This will be my last post from this office... :( We are moving next week... Im also trapping next week so its going to be quite exhausting. Yesterday I went to Warrnambool (2 hours drive) to listen to Ilonas honours talk, she did very well and we are very proud of her :) Me and Kate went for a drive to her families former private holiday beach, very beautiful, like a mini version of the twelve apostles. Then we drove back and we saw and ECHIDNA :) YESSSSS, I was so excited and ran towards the poor thing who was digging for ants. I think I spooked it because it started to dig like crazy to hide. Soooo cute and my second wild and free echidna :) If I had seen an emu too I dont think I would have survived, might have exploded from happiness :)

The weather yesterday was very strange, the view of Melbourne city was horrible while we drove towards it. Surrounded by a big brown cloud, no wind to blow it away, very humid and up to 29 degrees. The forcast had said 21 but I was sweating and though no way its 21. We had a great day though :) Kates talk went very well and then me and Kylie went shopping on Chapel street, the nr. 1 celebrity spotting place in Melbourne. It did not fail and we saw Igor from Big Brother. He was the most disgusting housemate in the latest series, burping and farting all the time... Would have liked to see a nicer celebrity... After a very exhausting shopping trip we went to the theater to see the musical "The Producers". The original show in Broadway had Nathan Lane (Birdcage) and Matthew Broderick (Inspector Gadget, hubby of Sarah Jessica Parker) in lead roles. I had no expectations, did not even know the storyline and I had a great great time :)

Finished the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (author of Da Vinci Code). Brilliant, and now I really want to go to Rome and see all the sculptures and churches the characters were running around. A lot of stuff about the Pope, dead Popes, cardinals, conclave, Illuminati, Bernini... very fascinating :) Oh yes and I went to the beach yesterday :) Did not swim though but me and Kate swam last week. Absolutely freeeezing water but after a while it was not as freezing but still bloodie cold :) The surf was excellent so the water was full of surfers, made me wish I had a surfboard and a wet suit...
Kate is having her talk tomorrow in Melbourne so we are all going there in the morning, will have the afternoon free with Kylie and then we are going to see Mel Brooks "The Produceres" in the theater. Very exciting :)

The weather is too good to sit inside and work, 28 degrees and sunny... Me and Kate made an agreement, we will work now for 2 hours and THEN go to the beach :) Ive realized that going to the beach is a GOOD thing for my workprogress because if I was NOT going to the beach I would sit here all day looking outside whishing I was at the beach. So now at least I will get 2 hours of work done :) Like you can see I am very good at justifying things.

Kate and Ilona handed in their honor thesises today and I video taped everything much to Ilonas annoyance :) They will be missed very much... Today the weather is just fantastic, 24 degrees lovely and sunny, Kate has been talking about the beach all day so no one feels like working. The first big moving day at uni will be on Friday and then the whole following week. We have started packing things but it still feels unreal that we are moving... I DONT WANT TO MOOOOOVE...

Eg er ad horfa a SPAUGSTOFUNA i tolvunni :) ykt gaman, a www.ruv.is. Just discovered that I can watch news and icelandic shows on the internet :)

Yeiiiii, I got my old comments to work again... my HTML knowledge is a bit rusty :)

Hmm... Im still trying to decide if I like the look on this page. Unfortunately I dont have much time to play so I guess I will just leave it like this for a while :) I dont really have much to say so I think I will just stop before this gets boring to read hehe... Have a great weekend :)

Like you can probably see I have been doing some changes here on my blogsite... I lost all the old comments though :-(

Svitn svitn... sweating like crazy now... its 3 pm and the science building is boiling. The air con gave up and the only think I want to do now is to take a dip in the ocean...

Yibbiiiii, a spring heatwave at the moment. 32 degrees and for the first time in months I can wear a skirt and singlet at uni because the air con cannot handle the heat hehe :) Me and Ellen left early from work yesterday and went to the beach, ahhhhh so nice... Today we feel a bit guilty about that so we are working hard... a bit difficult to concentrate though because I just want to be outside. Did not want to do fieldwork though because it is too hot but probably many snakes sunbaking on my site which would be great to see :) I have decided to go to Kangaroo Island with my parents when they get here so we will be off on the 20th of December, thats gonna be fantastic :) Then Ingibjörg and my sister Helga will come on the 24th and on the 30th we will all fly to Cairns for 5 days. Yeiiiiiii I am so excited :)

Warmest day of spring today, 30 DEGREEEES :) sunny and great and me and Ellen are thinking of leaving early and soak the sun a bit :)

I had a great weekend in M'bourne with Fred, Judy and Christian. Lots of catching up and we went to the Healsville sanctuary together, really good in lovely 25 degrees. Fred drove me to the trainstation last night and they are renovating the whole station so everything was a bit disorganized. I was told to go to platform 3 so I did, jumped in the train and off it went. There was an announcement but it was more like a low murmur and I could not hear it. The first stop was a bit unfamiliar but i thought it was just my bad memory but then I thought the landscape looked a bit strange, but found some mountains that looked a bit similar to the You Yangs... When the trainguard finally came to check the tickets he panicked and said I was going the totally wrong way. He grabbed his radio and called someone and then said there was another train coming but i had to wait an hour on the next stop. The problem was that there were three trains on the same platform and I jumpted into the wrong one, but thankfully I was not the only one who made that mistake. I sat in Woodend, an hour away north of Melbourne, all by myself, the others had realized the mistake earlier and were waiting at another stations so we met up closer to Melbourne and had a giggle about what had happened. Really nice people so it was not all bad. This was not the end of it though because our train was late and we missed the connecting train to Geelong so we had to wait another hour the get the next one. What a mess !!!!!! So instead of taking a one hour trainride to Geelong I ended up spending 5 hours trying to get home.

Forgot to mention the big White-tailed spider Ellen found in our house yesterday. It absolutely freeked poor Kylie out while I ran to get my videocamera :) Very exciting but their bites can cause extremely nasty skin ulcerations even though there is some debate about that. Dont worry, I am being careful :) I respect all those nastie creatures even though I find them extremely fascinating :)

Going to M'bourne today to meet up with Fred, Judy and Christian. Christian is the son of Christiana and Peter, old german friends of my parents and F&J. Have not seen him since we were about 14 so it will be interesting to meet up again after all those years :) It has been a big reunion day so far since Jacki and Geoff (IAESTE friends) came to see me this morning on their way to Port Fairy.
Tomorrow is the federal election where John Howard, the liberal prime minister is fighting labor Mark Latham for the big chair. The election campagne has been quite brutal and tiring so I will be very glad when it finishes, and hopefully Latham will win !!
Oh yes, and Hrönn and Addi's daughter was named Eyrún last sunday and is Arnarsdóttir :)
Have a great weekend everyone !!!

Fieldwork today in lovely 25 degrees and sun :) Loads of sunscreen (3 layers) and so many plant species to make my head spin... I have finished the floristics in 105 quadrats, 95 to go and all the structural work. I cannot complain at all because being outside these days is so much better than sitting inside and seeing the good weather pass by.
I have not mentioned it before but my department is moving. They are going to tear out aspestos out of the building and will do that in stages starting with our level. We will have to move in November and we DONT want to move. We are very happy with our offices as they are now, but they will put us in smaller space, perhaps with other students. Not happy at all !!!

Bloody Blogger. I wrote a blog yesterday but then everything crashed and it was lost. Well, I spent the first 3 days of the week in a trapping camp were we were supervising 50 uni kids. A bit strange to be the teacher instead of the student, specially when they were looking at different poo's and asking what it was. I can tell if it is a fox poo but the roo and wallaby poo's are all same to me. We did not get many animals in the traps but very interesting species. One Antechinus agilis with 11 (ELEVEN) pouch young, amazing, a Dunnart, a baby Bandicoot which was a bit stressed poor thing and couple of Bush rats. Very exciting :) There was a deaf girl in the group with an interpreter and they taught us some sign language, so now I can say "my animal", "you talk too much" and "you lazy hippo" :) Im sure it will become very handy some day :) Im off now to the field to do more veg, will probably come back with mozzie bites.. itch