Sleepdeprived and Satisfied...

Time is going unbelievably fast... I have the feeling that I'm running as hard as I can and still I'm stumbling over the mountains of things that I have to do. There are not enough hours in one day. But after the last week and two weekends, I'm sleep deprived but satisfied. Fridaynight was my first relaxed evening, just putting everything in drawers making a bit of dinner and watching, 'so you think you can dance', when Linda (my roomie) texted me the question if I wanted to join her and Pat (her boyfriend) and a group of friends to a party at someones house. I was very tired but my curiosity overruled my sleepyness and I put on some mascara, jumped into a dress and got a cab to red Hill where they were at a friends house. They were with four of them. Linda, Pat, Justin and Nick. We drank a beer there and got anoher cab to the next party. A bit of a crazy party, where the cops kept barging in and most of the people were vey cracked up. It was quite funny though... Spend some time there sang some songs with a guy who brought a guitar and drank some wine. After the fourth visit of the cops and the fourth time the music stopped and everyone turned suspiciously quiet we decided to leave and go home. This was at about four. The next mornoing at twelve I was picked up by my two roomies to be; Maggie and Josh, to leave for our trip to Stradbroke Island. We had to stop at Indooroopilly shopping for me to go to the bank and see if I could withdraw some money from my new account. The money I transferred, ofcourse, hadn't arrived yet. We picked up Nadia and Tim and drove up to cleveland to get on the ferry to "Straddie", as the Ozzie's call it here. I also learned that they call Flip-flops, "Thongs". So the first time anyone mentioned that to me I was assuming that, he in this case, had a thong (like a G-string) in his car to put on his feet. Anyway, the ferry ride to straddie was very beautiful. We were very lucky with the weather, since spring just commenced here it can still be a bit chilly. (for their terms;) It was comparable to a very nice Dutch summerday. We arrived on the Island and drove to a very nice house owned by on old Ozzie, a real army captain, Ken. I got a bed in a huge six-bedded room that I shared with Maggie and Josh. We unpacked our stuff and ran down to the beach where I took a nap. I was still quite tired of all the travelling. On the beach we met Marina and Juka, they are brasilians also doing research on the UQ. Back at the house we had a nice barbeque and watched a movie. I was sleeping at eleven because we had to get up at 07:30 the next morning to go out to dive near lookout point. Ken attached the boat trailer to his huge oldtime 4x4 while we prepared our gear. We jumped in the car and on the beach we pushed the boat into the water and we drove/rode however you call it, off to the gutters! I had my usual problem when I was putting gear on, on the boat I was getting very nauseous but when we in the water and descended I was feeling as fresh as ever. The rocks under waeter were overgrown with beatiful seaweeds, anemonies and thousands of beautifully cooured fish. The gutter that we were diving in is know because big quantities of grey nurse shark live there, so we were hoping to have a close encounter with one. Juka and I, he was my buddy on that dive, were the only ones lucky enough to see one swimming by. We also saw a shuffle nose shark! It looks more like a vacuum cleaner though. Unfortunatly the dive was to deep to take my camera with me under water so no pictures of this dive. After about 30 minutes under we had to come up because some of us were running out of air. Back at the surface, I was ever more nauseous... So I fed the fishies... The divers term for being sick. But I felt better instantly! We had an hour surface time and we watched some whales pass by from a distance saw some dolphins and two turtles swimming by. The next dive was less deep but was even more beautiful. The thing that made this the hardest dive I had ever done was because of a really strong current. I had to swim so hard to go just a bit forward. Josh, who was obviously stronger then me and my buddy at that moment, struggled less so I signalled him that I was going up to the boat. When we reached the surface I could tell him what was wrong and Ken guided us to a place where the current was not so bad and we only felt a gush of the waves. Wich is actually quite funny to experience. You are like a tree in the wind ;P we some really beatiful carpet sharks or Wobbegongs as the Ozzies call them. and many, many other beatiful fish. We headed back to shore, towed the boat back onto the trailer and went home to rinse all our gear and to eat some wonderfull, Quesedias, made by Nadia and Tim. We headed down to the beach again for a nice and sunny afternoon where I shared nadias body board with Maggie, she and Josh coached me well and I was able to catch a few waves. =] After that we headed back to clean the house pack our things and drove to the ferrie. I was dropped home at about 19:30 where I made something to eat, and to go to bed. Monday was not the best day for me. When I got up to go to the Uni I wasn't feeling very well. A bit of an understatement really, so I stayed home and slept all day. Later when Linda came home she made a really nice rice dish, the first thing I ate that day. Went back to bed at eleven and again, slept like a rose. The next day I felt much better and started my work in the laboratory. The rest of the week was a bit of the same. Work hard during the day making dinner at night, and sleep on time. Thursday I joined Unidive, a group that organizes reasonably priced diving trips for everyone of teh University. That night one of friends I met at Linda's party came over for beers and invited me to some other parties the following weekend. Friday was a succesfull day in the Laboratory. We we finally able to get our PCR's working. It shouldn't be that hard, really. and I decided that I would go to friday night salsa at the casino square. There was no one to join me so I just put on my party shoes and Linda gave me a ride to the square. It was better than I had imagined! So many people having fun and dancing! It took half an hour for the first one to ask me to dance, But when you are on the dance floor, it's easy. I met a lot of people and made some nice new friends. A really nice girl Nadia who, what a coincedence, studies in the same faculty that I am do my internship in. Nick met me there for some drinks and we went to a place called "stock exchange" a nice weirdy place with fun music. We were with five of us, all dancing like crazy! It was so much fun! Especially Nadiah, little dancing queen!! I went home at about 4. Got up early the next morning to go to the free market at west end with nick. Really nice. Almost all earopean countries were represented! They even had Dutch "poffertjes"!!! Hahahaha... Hilarious. Bought a lot of groceries and made a nice lunch. At 5 we picked up Justin and Kate and went to friends house. Andrew the friend is the funniest guy ever. As gay as it gets and totally fired up! He really made the party. At seven a thing that they call riverfire started. An enourmous fireworks event with the spectucualar ending of two F16's that dump and burn their fual while flying over the river!!! It looked like a meteor shooting over the city!! I brought a lot of fruits that I bought on the market started to make cocktails for everyone. Again a really crazy party with a lot of cracked up people.. Seems to be normal here.. But I had a great night. Was glad whem I finally reached my bed though. To get a cab was really hard because of all the parties in the city. Sunday was an easy day with another visit to andrew, who needed some company to survive hs hangover, a visit to the Southbank, where we met up with Linda and Pat to have a drink and after I went to Normanbys with Clive and Nick to laugh at overdressed trashy girls and meathead guys. I was forced to watch Point break because I enquired Clive, who is a personal trainer, to give me a surfing lesson; he said watch and learn... Hahaha... easy lesson huh! Early to bed and up again next morning to get to work again... SO now is now, and I'm a bit sleep deprived of all the beers and dancing. Having an easy couch night bith Byron the house dog, a big Benard Senner who is alone today because his mistress had to stay overnight in the hospital. Tomorrow I will have coffee with nadiah and try a boxing training at the campus to try and get all the beers from the weekend off my ass... ;P So again, nice things for the days to come... =]