A weekend at "Brini's Mansion"

Again we had a very nice week, which passed way to quickly...

On Tuesday we had plans with Sabrina and Marco for eating a pizza and a Jass-evening afterwards. To shorten the time before we could eat dinner at the eagle boys (you get a really good pizza for 6 dollars every thuesday...) we went to the Lagoona lookout in Noosa, from where you can overlook the Noosa River and Noosa Heads.

Because our time here in Noosa will soon be over, everybody (us included) seems to be trying to enjoy the remaining days as much as possible. That's why our week seems to be loaded with socialising events. On Wednesday we went again to one of this housepartys you usually only see in amarican Teenie-Movies...

On the weekend, we went to Sabrina whose homestay parents were away. The house in which she lives is really big and has a nice balcony with lounge sofas on every floor. We cooked there for dinner (Friday we made a curry and on Saturday Oli made a Polenta, while Flo baked us both times delicious Muffins) and enjoyed the warm evenings on the balkony.



It looks a little bit like two angels in Heaven ;-)

We had heaps of fun and were all a little sad, when the weekend was over.


Nina and Sandro at Brini's Mansion

Tomorrow starts our exam session with our oral exams. They will be over for both of us by lunch time. So we'll probably spend the rest of our day on the beach! :-D

rain, rain, rain and a visit from Japan

This weekend we had as the title suggests a lot of rain! But this didn't stop us to have a nice and wet BBQ on Friday evening. Before the BBQ we went both to a hairdresser - she cut it a little bit short for both of us..

Saturday morning our new homestay-sister from Japan arrived. She is called Misa and seems very nice. On her first evening in Australia she already joined us to the movies. We watched "Wild Target" (Thursday we already saw HP7).

The Time flies by. Just one week until we have our speaking exam... And from then another week for the rest of the exams. We are already a little bit sad that the wonderful time here in Noosa is almost over. Unbelievable how fast 3 months can be.

P.S. Today Phil came home with a nintendo wii ;-)

Fraser Island

This weekend we (Karin, Nina, Sabrina, Sabrina, Steffi, Tamara and the two of us) went to Fraser Island.

We were picked up by our Tour Guide on Saturday morning and after having picked up some other people, we made our way up to Fraser. In Rainbow Beach we stopped at the bottle shop and took the ferry to the island.

Our Tourbus

We were accomodated in a 8-dorm room in the Beach House in Eurong, which is the second largest settlement on the island.

On our first day we went to Lake Birrabeen with its cristal-clear freshwater and incredible white sand (it can be compared with the breathtaking Whitehaven Beach in the Withsunday Islands).



We've been...



... to Lake Birrabeen! ;-)

After a relaxing time at the lake, we went for a Bushwalk through the older part of the island forest.



On our first Night we had a BBQ and tasted some "Roo"-meat. It was just delicious. Afterwards we went to the beach and discovered some pretty interesting bioluminescent plankton.

On the second day we drove up the 75 Mile Beach and visited some amazing places. Our first stop was at Eli Creek, a freshwater river from which you can drink (the water is filtered through the sand). The water was quite cold, but we enjoyed the refreshment!

We could just lay on our backs and float down the creek to the sea.

After that we went on to this rusty shipwreck.

Then we went on and had our lunch at Indian Head, where we could see turtles, sharks and rays. 

We went on and had a swim in Champagne Pool, which is a ring of rocks in the sea. Every time the waves crash over the rocks the water in the pool gets foamy with bubbles and it looks as if you swim in champange.

On the last day, we visited Lake Wabby. A beautiful lake situated at the end of a huge sand dune.

The sand dune gets blown inland and treathens to swallow Lake Wabby. Just before the lake the sand dune decends pretty steep towards the water and you can do some awesome jumps over the edge of the sand.

 But unfortunately everything comes to an end and we had to leave this paradise again. All we left on Fraser were our footprints in the sand and we took nothing but memories and some amazing pictures with us ;-)

Our group from the school.

DreamWorld, Peregian Beach

This Friday we started our weekend with a quiet afternoon and played a "Schieber" with Nina and Sabrina. We had a lot of fun! (Although, after winning the Schieber, Oli lost every game we played. "Gämsche" was particularly bad...)

On Saturday we had to get up early, as we went to DreamWorld (something like an Aussi Disneyland). We were really lucky with the weather as it was blue sky, despite the weatherforecast, which predicted a thunderstorm.

There were some really good rides, such as the "Giant Drop" (freefall from the 39th storey), or the "Tower of Terror" (where we had to queue for allmost an hour).

But there were also some great classics, like the log ride or the the River Rapids Ride.

All in all we had a great day! And we finished it with a visit in the Irish Pub.

Today, after eating a delicious "Zopf" made by Flo, we went to Peregian Beach to a music festival. We enjoyed the beach, the sun and of course the music!



Melbourne Cup Day

Melbourne Cup is known in Australia as "the race that stops a nation". Every Australian will stop working for this 5 minutes of this horse race (in Melbourne it's even a public holiday).

Yesterday we went to a TAB to place a bet. As we have no knowledge of horse races we just picked a horse with a strong name. For us this was "Master O'Reilly", on which we bet $5. Later we learned by watching the news, that there was an absolute favorit for winning the race: "So You Think".  But of course that was not a horse we would have chosen because of its strong name...

Today we had a luncheon in school (everybody brought something to eat or drink and the hole class shared the meal).

We had also a sweep, which is when a number of people buy a set of tickets, each representing a horse. The tickets are given out randomly (we had to draw them out of a hat), and each ticket costs the same (for us it was $1), so there is no skill element involved, and odds are ignored completely. After the race the money is divided out to the holders of the tickets for the winning horses (place 1 to 3). The winner would receive half of the pot and the rest would go to second and third place.


Steffi draws the winning horse.

We bought together three tickets and luckily Oli picked the favorite for winning "So You Think". Flo drew "Maluckyday" and together we had "Monaco Consul".

 At two o'clock (the race is at three o'clock Melbourne-time, but we have an hour time difference) the whole school assembled in front of the big screen (well it was a tiny "big screen") and we watched the thrilling race.



After almost four minutes of unbearable suspense, the race ended with a surprise. First place was the French "Americain", second was "Maluckyday" and the favorite "So You Think" made it only on the third place. "Monaco Consul" and "Master O'Reilly" were far behind on place 14 and 15.

In the end the Melbourne Cup Day hold a positive balance for us. We placed $8 in bets and sweeps, and won a total of $12. Awesome!!! :-D