Day 35: Thursday April 16

    Today was my last day of the program. I woke up in the morning and couldn’t believe that five weeks had already gone by. We got dressed and rode the bus into the city one last time. We were pretty lucky because for our last day at Questacon, we busked all day. Sivan and I started the morning with our music trolley. We started together but then took turns so that we could each explore first. Questacon has 4 levels with 7 galleries total so I wanted some time to see each one. The top floor had the optical illusions gallery, which is exactly how it sounds.

 It also has the awesome Earth gallery. This one was cool because you saw caged lightening and created earthquakes. The third floor had an experiment lab where you got to make things blow up and examine x-rays. The second floor is where the theaters are and the first floor had the big kid room: Excite. This is basically a game room with science incorporated. My favorite part of this room is the vertical slide, which I went on in the morning and pretty much had a heart attack! They also have a four-way air hockey table as well as an air hockey-playing robot arm that is basically unbeatable.

Also, to enter the room, you go through the Rototron and try not to get dizzy.

Later on in the day we busked a bit more, this time with the stick insects because I wanted to say goodbye to them one last time.

Then finally we turned in our keys, thanked everyone who had welcomed us into their work, and rode the bus for the last time ever.
     Now that the program was over there was only one thing left for me to do: get my tattoo. Yup, I wanted to commemorate this trip in my favorite way- with some fresh new ink. So I went home and got ready then called a cab and headed to North Lyneham to a little shop called Tattoo Power. I had made this appointment before I even left for Australia so I walked in and met with Dave and we discussed size then before I knew it, I was on the table having my foot prepped. Now this is my fifth tattoo so it wasn’t much of a shock but this is my first in full color so I’d have to say it was my most painful.

It was definitely worth it though because it is gorgeous. An hour and a half later I was thanking Dave for his work and calling another cab.
    This time I was headed to Mel’s for one final goodbye. The plan was to stop by, give her the present I got for her, and then head home. But, in true Mel fashion, once I had arrived, she insisted that I stay for dinner and drinks. She had out of town friends over so we made it into a small party. For dinner we had Moroccan, which I’ve never had but was super good. We had couscous (which is similar to rice but technically a different kind of wheat called semolina) with beef and veggies. After dinner I gave Mel her presents and then it was time to break out the games. We started with two tense games of Camel Up that I swear I was going to win. They may have been a bit tense due to the money that we had put on the line. After that Shorty bid us goodnight and we moved onto a final game of Trains. Trains is basically what it sounds like where you build train tracks to and from different cities to get points. I actually got second place on that one! Finally, quite heartbroken, I realized it was time to go. We called a cab and Mel walked me out and I tried not to cry but I knew I was really gonna miss her.
     Once back home I still had a decent amount of packing to do. My foot was starting to swell a bit so that was some added fun. About a half hour in the girls next door came over to say goodbye as we would not see each other in the morning. I was really starting to hate all these goodbyes. We woke the roomies up so they could say goodbye too and around 1:30 am I finally laid down on the couch to take a quick nap (I say nap because we had to get up at 4 am to leave). I did my best to not think about how we were leaving in the morning.