75 photos - oh yes!

helllooooo! Man alive, i've done it again. Sorry!

Let's see... where did i leave off... ahhh mardi gras.

(side note: if you click on any of the small pictures [they aren't tiny.. but they are smaller in comparison to the others] you can view a larger version of them in another window.)


weeelllll, a million months (read: Feb. 18th) ago there was a day that took place in Victoria park called "Fair Day". It was a massive GLBTQ festival. it was a beautiful day, and everyone was out. Months before it actually happened several of my friends told me it was their favorite day of there - and i definitely understand why. It started at around 9am (but i got there around noon) and went until around 6pm.


(this is one 'smaller' photos)
We basically spent the day listening to music, dancing a bit, and just having a lovely relaxed day in the sun. It was wonderful. :-) Here are some random pictures of important people:

Two of my best friends: Chloe and Mahalia


Sunscreen commerical anyone?


Elena, Bel, and Maddie


(Another one of my best friends,) Bel and me


Anna and Me


Problem solver?


Another one of my very best friends - Katie


Anywho, it was a wonderful day.

Let's seeee, the next serious event. ah yes... the world famous MARDI GRAS PARADE!!!!!

watched the parade with Mahalia


What is cool about their parade is that hours before people even start marching, they have people in the street warming up the audience - tossing around beach balls, leading people in "happy mardi gras" chants, speeding down the street on bikes, huge TV screens panning over people w/ random titles put up along with text poking fun at people... it all just makes the wait so much more enjoyable.. and the atomsphere a lot more fun:


now, the entire parade is about 3 hours long... and you know who starts it?? DYKES ON BIKES! and OH MY HOLY were there ever dykes on bikes! here is a picture i succeeded in taking of two of my friends - anita is front and bel is on the back (the far blue bike).



seriously, i dont even know how many there were. what i do know is that the bikes were divided into 6 groups. Each group was a different color (aka: they all changed the front headlight on their bike to be red or orange or yellow, etc) and there were something liek 50 in each group. So So AWESOME!





gahhhhhhh!!! AMAZING!!!!


another aspect of their parade that is different than ours is that the parade itself takes place at night, which brings in a whole new demention to the creativity of their floats because they have to light up!





oh, and because it's at night... you know what else can happen? FIREWORKS!!! LOTS AND LOTS OF FIREWORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Dykes on peddling bikes:


My friend Katie (saddly a pretty bad picture) w/ dykes on peddling bikes (she's the one with the sign that says "My <3 is =" on her back):


oh also, Night time + mutlicolored light + millions of people + confetti= A PARTY!!!



some random shots of people in the parade:








so yeah, there ya have some what of an idea of how out of control it was - so awesome. no words or pictures can truly capture it. man alive... so dont know how i'm ever going to back to chicago pride after sydney mardi gras. for serious.

after the parade ended we grabbed some pizza and followed the parade route. the parade ended at the gates of the mardi gras party at Fox Studios (or whatever the name has now been changed to). Met up with chloe and Maddie (and later Katie, bel, and elena) for the party. Huge huge place - it's like a movie production lot (hence 'fox studios'). so there are 3 HUGE venues and a couple smaller ones. I tried to bring home a map of it, but i guess it fell out of my pocket at some point (which i suppose could have been predicted. oh well).

anyway, had an amazing time. I saw BOY GEORGE dj, which was ridiculously awesome. haha. danced. danced. danced. danced. and then danced some more. couldn't possibly have asked for a better night.

i want to do it all over again. Somehow i will figure out a way to be back here again for mardi gras. it will happen. it has to.


After Mardi Gras the next few weeks were dedicated to nesting at home and trying to find my school groove again. :-) This semester my uni load once again consists of 3 classes:

Tuesdays: Power and Change in Australia -- This is basically an Australian history course. While i'm really happy to be learning more about Australia, the class is primarily made up of first years (read: 17 & 18 year olds who are fresh out of high school) and therefore the work is very first year-ish. if that makes sense? It's a bit frustrating, but eh.. you can't win them all... right?

Wednesdays: Audio Production Workshop -- This is probably my favorite of the classes i am taking this semester. I've always felt like the audio of my films were a bit weak, so i'm really excited be be learning more about audio production. We're learning a program called "Pro-Tools" which is basically just and advanced audio editing program. So far i have gotten back marks on 3 assignment i have done. I got to Distinctions and on High Distinction (which i'm really really really really happy about). :-) in case you dont remember how the grading system works here:
fail
P= Pass = a C in the states
C= Credit = a B in the states
D= Distinction = A in the states
HD= High Distinction = A+ in the states

so yeah, i'm really enjoying this class.

Friday= Introduction to Short Fiction -- This class. oh... this this class. ok, while i've written a few stories i'm fairly proud of... as well as an essay i also proud of, where i analyized a story ('The Hotel Capital'), this class is really quite bad. The teacher reallllly doesn't know how to teach. it's quite frustrating. There are to people in the class who i met in my writing class last semseter (Adam and Nick) who i have grown closer to this semester - which has been nice. They're wonderful guys. Just wish the class was too. ohhhh weelllll.


Annnyyyywhoooo, continuing on with a recap of the past few months.

One of my close friend from here, Vesna, left the country in order to go visit New York, England, Scotland, and Cuba, which was really sad. I WAS SUPPOSED TO LEAVE FIRST! NOT FAIR! :-(

anyway, before she left she, my friend mahalia, and I went to Newcastle (which is about 2 hours outside of sydney) to stay at M's dad's flat.


Vesna and me (she looks really really tired in this picture because she IS. I dont' think she got a single full night's sleep the last week she was here. She was trying to do as much as she could with as many different people as possible before she left. aww i missss her! :-) )


Mahalia and Vesna standing on mahalia's dad's balcony (it was really really cold and windy out there!)

Mahalia's dad's flat was right on the water, and a wonderful view of the ocean:



The First night we were there Mahalia's dad suggested we for a walk out to pier. We thought that was a fantastic idea!


a couple random pictures i snaped on the way walk out to the pier.


Vesna

Mahalia

Mahalia and Me

The light during that time of the evening was JUST at that point that my camera hates - aka... it wasn't bright enought to take a picture w/out a flash and not have it turn out all blurry... but it wasn't dark enought to take a picture w/ a flash and not have it turn out all crazy bright and odd. i tried to capture the moment anyway... and it is what resulted:

(the view out towards the pier)

(the view from the pier back to land)

(the view from the pier)

(Mahalia standing on pier)
the walk was wonderful, and very intense. It was was SOOO windy once we got out there and we had splashing water us on both sides. first we found ourselves caught in a sand storm, and then in a salty flash flood. haha
we were definitely a bit wet by soaked by the end:

haha :-)

anyywhooo - after the walk we went back to Mahalia's dad's flat and M and i made Vesna and M's dad dinner!!!



apparently there was a momentary hold up in the cooking process when someone said something really funny... because this photo exists:


like i said, it was only momentary, because food making continued on...



this is what i madeeeee! allll byyyy mysellff! :-) :-) :-) mmmmmmmm!

bread w/ pesto, feta, tomotos, and some basil!

later that night this happened:



now, i realize, this requires a bit of an explaination. Wellll, M's dad is a psychologist and he has hunderds and hunderds of these little blocks around his flat. They used be used in some kind of psych experiement.. but now they just sit there. welllll.... while m and i were making dinner, he told vesna that he had a challenge for her... he said she had to make something creative out of all the blocks. we laughed.

hours passed. her dad went to bed. we were playing uno. -- i turned to M and V and i was like --> you know what we should do? We should make a little easter egg hunt thing out of the blocks (it was a few days before Easter). And so THE GREAT EGG HUNT - 2007 was born:








The next day Vesna decided that in honor of her departure she wanted to go for a swim. it was coooollldddd and winnnddddyyy but i went with her. the waves were HUGE!!! I dont think i've ever been swimming w/ such huge waves:







after the swim we went back to to the flat to DYE EASTER EGGS!!

(in the process of trying to melt this weird rubber bat candle thing my mom sent me for halloween i broke the poor little guy's wing... but dont you worry.. he had the last laugh because as it tried to melt him i buurrrnnntt my hand on hot rubber wax stuff! ow ow ow!)


Mahalia blows the yolk out of her egg as i look at my BURNING hand. did i mention OW?!?




such a wonderful over night trip to new castle! :-)


now. if you thought that this entry was over now... if you thought i couldn't POSSIBLY have more picture to post...you are SORELY mistaken.

a couple weekends ago, my friend chloe invited me to come home with her to meet her family and to see her home town. i definitley accept the amazing offer!

the trip started with us missing out train twice. The first time because we were late..... so we decided to sit outside, eat doughnuts and play with seagulls:

yum!

we had something like 45 minutes to kill so we decided to walk down the street to this AMAZING pizza place i had come across a couple weeks earlier......needless to say... we missed it again.
chloe ont he train we finally made:

a pretty bad picture out the window of the train of central stations:


When we got there i met her fam, and then she took me on an awesome driving tour of important places in her town - completely with numerous memory recaps. i LOVED hearing and seeing everything she had to show and tell me. I also felt really honored that she wanted to show me all that stuff because i know not everyone has had the opprotunity to see it. :-) :-)

anywho... eventually we went back to her house and i met my future husband (note my boots):


the next day we played with Chloe's horses. yes. HER FAMILY OWNS HORSES! it was so awesome!!!!!








It was a wonderful little trip, and i'm hoping for more like it in the future. :-) :-)


allllll right! i GUESS i'll end there. Something like 75 picture enough for you? I hope so. :-) :-) (i hope that they all turn up and that it doesn't take TOOOOOOO long to load! :-\ )

Once, again, i'm sorry this update took so long to materialize.

know i love alll of you! - and i hope you are all doing well!!

love love love-

xxXxx