Prelude to picspam

I wish I had a secretary taking notes for me, so that when I get back there'll be a giant memo on my desk:
While you were away:
_x_ Part of Marietta caught fire again
___ The entire Republican Party collapsed upon itself
___ Your parents rent out your room
_x_ The Health Care Reform Bill passed
_x_ Your friends have decided to dress you up as a Kill Bill character
___ Several of your friends left for Spring Break and did not return

I also had a very exciting weekend, America!

My Rainforest Ecology class had an introductory field trip on Saturday- we went out to Paluma, which is a mountain about 60 miles from Uni which contains rainforest. We mostly just looked at trees and tried to identify them to family. I'm not very good at it- which is disconcerting. I'm brilliant at identifying trees to species at home. Of course, none of the families I know so well even exist down here. Even the 'beech' trees aren't in the same family as North American beeches.

:-( It's hard not being in Kansas anymore.

Anyway, Paluma has a little town up at the top, a bit of a summer-home place... Not unlike beach towns, except less built-up. We're going to be staying up there for a weekend in a few weeks while we do our individual research projects (I'm working on mosses with another girl from America- on this more when I know what we're actually doing). It looks like the weekend will be a lot of fun.

Then on Sunday my housemate offered to take me to the local aquarium- he and his daughter have a family pass, and since it includes two adults he figured I could save $20... he goes there about every other weekend and is rather jaded about the whole thing as a result, and therefore doesn't think it's worth the cost of admission.

And it's true- it's not as nice as the Baltimore Aquarium. There were no whale skeletons. But they did have some really cool reef fish... as one would expect. I hope at least some of the pictures I took turn out, but we'll see.
(The best part was the sea snake. I really hope at least one of those pictures turned out. *never got over her Chamber of Secrets-fueled love of snakes*)

Afterwards we stopped at a hardware store and I bought a folding chair, so my room is finally furnished to my satisfaction and there will be pictures of it eventually.

We also had a cyclone scare- Cyclone Ului was supposed to hit us Saturday, and there were warnings and everything else... it swerved and we didn't even get a decent wind. However, we *did* have a huge flood on Monday! The park across from my house was completely underwater, and my housemate called me out and we splashed around in it barefoot, which was great fun and struck me as a rather Aussie thing to do. Sadly, the rain stopped today, so the park wasn't flooded when I woke up, so I haven't seen it in daylight yet.

And that was my weekend. I still haven't got my pictures off my camera, but my next two entries (unless something exciting happens) are going to be just pictures of Paluma and fish.

Candy Bar Update:
Turkish Delight: Turkish Delight is a bit infamous in the US, because apparently (I haven't read them) it's the absolute favorite food of one of the kids in the Narnia books, but nobody in the US has any idea what it is. I've heard that it's disgusting, that it's ok, that it's brilliant...

First off, Turkish Delight is *very* big here in AU. All the Easter stuff is out, and they have Turkish Delight-filled chocolate eggs (chocolate eggs filled with things are apparently the big treat most kids get at Easter), Turkish Delight boxes of chocolates, and Turkish Delight shots- which will get you wasted faster than anything else on the planet, according to the anime club.

So I felt that I should buy and consume a Turkish Delight bar. It's this fruity red gummy substance, covered in milk chocolate. Alisa (my wonderful roommate at home) and I crashed a Hawaii club meeting one year and made this dessert with them... I can't remember what it was called, but it involved cornstarch and coconut milk... anyway, if I (or Alisa) remember its name, it's the same sort of thing as Turkish Delight.

(Turkish Delight shots are next).

Boost: This is a log-shaped candy bar with a chewy chocolate center with cookie bits in it, surrounded by a circle of caramel, and coated with milk chocolate. Pretty good.

Nestle Aero: This is the same thing as a Cadbury Bubbly, but Nestle stuff was on sale at the grocery story so I thought I'd mention it. And since we're more likely to find Nestle products than Cadbury ones at home, I hope that Aeros find a place on the US market. These things are really addictively good.

I also purchased a fresh passion fruit today, so I'll let you know how I deal with that.