Note: the following is really mainly designed to remind me what happened up in QLD, as such, the following probably has stuff missing, in the wrong order, or left out. Don't blame me.
Alright, my first post in like a year, and probably will be my only post for the next 12 months. But I figured the others wouldn't write something up about what happened over the last weekend, so thought I would.
Thursday 29th March 2007
At about 11:30pm, I head over to Tony's place and get ready to sleep. That never happens and I end up pulling an all-nighter. Kerry comes over sometime about 1:30am. We go Donner Kebab and I get some food to eat since I'm starving. We watch movies on the Xbox, till it dies.
Kerry gets about an hour sleep, I attempt to sleep but fail.
Friday 30th March 2007
5:00am: We wake up Kerry, start to pack car and drive to the airport, picking up Jeff on the way. A little behind schedule, but we get to the airport in good time.
Being the smart person I am, I had already done web check in and had our tickets. Kerry didn't want to break the tiara she had got for Eliza, so puts it on her head. So we hand in our checked luggage. The lady at the check in desk asks Kerry what the tiara was for. To save explaining stuff, Kerry says it's her birthday. We walk around airport.
7:15am: Plane departs for Sydney
8:35am: Plane arrives in Sydney, we look for food
9:50am: Plane departs for Gold Coast - we almost miss flight due to taking too long looking for food.
On the way in, one of the flight attendents again asks Kerry what the tiara was about. She again said it was her birthday. They all wished her a happy birthday. Once we where off the ground, they gave her a (small) bottle of sparkling wine for her birthday. She finds it very ammusing.
10:25am: We touch down on the Gold Coast. Whilst we taxi to the gate, they make their usual annoucenemtns "Welcome, the local time is ... the weather is ...", but then they added in at the end "And, as a special note, we would like to mention that we have royalty abord today. Her name is Princess Kerry and she turned 21 today." Tony, me and Jeff go crazy clapping and wishing her a happy birthday. Kerry hides her face.
We grab our bags, and Eliza is waiting for us.
Eliza had been in a car accident a week or two back, which was still in for repair. So, she had organized a hire-car for us; one of those Hybrid cars.
Anyway, we leave airport and head for Eliza's place. We dump bags. She has a very nice place, reasonable size. She is sharing it with two roommates; Anita (hereby known as "anitabell") and (another) Jess. This other Jess goes to her boyfriend's house for the weekend so as to free up another bedroom.
Eliza has to go to Uni, so she drops us off at a beach and she goes to Uni.
~1:00pm: Kerry/Tony/Jeff go into the water, I end up sleeping for about 30 mins on the beach due to not sleeping the previous night.
Eliza calls, turns out her tutorial had been rescheduled till that afternoon. She heads back to beach.
We decide beach is too windy, so go back to her place and go to the pool instead. Pick up a slab of Heineken on the way, which is then drunk by the poolside (which was against the pool rules, but we are rebels).
We meet one of Eliza's friends who lived in the same complex. Tony calls him "T-Bag", because Tony says he is from Texas, even though he wasn't. The poor guy then tries to explain to Tony why he thinks the name "T-Bag" could be considered offensive by some people. Tony cuts him off mid- sentence and says he knows exactly what it means and makes some vivid images in our minds. The guy then didn't know what to say.
We go out to dinner to some fancy (expensive) place. I have coffee to prevent falling off chair asleep, but it was a very nice meal.
Eliza and Kerry head off to airport to pick up Jess Green and Ryan who came in on a late flight and Eliza brings them back to her place.
Anitabell takes Tony/Me/Jeff back home. On the way home, Tony comments how he doesn’t like the name “Anita” and wants to make her a nickname. Somehow he ends up making the name longer by adding “bell” to the end of it, which is what she was then called for the rest of the weekend. We rent some movies to watch.
At about 10:30pm, I sleep, due to being awake for 39 hours straight. The others go to sleep about 2am I think.
Saturday 30 March 2007
We wake up about 10:30am and go to Dreamworld! In a rush to get the train, we end up putting all 7 of us into the 5 person car. It was, however, only a short trip.
We ask for seven train tickets, they give us six, which we don't realize till after we are on the train, which we catch.... just
Get off at the end station and buy our tickets to Dreamworld at the station. Also buy that last train ticket for Tony who missed out. We take the bus to Dreamworld.
Arrive at Dreamworld at about 12:30pm. We head for our first ride - The Tower of Terror. Longish queue, takes about 20-30 minutes. Whilst we wait, I turn off Dreamworld's TVs with my Ninja Remote
Everyone loves the ride - especially Ryan because it makes him feel like he is in a jet, which is what he has always wanted to do.
We head for "The Claw", Jeff reluctantly gets on. It was more awesome fun. Tony spits at the people below whilst we are on the ride. He convinces Eliza to have a go at it too.
We grab some quick lunch, which Kerry skips for fear of throwing up everywhere after rides.
Tony and Eliza push very hard for everyone to get on The Giant Drop. Jeff very much doesn't want to get on, and runs away at one point at which point Tony chases him and attempts to tackle him to the ground. Kerry plays with my Ninja Remote, shen some kid about 12 notices and yells out "WOW! Look at that girl, she is controlling the TV!" We laugh.
Kerry gets very scared towards the end of the line (ie. when we are next) and almost walks away. Tony makes a loud comment directed towards the people behind us in the line along the lines of "You know, this ride broke down about a year ago, 10 people died. Half of the brakes failed to stop, so they got thrown out and fell to their death". We get on the ride and get strapped in. Tony noticing that both Kerry and Jeff are a little nervous makes comments like "So, how many people have died on this ride?" to the operator. She joins in saying "Oh, they die all the time".
The ride starts to go up, and Kerry is petrified. Tony helps out by screaming "WE ARE GOING TO DIE" all the way up. Kerry or Jeff (I forget who) make some comment about how they were going to kill Tony if he didn't shut up very quickly. We get to the top, and fall. Kerry is so scared she can't scream. She refuses to ever get on it again. Jeff on the other hand loved it and wants to go on it again.
We go through the animal type area and watch the Tiger Island show.
We have a go on a couple of the slower ride in Nickelodeon Central (the Angry Beavers Spooty Spin and the Runaway Reptar Rollercoaster).
We head for the Cyclone which had another longish queue. TVs mysteriously turn off when we walk by them. The ride again, is awesome.
With minutes to spare before the park closes, we run for Gold Rush Country to take a trip on the Thunder River Rapids Ride. Due to having too many people, we split up. Kerry/Tony/Jeff/Me in one raft, the others in the second. We are put with two random little girls. At the very start of the ride, they take your photo which you can then purchase at the end of the ride for insane prices. This being the only ride with a camera we have been on where we were not travelling at 100km/h at the time, Tony decides to give the camera the finger.
Ride is fun and we exit the place, and go looking for our photo. Eliza's raft photo comes up, and Tony enquires as to what happened to our photo. The guy says, with a very annoyed face "It had to be deleted due to being offensive. Do I have to call security?" Tony says "No problem" and we walk away.
Much of the weekend is full of people taking photos of Tony with his finger up, and comments like "omg, it's offensive, I have to delete it" or similar.
We head for exit, and make our way to the bus. A lot of people. Eliza/Jess/Kerry push into the front and get on the bus, we stay towards the end of the queue deciding to wait for the people in front of us. The bus gets very full. Very full. He says "OK, no more people", when we are 3 people away from the door. We say "But our friends are on the bus". He more or less says "sucks to be you".
We take an alternative bus which takes us to a different train station (and happens to go via Movie World and Wet-'n'-Wild world). Tony goes to get a drink from the vending machine. Whilst he is looking for change, Ryan walks up to the machine and takes a new, sealed, cold, Coke from the exit box thingy of the vending machine which just happened to be there. The next five minutes is spent with Tony saying "Are you fucking serious - Did that just happen?" to Ryan.
Ryan does the nice thing and gives Tony the drink.
The girls arrive at the station before us (since they got the first bus) and go home to get ready and order food.
When we get to the station, we call up Eliza who picks us up. We swing by the fish & chips shop on the way to get our food. Ryan and Tony run off to buy something - leaving Jeff/Eliza/Me trying to figure out where they went. I call Tony and find out they went to find Panadol. I lie and say something along the lines of "We are already late, we had to go. Eliza says to take the 732 bus home". In the mean time, we drive to the IGA where we figure they went to pick them up. Eliza can't find them in the store. Tony calls me and says "So, turns out you where being serious - I thought you were joking - Ryan sprinted back to the car to find it wasn't there." We laugh.
We pick them up and head back to Eliza's place. We quickly eat, have showers and get changed getting ready for Eliza's actual 21st party that night. We call up a Taxi and, by chance, end up with a Maxi Taxi, with an awesome driver named Chris. Tony takes the front seat and becomes good friends with him.
We arrive the the place, DragonFly. Eliza sets up her $2,000 bar tab and the fun begins. About 80 people turn up. We meet some awesome friends Eliza has made from Uni, along with a couple of cousins (who Tony decided to call "Eliza" since they look so similar, with the minor difference of their gender).
Cake comes out, we sing "Happy Birthday". The place closes down about midnight and most people have left. About 10-15 of us remain and head to some nightclub closely.
The usual entry fee was $10, but with some smooth talking by some of Eliza's friends, they convince them to charge $5, capped at $30, and let Eliza in for free.
Sadly, it turns out the place is kind of dead. Eliza's friends would seem to have some experience with this and head for the fire escape. Apparently there are two nightclubs next to each other which share the same fire escape. They simply walk from our floor one up in order to get to the other place.
Most of us (including me) get up there, but then the bouncer from the club we were in originally notices us and says "Hey, you, come back" to Tony and Jeff as they are last in the line of the people going upstairs. Tony and Jeff get thrown out of the club.
I then spend the next half hour trying to figure out where everyone is and then find out Tony and Jeff had got thrown out. Somehow one of Eliza's friends sweet-talks the bouncer of the new club to let Tony and Jeff in for free.
It's now about 1:30am. Eliza is, well, quite intoxicated. The bouncer notices and suggests she should be taken home. Some of her friends take a taxi back to her place whilst the rest of us stay out for a big longer.
About half an hour or so later, Kerry and Jess are quite tired and want to go home, so we do. The awesome taxi driver from before had given Tony his number, so we call him up and get a lift home.
Kerry and I then decide to jump in the pool in Eliza's house, which turns out to be a bad idea, considering it was freezing and everything.
We head off to bed and sleep.
Sunday 1st April
We wake up late, I guess 11am. No one really has a hangover, which is good.
We watch “40 Year Old Virgin” on DVD which was hired the other night.
Eliza takes us into Surfers Paradise and we go to a cool place called Infinity. It’s a mirror maze type place. We walk around it, and it’s quite fun. Us guys have to keep our eyes straight ahead since there are mirrors on the floor, and we didn’t want to be hit by the girls, errr *cough*
Some of Tony’s family, by coincidence, happen to be up at the Gold Coast at the same time as us, and we run into them. Tony has a quick chat with his brother.
It’s about 6pm. And we get ice-cream from some place.
We head over to Q1 and head up to the observation deck. We take some photos, and find some movie type thing playing a documentary on the building and the Gold Coast in general. Whilst waiting for it to start everyone starts to play ‘stacks-on’, attempting to kill each other.
Jess and Ryan have to go to catch their flight, so Eliza drives them. Kerry/Tony/Me head over to The Hard Rock Cafe and get dinner whilst waiting for Eliza to return.
After dinner we go looking at random shops, finding cheap junk to buy. Eliza picks us up and we decide to spend the rest of the night in watching movies and playing drinking games.
We stock up on alcohol (which actually takes a while, the first two places we tried where closed).
We watched another movie, then play “I never” which leads to some interesting stories.
Eliza and Jeff went to bed about 1 or 2am (Eliza wanted to go to Uni & Jeff was planning on going to Brisbane in the morning)
Tony finds a cockroach running around Eliza’s house, and kills it. He then puts it in the bottom of Jeff’s shoe and hopes he doesn’t notice when he goes to Brisbane in the morning. We take photos (now on Flickr).
Kerry, me and Tony go to sleep watching Kill Bill 2.
Monday 2nd April 2007
I wake up about 11am. Jeff is in Brisbane, Eliza skipped Uni but instead is studying for her test (which was on Tuesday) with some Uni friends.
Apparently Jeff hadn’t kicked Tony in the morning, so we figure Jeff is walking around Brisbane with a dead cockroach in his shoe.
Tony and I decide to wake up Kerry and we call a taxi to take us to Pacific Fair. We end up there about 1:30pm. Again, by chance, we run into Tony’s family, which we quickly chat to.
We go to Toys-R-Us and have a good look around. Eliza calls us and catches up with us. We spend like a good hour in Toys-R-Us.
The girls then go to random clothes shops and other such stuff looking for stuff.
Eliza tries to get our help to practice for her test on Tuesday (we basically have to role-play being patients in different scenarios, then Eliza trying to solve the problem – we had the “demand an inappropriate treatment” scenario, the “really angry at something scenario”, the “cracking onto the doctor scenario” etc.) Anyway, turns out we all suck at role-playing these kinds of things and are no use to her.
More TVs magically turn off.
We head back to Eliza’s place and go swimming in the large pool for a good while. Really kind of too long a while. We get back to the house and start to pack and get changed quickly. Eliza orders take-away for us. The problem was, we were flying JetStar, and they have their entire “if you’re not at the airport 30 mins before the flight leaves, you’re not getting on” policy. Eliza had to do some fancy driving to get us there on time. We made it with (literally) 30 seconds to spare.
We head to the gate, hug Eliza goodbye and get on flight.
Tony decides to sleep, and Jeff/Me/Kerry play random word games and other such stuff.
Get into Melbourne Airport and go home.
Sadly, the end of an awesome weekend.
One can only hope that it happens again sometime soon.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
dwz's journal
tired
blah
excited
relieved
M2006: Ceremonies
M2006: Thank You Parade
M2006: Rhythmic Gymnastics