Week Eight: A total lack of work, clothes and sense...

I have now been an adopted Aussie for eight weeks! Madness. In these eight weeks there has been a lot of goon, rain, sunshine, sand and dignity-loss... And every week keeps getting better. Best week ever? No, it has been the best week in Australia so far, but the best is definitely yet to come.

Lazy Monday afternoons.

Monday was spent - as is becoming worryingly routine - lazing around. Don't get me wrong, I had the very best of intentions! I got up early, but got distracted before I made it to the library. I got to the library and opened up a lecture powerpoint, but then Liz and Kirsty turned up and forced me at gunpoint to leave the library and get a Subway with them. Resistance was futile. The afternoon passed in a veggie delite-induced haze, lying in the sun and blissing out in the 'bleak' (18 degree) midwinter.

In the evening it was time to step up and do my duty in cooking for the Church street family. I thought I'd do the failsafe Butternut Squash risotto, which I practically live off back in Norwich. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as failsafe as I believed... Cooking for 13 people is hard. It tasted okay (especially considering I used pumpkin rather than squash as I'm a cheapskate), but had the unexpected addition of Burnt Rice extract. Risotto di zucca e riso bruciato. Maybe I'm the new Heston?

Monday night's post-dinner film was Black Swan, something I've wanted to watch for ages but have never got round to... Mostly due to a stubborn boyfriend. Pffff. It was really good, but it certainly had its share of 'interesting' moments. Ahem.

Tuesday passed with the regular routine: Lecture-swim-lecture. Snore. When I got home I was informed that I was hosting a girls night in, commencing immediately. The usual Girly Night repertoire ensued: Bring It On, lots of chocolate, Serendipity, cups of tea... and Summer Heights High. Just to mix it up a bit.

Wednesday was fairly productive, with work broken up by the discovery of the $10 Crepe and Smoothie deal at the (bizarrely international) crepe-smoothie-sushi cafe on campus. Bit of a rip off, but SO GOOD. Mmmmm pancakey goodness. To continue the very Australian theme of binge eating, we headed to Kirsty's that night for a BBQ and pre-drinks. For herbivores like myself, the BBQ consisted of bread, bread and more bread. The Pre-drinks turned out to be just 'drinks' due to certain messy individuals - who shall remain nameless -  requiring escorting home and tucking into bed. Or floor, as it turned out. Despite this fundamental failure in both aspects of the evening, it was good fun :)

Nathan's birthday was on Friday, when he was going to be away climbing rocks and pretending to be Ray Mears. (Or Bear Grylls... I can't really imagine Ray Mears climbing anything, except maybe a large sandwich.) Therefore, his (surprise) birthday celebrations were moved a day earlier. Kirsty and I created (or perhaps unleashed would be a more accurate term...) a cake of monstrous proportions/calorific content. Two layers of chocolate cake, sandwiching a marbled goo of peanut butter and nutella, the whole thing drenched in more nutella, and decorated with M&Ms. Consume with caution (and perhaps a cardiac surgeon on speed dial).

We somehow transported this beast to Church St, before heading out to King Edwards park for a surprise BBQ. The surprise worked fairly well (minus the few false alarms), and Nathan seemed pretty impressed with his giant inflatable dinosaur - present numero uno.

Nathan and Dinosanna.

Present numero dos required a little more planning... The original family portrait of the Church St crew had been modified and redrawn to include the extended family, before being printed onto tees. We each bought one, and managed to sneak off to the toilets unnoticed to change into them. Nathan was blindfolded and led to the Bandstand, where he was greeted by an international clan of t-shirt clad students, dancing along to the Lion King song. The rest of the evening was spent in the bandstand, eating handfuls of cake (perhaps a knife may have been a good idea).

(Most of) the Family!



Ridiculousness in cake form



Cake attack!

Friday was spent doing very little, before heading to Kirsty's for the second girly night of the week, to watch When Harry met Sally and eat my own weight in Tabbouleh, yum yum yum. We got rather overexcited as we began to plan our travels to New Zealand in January/February 2012...Auckland-Rotorua-Wellington-Franz Josef Glacier-Milford Sound-Queenstown-Christchurch. I cannot wait for summer! On Saturday morning we headed off to Charlestown Square for some retail therapy, before heading to the (fairly chilly) beach for a while. Once Liz had finished work, we headed off to Hunter Street to find materials with which to build our outfits for the ABC party that night...

For noobies like myself - ABC means Anything But Clothes. Yeahhh. We piled Liz's room up with bin bags, tinfoil, stacks of newspapers and veggie boxes. Liz and Kirst went for the garbage bag dress, I opted for a Newspaper dress and tinfoil flipflops, Lawrence went for a hobo-meets-tinman ensemble, whilst Josh and Dom decided to outdo us all with a full on 'Robo-Couple' get up, made of veggie boxes. The walk to the party, along the busiest restaurant street in Newcastle (and on a Saturday night!), was pretty entertaining. With passersby's faces alternating between bemusement and alarm at the motley crew of homeless-designer-robots strolling past.

Gaga's got nothing on us!

Oh boys...

Sunday was spent recovering at Newcastle Beach. The weather was beautifully sunny and warm... the perfect opportunity to make a start on replacing my 'Casper the Friendly Ghost' look with one more akin to 'Aussie Beach Goddess'. Needless to say my albinism, coupled with the insanely strong southern hemisphere sun, and my propensity to fall asleep when I'm warm and comfy and listening to City & Colour, was not a good combination. The entirety of the Little Hell album later, I now sport the most ridiculous tan lines in Newcastle. Or probably New South Wales. Possibly the whole of Oz.

Beautiful sunshine + balloons!

I may look faintly ridiculous, but a beautifully sunny spring day at Newcastle beach was the perfect way to end this week. It has been so much fun, and the best bit is knowing that with Port Stephens next weekend, and the whole of summer stretching ahead to the horizon, the best really is yet to come. And hey, at least I now have an alternative reply when someone asks if I'm a Pom.... "No, can't you tell? I'm a lobster."