This morning I was awakened by Max calling me to alert me to the fact the eastern shore of Australia was under a tsunami warning. Now, if someone were per se, an alarmist drama queen they might think that this was really it, her Final Destination fate had finally caught up with her and she would soon die, washed away by the ocean she loved so dearly. That person might even think about the discussion she had with her roommate the day before while watching The Day After Tomorrow. She might think of how ironic it was that she intelligently said "Nina, I seriously think this could happen in real life, like, soon." She could totally forget about the fact her friend Hannah had told her about the tsunami warning the night before while at a bar, and forget they had both laughed it off and taken an extra shot. That morning call could really have scared an alarmist drama queen type person, but luckily I didn't choose to be that person today.

Instead I chose the aspect of my personality that doesn't like to be told what she cannot do. Oh, the beach is supposed to be evacuated? Authorities don't recommend you go down to the water? Well that just makes me want to go down more! So I packed up my camera and met my friend Chloe for smoothies and market shopping down at the beach. I'm not going to lie, there was one point where a big truck drove by and before I saw it I heard a rumbling and looked out onto the water to see if a giant wave was coming to get me, but otherwise I was truly brave. So were the many others who ventured down to the beach to surf, lay on the sand, swim and at times even sail. Yes, this is what the big bad tsunami looked like in Bondi:

Guess I'm not as brave as I thought.

Note: I just want to say, so that I don't seem like a cold-hearted bitch, that my heart goes out to all those in Chile who were affected by the earthquake and hopefully real tsunamis don't hit anywhere else. That would make me feel like an even bigger bitch than I already feel like on a daily basis.

While in Goornong, Victoria I had the pleasure of touring the Fosterville Gold Mine neighboring Vanessa's ESB horse farm. I learned interesting facts, such as first year miners are called "nippers" and earn $100,000 annually as their base salary (apparently I'm in the wrong profession). Also, when they have emergencies and practice drills the way they notify everyone is by emitting a stench gas throughout the mine that smells "like a really bad fart" according to Brad Callaghan, our tour guide who alarmed me by smoking a cig when we were 200 meters underground, something that apparently shouldn't have scared me since we were in a gold mine and not a coal mine. But still. SERIOUSLY? Anyways they release a stench gas which floats through the mine, letting people know they should seek shelter. And they have these refuge chambers which are probably the smallest rooms I've ever been in, which get packed to the brim with large, beefy, probably smelly, gold miners. So basically, you smell a fart and then have to be locked up in a teeny tiny room for hours at a time with sweaty overgrown workers. Maybe I'm in the right profession after all.

Regardless, the highlight of the tour was walking into the rec room AKA "The Crib" and seeing the following on the table:

See!!! Even big burly gold miners want to know whether Brad and Angie are splitting up!! My entertainment journalism career has been completely validated by this discovery. Well.... sort of.

Picture caption: Top photo is Stephen, Jeff and I outside of the gold mine office. I was told we weren't allowed to smile while wearing such manly construction gear, hence the awkward attempt at a tough guy face. Bottom photo: The light on the newspaper is my super cool head flashlight. It's ok to be jealous. In fact, it's expected.

Tomorrow I am off to Goornong, Victoria, a small town in Australia near Bendigo, which is a small town north of Melbourne. I'm visiting two friends Stephen and Jeff on the horse farm they work at, and interviewing Vanessa, the owner of the farm who already sounds incredibly interesting and amazing from what the boys have said. In an attempt to research the town before I left, I did the prerequisite google search and the above is what I came up with. Is it odd that this makes me even more excited to go? This is almost the equivalent of going to a place not on the map. (Although it is on Google Maps, once you zoom in six times). There's not even one single news story about it! Australians refer to places like this as "out in woot woot".

Here's hoping me getting attacked by a redback spider isn't the first article Goornong produces.