The last couple of days have been really great, and chrismas eve was even better than expected! I got up early and went over to Courtneys place where Benedicte and Cathrine had made christmas-rice-porridge, including the almond and a marzipan-pig for the finder. Then we spent some hours walking around in the city doing the last of the chrismas shopping before I dressed up and went to Christine and Mariannes christmas-party.
Christines brother was visiting from Norway, and as he is a chef he was put in charge of the food, and what a meal that was! We got all the traditional norwegian christmas dinners with the required side-dishes, then we socialised and drank Aquavit and Cognac before 'Santa' showed up with gifts for everyone! We ended a great party by watching "Flåklypa Grand Prix" on a big screen tv. It really was a great norwegian christmas in Australia :-)

The last week I have been a tad more busy than usual, but now things are coming together and christmas is soon upon us. I've finally signed all the papers required for my move to Cathedral Place, paid rent for january, dusted off the furniture I got from Are, and bought sheets and a quilt-set for my new Queen-sized bed. Over the weekend I'll start transporting most of my stuff up there getting ready to move in permanently on christmas day.

Woohoo! Today I'm 23 years old. YaY! :-D
In the big box I got when I returned there was one gift marked for my birthday, and it contained a marzipan-pig my parents smuggled through customs! YuMmEY! Gotta love them!
Been cleaning up a bit here now, and I have just been downtown to buy lots of beer and chips. But *puh* it's too hot to be doing all this work today, so I need another shower now as a couple of friends are coming over later for some alcohol-induced socialising :-)

During christmas I will be moving in with Benedicte at Cathedral Place, but as the apartment is unfurnished I would have to acquire some furniture for my room. Luckily I mentioned this when watching Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Extended Edition with Are a week before we went to Tasmania. It turned out that they has lots of stuff in the house where he lives that they were going to get rid of before he goes back to Norway on the 12th, so today I called Yellow Couriers and got myself a queensize-bed, a desk and a bookshelf for free! Talk about beeing in the right place at the right time :-)
I stashed everything into my room-to-be, and have now started on the paperwork involved before I can officially move in.

It's going to be great moving closer to the Valley and be living just 2-3 blocks away from Chinatown, Brunswick Train Station, supermarkets, and heaps of bars and resturants. Where I'm living now its 5 blocks to wherever, and even further to most places with no buses very close. The city will of course be further away than it is now, but there is always the free-bus loop that can take me to Uni or the Mall should the need arise.

Btw. does anyone have an office/desk-chair for sale?

And I'm back again!
The last week have been quite refreshing in many ways. First of all it was wonderful to drive a car after spending many carless months in Brissie, secondly our trip to Tasmania gave me a nice change of pace from the slacking here and thirdly it was -cold- there with nighttime lows around 12°C and even the daytime highs rarely above 25°C.
We got to see most of the island during our 7 days there, but it would have been nice with a couple more days so we could have relaxed a bit in the nicer locations. We also missed out on several potentially interesting sights and locations due to limited time, amongst them we didn't get to see a wild Tasmanian Devil, but regardless of this we had a great time! Read on to get the whole story :)

After weeks of slacking under the Brisbane-sun it is now time to do some more travelling. I can't waste my short time in Australia by sitting home all year, so tomorrow morning I'm flying out to Tasmania with Are, where we will rent a car and spend a week driving around and taking in the sights, sounds, and beer of this island state south of Victoria.
I'll come back with pictures and another tale from this strange land down under sometime next week, so enjoy yourselves with all your christmas preparations until then! :-)