Devils in the outback again?

Wow. I had no idea it'd been four days since I last posted. Well I guess technically three as I'm writing this at 12h05am on the 9th. I don't really even know where to start, I last left you with the epic ride up to the Norton Summit I think, and since then I've gone on yet another incredible ride to a place called Windy Point. The climb wasn't nearly as steep which was great, and conveniently at the summit before hitting all the rollers there was a servo (gas station) and I picked up a Powerade, which probably kept me from certain death. I had woken up after a perfect decent night of watching a Aussie Rules Football exhibition game for free, followed by Casino Royale in the common room with friends and neighbours and then walked back into town for some beers with friends at an Irish bar (unfortunately this particular night playing 90s pop music by a live band who just wanted the crowd to sing along). After that, I woke up and headed out, nothing in my stomach because I wanted to get going early enough to make it to the beach. The weather ended up being really cloudy and not that warm out, so I never made it to the beach and instead just hung out with some friends and got ready to go out again that night. But the ride, again, was amazing. I messed up my route a bit and missed out on the chance of going up to Windy Point, then down some seriously fast streets (keeping up with cars on a 60 kph road, very quick dhills) and had I not turned when I did, could've rode most of the way back along the Ocean Rd in view of all the beaches and coastline. But still had a good ride, and when I got back I was still buying time before we went to this international student's house party (which ended up being huge, 200+ people and a decent time had you brought beer with you). So I decided to go for a run, thinking I won't have to spend as much money on beer that way, and had a pretty good 7k route. It was after this run that I was getting changed, dressed to impress of course, and I looked in the mirror and boom, here I am with these two perfectly lined burns from the cloudy day of being on the cycle for three hours. Never felt a ray of sun when I was out there, but aparently my skin did. The picture definitely doesn't do it justice, the red under arm is close to a faded Cdn flag hue, while I'm still quite white under the shirt, but am slowly coming along.

Then today woke up after a great night out with the Euros, as I affectionately refer to them, and went to watch the South Australia Primiership Cycling Circuit on the invitation of aforementioned Darren O'Grady, and saw some gorgeous bikes. Finally the weather has picked back up to beach weather, so I got to enjoying that and stayed in the sun for about 4 hrs before grabbing some pizza for supper. Then came back home, and while everyone else was struggling to stay awake I was getting a second wind. Good news, because this afforded me to be able to go on a wonderful night run - 11k in the nice cool weather. Couldn't be happier with all the training I'm getting in.

On the school front, I finally have found a good class. Not sure if I mentioned Wed as to whether the first classes that day were sort of brutal, but the trend continued on Thursday until Friday, the class I expected the least out of, wowed me. Concepts in Ecology - the class was okay, but the seminar was great. We got started already on a group semester project that I'm really excited about. I teamed up with two Aus. girls and we were talking about things that could interest us in the ecological spectrum of things. We have to develop a research proposal as you would for a masters or phd, and I suggested something along the lines of what I would actually love to do with my degree - a wolf reintroduction program back into Ontario and further east in Canada. Well we actually ran with this concept of successful reintroduction programs of native species, which aren't uncommon in Australia, and decided our topic was going to be a proposal of doing research to find the effect on small mammals and competitve species for the reintroduction of Tasmanian devils back onto the mainland (yes, they're not just a funny carton character). Well its late now and I've got a busy day planned tomorrow, so for those of you that I was going to reply to your emails tonight, I very much apologize. Maybe tomorrow night?

I'll leave you all with a photo of the new, now completely healed tattoo I got when I was back home in Ontario. My dad got the same one above his chest, which may sound nerdy but who cares, now we share his only tattoo and one-half of his genes. The yellow wristband is for the Victoria Bushfire's that were just coming to a finish when I was getting in Australia and still very much a fresh pain for Australia and specifically Victoria, where they happened, when I was in Melbourne.
*One of my new Danish friend's read the blog today, and I had to recognize her for doing so, pretty much because the first time I met Nina, I thought her named was Lena. So here is the editorial correction and her own little mention.