Things have been especially busy since our Easter Holidays. We’ve studied migraines/headaches, brain tumours/space occupying lesions, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease- and now we are working on Alzheimer’s. Three more weeks and I’m supposed to know all there is to know about Neuro… eek! We’ve seen a lot of interesting patients in the hospitals over the past weeks as well… and although I find it all amazingly fascinating, I’m not sure I could be a neurologist or a neurosurgeon. It’s a little depressing to see how little they can do to help some people with neurological conditions and how complex and disabling the diseases are. I definitely like this block better than cardiology and respirology though!
We also got to spend a day at the Sydney Eye Hospital downtown Sydney- which is an amazing place. It is a beautiful old building on Macquarrie St. overlooking the Royal Botanical Gardens. We learned to use ophthalmoscopes, had one of our pupils dilated (for the day!), looked at each other’s eyes through slit lamps, inverted each other’s eyelids and tested each other’s vision. It brought back a few awful memories about the bacterial infection/ulcer I had in my eye a few years ago, but was really interesting nonetheless. 
These are my pupils 7 hours after being dilated. (You can see my left one is still much bigger than the right.)I haven’t been doing much exciting on the weekends lately. The first week of April was our birthday, but I tried to keep it quiet cause I didn’t want to celebrate this year. A few of my friends did actually end up dragging me out for some drinks that night tho- which was unexpected, but nice.
That same weekend, my friend Heather brought me to the Sydney Bridal Show at the convention centre. It was actually pretty good and I got lots of good ideas for January! I'm also planning to go look at some dresses this week with Heather, Amy and Janice - since this week is Anzac Day and we have Thursday off school!
Last weekend I ended up going to a New South Wales Medical Association cocktail party in the CBD (downtown). All the medical students from New South Wales were invited, so it was a pretty big gathering. I met a bunch more Canadians who are at Sydney U in first year MED. It seems like there are more and more Canadians here every year. The general consensus is that you pretty much need to have a Masters degree before you can get into medical school in Canada now- which seems pretty ridiculous since most of them will never use it. 
Some exciting news (if you haven’t heard from me already), is that my good friend Brooke (from Toronto)- who went home to do medicine at the University of Toronto last year (after starting med here) is coming back to study in Australia. She will not get credit for her time at U of T, so she’ll be a year behind us in school now- but she’s coming back!! :) I couldn’t believe it. I think she thought she had to at least try U of T since it is SO crazy to get accepted to these days- but once she was there she realized it’s not much different from Sydney after all! So I’m VERY happy about that!
I’ve been really enjoying being back in the pool here as well. It is really amazing to be able to swim in an outdoor 50m pool anytime of year! And now, with my bike, it only takes me about 5 minutes to get there. The last two times I’ve gone swimming I’ve had my own lane for over an hour!- completely unheard of anywhere in Toronto. It is just amazing and it never seems to get old. I have to say that I do REALLY miss training with a team though. :( This is a picture of my McGill team in 2004.
Not much else is new here. I’m a little bummed that I’ll be missing Nana and Nono’s 60th anniversary party next weekend- but I’m sending Brent along in my place. :) Dad and Norma will be arriving in less than a month and I’m planning to meet them in Melbourne their first weekend here- so I’m definitely excited about that!
I’ve been really enjoying being back in the pool here as well. It is really amazing to be able to swim in an outdoor 50m pool anytime of year! And now, with my bike, it only takes me about 5 minutes to get there. The last two times I’ve gone swimming I’ve had my own lane for over an hour!- completely unheard of anywhere in Toronto. It is just amazing and it never seems to get old. I have to say that I do REALLY miss training with a team though. :( This is a picture of my McGill team in 2004.Not much else is new here. I’m a little bummed that I’ll be missing Nana and Nono’s 60th anniversary party next weekend- but I’m sending Brent along in my place. :) Dad and Norma will be arriving in less than a month and I’m planning to meet them in Melbourne their first weekend here- so I’m definitely excited about that! Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you! And Happy Birthday to all the April-ers! :)
Today is April 2- one year since we got engaged! And also Betty and Adele’s birthday! :) Wish I was at home.
I arrived in Bali at around 9pm (a little later than planned) and Brent was at the airport waiting for me. It’s always exciting to see each other after so long!
It was a pretty nice place (about 10 minutes from the beach) called the All Seasons Hotel Legian.
We had a pretty relaxing day- doing some bodysurfing and walking along Kuta beach in the evening. There were a million surfers out all the time, so it was fun to just sit and watch them.
It was a bit hard getting used to EVERYONE hassling you to buy things (necklaces, massages, pineapples, transport, sarongs, etc…), but we survived. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant/pub down the street from our hotel called ‘Posers’ that night.
We relaxed at the hotel that day and planned some day trips for the next week. We played a lot of chess, explored the area and the beach, and relaxed around the hotel pool. While we were lazing in the pool that afternoon, we randomly met 2 Australian couples (probably in their 40’s or 50’s- so yes Dad, they were very young) who were there together on holidays. After chatting for a while, we discovered that one of the men (who happens to look exactly like John Goodman) knows the Australian Attorney General really well. He said that he’d talk to him for us and try to sort out our immigration problem! I know it is another long shot- but at least it is something for us to be hopeful about. Neville (the Australian man) was very optimistic, but I’m sure he is thinking that his immigration department is a lot more logical than they actually are.
We were probably the only non-Indonesians there, but it was a really neat experience nonetheless. On our way home we stopped by a bar on the beach with the Australians, and had a Bintang (Indonesian beer) before heading back to the hotel. Brent still had his fever. :(
The river had white water for 14km straight including one 4m drop near the end (Class III and IV rapids). We had a great guide and an AMAZING time.
At the end, they also served us a really great Indonesian lunch at a small restaurant with a great view over a valley.
We spent the rest of the evening at the hotel and Brent rested up. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant (which wasn’t very good), but Brent didn’t have much of an appetite anyway, so it was a good time for a sub-par dinner.
We were also served a small breakfast at the top of the volcano, overlooking one of Bali’s biggest lakes, called Lake Batur.
The rest of the day we spent biking down the volcano, going through lots of villages and passing lots of rice fields. 
We stopped several times along the way for our guide to tell us about the area and about some Balinese traditions. About 2 hours into the trip, it started to pour rain. We stopped for some shelter for a while, but it just kept raining, so we ended up biking the rest of the day in the rain! 
It was pretty “memorable” to say the least. We ended up making it all the way to Ubud (a well-known town in Bali) where we had another nice Indonesian late lunch. 
It was a 2 hour boat ride (via Lombok) to get to Gili Trawangan- an Island just off Lombok’s northwest coast. We had booked a villa on Gili Meno- an island less than a kilometer away from where we were, but the public boats only left twice a day, so we had to wait on Gili Trawangan until 4pm.
We spent some time on the beach and swimming in the relatively CLEAN ocean (compared to Kuta)!
After our swim, we went to a little café for some snacks and some bintangs while we relaxed in a beruga. 
While we were there, the police were searching for marijuana and heroin on the island with dogs! I was glad we didn’t have to worry- especially since they were carrying machine guns. Apparently they arrested 28 people on the Gili Islands that day.
There was no TV and not much to do on the island, so it really felt like we were at the cottage. We were so tired from our day (and I was starting to feel a little under the weather), so we played one game of chess and headed to bed at 7pm (just after dark) with no dinner!
We did some snorkeling (which was ok, but not nearly as good as Fiji was) and some swimming on the ocean and then relaxed on the beach for a while.
I got a one-hour massage for $5 on the beach too! I kept trying to get Brent to have a massage, but I don’t think he thought it was ‘manly’ enough. He he he. 
In the afternoon we had some pizza for an early dinner and walked around the northern part of the little island we were on. That night we went to bed around 8pm and I was really starting not to feel very well. :(
He he he. It was pretty funny.
We did see some lionfish and scorpionfish (some of the most poisonous fish in the ocean),
as well as some clownfish, angel fish, an Indonesian prawn, a moray eel and some nudibranches. My ear was bothering me (since my sinuses were plugged and I was having trouble equalizing), but I made it to the end of the dive ok. We decided not to go on another dive- even though they only cost $35 each!!! (the cheapest diving anywhere in the world)!
We spent some time on the beach in the afternoon, but the vendors on the island trying to sell us stuff were getting so annoying that we decided to retreat to our room for the rest of the day. We did come out for a nice dinner by the ocean before bed tho!
We got a little lost, but eventually found our way to the abandoned ‘Bounty’ resort.
The snorkeling ended up being pretty awful and the ocean on that side of the island was full of jellyfish- so I didn’t last long. Brent had to chase me back to shore after I spotted a few!
We walked back to our villa along the coast, but when we made it back I really wasn’t feeling well, so I spent the afternoon in bed. 
It was raining again- but in the late afternoon, we made a last minute decision to go deep sea fishing (since it was our last day on the island). It ended up being a great idea, despite the fact that I was feeling pretty awful and Brent ALMOST got sea sick again.
And he was even happier when they told us that we could keep the fish and that they would cook it for us for dinner that night!
I have to admit- it was a very yummy fish!
The trip back to Bali was a little painful because of the fumes in the cabin of the boat and because we were stuck in a small area with 2 extremely drunk, Balinese hippies (who were about 50 years old). When we got back to Bali, we went straight to a hotel in Kuta, which we had arranged through a Balinese travel agent that we met in Legian the first week. The hotel ended up being awful- the service was brutal, the rooms were dirty, and there was loud jack-hammer sounds coming from every direction. We decided to cancel our reservation there- and we ended up booking a room at the Hard Rock Hotel Bali for our last 4 nights.
It was JUST perfect and I was so happy to be there. The pool was the largest in all of Bali and it was just amazing.
The hotel was also right across from the beach, which was very handy for Brent and his bodysurfing.
We spent the afternoon around the pool and on the beach and had a really nice dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Made’s down the street from our hotel.
It was pretty fun, but no Wild Water Kingdom. We went around the lazy river about 10 times and went down tons of slides.
On our way home we did a bit of shopping and Brent bought me a few early birthday presents! :) We went for a quick bodysurf before dinner- but I didn’t last very long because of all the garbage in the water. It was like swimming in a garbage dump full of water!!!
That night we had a beautiful dinner at a really nice and busy Italian restaurant along the Kuta strip.
It turns out it would have been a really good place for us to go tho! The water was clean and there was an area where there was a beach break where lots of people were surfing. It looked like so much fun and we were wishing we had spent the whole day there instead!
For dinner, our driver took us to Jimbaran Bay- the area where all the nicest and fanciest hotels in Bali are (Four Seasons, Intercontinental, etc.). At night, the entire beach is set up with tables and you can get fresh seafood weighed and cooked for you- while you sit at tables on the beach. We tried getting a lobster for dinner- but after finding out that it was $75 USD, we decided to stick with sea prawns and mussels. It was absolutely amazing tho- and we both loved it!
In the evening we did some last minute shopping and bought 100 DVDs for 60 cents each!! We just couldn’t help ourselves. I’ve had to hide most of them in my apartment so that I won’t be tempted to watch them! I also bought about 5 summer dresses for $2 each!!
That night we walked by the bombing memorial from 2002- which was pretty interesting, but very sad. For our last dinner we went back to Made’s- the nice little Indonesian restaurant close to our hotel. Our dinner that night (2 beers, 2 bottles of water, and 2 meals) cost about $11.
After he left, I spent the rest of the day around the hotel by myself and did a little reading. The staff kept asking me where my ‘friend’ was, which didn’t exactly make me feel better- but they obviously didn’t know.
My flight was delayed and didn’t end up leaving until after midnight that night. I got back to Sydney the next morning just in time for class.
