Playing in the tropics.

 Waiting on my stir-fry to marinate so I'm going to see if I can get a quick (picture-less, sorry, I'm on a mobile broadband card) update cranked out. Took a short bus ride to Lismore to crash with Gus' home stay parent Ed Curran for two nights. Ed was more than generous to host us for the time. I just sorted out the final details for my internship at the Bureau of Meteorology and my stay in Darwin. If you read this Ed, thanks for all of your insight and many more thanks for giving us a roof over our heads plus staying at the bus station for the extra hour to wait on that damned bus!!!

After the two days I took the 3 hour journey up to Brisbane via bus. Bus was late for the first time all trip (can't win 'em all). Met Owen at the station in Brisbane around 10:30pm and headed out to the western suburbs and crashed early. The next day was Easter and more importantly Owen's birthday. Congrats on the big 2-0. Nice to meet a ton of his friends, grill out, and then head out later on to check out the Brissy nightlife. Thanks again Owen for the place to crash and I'll definitely swing back through on my way to Byron.

Woke up about 6am the next morning and after a minor heart attack over a misplaced wallet, I ran down to the awaiting cab and headed to the airport. No dramas about getting through security although Subway down under really needs to get its act together on the breakfast front. Slept the whole plane flight and woke up to the plane touching down in tropical Darwin. As soon as I stepped off the jet, I realized I was in a different world. Felt like the worst day of summer in NC where you step out of the door and begin to sweat while having the wind knocked out of you.

Listening to: Parabola -- TOOL

Got to my hostel shortly thereafter and was pretty surprised that they get away with borderline false advertising (don't feel like going into it, it was dodgy, let's just leave it at that) so after one night there, I called up Liam who works for the Treasury in Darwin, and promptly moved into his spare room in Millner, NT. Much closer to the BOM office and out of "Central Business District" of Darwin. This place is very odd, I will try to get my hands around a description before I leave but I am still formulating my thoughts now. My second night with Liam, we went out to dinner with his buddies at Mackas (McDonalds) and he entered into an eating contest that was who could finish a family meal first. I don't think these have made it stateside yet but they consist of 2 big macs, 2 quarter pounders, 6 chicken nuggets, 4 small fries, and 4 small sodas. Liam put up a good fight but threw in the towel with 3 fries and the chicken nuggets left over. His friend managed to eat the whole thing in just under 13 minutes I think. Great way to be introduced to real Darwin citizens!

At any rate, started work 3 days ago and have been very happy with my decision to work for the Bureau (even though I am switching my major to Environmental Science, no jokes here). The crew that works there is very closely knit and there is even an American that I can share stories with WOOOO!!! So all is well 11 degrees south of the equator. Just hoping for a cyclone or some form of tropical cluster$%^& so that all of the alarms and whatnot can go off at the station. Time for dinner. Will get some pictures up at some point in the future. Still sweating profusely.

Cheers!
-zuey