Vic's birthday

It was Vic's birthday on Tuesday so she's now 23 and I've had to counsel her through various crises ("Am I too old for this skirt??!" etc). Actually, I'm lying - that was never questioned.

We had thought about spending the day at Australia Zoo, hanging out with Steve Irwin and getting our photos taken with giant crocodiles etc, but in the end sleeping in late won over that. Well, Vic slept in - I got up extra early in order to raid my aunt's kitchen and make her a cake. It worked out ok except that, like everything I cook, it came out looking like it was made by a 6 year old. What's with that?! Tasted ok though. It also supplemented the only present I'd managed to buy Vic (not for financial reasons but more for getting-time-away-from-Vic-in-order-to-shop reasons): a Sinead O'Connor CD. Since the head-shaving we've had I think 3 or 4 genuine Sinead O'Connor comments, mostly from drunk guys, but hey.

We went out for breakfast and then spent the day in town. The South Bank area here is amazing. It's got theatres and concert halls like the one back home, but with the addition of a cool park and fake beach. Yep, a fake beach. Brisbane is a river city, it's not on the sea, but they imported a load of sand and fashioned a salt-water pool right next to the river. It's got life guards and "safe to swim" flags and everything, plus no fear of sharks.


Then we headed out for evening fun in Brisbane.

(Paris Hilton faces)

We started with Sushi Station fun with our friend Matt. We were introducing him to sushi, which I have to admit didn't...go great. Ah well. Then we headed to a sleazy backpackers pub for drinks, but quickly decided we were just so way superior to their target audience, so went to the Valley to find somewhere to hang out...the initial plan had involved crazy drunkenness and staying up all night (til the buses started running again; no night buses here!) but seeing as how we're so mature and Vic's 23 and all the atmosphere turned out to be rather calmer and maturer than that: we had drinks sitting outside at this fun bar place (we'd just missed seeing a live band, booo) and when it got to 2:30am and everything seemed to be closed, headed to a joyful 24-hour pancake place my cousin Katie had told us about. Yummy. Then we got a cab home at 4am...just 1 hour 40 mins short of the first bus. Damn.

Yesterday was then spent being tired, wandering around in the sunshine and watching the OC. The OC is so addictive. We rented part of the 2nd series on video and...actually got to go watch more right now as the videos are due back today.