The Addictioneer: Thoughts in and about Gold Coast evening tour - Part 5 finale

Andre, the astronomer, told us that we can't observe the sky that night because of the weather. It was rainy and cloudy. We can't use the optical system - or whatever they call it - in such weather.
Right after the trip advisor entered the observatory room, Andre said "blame the (trip advisor) for the weather"
The trip advisor replied "I told that to God over the phone" *He was busy with his mobile phone*
Then his phone rang... he said "oh... God is calling me"
FUUUUUUUUUUU!

Totally ignoring Andre's presentation, I continued talking with Helen about what she does here. She said that she helps Andre in his Astronomy works. She added that he owns a restaurant which she helps him running it . She also pointed out that he's an athlete. He plays cycling... So what we have here... A worker, astronomer and athlete... The great Andre is.

Anyways, Helen explained to me how astronomy, to her, is boring.
She said "He will observe the sky. Find Jupiter and say: hey Helen come and watch Jupiter and I would say umm yeah this is Jupiter. He'll see it next year AND Jupiter is still Jupiter... Mars is still Mars... sigh".... LOOOL

Helen wanted to know why I came here. She said that Arabs don't usually come to this place
"plus" they don't usually visit Australia this time of the year
"Plus Plus" Arabs like to visit "fancy" places and this place isn't fancy.
I told her that I enjoy visiting green places, forests and waterfalls more than "fancy" place.
She said "Nice... then you might have visited the Purlingbrook Falls?"
I said "No... I visited Curtis Fall"
She replied "Nooo... Curtis Fall is a piss when you compare it to Purlingbrook Falls... Sorry for saying that"
LOOOL.. Then she took some card from shelf, pointed to a waterfall on the left and said that this is the Purlingbrook Falls. In the card, the waterfall looks gorgeous. While the other waterfall, Twin Falls, is a two big waterfalls next to each other. That's why its called so.
She continued saying "Take this card. It's for you... for free... show it to your family and just pretend you went there" LOOOL

Anythough
I told Helen that I loved Australia and it's not only because of the wonderful weather and the beautiful landscape, it's because Aussies are very friendly. Smiles are everywhere. Beside, I can walk the whole night and alone without any feeling of discomfort or insecure :D
If you ask me why I say they are friendly, I would say:
It's because of daily "G'day mate" :)
It's because of their shiny smile. Specially the Queensland smile :P ...
I wish ppl here are like there. You can have ppl here saying "Salam Alaikom" instead of "G'day mate" but you barely could find ppl smiling.

Helen told me that it's about education and being able to openly connecting to people. If we provide a good education then life would get better..... Manners would be better
But if we have a bad education system and have less people manage to study then people will have a lot of empty time to annoy and harass other people thus make a bad atmosphere.
Some of those who didn't have the chance for education may would end up in some wrong place seeking education... A place where they learn how to hate. They may end up learning how to hold guns and fight like what you see in middle east.
She added that there are bad people in Australia and you can bet they stopped their education. They have nothing to do but to make problems.

Ummmm... Here comes the random questions
Is it really about education?
does smile has something to do with education?
Are the frown faces we see around us happened to be caused by poor education?
Is it true that we can fight "terrorism" with good education system?
let me go broader by asking "Is education have the power to make us accept each other?"
I ain't saying "to like or love each other"!.... Just to accept each other... live in harmony no matter how much diverse we are!

I know many people who are well educated in science, engineering, arts etc. Yet they seem to reject other people for their views, religion and even for their family|tribe name.
Good education huh!
So what's the problem here?
I would say the problem is education!
Education is a very broad term. It's not only about learning at school nor about studying only.
It's what your parents teach you.
It's what you learn from religious circles|lessons
It's what you learn from your friends
It's what one would learn from going to theater or some show
Something must be wrong in one or more of "Education as broad term" that cause people to be racist, to reject or hate
I'm not sure if all that all I mentioned above is called "Education" though :D
Sigh...
Loool... I'm talking nonsense

Anyways, Helen was kinda careful with the way she talks. It was so obvious when she uses the sentence "you know what I mean" over and over.

She told me that long time ago some Muslim guy visited the observatory and argued with Andre about some matter. Before leaving, the guy gave Andre a Quran and a small book that mentions the scientific facts in Quran. She told Andre to show them to me.
I took the Quran AND...
That strange feeling of being proud of the Quran being in such place
Mixed with regrets about not praying the whole journey
Mixed with questions like why do they keep the Quran while they are not Muslims... among other questions.

I took the other book which was very thin. I could read some Aayat from the Quran interpreted in a modern scientific way.
I got that feeling again. This time mixed with "I'm reading Arabic"
Andre told me the books mentions great scientific facts. No wonder, most of the facts are about astronomy :) He praised the books for their content.
I wasn't excited though
I was already taught that at school.
Helen, on the other hand, was curious to know if I can read the books. I read some sentences in the first page.

Helen told me that Andre end up getting angry with the guy who gave him the books. Andre confirmed that and said the guy keeps arguing about the moon and how to see it. Looool I said "I know what exactly that guy wants to know. It's something about how to determine Ramadan. It depends on the moon. It's the same argument happens every year"
And I said to myself... huh! traveling miles and miles to ask such question
What a shame...

Andre said "it turned out that he was a bad guy. He has some connection with Alqaeda"!
Again... What a shame...

Here the trip advisor called me. Everyone was in the bus while I were enjoying talking with Helen and Andre. Helen said "don't forget the card"
I replied "it's with me. Thank you very much and good bye"

Talal!

The End

I'll leave you with some photos and a video I took in the Tamborine mountanins featuring the famous Curtis Fall :)

Note: This blog post is like combo post :) I thought posting about Tamborine trip in a standalone post but it happened here
Note2: To see the eye-candy of the photos, click on them.
Note3: To enjoy the video, watch it in HD
Note4: Have a nice day/night

Peace :)

Tamborine is one of the green places I visited in Australia. I found about it when I was googling for places to visit in Australia and I saw the Curtis falls in Panoramio website. I said to myself "You will go there"

Walking in the forest was very very tiring. You can hear me breathing heavily and hardly at 0:26 that when my cousin walked a little ahead of me then vanished. He told me that he got scared of some huge bird flying above the forest and started to run as fast as he can ... He reached the exit in seconds LOOOL
If you wanna see the Curtis fall anyway, slide to 3:29

Ummm... It's called Tamborine National Park

This is my cousin with his "Kuwait" polo shirt and that building in front of us is the... ehm "berwery" and the cheese factory/shop

I don't know if it's natural but the forest has Palms section

Here the driver "John" said "The old villagers used to fill this pool with water and path their kids... and this story is not true"... I totally got owned :D

AND this is the Curtis Falls... It is amazing

This meal from the Tamborine restaurant. It's called chicken panini with fries. So delicious but the vegetables are very organic. It feels like your eating a farm. Guess I ain't used to eat organic food.