Katie

Dinner before the movie


After seeing Inception a second time I think I understand it way better, I might be imagening, but Bing came to the same concusions. So we're probably both crazy.. I know one thing for sure at least, I need to see it again!!

Squash monday and climbing tuseday, than that's just what happends.. good thing I'm not wearing my bathing suit tomorrow.. or wait, I am :S

Yesterday, early sunday morning five of us set of to Phillip Island to get a look on the little penguins of Australia.


During the 2½ hour drive me an Lisa kept on jumping everytime Chris would pick up the map to look at it, it apperently takes quite a while getting used to to having the driver on the right side of the car :P


The weather was...well, not to great


At the Pelican feeding just before Phillip Island


Those guys are pretty cool..


Kind of smart of this restaurant to feed Pelicans with fish-heads at noon, afterwards everyone went there to eat the rest of the fish :P


Us not excluded...


A big serving of fries here i well..big.. Adrian is about 2/3 through his now :S


The bridge to Phillip Island


I was not to impressed by the heiritage farm at Churchil Island..


The choclate factory had dilicious samples, and cute choclate-penguins :)


The car :P


A lot of ecalyptus trees, but no koalas..


Lisa and I somehow thought that climbing down this slope to the beach was a good idea..


Halfway :P


We made it!!


Muddy? Not really yet..unfortunatly it started to rain and got all slippery before we made our way back up :S


Pyramid Rock


Juuust a bit windy..


..wich makes cool waves :P


Guido, for some reason I like taking pictures like this :)


Seagulls were everywere at the Nobbies


More waves


Well..they were everywhere, so I simply had to take a picture..


At 5´o´clock it was finally time for the penguin parade :D We were not allowed to take pictures out on the broadwalks, so the only one I've got is this from inside the visitors centre where you could look inside some of the burrows through mirrors. The penguins were everywhere, gathering in groups out in the water, tumbeling over the beach, jumping uphill, kissing (we really saw two of them kissing!) and just being adorably cute. You could see them just 10cm from your feet below the broadwalk over and over again, and there were chicks to. I could have stayed out all night just looking at them! I ♥ litte penguins :D 


Time to go home..


Waiting for pizza


This pizza-size is actually called monster :P Perfect to share on 5 :)


We came home ice-cold, tired and covered in mud, but it was a great day :D

Earlier this week was one of those unusual sunny days in winter-Melbourne. While working on my storyboard, for the animations class, in the park outside our house, I noticed that the birds here seem to think you are a tree if you sit at the same place long enough :P I got my first mark at school by the way, 5 out of 5 :D 

I have gotten a computer chair now though


There are a lot of small alleys all around town, I really like this one


Me and Lisa at the footy game in Ethead Stadium last Sunday

I don't know what kind of spider this is..but I'm scared of it :(

Possums are all over the parks here, and I know that you can certainly get better pictures of them than this, but keep in mind that those are taken with my mobile phone, that has no zoom function.

We got on the bus early friday morning,


and went through Australias flat landscape that looks quite similar to the one of southern France or Spain, until you see a huge flock of kokatoos taking of by the side of the road.


We stopped for lunch in the town of Arrarat,


and went on for a tour of the cellars, and of course some wine-tasting at Seppelts Winery.


Our next stop was Brambuk oboriginal centre. The building below is designed to look like a kokatoo, the totem animal of the lokal tribe, in flight. Accept watching some movies and looking around, we got to taste som australian animals here, including kangoroo and crocodile.


Once at camp, we could see all the kangoroos we wanted, and when we went out for a night-walk in the woods, we also saw some kokaburras, sugar gliders, and varios kinds of possums.


The next morning, we went in to the town of Hamilton, a place that in the end of the 19th century had more churches (9) than hotels (8). This was apperently uncommon around here, but I do not think that the same applies to Europe, where churches are everywhere..


Well, there's alwas a first time for everything, and on Saturday afternoon, I did go for a walk in the woods, in the rain, by my own free will :P


We found a yoye that was all alone, he was sooo cute, and I really hope that it's true like Kent said, that they are usually found again by the kangoroos.


In the evening we had a barbecue with some local people, and then the party went on, a great night.. not such a great sunday morning three hours later. But it was not as bad as I could have imagined actually. Below we are waiving goodbye to Dennis and Marie, the camp owners, from the bus. 


We started sunday with visiting a sheep farm,


and then went to our last stop at Sovereign Hill, a theme park about the gold rush. I was raining all day, so we were quite lucky to get on the tour of an underground mine, wich you normaly had to book in advance.

no further comments...

I totally love fried sushi, since I tasted the soft-shell crab I can't really decide whether it's that or the tempura prawn that is my favorite, so I just go for both.

Melbourne Open House was held last weekend, meening that a lot of houses that you normaly won't get into were open to the public. So I checked out about a dussin of them last sunday.

The pixel house is located at Melbourne Uni:s campus, I'm not sure what it contains, but I'm hoping that I will be able to check out it's interior some other day, since I decided not to wait in line for two hours on the day..


I did get to see a few beautiful roof gardens,


and among other buildings, St Pauls Cathederal.

A girl at my hostel has this sign on her door, so I keep getting reminded of that I absolutely have to go to New Zeeland as well before I go home, but I think that will have to wait until the semester is over, there's still a lot to see around here :)

Sushi costs about the same here as in Sweden, if you want it allready cut up in pieces that is. If you get those rolls that are about as big as 5 pieces instead, it's suddenly 1/3 of the price... can sharp knives really be that expensive here?

Anyways, I totally love the sushi here, there's just so much to choose from that I can have all the variation in the world even though I don't eat raw fish. The fried shrimp is my favorite so far :)

Well, it was at the zoo in a glass cage, but still..uhhhh, and the scary thing is actually that they arn't as red as I had imagined, they actually look more black, so there's just simply no way I'd be able to tell them from any other spider...

But I did enjoy seeing the other animals at Melbourne zoo, where I went with Sarah today,

like this adorable meerkat


and the wallabys


and of course some kangoroos


I did get to see what a real-life wombat looks like, but as these animals are active at night, we only got to see them sleep


a lot of the orangutangs were sleeping as well, after having tucked themselves in under their sheets


I think this was the first time I saw bambo that wasn't i a pot, but I'm not quite sure..


And of course there were a lot of birds as well, we had to watch our heads in the big aviary though


The male Eclectus Parrot was cuddling up (or possibly fighting) with a Kakatu, while the female one of the same species watched them carefully from the hollow tree she had just climbed out of.


The Helmeted Honeyeater has the longest tounge I've seen in a bird, it's att least twice the size of this little birds beek. 


People always talk about the cool black parrots of Australia, I wonder if they mean those Black Kakatus? They are really cool indeed.


Pelikans and Peakoks roam freely around the entire park


I did think that the Gento Penguins at Melbourne zoo were really cute, but the Australian Small Penguins do beat them, they are about the cutest thing I'v ever seen, I'll have to go down to the beaches to see them in the wild someday :)

In one to two weeks I'll move from the rooming house in Richmond, were I'm staying at the moment, to this little townhouse in Carlton, just of Lygon street about two blocks from school :) I'll be sharing it with 3 people, but will have my own bedroom, I don't remember who told me to check for housing at gumtree, but anyways, thanks :) I'll miss all the parrots around here, but I figure that I can just use some of the time I'll avoid wasting on getting to school and back to go see them :P

I've heard it from tree ozzys at different occasions now, I must say I do feel more safe now, knowing there are no deadly spiders crawling around in Melbourne, or mabie it's just because those two below are the only spiders I have seen so far.

I had to get a bit creative yesterday when hanging things up to dry in my room, as there's no dryer where you hang clothes here...

Well, we had the introduction last week of course, but I had my first classes today. I absolutely love the "Atmospheric Animation" course, I haven't gotten a good grip on my design studio yet, but It doesn't seem as fun as I first thought unfortunatlly.. I'm relly looking forward to the sondscape course tomorrow as well. And for those of you who have been talking to me in the last few days, yes, I got all of my first-choise courses :)

As for everything else that has happend since I wrote last week, I think I'll just post some pictures :P


I have no idea what those are, but they smell really good so I'll have to try one someday :)


Horse-racing is a really big thing here, but it's seems to be more about dressing up and getting drunk than actually betting, it was a fun day at Flemmington rasecourse on the saturday before the last one anyway.


The trainstation right by the school has an old trainstation inside


Me with the wombat I won at the introduction


Bing, Karina and me at a sushi-place in town


The courtyard at school where we got to try to play footy


The penguins at the Melbourne aquarium are just sooooo cute :)


My mum now thinks that all of Melbourne looks like a village, so I simply have to post another photo of the CBD


The place where I live for the time being


Melbourne Cricet Ground during the footy last sunday


And last, but not least, a better photo of the parrots, as promised :)