Airlie Beach

This past weekend was loads of fun. Jeppo and Steph drove us down to Proserpine/Airlie Beach, which is where they are from. It was a 3 hour drive and just really nice to relax and see what another part of this country is like. We left around noon on saturday and when we arrived at Jeppo's house her mom had homemade quiche and a spaghetti-like dish hot and waiting for us. Let me just say homecooked food is GREAT and it was definitely quite a treat. Her mom's quiche was fantastic and the crust was perfectly light and flaky...yum! Anyways, all of us ended up taking a huge nap after eating because we were all pretty tired from the op-shop (goodwill ugly clothing) party on campus the night before.

After our 3-ish hour long nap we chatted a little bit and steph and her brother came over and we then headed off to Cactus Jack's in Airlie Beach for dinner at 8pm. I was a little bit skeptical about having mexican food in australia but the fajitas I got were phenomenal! They put some weird sort of bbq like sauce on them, but regardless, delish! We were all pretty tired and didn't plan on really going out afterward, but decided we had to at least walk around a little bit and check a few things out as long as we were there. We went to a club called Evolutions which was basically deserted because it was only 10. We did a lot of sitting on the couches there, but after awhile of course I had to debut some of my sweet gucinski dance moves. After Evolutions we moved to Mama Africa's and thats when I peed and discovered they have animal print toilet seats there! Unfortunately for Mama Africa's, we left soon after arriving and went back to Jeppo's. We moved a bunch of mattresses into the garage and basically all sleep in a big mosh of people.

Sunday morning Jeppo's mom made really tasty toast, tea, and berry and chocolate pancakes. After a very long and tasty breakfast we headed back to Airlie beach to hang out at the lagoon. The lagoon is basically a GIANT multi-sectioned pool right on the shore overlooking the harbor that anybody can swim in (for free) because jellyfish are such a problem in the actual ocean. We had a beautiful view of all of the boats and did a little bit of swimming and a little bit of tanning. It was definitely a low key day but It probably couldn't have been more perfect. Stephs mom came down with sausages so we could have a sausage sizzle on one of the public grills that are all over place. I had 3 sausages because they were so tasty and proceeded to walk around with the most giant food baby in my swim suit. It was definitely an excellent weekend!! We didn't do a lot of partying, but I was definitely okay with that. I think next time we go we are going to hit up a few of the whitsunday islands.

Monday and today were pretty uneventful, althought I did have a great conversation with my photography professor. I found out that hes from colombia and we spoke a little bit of spanish. He told me that I had a really good accent and that said that I should write all of my artist statements for my folios in spanish so I could practice. He also said from now on he will only speak to me in class in spanish so i can get more practice, so we'll see how that goes. Long story short, Raul is awesome.

Today was laundry day. There is something really gratifying about sun drying laundry on my balcony. I sat in my room and listened to a little bit of Jack Johnson and just really enjoyed the sunshine and the smell of clean laundry!! Tomorrow I will have to drag my dark load over to the main building so that I can dry my jeans so they re-shrink. Other than that, I got a lot more excellent information from my coral reef ecology class. Every time I go there I feel like my brain is going to explode from all of the new stuff, but it really is great because for the most part it is all stuff I haven't heard before. Right now I'm finishing up some handwashing, despite it being cheap tuesday. I'm playing it low key this week and not going out. I've been fairly congested and Lisa and Aleks are both really sick right now, so I'm trying to rest up and stay healthy so I don't end up like them, especially because I'm generally around them all the time.