various businesses.
I have to admit I really cannot see a British coastal town ever allowing someone to bring in bikini wearing girls to walk around their town doing nothing else all day but looking pretty!

Having assessed our touristy activity options; including a duck boat tour on an amphibious type vehicle like the one in London, we opted to try out Jet Boating. Thankfully in our favour whilst we waited for our allotted time the storm blew over and the sun came out, what we didn’t know then was just how grateful we were going to be for the presence of the sun after the boat ride!
As we signed our lives away on one of those standard waiver forms Kathryn casually asked our driver whether we would be best to change into boardies for the trip or whether we were okay to stay in dry clothes. He casually responded that you might occasionally get a little wet it all depended on the wind direction etc. Kathryn made the oh so good call that we changed, and thankfully persuaded me to make the last minute decision to leave my phone and camera behind! (I’m my father’s daughter; I hate having to trust someone I don’t know to look after my valuables!)

We got completely and utterly totally drenched. The guy driving our boat was completely insane but highly skilled. He was winding us up at first that it was his first day on the job, and he even made a phone call where he appeared to be asking for directions! But once he had taken us out of the harbour speed limit… we got a shock. The power the boat had was absolutely incredible, and paired with such a skilled driver, it made for quite an adrenalin rush. We would head at full speed straight towards one of the marker poles, i.e. a large metal role sticking out of the sea, and only at the very very last second would he turn the boat so as we skidded round it with an inch or two to spare.
There was a fair few sand bank island and he would get so close to them that the water below us was so shallow we would be quite sure the boat would get beached, yet we would somehow skim right on over the sand.
He’d take us so close to the various land banks around that the branches of the trees would skim the sides of the boat. Full credit to him as a driver, he really knew what he was doing.
He gave us warning of the first 360˚ spin that he did, however after that, it was up to us to hold on for our lives, and on one of the spins he must of timed it right with a wave that we got completely soaked through.
The ride doubled up as a facial as well given the amount of salt and water being thrown at our faces at such a speed we all got a free exfoliation! I was worried I was going to lose my sunglasses, and there was so much water on them anyway that seeing was a bit difficult!
The trip lasted an hour, but it seemed to go by a whole lot faster than that, it was an awesome adrenalin rush and something I’d definitely do again in a heartbeat. I have to admit along with my list of jobs I’d love to do, driving one of those for a living is now up there!

Given that we were already drenched we decided we may as well finish off the day with a dip in the sea, although the waves were so strong that a dip in the sea turned out more to be like a battering and dunking... not purely being dunked just by the waves either thanks Kathryn!

We also saw a couple doing a sand sculpture, and it really was a work of art. It was a dragon, what you would imagine to be life sized, made entirely out of sand. It was incredibly designed, with its scales marked out, a spiky tail, and even real fire in its nostrils! I’ll pop a picture up on facebook when I next upload pictures.

I keep a day by day diary of what I get up to so that I’ve got a record for myself of everything I’ve done, sometimes its hard to pick and choose what to blog about as if I wrote about everything these blogs would get even more ridiculously long than they already are! I can’t believe you guys read these and actually get through the entire length, good job you guys don’t have short attention spans!

Kathryn W, Sarah and some of their friends took me out to sample some of the more local night life in Cleveland which I think as far as I know is the biggest local town to here. I introduced Australia to my terrible pool skills, and attempted to defend Britain’s honour against a bunch of extremely unconvinced Australians! As much as I absolutely love it out here, and really wish that one of my parents was Aussie so that I could live here without the issue of trying to find a way to get a visa, I’m never going to admit that its superior to the UK! Both countries have their faults and advantages. For example there is very little history out here, where of course at home there is history, culture and architecture in abundance. So I do what I can to stick up for Britain; although I’m not sure I’ve changed the opinion of one single Australian yet. But it’s the though that counts right?!

The following day we had lunch out, a carb loaded meal being required to repair the damage done by the night before! Followed by the best dessert ever! Cold Rock Ice Creamery; we don’t have anything like it at home as far as I know. It’s your average Ice Creamery in that it has lots and lots of different flavours of ice cream, but it doesn’t end there. You then choose any kind of sweet, chocolate or fruit that you can imagine, and they mash it into your ice cream for you so that you can create any kind of ice cream that you like!!! It took us a long time to choose, there were so many options, the staff must get so fed up of people not being able to make up their minds. In the end I opted for coconut ice cream with a Bounty bar and Baileys ice cream with Maltesers. I’ve never had Baileys ice cream before; it was SO good! Definitely somewhere that I’ll be revisiting! They should bring it to London!

What else have I been up to this week, well like I said it has been getting so hot so I have been hiding from the sun a little and have yet to get rid of the cough I’ve had since I’ve been here so that’s written off a day or two where I’ve been feeling rough.

Have been fairly sociable this week though, visiting Lynelle for a Johnny Depp dvd fest; and looking forward to seeing his new film! Jen arrived up from Sydney for another Brisbane visit. Kathryn V and I indulged ourselves in some more luscious cocktails, and I saw a new part of Brisbane city they call the West End, which I think probably is best compared to somewhere a bit like Camden in London i.e. a little quirky and different. I saw possums whilst we were out there too! Should have taken a picture, will have to go back so I can! I also met a Welsh girl over here travelling whilst we were out that night, it was strange that a Cardiff accent could sound so homely! I may be meeting up with her in the New Years to do some farm work which allows us to extend our visa’s. I’ve got to make all sorts of decisions over Christmas about what I’m going to do about things like that, whether I want to stay for the full two years or come back for September 2010 to start University again etc etc. Putting off all of these decisions until Christmas time!

That reminds me of another thing, despite the fact this blog is getting far too long. Most of you who are aware of my terrible sense of direction will have experienced my tact of following the bus routes when we’re lost to find our way. That wouldn’t work out here! In the city the buses all have their own roads, either in tunnels or above the ground, that only the buses are allowed access too. I guess they have such a greater land mass than us that they can afford the space to do it. It’s very strange driving round these tunnels with only buses on them! But it’s great as of course it means that you don’t get stuck in traffic! I think years of use of the London underground have given me confidence to jump on a bus and hope I end up where I want too; I think I freaked my parents out the other night when I was on the phone to them and they overheard me asking the bus driver for directions as I clearly had absolutely no idea where I was. But I’ve pretty much got used to permanently not knowing where I am, and in a way I kind of like it, each trip is its own mini adventure! I’m always surprised if I actually end up where I intended to be; and I was being all proud of myself that I’d actually found my way on Wednesday night, until Kathryn V called me to ask where I was; and it turned out I wasn’t in the right place at all. Oops!

I hear that the UK is being battered by storms and flooding at the moment. I hope you’re all okay! Doesn’t sound fun! They do get some fantastic storms out here with more lightening than I’ve probably seen in all my years at home put together in the one storm! My friend Lynelle has had several trees taken out on her land by lightening strikes; crazy!

I’ll speak to you all soon no doubt. It’s lovely that you’re all keeping in touch. I’m having heaps of fun out here but I do still miss all you guys back home! Thank goodness for the wonderful world of technology these days!

Lots of Love from the land down under!!

Liza xXxXx

P.s. if any of you actually get to the end of this blog, give yourselves a pat on the back, I think it’s the longest yet!!!

P.p.s somebody said Merry Christmas to me this week …whilst I was sitting on a bus in my sunglasses sweltering in the heat; it’s just impossible to feel Christmassy in the weather!

My first month on the other side of the world...

My first month on the other side of the world

I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks now mostly because of having some internet access I’ve been able to catch up with most of you, which has been great! I can’t say I’ve been too homesick, because I love it here. But I do miss the little things from home, mostly knowing my way around, where to go to get things done, and of course being able to catch up with all you guys back home!

Australia is still as beautiful as ever though. It really is an amazing place. I could see myself out here long term, which is why with every day that goes by my long term plan is becoming more and more focused on returning to the UK to study a vocation that will allow me to come back out here permanently. That’s not to say I don’t love London and the UK, I do, but they have an awesome lifestyle out here.

At the end of my last blog I mentioned I was going to Indy, which was a fantastic weekend. It’s called ‘SuperGP’ if we’re being absolutely correct as the Indy cars didn’t make it due to some sort of problem with them getting impounded in London. So those of you reading this from home would have been more likely to see them than us! The event is located at the Gold Coast, and they basically shut down an entire area of the city for the weekend turning the roads in to a racing track for V8’s. I was told its one of very few races in the world that actually takes place on ‘real’ roads as it were, rather than a racing track. The only ever car racing I’ve seen before was the Race of Champions at Wembley, and if I thought those cars were loud, V8’s were something else entirely! I accumulated many a blank photograph where by I attempted to take a picture of the cars going past but they go by so quickly capturing them in the frame was not an easy task at all! It was a very hot day, and what with all the dust that the cars create, any exposed skin was turned black with dust, not the best look!
The apartment we were staying at was absolutely beautiful. I think I would be safe to say it’s one of the most stunning places I have ever been fortunate enough to stay in, its only possible rivals would be the Sheraton in New York or the Conrad in Cairo. (Don’t I sound well travelled these days!)
Walking in to the apartment it seemed fairly ordinary until it opened out in to the living area; three of the walls were made up of floor to ceiling patio doors which look out over the Gold Coast. It was another crystal clear Australian day with blue skies and fluffy white clouds, and with the coastline stretched out beneath us for literally as far as the eye can see, it was a view I don’t think I will ever forget. We had a balcony that wrapped itself around the entire apartment so from one side we had a view over the city, the middle the stunning view of the beach, and on the far side you could look out to sea and with the clarity of light in Australia we could see boats out for miles and miles. We were up o the 35th floor and I have to admit looking out from the balcony was fine, but looking down was another matter! The next building along from ours was the Q1 building, which I’m told is the tallest residential building in the world. It took me until the second day to be brave enough to lean far out enough from the balcony to be able to take a picture of its summit!
On the Saturday we only spent a short time at the track, Kathryn’s friend Sam has been going to Indy for years and she told us that the Sunday was the big day. So in the evening we went for a bit of a walk around the area, the Gold Coast is definitely very much the party town of Queensland.
On the Sunday we were up early in time to apply lots of sun cream and head down to the track. We spent most of the day there and I got a little bit of an education on V8 racing, although it’s not something I’ll ever be able to claim expertise in! Vauxhall is called Holden in Australia is one of the main things I remember from the day, quite why I have no idea. It wasn’t only V8 racing, they had other kinds of cars too and without a shadow of a doubt my favourite part of the day was what I *think* but I may be wrong was called an F1-11 plane. It’s a big jet, and forgive my lack of technicality here, somehow it ‘dumps’ its fuel and then sets it alight to perform its party trick they call a ‘dump and burn.’ Basically what that means is that this giant jet flies in over the gold coast, the sound it makes it utterly incredible, all of a sudden it lights up the sky with a stream of flames, and then it’s gone again before you’ve had time to blink. Its speed makes capturing it on camera absolutely impossible, I wish I had been able too! I was lucky to get to see it happen as apparently they are the only plane in the world to be able to do it and the fleet are being retired this year so it’s the last time it will happen. There was some lighter stunt aircraft about too, but it’s a little too far away for the red arrows to be present!
It was again a very hot day, and after being out in the midday sun, I didn’t mind at all when it stormed which cleared the air and provided some refreshing rain. It meant they had to stop the race for a while, and none of the Australians were too pleased about it raining; but I was happy that I got to cool down!

We headed back to the apartment early evening, stopping to have a glass of wine to ease our aching feet from so much walking and standing all day. The apartment which we were staying in had an indoor and outdoor pool, and Kathryn and I made use of the heated indoor pool to stretch our muscles after such a long day. We had it entirely to ourselves and I have to say swimming in our own pool after a long day is a lifestyle choice I could easily become accustomed too! A swim, Jacuzzi and Sauna later we were feeling revived and ready for the night life aspect of Indy. Like I said before the Gold Coast is definitely the party town of Australia with an entire strip made up of clubs and bars and even an Irish Pub! Six of us headed out for a night of drinks, dancing and pool and it was a lot of fun. We ended the night with a stroll on the beach and the water was just too inviting so we went for an enthusiastic paddle which ended up with me wearing very wet and very sandy jeans! I still can’t get the sand out of the pockets.

The next morning an extremely unpopular builder decided to start drilling at 8am in the neighbouring apartment which did not go down at all well with our tired eyes and sore heads. Although Kathryn and I did then spend most of the afternoon dozing on the beach, which as ways to recover from busy weekends go is a pretty good option!

A few of you have asked whether I took that job in the end or not. I decided not too as I wasn’t too keen on the manager, and it was a mostly commission based role, which given that I’m heading over to Perth for Christmas, by the time I’d set up a contacts base and started making enough sales to make the job worth while I’d of been leaving which seemed like a waste of time. I have been looking for other work, but with five weeks to go before I head over to Perth it’s becoming increasingly difficult. I could really do with just some short term waitressing but it’s proving a little difficult to come by. I’m still trying, but at the moment I’m not sure if anything will come up before Christmas. So in the mean time I’m really hoping my car insurance pay out comes through soon!!!

Over the last ten days I’ve been to the beach a couple of times, been on a couple of nights out, and watched a fair few films.
Living with the local bar manager has had its benefits with my house mates and I enjoying some champagne and strawberries on the house. We deserved it though after discovering a maggot infestation in our house which was not in the slightest bit pleasant!

Speaking of creatures at home last Wednesday we found all of us were home for the afternoon, which is a rare occurrence, so we were enjoying relaxing in the garden with a few drinks, until a rather large Orb spider decided to put in appearance, scaring my Irish house mate and I but the Australians not being the slightest bit bothered, even picking it up although it can bite! It didn’t disturb us as much as the news that there is a redback spider living in the corner of our garden though…the corner nearest the patio door in to the house!!! My dad suggested purchasing a CO2 fire extinguisher and freezing it to death… I reckon he is on to something!!!

I’m trying to be healthier this month due to an ever worsening cough so I’ve remembered that I can actually cook and have given up the student food diet… there’s only so much spaghetti and marmite toast one person can take!

I went to a water park last week called Wet n Wild. These used to be a Wet n Wild back home up North…the main difference with the Wet n Wild over here being is that its outside rather than inside! It was a really good day out; some of the rides are insane! They range from a very leisurely floating in a ring to water slides that go so fast you think you’re going to fall out! Definitely somewhere I want to go back too again! I’ve got a pass that allows me to go as many times as I like before June next year, so there will be a couple more trips I think.

I went out on Saturday night to the Australian equivalent of Popstarz/Heaven after drinks at my friend Anna’s overlooking the Brisbane River which was really nice. Almost a bit like being at the Thames, In fact ended up in a long conversation with the two other British girls about English football teams and anthems, BHS, Tesco’s, Kickers and all things English that they don’t have out here! It was a good night out, lots of dancing; it’s easy to forget that I’m on an entirely different continent when out dancing in a club! I was told of a bus that goes all the way from the city right back to the suburb I’m living in all through the night which is great for getting back home. Much easier than getting back to Ruislip from Tottenham Court Road anyway!

Last night I went for dinner at my friend Lynelle’s house; being so far away from my home it’s always super appreciated to be welcomed into other people’s homes, and home cooked food is great! It’s nice to see that no matter how big the cultural differences are around the world, family still means family wherever I’ve been whether its here, Brunei, France, Egypt, Scotland; there’s always something homely about being invited to share dinner with a family.
Last night we went on a drive to a National Park, but unfortunately the weather conspired against us and due to a lot of rain and a lot of fog we decided getting out of the car was probably an invitation to get ourselves into a Wolf Creek scenario so we decided to play it safe for this time!

For this week like I said I’m trying to be healthy and fix my cough. I’ve got a beach trip planned for Friday, hoping that the weather picks up by then as it’s been pretty rainy the last few days. (Yes, it rains in Australia! Shocking I know!) Not sure what I’m going to get up to over the next few days, it would be great to get some work to fill up a couple of days and give me a cash injection but I’m not holding my breath for that to happen! If I wasn’t ten thousand miles away it would be quite nice to be able to pop home this week and visit everybody, but it’s not that easy to do from this far away!

I’m looking forward to seeing my brother and family at Christmas time, although I’m increasingly worried about the heat over in Perth, everybody tells me it’s almost unbearable in December!

Don’t forget to keep me updated on all the news from the UK. Like I said I miss you all heaps, you’re all welcome to pop over for dinner anytime you like! :-p

I hope all is well in England, I head the X factor is causing a stir this week but that the post is back up and running again!

Lots of Love from upside down

Liza xXx

P.s. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that its one of you lot who bagged that £90m Euromillions win!!!!