London Bridge is falling down...

For everyone who ever wants to go to Australia, I can really recommend the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne. I was there two days ago, booked with Go West Tours. The best thing was the helicopter flight! I might put the filmed flight on YouTube and link to it here, but I think I'll do it when I get home, because I have no plans of buying any super expensive internet in Australia after this.

So we got picked up by bus driver Allan between 7 and 8, and then we headed off to the coast. I don't remember exactly how far the whole roundtrip is, but it's a few hundred kilometres. It's very popular! I wanted to take a two day trip, but the last one available got full booked minutes before I wanted to book it, unfortunately. But a day trip is great too. We had many stops, and except the helicopter flight I liked the rainforest stop the best. It's the last cool temperate rainforest that's left in the state of Victoria. Don't remember its name, though, and I don't have enough time left on the internet to google it either. If I'd booked a two day trip, I could've spent more time in the rainforest than the 20 minutes we spent walking through it.

The first stop, early in the morning. Forgot the name of the place:

Morning tea, coffee and cake stop. Some Mexican guys wanted us to pose like this. I haven't even watched Karate Kid, but I guess I have to now:

Found some beautiful birds and koalas. This one is a king parrot:

Cool temperate rainforest:

Helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles (there have never been twelve of them, it's eight after number nine fell down a few years ago):

The Two Sisters:

Mexican guys and Anniko from Hungary who were on the same bus. Cool people:

Hundreds of ship wrecks along the coast, this is the story about one of them:

London Bridge that fell down in 1990:

London Bridge before its collapse:

Last (?) pic for my dear Thomas. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday!:

About Australia and Norway

What am I going to miss about Australia?:
- Enjoying the hot nights outside
- That it's still hot when it rains, so getting wet is not so bad
- Swimming pools everywhere
- Australian humour
- The friendly people
- The parks in Brisbane
- That my hair dries within 30 minutes instead of two hours
- Being able to wear a summer dress every day. I love dresses!
- Vegemite (bread spread, good with cheese!)
- Though the food prices are about the same as in Norway, the take away coffee is cheap
- The sun
- The beautiful trees: figs, mangroves, boabs and these with all the red flowers in it:

What am I not going to miss about Australia?:
- Driving on the left side. As a pedestrian it makes me confused: Which way should I look before crossing the street? Or when Maria opened the front door on the right side and found out that it was the taxi driver's seat...
- Airconditioners that either don't work when they really should, or that are way too cold. I get a temperature shock every time I walk into the computer lab at the university. I always bring a hoodie, a scarf and thights for under my dress.
- Aussie-English. Slang I don't understand or people that talk too fast with an Aussie accent.
- The heat and humidity
- Putting on sunscreen because the UV-radiation is extremely high
- Packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking, packing etc...
- Dirty hostel rooms and bathrooms
- The nine hour time difference with Norway
- Ibis (birds). One morning when I slept in the park, I got pooped on! And they take your food without asking!
- The slo-o-o-o-ow and expensive Internet
- The taste of the water. Blaaghhgh
- Dollars

What have I missed about Norway?:
- Beautiful autumn colours
- Snow
- Cold, fresh air
- The language
- Enjoying advent
- Personal belongings such as my laptop, my DSLR camera and my bike
- And everything that's the opposite of what I'm not going to miss about Australia, like the good water, the currency, and not having to pack/unpack all the time

What have I not missed about Norway?:
- The rain
- That the weather and temperature changes all the time. When you wake up, you never know what the weather will be like for the rest of the day.
- Going to my jobs. It's not the jobs that are bad, it's just that I feel more free when I don't have a job that needs me for example once a week

For Norway, but most for Thomas: Will be good to see you again *MUAHH*:

I'm off to Melbourne in a few hours! Bye fans, see ya l8r:

I wanna make a snowman right now

I just have to share two videos with you, because these really gave me a good and happy feeling. The first one is from Walk Off The Earth. Again. Yes, I like them. Very much. This one is brand new, because they put it on YouTube yesterday, but there are already 116.000 people who have watched it. So don't hesitate, just hit the play button!:

Good right? I've seen the new movie Pitch Perfect in the cinema today, which is about a capella singing. I wish I could sing like that with a small group of six to ten people. That would be awesome! Now I'm waiting for WOTE's next song that will be released on YouTube on Wednesday, as you could see in the end of this video. Cant wait!

The next one is from the famous "The Snowman". A classic! I simply love it, and I know my mother and youngest brother love it too. Listen to it, relax, and think back to when you were five and watched the whole movie on TV:

I have the feeling I won't do much more on my essay today. I'll just finish putting my handwritten interview notes in a Word document, which is for the appendix. That's easy work when it's already 11.30 PM. And please, can everyone cross fingers for me that I get the best apartment ever in Volda? Because there are sooo many other people that are interested in it! The three girls living there will make a decision on Sunday. I hopehopehope I can stay there, because all the other apartments I've seen pictures from are so bad!

Mele kalikimaka?!

How is it possible to get a christmas feeling when it's 35 degrees celcius outside? When I had Corinne from Switzerland visiting in Brisbane last week, we found it hilarious to take pictures of us with a big christmas tree in the background. It feels so wrong! There is nothing here that reminds me of real christmas, like Norwegian christmas carols, the smells of cinnamon, oranges and cloves, baking cookies, snow and ice, cold temperatures, short days (meaning it's light only between 11 AM and 3PM), a warming fire, family and friends etc. Seeing golden balls, glitters and christmas trees in Australia make me laugh. Because it looks rediculous, of course. I'm not sure how Aussies celebrate christmas and how strong the traditions are, I just know that I'm very happy to be home on christmas eve. Because I miss the real good feeling Christmas gives me.

The cool band Walk Off The Earth do their version of the Hawaiian christmas song Mele Kalikimaka (click on the link for more explanation of what it means):

Here are the lyrics by Robert Alex Anderson:

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day

That's the island greeting that we send to you from the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way to say Merry Christmas to you

Put "Australian" in there instead of "Hawaiian", and it would sum up what I'm thinking right now, haha. "Queensland - the sunshine state" really lives up to its name now in December. The next song with the same band gives me a little more of the right feeling, with gloves and scarfs and a well known song. Would be cool to celebrate christmas in New York once:

This song of the wonderful Norwegian artist Maria Mena is sad, but at least it's about going home for christmas:

After trying about ten times I finally got to delete a whole bunch of photos in my google album, so here are Corinne and I on the King George Square in Brisbane, where they are about to put up the tree:

Next week

I've booked a few things for my last week in Australia! A flight from Brisbane to Melbourne on the 11th, a day trip on the Great Ocean Road WITH HELICOPTER FLIGHT on the 12th and a flight from Sydney to Brisbane on the 19th. I'm flying back to Norway on the 20th. The day trip to the Great Ocean Road is way too expensive, even without the helicopter flight, but I want to see it, so I paid for it. Everything here's so expensive. The 2 days, 2 nights sailboat trip I had on the Great Barrier Reef a few weeks ago cost me 420$$$, the skydiving in Cairns cost 300$, and the tour I just booked for the Great Ocean Road costs 200$. Put hostels, restaurants and flights on top of that and you get a good recipe for getting broke. Very broke. But I love travelling, and I think experiences like these are money well spent, even though I wouldn't mind it if it was a little bit cheaper. When I google tours like these they call it "budget tours". Ha ha.

So now I'm just waiting for an answer from Aviv, a girl from Israel who's somewhere between Alice Springs and Adelaide. She will arrive in Melbourne on the 13th. I hope that we can have some fun together in Melbourne and Sydney, even though she has a broken toe, poor girl.

For this weekend I'm thinking of going to the cinema with Marte and Lene from my class and maybe to an amusement park called Dream World with Maria and Elin, also from my class. I think all of us need a break from the computer lab. Marte and Lene have been on the (fake) beach every morning since they came back to Brisbane this weekend, and I could've joined them if I wanted, but I just don't understand how people would want to lie on the beach when it's nearly 40 degrees outside. Pfff... My eyes run dry, my skin burns and my clothes feel like a wetsuit every time I go outside for a coffee or a meal. To go in and out of the computer lab is a big temperature shock! The difference must be at least 15 degrees celcius! I'd rather stay where I am, even when it means writing an essay.

8.88% of the world!

Was searching for a couch in Melbourne on couchsurfing.org, when I found this map on somebody's profile and made my own:

Visited 20 states (8.88%)

Cool, right? 8.88% is a nice number, but it would be funnier with 6.66%, haha! Create your own  map of The World. Where to go next? That's the question. About half of the European countries have been visited, and I think that Italy will be the next country on my list. Have been talking about going there with Thomas. Hope we can do it some time next summer. Should we go hitchhiking and couchsurfing, which is for free, or should we buy an InterRail pass and book hostels? It's both fun!

Photos from Vietnam

I sent an email to my university college back home to tell how Vietnam was. They asked for photos and some sentences about how our semester is going. I chose to send six photos from Vietnam with a short description. I actually haven't posted anything on this blog about Ha Long Bay and Sapa, which both were beau-ti-ful places, but now you can see some photos here. For those who don't understand Norwegian: Google Translate is your friend!

Hugs and love from the girl in computer lab S02_3.03 at Griffith University

No more photos...

I really want to post my story about Vietnam and also let you know what we did on the way to Cairns and back, but I can't upload more photos, because I already used 1GB, which is the limit. Weird. I want to delete the photos that I have uploaded but not used on the blog, but every time I try it, none of the buttons or links work. So no more photos on this blog, then. Until I find a way to solve the problem. I don't have time for blogging anyway, because I'm trying to finish my major essay before Wednesday.

Here's the only photo I could upload. The black heart is my entrance "stamp" for the Norwegian student quiz some weeks ago, with small extra hearts around it for Thomas:

Today it's three weeks till I take the plane back to Norway. Looking forward to it! But before I go home, I want to see at least Sydney and Melbourne. Every backpacker I've met says that Melbourne is Australia's best city. I really want to see Blue Mountains and the Great Ocean Road too. I'll update you next week on what my plans are. So, see you then, and wish me luck on my essay, I think I need it!

Homesickness

I've never had problems with it before, and I'd never thought it would happen to me, but I've actually been homesick since the day I came to Australia. I've never been so far away from home, and I've never been away for so long. Leaving a brand new boyfriend behind and not having the chance to go to my grandfathers funeral was the worst part.

Yesterday I called my best friend for the first time in weeks. We've both been busy with our own lifes, and time difference makes it even harder to keep in contact by phone. Writing on Facebook is not always good enough when both of us have so much to tell. While talking, we realised that we missed each other more than words can say. When you're used to talking for hours about all the good and bad things in life, it's hard to suddenly not have that person there when you need her the most: When you feel alone.

I've never been the type that goes on holiday totally on my own. I've taken trains and planes alone, but it's always been for one purpose: visiting friends or relatives. This time it was very different. I travelled with a whole group of people, but I felt more alone than ever. I might have learned at least one thing this semester: I wouldn't do it again, neither the big group thing or the alone thing. I admire those who go backpacking on their own, but it's just not my kind of thing.

I'll land on Norwegian ground in exactly one month. The last time I landed after a long trip (Kenya), I started crying, haha. The feeling of being back in a "normal" country was so overwhelming that I couldn't stop my tears from coming. Australia is closer to Norway than Kenya when it comes to politics and culture, but I can still see myself doing it again: Crying because I'm super jet lagged, exhausted and full of emotions.

This heart is for all my loved ones. Can't wait to hug all of you:

Couchsurfing

I surfed Maria and Elin's couch in their living room from Saturday last week till yesterday. It looked like this:

A bit too short, but ok for only a week. I could sleep, take a shower, make food, use the Internet (slow or not working at all. That's so typically Australian!) and do some laundry. Thanks, girls :) This is Elin, Maria and me waiting for the bus on the way to graduation:

At the moment I'm surfing Patrick's "couch":

But this time it's real couchsurfing, because we met on the couchsurfing site. I now live closer to campus and the city center, and I have a big bed where I can stretch both my legs and arms! This is Patrick:

A very funny guy from America. He's a mining engineer, living and working in Brisbane. His apartment is clean, modern and nice. Will stay here till tomorrow, because that's the day when Harald, me and two unknown guys are leaving for Cairns, jeej. Oh, and here are the newest flags (not the peace flag) on my beautiful backpack:

 

 

On the roadtrip and in Cairns I'm allowed to borrow Harald's computer for my essay and maybe some blogging. Need to put some more pics and stories from Vietnam here. So you will hear from me :)

After Vietnam

Did you know that there are M&M's with peanut butter? And did you know that they are very good? I wanted to buy Thomas a pair of M&M's boxer shorts, or a t-shirt, but they were like 60 $ each. Did not happen! At Singapore Changi Airport, on the way back to Brisbane from Hanoi. Tired and unbeautifulled:

Back in Brisbane! Maria bought a Griffith Uni hoodie, and her new backpack from Vietnam lost both its straps, and the front zipper fell apart. Maria learned a lesson and warns everybody: Don't buy cheap, handmade backpacks from a street shop, haha:

Eating mexican food with Harald after planning our roadtrip:

New sandals!:

Out eating with Harald and Kym, because we might not see Kym again:

Christmas is cancelled, and then uncancelled, in Queen Street:

Does Santa have a stomach ache? Does he take drugs?

I had to do some small shopping at Lush again. Can you see how much I like it?:

I like to touch Thomas' hair, so I want to buy him a styling cream that doesn't make my fingers sticky. Tried "Dirty Hair Styling Cream" on Harald. I didn't like it, but maybe Harald did? Haha:

Having some beer/cider/wine:

Am I?:

Exploring new streets and bridges in Brisbane on my way to campus today:

Is technology a part of evolution?:

 

Some love for Thomas: