Recipe for A Good Weekend

I have several things to catch all you up on!
Aside from the title of this post -

I had a jolly good sit down and really made up my mind about the au pair situation. I had reservations about it, hence why I didn't immediately say yes. my whole dedicated blog post should've been some indication of inner turmoil on my part. It would've been crazy moving in with a family of strangers. It would've left my current roommates and friends high and dry in terms of rent payments, and it would've been wayyy out of my comfort zone job-wise. I've never watched kids, the one time I tried to babysit was an epic failure.

So I spoke to my mom, and messaged a few other people for their two-cents. They all said basically what I had been thinking to myself. That there were too many red flags, that I would hate it, that it was too far, too awkward, too _____. I had no way of knowing if the family was even real, if I was willingly shipping myself off into the Bangkok sex trade or something.

I sent the family a rejection email, and de-activated my profile on the website (it will be deleted automatically in 60 days - now 54 days). I felt better. I mean, I set up the profile expecting to get nothing. To hear from no one, as it has been my luck with real jobs. I don't know why I do it, or why I'm like this, but I didn't want to say no to this family because the woman sent me a personal message. I didn't want to let her down, in a way.  But in the end I totally did and I don't care. Makes no sense at all, how I torture myself with the thought of future remorse and then once I grow a ballsac and just do it then I have no remorse at all.

Anyway! I have so much more to cover.

All of my pictures from my camera for the past like, 6 days I've taken any pictures at all - are ALL of Thor. Thor has decided he likes sleeping on my suitcase. And he is cute.
 
On the 9th, Chris (Double Emmilly's boyfriend, and Cal's best friend from University) drove me, Emily, Cal, and Emmilly up to the top of Mount Coot-tha at night, to see all of the city lights and everything. My camera is absolutely useless at night, but I got this cool on on purpose:

Cal and Emily went off on their own for a bit, so I sat with Chris and Emmilly and chatted to get to know them a little better and vice versa and what have you. They're cool people. They ordered a plate of french fries and were waiting for like, 15 mins when I got there, and then after it had been almost 45 minutes, they went to cancel their order so we could leave - and then we all went to McDonalds. :)

The 13th was Emily B's birthday!
Emily G and I waited until her and Cal went to bed, and then we went to town decorating. Emily baked the cake, and I hung the streamers in the living room, and made some signs. Emily B doesn't like massive amounts of attention on her birthday, so naturally Emily G and I had to make things as obnoxious as we could with the supplies we had. Emily G also wanted to try to top what she did at Hollins last year (dont know if she succeeded or not).

A few weeks ago, Cal and Double Emmilly went down under the house and had a look around, and found a mannequin with no arms. They named her Tallulah, and she has been the staple of many a prank around the house, just sticking her in corners, in windows, etc just to freak people out. So Emily and I dressed Tallulah up as the grim reaper / a knight from Game of Thrones and stood her right outside their doorway. Then while Emily decorated the cake, I put together the streamers for their doorway. It was tricky because I couldn't rip tape right outside their door without waking them up, so I had to make each strand and tape it to a horizontal strand, and then Emily and I both crept over with it (streamers are LOUD when youre trying to be quiet) and hung it up.

Then Emily had bought a pack of white printer paper, planning to line the entire hallway with it, but I convinced her to just do one big patch (since we couldnt think of anything to draw on it anyway). So Emily hung up the paper and I ripped the tape pieces on each piece of paper...then she drew Emily B's portrait across all the paper, but I did Emily's mouth. Then at this point it was almost 4 AM, so I just went to bed and Emily called me a sissy. She ended up staying up all night waiting for them to wake up and react to all of it.

I slept late, but apparently Emily and Cal went to South Bank for a picnic lunch for her birthday. I believe Emily also went with, but I'm not sure. I slept through all of that lol.

 So that was the 13th. 
This weekend, I researched some things to do in the city, and so Emily B and I went to South Bank to the open markets that happen on weekends. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for a street market and chintz stores.
South Bank was where we went on that first day in the city, when we went to Roma Street Parklands and then my camera died. So here are a few long overdue pictures of South Bank - which is an equally impressive public park area with a huge man-made beach, huge pool, kiddy pool system, and canal system (that we ended up walking in) before going down onto the actual bank of the Brisbane River. 

 walking across victoria bridge. we went to the 7-11 looking for the virgin margarita flavor but they didnt have it so we were stuck with lemon and lime bitters - which was (shocker) bitter.

 the tops of the market tents!

 this lines the entire walk-way through the entire South Bank park.

OB.SESSED. I am going to teach myself how to make these. Since Leather is my thing.

 part of the public pool. It was about 85 degrees on this saturday so naturally it was jam packed.

 
 Brisbane CBD, as seen on the banks of the river.

We sat on the bank of the river for a good hour, hour and a half just talking. It was a very relaxing day I found. We hadn't gotten to talk one on one like that pretty much since London so I enjoyed it quite a lot :)
Once the sun started to set, we headed off to the ferry port, hoping to get on the CityCat ferry so we could be on the river for sunset and take pics. It ended up being a little late so we missed the sun dropping below the trees, oh well. Good thing the sun sets every day, we'll catch it some time.
So it was really windy on this day, and I was wearing a pretty flimsy skirt, without a slip, it has no lining, no crinalin, nothing. I was holding it down on the  deck of the ferry (we stayed on the bow, taking pics instead of sitting inside like last time we rode the CityCat because it had been raining then).

I lift my arms to take one picture of a bridge coming up, and all of a sudden a big gust picks up, and I see my skirt hem in the corner of my eye. So I was like SHIT and tried to control the damn thing and cover my underwear but the damage was DONE. I looked directly behind me just to see if there were any guys my age behind me (which would be my luck) but I think the only people to see were this elderly foursome and a 30 year old couple.

So it wasn't as bad as it could have been...and I was laughing...I tried not to look behind me ever again because they all got dinner and a show.