fshhh...

moving...

2009-10-07T03:01:00.003+10:00

hey guys.
so it's been like a year, and lots of things have changed. i'm starting a new blog over at http://triciainthekitchen.tumblr.com/. come check me out over there; i think i'm done with fshhh. it's been fun though, thanks for reading it!

mossel bay to los angeles to atlanta... and a lot of other places.

2008-12-12T14:25:00.005+10:00

oh goodness it’s been a while. and a lot has changed. so… here we go. south africa was great, really i learned so much and pretty much decided that i definitely want to keep doing shark research in grad school. i’m (supposedly) still working on my paper from our data, although i’ve been busy enough that it really hasn’t happened lately. so i drove to cape town, which was really nice:

oh and the fundraiser! there was some drama (whatever) but we reached our goal and so the aquarium is undergoing lots of improvements in the rebuilding. which is awesome!

okay so all that happened, and south africa was amazing, but it was time to go home. which, for a week, meant LA. basically ryan and i realized we’re looking for really different things right now (he’s settled down, i’m… you know, not). so, while that all actually ended on pretty decent terms, i figured we shouldn’t drag things out so figured i would head back home. that’s right: atlanta.

sorry, i’m also super distracted right now. okay, anyway. did some traveling, including visiting/interviewing at university of hawaii (ummm maybe the best iphone picture ever taken):

and attending the european elasmobranch association conference (which basically means shark conference) in lisbon:

okay so this isn’t necessarily representative of lisbon. but the conference was at an aquarium. and they had a sunfish! seriously the disc alone on this thing was like my height. (why do i love stupid-looking animals?)

i also checked out the university of rhode island, but didn’t take pictures. so… you probably figured it out, but what all this means is i’m finally applying to grad school. this is the fourth year i’ve considered applying, but for the first time, i actually have applications in! so i’m trying to do shark research, and will keep y’all posted as to what that means.

other than that, i’m working for my dad for the moment as a research assistant. not exactly a resume builder, but it does give me a lot of flexibility, which i need right now. i am living alone in virginia-highland, which is a lot of fun, and have been hanging out with my high school friends (a surprising number of which live in atlanta!)

so it’s not exactly where i saw myself, but it’s a good place to be while i figure my life out. so… yeah! i’ll keep y’all posted as things develop!

so i’m not usually one for this sort of thing, but sleeping otters are really cute (also in lisbon).

and the perfect picture to counteract that one… i learned to shoot a shotgun! (at barnsley gardens over thanksgiving)

oh ps! in case you missed them, the link to my south africa album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393079&l=a0352&id=2504404

world's highest bungy jump

2008-09-22T04:26:00.003+10:00

i almost didn't go, since i was still sick today. but i knew i would regret it if i didn't. our group dwindled from 8 to 2, but the truly hard-core among us made the two hour drive to jump off bloukrans bridge for the 216 meter fall. (that's a 5-second free fall.)

here's the bridge...

...and here i go.

in a word...wicked. i would do it again in an instant. video to come later!

...and then the plague hit the intern house.

2008-09-19T19:22:00.002+10:00

so somehow, between overnight trackings last week, leading straight into a big weekend, leading straight into overnight seal surveys, we all became deathly ill. i think i actually got both illnesses that are going around, lucky me! first i got stef's sore throat/stuffy nose, then i got christine's chills/fever. then i got my own very special headache and vomiting! so far four of us have had the chills/fever thing, but each in our own slightly different way.

so obviously this has slowed me down a bit. i even considered going out chumming this morning, just because i'm so bored of laying in my bed. i might make it out for seal survey tonight, although stef thinks i should just rest up through the weekend, which is probably a good idea, since this coming week is my last week here, and the fund raiser is next friday (which is coming together despite my worthlessness this week).

slight change of plans (which is why this week is my last week)... i'm going to visit cape town and some wineries on my way home. i'll still get home on october 2nd, but i'll leave here on monday, go wine tasting and spend monday night in stellenbosch, then drive to cape town and spend tuesday night there, then fly out of cape town on wednesday. i was flying from george to jo'burg anyway, so i just changed my flight from cape town to jo'burg instead. so i'm excited! i've heard great things about cape town, and since i'm only like four hours away, i figured i should see it while i'm here. some of the old interns had a great time in stellenbosch, so that should be fun, too. the directors are cool about letting us leave early, and i'm glad i get to do some traveling!

so that's it for now, the good thing is i've been able to do lots of work on my paper, which is important and has kind of fallen into the background with the fund raiser and such. hope you're all doing well, i can't believe i'll be home in less than two weeks!

Fund raiser

2008-09-10T17:22:00.004+10:00

Hi guys!
We’ve (okay, I’ve) been super busy over here! The fund raiser is kind of taking over my life, but in a good way, mostly. It’s kind of overwhelming, but I think it will come together. And I think I needed something to keep me busy this month, even if I am complaining about it a little bit.

So… fund raiser! The bar agreed to let us use their venue, which is cool. They told me they usually get about 400 people on Fridays, but can hold like 800, so that should be great. I have a feeling we will get a huge turn out. We’re still working on the specifics just a little bit, at the moment the plan is to have a nicer event at 6:30 and have drinks, maybe snacks, some scientific talks (nothing too heavy, just interesting stuff), and an auction. Then from nine to midnight we will have raffle drawings and drink specials. We will be selling raffle tickets around town for a couple weeks prior to the event (which means we have to start on Friday!) to try to get people interested. We will be charging a cover for the night event and maybe the evening event (undecided at this point, kind of depends on whether the auction happens or not).

So far local businesses have been really interested in helping out, which is awesome. It’s a small town, but I think people are proud of the aquarium, and really care about improving it so that it won’t get destroyed again. What we are trying to accomplish isn’t that major—some really basic aquarium equipment, better filtration and pipes, as well as some things like a dissection table to improve the research capabilities (which is why SAMPLA took it over in the first place.) The problem is actually finding these things in South Africa, but the good news is things are relatively cheap here. Adam hasn’t set a goal for us yet, but I’m guessing we’re looking for a total of less than $10,000.

I know some of you have expressed an interest in helping out. Being in South Africa makes it a little bit of a challenge to get money, but if you’d like to help, I think we can work it out. Email me at triciacoyne@gmail.com if you’re interested. I know it’s not the most important cause in the world, but it is the sort of thing where a little bit of money can go a really long way in improving the quality of the aquarium.

So that’s my life, I’m still chumming and all that, too, and hopefully working on my paper. Once we get everything rolling, I’m hoping to be able to delegate some more of the work. We are trying to tag a shark this week, so that should be fun, since I haven’t had very much tracking experience. Hopefully it will happen soon, because I’m only here for three more weeks!

Oh ps, someone finally got a picture of me with a shark in it.

(photo by Justin Silbernagel)

Alright, that’s all! Hope you are all doing well!

Aquarium destruction

2008-09-04T16:35:00.003+10:00

So... the water is not supposed to be coming up the stairs of the aquarium. It's definitely not supposed to be halfway up the door, either. (You can kind of see the sign that says "entrance".) We had a massive storm (not rainy, just crazy windy. Like when we walked to lunch, we walked in a row, like penguins, to minimize the wind. Needless to say, we were the only people on the street that day). So anyway, the swells got absolutely huge and destroyed a lot of the aquarium-- blowing out windows, knocking down doors, and completely flooding the place. Adam and Nicho, the aquarium manager, got most of the fish out and released them into the ocean. We helped try to clean up the gift shop yesterday, but the place is trashed.

Luckily, the aquarium was insured, so it will be rebuilt. And I'm going forward with my fund raiser, although this does complicate it a little bit. Basically, we are not raising funds to rebuild it (because they have those already), but raising money to improve the system so that they can have a larger stock, including more sensitive species, and to allow us to conduct research at the facility (which is why SAMPLA took it over in the first place.) So we are meeting with the manager of Big Blu, the bar where we want to host the event, today. I mentioned it to her last Friday night (Ryan introduced me and announced "One of my interns has an idea for you guys!" I was pretty drunk, so it was a really bad time to talk about it, but she seemed enthusiastic). Hopefully that will go well.

The basic plan right now is to have essentially two fund raisers on the same day: one in the afternoon for the older crowd of Mossel Bay, and one at night for the younger crowd. We've got a ton of ideas, and I will let you know what's happening as it comes together, especially if there are ways y'all can help. It should be a huge undertaking, but I think I'm up for the challenge. So, wish me luck at my meeting, hopefully we'll be having this event on September 26th.

Other than that, things are alright. I think we're all really missing the old interns that have left; we have five new people and six old people, and it's just a really weird dynamics shift. It is nice to be one of the people who knows what's going on. But... the last group was so much fun, so it's kind of hard.

Alright, that's it. I'll let you guys know what happens with my meeting!

weekend etc.

2008-09-01T17:35:00.004+10:00

big weekend-- ed left saturday and justin leaves today, so it was definitely a fun one. i didn't get much sleep, so this will be a short one, but a couple things... i'm working on throwing a fundraiser for the local aquarium (http://www.sharkrayaquarium.co.za/). this was something i've been wanting to do, because adam has just been working his tail off trying to revive it. the aquarium was passed over to sampla a couple months ago when all the fish started dying. so adam came in and designed a new filtration system for them, but he's really just been fighting the odds because of a lack of funding. so... i've started working on this fundraiser, but last night, due to incredibly high winds and waves, a lot of the aquarium was flooded, and some of the doors and windows broke. apparently the gift shop is just gone. so adam moved most of the fish into the big tank to try to save them, but we'll see. anyway, the point is that the aquarium needs money more now than ever. so hopefully we will be able to put together the fundraiser (the bar where i wanted to have it was also trashed by the storm) and make a difference. i will keep y'all posted.

what else... went horseback riding through a big game reserve on saturday, which is a fun way to see the animals, but i am so so so sore! i also kind of failed at taking pictures on horseback. we saw elephants, rhinos, wildebeasts, impala, water buffalo, and giraffes. i think that's it. anyway, this is the group i went with (plus christine, who isn't in the picture). from the left, it's viola, nico, ryan, justin, and our guide.

also, check out the baby rhino!

so that's it for now. we're getting a bunch of new people today, which is kind of scary because the old group was so much fun. but hopefully the new ones will be, too. happy september!

getting better...

2008-08-26T21:03:00.002+10:00

just a quick one... things are definitely looking up. feeling much better today, and had a great chumming trip. at least 12 indentifiable sharks (a couple more that we never got many markings on), a predation, whales mating, an albatross. so, good stuff all in all. the wind is picking up, so we didn't end up tagging any sharks, but we got a couple of stable isotope flesh samples. saw one shark that stef estimated was 4.3 meters (14 feet) and another that was just slightly smaller. james named the huge one big m.f. and we had another wounded shark that he named woundie. (sounds like a name i would pick). i had sharks steal the bait from me three times, which kind of sucks, we eventually had to call it a day because we ran out of bait. so that's about it, just wanted to put up a cheerier entry because today was a really really great day of sharks. i guess they don't hate me, after all.

whale picture

2008-08-25T21:53:00.002+10:00

so... i'm not even going to write about cage diving because i'm so annoyed-- i'm the only person who was never in the cage when a shark was nearby. i missed the best one by like 30 seconds (i was putting on a wetsuit) and basically i got nothing, and i'm really bummed about it. and today i am sick so i didn't go out chumming and they had the best day out there they've ever had. so... i'm 0 for 2 for the last couple days. hopefully things will improve soon. anyway, fiona got a cool picture of us with the whale, i'm all the way on the left.

Whale rescue mission

2008-08-24T02:01:00.007+10:00

oh my god. i'm like still smiling. today was unreal. so... justin, christine and i were having a hung over breakfast at delfino's when ryan came running into the restaurant. apparently on a decoy-towing trip this morning, fiona (ryan's girlfriend) had gotten a picture of a shark with a tag on it. it was one of our sharks, named roxanne. so ryan comes running up to our table, starts about six different sentences, and finally tells us that we are tracking roxanne and he needs an extra person. and, by the way, there's an entangled whale off the coast, stef is going to try to free it, and might need extra people. so christine goes off with ryan, and justin and i finish lunch and head back to the house. so we're sitting around, watching episodes of the office on my computer, when stef gets the call for the whale rescue. he said we were welcome to come watch and try to help out as much as possible, but we don't have to. for a couple seconds, i considered staying in, since i was a little hung over, but then realized that i was choosing between watching tv on my computer or helping rescue a whale. so... obviously, i went.

we went out with the sea rescue team, which are basically like really hard-core lifeguards. or more like the coast guard, i guess. anyway, three boats went out, one big boat with like a cabin and stuff that most people went on, but adam and i went with 3 sea rescue guys on a smaller dinghy. we should have known what to expect when they made us wear helmets. or when all the guys on our boat were wearing wetsuits. but i was up for an adventure, so we put on life jackets and helmets, signed a paper that no one bothered to read, and jumped in the boat.

adam probably put it best: "i've spent a lot of time on boats, but this is the most... everything boat ride i've ever been on." and he was right. it was everything. the wettest, the coldest, the bumpiest, the scariest, the most fun... everything. we held on for dear life, put our feet into the straps on the bottom of the boat, and zoomed down the coast to find the whale. our boat was rescue 1-5 alpha, which just sounds kind of intense. it seriously felt like we were in a movie: the marine biologists jumping into the boat with the coast guard to go rescue a whale. crazy.

it was a southern right whale, and the rope went around it's head, around it's tail, and then had a buoy dragging along at the end. i am really tired, and writing this one paragraph at a time because there's so much to say, so i might abridge a little bit. so basically, we spent a couple hours spotting the whale, losing the whale, and spotting it again. then, once we spotted it, the smallest boat would race over to it, where stef would try to cut the line off it's tail. the head was just going to be impossible, because the sea was so choppy, by the time we spotted the whale, the head was already gone. so our objective was just to get the buoy off the end of the line, so that it wouldn't drag and hopefully the rest of the rope would then fall off on it's own. after a few hours, we were successful.

it was probably one of the most physically challenging things i've ever done. it was so cold, and i was holding on so tightly for so long that justin had to undo the clips on my life jacket when we got back because i had no dexterity. that said, given the choice, i would not have switched to the big (dry) boat. it was such an experience, adam and i just looked at each other and laughed the whole time. i don't have any pictures, but justin and fiona took some, so hopefully i can get some of those for you. sorry this was so poorly written, i'm sure it didn't come across as impressive as it should have. but... i helped rescue a whale today!

update: so... justin's pictures kind of sucked. hopefully fiona (who is a professional photographer) got something better. but for now... i'm the one with the black sleeves.

2008-08-22T15:49:00.002+10:00

this week has flown by! i can't believe it's friday again. the week hasn't been all that eventful, to be honest. i realized i forgot to mention something kind of cool. so for those of you that have seen the documentary Sharkville, remember that it's all about ryan's quest to film sharks attacking a decoy at night. this is the only place that has ever been observed. so on our last overnight seal survey, we decided to move the boat, since our anchor had been dragging a little. a few minutes after midnight, i started to pull in the decoy, and got completely startled as a shark attacked the decoy! it wasn't a full breach, but definitely a predation attempt. so that's a big deal, i guess, considering they made a whole documentary about trying to see that. speaking of which, i gather the producers of deadliest catch and ice road truckers have been in touch with ryan about doing a shark lab series. i think it would be pretty boring, but as ryan said, if they can make a whole series about crab fishing, they could make one about shark research.

and... oh yeah. so yesterday we went out for a chumming trip. christine and i had both gone out the night before, although i was actually feeling decent, but she was a disaster. the sea was very rough, and we took the boat to grootbrak, which is one of our farthest sites. on top of that, the weather was awful-- cold and rainy. add to that the fact that cheetah, our bigger, more comfortable boat is out of the water for repairs at the moment, leaving us on lamnidae, which doesn't really have many places to sit and is a little unstable (like when one person walks to one side, someone else has to walk to the other side to balance it out). so... bad conditions. we stayed out chumming for a few hours, got a genetic sample of one of the sharks, which i hadn't seen before so that was cool. then we decided enough was enough, we were all cold and wet, so we headed in. about halfway back, ryan stopped and asked me to switch over the fuel tanks. i did, because we had an extra half-tank or so of gas (there are two outboard motors on lamnidae). so we went a little further, then he stopped again, and started looking at the fuel. i guess even though we went out with three tanks, none of them were full, and we were running low, since we had gone all the way to grootbrak. it was a photo finish: we kept switching fuel tanks, running one engine at a time, going really slowly (keep in mind that it is rough, cold, and pouring)... but we did make it back to the harbor eventually. so... an exciting day. i guess that's the stuff the tv producers would go for.

so... that's all i've got for today. i don't really have any new shark pictures, since i was taking pictures with the official SAMPLA camera yesterday (which was a challenge, in the rain). so... here's a picture of a couple of hyraxes. they live on the cliffs near our house.

Busy busy busy

2008-08-19T23:50:00.004+10:00

Sorry it’s been so long! And it’s not that nothing has happened here, just that we had a super-busy week last week followed by a super-fun weekend, and I just really haven’t had any time. So… highlights. Last week we saw a natural predation that was seriously about ten meters off the boat. This one was pretty graphic, actually, with a giant bubble of blood coming up around the seal. We were all shouting, because it was really dramatic (and pretty cool, to be honest) as the shark went after the seal again and again. I was holding the bait rope (the ball of fish attacked to a rope that we attempt to keep away from the sharks) but was watching the seal. All of a sudden, the shark abandoned the seal, grabbed my bait, and started swimming straight downwards. I attempted to hold the line, but obviously the shark had the advantage, so I let go to avoid losing fingers. The shark kept swimming down, and the rope, which was tied to the boat, began to pull the starboard side of the boat down into the water. It was very Jaws. Eventually, the shark let go to return to its seal, but it was a pretty intense experience.

What else? We did another 24-hour seal survey, which was cold, but always kind of fun. It also meant that I got very little sleep Thursday night, which I followed up with very little sleep Friday, and Saturday nights. The weekend was nuts, we had a barbecue on Friday because Sophie was leaving us, which means we ate around 10:30-11 pm. After that, we hit the bars. We ended up clubbing until about 4:30 in the morning, and I might have had more to drink than I have since college, or at least Australia. The next morning was beach volleyball with the whole intern crew. I was pretty hung over, but managed to be on the winning team for three out of four games. We learned that English people are absolutely miserable volleyball players, which was pretty hilarious. Adam managed to fall over into the sand on seriously every hit, whether or not he actually had to dive. He also wore short running shorts and Converse sneakers, and got soaking wet by running into the water over and over again, even when he didn’t have to.

Saturday night everyone ended up being pretty tired, so we watched a couple of movies and hung out. At about 3 in the morning, Justin and I decided that we were tired of just sitting around, so Justin, Adam and I headed back over to Vibrations, the dance club. On the way there, we realized that our stamps from the previous night had not entirely faded, so we got to use the same stamp and avoid paying 20 rand cover. Which is less than three dollars, but still. We were proud. After the bar shut down, we all hung out, and got to bed around six am.

So Sunday we were all wrecked, but I still managed to get in a six-plus mile run in the morning, then we had presentations on sharks for several hours. After that, we hit the bar to watch soccer. We returned home, and Stef started cooking dinner. I fell asleep on the couch, and decided to go to bed at 8 pm. So… that’s why I haven’t written.

Other than that, things are good. Chumming yesterday, we had fun throwing fish eyes at the small fish that come around the boat. Had one shark sort of around all day, which eventually ripped one of our chum bags off the boat, but nothing too crazy. They just decided on a surprise chum trip today, so we’re about to head out. They like messing with the schedule at the last minute, it’s actually really annoying.

One other really exciting thing—I’m going to be working on writing up a scientific paper that I can hopefully get published. I met with Ryan this morning to talk about ideas, and we will be working together to get this paper written. He’ll be guiding me, but I’ll be doing the bulk of the work on it. In return, I will get to be the second author on the paper. So not only will it be a great learning experience, but I also have the opportunity to get a publication, which is a big deal. So that’s awesome, the paper is on sharks that we have observed resting (basically sleeping) in the shallows during our tracking periods. I will keep y’all posted.

If you just can’t get enough of what I’m doing, you can always check out SAMPLA’s blog. I actually wrote the update on tagging/tracking (it hasn’t been posted yet) and will probably write another this week. I think writing for that is why I’m in full-sentence mode today. Sorry about that. So… yeah. Off to chum!

ps- CHOMP.

pictures

2008-08-13T05:04:00.005+10:00

it's been a long day of tagging/tracking (7 am-5 pm), at the end of which, the other group lost the shark (yeah.) i'm not feeling very articulate, so have some pictures instead.

we went on a beautiful hike along the cliffs on sunday. that's a lighthouse which is just up the hill from our house. you can also see our favorite bar in this picture. the hike had a very edge-of-the-world feeling.

i was driving the boat when i took this.

this is our seal decoy. check out the bite marks. it's been through a lot.

the southern right whales say hi! (this is what we do when we can't find sharks.)

the shark that we tagged says hi too! (it was about a 2 meter male. we're going to try to find it again tomorrow.)

...and so do i!

24 hour seal watch

2008-08-09T17:28:00.002+10:00

Had a great night out on Cheetah. Given the number of questions: the night vision binoculars were not all that useful. I mean they worked well, but the seals just pop up for a second, and then dive again and you're not sure where they will be next. And the binoculars have a pretty narrow field of vision, so it's hard to find stuff with them. I think they would be more useful for tracking and stuff, but at least for my shift, we barely used them.

So I did the last shift with Ryan, which was nice for a number of reasons. First of all, I got to sleep for several hours: our group decided to do three two-hour shifts. (Ryan was late picking us up, so we only covered 1am-7am... sucks for the other group who had to wait for us to get there before they could leave.) So two people were on each shift, and we only had to do one shift each. I curled up in the "cabin" (cabinet, pretty much) with my ipod and fell asleep. I wore running shoes, two pairs of socks, leggings, jeans, a beater, a long sleeve shirt, two hoodies and a jacket, plus a scarf, a hat, and gloves. I was decently warm at first, but ended up half-covering myself with a sleeping bag, which helped. Once I was moving around watching seals, it wasn't bad.

So I slept until 5, and then got up to watch seals until seven. I was glad to be doing the watch with Ryan (obviously this is shark Ryan, not my Ryan) because I got to pick his brain a little bit about shark research, what is being done, how he gets his ideas, how much opportunity there is in the field, where their money comes from, et cetera. He can be pretty quiet, and I know he gets sick of talking about sharks, but he was really helpful. So we sat and listened for groups of seals, tracked their movement, and chatted. The other nice thing about the final watch is that the sun started coming up. Just as the sky was starting to lighten, James woke up and the three of us were talking about American politics (Ryan was on the O'Reilly Factor promoting Sharkville, and was telling me how now all these super-conservative republicans are asking him to be their friend on facebook). Once again, I was into the conversation and facing totally the wrong way, and a shark breached on our seal decoy about 10 meters behind the boat. We had left it out over night just in case, but weren't chumming or anything. So I heard a giant splash, but saw nothing. Again.

Luckily, six minutes later, it happened again, and for the first time ever, I saw a shark launch its entire body out of the water. It was awesome, a pretty small breach (the shark was mostly horizontal), and a pretty small (2m) shark, but still totally amazing, and right behind the boat. (In case you don't watch shark week as much as I do, breaches are where the shark-- or whale or whatever-- jumps completely out of the water. As far as I know, only white sharks breach, and maybe only in South Africa. I know it was first documented here, and relatively recently. It seems like an unnecessary waste of energy, because they could probably get the seals without launching their enormous bodies entirely out of the water. But they do, and it's unreal.)

By then it was 6:53, so we watched for seals for a few more minutes, then towed the decoy behind the boat for a lap of Seal Island to see if we could get another one. Just as Ryan began to turn the boat to head home, a larger shark did a huge vertical breach, tearing our decoy from the tether and leaving it behind. No one wanted to volunteer to reach in and pull the decoy out from the water, but eventually we got it up using the boat hook and then pulling it into the boat once it was out of the water. There were huge gashes in it, in addition to the perfect row of perforations from the previous breach. This shark really attacked the hell out of our decoy.

We headed in to shore, where two of the other interns met up with us, and we drove up the hill for a big, delicious breakfast where we recapped the events of the morning-- I definitely got the best shift, because the sharks like to feed at dawn. All in all, it was a very long, cold night, but my first shark breach (not to mention my omelet) made it totally worth it.

Good morning. Or something.

2008-08-09T06:23:00.003+10:00

I feel like I'm in a time warp. We are getting ready for the second shift of the overnight seal survey, so I just slept from 7pm-10pm, then got up so I would be totally awake for the survey, which starts at midnight. Apparently I'm the only one with this idea, because the house is completely empty. I assume everyone else is asleep, although I suppose I can only be sure of Christine, who is my roommate. Anyway, it's kind of eerie, and it feels like 4 or 5 am, not 10 pm. Whatever.

So first of all, here's a link to a picture (that I clearly didn't take) of the half-seal. Let me know if you can't see it. Also, be warned that it's kind of graphic. It is, after all, half a seal.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1576246&id=681720545

(Okay mom just told me that this picture is also on the SAMPLA website, and you can also read Justin's account of the attack and also what we're doing at the aquarium, which I worked on yesterday: http://samplablog.blogspot.com/)

Ryan's girlfriend was taking pictures on the boat for National Geographic, which were pretty much all of Ryan (I got asked to move when I ended up in one). But I did make it into this one, which sort of gives you an idea of the boat and stuff:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1576248&id=681720545

Okay. So... I haven't written, not because it hasn't been interesting, but because it's kind of been more of the same. I did a really pleasant seal survey yesterday; just listened to my ipod and watched the sun come up. I'm not really supposed to upload pictures (we have limited internet) but as I haven't sent any, I figured I could get away with one if I made it small enough. Therefore, I apologize for the low resolution.

That is the view of Mossel Bay from the hotel where we do the seal watches. Our house is pretty much all the way at the end of that point. While I'm at it, here's a chumming picture.

Notice that my feet are in a bucket of fish soup. The process was described to me as making wine, but with dead fish instead of grapes. One person pretty much spends the day mixing up the fish in sea water with their feet, then uses a bucket to pour out small amounts of the concoction to attract the sharks, then gets more water and starts again. It was a little uncomfortable to have a hang over hit me (we went out Thursday night, it wasn't a bad hang over, but I could feel it) as I'm half-way up to my knees in dead fish and anchored downwind of Seal Island, which is home to like 4000 seals and seriously smells like the worst zoo I've ever smelled times three. Not to mention, being on a boat hung over is not that pleasant. Luckily, it was not that bad, and a really nice day out there.

PS for the seal survey tonight, we will also be right by Seal Island. The smell is weird, you don't notice it 80% of the time, then it hits you like a wall as the boat moves or the wind changes. We'll see how it goes. So we're supposed to have sleeping shifts, which will be inside what is pretty much a large cabinet on the boat. (Ryan got all offended when I said I was used to working on bigger boats. I told him his boat was perfectly adequate.) I tend to have no problem sleeping on boats, so hopefully it won't be a bad night. I intend to wear every article of clothing I own, including the hat I just finished and high socks and gloves (I know, Mom) that I bought today. I think other than the cold, it should be pretty low-key. As far as I know, we're basically just using night-vision goggles to watch for seals coming to or leaving from the island. Shouldn't be hard, especially since you can hear them splashing as well. And I'll be crossing my fingers for some predation.

So what else? Had fun chumming today, I was on bait rope, which basically means playing keep-away with big sharks. We have a ball of fish heads and small sharks on a rope, which I have to watch all day in case a shark comes up, and use it to get the shark into position to take pictures of it's dorsal fin. But we try not to feed the sharks, for both ecological and economic reasons, so there's sort of an art to it. No sharks got my bait, but they also didn't try very hard.

I guess I can write about life in Mossel Bay, since everyone is still asleep or on the boat. It's pretty nice here, they definitely treat the interns very well, unlike some other companies for which I have been an intern (*cough cough* Broadreach). This week apparently has been much busier than most, but I still have a decent amount of free time, although it is usually at weird times of day. Like today, when I worked from 7am-noon, then was free until midnight. But it's not bad. We have all of our food provided, a woman cooks us dinner, and then we have sandwich stuff and things like that around the house for breakfast and lunch. She also cleans and makes our beds, which I think is sort of a waste of time, but nice I guess. We send out all our laundry once a week, which we pay for, but it's pretty cheap. Everything around here is actually pretty cheap-- I was amazed when a round of five beers and a mixed drink cost like 60 rand, which is less than 10 dollars (it's about 7.5 rand to a dollar at the moment). The town is pretty small, but there are some fun bars, and a decent grocery store and stuff. A few of us belong to the gym in town, which is pretty nice, and something to do during our off hours. I've also been running, which is tough because the town is very hilly, but it is also mostly very pretty. What else... everyone gets along very well, sometimes the house is full of people and loud and fun, sometimes it is dead quiet, just depending on what's going on. But there's usually at least someone around to go to the gym with or into town.

Okay I think this is getting boring now. Amy is up now, anyway, and Ryan and James will probably get here in a few minutes. Time to start layering up!

Warning: a seal gets DESTROYED.

2008-08-07T02:14:00.003+10:00

Well today’s chum trip was a lot more eventful than yesterday’s! We left the house about 6:30, leaving the dock before 7 (still totally dark, by the way) and headed over to seal island. We anchored and were watching a cloudy sunrise when several people saw a shark breach (jump totally out of the water) in the distance. Which is a totally amazing thing to see, even on tv. Umm... I was looking at Justin, who was talking about women’s soccer. Yep.

Anyway, there was lots of obvious thrashing going on after the breach, which was probably a little more than a quarter-mile away from us. So what was super-cool about this is that we were witnessing natural predation, as in the shark was eating as they do in the wild, as opposed to attacking something we set out for it. People were really, really excited about it, I guess we don’t see natural predation all that often. So we found it by following all the birds that were checking out the seal carcass. And what a carcass. It was basically the second quarter of a seal—the head was bitten clean off, and then the back half was missing, with intestines and stuff trailing. I got some great pictures, but my job today was to take pictures of the dorsals, so my pictures are all on the SAMPLA camera. I will try to get hold of them. So anyway, we hung out by the carcass for a while, and the shark came back. It was huge for Mossel Bay; Ryan estimated about 3.8 meters, which is about 12.5 feet. So a big shark. It attacked the carcass a little more, then left. A smaller shark (more like 2.5 m) came around and messed with the carcass as well (we call that secondary predation), and eventually took it underwater. So that was awesome, and then we returned to seal island.

We watched the seals swim to the island, holding our breath for another attack. (I realize this sounds cruel. But it’s nature, and it’s what we’re here to do.) But nothing happened, so we reanchored by seal island, and set out our chum bags, decoy, and bait rope. Like I said, I was on photography duty. We had a few passes from the sharks, but nothing really to speak of. We all sort of chilled out, and started chatting and watching the whales that had come to hang out around the boat. They were there for a while, just flipping their tails and puffing clouds of steam. I did get a number of pictures, nothing spectacular. As we were all watching the whales, a shark zoomed past and stole the bait off our rope. We re-baited, and were more vigilant for another hour or so. We decided nothing else would happen, so Ryan said to give it another minute and a half, then we would pack up and go home. Right as he turned around, the same shark came and sniped the bait again. We waited a bit longer, and then headed home.

As I was driving the boat back in, we also saw a pod of dolphins, rounding out the day with seals, sharks, whales and dophins. Not bad. It’s not always exciting work (four sharks in five hours), but we have a good time chatting on the boat, it’s always nice to be out at sea, and the whales were seriously around all day. On the radio today—okay well first they were talking about which Olympic sport would be worst to do naked. I picked wrestling, although Ryan had a great point with synchronized swimming. So anyway, my point was that later, they were having people call in and talk about their dream jobs. The interns all looked at each other and were like, wow, we’re doing it. So that's pretty cool. Now I just have to find a way to get paid for it.

The British are chumming! The British are chumming!

2008-08-06T02:06:00.002+10:00

Okay so I think I'm funny. Because it was me plus Team UK (Amy, Adam, James, and Ed) out on the boat today. I told my joke to Ed, but he didn't get it. I guess Paul Revere is not as major a figure in British history as in American history. Whatever. I bet Mom laughed, at least.

So I went out chumming today, with the Brits and Ryan. We were the second shift, apparently the first shift tends to see more action. We sat at anchor down at Hartenbos, which is north-ish of here, for a few hours. We use shark livers in bags to get oil into the water, and sardines on a rope to attract the sharks. (BTW my hands still smell like shark liver, and I already showered. The house sort of always smells like fish. You get used to it.) We also pour out chum water, which is basically made by one person stomping on a bunch of sardines in a bucket of water. We also had a seal decoy out, which is made out of foam and carpet, actually, and cut in the shape of a seal. It floats on the top and attracts the sharks. So I was on data collection today, which basically means writing down when we see sharks, any distinctive markings or tags that are on them, environmental observations, etc. One person holds the bait rope and throws it out to the sharks, then has to pull it away to make sure they don't get all the fish from it. Another person takes pictures, since we are trying to identify the sharks by their dorsal fins. I actually did this with dolphin fins at UCLA, too. All the dorsals have different patterns of notches along the edge, and each is unique and can be used to identify the individual.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much today. We did see one white shark, about 2.5 m long, which is pretty small. It checked out the decoy, checked out the bait rope, and buggered off (as they say). So after like three hours of chumming, we decided it was a lost cause. Ryan wanted to show me some sharks on my first day, though, so we towed the decoy behind the boat as we drove laps around Seal Island. If you've watched Sharkville, you've seen this process before. Anyway, we all stood on the back of the boat, cameras poised, for about 45 minutes. I got some great shots of Seal Island, but unfortunately that's about it. Everyone told me this is about as uneventful a day as we get chumming, so it's all uphill from here. At least I saw one shark! And we're doing an extra-early chum trip tomorrow, so I should see some more action in the morning.

Finally here!

2008-08-05T06:40:00.003+10:00

Hi! I made it to Mossel Bay! I made it yesterday, actually, but it's been busy! So I flew into George, and just because my travel wasn't difficult enough, they lost my bag. Like my big one. Like the important one. So... that happened, and they didn't even have any record of it. They kept calling for a description and all, which is terrifying. Anyway, decided not to worry about it. Ryan came to pick me up (Ryan Johnson is the head researcher here, not to be confused with my Ryan) and we came back to the house. The house is great, in a really nice part of town, and is really big. There are four bedrooms-- two for girls, one for the boys, and then Stefan, one of the scientists, lives upstairs part time. I haven't met him yet; he's in Cape Town this week. So there are 10 interns total, 4 Americans, 4 British, and 2 Italians. Everyone is probably in their 20s, maybe a little older. We can see the ocean from upstairs, which is cool, and there's a big balcony. I have one roommate, also an American. Let's see, what else. So today we were supposed to be doing a 24 hour seal survey (like the one on the SAMPLA blog at www.sampla.org) but the wind picked up tonight so we're waiting until Friday. I was supposed to be out from midnight until seven on the boat, so I'm not too sad about missing it tonight. Although the night part of the survey apparently involves night-vision goggles, which is pretty sweet. We did do a few hours of daytime seal watch today, where we sat on a balcony on the top floor of a hotel and watched seals coming to and leaving from an island for a couple hours. Sorry, we're watching a movie, so I'm a little distracted. So what else. Tomorrow we are going out chumming, which means I should actually get to see the sharks! I kind of have an idea of what happens, but I'll save the details until I can tell you first hand. I'm pretty excited. The weather here is pretty cold, not too bad but definitely sweatshirts and stuff. It's crazy that the cold southern breezes are coming up pretty much straight from Antarctica. Then again, the hole in the ozone layer makes the sun stronger, too, which I guess makes it warmer. What else... we had a barbecue last night (which is apparently called a braai in Afrikaans), then six of us went out last night to a bar, which was fun. Everyone seems really great. Oh, and my bag came today while I was on seal watch! So that was very exciting. I'm all unpacked and settled in. It feels like I've been here way more than a day and a half. Okay, totally distracted, so I'm going to watch the movie. I will definitely let you guys know all about the sharks tomorrow! I can't wait.

19 hours later...

2008-08-03T04:05:00.002+10:00

Well, that worked better the second time around. My passport made it back to Atlanta by seven on Friday morning. By the way, if you're ever in a passport/visa-related pinch, I definitely recommend Texas Tower. Seriously, it was about a thirty-six hour turnover (Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning) to get the extra pages in my passport. It wasn't cheap, but it was amazingly fast, and they totally put up with Mom and me asking them to call when they got it, call again when they sent it, etc. I was impressed.

So I flew from Atlanta to Dakar, Senegal (didn't even get off the plane) to Johannesburg. The flight was as easy as it could have been, I had my own TV with on-demand, so that was cool. 27 Dresses was better than I thought, Horton Hears a Who was pretty awful. I did some knitting (I'm making a hat) and slept for a good chunk of the flight (yay for Ambien). Now I'm at my hotel, which was like 2 minutes from the airport and is pretty nice. I worked out, took a shower, and now I'm watching Discovery Channel (sadly, I don't think it's shark week here). All in all, it went as well as it could have. And I should be in Mossel Bay tomorrow afternoon!

Off to a terrible start.

2008-07-31T07:20:00.002+10:00

So, in theory, I'm flying right now on my way to Dakar, Senegal, then to South Africa, where I will spend the night in Johannesburg, and then fly to George, where someone from the SAMPLA lab will pick me up to start my internship on Friday. In theory. But clearly, I am not flying to Senegal right now. Which means I won't be in Johannesburg tomorrow night. And I definitely won't start playing with Great Whites on Friday.

We got to the Atlanta airport today with more than enough time to spare, and I went to check in while Mom parked. My bags were tagged, my tickets printed, and the guy was checking my passport when he realized there was a problem. Remember how I had to bribe the customs official in Cambodia last year? (Okay, I just looked, and I never wrote about that. Nevermind.) Basically, there are no empty pages in my passport anymore. Well, there is one, but it's not a specified "visa" page. And in Cambodia, for $20 (shockingly, didn't get a receipt for that one), they will just put your visa over existing stamps. Guess what? You can't do that in America. So as the Delta guy was checking me in, he realized that my passport is completely full, and it turns out I will be issued a full-page visa upon arrival in South Africa. Which means they won't let me on the plane without an empty page. The guy thought that the non-visa-specific page would be fine, but he figured we should go check with George. So we cruise upstairs, where George tells us that if I arrive in South Africa with no blank pages, Delta gets fined $2000. So obviously, they were not about to let that happen.

So I was sent to the Denied Boarding Desk, which totally sounds like I would be surrounded by terrorists and war criminals. Turns out, it's just a division of the visa service. They were nice but not that helpful, so Mom and I hopped on our respective phones and started calling everyone we could think of. (Okay, I'll be honest. Mom hopped on her phone. I sobbed for a while because OH MY GOD THE WORLD WAS ENDING. Then I tried to call my dad. Then I sobbed for a while. Then I texted Ryan, sobbed some more... you see where this is going.) So after talking to four different visa services, Mom realized that there was no way I was getting on my flight, which was in like an hour and a half at this point. In order to get extra pages in your passport, the US Passport Agency has to physically sew them in for you. And there is not a passport agency in Atlanta. Awesome.

So now my passport is on it's way overnight to Texas, where someone is taking it for me to the Houston Passport Agency tomorrow and will overnight it back to me (or courier it on a plane and meet me at the aiport, if necessary). I rebooked my flight for Friday, booked a new hotel for Saturday night, and scheduled a new flight to George, where (presumably) someone can pick me up and I will start playing with the sharks on Sunday.

So, I suppose, the world is not ending. I was just so ready to get there and start this. I've been anticipating it for so long and putting it off for two more days is just pretty heartbreaking. I guess, on the bright side, finding this out upon landing in South Africa after a 19 hour flight would have been worse... especially if I got deported or whatever. The guy at the Denied Boarding Desk was telling us about three people who had just been sent back from India for a similar thing. So it could have been worse, but hearing all this in the airport as I've got everything prepared for this trip was pretty crushing. Hopefully now it is all sorted out, and we will try again on Friday, I suppose. I'll keep y'all posted.

Still here.

2007-12-31T17:14:00.000+10:00

It's been a while. Hi! Some people at home mentioned that they still check to see if I still have a blog, and apparently I do. I just haven't written for like seven months. So here I am. We (I) live in Hermosa Beach, which is outside of LA (we... yeah, I'll get to that). It's a nice little beach town with lots of fun bars and restaurants and surfers and stuff. It's pretty inconvenient for... well, basically anything in LA, but the apartment is a block from the beach and therefore totally worth it.

(Hermosa)

PS I'm watching Top Gun right now and I always forget how awesome it is. Don't laugh.

Anyway I have a job, like a real one. It doesn't even involve tourists! I'm working for LA County Sanitation Districts' Biology Group doing water quality bioassays. Got that?

(That's our lab, from the LACSD website.)

Basically it's lab work, which I actually really enjoy. I was talking with some of my co-workers about how you have to be kind of OCD to really love lab work, which I guess works out for me. Pretty much we use tiny fish and invertebrates to test waste water that's been through the treatment facilities and is being released back into rivers and the ocean. So in theory we're using clean water (although that's not always necessarily true... but if it were, there would be no reason for us to be there). It's very science-y, like microscopes and beakers and pH meters and stuff. Which I like. The people are awesome, and much cooler than I expected, considering I work in a lab.

(The biology group plus a couple of randoms)

The bad part of my job is that it's 35 miles away in beautiful Whittier, California, in the shadow of the world's largest currently operating landfill (which actually was really interesting when my boss took us on a tour). I spend a lot of time in the car, so if you ever want to chat, call between 6 and 7 AM or 330 and 430 PM pacific time and I should be available. Yeah, I also work really early, and sometimes weekends. I think it's worth it, at least for the moment.

Which leads me to future plans. Next fall I'm spending two months (specifically August and September) in South Africa doing a Great White shark research internship. I am so excited for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that it's just going to be so damn cool. It should hopefully help me figure out what I'm doing with the rest of my life as well. (Maybe?) Regardless, it hopefully will be important to me both personally and professionally. Check them out at www.sampla.org.

(From the SAMPLA website. This is basically what I'll be doing... I hope.)

Top Gun continues to be great, in case you were wondering. Love that volleyball scene.

What else? Oh right, the big one. Jon and I have decided to break up, for a variety of reasons which you can ask me about sometime if you want to know. Bottom line, it sucks but I think it is for the best. What that means now is I have no plans for the future any more (I had been planning on following him to where ever he got into med school). It is a scary but exciting feeling, and at this point I really have no idea what I will do. I'll be in LA at least until April, I'll be in South Africa in August and September, and I am continuing my tradition of intending to apply to grad school in the fall (for those who aren't keeping score, next year will be my fourth year in a row that I will have planned to apply to grad school). I might really do it this time, though. And that's my entire life plan! Oh, the other thing I have planned is a half marathon on February 3rd in Huntington Beach. This will be my first race ever and I'm excited. I ran 10 miles yesterday, so 13 should not be a huge problem. Feel free to come watch, I'll let y'all know how it goes. So anyway, if you're doing anything in 2008 (or early 2009) and you think "hey, Tricia might want to come do this with me," let me know!

So that's it, just thought I would bring everyone up to speed and hopefully I'll write more often now. Love you all, and you can be my wingman anytime.

Picture link

2007-05-28T03:10:00.000+10:00

Hi all!
We're back in California, looking for an apartment and on our way to becoming real people. I posted 60 of my favorite shots from Asia on Facebook, and supposedly this link will let even non-Facebookers see the album (but if there are problems, please please let me know). Enjoy!

http://ucla.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2171830&l=aa076&id=2504404

Pictures!

2007-05-15T15:50:00.000+10:00

Hi! Quick catch up: had fun diving, it poured all day. Phi Phi islands were fun too, it was pretty choppy, but fun. I had a great birthday, had cake and champagne sent twice (from Mom on my birthday, and from Jon on the day we celebrated my birthday.) The day itself was nice and quiet, we had a lovely Italian dinner at one of the other hotels. To celebrate my birthday, Jon and I stayed at this amazing villa at the Banyan Tree. We had our own pool! I was completely floored when we walked in-- I kind of suspected that we were going to the Banyan Tree, but was not prepared for how incredible it was!

Now we're back in Sydney and leaving for LA tomorrow. Not surprisingly, I am feeling a lot of mixed emotions. I am so ready to settle down, but obviously we had a great time. I'm sure I'll give more details later, but I figured I would share a few pictures! We took 1,581 pictures between the two of us, and I haven't even begun to look through them all. So I figured I would post one from each country, and then add more once I've seen them all.

China:

Great Wall

Vietnam:

Halong Bay

Cambodia:

Angkor Thom

Thailand:

Phuket

So like I said, they're not the best, but reasonably representative of what we've been up to. See you all very soon!

Thailand

2007-05-08T23:49:00.000+10:00

Hi! So I wrote this whole long entry about Thailand so far, but I literally had my hand on the button to post it, and there was a power surge in the hotel and I lost it. I'm so angry right now. So you get the short version.

Bangkok: hated it at first. lots of scam artists who like to tell you big attractions are closed so they can pretend like they will take you somewhere else but really take you to fake gem places. we knew about it, so didn't get scammed, but it's funny to always hear "no, wat po is closed, i will take you to the big buddha" or "you can't go to the grand palace today, i will arrange for you to go to the big buddha." always the big buddha, not sure if it's real or not. the sites are really cool, wat po has a reclining buddha that is like 150 meters long and gold (not solid). the grand palace is beautiful, still used for ceremonial occasions, so it's in good shape-- not ruins like angkor wat or the forbidden city where you wonder what it would have looked like when it was in use-- this is actually in use and very impressive. went to patpong, the red light district-- avoided the infamous "ping pong shows," still interesting. stayed close to khao san, the "backpacker ghetto" which had cheap food, cheap drinks, and cheap internet. not too bad, fun to go out. went to a tiny vegetarian restaurant where there was no menu and the lady didn't speak english- fun to just point at things and hope for the best-- not something i get to do very often as a vegetarian. went to a gorgeous high tea at one of the really nice old hotels in town, felt very old-fashioned. went antique shopping with absolutely no intention of buying. went to some fun markets and tried some food (and lots of drinks!) from street vendors. in general, bangkok ended up being pretty fun.

left bangkok for koh tao-- got to the airport and couldn't find our flight or even our airline-- bangkok has two airports and we were at the wrong one. luckily, as my mother's daughter, when the taxi guy said to leave at eight, i said great, see you at seven thirty, so we got a new cab, rushed across town, and made our flight.

koh tao is small and hard to get to, but not very developed. all the taxis are pickup trucks with benches in the back, and our guidebook said the roads were better used for water drainage than driving, which is definitely true. our resort was rustic at best, but we had a private bungalow with airconditioning (jon accidentally stole the AC remote, not sure what we're going to do about that one), and was definitely all we needed. only one restaurant, but it was pretty good and to get to town was a 5km drive that took half an hour because it is so mountainous and bumpy. did three dives, lots of fish but almost no coral, went on a little wreck which was kind of fun. beautiful little island.

spent a day in koh samui because the ferry and flight schedules are not very well timed- had about six hours between the two. randomly found a restaurant on the beach, had a table on the sand, lots of drinks and food, i had a really cheap massage right next door.

got to phuket, beautiful hotel, since it's the off-season, room was pretty cheap and is amazing. we literally have the closest room to the beach in the entire hotel, a private patio with chaises that opens up to some grass, then 20 feet away is sand. really beautiful and lots of amenities-- a much nicer room than we should be in, but it is thailand, and the rainy season makes everything very cheap. weather has been good so far.

today we spent most of the day on the patio, forgot i was in thailand then looked up and saw an elephant walking down the beach. tomorrow we go diving, thursday we go to the phi phi islands which are supposed to be unreal (where they filmed "the beach"). friday is my birthday! no plans, jon has a surprise for me on the thirteenth, but we will probably spend the 11th on the beach and maybe get a good dinner somewhere. i can't believe we have less than a week left in asia. glad we're spending the rest of our time here-- the hotel really is amazing, in spite of the power surge.

i promise to use proper grammar again soon! sorry about the short entry, like i said, i tried!

Cambodia

2007-05-01T17:47:00.000+10:00

Happy May! I love May. I think May is my favorite month, and not just because my birthday is coming up. Although it helps.

Hi! I'm in Cambodia! Which sounds weird. Weirder than Vietnam. Not sure why. So, hi! We've spent the last three days checking out the temples at Angkor (the most well-known of which is Angkor Wat) and they are very cool. It's a crazy area, as you drive around you just pass by ancient temples all over the place! Our guide told us that there are over 300 temples in this area. Our favorite was definitely Ta Phrom, which is apparently where they filmed one of the Tomb Raider movies. Most of the temples have been restored and are in little grassy areas. This one, though, is still all jungle-y. Trees grow up straight out of the walls of the temple, and beautifully carved stones sit in piles around the complex. It totally makes you feel like you are in an Indiana Jones movie. Or Tomb Raider, I guess. It's funny because people in the town love telling you about Angelina Jolie's favorite's when she was here (we went to her favorite restaurant. Jon got her favorite cocktail, which was on the menu with a big picture of her.) Interesting, but I guess not all that surprising. The actual Angkor Wat complex is very impressive, the buildings are large and intricate, with lots of carving. The temple at Angkor Thom is also amazing, maybe even cooler, because all of it's fifty four (I think) towers have four faces of Buddha on each tower. It's a really neat effect.

Anyway, the sites are awesome, since it's such a developing country, though, there is a lot of begging, which I really hate. I mean I know no one likes it, but it always makes me feel uncomfortable and guilty. Seeing the way people live around here has been eye-opening, like not even having fresh water to bathe, so bathing in the gross river-- not to mention all of the horrible things that were happening here only a decade ago. I know no one wants to hear preaching about this sort of thing, but it does kind of make me feel guilty for having so many opportunites. I guess that's how I'm supposed to feel. Anyway, I guess it's been a good learning experience all around.

On a totally unrelated note, French tourists are awful. Cutting in line, yelling in temples, pushing in front of people, wearing scandalous clothing... I mean, yeah, it's hot here. I would love to be in tank tops and short shorts, but I (and most other tourists) have my shoulders covered and at least knee-length shorts on all the time. But every time we see someone in spaghetti-straps and tiny shorts, they're always speaking French. I think it just bugs me because American tourists have such a bad reputation, but I really don't think it's deserved.

Today we got up for sunrise at Angkor Wat, but sunrise+Tricia=disaster. Seriously, if you want to see a nice sunrise, don't bring me along. Early morning hot air balloon ride in Kenya? Cloudy. Even early morning (basically late night) hike up Mount Sinai? Cloudy. In Egypt. I didn't even know it got cloudy there. So, true to form, it was totally cloudy. (Sorry, I don't know when this became the complaining blog.) But, good things came of it-- that was when we decided to go back to Ta Phrom, which was much cooler when we were the only people there. And the rain made it look even better, since there were pools of water all around that make it feel even more authentic and undiscovered. Pretty cool.

Our hotel here was amazing, all green pools and a moat and stuff, a giant room, fresh fruit in our room every day, and seriously the largest bathtub I have ever seen. (The tour company booked this one for us... not what we would have picked). The food has been very good (if you're ever curious, Cambodian Mexican food is better than Australian Mexican food)-- but don't worry, we have eaten traditional Khmer food as well. Jon is much more into eating the local cuisine, I like to kind of balance between local and familiar. I think being a vegetarian makes it a lot harder for me to eat unfamiliar food, although Cambodia, being largely Buddhist, has been pretty easy to find clearly-marked vegetarian options. But Jon and I are striking a nice balance-- like the time in Vietnam when he wanted to try Cha Ca, which is a type of fish, and was literally the only dish this restaurant served. I got a delicious baguette sandwich across the street. But Jon is very good about going to vegetarian places with me, and I think we're really both just getting excited for Thai food.

Speaking of which, we're off to Thailand tonight! This is the part of the trip I've been most excited about, and kind of the home stretch, which is weird. At the moment we're doing some last-minute planning, but the general idea is four days in Bangkok, a couple days diving on the East coast, a couple days diving on the West coast, a few beach days and some special birthday surprise. Can't wait. Love to you all, and I'll be in touch from Thailand.

Vietnam

2007-04-28T14:06:00.000+10:00

Hi! I feel like I'm so far behind in blogging... so much to write about! Also the blog page came up in Japanese, which is weird because I am definitely not in Japan. Whatever, I have a better chance of figuring it out than if it were in Vietnamese. Okay...

So I left off in Hanoi, which ended up being pretty cool. I did do my final run of my program, around a lake with lots of local people running, walking, and doing Tai Chi. Kind of fun. So then we went to the Ho Chi Minh. Like really, we saw him. It was kind of creepy, since he's been dead for almost 40 years. The place is really serious, you have to wear long pants, file in two-by-two, and stay silent. The guy in front of us got yelled at by a Vietnamese military guy for putting his hands in his pockets. We also had to go through metal detectors and couldn't bring cameras or even bottles of water. So you go into the mausoleum and there is a coffin-like bed with glass all around it and there in the middle is the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh. Jon said it looked like a figure in a wax museum, which is about right. He just looked like he could have sat up and opened his eyes. It took me a few hours to get my mind around the fact that the guy I had just seen has been dead for forty years. Really, really, weird, and also kind of cool.

So we did some touring that day, which included the Hoa Lo prison, which was kind of creepy. Lots of posters showing how nice the Vietnamese were to the American prisoners. A bit of a weird moment- there were also pictures of John McCain and so we started talking about American politics with our guide. He was asking about John McCain and how he was running for president, and asked how many political parties we had. We explained that there were mainly two, "The republicans and..." "The communists?" He asked. It was a totally innocent question and he clearly had no idea that he had just said something funny. I had to work pretty hard not to laugh though. Another weird moment came when he asked us how many kids people could have in the US. Crazy to me that he wouldn't realize that only some countries have a limit on how many kids you can have, and that to have a communist party as a major party in the US would be laughable. Also interesting to hear his view on politics versus our guide in Saigon. Nothing worth getting into, but different.

One of my favorite Hanoi experiences was while Jon and I were wandering around in the afternoon. Hanoi has lots of little street food vendors, who just set up little stools that you can sit at and eat whatever they sell. The most famous are the pho vendors, which is a kind of soup that has meat in it, so we didn't get any of that. But there were some people making these crazy looking drinks. Seriously, they are kind of like boba, but with lots of different stuff in them. Some jello-y looking cubes, some clear spheres, some apple-saucy stuff, some beans (like garbanzo beans, but in a sweet syrup)... and you sit there and they put each of these things in a glass for you. All together. It wasn't bad... some drinking, some chewing... very colorful... I have a great picture. We called it the "Boba Suicide" (but those of you not from the west coast probably don't know boba). Anyway, an interesting drink, and not nearly as gross as it looked.

From Hanoi we went to Halong Bay, which is just crazy looking. Giant limestone formations stick out of the water, and it's all misty and ethereal. We stayed overnight on a boat, where pretty much we spent the whole time eating and looking at the scenery. Not bad. I feel like I really just need to post pictures of the bay, so you'll see those when I either have my computer again or can figure out how to email them from my palm pilot (I keep getting so close, but my palm pilot is very moody.)

We went to Hoi An for two nights, which is an old Chinese and Japanese (at different times) port in central Vietnam. The whole town is a UNESCO world heritage site (we've seen a lot of those), so all the buildings are preserved. It is pretty much all a tourist town, lots of cute little shops, restaurants, etc. We spent the morning touring and then had the afternoon to ourselves. I'm a little embarrassed (but anyone who knows me well won't be surprised) at how I spent the afternoon. I had told Jon that we needed to factor in some breaks in our touring, because I will get tired. Unfortunately, we have a big long break at the end of the trip (Thailand) but there wasn't much in the middle of the trip. So while Jon shopped around, I went for a run and then spent the afternoon by the pool. I feel guilty, because come on, I can lay by the pool anywhere, but I think having some time for relaxation was good for me. Jon also got a suit tailored in Hoi An (they are famous for their tailors). It looks great, and I'm amazed that they could do it all in one day.

Saigon as a city is not that interesting, it doesn't have the charm of Hanoi or Hoi An, but we have done some great side trips from the city. We visited some of the old Viet Cong tunnels from the Vietnam War, which were totally crazy to crawl through, incredibly claustrophobic and really just incredible to think about, since they were hand-dug and people lived in them, sometimes for months. They also had lots of weapons from the war, Jon got to shoot an A-16 machine gun (he just told me what it was, obviously I had no idea), which was very, very loud.

The other side trip we did from Saigon was the Mekong Delta. Pretty much this was Vietnam Disneyland (I know I like comparing things to Disneyland... but it's usually a compliment). So, combine the jungle cruise ride with what Epcot Vietnam would be like. And you have our trip on the Mekong Delta! We rode a little boat, then got off and ate fruit at a little fruit farm while listening to traditional Vietnamese music. Then we went to see coconut candy being made. Then we took a horse-drawn carriage to a honey farm (would that be called a farm?) and then took a smaller boat through little palm-tree lined waterways (this is the jungle cruise part) to a nice lunch. You know places like Williamsburg where they show you how people used to churn butter and make candles? It kind of felt like that, except real. You sit there thinking, oh, they're wearing those pointy hats and making rice noodles, like it's some recreation of something that used to happen. (This was actually on our way down to the Mekong Delta). But then you find out that this group of families makes like eight thousand kilograms of rice noodles a day and is the major supplier for the region. Kind of strange to think about. And people really do wear those pointy rice farmer hats.

One other thing-- Vietnam has the funniest muzac I have ever heard. Lots and lots of Simon and Garfunkel, but played by sort of Asian sounding instruments. I have heard Sound of Silence at least six times. It's pretty funny. But the one I can't figure out is Auld Lang Syne. I have heard it everywhere. Even the Vietnamese musicians while we were eating our fruit yesterday played it as their finale. I get the impression that everyone thinks that Westerners really like hearing it. My theory is that they have some New Years song that everyone loves and likes hearing on a day-to-day basis, and so they asked someone what our New Years song is, and somehow it all got lost in translation. It's bizarre, and funny. At breakfast we heard Auld Lang Syne, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Scarborough Fair, Eidelweiss, and a song from Jesus Christ Superstar. All in the Asian-muzak version. Yeah.

Alright, that's enough. We head to Cambodia tonight, I have no idea how easy it will be to get internet, but I'm excited to see Angkor Wat. I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of stuff, like how everyone drives motorcycles so you see people holding fridges or panels of glass on their motorcycles, or stacks of dead pigs. Or how we ate dinner where Brad and Angelina went when they were here adopting (according to our guide). Lots of random little things. But I'm hungry. So I'm off.

You know, you sound a lot like you're from Kowloon Bay as opposed to Hong Kong...

2007-04-22T00:08:00.000+10:00

Hi!
If you're confused, don't worry about it. Wayne's World. Hi! I'm in Vietnam! We got to Hanoi today, and it's pretty cool. Where did I leave off? Somewhere in Shanghai. Basically we ate our way through Shanghai, and it was delicious. And then we ate our way through Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was cool. First I was impressed with their efficiency-- great train to Kowloon, which is on a different island than the airport. The whole city is islands connected by roads and ferries. The train was so nice, we took it this morning and could acutally check our bags in Kowloon before taking the train to the airport. Efficient and awesome. Since we took the train and then a cab, Jon and I didn't really see the whole city when we first got there. Kowloon is across a harbour from Hong Kong Island, which is the big one. So we walked to the water from our hotel, and it was just mind-blowing. As soon as we could see Hong Kong Island, we were floored by how huge it is. Then we turned a corner and it just kept going... and going. Seriously, it is absolutely massive. I know being all spread along the water helps, and the fact that the steep mountains make all the of the buildings visible, but seriously it is just a giant city. What's cool is that it's still kind of nature-y, too (I mean compared to other giant cities). The water was clear-ish (unlike Shanghai), and we took a tram up to Victoria Peak, where you can get a beautiful view of the city. On the way up, there was dense tropical foliage and lots of birds. From the top, you can see other islands in the distance and it is just stunning to see natural beauty on one side and this incredible man-made feature on the other. I really liked Hong Kong. Also, the food was spectacular. We ate dim sum for like two hours, and ordered three times. I loved it.

My favorite part of Hong Kong, though, was the laser show. Turns out the whole city does a light show around the harbor every night. Let me repeat that for you. The whole city. Does a light show. Every night. It was hysterical! It was like Illuminations at Epcot but on a massive scale. Each building kind of did it's own thing, but it was all set to the same music which we could hear from where we were standing. It was amazing. We might have liked it even better because we had just finished a bottle of wine in like 20 minutes (the place didn't sell by the glass, and obviously we couldn't miss the show), but I think anyone would have been impressed.

Hanoi is pretty, very green, especially compared with like Beijing. The city is very colorful too. Lots of cool cheap things to buy (Jon and I are eying the laquer-ware) and lots going on. The traffic is nuts. We've had some scary street crossings in China, but it had nothing on Vietnam. Friends, guidebooks, and our tour guide have all said the same thing, so it must be true: the only way to cross the street is just go, don't look, and let them avoid you. It's terrifying. Jon and I generally wait for a little break in the traffic to cross, but we crossed with our guide today just walking through all the motorcycles. It's crazy. We haven't gotten hit yet.

So as I mentioned, we have a guide here. Since we are trying to do like five locations in eight days, it seemed to make sense. They did all our airfare and hotels, as well as visas for us, so that's cool. It has made things a little more touristy than we would probably have done on our own, though. We took a "cyclo" tour of the Old Town today, which means we were on little carts pushed by guys on bikes. It was fun, but kind of awkward and very touristy. Interesting, though. We also went to a water puppet show, which is what it sounds like, and which was pretty cool because it involved things like underwater pyrotechnics. I mean little ones, but still. So far it's been a good balance of time with the guide and time on our own. Had a great lunch at a nearby vegetarian restaurant. There is a giant market going on outside our hotel tonight, which might be loud, but was fun to walk through. If you need knock-off Power Ranger action figures, let me know. Or exotic fruits. Or underwear. It's interesting.

Alright, off to bed, we are getting up early so I can go running. I've been doing this program that gets you from running like one minute at a time to running half an hour in two months, running three days a week (I started before I knew we would be doing this trip-- it's been kind of inconvenient.) But tomorrow is my final run! And half an hour is a big deal for me; as most of you know, I'm just not a runner. But I am now! So I am pretty proud. Alright, that's it! Love to everyone and I will keep you posted!

Shanghai

2007-04-19T19:57:00.000+10:00

Hi all!
We are in Shanghai, and we have a computer in our hotel room! It's really exciting. The overnight train from Beijing was not as bad as it could have been-- the train station was a bit of a mess, because basically they open the doors and everyone just pushes to get to the train. It doesn't really make sense because we at least had reserved seats, so who knows. But once we got to the train it was good, private room for the two of us with a private bathroom, so we only left the room to go to the dining car. Turns out they do room service, so everything really was easy. Most of the staff spoke at least some English (and all the signs were in English) because everyone is trying to get ready for the Olympics.

It has been totally awesome to see our friend Kristin, who is living in Shanghai. She speaks pretty good Mandarin and knows lots of fun restaurants and bars. The bar we went to last night was in a really utilitarian building, and you had to guess which button would open the door for you. If you got the wrong one, a different door would open with a mirror behind it. Also the bathroom doors had knobs on the wrong side and no light switches (the lights turned on when you locked the door) and some of the doors were also false with mirrors on them. Pretty cool, I guess there is a huge ex-pat culture here and those are the bars and restaurants she goes to. Very different from moving to Australia, I guess.

Shanghai is a cool city, much more modern feeling than Beijing. Beijing had all of the old buildings and small alleys to make it feel very old world, like a Venice or a Toledo (but with absolutely NONE of the charm of those cities). Shanghai feels like a modern city anywhere, with some cool old feeling parts and some weird anachronisms like people selling vegetables on the street outside of these skyscrapers. I would definitely move to Shanghai before I would move to Beijing.

Alright, I guess that's it. Basically we have eaten our way through Shanghai-- lots of good meals, and we end up just chatting with Kristin for like two hours, and then walk around the city until it's time for another meal. Not a bad way to do it.

We are off to Hong Kong in the morning... I will try to get in touch from there!

Craziness

2007-04-17T19:40:00.000+10:00

Hi! So I know it's quick to write again, but there is just so much to write and I didn't want to let it all build up. So we are leaving Beijing tonight (overnight train to Shanghai, which I'm sure will give me plenty to write about.)

We saw the Great Wall... what can I say, it was great! (Jon had to deal with me saying that at least half a dozen times while we were there). It was great, though. We did a four hour hike on a less-travelled part. Most of it had not been re-built, so it really was like climbing ruins. The whole group was around our age, if that gives any indication. It was cool, because it gave a feel for what the wall used to be like and wasn't crowded with tourists or vendors. Took tons of pictures, you'll see them later.

Yesterday we had another day of touring, and at the end of the day we decided it was time to try some spa treatments at the hotel. For some crazy reason, we though acupuncture would be fun. (Okay, if you don't like needles, you should probably skip to the next paragraph). Don't worry, the place was very clean and very professional, and all of our needles were new and thrown away at the end. The needles look like straight pins, except about half-way down, they get a lot thinner, and they are probably 3-4 inches long. I got a head massage first, then Jon got a head massage while they did my needles, then they did his. My favorite part was waiting for him to open his eyes during his massage so I could say "I have a needle in my forehead, don't I?" And I did! I also had them in both wrists (palm-side up, so like the veiny side), and somewhere in my shins. The wrist ones freaked me out the most, because I could see them. And you know what it felt like? It felt like having needles poked in between my eyes. And in my wrists. And in my shins. And then left there for like 20 minutes. I watched them put Jon's needles in. They go an inch or two under the surface (you can't really feel that) and then the people move them around to release your chi or something, and then leave them there. Jon had a total of eleven needles: one in his forehead, one in each temple, one in each elbow, one between his thumb and forefinger, one in each foot, and one between his big toe and second toe. I don't know whether there is a difference for men and women, or if they just thought I looked like a wuss. Five was plenty for me, though. I could feel them pull my nerves when I moved my hands or feet, and I can still feel my left wrist today-- it doesn't hurt, just feels weird. I'm glad I did it, it was interesting, but I really don't need to do it again.

Okay, gross-ness is done. So after the acupuncture, we got dinner. It turns out that "vegetarian" must mean "under construction" in Beijing, because seriously three times we have looked for a vegetarian restaurant that we have found on a map, and then it has turned out to be under construction. Three times! How does that happen? So we tried for a vegetarian place, it was closed, so we went to the place next door. Jon was looking for the "do you have a menu in english" phrase in our book, but hadn't found it yet when they brought us in and seated us, so we were stuck. And they didn't have a menu in English. And no one spoke English. Everyone was very helpful, but it was definitely a trip to try to get food, and vegetarian food, in a totally different language. It worked, they brought us broccoli and some vegetable that we still don't know what it was, everything was good and it worked out. The highlight was definitely when the "Living on a Prayer" music video came on the tv and Jon spent like two minutes trying to say "I like this music" in Mandarin. I guess he got it right, because they turned it up. I figure singing along is good enough in any language.

Today was a trip as well. I got in touch with a friend from high school, Kristoffer, who lives in Beijing and actually owns a number of restaurants in town. We went to his main restaurant, a pizza place, where we got amazing calzones and had a great time catching up with Kristoffer. He speaks almost fluent Mandarin and has a pet pig! It was so cool to see someone I know who has really embraced living in China.

Alright, time to head to the train station! We are having a great time and I will try to update when I can!

Nihao!

2007-04-14T20:35:00.000+10:00

Hi! I'm in China! My blog website is all coming up in Chinese, so we'll see if I can manage to post this. So... hi! I'm in China! I know I said that already, but that's kind of been my thought process for the past day and a half. We'll be walking down a street and suddenly there will be this huge palace in front of us. Or a giant portait of Chairman Mao. Or scary-looking military guys in greenish-gray uniforms doing drills on the sidewalk. And it's like "woah! I'm in China!"

Anyway... we are in Beijing for a few days, went to the Forbidden City today which is very cool, took tons of pictures, which I will post when I have my computer again, which will be in a month. We are planning on a trip to the Great Wall tomorrow.

We started out in Kuala Lumpur, which was a good place to start off in Asia-- lots of English is spoken, and it is a very multicultural city-- a large Muslim population, and an especially large Indian population along with Asians. I did actually feel more out of place there because a lot of the women had their heads covered, and I feel like here, most people couldn't care less about the tourists looking at their city. I felt like a lot more people were looking at me in KL than here.

KL looks a little bit like Vegas-- the government part of town has beautiful Taj Mahal-esque domes on top of Corinthian columns, surrounded by what looked like a Venitian palace. Seriously. All in all, it was cool, we had one day so we walked around the city, mostly. We went to a really tall tower that overlooked the city. As we tried to get down from the tower, we wanted to go to a different side of the park, and ended up doing this rainforest walk. We got lost for like half an hour in the rainforest in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. It was legit- as we left there was a sign warning us about snakes and scorpions. Glad we're on our malaria medication.

Anyway, the other really noteworthy thing we did in KL was Cosmo's World. It's an amusement park inside a giant mall. It had some pretty cool rides, but all of them were kind of painful and liked to hold you upside down a little bit too long. The roller-coaster went upside down, but a little bit too slowly. Seriously, imagine if Big Thunder Mountain Railroad suddenly decided to do a corkscrew. It didn't feel dangerous, just... uncomfortable.

Our hotel was gorgeous, seriously we had to hold back laughter as we checked in under giant chandeliers, checked out the lovely pool, the beatuiful carpets... not to be tacky, but our room was $55 per night.

Our hotel in Beijing is also lovely (a bit pricier, but worth it.) It's down a little alley, so you really get the feel for actually living in Bejing. The alley is barely wide enough for one car, but cars drive both ways (not to mention the pedestrians and bicycles), so things get pretty interesting. The hotel is in a set of Qing Dynasty buildings surrounding a garden that was owned by some eunuch who was important to some Emporer's court (sorry, I forget). Anyway it's really lovely, the garden is beautiful and our room is full of furniture that I feel bad sitting on.

Beijing is big, the drivers are crazy. The crosswalks give you the little walky-man at the same time as the drivers get turn arrows, which makes crossing the street a real challenge. Mostly we try to get a human shield, because the locals are pretty good at it. I have still seen a lot of people almost get hit.

Jon and I are trying our best to navigate using the Lonely Planet Mandarin book, but it has been interesting. It's very strange what we can get across-- I can be asking for water, trying to say it while pointing to the characters in the book, and they have no idea what I want. But for some reason, Jon's pronounciation of the phrase for "check, please" must be perfect-- they get it every time. Weird. The food has been good and very cheap. Getting vegetarian food has been a slight challenge so far, but there is a lot of tofu and good vegetables.

Beijing is pretty chilly, especially compared to the other places we are going. Luckily I have been knitting up a storm and have a cute scarf to wear, as well as some socks that don't have toes, so I can wear them with my flip flops. They sound hideous, but with long pants, you can't see them at all, and they keep my feet warm. (Jon calls them my secret socks.) I mean, they are hideous. But invisible and awesome.

So I had taken notes on everything I wanted to write about... and they are in the room. So that's all you get for now, I wish I could send pictures! I will at some point. It feels weird to write without them. Okay, hopefully I can post this (have to guess which button to hit)!

Uluru/ Ayer's Rock

2007-04-09T16:11:00.000+10:00

Hi!
So I actually have had internet for the past little bit, but we have been super busy planning for Asia! We are taking a wild tour, since we keep accidentally adding cities (eg. it's cheaper to fly through Hong Kong, and why fly through when you can spend a day there instead!) so we're spending like 2 nights in each city and it's going to be insane. But fun!

So.... right! We went to Uluru (Ayer's Rock). It's big, and red, and looks a lot like Stone Mountain, except bigger, redder, and without Confederate Generals carved on the side. And surrounded by Japanese tourists instead of rednecks, and there was no laser show that we could find. [Note to Jon's family: crazy Southern stuff. Don't ask.]

I'm getting tired of parentheses, so basically it used to be called Ayer's Rock, but the Aboriginal People (we don't call them Aboriginies, apparently) called it Uluru, so that's what they call it these days. Are you ready for a picture? Because I am.

Ayer's Rock Resort owns all of the hotels in the area, which makes it pretty expensive. But it also makes it feel kind of like Disneyland! (Which is a good thing, if you are Tricia and Jon.)
Seriously, all the staff wore cute outback outfits and Crocodile-Dundee hats, and were super friendly. Our hotel was the Outback Pioneer Lodge, and you can see where my Disney/Outback thing is coming from.

So we did a few tours, a sunset, a sunrise, a stargazing that wasn't as cool as it should have been (stupid full moon), and, true to form, I took way, way too many pictures. Here they are! (My computer decided to give them to you in no particular order, apparently. Sorry.)

Moon-set in the outback.

Sunrise in the outback.

You can only photograph certain parts of Uluru, because there are a lot of sacred sites.

Probably Uluru, could be Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), another set of rocks nearby.

The outback from the plane.

Okay, this one is definitely Kata Tjuta.

Also Kata Tjuta. The sky really was that blue.

Sunrise over (or at least next to) Uluru.

So our hotel had this "restaurant" (eatery) where you could buy fun Australian meats and grill them yourself. Jon got kangaroo, emu, and crocodile. I got a veggie burger.

Anyway, I would recommend Uluru if you have the time. The outback is a really interesting landscape to see, and the mountains are cool (but not breathtaking). Worth a visit, though.

Okay, there is planning to be done! We'll be in Sydney until Wednesday, then we are off to Kuala Lumpur, then Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Halong, Hoi An, Saigon, the Mekong Delta, Siem Reap (Angkor Wat), Bangkok, Koh Tao, Phuket and the Similan Islands! Yep. (So far we've planned up through Bangkok, which leaves beaches and diving, basically.) As always, I will keep you posted!

Brisbane to Melbourne

2007-04-01T18:21:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone!
Sorry, it's been a while since we've had internet! We finished our drive down the coast, and are now in Melbourne. We head back to Sydney tomorrow, and then we are off to Ayer's Rock on Tuesday morning.

So... last time I posted, we were in Brisbane, which was fun and pretty low-key. We went to a terrible "koala sanctuary" that was actually more like a really depressing zoo. I've tried to forget it, so just stay away from Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary if you are in Brisbane. Other than that, a nice city. So after Brisbane we headed down to Surfer's Paradise, which is hard to describe. The best thing I can compare it to is probably Waikiki, a pretty beach surrounded by giant buildings.

They call it the Las Vegas of Australia, which isn't quite true. Regardless, it's fun, lots of bars and stuff to do. It's super-touristy, with wonderful gimmicky bars like "Five Below." So Five Below is a bar made of ice. The decorations are ice, the glasses are ice, the chairs and tables are ice. Luckily, your cover includes jackets, gloves, and Ugg boots.

The real reason we went to Surfer's Paradise is that the Gold Coast is famous for its "American-style" theme parks. We opted for Warner Brothers' Movie World and SeaWorld.

WB is like a hokey Disneyland. A lot of it was more Six Flags-ish, but they had some theme rides (the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster) that were pretty hilarious. The Superman coaster is in the background here, and was actually a lot of fun. (My back is fine.)

There were some strange non-WB things (like Star Wars music? Are they even allowed to play that? Won't Disney get mad?) including Austin Powers and Shrek stuff. They're no Mickey ears, but these Shrek ears were pretty great.

SeaWorld was an interesting combination of things: they still had the requisite dolphin and seal shows and a pretty solid shark aquarium, but they also had legitimate rides, like roller coasters. Weird. My favorite was the Bermuda Triangle themed ride:

Volcanoes? In the Bermuda Triange? Yeah, that's what we said, too. The plot line of the ride was really involved and ridiculous, and it was something about how these volcanoes had popped up, and we had to go in and investigate, and then it turned out that there were aliens who had caused the volcanoes to appear. Yeah. The highlight was when one of the Coasties who had "briefed you" on your mission asked another "wait, how do you know so much about these aliens?" and she gets all menacing and says "Because I am one!" Yes, this is what the theme parks are all about. We had a blast.

The best ride we did in Surfer's Paradise was actually the "Vomitron" which was one of those carnival rides (like in the city) that you just pay for at the time. We went twice (after tapas and sangria, ugh). It was great, unfortunately we didn't take any pictures, so Jon drew this for me (guest art!).

You go backwards for a while, then forwards for a while. There are two seats on either end, and they are free-swinging, so they move as the thing rotates. It's fun.

So after three days in Surfer's Paradise, we finally left Queensland (entered New South Wales) and stayed in Byron Bay for a night. We had heard it's very hippy-ish, which we didn't really notice. It was cute, and there was great food. We went to a pizza place and they wrapped up our leftover slices in foil for us in the shape of a swan.

Yes, these are the important things that I know you all want to hear about. Okay, so after Byron we finally got down to Sydney. We stayed with Jenny's friend Ryan, and it was great to hang out with friends. We were only there for a night, then we had to part with the Yaris (sad) and flew down to Melbourne.

Melbourne is cool, very artsy, lots of good cafes and stuff. The highlight has definitely been wine tasting in the Yarra Valley. We met up with some guys that we met in Cairns-- I actually certified them as divers-- and they took us wine tasting. We actually went drinking the night before at a bar called the Traders Bar. Kind of a fun gimmick: the drink prices all work like stocks, so you can look up on the screen and see that Tasmanian beer is down, but American beer is up, so you buy the Tazzie beer. The differences are only like 50 cents up or down, but it's fun. So the next day, we were all very hung over, but still decided to go. These boys are crazy, on the drive out we actually got beers to help our hang overs. (Obviously Shannon, who was driving, didn't drink, and apparently it's legal to drink in cars in Australia. Who knew?) The wine country was very pretty, the wine was very good, the food was even better.

We also went to the zoo, which was pretty good. I'm getting tired of writing so I don't know, it was a zoo, and a good one. I thought this picture was kind of fun.

The orangutans were cute, we saw more cassowaries (numbers 6 and 7 for us), the elephants were big, the platypus was ridiculous (did you know that a platypus enclosure is called a platypusary?), the big cats were pretty active, which was cool. Okay, I'm getting boring, so, in closing... wombats!

Fraser Island

2007-03-22T22:12:00.000+10:00

Hi!
Just a few quick pictures from Fraser Island... we are in Brisbane tonight, and head to Surfer's Paradise in the morning. We loved Hervey Bay (where we spent the last two nights), very different than Cairns or the other places we've been. Basically if Cairns is Key West (hot, tropical, lots of partying), Hervey Bay would be Hilton Head (more sub-tropical, much quieter). I obviously love my tropical paradises, but Hervey Bay was a very nice change of pace! One of the most fun elements was the crabs. Remember the balls of sand at Mission Beach? Same type of thing, but on a larger scale. When the tide goes all the way out, the beach is massive. Check it out: this pier is nearly a kilometer long.

So you can tell how far out the tide goes. Anyway, when it's all the way out, the beach is covered in crabs! They roam in groups of probably 100-200, and there are so many you can actually hear them clicking along.

They're a little hard to photograph, because when they are threatened, they fall onto one side and start beating their legs to corkscrew into the sand. It's pretty funny. It also kind of makes you feel like Godzilla, as all of these tiny creatures run from you and try to hide. Good times.

Also, I liked these pictures.

Right, I said Fraser Island. So Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island, which is weird, because even though it's all sand, there is a huge rainforest and lots of other fun things. Like dingoes!

And rainforests! Also in this picture, our crazy German guide, Henning.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We cruised the island in this amazing vehicle. We opted for the smaller tour (16 people instead of 40, for only like $15 more). And a hilarious looking car!

Seriously! All sand! I took this picture when our 4wd (and professional driver) got stuck in the sand and we had to get out and walk.

Anyway, Fraser is gorgeous, like this beach.

Also, this shipwreck was pretty amazing. At first, I was annoyed that there were people in the picture, but I'm not sure anyone would believe that I took it if there weren't. Okay, maybe it isn't quite that good. Whatever.

Another shipwreck picture (because you know I took hundreds. Along those lines, I've now taken more than 2000 pictures with my new camera! Crazy!)

Being a sand island, Fraser's freshwater lakes and rivers don't have any dirt in them, so they are exceptionally clear.

This creek was also very clear and pretty crazy looking. Also, much colder than the ocean. Unfortunately we couldn't swim in the ocean because apparently it is full of deadly sharks (yeah, I know, but I still stayed away).

Anyway, lots of fun. Brisbane is pretty cool, had a good dinner in Chinatown. The city is interesting because ferries are a major part of public transportation. A little daunting, but fun. Also, strange to be in a big city after so much country. Alright, running out of ways to say I'm done, so here's a picture! (Okay, two.) Bye!

Airlie to Bundaberg

2007-03-19T21:51:00.000+10:00

[I just read this through, and I'm really, really sorry about the terrible writing. There was just a lot to write, and I'm still excited!]

Hi!
We are in Bundaberg, and we have internet in our room! That means I'm writing this as I go, not in installments. I hope it makes sense. It's actually a crazy complicated set-up where Jon is plugged in to the internet and his computer is acting as a wireless router that I'm connected to. Whatever, it works, although it didn't work in our room so we're actually in the room next door. We're at a Best Western because all the hostels in town were ridiculously expensive anyway, and Jon is a corporate discount member through one of the companies he worked for in Cairns. Okay, whatever, we're here, and it's been good, there are laundry facilities so that has been good. Okay, rambling, lots to tell you all about, so here goes!

Sailing in the Whitsundays was a lot of fun, we actually went to Hayman Island, where Mom, Dad, Jenny and I stayed almost ten years ago. The sail was nice, although we did get a bit of rain.

Luckily they had super-cool rain jackets for us on the boat. The weather did clear up, and Hayman Island was beautiful.

Check out the clear water. The diving was fine, not nearly as good as what I did in Cairns, which makes me feel good about having worked there. This was probably my favorite diving picture, I could show you more but I just have so much more exciting stuff to write!

Okay, one more sailing picture, just because it's such a good one.

And this one too. Because it's so dynamic. (Dynamic? Did I just type that? I must be tired.)

Okay, that was sailing. The end. So that was St. Patrick's Day, we went to the Irish Pub in town (which was seriously like one of 5 bars, so that was lucky) and had a pint of Guiness, then went to bed early. We had to get up early the next day for Forest Flying!

Forest flying was in the Finch Hatton Gorge, in the Eungella Rainforest. Our driving directions included "turn left just after you go through the creek" and the drive did in fact involve multiple creek crossings. The Yaris is going strong, I am so impressed by this car.

So Forest Flying involves wearing a harness and being attached to a zipline, then cruising through the rainforest. Check out my "sassy" harness pose.

What amazed me the most (and what I'm glad I found out after I did it) was that the guy set the whole thing up using a bow and arrow. That's amazing to me.

There I am! It was very cool, lots of crazy things to see but pretty tough to take pictures with one hand while slowing yourself down with the other as you fly through the rainforest. Also, I need to move on because I am so excited to tell you about tonight!

Before I do, I need to tell you about last night. Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia, so obviously my expectations for the town were not high. Also, the hostel we were staying at didn't even have a picture of the building on the website (but it was a YHA, which is a national chain, so we knew it would meet a certain standard.) So my expectations were very low, and got lower when we drove up to a depressing brick building. When we checked in, the guy told us we were at "cabin 18," which... well, I didn't really know what to think. Turns it it meant a trailer!

Okay, actually it is a "modular unit" and these specific ones were actually athlete housing during the Sydney Olympics, which is kind of cool. But we walked in and seriously? This thing was a palace! We had our own bathroom and plenty of space for our stuff. Which was a huge improvement over the places that we have been staying. I was so impressed! Also we had a delicious Italian dinner near the river, and all in all, I was pleasantly surprised by Rockhampton.

Today we got up and backtracked a little bit to the Capricorn Caves. Even before we got into the caves, we were glad we made the trip: hanging out in the little nearby campground, there were kangaroos! Craziness!

This picture makes it look really tiny, but it's a weird angle, they were probably four feet tall. Pretty cool.

The caves were pretty, and the end was fun because we had to walk through this part called the zig-zag passage with no guide and with just candles for light. I got to lead the way, which was exciting. Here's a pretty cave picture.

We drove to Bundaberg, did some laundry, and then did what has got to be the coolest thing we've done so far... turtle hatching!

We drove to a place called Mon Repos at about 6:45 pm, which is a turtle sanctuary. We happen to be at the right time of year to see the little baby turtles emerge from their nests and head to the open ocean. Once we were there, we had to wait in a group of about 50 people to hear if there were turtles hatching on the beach. At about 7:30, we all went out to the beach and power-walked down to the nest. The rangers put a little extra sand on top of the nest so the turtles won't get out too quickly, and the timing was perfect. We all got in a circle and watched little bitty Loggerhead turtles emerge from the nest.

Here's the nest they came out of (after they were all gone, and the volunteers were collecting data on the nest).

125 of these little guys came out of the nest we were watching, and they were all corralled until they were out and we could move to the beach.

On the beach, the rangers drew lines in the sand to make a little track for the turtles to run to the beach, and everyone lined up on the sides. Because the turtles are attracted to light to get to the ocean (usually the horizon), they needed a few flashlights to guide them. Jon and I (and one other guy) got to stand in the middle of the track to guide the turtles! This was such an amazing bit of luck, because while everyone else got to watch, we had dozens of turtles crawling over our feet! This is a terrible picture, but we couldn't use a flash, and Jon was taking the picture over my shoulder as these little guys ran at us. You can make out some turtles in the middle, and the guy in front of us's feet, which I had to point the flashlight at to guide the turtles from him to us.

It was incredible to feel like we were actually helping these turtles along to the ocean! I would absolutely recommend this experience to everyone, and I just feel so lucky that we got to be the ones right in the middle of it all!

As you can tell, things are great. We've gone 1,831 kilometers so far, and I think we are about halfway. We've gotten to see and do some great things that we would never have done if we had been flying and only seeing the major cities. (That sounds like such an obnoxious hippy-backpacker thing to say, and I apologize, because they drive me crazy). But seriously, I'm so glad we've had the chance to do this. I will let you know what happens next!

On the road

2007-03-17T18:56:00.000+10:00

Hi- I wrote this as we went along... not too much internet around here. We are in Airlie Beach still and went sailing and diving today... way too many pictures to go through right now, I will post them later! This post starts on like Wednesday and goes through yesterday (Friday).

Well, we hit the road today (after having our apartment inspected) and drove from Cairns to Townsville, with some stops on the way. Our first stop was Mission Beach, which required a bit of a detour through the rainforest. As we drove, we saw some amazing signs like this one:

If you haven’t read my entry on the cassowary (you should, it’s a good one), you might not recognize this amazing creature. To recap: enormous, bizarre-looking, and potentially dangerous. We have a bit of a cassowary obsession, which is why we stopped and photographed this sign. Unfortunately, signs like these tend to fall in the category of the alligator signs in Florida-- you keep an eye out, but never actually have to stop for gator crossing.
As we drove, we saw a sign for a rainforest walk, and decided we might as well check out the rainforest, since we were there. We walked down a little path about 50 feet before I froze, hit Jon, and pointed. About 15 feet ahead of us, a real live wild cassowary had just emerged from the rainforest.

We gaped for a while, then the cassowary saw us and started heading slowly in our direction. We walked backwards for a while, then took some pictures.

The cassowary never took it’s eyes off of us, but didn’t really seem to mind us. That didn’t stop us from backing up every time it walked towards us. These things are huge, scary, and can kill you with their claws. It was such a highlight.

I have to give you a close-up of this one, because seriously, this bird is ready to attack me. Giant claws.

After we left the rainforest walk, we actually passed another cassowary right by the side of the road, and could easily have hit it—I guess this sign wasn’t lying.

Cassowaries are endangered, and there are approximately 2,800 of them these days. Since we have now seen four of them (two today, and two at the bird sanctuary), we have actually seen 1/700 of the extant population. Crazy! Anyway, they are amazing, and seeing them in the wild was so cool.

Mission Beach is beautiful, and the rainforest comes all the way down to the beach, which is pretty cool looking.

The beach itself is covered in little balls of sand. Super-smart Jon remembered that we saw a video on this (the Blue Planet BBC series is amazing). The balls of sand are actually formed by thousands of crabs looking for infauna (microorganisms that live in the sand). It’s a pretty cool sight.

After that, we continued our drive and took a detour to Wallaman Falls, the highest waterfall in Australia.

The drive to the falls felt like something out of Jurassic Park, and I know the little Yaris has never seen so much excitement. It made it though, though, and the falls were very pretty. Part of the drive was also very rural, and these cows decided we should not get through.

We arrived in Townsville later than anticipated, and apparently the hostel that we thought we had booked over the internet hasn’t had internet for a couple weeks, therefore can’t get any of their internet bookings, and hasn’t told the booking company this. Which was great. Luckily, they did have a private room available (two single beds, but at least it’s a place to sleep). So, aside from that part, an amazing first day on the road.

So far Airlie Beach has been pretty relaxing. Some fun bars, and a cute (but very small) town.

This is Airlie, the pointy building blocked by the trees is actually our hostel- very well located. We spent today laying on the beach and planning our trip to Asia. Jon made friends with this snake, especially when it crawled across his legs.

So, that's all for now. Tomorrow we leave for Rockhampton. The driving hasn't been bad (Jon has done all of it, so I guess I should say the time in the car hasn't been bad). We are having fun, and look forward to the rest of our trip!

And we're off!

2007-03-13T02:31:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
Well, Jon and I officially move out of our apartment tomorrow morning. It's been a stressful experience, trying to get out of the lease, get everything planned and packed and cleaned in a much shorter period of time than expected. We are staying in a hotel tomorrow night (just in case anything goes wrong with the inspection), and then we begin our drive down the coast...

In this! Our super-hip Toyota Yaris. It's pretty tiny, but it has a backseat, so no problem for holding luggage and all. Also it's stick-shift, which adds an interesting dimension to the whole driving on the left thing, but Jon is planning to do most of the driving. So that's good.

I should be able to at least post text from the road, and hopefully some pictures as well. Jon and I went on a photography tour of Cairns today (which basically meant I dragged him around town) while our apartment was being cleaned. I am finally learning how to really use my camera, and I am proud of the results!

There are all these amazing trees and flowers around Cairns (we are in the tropics, after all), so I have lots of great pictures. I liked this one for some reason. Probably because I finally learned how to focus my camera (sad). Also, I managed to take a decent-looking picture of Cairns!

You can hardly tell that it's a few inches of water away from being mudflats. Really, though, it is a pretty city and I'm glad I got a pretty picture. I am sorry to be leaving, but Tusa has called me to work twice total (once they cancelled on me, and once was two nights ago), so really, things just weren't making sense here. It's been a hard decision, and even now, I keep feeling like there's something else I could have done to make staying worthwhile. There's not. So, it was fun (especially before Christmas, when I had a steady job!), but now it's time for us to move on. I'll keep you updated from the road.

Major change of plans

2007-03-06T00:02:00.000+10:00

Hi all!

Well, I know I have kind of implied that work has been slow, but to be honest, neither Jon nor I has worked a day since we've been here. We've been patient, looked for other opportunities... but really, things just aren't going well. So rather than work at the farmer's market or some restaurant, we, with the help of our amazing parents, have decided to move on.

Rather than just settling down in LA earlier than planned, we are going to continue our adventure in Asia. We will still travel for about a month around Australia as planned (just a little bit earlier), and then head up to Asia for about six weeks of travel before coming home.

The plan for Australia is to drive the East coast from Cairns to Sydney over about two weeks, stopping at beaches, theme parks, islands, waterfalls, and rum distilleries along the way. We will visit some friends in Melbourne and see the sights there, then head up to Ayer's Rock (Uluru) for a few days to experience the outback. After that we will spend a few more days in Sydney and then head up to Asia.

Nothing has been booked for Asia yet, but we are planning to see Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and China (and there has been mention of Taiwan, Tibet, Okinawa, Osaka, Seoul, or Manila). Let me know if you've been to any of these places-- any advice would be awesome!

Okay, I will definitely keep everyone posted as things develop. It has been a crazy few days making all these decisions- this is not at all what I thought I would be doing, but I think it will be amazing, and a better use of our time than sitting around Cairns waiting for work. So... I will let you all know as the adventure continues!

My underwater camera-- in action!

2007-03-02T13:15:00.000+10:00

We finally went diving! Dash (Jon's roommate from last year) was in town visiting (his cousin got married in Sydney, so he flew up to see us) and we all went out on Passions (a different dive company) (apparently I am in a parenthetical mood). We kept calling Tusa to try to go out on the boat, but it was booked solid-- which, unfortunately, doesn't mean I've been working. So for Dash's last day in town, we decided to just try for a different boat. We chose Passions because they actually sail-- it's a huge catamaran, which was lots of fun.

It's definitely not meant as a diving trip, Jon and I were the only certified divers on the boat, and Dash was one of five intro divers. It was nice and relaxing, and the diving was alright. It gave me a good opportunity to try out my camera, and since the three of us were the only people who wanted to do a second dive, we all got to dive together with a couple of staff members. Very relaxing and a lot of fun. We also went to Michaelmas Cay, which is a tiny, very pretty island.

It is also completely covered in birds.

So... diving pictures! I took like two hundred pictures, and a few of them were decent. Oh well, it was my first try.

This was the cutest tiny little cowfish, like the one I used to have. Too bad I couldn't get a picture of the front of it.

Juvenile damselfish like to live in corals for protection. I caught them in the act.

These batfish followed us around for like five minutes.

Butterfly fish tend to pair for life. Awwww.

I found Nemo.

This one is my favorite. I love my new camera/housing. Thanks Mom/Mimi and Granddaddy!

That's it. Guess I'm not feeling very verbal today. Enjoy the pictures!

Rainy pictures

2007-02-21T12:25:00.000+10:00

Okay, the best rain comparison pictures I could come up with. Behold, the amazing disappearing mountain!

ps. new knitting pictures!

Like rain? Come visit!

2007-02-21T09:51:00.000+10:00

They weren't kidding when they called it the rainy season. Jon and I planned our trip specifically to avoid the bulk of the rainy season, but it's still going strong, and it's not that awesome. It has rained every day, not necessarily all day. It likes to tease you by stopping and getting lighter just until you step outside and then bam! Torrential downpour. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't really show much. Basically, it pours. A lot. It's not that bad, it's warm, tropical rain, but remember how smart we thought we were for getting bikes? They aren't quite as much fun in the rain. And I'll suck it up and start working and it will be fine, but it does make it harder to convince yourself to go back to work on a boat. Once we hit March, this is supposed to stop, and considering it was supposed to start in December and literally began on December 2, I'm keeping my hopes up that we only have a week or two left of rain. Keep your fingers crossed.

32 hours later... we're back.

2007-02-17T14:30:00.000+10:00

Seriously. 32 hours to get to Cairns. It sounds even worse without the time difference: we left Jon's house at 9 pm on Wednesday, and got to our apartment at 11 pm on Friday. And you know what? It felt every bit as long as that. Our first indication was when the woman checking us in for our LAX-SYD flight (which was supposed to take off at 11:45), let us know that security closed at 1:30, so we needed to go through by then. Yeah. Our flight was delayed until 4:45 am, which made us miss our Sydney to Cairns connection, so we had to wait for a later flight. While I'm complaining, may I also add that we were in the two middle seats of a set of four in the middle of the plane in the second to last row? We booked the flight in December, but didn't call to reserve seats (Qantas is weird) until it was too late. Also, since the flight was so late getting in from New York to LA (weather problems in NYC), everyone there missed their connections to other parts of Australia, so literally every seat on the plane was full. And then there was the part where I felt nauseous for the final seven hours of the flight. Then there was the Sydney part. Let me put it this way: I started and almost finished my 450 page book in the Sydney airport. Okay, I'm done bitching. Whatever, we're here. It's hot and humid, just the way I like it (not kidding), and our apartment was in better shape that I expected. I'm planning to start work again next week.

In other news, we went to Disneyland! Twice!

Also, Jon got a "Flying Dutchman Sundae" for dessert at the Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant. Check out the cookie boat.

So, yeah, we went twice. The first time was a Tuesday, and it was totally empty, so we did all the rides we wanted to. But during the off season, there are no fireworks on weekdays. Since Jon, as a California resident, could get two days for the price of one, we went back on Saturday, rode two rides, did nerdy things like look at the Disney art gallery, and saw the fireworks. We're pretty lame.

Speaking of lame! I know I swore I wasn't going to bore you with knitting projects, but I made this on the plane to LA (which was also delayed for a couple hours.)

There are some other little projects that I have done, but I'll try to avoid telling you about them. I'll post pictures on shutterfly.

So, that's it! I'm here! Planning to start work again late next week, I'll let you know how it goes.

Okay, one more knitting picture. Just because I have to.

Hi!

Another picture website

2007-02-05T07:38:00.000+10:00

Hi! So I am now a knitting machine. And very few of you probably care. So rather than tell you about each of my knitting projects, I made another picture website for them. Due to my lack of creativity (...a childhood full of goldfish named goldie and fishie...), the site is triciaknits.shutterfly.com, and I added a sidebar link to it as well. I can't promise that you won't hear about my knitting at all, but I'll try to avoid it. Check it out if you care, I certainly won't be offended if you don't. Because seriously. Knitting.

still here!

2007-02-01T07:26:00.000+10:00

Hey guys!
I'm still alive! Sorry for being totally MIA, I really haven't had anything much to write about, and it's also just so hard to do things when you're doing nothing anyway- I'm definitely better at being busy, I think. But I figured I should write because I've found out that so many more people read this than I thought! College friends, high school friends, friends of friends, family.... hi! Feel free to comment, because really I usually feel like Abby and my mom (hi) are the only ones who read this. So I would love for you to just say hello so I have inspiration to keep this up. Anyway.... I'll try not to go on too long since, haven't been up to much, I head back to LA on February 5th, and we may go up north to see some people and go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, since I've never been. I went the Georgia Aquarium for like three hours one day, which was great. Here, have some pictures.

Jellies!

Whale shark!

Just practicing to take pictures of real fish. Or, um, wild fish. Whatever, you get it.

I went to Chicago to see my cousin David's amazing production of "Into the Woods" at Northwestern, and also to see Abby and Jenna. I will post the "granparent picture" that David and I took as soon as whoever took it sends it to me. Anyway, lots of fun, a great show, too much drinking and I learned how to knit! Yes, that is what has been taking up my time for the past week. I'm making a scarf, which I will post when it's done. I'm a little over halfway (I am a knitting machine). It kind of takes over your life, I now have knitting books and visit knitting websites. I can't believe I'm telling people this. Even more people than I initially thought. Okay fine. You win. Here's a picture. I know you were begging for one. This was a couple of nights ago.

Beautiful. I know. Feel free to comment and tell me how crafty I am. Right. Anyway, it's fun. I'll let you know how it goes (I've dropped two stitches so far.)

Alright, I really have nothing to tell you. I'm done. I'll blog again whenever I have something interesting to write!

By special request...

2007-01-10T11:42:00.000+10:00

Kiki action shot!!

(enjoy.)

Happy New Year!

2007-01-07T04:09:00.000+10:00

Hi! Guess who got a new camera for Christmas? Me! Guess who has already taken over 400 pictures? Me! Guess who gets to see my favorites? You!

(Guess who thinks she's artistic?)

So first I went through my pretty tropical flower pictures phase:

Then I hit my my attempting to take pictures of a very cute but very unphotogenic dog phase:

Then Jon showed up and I tried out my underwater housing:

Jon says RAAAAAR!

Then I hit an obnoxious phase.

Then I took a break from taking pictures to celebrate New Years.

If you've never been to Key West for New Years, first of all, you should. Secondly, that probably means you don't know about New Years here. Unless you watch CNN. Basically, on the gay end of Duvall Street, instead of dropping a ball (or a conch, like they do on the other end, or a wench, like they do down at the harbor), they drop a drag queen in a giant ruby slipper. Yeah. There "she" is.

Then, on January 4th, Miss Kiki (along with, of course, Miss Abby) had a birthday. Keeks is now three years old, and she had a birthday party! That's Kiki in the front, Tessie McNeil behind her, and Cassie Lopes-Graham behind her.

Kiki was upset that she didn't get to wear her elf ears again. Look how happy they make her.

Jenny gave her the elf ears for Christmas. We left them at home. Down here in Key West, Kiki becomes the sand ninja. It's like a Where's Waldo, can you find a little white(ish) dog?

That's about all we've been up to. Jon's trying to teach me to play tennis. One day we drove up the Keys as far as Islamorada, just because it's pretty. (I took this picture while we were in motion. How cool is my camera? 10.1 megapixels, that's how cool.)

So what have I taken nearly 450 pictures of? Sunsets and palm trees, mostly.

Look! It's a sunset and a palm tree!

Well, I hope everyone had a great festive season and a very happy New Years. If anyone wants to see hundreds of pictures of a Key West sunset, just let me know. And I'm sure there will be many more to come, I've got another week or so down here, with not much else to do. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

Happy New Year!

In which I write about nothing

2006-12-19T23:45:00.000+10:00

Hi!
I realize that probably no one will read this (with such an exciting title, how could you not?), especially since my most devoted readers are either with me or will be very shortly (yaay!). But for some reason I feel the need to update the random friends who occasionally tell me that they read what I write. Hi guys!

So, after I think 21 total hours in the air in like four days, I'm in Atlanta. (That was Cairns to Sydney, Sydney to LA, and LA to Atlanta.) And it's warm! I mean not like Cairns oh-my-god-it's-three-in-the-morning, -how-is-the-kitchen-this-hot warm, but hey-it's-december-and-i-don't-mind -being-outside-in-a-long-sleeved-t-shirt warm. Which I think converts to about 72 farenheit. Also, farenheit is hard to spell. Is that right? I should look it up, since I am (clearly) on my computer right now. Also, this is turning out to be a very weird post. But I was tired of looking at the picture of Nathan grabbing Al's nipple, and, as previously stated, no one will read this anyway.

Yeah. So. Sydney was nice, the weather was terrible as always because Sydney hates us. But we did some shopping and got some massages, which were Jon and my Christmas presents to each other. I have now introduced him to the wonderful world of spas and massages. I was reflecting during my massage, because they asked me if I had ever had one before, on how many massages I've actually had. The answer is dozens. Not sure quite how many dozens, but a lot. Seriously. My family is just a massage family. Some families hike on vacation. Some golf. Some ski. We get massages. Pretty much anywhere. I've had massages in obvious places like Atlanta and LA, but also less obvious ones like Tahiti and Africa. It's also a favorite gift if we run out of ideas. I decided during my masssage that I've probably averaged at least two a year since I was like eight. Seriously, Jenny and I would split an hour massage between the two of us, because how much eight-year-old is really there for them to rub? And how much tension could we possibly have had? And over the last few years, it's been way more than that. I think I had four in 2006. Not counting physical therapy. Wait, no. Five.

Anyway, important stuff.

So I made it back, saw some friends in LA, and arrived just in time to sing Handel's Messiah at Westminster, which was... a little weak. But fun. And the Ensemble reunion concert, which is also fun, and almost made me cry when George directed And So it Goes. (Now all the random people I talked about earlier are wishing they hadn't actually read this post.) So friends are good, seeing some family has been good, seeing other family has been lots of drama, but overall it's been fun. I taught about forty Trinity 6th graders 45-minutes worth of the coolest marine biology stuff I could think of, which was actually a lot of fun. Looking forward to leaving for Key West on the 25th.

Okay, that's it! Sorry! I'll try to stay coherent in the future. (And include pictures.) Merry Christmas eve eve eve eve eve eve!

What I'll miss

2006-12-08T10:55:00.000+10:00

They're obnoxious and obscene and give me a hard time all day long, but I will definitely miss the crazy boys that I work with.

And the diving. I'll miss that too.

Don't ever stop working for Tusa

2006-12-06T19:27:00.000+10:00

Seriously. Don't ever stop working for Tusa, if you start. Because it is horribly unpleasant.

So today was my last day of work. Which was great! (mostly.) Ben almost let me do whatever I want, which means he told me I was taking certified divers, then asked me what I wanted to do (which was taking certified divers), then told me I was doing snorkellers, which kind of annoyed me. I mean it was my last day working as a dive instructor, so I wanted to dive. So he let me take a few intros, which was not my favorite idea, but it was alright. Anyway, the day went alright (aside from my intros not swimming for themselves, so I had to swim for them, and one of the boat's engines dying, which really had nothing to do with me, but meant that we were late getting in.)

So at the end of your last day with Tusa, it is customary to be thrown into the marina. The marina is where we (and the other 50 or so boats that run out of Cairns) dump all of our nasty vacuum cleaner water, and our soapy scrubbing water, and pretty much anything gross from the boat that is somewhere near biodegradable. So I tried to argue that since I'm coming back, it wasn't really my last day (which, if I haven't said it officially, we are coming back. Probably in mid-February.) Ben said that didn't count, so I knew I was going in. Last week, Miho was thrown in from the dock, which is what I was expecting. But no, at the end of cleaning, Ben called me up to the upper deck, which is probably eight feet above the lower deck, which is a good six or seven feet above the water, so lets call it a zillion feet up, and he and Al threw me off. Unfortunately, I landed on my face. It looked something like this:

Notice all the people laughing at me. So there would be a picture, and lots of pictures of me and people I work with, if my camera wasn't out of batteries. Oh well. Good thing I'm such an amazing artist. So yes, face first into the water. Everything went white, then everything went nasty brown. My contacts got washed out. I came up and apparently had a nosebleed. I hit the water hard! (Note for concerned family members: it wasn't that hard. I'm totally okay.) Seriously, I am alright. It kind of knocked the wind out of me, and was definitely embarrassing, and the contacts and nosebleed stuff is true, but I'll live. People bought me beers and took good care of me afterwards. And now I know, come April when I quit again, that I should just jump into the marina myself and spare everyone the trouble.

Absurd pictures of people you don't know

2006-11-29T17:27:00.000+10:00

So finally I am getting around to posting some Tusa Christmas party pictures. I have been working like crazy lately, which has actually been pretty good, since I finally feel like I really know what's going on at work. I mean I've always been alright, but I feel like I'm actually getting good at my job... which of course means it's about time for me to leave. But we are officially planning to come back in February-ish and work for a couple more months. Okay, pictures!

The party was at a "secret location," and we were just told to dress to get wet. So, we all met in a parking lot, and the "Ultimate Party" double-decker bus showed up.
We've seen this bus around town full of college-age kids dressed in ridiculous outfits. Not really what I would expect for a company Christmas party, but whatever, it's not like I have a real job. Obviously everyone sat upstairs. The funniest part of the bus was definitely the boom box that was playing total mid-nineties hits, including "Lovefool" from Romeo and Juliet, "Barbie Girl," and others.

Anyway, we got there, and "there" was a cable water-ski park.

Which basically means that there was a big square lake with little zip-lines going around the top, which you could hold on to while water skiing or wake boarding. I opted to watch people in the water, and I stayed dry and drank a lot and had fun.

Fun definitely included the super-awesome jukebox that included such hits as Achy-Breaky Heart and I Would Do Anything For Love (both of which were played that night).

Now I'll just show you lots of pictures of my friends.

Matt opted for water wings for his wakeboarding.

Adrian wears his camo hot-pants all day on the boat. I think they are hilarious.

Joel is one of our skippers, and Nicole is his girlfriend. She's awesome, he's my least favorite person to work with, but he's okay outside of work. You should recognize Adrian from the shorts.

Justin is much bigger than Asako.

The British boys I work with, Nathan and Matt, appropriately eating fish and chips.

God I wish these pictures had turned out better. Caine, one of the skippers, tried to ride around the water-ski thing on this inflatable dragon. Once he fell off, they went to pick him up on a golf-cart. The pictures of him actually on the dragon didn't turn out at all, but here they are with the dragon on top of the golf cart.

Ben tried to drink a beer while wearing a beard and santa hat, with a fake topiary reindeer on his head.

Said topiary reindeer got decorated with everyone's empty cans and bottles.

Asako (who was hammered) did an accidental godzilla impression, running over and tearing all the bottles off the reindeer, cuddling it and telling us it was her boyfriend.

Anyway, the pictures go downhill as everyone gets more and more drunk. So... a couple more shots of my friends.

Miho looks obese in this picture. She's not. But she is the funniest little Japanese girl I have ever met. She just left Tusa, which we are all very sad about.

Tina and Al. Tina is kind of bossy, but she's alright, and she's the only other English speaking girl on the boats. Al has a tattoo of a "made in Australia" tag on one shoulder and a Southern Cross constellation on the other. Guess where he's from.

Nicole and Asako on the dragon that Caine tried to ride.

The night ended with a bottle of Sambuca being passed around to all the staff... which ruined everyone's day the next day at work. Anyway, that was the party, fun times were had by all. I was completely hung over for the next day, but so was everyone else, so it was okay. Alright, there are more, but that's probably enough.

PS. I'll be back in the US in less than two weeks!

Merry Christmas! Already!

2006-11-19T21:35:00.000+10:00

We have a Christmas tree! So I know it's not Thanksgiving yet, and I know my mom will probably never forgive me for setting up the tree before December, but we did it anyway. We saw it at Cole's (the grocery store) for $9.98, which is like 8 dollars US. Including ornaments, tinsel, and lights! So of course we had to get it. And I told Jon that we HAD to wait until after Thursday (which I'm pretty sure is Thanksgiving) to set it up. But after dinner (which was a basil pasta that we made from scratch, which turned out pretty well), I just couldn't wait any longer. So here are my excuses:
1) Australians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, therefore it has no bearing on Christmas (although we have been talking about the menu for Thursday, and are considering inviting people over for it... not that we actually know any Americans that we like.)
2) Cole's has had Christmas decorations and Christmas food (seriously, like "Merry Christmas" cakes) out since early October
3)Tusa already had their Christmas party (ridiculous pictures to come!)
4) Mom already sent us advent calendars
5) Most importantly, we are leaving Australia in like three weeks, so we needed sufficient time to enjoy the tree
and also 6) Jon and I won't be spending Christmas together, so we had to get it in now

So whatever, those are my excuses. Mostly I am still an impatient little kid and I wanted to set it up. And you know what? I'm happy with it.

Fake tiny tree...

Plus decorations...

And lights!.... (ps. Jon is shirtless because it is HOT because it is summer here. Which is totally wrong for Christmas.)

Equals Christmas! Yay!

So now we are listening to the Mormons singing Christmas carols and Messiah and all that, and I feel very Christmas-y. Now it's time to plan the Thanksgiving menu! Bye! I'll post ridiculous Tusa Dive Christmas party pictures soon!

The world's most dangerous bird

2006-11-16T17:41:00.000+10:00

...is, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, the Cassowary. It is native to Tropical North Queensland, although I gather that there are very few left. Basically they can grow to like 6 feet tall, look sort of like Turkey-Emus, and are super deadly. For instance: a boy was killed in the rainforest by a kick in the chest from a cassowary. Or, a more interesting story that I heard today: this martial-arts expert had a weird fascination with fighting Australian animals. He had snuck into zoos to fight kangaroos, etc. He decided to go up against a cassowary and was found dead in the cassowary pen by the zookeepers. Crazy. This is an intense bird. So, needless to say, Jon and I have been kind of obsessed with seeing these weird looking, super dangerous birds. The Rainforest Dome was supposed to have one, but they didn't. The Sydney zoo didn't. We were disappointed.

But... today, we went up to the rainforest via the "Skyrail," which was hokey but fun. They had a bird habitat. The bird habitat had two cassowaries. Obviously we went. We started asking the guy at the front all sorts of questions, like whether they ever had cassowary feedings that we could watch or whether anyone ever got hurt. He said there were no feedings, but that every now and then, they will come up and take a grape from you. The male was busy guarding the eggs, but he said the female was still out and about. We bought a food bag for $2 that included seeds, nuts, grapes, and corn cobs. He said not to expect anything, but that we were welcome to try.

And try we did.

Here's our first glimpse of the cassowary through the trees.

Jon holds out a grape, to no avail.

We get bored and feed other birds.

Return to the cassowary. It's still far away, I just get better at using Jon's camera. Check out the deadly claws.

The cassowary is intrigued by the grape and the "cassowary calls" that Jon tries to make up.
(I should point out that he can get squirrels and other woodland creatures to come to him by making noises. It's kind of cool and also pretty creepy.)

Almost there...

Success! High fives all around. Except for the cassowary, who would destroy us with a high five.

I fed the cassowary a corn cob. We weren't sure we liked each other, though. (I realize this looks a lot like the rainforest dome picture. Except this bird is actually scary.)

See? Mutant dinosaur-emu-turkey.

Creepy.

Anyway, we ran out of corn cobs, grapes, and peanuts (which the guy at the front was amazed that we got it to eat).

We played with some other birds.

For some unknown reason, one decided it would be a good idea to land on my head.

And this one had a mullet.

So, even without the birds, it was a pretty neat trip.

We took the Skyrail up to Kuranda...

and we took the scenic train back down.

We saw some nice waterfalls...

and the most ridiculous sweater ever.

Rainforest. Yay!

Sydney photos

2006-11-12T18:57:00.000+10:00

Hi all!
Not much to report, except that Jon and I, as part of our on-going one-year anniversary celebration, just went to get massages at a spa in one of the hotels down the road. It was really nice, even though the massage was called the "Su Su Wave Melody" (which Jon pointed out sounds more like a karaoke bar than a massage). I guess it's supposed to be an Aboriginal thing. It was also a little pricey, but they gave us a local discount when they saw our address! So we will definitely be going back. Anyway, Maisie sent the Sydney pictures... here they are.

Here's me and Maisie at a bar on our first night in Sydney...

This is what Jon and I would look like if we were penguins!

And some giraffes...

Maisie, Loren (who I think is a friend of Jenny's/Maisie's friend Avery), Ben (who Ryan has been hanging out with), me, Ryan, and Jon at Three Wise Monkeys on our last night in Sydney.

The zoo has a really cool view of the city. Also, where did my boobs come from? (Grandparents, disregard that comment).

The four of us at the Eastern, some trendy Sydney bar.

Another random cute picture of me and Jon...

Anyway, that's pretty much what we did... also, we took the GRE Bio. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Dive dive dive

2006-11-11T12:06:00.000+10:00

Okay, I'll come clean right away. The real reason I'm posting is to share the coolest picture ever. It's the zoomed-out version of my facebook picture, so I'm sure it looks familiar to some people. I just think it's awesome, though. If I look intense, it's because I'm really pissed off at my students. I'm swimming back down from the surface where I had to have one of them picked up by the rescue boat. Not a big deal, but frustrating. And see? I really do dive all day. I'm not just making it up. I'm sure you thought I was.

So I finally have a normal day off! It's been like two weeks. I mean I got days off for Sydney, but we were pretty busy. Then I got a day off on Thursday, but I went out on the boat anyway. It was actually pretty fun, I was taking Jon out to work on getting him certified as a diver. Which I did, and he's actually very good at it. Which is a good thing, because last night I took him out for a night dive. The timing for his certification was not an accident; last night was the Tusa coral spawning trip. Without getting too marine bio-y on y'all, this is basically what happens. In short, corals reproduce in a couple of different ways, but one way is sexual reproduction, which they only do once a year. The corals all release their eggs into the water on the same night. This happens for a variety of reasons, including that they want the tides to not wash the eggs too far from the reef, and that if they all spawn at once, there is too much for predators to eat, so a higher percentage survives. Got it? So scientists predicted this weekend for the annual spawn, and this is what it's supposed to look like:

I say supposed, because it didn't happen. We went out and did two night dives, and it was still pretty cool, but there was definitely no spawning going on. Jon did an awesome job, the first dive we went on was very shallow (which is harder than deep, actually), and very crowded, but he was great, especially considering it was his fifth dive ever. The second dive, Matt (who I work with), Jon, and I went off in the opposite direction to look for sharks. We found one, which is apparently an epaulette shark. It was probably three feet long, and it looked like this:

We didn't actually take that picture, although Matt took a lot of really cool pictures, which I will hopefully get, and post along with Maisie's Sydney pictures. Anyway, so we found one shark, some pretty cool other stuff like a baby octopus that inked just a tiny bit when I touched it. Oh and sea turtles who would not leave us alone. That was kind of fun. After the diving, all the staff who had come out just for fun went down to the rooms below and slept. Because we had all worked that day, and then just stayed on the boat for the night dive. Which means we were all on the boat from 6:50 AM Friday to 2:30 AM Saturday. Poor Matt had to work today. Oh well. Good times were had by all, despite the lack of spawning.

Pictures! Friends! Terrorist threats!

2006-11-06T20:00:00.000+10:00

Hi! Sorry for being such a slacker... I'm sure anyone who actually checks to see if I have posted has quit by now. Sorry! I worked a whole lot last week, and then I went to Sydney... so I've been busy. Tonight I had to attend a presentation on why the Cairns marina might be a terrorist target. Sounds unlikely to me, but they did start the presentation with the beginning of Team America, which seemed a little inappropriate, but whatever. The new Japanese girl who I work with, Fumi, who doesn't speak much English, leaned over to me in like the first five seconds of the clip and was like "Oh, Team America!" I was pretty surprised. So apparently I'm supposed to look out for suspicious behavior. In case someone attacks Tusa III.

Anyway, I got this absurdly official looking ID. To work on a dive boat... come on guys. They also didn't actually warn me before taking the picture. Oh, well.

Anyway, more exciting things! Like Sydney! So we went to take the GRE Biology. We stayed with Jenny's friends from college, Ryan and Maisie. Their apartment actually made me feel way better about ours (sorry, guys, if you ever read this), mostly because they got most of their furniture from off the street. They also pay a good bit more than we do for an apartment that is much smaller than ours. I guess that's the difference between Sydney and Cairns. Oh well, it was awesome to have a free place to stay, and we had a lot of fun with them. We went out on Thursday, our first night there, and took some pictures:

We also took the subway. And wore very similar shirts. Also, my arms are ripped from lifting tanks all day.

We went out to a couple of bars, and Jon and I tried to not be the lame old people that we are, since Maise and Ryan are all night partiers. At one point, Maisie's boyfriend Danny (the guy who isn't Ryan in the picture) came to pick us up in the "company car" (which was the catering van for the restaurant where he works.)

We thought it was hilarious. We were also drunk. Please notice that Danny, the only one not drunk, is wearing a jacket. Sydney was freezing! It's supposed to be late spring! After years of opposition, I actually bought a pair of Ugg boots because of the cold. Well, they aren't actually Uggs, they're fake. And they're not actually boots, they look more like slippers. So really, I'm okay, since they are neither Uggs nor boots.

Anyway, lots of fun, stayed at a hotel on Friday night, took the GRE Saturday (it went pretty well, I won't have a score for like 6 weeks), went out again Saturday night, was so hung over on Sunday that I threw up twice on the plane (no idea why, I really didn't drink that much). I remember there being all sorts of funny things that I thought would be great for writing about, but I either can't remember or they aren't that funny. For instance: we're going into a bar around 2 in the morning, and Ryan and Maisie warn me that they might ask me how many drinks I've had. So, very prepared, when they asked, I confidently said "three" and held up three fingers. The truth was more like 6, so I was very matter of fact about it. That became like a catch phrase for the weekend because I was so proud of how composed I was. Anyway, when I write it, it's not funny at all. So I'll stop there. Maisie took pictures at the zoo, which will hopefully be coming soon.

Also, I have friends! (Well, I work with them. But still-- friends!)

Because I know at least Mom will want to know, the one in the brown is Tim, blue is Ryan, and green is Ben. I don't know why Ryan looks like he's about to die, also he's about to get that cast off soon. Ben is flicking off the camera because Ben cusses like a sailor even though he looks like he's 12. Tim is the one who moved back to Tasmania, which I'm sad about because I loved working with him.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll try harder to write more, and I'll add more pictures when/if Maisie sends them.

I took 43 pictures today!

2006-10-24T19:51:00.000+10:00

I have no excuse for not writing, because I haven't been working. Well I have a little bit of an excuse- I've been sick. Not really sick, just a cold. But the weird thing about diving is that people will do it with any kind of ailment except a cold. Basically, if you are congested, your eustachian tubes might be blocked and you won't be able to equalize your ears. Or worse, you'll be able to go down just fine, but on the way up, your ears won't equalize, and there's nothing you can do about it. Because you have to come up eventually.So even though I showed up for work yesterday, I asked Asako, the Dive Supervisor, if we had enough staff so I could just lead the snorkellers. It turned out that Liz, who is a brand new (like one week) instructor, but has worked for Tusa for a while, showed up even though she wasn't rostered on. She had her first student the day before, and she was going to finish his course yesterday, so she thought she had to work. (That's not how we do it-- who ever finishes the course gets the certification.) Anyway she really wanted to stay because she wanted the cert, and she was also totally hitting on her student. Now I don't really like her that much, she's kind of bossy even though she doesn't know anything about instructing, and she wears short short shorts to work that are totally inappropriate. And she hit on her student, which was funny because he was not into it at all. So since I would have taken the cert from her, I was tempted to stick around. But since I wasn't feeling well, and they offered for me to leave, I took the opportunity. Then I came home and we did what any other 22 year olds would do on a day off in a party town: we did a jigsaw puzzle.

Later we saw an enormous group of Japanese tourists crossing the street by our aparment-- like 250 of them blocking traffic. I took a picture. Think about it- I had time to notice them, go inside and get my camera, come back, and take four pictures and there were still this many! Crazy. And yes, it's blurry on purpose. I'm artistic like that.

So today I just had a normal day off, and am feeling a little bit better. I'm still taking decongestants, which make me a little hazy. My boss called me earlier to see how I was feeling. Then he said something about the sun today, and I thought it was a little weird that he was talking about the weather, but I just sort of agreed, thanked him for calling, and hung up. Several hours later, I was thinking about it again and suddenly realized that he was probably asking me about my SunSuper account, which is like an Australian retirement account that we are all required to have, and for which I have not given them the number. Which makes a lot more sense than him talking to me about the weather. Oops. I did tell him at the beginning of the conversation that I was still on medication. Hopefully he'll call back.

So once some of the haze wore off, Jon and I went over to the Cairns Rainforest Dome. It's kind of small, but the zoo is about a half hour drive, and we didn't feel like renting a car, especially since I am under the weather. It's on the top of one of the hotel/casinos, which is a little strange, and it is a part-glass part-screened-in dome, as the name implies.

Well, we were impressed. They have about 60 species, including....

A huge crocodile named Goliath! He's something absurd like 20 feet long.

Birds! The birds are kind of everywhere, and like to dive bomb you and flutter right by your head and things like that.

I was giving this bird a talking-to, because he kept following us. He later got together two more of his friends and the three of them cornered us. Creepy, until we remembered that we were bigger and just walked past them.

Bats! We were there for the bat feeding, which pretty much entailed a woman putting fruit onto these little trays and swinging them over to the bats. It was cool to see them up close. The bats here are crazy, there are actually a lot of them in Cairns, just cruising around the night sky. Jon actually took this picture, because his camera has a zoom. (See Mom, I really do need a new camera for Christmas!)

And of course, koalas. See? I'm really in Australia.

...really.

Yarrrr! (because the picture took me as long as the text)

2006-10-21T21:11:00.000+10:00

So, sorry I haven't written, I've actually been working! Three days in a row now, and I'm working again tomorrow. One of our boats is out on charter, which means that we've been filling Tusa III to capacity (40 people on today, including staff!). So I've been working really hard, but mostly it has been fun. Yesterday was less than fun, because the evening before I went out drinking with some guys I work with (Jon was working at the hospital) (and yes, it was all guys. I work with a lot of guys. Matt, Tim, Ollie, Nathan, Joel, Justin, and I went and had drinks.) It's a little weird, because we go to the closest bar to the dock, but that happens to be at a nice hotel. This is the Tides Bar. It's just a promotional picture, and you can't see much. But you can see the image they are trying to portray. Not targeting dirty boat staff.

They are used to us, though, and a lot of other boat staff drinks there too, but it does feel a little weird to be wet and and wearing running shoes in this nice wood panelled bar. Beers are $2.50 from 5-7, so we go there a good bit. On Thursday I made the mistake of going with the "I'll have whatever you're having" method of having drinks bought for me. It was a mistake, because the only locally made (and therefore cheap) liquor in Australia is Bundaberg Rum (or Bundy). Is it just me, or does the Bundy Bear look a little seductive?

That meant I drank a lot of rum and cokes, and I am generally not a rum drinker. So even though I came home at 8 and was in bed by 9:15, I was feeling pretty rough the next day at work. Which is especially rough when you work on a boat. Which got me thinking... I'm basically a pirate. Because they drank a lot of rum, must have gotten hung over, and then went and braved the high seas. This was how I consoled myself on the way to work: thinking of myself as a pirate. I can't believe I'm admitting it.Yarrrr!

Anyway, today was much better, since I wasn't hung over. It was, however, a dramatic day. I had four Americans for introductory divers, which I thought would be fun because they would all understand my accent. We had various ear problems and panic attacks, nothing out of the ordinary, but I only actually ended up taking one woman for a dive. She was pretty good, but not the strongest swimmer. On the second dive, we jumped into the water first (along with one other diver), and everything seemed okay until we got out of the shadow of the boat. A really strong current had developed. The guy with us got up towards the front of the boat when I realized the woman wasn't moving forward with us-- in fact, she was going backwards. So I told the guy to wait for me up on the mooring line while I swam about 50 feet back to get Ellie. The swim back to her was easy, but towing her back to the boat against the current was a little tricky. While I got her back to the boat, I guess the other guy had let go of the mooring line because his weight belt was slipping off, so Tim had to go get him and bring him back to the boat. Anyway, it all worked out and no one was hurt. It was a little scary though, for a minute.

On a lighter note, when we have Japanese people on the boat, they do a Japanese briefing inside while we do an English briefing outside. They finished first today, and Tim was still going through our briefing, which includes a quick lesson on how to use the marine heads (=boat toilets). He goes over to the bathroom and opens the door-- and exposes a Japanese man to about 25 people! I couldn't see the guy, but Tim looked pretty embarrassed. Anyway, figured I would end with something funny rather than nerve racking. (Don't worry Mom/Mimi, my job really isn't dangerous. I did see a shark today! It was only about 4 feet long, though.) All is well, working again tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll write more when I'm not working!

Why Australia is weird, Part 1.

2006-10-18T10:57:00.000+10:00

I'm making this a parts series, because I know I will come up with a whole lot more. I started this last night, and then got a little lazy. But since I actually have like 4 readers now, I figured I would go ahead and post it. Especially since I know you are all dying to see my bike.

1. Roundabouts.
This only is number one because I can see one from my balcony. And I can hear people's brakes screeching as they approach it at least several times a day. I mean I have an excuse to not get roundabouts, but these people grew up with them and they still suck at driving in them. And they are everywhere! They are extra scary when there is a bike lane, because it goes around the outside, so if I want to keep going around and the car on the inside wants to get out, I have to try extra hard to not get hit. As if driving on the left weren't enough...

2. Dairy Products
One of the passengers on the boat asked me what I miss the most about the US (aside from friends and family), and I decided that it is normal tasting dairy. He was British and agreed with me that the dairy here is really weird. His theory was that it's too creamy. I can't really put my finger on it, but it's in everything. The cheese is weird. The milk is really weird. It's pretty good in cookies and stuff like that, but it's just kind of ubiquitous, and sort of ruins a lot of things we cook. I really miss drinking milk, too. Oh yeah, and when you go to the grocery store, your cheese options are things like "tasty" and "extra tasty." No idea what that means. I stay away from it.

3. Clothes
I could go on about this one for a while. I really want to find a picture for you guys of the city maintenance guys, because they wear work boots, short shorts, collared shirts and wide brim hats. It's just totally what you would expect Australian workers to wear, but at the time time it's hilariously absurd. Jon pointed out that all the construction workers here wear really short jean shorts. My theory is that they don't want their shorts to get caught in their equipment. He thinks they just like short shorts. But clothes here are just all wrong in so many ways. Most people dress like they could almost be American, but they will have one element wrong. Like a fanny pack. Or a mullet. Also they have weird standards for what is appropriate, like Jon got turned away from happy hour at a really casual bar for wearing flip flops (which are called thongs here, but I figured people might wonder if I said Jon couldn't wear his thongs to Shenannigans.) Anyway, there were people in board shorts, t-shirts and running shoes, but he couldn't get in in a collared shirt, jeans, and flip flops. That, and people go barefoot at the mall. And in the grocery store. I thought that was illegal.

Cairns! We live along the water on the right side of the picture.

All in all, it's a fun country though. And it's a totally awesome city. I'm sure I will come up with many more weird things, and I will try to surreptitiously take a picture of one of the city maintenance guys. Oh! And not that it has anything to do with what I've just written, but here's a picture of my bike, as promised. The flash made it look red, but I assure you, it is pink.

Note the basket on the back (with my awesome blue helmet in it) and the purple writing on the side. It is a totally sweet bike. It does get me where I'm going, though, and all in all, it's not a bad bike. I'm taking suggestions for names, post a comment if you've got any.

What I do all day

2006-10-16T21:53:00.000+10:00

I'm feeling bold and have decided that I might let people in on the fact that I've started a blog. I'm kind of embarassed, but mostly worried that it's just going to be really boring. Anyway, I thought I might start with a "day in the life" sort of post, because it's easy and I don't want to start studying for the GRE Biology (which I take in Sydney in a few weeks).

So I do work most days (But not today, which was nice, and also why I had time to think about starting a blog. And I don't think I'm working tomorrow, either, which will hopefully also be nice.) I work on Tusa 4 (or occasionally on Tusa 3). This is Tusa 4.

I get up at about six, which is a little rough. Apparently I am getting used to it, since I woke up today at 6:30 even though I didn't want to. That also meant that Jon woke up at 6:30, even though he really didn't want to. So on a normal work day, I try to eat a little bit, but not too much (I'll get to that later) and put on my uniform. It's a big improvement over the Down Under Dive uniform (the company that I worked for previously, who stuck me in the office and barely let me do any diving, which is why I quit).

The Down Under Uniform

The Tusa Uniform

I realize that they are pretty similar, but the Tusa ones definitely looks better. I also happened to strike the exact same pose, which was not on purpose. I think I work with too many Japanese tourists, who absolutely love this pose (as well as the double peace sign pose). I also look a lot happier in the second picture. I am a lot happier in the second picture, because I don't work for Down Under Dive anymore. After a month and a half of being promised time on the reef (and then having it taken away from me every time), I gave up on them and found a new job. That's the great thing about working in the dive industry in Cairns: I worked for Down Under Dive (notice how the initials are DUD? There's a reason.) on Monday, quit on Tuesday, did a trial run with Tusa on Wednesday and Thursday, and signed a contract on Friday. There is a lot of demand for instructors here, so it's easy to find something that works for you. I kind of wish I had figured that out a month ago, but whatever.

So, back to my morning. I bike over to the marina, which is usually really nice, because I can bike along the water without having too many pedestrians in my way (afternoons are a little trickier). My bike is totally awesome, and I will take a picture very soon (I have been intending to take one for about two months now). It's pinkish and has a huge basket on the back. I got it used for $40 Australian, which is like $30 US. Sometimes it slips out of gear, which is a problem if you are in the middle of an intersection and you suddenly realize pedalling doesn't do anything. Generally it's a good bike, and I've definitely gotten more than $30 of use out of it. At the marina, I head to the boat and try to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing (since I've only worked for Tusa for like 4 days so far). In the mornings, it usually consists of putting together dive gear, setting up coffee/muffins, drying the seats on the boat, meeting customers at the bus, checking people in, collecting money, and making small talk. I always try to find the Americans on the boat (most days there is like one American couple out of about 25-30 people) and chat them up first. Sometimes they turn out to be Canadian, but I talk with them anyway.

It takes about an hour and half to get out to the reef. These boats are a lot smaller than the DUD boats, and I didn't work on the boat for them that often anyway. All that means that the first day of my trial, I got super seasick. Like vomiting off the back of the boat seasick. Like Japanese instructor bringing me water and extra vomit backs seasick. Like they still make fun of me for it seasick (which is unfair, because I gather everyone gets sick on their first day). Since then, I've been fine, although it also hasn't been as rough since then. I've also been taking ginger pills, which some people tell me don't actually do anything, but one passenger told me that he saw a MythBusters where they tested different seasickness remedies and ginger worked the best. Who knows, but I'm feeling better. But that's why I don't eat too much before work.

The diving with Tusa has been really good. We go to a wider variety of sites than we did with Down Under, I guess because it's easier to dive at smaller sites with 25 people than with 130. I've done lots of different things: leading snorkellers, leading certified divers, teaching introductory (resort) divers, and teaching Open Water students. It's nice to get that variety, and I think it's great that we don't actually teach any courses. We get the Open Water students from ProDive, who does all of the classroom and pool work with them, but they only have a liveaboard boat. If students want to go on day trips, they come out with us instead. That means I don't have to spend any time teaching students how to use dive tables or showing them videos, I just get to do the fun part.

Anyway, during the day, we do everything from setting out food and doing dishes to tying up the boat and filling tanks, along with all the diving. Some days we put all of the Japanese divers and staff on one boat, and all of the English speaking divers on the other boat, and some days we mix it up. It's interesting having to do all the briefings in two languages, as well as trying to deal with the Japanese divers. (I need to learn how to say things like "put your foot in the fin"... right now the only thing I say frequently is sumimasen, which means excuse me. They always laugh when I say that or when any of the other non-Japanese staff say it. I don't know why they get such a kick out of it.)

We go to two dive sites, with lunch in between. The lunch is catered by the same people who catered for Down Under, so I'm a little sick of it by now. We have salads that rotate, so we'll have some combination of potato salad, cole slaw, rice salad, greek salad, pasta salad, green salad... that's all I can think of, but I know there are more. We also have meats of some sort, but I haven't really been paying attention, and bread and fruit. Some days it's pretty bad, others it's pretty decent... it could definitely be worse.

As I said, the diving has been good. I've seen one shark (pretty small white tip reef shark, just sitting on the bottom... it didn't really seem to care that we were there), a couple of turtles, several sting rays (one of which was a decent size bull ray, which, as every single person who I talked to about it told me, was the type that killed Steve Irwin), and lots of fish that you probably don't care about all that much. We do see some pretty large (like four feet long) Napoleon wrasses, which are pretty cool and very gentle, and the other day I saw some big triggerfish, which are not gentle at all. They have four huge teeth, and can get pretty aggressive. From what I hear, they tend to be more interested in eating divers' fins than anything else. Anyway, there is lots of nice soft coral here, and some pretty substantial massive coral. It's not the best diving I've ever done, but there is a lot of it, and I certainly don't mind getting paid to do it.

So that's pretty much my day, plus the boat ride back and cleaning the boat at the end of the day, which I don't mind but I feel like I'm always asking what needs to be done. It means my work day is from about 6:45 to 5, which is long, but not too bad. The people are cool and generally pretty young. Last night we went out with some of the people I work with and some of the people from Down Under (some of the Tusa people used to work there as well). Down Under is definitely a hard partying crew, and we also hung out with some weird guys with long blonde hair who work on Passions, which is a sailing catamaran that takes people out diving as well. Everyone hits happy hour, probably because no one can stay out too late since we all work early in the morning. I have been totally out of practice with drinking, and we didn't eat before going out, so I was pretty hung over all day.

Alright, I was going to go into what I did for my day off, but I really think that this has gone on long enough. Sorry if it was super boring and rambling, I promise I will try to be a little more topical in the future.

Hi... whoever.

2006-10-16T20:37:00.000+10:00

I decided to start a blog. I can't really give a good reason why, except that I was inspired by some of my friends, and I, at least, think my life is interesting. I don't think I'm a great writer, especially since I've spent the last few years writing mostly scientific papers. At the moment, I'm not sure I'll even tell people about this. But I decided I might as well start somewhere, and maybe I will deem it interesting enough to share.

So why do I think I'm interesting? I tend to get around (not like that...). Right now I'm living in Cairns, which is in the northeastern part of Australia. Most importantly, it's right by the Great Barrier Reef. I'm a scuba instructor, and I work for a company called Tusa Dive. I also just finished a degree in Marine Biology at UCLA. I live with my boyfriend, Jon, which is always interesting and usually pretty fun. We cook a lot, and we read a good bit, and we spend a lot of time laying around playing on our respective laptops... like right now. We both have Macs, his is black and mine is silver, his is big and mine is little.... we're very cute.

Right, the title. It comes from my favorite nerdy little kid joke (I have Jon to thank for telling it to me): What do you call a fish with no eye? Fshhhhhhhhhh. And it works with the diving and marine bio stuff. Get it? Whatever, I think I'm clever.

This is me! (because I needed to upload a picture for my profile and shutterfly apparently has URLs that are too long. I am such a nerd.)

Anyway, I'm off to play with formatting and stuff, hypothetical readers. We'll see how it goes.