Ok, so I will actually add text to the entry now! haha.

Last week was our second Melbourne adventure- this time with my boss Jen and former work colleague/psychology research nerd friend Tamara (who really isn't as much of a research nerd as I am, but anyway). AnkoNick was also dragged along, however Melbourne has such an allure that there actually wasn't any dragging involved.

I really adore the city. The conference I went to was alright- my presentation went well, I have journalists from the Sunday Mail trying to get in touch with me now (ohhh! I'm famous! I'm a famous psychology research nerd! woo!), and I had offers to be flown to SA to present my work there... so hey, I think it went alright!

Anyway, getting back to the travel bit, we went to melbourne and it was quite fun. It was cold, but not as cold as you'd expect (if you were expecting it to be so cold you couldn't breathe, that is). It rained and I don't think I saw a blue sky once, but that's ok because it suits all the pretty old buildings, the trams and the whole mystical yet uber-cool nature of the place. Thanks to some local tip-offs, we discovered fabulous watering holes tucked upstairs in random places. The pictures I'm attaching here are tamara, Ankonick and I at one such venue, that had these really awesome booths you could sit in... so cool. I can't recall the name of this place, but it's upstairs from another ultracool bar, cookie (which is upstairs from somewhere else that I can't quite recall).

We also checked out the markets, which weren't as thrilling as I'd hoped, however my lack of funds and the fact that we were departing that night and thus couldn't purchase any cheese may have contributed to this perception. I did, however, purchase a super cool work dress, and the wine stall was a great excuse for Tamara and I to drink at 9 in the morning, haha.

Melbourne gets a 10/10 as far as I am concerned. I'd move there if you'd all agree to come with me.

4 (four!) weeks and 2 days until we depart for our around-the-world adventure!

Like so many travellers will attest, the best trips are often not made by the scenery, monuments or museums that you see; they are made by the people that you ecounter. New friends and the subsequent realisation of the universality of human experience - the "same-ness" of all people, regardless of race or nationality - is a far more memorable and profound experience than merely ascending the Eiffel Tower or seeing the Mona Lisa. It is for this reason that I have not aimed to necessarily see all of the tourist attractions of Paris; I have aimed to engage with the city and the people within it. Specifically, my experience has been focussed around Sciences Po (the university that I have attended), and the diverse range of people studying alongside me.

Never before have I been in an environment with such a high concentration of motivated, intelligent and educated individuals whose interests are similar to my own. It is with sadness, therefore, that I farewell them as we part ways to return to our home countries, which are as diverse as Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Australia... I have made some great friends who I will miss dearly.

I could go on, but I wont, mostly because I think I have already made my point. In case it wasn't clear: don't travel solely to see attractions; travel to engage with and understand others. You will probably find that you are not as different as you might think.

So on Saturday Johnnie and I went for an extreme picnic at Mt Tamborine! Well, not extreme really I'm just trying to get your attention! We went to Mt Tamborine for some bush walks and we also had a lovely picnic at a sunny picnic ground at Witches Falls national park which incidentally was the first national park in Queensland.

We went for a bushwalk down to the Cedar Creek Falls, which were very nice and had lots of water flowing over them. We wanted to go for a nudie swim but there were people around.

Ok, so by now you've realised that the before mentioned Johnnie is also writing this entry... 'nudie'????

Cedar Creek Falls was gorgeous, one of the things we loved best about it was that you could actually move off the path and go right to the falls. There's some beautiful rock formations that just begged to be sunned upon and I can imagine that it would be absolutely irresistable in the summer!

We also checked out the Witches Falls, but were disappointed at the complete lack of witches around the joint. The falls were good though, long vertical stone columns along the cliff face.

After that we had lunch at the picnic grounds above the Witches Falls where the only thing that spoiled the moment was the main road only a few metres away.

We also had a beer at the local pub, St. Bernards, named after the dog. And, lo and behold, there was a giant St. Bernard strolling around the inside of the pub uninhibited! I feared that he would surely swallow me whole.

But he was beautiful and had the waitresses in the palm of his, uh paw. Of course, Mt Tamborine is also known for its arts and crafts which we didn't even check out this time because, alas, we were due for a nanna nap! We didn't even get some of their world famous fudge!

So we went home for a nanna nap and that's the end of this story!

THE END

May/June 2008 - We have just returned from about a month traveling mostly through central Queensland. I think we now qualify as grey nomads. We had a great time and met some fascinating people.

We started the trip by spending a week chilling out in a house at South Golden Beach near Byron Bay. After that, with our trusty commodore (regularly used as a 4wd with limited success) and luggage trailer, we set sail for the bush.

We travelled from the Gold Coast through Tenterfield, Goondiwindi, St George, Mitchell, Injune, Carnavon George, Emerald, Mackay, Airlie Beach, back to Mackay, Clairview, Gladstone, Alexandra Headland and back home.

The contrasts from the lush northern New South Wales to the heartbreaking dry areas of Goondiwindi, to the recently heavily flooded oasis of Carnavon George, to the Great Barrier Reef and back to the Sunshine Coast were quite staggering.

Other than the battle with the Road Trains, the resultant scars on my windscreen and the tell tale signs on our tent from having camped under a favourite afternoon toilet stop for a flock of about 50 sulphur crested cockatoos, all went well.

We stayed in a house, cabins and camped during our trip. The accomodation was flexible and was determined mostly by the weather (rain and cold).

My recommendation to anyone taking this kind of trip is to take your time and enjoy the surroundings. Other than the grey nomads and us, everyone seems to be prepared to drive huge distances in these regions.

I will report back on our planned Egypt trip later in the year.

so ive been living in paris for nearly 4 months now, but there is still so much i am yet to see and do. the university im at here is insane, i can understand why so few parisian students have jobs on top of their studies...

only a couple of weeks left until uni is finished, then i will explore!

In exactly three months, I shall be in Tokyo. Excited much? haha.

In just over two months, I'm presenting at AIFS conference in melbourne (ohhh, my name is on the program on their website. In bold for some bizarre reason... how thrilling, even if I am on the last presentation slot for the day, haha).

Better finish writing that goddamn paper, I suppose.

And in other random news: do any of you nerds watch battlestar gallatica? Who is the final cylon? I was convinced it was going to be the president (well, she is dying, and they were about to go on a mission to take out the resurrection ship, which would have made for fabulous irony... if it weren't for the goddamn hibrid on the ship being plugged in and jumping them to an unspecified location at the end of today's episode), but then I read the the final model is not featured in their promo pictures, so I'm imagining instead that it's gator (seeing as he just started singing after getting his leg amputated) and that the model six cylon that they've got locked up at gallatica (featured in the president's visions) has some huge evil plan, or something... yep, that must be it.

nerd signing off (PS: go and download the show before you jest, fool! :P).

Last weekend was our melbourne trip. The boy and I had a great time exploring the city. I'd never been before, and he had but hadn't stayed in the city so it was an adventure for both of us. I love the weather down there, cool breezes and no blinding hot sun. The city itself is gorgeous, much like brisbane but bigger and with an old world sort of charm that brisbane just doesn't have.

We did all sorts of stuff whilst down there. The first thing we did was head straight to the shops so I could buy a couple of extra jackets, lol. Alas, one of the jackets I bought ended up with a rip in it (not sure how that happened!) and some of the gorgeous stockings I got from myer also have two holes in them already, haha. I was terrified of looking at my bank account balances after all the money I spent. Never mind, but must save for our europe trip!

Ankonick took me out to dinner on the Saturday to the most gorgeous, largest meal I've ever had in my life. We went to Ezard and had the 8-course meal with matching wines for each course... oh my god, so much food and each dish was absolutely divine. We had breads and herb/spice mixes with balsamic vinegar infused with parmesan when we first arrived, and then had our starter of oyster shots with sake and wasabi, and a sweet corn asian soup shot with a glass of champagne. With each course the waiters would explain the origin of the wine and the ingredients of the dish. The waiters were very professional but not pretentious, which was good as I managed to spill sake all down my dress whilst trying to eat the oyster shot, haha. Our second dish was kingfish sashimi with sesame custard, lime caramel and pear salad (ok, i'm just going to copy the description from the menu, lol. We had the degustation menu on the website however ours was slightly different). That was awesome, very good indeed. They served that with a nice white wine. Next was steamed prawn dumpling with cauliflower cream, curry oil, celery cress with yarra valley salmon roe... this was also awesome, and the cauliflower soup around the dumpling was very good. I can't for the life of me remember which drinks came in which order after this dish, haha. Next we had salmon with asian gazpacho, tempura avocado, fennel salad and creme fraiche- this was one of Nick's favourites. Each of these dishes were amazing. By this stage I was starting to get full (between the wine and the dishes) and we weren't even half way there, lol. We moved on to one of my favourites, rice crusted kurobuta pork cheek with spiced apples, yellow bean soy, tamarind and peanuts... this dish was absolutely amazing. I think they might have served us a glass of red with this, or possibly an italian dessert white as the dish was a little spicy. We then were served a wagyu dish, but neither nick nor I can remember what sort of a dish this was, haha. Our main (not that we could fit it!) was then brought out, which was a gorgeous sichuan peppered duck with coconut rice, stir fried witlof, blood plum and ginger dressing. This dish was absolutely goddamn amazing- the best duck dish I've ever tasted (/perhaps the best dish I've ever tasted full stop). Just fabulous. After this we had dessert, not that we could really eat it, which was bitter sweet dark chocolate torte with mandarin sorbet. This was served with an '97 vintage red dessert wine which was absolutely amazing. I won't tell you how much this cost, but let's just say that the boy had to pay $100 just to secure our table with food on top of that. Seems rather wasteful but the food was absolutely devine. I don't think I'll ever eat so well again, lol.

So anyway, we were absolutely ridiculously full and nothing will ever taste as amazing as those dishes did!

On the sunday we headed to the Melbourne aquarium. Such a kid thing to do but oh so much fun- we even went in the dodgy little glass bottom boat around the shark tank, though I must say this was somewhat scary given that the boat was just a tin thing and the sharks are rather big and very close, lol.

Alas we had to leave on the sunday night. We survived our tiger flights, btw, despite the fact that their arrival area in melbourne very closely resembles (/is exactly the same as) a cage at the zoo, except minus some walls and add some extra wire and a conveyor belt. Suffice to say, Qantas flights booked for Melbourne in July, haha.

G'day Blaveler's! Just got back from a camping/4x4/dirt bike trip out at Kenilworth. Time for some Blavelage...

The lads went up on the Friday ANZAC public holiday, but i stuck around for prior commitments and went up on the Saturday morn, first thing. Now when you miss a turn off on the Bruce Highway, you REALLY MISS IT. So after taking 3 hours to complete a 2 hour trip i finally made it to Charlie Moreland camp site. Stories from the previous night abound, appanrently things went off like a frog in a sock, largely due to the number of young people camping out the night. A virtual rave party was held by the fire and a group of young lasses found there way, vodka in hand, to the fire pit for laughs and unconciousness. Stories of young adult revelry aside, i setup shop and get the truck ready for a trip.

There's some nice tracks backing Imbil State Forest, plenty of good hill climbs and decents and lots for the dirt bikes to jump around on. I thought i'd caught a possum under my left front tyre. Turns out my auto-lock hub is shagged again so it looks like Angus the 4x4's days are limited :( No more money will be spent on that bloody thing. So after some 4x4 we settle back, have some dinner and get stuck into the beers. Great night, with plenty of young girls still around for chats and the like. I briefly caught on fire at one point and now have severely shorter hair on the left side of my head. All fun and games but!

Crawled out of bed the next morn for another trip through the gullies and streams then up the mountain. All in all a good trip, if not somewhat uneventful compared to my last outing. Waiting on pics to come back so watch this space for updates

Back from camping at Aratula, was much fun. Walked up a mountain (i totally forget the name of said mountain, but was near the dam out that way), sat around a huge campfire, talked a fair bit, the usual PhD camping stuff. AnkoNick and I went out for lunch yesterday to an absolutely gorgeous restaurant and had the best meal you've ever seen in your life, website here. The place did not let us down- the views and food were amazing. Nick had duck breast with some sort of vanilla sauce that was absolutely amazing, with a side of citrus salad. I had salmon with mushrooms and mushroom basil sauce, and a side of potatoes with mushroom and mustard sauce. These were both amazing dishes, but Nick's especially was just absolutely divine. For dessert Nick had baked pear with some sort of bread type batter, with a prune inside the pear and prune sauce with prune icecream- also amazing. I had lavender almond flan and this was awesome too... actually, I have a picture of this from my phone which I'll add in here... so wonderfully good!

Karen and Lee came along for a day, which was amazing given that Karen gave birth 12 days earlier to Jax... now this is the cutest newborn you've ever seen, and I held him for an hour or so and oh my gosh was so thrilled- he is absolutely tiny! Lee handed Jax over to Nick, who was rather freaked to be holding the newborn given he's never held a baby in his life, haha. Speaking of babies, we slept in the cabin (no electricity or bedroom door). Savannah and Charlotte (kathy's kids) also slept the cabin, and kath and simon were outside in the tent, so each morning we were awoken by Savannah's, 'Mellllllll, Nickkkk, I need to go to the bathroom!'. She's cute, so easily forgiven. Last night by the fire, she turned to us and said, 'you don't have a baby do you? when are you going to get one?'. Actually, I was just thinking of picking up one of those from the store! haha (totally joking, i promise).

So happy to come home and shower this morning; the shower at Aratula consisted of a bucket with a string that you pulled. There was another bigger bucket with a fire nearby that you used to heat up the water to transfer to the bucket above your head in the shower... interesting! ha.

We had the most awesome campfire happening, but alas my camera battery died, so I leave you instead with random snaps over the first day.

I've realised that this year I will be heading to Melbourne three times... I haven't been yet, but heard lots about what an interesting place it is so I'm quite excited.

We're going for our first Melbourne adventure in two weeks- May 2nd- 4th. Had I realised that the monday of that weekend was also a public holiday, I would have organised for us to stay another night. It's our 1.5 year anniversary (I think I've written about this before) and also a few days after the boy's birthday. I'm not privy to what we'll actually be doing whilst down there on this trip, as AnkoNick is organising something special for us- fun, fun. We're flying tiger, so that should be ahhhh, shall we say, interesting? ha.

We'll also be in Melbourne 9th - 11th of july, as I'm presenting at the Australian Institute of Family Studies conference. I'd better make some moves on putting together the paper I'm supposed to be presenting for that conference, actually.

We'll then jet off for our round the world adventure from mid august until mid september.

Then off to Melbourne yet again in November for the QEC conference, where I shall be doing both an oral and poster presentation.

When I applied for these conferences, I was thinking that perhaps my abstracts be accepted for posters- never for a second thought that they'd want me to talk to them for half an hour about it. Now I'm going to have to write up a goddamn paper, lol. These are conferences of 500+ people... How completely terrifying.

Going camping at Aratula this weekend, so shall blavel about sometime soon too!