Ekka 2010

So I'm pretty sure the last time I went to the Ekka was when I was a teenager.. so maybe around 14 years old? Okay so lets say I went to the Ekka around 8 years ago.  For those not from Brisbane the Ekka is like a big city fair that lasts for a week every August.  We even get a day off (or two if you're still in school).

I couldn't remember anything about it, so I thought 'Okay this year, I'm going to do it!'.  I actually had a really great time (despite being all on my ownsome), there were heaps of areas to look at in most interest bases - my personal favourites were the animals, the cake decorating and the food stalls (yum!).

My Rattikins: Creamy

We bought Miss Creamy with Coco, they are sisters from the same litter.  Justin named her, it's quite cute I asked him to say the first thing he thought of when he looked at her and he said 'Creamy'.  She's my little butterball, the biggest and roundest of the three!  She will always be on the scene at feeding time.

This is my first picture of Creamy and Coco.  She instantly became the alpha of the pair and maintained this position when we introduced Muffin.  Despite her dominance on the inside of a cage, she is painfully shy and will often squeeze herself into tiny corners, while Coco will explore freely and uninhibited.  

Creamy is a tough cookie.  She is the hardest to get out of her cage and the hardest to wash or nail trim.  However, her weakness for food guarantees that she can be persuaded by some kind of currency!

Here she is sitting on Auntie Sian's shoulder :)  She might prefer small spaces, but she is also happy to sit on your shoulder and press into your neck for security.

Here she is playing with her sister Coco, in my make-shift felt bowl.  It's a really easy little playground for anyone who has rats, they like being able to hide in it and move around in the soft materials.  Despite being sisters it's cute how different the two of them are, and how well they compliment each other's interests and objectives.  Coco likes to be challenged and Creamy likes to eat, so any food we leave in the gaps gets pulled out by Coco for all the rats.  Coco likes to rip up things and Creamy enjoys making nests, so sometimes you will see Coco creating the materials for Creamy to work with - they are quite the pair of workers!

Sea World

My last hurrah at Sea World today for the year I guess.  I love Sea World for the same reasons I love Underwater World - it's brilliant to see animals up close, I find fish and the mammals of the sea very interesting.

The polar bears are sooo cool!  I never knew that they weren't white, they are actually clear which is why it's really weird when you go there and see a brown bear!  They get reasonably white once they jump in the water though, and it's nice watching them play with a barrel or traffic cone.

There's an amazing aquarium section, where you can see fish, sharks and stingrays underwater.  My family all agreed that they could spend a long time just watching all the fish go about their day.  Also on the note of stingrays, there's an area where you can touch them and the baby stingray's are very cute.

These guys are the fairy penguins, unfortunately few of them were swimming.  I have gone there before and watched them all do formation laps up and down the pool.  I love these guys!  I seem to have an obsession with birds I think haha.

Finally the dolphin show is definitely worth watching, they've choreographed some amazing routines for the dolphins and it's a real thrill to watch.  Didn't see it this time, but we went a few months back and it was amazing.  Back when we went one the mothers was pregnant and didn't do tricks.  It's great, because I was watching the news a couple months ago and the baby had been born, so I felt really connected to the news story because I had seen the mother pregnant.  Story here.

Mt. Cootha Picnic, Magpies and Ants

Today my lovely boyfriend decided we should have a picnic. So after my class at uni, I came home and Justin was making some little lunch rolls and I cooked up some eggs and we hopped in the car to find a nice spot at Mt. Cootha. We are very lucky to live just a short five minute drive from the gardens and we've discovered lots of nice quiet areas that tourists and day visitors often don't drive to. So we stopped at one site surrounded by trees and not a person in sight.As we were unwrapping our rolls I noticed a few magpies (no surprise) making their way over to a nearby tree to scope out the sucker-value of these picnickers no doubt. Then quite suddenly we found ourselves encircled by an entire family of magpies (mum, dad and three babies) all very keen to have a piece of our lunch.

I honestly have never seen magpies get so close, Justin of course fed them from afar at first. Then we started testing how close they would come until I literally had one a few inches from my lap sitting on my satchel bag. At this point Justin could hand-feed them, they were taking it reasonably well from his hands. But it was seriously freaking me out, I thought we were going to get rolled for our food by this pack of magpies!

After we ran out of food, they eventually flew back to their tree. And then we had the displeasure of meeting the most vicious bloody green ants. One bit me behind the ear (Man, the pain!) and another bit Justin in the back of the neck. After spending half an hour in peaceful nature, the picnic had turned into a warfare zone and we decided get the hell out of there! I think next time we'll have to scope out the ant situation before we set up our picnic ;)

My Rattikins: Coco

We have three female rats in our family, todays blog will be about Miss Coco (aka Coco Pop, Coco Monster and Coco Puff). I chose her first because it turns out she's the most photogenic - well she must be because I have 5 photos to 1 of the other two girls! (Although the food in the above picture probably has a lot to do with it).

I lubs Coco. She has these little eyes that pop out slightly more than the other two and she is the smallest of the three. I think this is because Coco prefers to have adventures and test her limits rather than chow down on food all day. Unfortunately my little munchkin is the most unwell of the three - she has Respiratory Mycoplasmosis (So does her sister Creamy but Coco's is much worse). It's a common disease in rats and they all apparently have the genetics for it, but it is up to the individual immune system whether they will present with symptoms or not. So every couple of months she will start sneezing and wheezing, which means we have to start her on antibiotics. But she's very brave and takes them well :)

Above she is giving smoochies to her Aunt Sian ;) Coco has probably given me the most strife out of all of them for her escape antics. She's made it behind the dishwasher in the kitchen, even managed to climb into the walls through a powerpoint her daddy left open. She's escaped upstairs to the apartment above us and I've spent hours sitting in front of small holes trying to coax her out with food. She is a little troublemaker but I wouldn't have her any other way :)

Breakfast at UQ

Today I had my second last spanish exam for the semester. I think it went well for the record.. I just spun a whole lot of BS and tried to spell it as well as I could with my broken spanish vocabulary. I also somehow managed to get 10% out of 15% on my previous grammar test - in my eyes I couldn't ask for more bahaha.

Anyway I got to UQ an hour earlier than I would normally and my sole mission at 8:15am was to get me some Merlo action! I freaking love Merlo coffee, I'm going to have to address this addiction some other day though because something else distracted me from my goal - Ye awesome Ham/Cheese Croissant!

So damn good! And I had a decent view from the Pizza Cafe:

Anyway, while I was sitting down murdering my HCC and mulling over recent developments, I saw this bird just swoop like a ninja into the slightly ajar door of the Pizza Cafe restaurant. He then proceeded to jump from table to table picking up crumbs.. I seriously loved his arrogance, so much so that when he swooped near me for a croissant crumb I took a quick snap of him: