Unanswered Qs

One of my awesome friends messaged me today asking me a few questions which I haven't yet answered :) he also filled me in on the fact that I probably wont be missing any Stanley cup parades :( lol

GO HABS GO!

In short : school is less stressful here... but I'm taking 5 classes so I have to do "some" work lol I am actually doing quite a bit because it keeps me busy and I feel less guilty when I am on the beach or partying lol

The people here are nice but I don't think as nice as Montrealers... and definitely not as nice as people from NZ !! We got adjusted pretty well and now having been back from travelling for a while we can't wait to sleep is a strange single bed in a strange hostel you booked last minute because they were offering free breakfast :) not to mention the ads about no cockroaches ! just kidding :P

Lastly he told me how awesome the pics form NZ looked :) but I feel like the skydiving pics don't do it justice so here is one that roger bought from the company :) (I don't have any because they were charging $250 for someone to jump besides you to film you lol )

It was every bit as crazy as you would imagine!

Till the next update!

A little taste of Sri Lanka for Dimitri

A few posts ago I wrote about how I made an authentic italian cuisine dinner for rog :) Tonight he made an authentic Sri Lankan dinner for me :)

Roti, curried beef and seasoned potatoes and onions = Delicious

Best part of it was after we were done cooking our meals we said the same thing .. This is awesome .. but momma still makes it better lol

Till the next update!

Made it to sunshine

Finally made it to the sunshine coast ! but with our luck the one day we make it to get up early enough to make it out there it was rainy and cloudy .. but we still had an awesome time :) This morning we packed leftovers and some snacks and headed out to the sunshine coast which is about 2 and a half hours away by public transit .. but the view along the way in the train is pretty nice :)

In turns out that today was the mooloolaba triathlon (mooloolaba is one of the nicest beaches on the sunshine coast) so there was quite a bit of action near the beaches with sponsors and info booths ... It was a bit too cold for swimming (especially since I forgot my towel :P) but we soaked our feet and relaxed :)

The clouds made for some nice picture opportunities .. this is what I managed to catch on my camera :)

The view from under some trees where we were hiding out during the rain

Feet deep in the water

Triathlon finish line

ART lol

The little shops that cater to the residents and tourists of the beach

More ART :)

Me and Rog in action :)

Till the next update!

A little taste of Italy for Roger

Now that I am equipped with my new investments I figured I would taste them to see if I had inherited momma's green thumb.. Turns out I did .. at least for Basil lol tastes great and is growing nicely .. I used some to whip up a nice italian meal for roger :) (figure I should reciprocate the beef curri :)

I made meat / little hamburgers made with parsley, basil, garlic and breadcrumbs served with gnocci and tomato sauce :) topped with some grated cheese and basil

Roger loved it ! 

Till the next update!

Feeling a little more like McGill ...

The last 3 days have been filled homework :O I know what a surprise! lol Roger had an assignment to do and I helped him .. Thursday we stayed up till 5 am only to find out that the assignment was extended till saturday at 11 pm ... So we worked on the assignment most of the weekend except for a little social networking we did on friday night at a friend's house who invited us over for his house's pool party :) It was what seemed to be a typical uni party with people from all over the world who all met more or less at our university.. We made tons of new friends and even some local aussies!

More Investments!

Finally made it to the market!!! :) I woke up early this morning to hit the farmers market located in the city to buy some fruits and vegetables at an attractive price ;)

Located adjacent to the city center

So the rumors were true and the market had some great produce and at a very nice price ! :) I got fresh ginger, nice vegetables and fruits.. I also got 3 new additions to the family :)

I call them:
PARSLEY, OREGANO and CORIANDER :)

I transplanted them and fertilized them so they are ready to produce !

Another aspect of Aussie life I wanted blog about was the lines at the bus stops lol or lack thereof :)

This is people trying to get on a bus from a varied range of ages and races lol I guess no one lines up here 

Finally I hear the weather is looking good in MTL besides a bit more snow that has fallen :P But I just wanted to let you all know that I too suffer the harsh cruelty of beautiful weather :P

Till the next update!

Fusion Fajitas, spiders and basil

So I got Roger to try fajitas made with homemade seasoned chicken, fried vegetables like bell peppers and mushrooms and cheese tomatoes and lettuce :) He loved it and we will definitely be making more of those soon ;)Me and Roger have established a new fusion cuisine SRI LANKA meet the Mediterranean :) 

Awesome Fajitas!

Those of you who know me know that I do not deal well with seaweed, spiders, in general with creepy crawlers lol ... but since I have been here I have seen so many that this sight has become quite normal .. There no real danger as long as you stay out of the bush and on the concrete.. avoid crossing through trees .. there will always be spider webs there ! lol

Finally my basil plant is still alive :) I spoke with mom and wikipedia lol and I should leave it in hot dry weather (its humid here but definitely hot!) so fingers crossed.. everyday I come home from school and look at my plant to see how it is doing lol

Till the next update!

Innovation!

My grandfather would be soo proud (both of them) I took my investment from the last blog and innovated like they teach me at Ericsson ;)

I basically took my basil plant and transplanted it into a half cut plastic container of milk ... then I realized that I needed more earth to fill up the container ... so today after school I lugged 5 kg of earth and fertilizer from the local shopping center on the train to my flat :) I then proceeded to INNOVATE :)

Here are the fruits of my labor :)

Beauty...

I am so proud :)

Till the next update!
Hopefully the basil will grow by then !

Another investment.. this one makes me feel at home

As I mentioned in the previous blog every once in a while I make a investment purchase .. so far I have purchase a ethernet cable for better internet speeds, a cutting board to cut easier and now I have bought a basil plant :) and pending its sucess or failure I will continue to invest in plants :)

I picked it up at the grocery store and only cost me a couple of bucks but already produces more basil than what you buy already packaged :) THRIFTYYY

I carried it in the train as if it was a baby .. making sure no one bumps into my new beautiful basil plant :)

Now I will have to call momma to see how she keeps these things alive long enough so I can get my moneys worth lol 

My beautiful new investment

Till the next update!

Stuck in the 70s

This weekend I was a tourist again :) One of our new friends from Australia offered to take us on a road trip to the beach :) .. unfortunately it started raining... so instead of hitting the beach we stopped by this city called Nimbin... It is a city that is stuck in the 70s .. outfitted with psychedelic murals, make love not war signs, and incense burning in the street :)

Cafe where we had some good burgers

Inside the Nimbin Museum

Synonymous with the 70s

The main street

This place was awesome .. people move at a slower pace lol but its surreal to see an entire city (more of a village) completely stuck in the 70s

Till the next update!

Connectivity !

The apartment has internet but its pretty slow.. and the connectivity in my room is bad .. but I have come to discover that one of the telephone looking outlets is actually ethernet :) and so I went out and bought an ethernet cable and voila ! faster better internet that I can use to call my family and friends :)

On another note we were supposed to be taking a road trip this weekend but the rental agency wouldn't rent us the car because our licenses are in french and they couldn't be responsible to translate taille : 1.67m to height: 1.67m lol but we are looking for a solution :) I even tried calling the Canadian high consulate but they were jerks and brushed me off ... oh well .. the best part of the conversation with the rental agency is that they told me they wouldn't be able to match the french and english versions of my name hahaha

Till the next update!

Investments

Despite our apartment being "fully furnished" we are still missing some crucial items a chef needs to be able to prepare his masterpieces :)  Me and Rog call these items investments and with our limited budget can only make one every few weeks lol so to get to the point yesterday we bought a new cutting board and a beauty at that :)

The ingredients for today's omelet

The next crucial item we are missing is a good cutting knife .. but one investment at a time lol

Two new additions!!

Today is one of the happiest blogs to date as I have two new additions to my family !! I look forward to seeing them when I come back to montreal !! :)



Over that school is really starting to move and I am making some great connections for my thesis when I go back to school in September :) Also making a lot of new friends :) I figure I average about 5 new acquaintances every day ! :) I took a page out of Mr. Marzin's book and talk to everyone I see .. bus stop, in front of class lol initially I just pretended to be lost and ask for directions .. now I'm looking for the closest good market for some spices :) Roger's mom's care package only lasted so far .. lol  :) We still have quite a bit left but were running out of crushed chilli lol

Till the next update!


Here are two videos from NZ :)

The first is jsut a video of one of the drives from Christchurch to Franz Josef :) just to give you an idea of what we were looking at during our bus ride !

The second is a video of a waterfall in Milfred Sound :)

Over 1000 hits :) and a great dinner !

If you check the counter on the right hand side of the page you can see that I now have more than 1000 hits on my blog :) which is awesome because it shows me that my family and friends are keeping tabs on me !! (I think 900 of which are from my GGF)

I figured we have made so many nice dishes that our mothers would be so proud of but I haven't taken any pictures .. so tonight we went out of our way to make a great meal and take a picture :)

Its funny because now I will do stuff during the day and be like that would make a good blog post :P

So without further a due here is the meal for tonight and tomorrow's lunch :)

Curried beef with rice and potatoes.. and yes its quite spicy!

Till the next update !

Just in case :)

This blog is dedicated to "just in case"

Just in case you thought I wasn't partying while I was down under :P



Just in case you thought that bananas we're cheap because of the nice weather around here

Banana prices have skyrocketed due to the floods and cyclone Yasi

We did groceries again today :) fruits and vegetables don't seem to keep to long down here .. maybe the hot weather .. or the low quality produce .. lol which is directly related to the low price we want to pay for the produce lol

And we like the nando's restaurant sauce so much we brought a bottle back home with us :)

Notice the label ! Extra HOT!

 We now have two chefs in the kitchen in our flat (me and rog) .. I'm not used to cooking spicy because only few of us at home like it really hot ... roger is not used to cooking without spice .. because "it just has no taste" -Roger Fernando lol so I have built up quite the immunity to spices.. I will come home a little Sri Lankan :)

Today was the first day I did some homework :S it was inevitable but I didn't have that much :) Week 2 starts tomorrow work should start to pile up soon and I should feel right back at home :P

Till the next update!

After a week of school

Now that a week of school has passed I can say with that were are finally getting into the swing of things :) We know where are classes are, what we need, how to pack lunches (ones that don't take too long to make ;P) We have made friends in our apartment complex and we went out with them last night into the valley :) It was very busy and lots of people .. one of the friends we made sat with the street drummers (a group of lebanese guys playing derbeka) and we started playing and dancing in the streets (they are closed to traffic lol )  Here you have to be in a club by 3 am but they won't close till 4:30 ish ..

The last few days have been rainy and cool (ie 25 lol) its a welcome change from the heat we were experiencing a few days ago :)

Tonight is the world cup cricket game between Australia and Sri Lanka :) and since we don't have foxtel sports this will be one of the only games he will be able to watch with Sri Lanka (because they are the opponents of the OZ team)

So GO SRI LANKA GO!!!

Tomorrow will be a grocery day / homework :)

Till the next update !

Here is a few pics of my bungy :)

Scariest part of the fall

After you stop bouncing they pick you up by boat

Ahhhhhh

You have the option of getting dipped in the water

:)

Change

This blog is going to be about something else that is very strange about Oz... there change (the one you get when you buy a pack of gum with a 5 dollar bill)

First thing is the smallest denomination is 5 cents .. so when doing transactions in cash if the price is 99.96 it will get rounded down to 99.95 or if its 99.98 then it'll become 100.00.. second thing you can see if that the 5 cents is the smallest followed by 10 then 20 and then 50 which is this massive piece of metal .. 4 times the thickness of a Canadian quarter and twice as big ... finally the 1 dollar is far smaller than the 50 cent and the 2 dollar even smaller (about the size of 4 stacked  Canadian pennies)

The notes are nice.. close to Canadian but plastified ..

Similar to canadian currency though .. the more you have the better it is :)

Till the next update!

Rain rain go away..

So tonight was the big launch party of SECS (some society me and rog joined to party with lol ) but when we left the apartment to go out after getting all dressed up this is what we were faced with ..



So now we are watching CSI miami :) which makes me miss my mom and my family (as we would watch CSI together :) )

Besides that school is fun ! making lots of new friends and learning some new stuff in class :)

Till the next update !

School is underway..

Today was our third day at school .. classes are starting to get underway.. need to get books, papers, notebooks ... but classes seem fun and interesting :) Were really getting the hang of dinner .. on sunday we had prepared some stuff for the week like hamburger paties we put in the freezer, pasta sauce, pre-cut fruits vegetables and salads :) tonight we whipped up an awesome dinner with leftovers in less than 45 minutes :) which is an improvement from the hour it usually takes us lol

Tonight we gonna go out with the friends we have made from our apartment :) just a quick drink at the local bar :) then bed for tomorrow's classes ! ...

I hear my aunt has been having a blast and kicking things up a notch on vaca :) you go girl !!

Also we bought a 4 liter jug of wine lol don't worry we haven't drank it yet and will take our time but this is the drink of choice amongst the students since alcohol is so expensive ( nearly twice the price for hard liquor compared to MTL) the 4 liters is basically the leftovers from all the wines and they call it "goon" lol I'll let you know how it tastes.. money is that it will be disgusting

Went to the gym for a second time in a row and my body is really aching :) getting out of bed tomorrow will be fun :S

Till the next update !

We have become..... thrifty !

In short today we woke up went to school and then hit the gym :) Classes were good we're really starting to get a feel for the classes ... they seem interesting and I am excited to get into it... The gym was awesome .. well the actual just was OK... nothing like atlantis and definitely nothing like Chez Chris :) but it will do the trick for the time I am here .. but hitting the gym just felt great!! :) 

We are also learning our way around the campus :)

Now about thriftiness .. tonight was cheapy tuesday at Dominos so we picked up pizza to eat lol also singed up for the gym and got a free bank account to pay for it because it was cheaper :)

As todays blog isn't as exciting as the ones about bungie jumping or skydiving here is a video of a beautiful canyon cut out by the glaciers :)



Til the next update !