Winter is Coming... 

Hi everybody! It's been a long time since we posted something. But we're still here! 

Time is just flying by so fast, and suddenly we're having our last lecture for this semester, and only one week left before the first exam starts. Where did the time go? 

Well, this is a small review of where we have spent some of our time during the past month or two:)

Of course, much of our time has been spent at school. 

Good humor is evolving with schoolwork...

Stan has been having a lot of exams and have done well. He has also been having his practical periods at hospital three times a week the last month, which he is learning a lot from.

While Stans behavior has shifted towards 'sedentary', I am being brain washed with exercise physiology, psychology, physical activity and health. Let's put it this way; one of us is meeting the "Physical activity guidelines" that's needed to gain health benefits, … while others don't. Anyway, it's been really interesting learning abut training, nutrition, physical activity, health, biomechanics, sport and exercise psychology and so on, and it inspires me to be active!

Doing yoga at my mat at home, yey!

The Australian animal life was something that we where a little skeptic towards in the beginning of our stay. How many poisonous spiders will nest under our bed and how many snakes will come crawling up our toilet… Well, the answer is NO ONE, and that's a little disappointing actually! The only creepy thing we've had during these four months is two cockroaches visiting our flat, and only one of them acted really nasty (poohed on the floor). So, we wanted to spend some time visiting a place where you are guarantied to see dangerous animals: A Zoo!

Denne strutsen hilser til deg, Una

The Lone Pine Koala sanctuary was a very calm and nice place, and the best thing was that the kangaroos, wallabies, struts and other non- poisonous animals where walking freely among us! Meaning, you could get to know them a little better. Hehehe, meaning I could cuddle them :D 

This was my favorite 'Blue Kangaroo" 

I was dancing with the Struts.

A sheepdog and his hole

Actually, we also met the big yellow Pyton on "a walk" in the fields … He wasn't moving much tough, and thank God for that. And when the carer decided that the snake had got enough stretching, he just picked him up and carried him away like a scarf… 

Seeing a Koala for the first time made us laugh solo hard! It is just the strangest thing ever. It's just chillin' in the tree, and you really wonder "why has this specie survived?" 

Koala latterkrampe...

Look at this guy!

Anyway, my favorite animal of them all were the wallabies! 

Curious little fellow.

Two curious little fellows ;)

And in the end I also got to cuddle a Koala!

Dinner party. Seeing those beautiful kangaroos 'inspired us' to have a kangaroo feast with Torbear, Ingrid and Kayleen. And they sure taste jammy! 

Kangaroo, rum and coce.

Scavenger Hunt

Some of the other cool things I've done this past months is all thanks to one particular event happening in march. ANSA arranges a 'Scavenger Hunt' for students every year, which basically is having teams dressed out in funny (and sometimes vulgar) costumes solving a "rebus", and of course a lot of alcohol is involved in every step of the way. Our team, "Et Lite stykke Norge" dressed up as eventyrfigurer, me being the Troll, cause I have "bustete kroellete haaar"… 

"Det var en gang... "
Can you guess the characters?

Already at the meeting point at South Bank our team stood out from the others, that being because 1. our costumes did not reveal 80 % of our skin, and 2. we were not drunk. 

But after something like 6 hours with hunting down task after task, we got the taste of victory coming our way. And when the winners were claimed many hours later to "Et Lite stykke Norge!" we just knew we had had the best secret weapon ever - not being totally slushed (dritings).

So we won! - and we won prices that got us going Skydiving and taking a Sunset cruise with a catamaran down at Gold Coast. Weheew!

You can tell that we have practiced the skydiving posture!

*glis*

Sunset cruice

Sigrid and her cool sunnies

Ingrid, Sigrid og Mariann. Fine jenter!

Beate fra Siljan

We also celebrated 17. Mai down here at the 17th of may ;P 

Brunosten!

That day was smelling patriotism a long way, I'm telling ya. But it was a beautiful day with brunost for breakfast at the girls house and then vaffler with more brunost later in the city. Some of my Aussie friends also came along to celebrate "Norway day" and one of them, Zak, liked it so much that he brought home a norwegian flag. 

Hurra for 17. mai!

One day me and Xander went to the Glashouse mountains north of Brisbane to climb. The Glashouse mountains consists of a flat plain, punctuated by rhyolite and trachyte volcanic plugs (the cores of extinct volcanoes that formed 27 million to 26 million years ago) (source; Wikipedia:P). And it's good for climbing! We have been climbing at Kangaroo point some evenings as well, but the quality of the climbing is not that good, so it was super nice to get out of town and do some really good routes!

Mount Tiborgorgan, one of the volcanic peaks in the Glashouse Mountains

Nice view

Stan got this great idea the other day. He came home with a hair cutter. "Now I don't have to spend money on going to the hairdresser!" It was a good thought! But it didn't go that well, unfortunately... and when I tried to fix it, it didn't get any better. He cut to much of around his ears, so it looked like he had 'farts striper' on each side of his head. Good that I had bought him a cap for his birthday. And that his hair still grows out again... ;)

Cutting in action!

This is a bloody serious University!

It's soon exam, actually only one week left to study! Stan has his last presentation exam, called "Anatomy Night" the 17th of june, and I have my last exam the 20th. So we are still studying hard and preparing for that.

My Aussie friends Zak and Libby studying for mid semester some months ago.

So, while I'm writing the winter holiday is getting closer and closer. WE are so exited! Cause we are getting both our families down to visit us (and they are coming at the same time). "A Big Happy Family". And after having a road trip with our big (and hopefully) happy family down to Sydney, Stan and I are going to the Blue Mountains for two weeks to climb. SOOOO EXITTEDDDD!

www.googleimages.com ;)

I have to admit one thing tough, … I get really jealous watching pictures of you guys getting into Norwegian summer holiday! Hopefully you'll have a warm and sunny summer, it have started good at least ;)

So wish you all the best summertime! 

God sommer dere!

FRASER ISLAND

Hi everyone! 

Hope you had a great Easter Holiday - and apparently you guys had a REALLY GREAT easter this year! I'm almost jealous. The weather Gods gave you the whole package didn't they. 

Well, we have also had an wicked holiday, and we'll try to sum up the highlights from out trip to Fraser Island in a bit, 

But first: "Stemnings rapport" from our normal life in Brissie the last couple of weeks, in pictures:

Brisbane River

The campus

Late evening at Uni

Dinner home..

Dinner out ;) Our favorite in Toowong!

Biking to Uni on the very yellow Citycycles

The Lolly shop at Uni.. I'm to found of this shop..

Stans Birthday!! We went to Regatta Hotel/Bar with Ingrid, Torbear
and som more pepole form fysio

Fraser Island! 

"It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"And it was! Both Stan, Ingrid, Torbear and me really got our bums shaked and stirred in our Toyota Landcruiser.

Seif, Emilie, Ingrid, Torbear, Stan and me - and our 4WD!

We rented this monster of a car at Britz rentals, and they actually rent you the car with all you'll need for a Australian camping holiday. So in the car we got our tents, sleeping bags, mats (even pillows!), chairs, table, cooking equipments, a fridge and even a portable shover:P haha. They really know camping in this country, hey!

What they don't know down here - is driving on the right side of the road- 

Stan took the load and offered to try and bring us safe out of the city. Not without some struggling, but at last Stan learned not to put the wiskers on when he wanted to side blink, and he stopped asking "Hvor i helvete kommer bilene fra her?!" at every junction. 

Feeling cinda left-handed!

Torbear learning the tricks from Seif.

Such a beauty!

On the way to Fraser, the expression "Stay safe with Seif" emerged. Lucky for us, Seif showed us some important things to consider when driving a 4WD!

The Kids in the backseat!

 To get to Fraser Island, you typically take a ferry. That's something we're used to from Norway. Well, I guess you could say they do it a little "less complicated" down here. The ferry just anchored straight at the beach. Easy. 

The ferry to Fraser Island!

After a short ferry ride we were speeding onto Fraser and, heading for the Pacific beach highway. That was a rare experience. It was something I've never done before. And not the others either. So, in the first ten to fifteen minutes there were a lot of screams, funny noises and  happy faces emerging from the car windows. 

Driving on the sandy highway!

Yippeyyy!

A beautiful place!

The shifting of the low- and high tide is pretty big, and the highway gets flooded at high tide. Therefor we had to get to our point of camping before the swell got to high. This was no problem - this day- ;)

The first two nights we stayed in the middle of the island, called Central Starion - funny how this name gives you misleading associations to some urban centre when it's only some toilets in the bush. This place was beautiful, with high trees and a lot of bird noises. We were eager to get our camp up and to try our fancy facilities! But then we found out that the rental company had sent us away with mismatching tents… We had two small tents, one with a rain cover -and one without, and a big cover without pools ect. 

But, as the Aussie say, "No worries". Stan got his McGyver hat on and made a fantastic totempel of our camp:) In the evening we were eating tacos, accompanied by a (either) big mouse or a small rat. In the end we were all sitting more on the table than beside it and the guys felt they needed to protect us from this threat with wooden mallets.

hmmmm... 

The McGyver solution!

Candlelights and curious mouse.  

The next day we met Seif and Emilie (his girlfriend) and went to lake McKenzie - Or actually - first we had to fix the fridge, cause it'd shut down. When we didn't menage to fix it - we just bought ice ( I will probably get smacked for saying that "we" were trying to fix it, hehe, OKOK, Stan and Torbear tried to fix it). And second - we got stuck in the sand! And this time Stan and Torbear felt "they didn't get the change to try to fix it!" - cause there was two other guys coming over and helped us out right away. Her vil vi klare det sjoel ja! - 

We are beginning to learn how it is to do real 4WD!

A dingo!! Sooo quite!  

Finally getting to Lake McKenzie!

After taking a swim in lake McKenzie we headed over to make dinner and drink some beer with Seif and Emilie at their camping spot by the beach. When the night came out, the sky was bright with stars! Infact, we could view to the whole Milkyway from our spots at the beach. I felt quite small then. Me and Stan revealed some mystery riddles to the others around the bonfire, and especially Emilie got completely carried away with the game. All I was missing was my "Lommelerke" with some good whisky ;)

Beauty at the sanddunes 

Of course - the campfire!

It was hard to capture the Milkyway ...

Our kitchen in the back of the truck.

The ride home in the dark, got more exiting than planned… We had to drive some part of it on the beach, and since it was getting high tide things got a little challenging. But Torbear was steady as a shadow, and managed to swing the car back to position when I was certain is was gonna tip over. A little shaky, we bumped into the dirt roads, leaving the beach behind, feeling lucky our car didn't end up in the swells of this nights high tide:P 

The next days were filled up with more 4Wdriving, fresh lakes, sand dunes, dingo visits at night and more sand. We moved our camp to the beach for the last two nights, and had breakfast at the beach on the morning. Life was good!

Ingrid and Emilie with wind in their skirts:)

Small living things inside 

Happy clappers 

Stan makes a jump for it at Lake Wabby

I did jump after this picture...;P

A beautiful morning, promising rain...

Our monster car!

"Gass, gass, gass, gass, gassssss!"

We even saw a snake! In the bush! We were walking to Lake Wabby, and suddenly Seif points at a snake crossing the path in front of us. Pretty undramatic. And I didn't even get afraid! - Australia does something to ya - that's for sure;) 

The Maheno wreck, just lying at the Pacific beach highway

The Maheno wreck. Once shaped for the sea, now shaped by it.

Freedom!

The island is over 125 km long, and 25 km at the widest. The northernmost point we got to was Waddy Point. Here you have a small community of what we would call 'Fancy cabins', a shop and a camping ground. But you also have a wide, untouched beach more sheltered than the everlasting Pacific Highway. We were looking for freedom - and here we found it! ;)

No use in stopping here!

Holiday smile!

Walking barefoot from the Indian Head cliff.
You don't need shoes on Fraser:)

Car posing in front of Red Canyon

This trip really offered the peace and quiet that we needed. To be on an remote island, having all this open space and freedom was like a kick of an experience! And all this beautiful beaches and lakes… They said you couldn't swim in the sea cause of sharks and underwater streams, but we didn't see any sharks, so we took some dips father all. 

At the same time, Fraser Island gets many visitors that drive around in 4WD cars. The Australian Government has done a good job to make sure the wildlife is protected, and that people enter this place with respect. You could not drive wherever you wanted, and there was strict regulations on the amount of visitors entering. The police was aslo present at different spots, performing alcohol driving test and checking security. We could all imagine how this place could become if people had entered this 'no mans land' with their 4WD and beers. Hopefully they will be able to perserve Fraser so that this beautiful place stays beautiful. 

Looking south on Fraser Island from Indian Head cliff. 

Taking a dip in the bobbeling Champagne Pools 

Doing the dishes at the beach 

Eating breakfast with beach view.  

Ingrid and the clear green kulp.

The City cat taking us back to Brisbane

After getting back to Brisbane again we have spent some days at school. I have a midterm exam next week in sport psychology, and Stan has always something to do:)

But two days ago me and Ingrid took my Blue Hurley out to play! We went to Currumbin down at Gold Coast to check out the waves. And Hurley and I really bonded. I think we can learn great things together;) 

Trying to catch the small waves rolling in;)

Yesterday we also went to our first Aussie Football game (called Footie). The Brisbane Lions vs the Adelaide Crows. That was real fun! this game is so strange in many ways, but entertaining - especially when the players start to fight each other (you don't get red or yellow cards here). 

When you guys are feeling the warmer season getting closer (or do you really?), we feel it's getting chillier. It's actually nice, cause then we don't get so 'svett' when cycling to Uni in the mornings.

Alright peeps! Thank's for keeping up with the news! 

And remember that we are also curious on what you guys are doing!! So please post photos, write or call;) Both our mum and dads have just been to Tanzania and Peru!, and our lovely friends have been to USA and other beautiful places in Norway. Arn't we lucky, hey?

Lots of love! 

See ya later!!

"From the place you'd rather be" .... ;)