So it has been a while since I last did this but the weeks just fly by. I realized yesterday that I have done half the time of my internships, which quite frankly is unbelievable but ya know time flies when you are having fun, which I am definitely having.

The last couple of weeks at work has been devoted to ,together with the other interns, plan, create and staff a boot/display at an event addressing climate change on the International Day of Action for Climate Change and despite fears of it becoming a long, rainy and cold day it was warm, sunny and with heaps of people coming up and signing petitions, postcards and generally asking questions about the organization I am doing my internship with. At one point we even had to make a run back to the office for supplies due to the interest. It was a real fun day but when I came home I was exhausted and I was not the only one. By around 10pm on a Saturday night me, my roommate and her boyfriend was basically laying on the couches and the floor being exhausted and we are all in our late twenties early thirties so really living it up here... Wow I have avoided refering to myself as in the late twenties until now...man I am getting old...:)speaking of age should I be worried that I am getting along great with a 17 year old?!

In other work related news I have attended a poverty conference, a community meeting, a lecture about child soldiers given by a Harvard professor and worked a U2 concert, which was so cool. I mean most of the things I do is pretty cool but to be able to attend a U2 concert, during which we get to stand right by the stage and even enter it as part of an action for Aung San Suu Kyi during the song walk on, beats pretty much everything...especially since it was for free...well i did spend 40 bucks on a t-shirt but that was all the money I spent all night. The walk on is up on youtube not the best but still worth checking out.

Outside work I have done some things with the other interns such as going to dinner at this amazing place that had great food, one of which was cheese that had no dairy or soy in it so I could eat a pizza with cheese for the first time in years...it was awesome. I also gone to lunch with my fellow interns a couple of times, been to a housewarming party and a birthday pot lock breakfast that became birthday all day:) I think we all suffered from some mass psychosis that day though cuz after eating breakfast we became really tired and stayed that way all day...seriously resting on the floor can be so comfortable:) We did manage to get to a pumpkin patch after taking the scenic route there I might add, however, naturally i couldn't enter the patch due to hay, horses and general farm animals so I ended going back to the car taking a nap, which was kinda nice but counterproductive when it came to beating my tiredness...but I did manage to carve a pumpkin, although it didn't quite last all the way til today, which is Halloween, something I am pretty excited about. However, those who know me I think realize that I left the costume to the last minute aka today and unfortunately I am not only one so i had to deal with heaps of people pushing etc when i went to a costume store today...imagine 23rd of December kind of crowd and you get the picture. Anyways I better stop writing and getting ready for a party I am going to.


The results of the pumpkin craving session



Happy Halloween everyone!

Cheers,

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving when I was in the States with my ex boyfriend's host family and that was your traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie and awkward moments for a non-religious person in a religious home. My second time around I celebrated Thanksgiving earlier in the neighboring country and in a non-traditional way. The guest list consisted of me, my flatmate, her boyfriend and friends and the menu consisted of roasted chicken, jams, roasted potatoes, salad, meatballs, wine, beer and yeah the traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pie and I had heaps of fun despite the fact that during lunch on Friday I managed to get something I am allergic to into my system despite asking the waitress to make sure the food I ordered did not contain anything I am allergic against…I guess I have to ask two-three times in the future to make sure…geez they must love me at restaurants. I guess I can test that theory on Tuesday as the majority of the interns at work have decided to go out for dinner that evening. We even set a place, a vegetarian restaurant, which should be interesting considering my lack of enthusiasm for vegetables and all things related to that.

This week has been a nice and busy week, with follow up from the previous weekend, kick off for some new events that we, interns, actually are in charge of more or less anyway, registration for a conference, getting yelled at on the phone and actually hanging up on someone that did that….man I love not being in retail with the whole the customer is always right crap … And I managed a big no…no I fell asleep during one of the documentary watching sessions…not good…but to my defense I was not the only one…

Anyway despite an involuntary diet program my Thanksgiving has been great completed with a flatmate asleep on the couch and I am looking forward to not needing to go to work tomorrow as we have a long weekend.


Happy Thanksgiving!


Oh an this is from one of the events I "worked" last weekend

Why is it that everything happens at once? I have a couple of weeks that has been not slow but not exactly busy but this week..oh man...it started on monday with my office's part of a nationwide campaign and then it continued with work all week that included handing out flyers for upcoming events two days and heaps of walking which my feet can attest to, meeting about (well sorts as I kept needing to run out to answer the phone and things like that) and help organizing a vigil for this Sunday as well as attend it. Luckily though I narrowly (I hope)avoided to speak on the vigil for the organization I am doing my internship for, I might still need to do it but probably not. I also got to make some displays for both Sunday and Saturday and I will work on both these events but luckily only one of them are outside so everyone keep your fingers crossed it will not rain on Sunday cuz I really do not feel like getting wet anymore than I already have been this week. No colds here please. Other than that it has been the usual stuff, reading up and trying to develop a plan for my project or actually an idea for a project that my boss will approve, answering the phone etc, so this week has gone by really fast...can't believe it is already Friday...this week flew by.

Last week was a bit slower and I got to watch more documentaries and attend a lecture at SFU about humanitarianism. It was really interesting to get another perspective on it than what we get from UNI back home.

Well now I am off to heat up some pie for dinner on Friday night...oh what a luxurious life I am living:)

Bye,

I believe I promised some photos from Fraser Island months ago but well better late than never..

Enjoy these photos from this little paradise on earth:)



Basin Lake



Lake Mackenzie



Maheno Shipwreck


Waddy Point




Champagne Pools


Lake Wabby




Lake Birabeen

Take Care

Some photos from last Saturday...













The guys I met and played pool with

Ps I did not take or ask to be in all photos:)

So this evening I got tired of just having the voices in my head as company so I decided to go out and see if I could meet some new people, which I have not exactly being doing lately and I so do not want to end up being as pathetic as Carrie was during her brief stint in Paris (sex and the city reference here people)Anyhow I kinda asked my flatmate earlier this week if she knew any cool places to go to and she basically told me to head down to the center and go for it, which is exactly what I did. After walking around for a while I found a bar that looked promising so I headed in there and ordered a coke. However, it was like a freaking sauna in there so I quickly finished my coke and got the hell out of there. After that I decided to give a pool/bowling place a shot even though it looked kinda sketchy from the outside, which I noticed when I entered was not the case. To mixed it up this time I ordered an ice-tea and went and had a seat in the lounge and did some people watching. Not long after that some guys came up and started talking with me and I ended up playing a couple of games of pool with them, which i of course sucked at...not surprise there...Anyway it was cool but one of the guys was pretty drunk so he kept complimenting me on well everything which got a bit annoying after a while but nothing i couldn't handle as it was a really nice guy, they all were. Hell his friends even asked me if he was bothering me too much...These guys have lived here for a while, I am guessing here, and are the first people telling me that I have cheap accommodation as they are paying the same amount of money I am to live in a one bedroom apartment close to 20-30 min outside downtown...

In a totally unrelated vein it was 9/11 last Friday and I was a bit curious to see how much that would be noticeable but to be honest in terms of documentaries and things like that it is bigger back home. However, in places the sidewalks were used as a writing board and I lost count on how many times I saw 9/11=inside job...and there was also some kind of event or whatever to that effect that I walked passed on my way home. Other than that I saw that one documentary was scheduled on TV, so all in all I did not really notice it.

And that was all she wrote...

This time around I thought I would be ahead of the nagging of uploading photos of my room and the apartment I am sharing so here they come.



My room, pretty basic but functional, I have a bed, a table, a chair and a closet



The living room

I think that is the most important parts of the apartment, we do, however, have a kitchen too:) and also a dining area but I don't think either of us is eating there.

Now to some photos I took before my internship started when I had all that time to spare



Bits of Van's skyline when it still was summer and I was stuck in a hostel without AC in the rooms.

To all of you that think it is exciting and exotic to live in another country than your home country let me tell you that no matter how far you go there is certain things you can not escape such as vacuuming, cleaning, doing the dishes, laundry, cooking and a million other things, which is basically how I have spent my weekend so far. But when it comes down to it I would take doing these things here over doing them in Sweden anytime of any day because even though I have settled into certain routines I am still in a new city and experience a new culture yet again and that has so far not become boring.

My internship is shaping up to be real interesting even though the week that passed was not the most eventful. However, I believe this will change the next week as I have now settled in a bit in the office and gone through the official introduction. This semester will be more of a learning experience than the rest of my university studies mainly because I will be out there doing something and not sitting in the academic world with all that it entails, even though I love it. Although I got to admit I am very happy about the fact that it is a long weekend here (labor day) because four days straight of full time work is not something I am used to but give me a couple of weeks and I will be.

Unfortunately it looks like fall is coming fast here as it today was pretty windy and rainy which you can compare with the fact that it was really hot about 2-3 weeks ago and I was sweating even though I was only wearing a jeans skirt (yes a skirt, what a shocker huh?!:)) and a t-shirt. Guess I will have to get use to it since the winters here are pretty similar to the winters back home...that is heaps of rain.

I hope everyone is well....

Bye,

My second day on the job was a bit less exciting, I started the morning with some follow-up work on the photo petition from day one and continued with some office work and reading up on the current campaigns the organization is running. The day ended with me and another intern sitting in on a committee meeting regarding a conference in October and we ended up being responsible for making sure people get information about the event and some other things...should be exciting...although right now I am feeling a bit overwhelmed since I have not done anything like this before but that's what I am here for...

Day 3 was even less exciting as I spent the day doing research that is reading reports and things like that as well as some office work. However, the day ended on unusual note as we all got to leave early due to a bomb threat...welcome to Van...

Today I had my first day of my internship, well it was suppose to be my second day but unfortunately i had to call in sick yesterday, which is soo not good to do the first day at a new workplace, so I was a bit worried about the reception i would get today. I mean i don't want them to think I am a flake as it turns out I had not needed to worry because when I showed up today the boss was like, you are here today I was expecting you first on Friday but after consulting his papers he came back and said like no i had you down for Monday. Anyhow after that I got a tour of the office which isn't exactly big but that's ok, It has a small kitchen and a conference/lunchroom/tv-room, two office rooms and a main room with two computers and two desks where the interns work. So it is pretty functional although not fancy. So for my first day I mostly got to tag along and watch but i suspect that will change tomorrow as I will go to a planning meeting for something in the afternoon, i forgotten what it was because there is so many projects going on this fall. One of things well really the only thing i did was going out to the downtown area with some other people in order to take photos of people holding a sign saying Demand Dignity as part of the campaign named the exact same thing that is going to last for the next 5 to 7 years and the current stage is about raising public awareness about the links between poverty and human right abuses. It was pretty cool.

Although that part of the day was awesome the part that was not so awesome was the fact that despite me knowing I had enough money on my account to pay rent I could not access them because neither my visa and mastercard worked, so after two phone calls to the Sweden during which i the first thing found out was that my mastercard had been closed due to suspected fraud because they saw that i had done some withdrawals here in Canada, which is good but i would have liked them to tell me this. Anyway he said he opened it again after asking me some questions to make sure I was I, but guess what a couple of hours later i still could not access my money so i had to call again. This time around the guy i talked to basically told me I have no idea why it isn't working try to go to the bank and ask for a cash advance...well it was almost 8 pm here and my rent is due to tomorrow morning or today really...so i was desperate. Then after a couple of more tries i figured out that i could take out about 140 dollar per time with my visa which is weird because i could withdraw more earlier this week...anyhow i had to stand by an atm on the street and take out 100 to 140 dollars a pop until i got around enough which took quite a few tries and it cost like 6-7 dollar a pop...so i am sooo opening a bank account here asap.

Well, now I am going to get a shower and crawl up on the couch to watch some TV.

Bye,

Last time it took me three weeks and 30 places before I found accommodation this time it took me 5 days and 18th places before I did the same. Although here in Vancouver it wasn't a question of me liking places and not getting them, it was more a question of me not liking anything or not wanting too share a one bedroom apartment with three people and pay 800 CAD for it. Luckily I managed to find a two bedroom apartment and with just one housemate which is a rare commodity here, at least in downtown which is where i need to live due to my motion sickness.

Anyhow that is all I have so far but I suspect that once my lazy week of doing nothing ends and my internship starts i will have heaps of things to do.

Bye,

Ps Aline i wrote you an e-mail months ago, have you received it?

The day before yesterday I had one of those days that makes travelling so awesome. Basically what I knew when I got up that morning was that I was going to Brisbane and meet a friend. After getting up and checking out me and a friend I meet on Fraser decided to grab some breakfast, so we went to the closest convenience store and bought some food and went down to the beach to eat. So I had breakfast with an ocean view, life is good.

In the hostel while waiting for the courtesy bus to the Greyhound station I meet another girl that was going to Brisbane and we ended up having dinner and a drink together after arriving in Brisbane. We ended up eating in an Asian restaurant and while I usually can’t eat food in Asian restaurants due to my food allergies I could this time and it was so good…I have to go there again before leaving Brisbane.

Byron Bay has been interesting to say the least. The first day I arrived I realized it was not much to the town unless you booked heaps of things to do, which I did. I booked a tour that included Nimbin, waterfalls and rain forrest for Saturday, Kayaking with a good chance of seeing either Dolphins, whales or turtles for Sunday and paragliding for Monday. Out of these things the only thing that did not get cancel due to bad weather aka rain, rough sea onditions and winds was the tour on Saturday. The tour was pretty good as we got to see a the tree oil lake, which is exactly as it sounds, a lake in which tree oil is mixed with the water in. Supposedly is really good for your skin, but personally I would not go swiming there because the water is really black and you can not see a thing. After that we went to an aborginal ceremonial area but we did not stay there for long as our guide after about a minute said something to the effect I would run back into the bus if I were you because the rain is coming. We just made it back to the bus before the skies opened. Guess that was a rain curtain or whatever it is called is all about. After a bit of traveling on curvy roads and a boot of motion sickness I got to throw a boomerang which was fun.

The following days i pretty much spent in the hostel playing dormrugby with my roomies, pictionary, table tennis, watching tv and reading because it was pouring down. By the end of the second day though I went to a bar with a couple of people and listened to some live music which was pretty cool.

My last day in Bryon Bay was actually sunny so I took a walk to the lighthouse and Cape Byron which is the Australian mainland's most eastern point. I also had watch the sunset at the beach with heaps of other people and some of them had brought drums and other instrument tha they started playing. It was really nice and laid back...a good way to end my stay in Byron.

I have now been on my month long Australia trip for three days and they have been intense. I have in three days time been to Launceston twice, Hobart, Winebottle bay, bay of fire, two waterfalls, seen and feed kangaroos, seen koalas, tasmanian devils, wombat etc. But currently I am at my hostel in Launceston and is on my way out for dinner, which I need cuz I am kinda hungry.

Cheers,

Today, the 3rd of June 2009, I officially finished my semester here at RMIT. This Monday I turned in three essays and today I had my online exam, which marked the end of the official semester for me. Although it is nice to be done with uni especially after the last couple of weeks i have had it is also sad because it means i have to say good bye to my friends, which is not fun...i wanna stay longer...

But anyway back to the nightmarish couple of weeks I have had. It all started about three weeks ago when I, apparently thought it was a good idea to get the flu despite the fact that i had not started on any on my final assignments. Of course it took me close to two weeks to recover, which left me one week to research and write three essays. I think i spent day and night in front of the computer and once I hit the sack I could for the life of me NOT fall asleep, which left me with an average of 4 hours sleep a night. Normally it wouldn't be a problem but since I was still regaining my strength after the flu I was exhausted half of the time. But somehow I managed to get two essay half done to Friday when I had an appointment with the study and learning center in order for them to go over my grammar and spelling, but that did not exactly happened, no instead of getting away from there with corrections i had to do I ended up needing to restructure two essay plus write and research a third in three days...to say it was a relief when those essays went into the slot at the drop off would be the understatement of the year.

Anyway now it is over and done with and I have to start organize stuff for when I am leaving for tassie on Tuesday, fun things like doing the laundry, moving out, getting the salvation army to come and pick up my furnitures, sorting through what clothes I need to send back to Sweden by boat and which I will keep, change my address to school again....yeah I am not exactly out of work...and somewhere in between there saying good bye to practically all the friends I have made here since they won't still be here when I come back.

I really can not believe that I have already spent a semester here, over 12 weeks, it honestly feels like I just got here. But all good things most come to an end, however I am not going back for a while as I have some traveling to do that I hope will be heaps of fun.

I guess my ranting above of the last couple of weeks have to serve as an explanation why I have not updated in a while.

The end of my Easter break was a bit more eventful but not a lot. I went to the movies with a friend and saw 17 again. It was actually pretty different from what I expected, funnier ;although, the ending was exactly what one might expect but all in all worth seeing, especially since it just cost around 10 dollars. Normally it does cost a bit more but it was a Tuesday and Tuesdays are cheaper. But even on other days it is a couple of dollars cheaper than back home but then again most things are:).

Unfortunately my nice time off had to come to an end and I started school again on Thursday but luckily I just had about 2 hours of class before I was off for the weekend. As soon as I was out of school I went bowling with the international collective, which is an organization here at RMIT that arranges activities for the students, so I got to bowl, once again getting confirmation that I am really good at those gutter balls and play some pool for free with some friends and next week I will be able to watch the Fast and the Furious four i guess for free.

The weekend was a bit more eventful than usual because my housemates had a birthday party so I got to meet some of their friends I haven’t met before, which was fun since everyone always is nice here and start talking with you when you first meet. However, I don’t know how many times I told people that I am an exchange student and what my major back home is, but hey that is the first thing people ask when you don’t know each other. We still have balloons all over the place from the party and of course the other day, after my housemates had gone to bed btw, I succeeded in both popping one of those and setting off the smoke detector while making some fries. Don’t ask me how I did it, it was just one of those days….

Sunday was funny too because I got to meet a friend from Sweden that is studying in Brisbane but went down here for a couple of days ;however, it was kind of embarrassing when he asked me questions about where things were and what they were since I couldn’t answer one question. Basically I am just as confused about Melbourne as I am about all the cities I have lived in…One thing that proves how different the climate is between different parts of Australia, and who things in general is upside down is that he lives further north than me and had to buy a sweater to wear here because it was cold…well colder than he is used…

I think that is about it for the time being.

Hope everyone is well!

Yesterday I realized how big Facebook really is. Apparently there was an event there about a pillow fight in Carlton Gardens, just bring your own pillow and show up. I found out about through a friend but the rest found out about it through Facebook and quite a few people showed up and it was fun! Although exhausting, a great tip for a fun and worthwhile exercise is to have a pillow fight!!



The main pillow fight!




Of course I had to get in there.

After the fight I hung out with some friends before I went home to go to dinner with my housemates and a friend of theirs.

This week in general I have been out and about quite a bit, this Wednesday I went to this pretty cool, laid back bar and had my personal favorite drink...yeah you got it cranberry juice and sprite. On Friday I went with some friends to a restaurant called Vegie Bar and had...wait for it...a Greek Salad...yeah you read right... However, by the time I came back home I was hungry again and cooked some noodles so probably not the most economic evening:)


Oh before I forget this is for you Bella...


It is really tasty but expensive!

It doesn't seem to matter what continent I am on I always seem to get stuck on essays. I am currently trying to analyze the status and relevance of marriage today and I am drawing a blank. I should probably get back to the books and get some ideas but somehow I am not really feeling it now. I figured I take a break and my inspiration will come back to me ,I hope, because I really need to get a first draft done before I hit the sack today or the way it looks like tomorrow.

Anyway no more school stuff since I am meant to take a break with this posting. Last weekend I discovered a big advantage with Australia, it is cheap to go to the hairdresser, well at least in comparison with Sweden. Major revelation!

Other than getting a haircut I went to a open house/day at the Parliament here and a Greek festival.

Ok, so this post is not all that interesting but what can I say my life currently consists of school, food, bed. I really need to find some balance soon...







I got to say Hello to the Queen.




Probably the only chance I will ever get to be the President of anything so I took it:)

Ok so I promised some pictures from Melbourne and where I live so here they come.







Victoria Gardens




More from Victoria Gardens. This place is in the middle of the city maybe 2 min tram ride from the biggest train station. It feels really absurd being able to see palm trees in the city or at all, not exactly common back home.




Part of Melbourne's skyline.

And so on to the pictures of where I live





View from the Balcony




The living room




The Kitchen


I know there is no picture of my room but I haven't gotten around to taking a good one yet probably cuz it is always messy:)
And for the record if anyone is complaining about it being to cold we had 32 degrees today and it is now 12 am (00.00) and I am sitting in a tank top and shorts and sweating my ass off. I would definitely trade you for some cooler weather right about now.

Bye,

Today I have one of those days when it hits me that I am actually in Australia. The reason for this hitting me today is how upside down everything is. Take today for example it is the 19th of March which is suppose to be cold, rainy, snowy etc but here I am having 28 degrees, sun from a clear blue sky and walking around in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops thinking about how hot it is.

For the life of me I can't figure this weather out first of all when I walk away from home some mornings it is "cold" so I put on sweatpants and a sweater but by the time I get out of class the first thing I have to do is to go home and change clothes because it has gotten to gotten too hot to wear what I am wearing. Or like yesterday it was, well colder I guess the correct term is and I even drank a cup of hot chocolate when I got up in the morning (yes morning I had an 8.30 class) because I was cold and then today I wake up sweating. No wonder I am well on my way to developing a cold.

On other news I love Foxtel (which is paid tv like comhem) because last night they sent a summary of the game between the Red Wings and the Flyers...NHL baby..and I got reminded why I love hockey. This morning however I got a reminder why you really shouldn't invest time, energy and money in sports. I turn on the computer excited hoping Leksand has finally won a game in their fight for qualification to the highest league, but what do I find?! They got creamed in their game yesterday and lost with 5-1...really how come this team year after year win the league they are playing in but when it counts they just can't perform? It is starting to be exhausting... Now most of you probably thinks who cares well I do but I won't bore you with that anymore.In fact I really should get back to the schoolwork I am procrastinating on...some things never change...But I will post some pictures later today or tomorrow on Melbourne, my apartment etc that some people have requested.

Bye,