Saturday, April 16, 2011

Yes We Have No Bananas

I received a very interesting text message from Raya last night, stating, “I want to come over tomorrow and sew banana costumes.” I was baffled. Why would anyone need a banana costume? It’s not like it’s football season and we want to wear banana costumes to prove our maize. (She apparently needs them for the play that her school is doing next weekend, though she wouldn’t tell me why there are four bananas in it…)
Raya sewed a teardrop shaped piece of fleece into a rough banana shape. She did research earlier in the day by eating a banana. See, you are what you eat, and she thought by eating a banana, she would become the banana. At first, she didn’t have armholes, but luckily she had me to mark where to cut armholes.
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Ta-dah! Raya seduces the camera because she’s just so ap-peel-ing.
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“This is a very meta picture,” Raya said potassium richly. It’s because I’m eating a banana while being a banana. I think it’s more cannibalism.
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We’re just a couple of bananas. I’m excited for the play next weekend to see what our fruitful costume making endeavors will be used for. (I really like puns ok??)
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This shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. (This shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s!)

Fameglasses

Congrats to Grishma on winning (via random number generator) the completely useless fame glasses!  You best take a picture of you wearing them! Also, it works best if someone takes a picture of you rather than you trying to take a picture of yourself; it took me like 20 tries before I took a good picture of my self because I couldn’t see where I was pointing my camera :(

Mom, you didn’t get entered because you didn’t even leave your name and who am I to know who this “anonymous” is that keeps commenting?

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I went to Australia last November: Day 4 Part 1

On my fourth and last day in Melbourne, Katie and I did a Yarra Valley winery tour, about an hour out of Melbourne. As soon as we got to wine country (before actually visiting any wineries), we begged our tour driver to make a pit stop at yarra valley dairy where we sampled cheeses. So worth it.

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We went to the first winery, Coombe Farm, and honestly, we could have stopped there. Oooh man, I loove wine. This lady was my favorite – it was about 10a and she was so enthusiastic about her wine.

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Katie: “How do I hold this bottle of wine?” Nidhi: “Hold it like you would hold a baby.” Katie: “OK!”

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We then went to another winery and had a nice snack and took this beautiful picture. We already had the nice buzzed look going.

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Then we took a break at a forest type area for tea and cookies. Our tour guide, John, told us that he could make all the forest birds come down and hang out with us. Oh dang, we got attacked by these beautiful birds. They were red and purple, soo gorgeous.

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After all the birds had gone back up to their perches, I gracefully leapt around the forest like I was a doe. I don’t know why I haven’t been hired as a forest ballerina yet.

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Then we went to another winery to eat lunch – I played bartender. That’s why they call me The Natural.

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Mmm the pasta and veggies were sooo yummy. I’m salivating looking at it just now. Thinking of it, eating carbs in the middle of a winery tour was probably the best thing we could have done. We were getting pretty silly by now.

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The last winery that we went to was sticks. KT and I looved this because of the restaurant Breadstix on Glee. #gleek I think these sticks would be a nice decor element I think.

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This is a picture of KT, John, and me after the last winery. As soon as we climbed back into the van, we both fell asleep as we rode back into the city. I love winery tours!

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I love Yarra Valley.

Monday, April 11, 2011

I went to Australia last November: Day 3 Part 2

After my cappuccino break, I decided to visit the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria. This is the part of the National Gallery that has all the Australian Art. Check out how awesome the outside of this building looks! There were so many odd angles.

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They had a cool fashion exhibit, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

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I saw this piece of art and immediately started working on my plan for the zombie apocalypse :(

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After the museum, I met up with KT to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens. She looks so beautiful with all the lush greenery behind her.

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These were cool. I want them for my front yard. Also, I don’t own a front yard, is that going to be a problem?

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We then pranced around on the Sidney Myer music bowl amphitheatre as if we were the Jonas Brothers. Here is an awesome and totally flattering shot of me doing a cartwheel.

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Katie wanted an equally awesome and totally flattering shot of herself doing a cartwheel, so I obliged her request.

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After walking around the gardens some more, we decided to go to St Kilda again to meet up with Katie’s friend Tab and her brothers. Katie knows Tab through her friend Janie, who was her bff growing up. Janie met Tab’s brother Damien on an airplane and they’re getting married this year!! This is Katie, me and Tab.

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Oh my gosh. When we were walking around on St Kilda beach, a bunch of tourists who did not speak much English were crowding around us and making us take pictures with them.

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Total chaos. Not really sure what was happening!

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I think this is approximately the time that I made up the phrase “Girl, you cray cray” because, believe me, this was cray cray.

I went to Australia last November: Day 3 Part 1

For my third day in Oz, Katie and I went for breaky (Aussies abbreviate breakfast) at Mad Duck Café  in the Docklands. We started off with a breakfast bev – I got a cappuccino (I looove Australian cappuccinos) and Katie got a hot chocolate. This picture is gorgeous.

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I got a delicious Eggs Florentine for my entrée. Oh my gosh, I am salivating right now thinking of it. 

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And of course, no breaky would be complete without champagne :)

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Look at the view! I could definitely be in an advert for something. And the boats in the background aren’t that bad, either :) When I grow up, I wanna be famous.

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Love this photo of my champagne.

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After finishing breaky around 11:30a, KT decided that she should probably go to work. We started walking back to the tram and got to go through this cool bridge. I love the shadows on the ground from the structural elements.

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I scarily took the tram from a place that I didn’t know to the Queen Victoria Market.

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Queen Victoria Market was a gigantic area full of booths that sold things like koala/kangaroo salt and pepper shakers, boomerangs, and Justin Bieber t-shirts. Little Brother told me that he wanted a koala bear in a kangaroo’s pouch from Oz, and I tried to search for one here (in vain).

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After the market, I went to the Melbourne Library to do some light reading. Just kidding. I went to look at it. THe outside kind of reminded me of New York City for some reason.

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The library itself had a mini-art gallery inside, as well as an entire room devoted to chess! There are way too many chess books out there, probably all full of numbers and letters instead of sentences. There were also many tables in which to play a game of chess (if you so wished, which I definitely did not).

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I then took a mini-break at in one of the alleyways. I sat down for about an hour to drink a cappuccino, read Jurassic Park, and people-watch.

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I <3 my cappuccinos.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I went to Australia last November: Day 2 Part 2

After wandering around Melbourne by myself for a few more hours, and doing things like going to the Melbourne Museum and stepping on a bunch of crunchy leaves just to hear that crackling noise, I met up with KT again to see some more things.

Melbourne had these Christmas banners everywhere. Again, I kept expecting them to say “Christmas in July,” but even though it’s in The Southern Hemisphere, Aussies still celebrate Christmas at the same time that people in the Northern hemisphere do (the ones that celebrate Christmas, anyway). Can you tell I mirror-imaged this picture! Yes, yes, you can.

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The Australia Target sucks. Just saying. 

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KT and I took a tram from downtown Melbourne to St Kilda Beach to watch the sunset. We started out by wandering around, and we found a little cove where we could look at some Australian penguins. Isn’t it adorable?

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We saw a giant clump of dead starfish. There were so many. As sad as this picture is, it also is kind of cool (but don’t tell anyone that I said dead starfish are cool).

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Ahh. The sunset was so beautiful.

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But we weren’t the only ones enjoying it. We were totally creepy but if they’re full on going at it right in front of us, what were we supposed to do?

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A better picture of a couple on he beach. I love this picture.

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We then walked up the street to eat dinner, and on the way saw the entrance to a Luna Park, an amusement park. Now, I think this looks really creepy and not at all amusing. But that’s just my thought. Entering a park by someone’s mouth? Exactly my idea of a good time.

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Pumpkin risotto. Delicious.

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I think in Australia is where I became extremely skilled in taking extreme close-ups of my food.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

I went to Australia last November: Day 2 Part 1

On my first full day in Oz (or my second day), I spent the morning, alone, in downtown Melbourne, walking around and looking at the National Gallery of Victoria International.
I saw this beautiful tower on my way there – it’s atop the arts centre right next to the National Gallery of Victoria. It kind of looks like the Eiffel Tower on top of a mesh Pringle.
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The outside of the National Gallery was comprised of glass sandwiching a waterfall -- so gorgeous.
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This painting was weird. And awesome. But mostly weird. Lots of symbolism…Or maybe just a Mother Nature theme. But with my knowledge of art, it probably means something completely different than what I’m construing. 
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There was a stained glass ceiling inside the Museum. The picture stitching feature on my camera totally botched the lines in the stained glass.
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After the art museum, I went to Melbourne Uni to grab lunch with KT and her colleagues. I want to go to Melbourne Uni. for graduate school.
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We went to lunch at Pizza by the Metro, where they had pizza by the meter. So delicious. I think Katie’s colleagues thought I was ridiculously weird (but mostly lovely). The pizza was delicious, and it was even more marvelous that it came by the metre (or half metre, I think in this case.)
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The restaurant had this awesome stained glass window with rifles in it! I thought I was back in ‘merica for a second. Gosh, I wish I had a rifle stained glass. Project idea?!
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We went for a post-lunch jaunt to a local grocery store, where I discovered that they used the refrigerator LED lights that I had worked on at my internship in 2008! So cool, halfway across the world!
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After that, KT left me to go back to work and I took a bus tour of Melbourne. They have free bus tours of Melb for all the tourists! So cool! I saw this Costco on the tour. Man, why don’t the Costcos of America have the architectural design of the Oz Costcos? (CostcOz?)
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I saw this Stop sign. I wish I could stop worrying. When I was on holiday, oh God, I didn’t worry at all. I stopped thinking about work, I stopped thinking about school, I didn’t worry about anything in my life. I guess that’s why it’s called a holiday.  (Also, not sure which is more interesting: this stop sign or the ones I saw in Detroit.)
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Stop worrying. Also, probably should stop your car here as well.