Noosa and Christmas in a foreign country!

20.-22.12.13

My friend Daniel and I took a road trip to Noosa, about an hour and a half drive up the coast. We stayed at a beautiful resort, in an awesome apartment. Best birthday and Christmas gift! We went for a hike in the national park, ate at restaurants and sunbathed at some of the most beautiful beaches I've seen. He showed me around at the places he and his family use to come to while they go on vacations there. We made some awesome breakys too.. On Saturday night we went out to the Backpackers Bar not so far from where we were staying and got to speak to some cool backpackers there. It was an awesome night! The next day we drove back to Warner and enjoyed the hot weather by the pool.

One very good self cooked breaky!

At the Noosa National Park

Going out to Noosa Backpackers Bar

23.12.13

We took a road trip up to Kondolilla Falls. Kondolilla means falling water in Aboriginal. Kinda cool, except there was no falling water when we got down to the actual place where it was supposed to be.. It was too hot and dry for there to be enough water for it. Not complaining about 35-40 degrees!! But the woods there were so beautiful and exotic!

One huge tree!!

Lookout point at Kondolilla Falls 

Magical forest

We stopped by a small town called Montville on our way back. Looked in some cool souvenir shops and in an open gallery. And we also stopped by a lookout point by the road where we could see so much of the beautiful area around the Sunshine Coast.

Lookout point near Montville

 And happy birthday to my youngest niece, Solveig, who turned 1 on the 23rd! Love her!

24.-26.12.13

The 24th didn't feel like Christmas Eve at all! It started out with me shopping at a huge mall, buying some Christmas gifts for people back home and some stuff for my self. Then back in Warner I had a short talk to my dad in Norway, they had just started the day, my nephew was eating his third breakfast while the others were waking up and getting ready to celebrate the day with the family. While that was going on early in the morning in Norway, I was about to have my very first Aussie BBQ with the Turner family. Was an awesome dinner, but it didn't feel like it was Christmas. So we went for a drive to look at some Christmas lights that people had put up on their houses. We found a church full of lights, with a huge light angel on the lawn in front of it!

Wouldn't exactly find this in front of a church in Norway..

On the 25th however, I was woken up to a lovely family breakfast with egg and bacon and opening gifts with Daniel, his parents Phil and Vicki and his sister Bianca and her daughters Isabella and Charlotte. I had brought with me some gifts for them, a book about Sørlandet, the southern part of Norway where I have spent most of my life living in many different towns, an other book with the Norwegian folk tales and two beers from Nøgne Ø. I also got some nice presents from them, loving the PJ's! 

Before noon the rest of the extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were arriving with food and gifts for the secret Santa gift arrangement they had. when it was time for eating everyone sat around a long table out on the patio. That's when i felt like it really was Christmas. That's about the same time it took me to feel like it was Christmas when I was in Cameroon too, at the dinner table.

We ate a buffet with mostly cold food, like salads, cold turkey and chicken and hot creamed potatoes. 

The Christmas Day dinner with Daniel's family

I never did celebrate Christmas with other traditions than what I'm used to from Norway, because when I was an exchange student in England I went back home to Norway for the two week holiday. And in Cameroon, we celebrated with the other Norwegian missionary families there. I was really lucky to get the chance to celebrate it with a family like the Turners! Really thankful for being so warmly greeted and included into the celebrations!

The day was also of course spent by the pool as it was still really hot outside! 

Boxing Day was much like Christmas Day, except there were fewer people there and it was a bit more laid back. Phil had told me that they use to have this tradition of playing cricket on Boxing Day, but we mostly spent it in and by the pool, it was too hot to play so nobody thought about it. However when everyone had left Phil remembered that he had told me I would get to try it out he got up and found the old cricket bat and brought Daniel and me out on the lawn to play. It was fun! Especially when I managed to hit the pall with the bat on my first try! Ha, ha.. never thought I'd manage that. Haven't played anything like it since high school! Cricket is one of the most popular sports in Australia as I understand it. I can't say I understand much of the rules though.. It did make sense when they explained it, but I can't remember anything now.

In the pool on Boxing Day

Daniel showing how it's done

The dog, Max, was great at fetching the ball!

Not so stylish myself..

I hit the red ball! Woo getting the hang of this!

Fun passtime activity 

A Christmas trip worth remembering! Thank you so much to everyone that made it so, I am truly grateful for all the hospitality!

Johanne Teresie

Australia! My 22nd birthday and Couch Surfing

So I finally got to fulfil one of my biggest dreams ever. I got to go to AUSTRALIA!!!
So, so, so happy about it!
I decided to go, finally after looking randomly at flight prices for the last five years or so.. Hah! I didn't even know what I was going to do there when I bought it! I just saw some cheap flight and thought I really want to go, like now, why wait anymore?
I have the money for the flight now, the rest I can manage to save up in what was it, like three months or something..?

And I did, I bought the ticket, applied for a visa, and new credit cards just to be safe, which was the most clever thing I did as I was so stupid while travelling to actually lose two cards while I was out..I blame it on the wallet I had clumsily sewn for my exams.. I have bought a new one now so it won't happen again.. I'm clumsy.. I know!

Anyway..I did buy the ticket and finished all exams at uni by the 6th of December. My flight was leaving Kjevik airport on the 12th. I had packed and repacked my backpack several times. Knew that I didn't really have the money to buy too much clothes there so I had to bring most of it. And it's hard to pack, when you don't really know what you might do! Go rock climbing, swimming, fancy restaurants,  clubbing, couch surfing etc.

Not my cubes but you get the drift!

I found this tip somewhere about packing in so called "packing cubes" or compressing bags so you get more space and organising in your backpack. They are the best invention ever! My stuff was organised in my backpack while using them and didn't wrinkle. Awesome!


12.-14.12.2013

Travelled for a total of 34 hours approximately, and met a Norwegian guy at the airport in Amsterdam who was going the same way I was, we sat next to each other on the flight, and if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have slept at all for the 11-12 hours we were on that plane! It was so painful at times!
On the next flight from South Korea I got a window seat and no one next to me for 10 hours! Slept for 6 or so, so good compared to the other flight..
I felt like I looked like a troll when I arrived at the airport in Brisbane at 6.40am local time. I was wondering what to do with all the chocolate and some caviar I had brought with me for the couch surfing hosts and my friends and their families… Turned out I didn't need to declare anything, which was great!

My friend Daniel, who I met while travelling to Split last summer with Helene, picked me up at the airport in Brisbane and drove me to his house where I met his family and got to finally take a shower, which was long longed for! I started to feel a bit funny to my stomach, but thought it was just that I hadn't really eaten anything since 4/5am. Though it turned out that I had caught some bug or something on the plane. Just to say, it wasn't very pleasant and it was quite embarrassing to be rushing to the toilet to throw up, when you just met the folks you're staying with. Though this doesn't top my most embarrassing first impression…
I didn't get to taste what looked like a really delicious Aussie BBQ, which they had planned for me, talk about feeling sorry for not wanting to waist good food!


15.-17.12.2013

Since I was feeling a bit better, Daniel took me on a short road trip to Cedar Creek not far from where he lives. We parked by the road and walked for a bit to get to a good spot to go swimming. It was really beautiful, reminded me a bit of some places in Norway in summer, but the nature was so much more exotic.

Was so wonderful to get some warm sun again!

Later that night I went to stay with my first couch surfing host, Skye and her family. She had stayed with my brother in Stavanger many years ago and looked forward to meeting me. They were very hospitable and lent me their house key and told me that I could eat and feel at home while they went for work during the day.

I spent the next days looking around in Brisbane, doing some sight seeing, going up in the wheel of Brisbane, shopping for an Aussie sim-card and chilling at South Bank, there is an artificial beach by the Brisbane river there. South Bank is overlooking one of the campuses of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the university I really wanted to make an exchange to when I read about it last time I attended UiA three years ago. I also attended some Christmas/Santa party with Skye and her family so that her son Jaden could get a gift from Santa.

QUT campus, seen from South Bank

South Bank Parkland's river promenade

Brisbane wheel at South Bank

On the 17th of December I changed hosts. I went to live with Vanessa and her housemates at Rocklea for three nights. I had the first day where I felt I could eat anything without getting sick so it was a great day, with drinks at a South Bank restaurant and delicious homemade vegan enchiladas for dinner. The hosts, Vanessa her boyfriend at the time and her little sister Martina were so great to be with!


18.12.13 = My BIRTHDAY! Woo! 

I woke up and went out of my room to be greeted by Vanessa and Martina who greeted me with birthday wishes and a cute card. Made the start of my birthday truly great! During the day I went to the Museum and Art Gallery in Brisbane and to the Science Museum. Saw some works by Pissarro and Picasso which made me a bit starstruck again like I was in Copenhagen. I learnt that in Queensland they have a cockroach the size of a big hamster which  weighs the same as two house mice !! Would NOT like to see that beast in real life!

That night we went out for dinner and drinks with some of  Vanessas friends, Amilia and Josh at a Lebanese at West End and then we went to some clubs at Fortitude Valley, or as the locals called it "the Valley". We spent most of the night at  The Beat, a gay bar with performing drag queens and jelly wrestling. I payed for the taxi home for me and Vanessa and was surprised by how cheap it was, as we drove for quite a while, about 33 AUD which makes about 182 Norwegian kroners, which is less than what I pay to get home from a night out in Arendal, Norway. The day was so much fun! Haven't had that much fun on my birthday in years, thanks to all the great people that were with me.

Amilia, Vanessa and me

Amilia, me and Josh

19.-20.12.13

I spent the next day at the house in Rocklea, took a long walk and jog with the two dogs of my hosts, Rocky and Punk. Was really lovely to do some ordinary stuff like going for a dog walk, missed Stipe a lot at that moment. The next day Martina gave me a lift into the Central Station and I took a train to meet Daniel somewhere near Warner to go with him on a trip up the coast to Noosa.

Johanne Teresie