My Weekend in Brisbane
For those of you who can't wait for me to update my journal properly, here are the photos from Jess's Wedding!
The wedding was really lovely. Everyone there was so positive and really happy for the girls, and there was hardly a dry eye in the house during the ceremony! The reception was nice and relaxed in a lovely old queenslander-turned-cafe at West End. I was at a table with Jess's Dad, his wife and 2 kids, Josh, James and his girlfriend Cat. Cat and I worked hard to finish 3 bottles of white wine during the evening.
Whilst in Brisbane I also got to catch up with my friend Kay. I haven't seen Kay in maybe 6 months and I'm afraid she isn't looking too well. It was a real shock to see her looking so frail, so much so that she is nothing like the girl I used to know. I hope that her family is looking after her and helping her get treatment. I think i'll try and giver her a call during the week to see how she's going.
I also got to see my Dad on Saturday, who was in town for the weekend. We grabbed lunch on Saturday and saw "Man on Fire" at the cinema. The movie was good, a little long (2.75 hrs) but probably worth seeing. In the evening I went over and saw Sarah. After catching up with the family and showing them pictures of Jess's Wedding, we went out to Viva Italia at Mt Gravatt. After discussing the merits of WW, Sarah and I proceeded to order half the menu, not to mention calling into Maccas on the way home for a Sunday heheh :) Sar, I hope you are back on the wagon this week!
Sarah has already written about our adventures as a high school tutor, so I won't say too much more. However, if anyone can tell me what the hell "we will fight until the blood runs dry" could possibly mean in the context of the death penalty for the bali bombings, please let me know! hehe It is amazing how much "fun" writing an assignment can be when it isn't yours, and you are no longer studying yourself!
My last day in Brisbane, Sunday, I dropped mum at work at Suncorp Stadium then went to Garden City for a bit of a look around. It has changed quite a bit since I was last there, with extensions to both the coles end of the centre and the outside entertainment precinct. I then called over to Karinas for a quick chat before going to pick mum up from work again.
Mum and I had a couple of hours to spare before the airport, so we went and saw "Jersey Girl". I have been waiting for ages for this movie to come out (I remember at the end of Chasing Amy they advertise that Jersey Girl is the next installment of the series, and that was 6 years or so ago). Anyway, the movie was pretty good, nothing like the other films (as in it was a relatively serious drama/comedy). After the movie, we headed out towards the airport, via the brekky creek hotel for a quick drink!
The flight home was packed, lots of drunken bulldogs supporters who must have flown up for the game. It was freezing when I landed in sydney, 11 degrees and windy. After a busy weekend I decided to have today off, to sleep in and do some washing. I managed the sleep in part (until mum rang at 10:30), but woke up to find it raining so my plans for washing will have to wait until another day.
Mum rang to tell me about something which had happened to one of her friends on the weekend. To cut a long story short, her friend (Millie) got a call at 3 in the morning from her daughter, saying that she was stranded in the city and was out of it and needed her to come and pick her up from Brunswick St station. Her mum, just on the way out the door, got another call from her daughters father saying he had just got a call from her saying she had been raped and attacked. Millie rushed out to the valley station, couldn't find her daughter anywhere. She went to the police, who dispatched multiple police units to look all over Brisbane for her daughter.
After a couple of hours of running around the valley in her PJ's .. Millie decided to ring her daughters flatmates to get some phone numbers for her friends, so she could try and contact them. The police had sent a car to the girls house in case she turned up, and as Millie rang the house the flatmates advised she had just been dropped off out the front. The flatmates immediately went down to see if she was okay, and she said she was fine, and that she never called her mother and that nothing had happened to her. She had however lost her mobile phone. It turned out that the person who stole her phone, looked up her phonebook and called her mum and dad, pretending to be her and claiming that she had been attacked.
It is just unbelievable that someone could do that - they probably thought they were being so funny, but didn't consider the pain they put her family through or the amount of police time that was spent looking for her. The girls father had even booked to be on the first flight down from north QLD to be with her. Even though they are glad she is okay, the whole family is still recovering from the shock of it all.
Well that is my update for now. I hope everyone enjoys the wedding photos. I have made some changes so they can be viewed as thumbnails, which hopefully makes them easier to see.
The wedding was really lovely. Everyone there was so positive and really happy for the girls, and there was hardly a dry eye in the house during the ceremony! The reception was nice and relaxed in a lovely old queenslander-turned-cafe at West End. I was at a table with Jess's Dad, his wife and 2 kids, Josh, James and his girlfriend Cat. Cat and I worked hard to finish 3 bottles of white wine during the evening.
Whilst in Brisbane I also got to catch up with my friend Kay. I haven't seen Kay in maybe 6 months and I'm afraid she isn't looking too well. It was a real shock to see her looking so frail, so much so that she is nothing like the girl I used to know. I hope that her family is looking after her and helping her get treatment. I think i'll try and giver her a call during the week to see how she's going.
I also got to see my Dad on Saturday, who was in town for the weekend. We grabbed lunch on Saturday and saw "Man on Fire" at the cinema. The movie was good, a little long (2.75 hrs) but probably worth seeing. In the evening I went over and saw Sarah. After catching up with the family and showing them pictures of Jess's Wedding, we went out to Viva Italia at Mt Gravatt. After discussing the merits of WW, Sarah and I proceeded to order half the menu, not to mention calling into Maccas on the way home for a Sunday heheh :) Sar, I hope you are back on the wagon this week!
Sarah has already written about our adventures as a high school tutor, so I won't say too much more. However, if anyone can tell me what the hell "we will fight until the blood runs dry" could possibly mean in the context of the death penalty for the bali bombings, please let me know! hehe It is amazing how much "fun" writing an assignment can be when it isn't yours, and you are no longer studying yourself!
My last day in Brisbane, Sunday, I dropped mum at work at Suncorp Stadium then went to Garden City for a bit of a look around. It has changed quite a bit since I was last there, with extensions to both the coles end of the centre and the outside entertainment precinct. I then called over to Karinas for a quick chat before going to pick mum up from work again.
Mum and I had a couple of hours to spare before the airport, so we went and saw "Jersey Girl". I have been waiting for ages for this movie to come out (I remember at the end of Chasing Amy they advertise that Jersey Girl is the next installment of the series, and that was 6 years or so ago). Anyway, the movie was pretty good, nothing like the other films (as in it was a relatively serious drama/comedy). After the movie, we headed out towards the airport, via the brekky creek hotel for a quick drink!
The flight home was packed, lots of drunken bulldogs supporters who must have flown up for the game. It was freezing when I landed in sydney, 11 degrees and windy. After a busy weekend I decided to have today off, to sleep in and do some washing. I managed the sleep in part (until mum rang at 10:30), but woke up to find it raining so my plans for washing will have to wait until another day.
Mum rang to tell me about something which had happened to one of her friends on the weekend. To cut a long story short, her friend (Millie) got a call at 3 in the morning from her daughter, saying that she was stranded in the city and was out of it and needed her to come and pick her up from Brunswick St station. Her mum, just on the way out the door, got another call from her daughters father saying he had just got a call from her saying she had been raped and attacked. Millie rushed out to the valley station, couldn't find her daughter anywhere. She went to the police, who dispatched multiple police units to look all over Brisbane for her daughter.
After a couple of hours of running around the valley in her PJ's .. Millie decided to ring her daughters flatmates to get some phone numbers for her friends, so she could try and contact them. The police had sent a car to the girls house in case she turned up, and as Millie rang the house the flatmates advised she had just been dropped off out the front. The flatmates immediately went down to see if she was okay, and she said she was fine, and that she never called her mother and that nothing had happened to her. She had however lost her mobile phone. It turned out that the person who stole her phone, looked up her phonebook and called her mum and dad, pretending to be her and claiming that she had been attacked.
It is just unbelievable that someone could do that - they probably thought they were being so funny, but didn't consider the pain they put her family through or the amount of police time that was spent looking for her. The girls father had even booked to be on the first flight down from north QLD to be with her. Even though they are glad she is okay, the whole family is still recovering from the shock of it all.
Well that is my update for now. I hope everyone enjoys the wedding photos. I have made some changes so they can be viewed as thumbnails, which hopefully makes them easier to see.