Exploring .. Kinda

View out from the Esplanade Parkland Area

So being in Darwin officially for a weekend  I thought I should get myself all excited and go and check the place out a little bit.  The fact that it took until about 3pm on Saturday afternoon to finally work up the excitement to venture outside after a late night Friday and beautiful sleep in that morning followed by generally lazing around the apartment and chatting to home, initially updating here (which between phone calls and other stuff I managed to stretch out for almost 2 hours ... yep - I am that good!) and getting ready to face the world shouldn't be held against me ;) .

Down into Doctors Gully

Along the Gully Floor

So finally all ready to venture out I did the mad dash across the road to the bus interchange to jump aboard one of the less regular buses to the city.  Made it just in time and got to the city just before 4.  Naturally almost everything was shutting up shop for the day - but that's ok (and how I roll).  Decided that instead I should just go and have a look at the 'nature' instead.  In the city there is one great big long park along the waterfront.  So I ended up strolling around through there instead.  Some beautiful scenery - with a healthy scattering of locals camped out in various spots.  I went with the I'll ignore you if you ignore me approach and it worked quite well I must say.  At the end of the esplanade park thing I went a little further and found this really random patch of 'rainforest' type stuff.  There was this walkway through rather thick foliage in what was called 'Doctors Gully' so I figured I should definitely check it out.  Was lovely and cool as I wandered through and enjoyed the shade.

 

Looking out to sea

All the while I could hear what I thought was traffic out on the main road.  Turns out that actually no, all that rumbling noise was in fact thunder.  By the time I made it back up topside the weather had taken a very definite turn.  It was dark, windy and decidedly stormy looking.  I pretty quickly decided that I was probably done for the day in the city (short and sweet that it was in the end) and high tailed it back to the bus stop.  Made it to shelter in time (thankfully) and got on the bus just as the rain started in earnest.  Felt pretty impressed with myself with the timing.  The only annoying thing is that as we got out of the city the storm seemed to quickly blow over.  So lots of noise and not much to actually show for it.  But - que sera - next time ..

The following morning (Sunday) one of the guys and I decided to go and hunt down a local church.  We ended up at 3C Darwin church and it was really lovely.  Felt very comfortable there and I think its going to be my local while I'm up here (though not for very long sadly).  We hung around afterwards and managed to score a free lunch (huge attraction as a student!!) and it was delicious.  This Asian noodle soup thing - not sure what it was except that it was all sorts of deliciousness! 

Obligatory X-Ray of Multiple Myeloma - admire the lytic lesions!

Monday morning meant back to the grindstone.  On the Monday I asked the head of the department I had been in for an official topic to do a presentation on (seeings as I hadn't actually made a heap of headway on the one which I was currently working on - so dry!!) and so I was given instead 'Diagnosis and Investigation of Multiple Myeloma) and again given the 20mins.  Initially my reaction was - How the heck am I going to stretch something that small out for 20mins!!!!!!!!  However, later that evening after spending a bit of time doing some reading and research around the topic it turned more into - How the heck am I going to condense that to 20mins!!!!  Gotta love the world of medicine and how much you can blow something out or simplify it ... sometimes overly so ....... 

Needless to say the next few evenings were spent furiously trying to put together a legible and clear presentation which went for the 20mins and worked well.  There was a few later nights than normal - and one crazy late one! but it all worked out quite well in the end.  After my presentation on the Thursday (and yep - that's right - 3nights to put together the 20min presentation - gagh!) I was so happy to hear from the head of the department (who I had embarrassed myself pretty well in front of for the first week and a bit) that they were very impressed with the presentation as it was far above the level that they expect from a student.  Definitely made a sleepless night worthwhile - and will hopefully be reflected in the final marks back from them!

In other news - our house here has done a bit of a 180!  Where I started as the rose among the thorns - its now the other way around and there are 3 girls in here with me and just the 1 guy.  Makes me laugh!  The new arrivals are pretty awesome though.  They are two Radiography students from Adelaide.  Its hilarious as I totally understand their conversations and frustrations while debriefing about their days.  And they're both a bunch of fun - which is a bonus. 

Anyway - over and out - until the next instalment of Easter fun times - when I need to procrastinate from doing some work :)