Goodbye Brisbane, hello world!

It’s been a great week. We haven’t been out to the field to camp for over a week now and have had a huge amount of time off which has been fantastic! Today a new volunteer arrived from the States, and another one is just about to arrive, also from the US I think… Then on Tuesday one more is arriving and he will be in our group with Crystal and I for the survey which will start straight away with 2 nights in the field and two nights off again.
This weekend was awesome. Friday Crystal and I helped John out at the park in the morning, he had a school group of 88 seven year olds coming for a tour of the Blue Iguana Breeding Facility and the botanic Park, and Crystal and I took half of them and gave them a tour around teaching them about the iggys and the medicinal plants and fruit trees and things that are all around the park. They were reasonably behaved, and really cute, especially when they decided you were their new best friend and would try to come up front with you all the time and hold your hand and be all cutesy and cuddly! It got rather annoying after a while though, as I think It was just a ploy to get to the front of the single-file line their teachers were making them form! I remember those lines, I hated them, especially when they were height ordered as I was always up front!
Then as usual, after work was finished and we had collected Saturday’s iguana feed in buckets and put them in the fridge, we headed to the nearest bar to have lunch and a beer.  That night John and Mandy joined us 3 musketeers for a proposed pub crawl to check out more of the night life in town, and it turned into an all night sushi crawl instead… we went to 3 clubs, the first two we ate enough sushi between us to feed Japan, and drank Japanese beer, amazing apple martinis and a bottle of sake mmmm… I haven’t eaten so much sushi in my entire life, it was amazing it even came on a boat!! (I had my flippy-floppies!). After we had stuffed ourselves with sushi we went to the Wharf which is a beach-side bar that has a 70s, 80s party every second Friday, and we danced like crazy people for hours it was awesome! The DJ played real old classics, was so much fun!
Musketeer number 3 and I saw a beach on an empty plot just next to the bar, and decided we would try to find a way onto it, and so found a hole in the fence bordering the plot and tripped over some bushes and crab-holes and made our way onto the sand, while dancing to some Scottish 80's song and singing at the tops of our voices! It was random, and totally awesome!
John dropped us both off at Scott’s place and we crashed there for the night, starting off the next day making blueberry pancakes (with real Canadian maple syrup) and spending the rest of it swimming in the pool and sitting in the sun, or should I say baking. Let’s just say that the sunburn still hurts and its been 48 hours! It was pretty amusing actually; some little kids had a birthday party by the pool so when we weren’t eating Cheetos or sleeping in the sun we watched these kids have the time of their life in the pool. It’s amazing how 4 hours in a pool never becomes tiresome to a 7 year old! And yet 4 minutes of seven year olds screaming in the pool is enough to make anyone go mad!! Eventually as the sun set we went across the road for $5 Quesadillas and nachos and $15 bucket of coronas! Mexico was a fantastic discovery!!
So I think we had our fair share of tiny people this weekend! Today, C-rock (new nick-name for you Crystal) and I helped John out at the park again, and collect food, then as usual went to the volunteer ‘canteen’ bar called “Over the Edge” up on the North side and had a few well-earned afternoon Coronas and watched the Friggate birds swoop down to catch the chicken scraps. It was a hot day and they tasted amazing! (The Coronas I mean, but I am sure the chicken scraps tasted just as good to the Friggates! :P)
Well it is getting late, and we have a big day tomorrow, have to help the newbies out at the park so better get to sleep soon. I cannot believe it is nearly March already!
Until next time, take care, and miss you all!
Xox
Melissa