Weekly Buzz

I've not been able to update quite as soon as usual partly because I got side tracked but also as I've been a bit busy. Part of what has kept me busy is preparing some "sample blogs" as part of the blogging application. So to make things a little simpler for me, a copy and paste of my TOTALLY TRUE sample blog is below. First though I should have mentioned upon my arrival into Hobart this occurrence (also from my sample blog):

"The airport, also similar to my home’s, was small, requiring us to walk from the plane into the terminal. However inside the terminal we were greeted by a sniffer dog! Tasmania has a stringent quarantine in place banning fresh fruits and vegetables from entering the region. Not really to my surprise, the dog seemed to take an interest in me, and the lady at the other end of the lead asked me to step to the side. Before boarding the plane in Melbourne, I had taken my last apple out of my bag and eaten it as part of my breakfast. The dog had been able to smell the apple’s recent location, so after a quick look in my bag the lady let me continue to the baggage claim section."

And now you can continue on to the other sample:

"Taking a look in Saturday’s paper, I realized why they are so careful about importing fresh produce. Tasmania is fruit fly free!!  I personally am quite surprised, although now that I’ve thought about it, I don’t recall seeing any signs of fruit flies near my pears or apples.

The reason this piece of information was even in the news is because a second fruit fly had been spotted in one of their fly traps in a two week period. Hopefully no more flies will be found, because I think it’s incredible that there even exists an area free of these pesky bugs.

Anyway I will have a field trip to the Long Beach at Sandy Bay to report on soon, so I’m keeping this posting a little shorter than usual!"

The field trip to Long Beach isn't actually until next monday.... However on Wednesday, my Swedish friend (from now on called Nya), the other Canadian from TRU (Sam), an American international student (Jay) and myself met up after a facebook discussion to plan a trip somewhere on Saturday. Nya and I had been talking about trying to get out of Hobart to see somewhere nearby while the weather is still nice. Thus after a posting on the international students facebook group, we managed to find a couple interested people. Nya is renting from a family who has a number of tenants in their home, one of whom is a Librarian and the University's main library. He was interested in taking a bit of a trip over the weekend too, and was willing to drive the four of us too!

With so much rain recently, Rainbows are almost an every day occurrence!

So on Saturday we should be leaving bright and early to visit Port Arthur, the site of a prison where the convicts were sent. It is definitely going to be quite the trip and I'm really glad we have a driver instead of being dropped off by one of two buses that leave Hobart and go there on Saturdays and come back early in the evening. There is also a BBQ taking place on the other side of the river Friday night, so I will probably have quite a few interesting tales to tell very shortly!