Spring Break

It just so happened that Courtney's spring break this year matched up perfectly with mine! So the family decided to make a trip out to Australia for two weeks. I was so excited to have them here and show them around, but it was also so weird watching two completely different worlds in my life collide. They arrived in Sydney early Monday morning so of course the first place I took them was the rocks. They got to see the Opera House, Harbor Bridge, and we even took a crazy boat ride that was guaranteed to get you soaked through the harbor. Even though they were jet-lagged, they pulled themselves together pretty well! They rented an apartment for the week in Randwick, a suburb pretty close to my uni. After we checked into their apartment and they got a bit unpacked, I took them to Coogee beach where they got to meet some of my friends and get in the warm Australian water for the first time! We went to dinner in Bondi where we all of course had delicious fish and white wines. Unfortunately Courtney and my dad had a very hard time staying awake through dinner. But who can blame them after a 15 hour flight? The next morning we all woke up early, which was much easier for them than it was for me because they were still on California time, and went to Bondi beach. Because we were there so early, there was hardly anyone on the beach. We tanned all morning and of course as soon as the sun came out we had to leave because I had a biology lab. That night we went to dinner in Darling Harbor which is a harbor directly adjacent to the city with tons of fun restaurants. Surprisingly it was my first time there! We ate dinner right on the water and watched the sunset which was way too pretty to not take photos of. 

The next morning we went out to an amazing breakfast in right on the water at Bondi beach before I had class. It was such a nice day, which made it hard to leave for my Australian history class--definitely not as fun. After my class we took a ferry ride to Manly beach where we played all day in the sun. A while ago I had mentioned to my parents that I wanted a surf board for my birthday, so we decided to go take a look in one of the surf shops in Manly. Needless to say, as soon as I saw the hot pink board I was sold. They guys gave us a great deal on the board, finds, ankle strap, and even through in a free carrying case so that I can bring in on the bus with me!.

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the night. It was all I could do to stop myself from leaving dinner to go take her out in the water. Luckily I got the opportunity the next day. I had a lab in the morning, so we went back to Bondi Beach in the afternoon where the waves are pretty calm and the water is warm. As soon as I got in the water I knew I was going to be struggling. The boards I have ridden before are always around 9 feet, and the one I bought is only 7 feet so I could carry it on the bus easier. However this made even paddling on the board much harder than I was used to. It's definitely going to take me a while to get good on the board, but I am up for the challenge!

 On our last day in Sydney, the weather was pretty gloomy so we skipped the beach and decided to tour around the city. We hopped on a bright red double decker bus that drives you all around the city with commentary about each area you're passing. We only lasted about 30 minutes on the bus before we got a bit bored and got off. We walked around the botanical gardens and then decided to go up the Sydney tower which is the second tallest building in Australia. The views of the city and surrounding suburbs was spectacular and I could even see my school.

The next morning we woke up at 5 am, which didn't go over very well for me, and headed to the airport to fly to Cairns. I had been in Cairns less than a week before but I was still so excited to go back! Because it's much farther up north than Sydney, the weather is super warm and tropical. Before coming to Australia I had never though of the country as a tropical rainforest area, but apparently it is. We spent the afternoon at what the locals call the "lagoon." Because of the crocodiles and jellyfish, you can't get in most areas of the ocean in Cairns so they created a salt water swimming pool right on the beach. They had a local band playing on the grass near by so we all camped out on the lawn and easily fell asleep. The next day was Easter and we thought, what better way to celebrate the day than go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef? Neither Courtney or I are certified so we both did two beginner dives, and my parents both did two normal dives. We saw quite a few jellyfish which scared me to death, and Courtney got stung! We also saw a white tip reef shark and followed it for a while until it swam away. Needless to say, it was a good Easter.

My friend from uni, Jackie, arrived in Cairns the next day to spend the rest of the week with us. We all piled in the car and drove to a town north of Cairns called Trinity where we would be staying for the rest of the trip. We spent the rest of the day at Trinity beach. Even though the beach is huge, you're only allowed to get in one area of the water where there is netting to keep the jellyfish out. No need to get stung by a box jellyfish and rushed off to the hospital during break! 

 The next day we headed up to Port Douglas, about an hour north of Trinity, to the Wildlife Habitat. Courtney was just a little excited to hold a koala and feed the kangaroos. Despite the amazing beaches and trips we went on this was easily the highlight of the trip for Court. My mom and her both snuggled up with a koala, but because I had already done that, I decided to harness my inner Britney Spears and take a photo with a python. At first I was a bit freaked out, especially when the caretaker wrapped it around my neck, but after a while I got used to it and couldn't stop laughing.

We then went to the kangaroo area where Courtney got to feed a bunch of roos and pet a few. That afternoon we went to the famous four mile beach in Port Douglas. And again, even though the beach was four miles, there was only a tiny netted area for everyone to swim in. 

We woke up super early the next morning to go on Uncle Brian's Tablelands and Waterfalls Tour. Our group leader was named Cousin Rohan and was probably one of the funniest people I've ever met. He made the tour so much, with the help of our bus Nigel--yes they named the bus, and he would even pretend to have conversations with it. We spent the day driving through the Tablelands from waterfall to waterfall to swim under. And although we initially were unsure about spending the majority of our day in a bus, it ended up being on of the highlights of the trip. Cuz Rohan got the entire bus to sing a long to songs, play different road trip games, and even learn a few dance routines for his favorite songs. 

By far the funniest game we played was called "Where's Wally?" We all had to put matches in our mouths and pass a life saver, named Wally, all the way around the bus without using our hands. When you were having trouble passing it from one person to next, and the life savor dropped on the ground, everyone would yell "Where's Wally?!" At first we were all pretty skeptical about actually playing the game. We didn't want to get that up close and personal with complete strangers. But as soon as the game began we all busted up laughing and had the best time ever watching Wally get passed from person to person. And let me tell ya, it's harder than it looks. Apparently an Herbel Essence shampoo photo advertisement was taken at one of the waterfalls we went to that afternoon. The ad consists of a girl flipping her hair through the water in front of the waterfall, do you want to buy the shampoo now? So of course, what did we have to do? We all had to try the hair flip. After a few failed attempts we were able to walk away with some pretty good photos, although I'm sure how they compare to professionally done ad.

At the end of the day we were all so sad to leave Uncle Brian's tour. I'm not sure I've ever been unhappy about getting off a bus before, but I definitely was after this amazing day. We spent the whole car ride home drinking beers and ciders, and doing crazy dances to the best sing a long songs. We even had disco lights flashing in the bus! However we were told to get Mexican food for dinner at a place in Cairns, so that helped me a bit with not being too sad while leaving the bus. At home I usually can't go longer than a week without mexican food, so the past two months here have been torture. The burrito and huge margarita called "the fish bowl" definitely hit the spot! The next morning we again had to wake up at the crack of dawn for river rafting. Luckily we had a three hour bus ride before we arrived at the Tully River that we were all able to pass out on. When we finally got to the river, I couldn't have been more excited. River rafting is one of my favorite activities wherever we go so when I heard the offered it in Cairns, I knew it was a must. We were teamed up with a kid from England that was traveling around the country, and our rafting instructor who was from Chile. 

We went down some huge rapids and Courtney and I got absolutely soaked from head to toe in the front of the boat. One of the best parts of the day was when, while approaching a 5 foot waterfall, our instructor says, "Ok who wants to play a game?" Basically all 7 of us huddled together on the back of the boat and were only allowed to hold onto each other, not the boat. The instructor assured us that this would help us stay on--not sure why we believed him. After a mere glimp of hope of not falling off, we of course all fell backwards in the water! I have to say, falling out is probably one of the most fun parts of rafting. We spent the rest of the afternoon rafting, swimming down the river, and then headed off to a local bar. The 3 hour bus ride home was a bit torturous because we sat near a couple on their honeymoon from Missouri who needless to say is the reason Americans get a bad rap over here. They proceeded to ask the bus driver if they celebrated Thanksgiving in Australia, and were confused when talking about how you can make lefts turns on a red light while driving in Australia, but you can only make right turns on red in the States. 

 The next day we headed back to Sydney and spent my family's last day in Australia grocery shopping and going out to a nice dinner. The next morning we went out to breakfast in Coogee and then we unfortunately had to say our goodbyes. As sad as it was saying goodbye to my family knowing that I wouldn't see them again until July, I think they were more sad about leaving Australia! I can't really blame them though. It was an end to an amazing two weeks where I got to live the nice tourist life instead of being a local student.

A Weekend in Cairns

About two weeks ago two friends and I traveled to Cairns for the weekend. If you look on a map, Cairns is close to the tip top point on the East Coast of the country—about a 3 hour flight from Sydney. Full of excitement we headed to the airport where I flight ended up being delayed. We didn’t arrive in Cairns until midnight but luckily a bus was waiting to pick us up and drive us to our hostel. The hostel we stayed at was called Global Central and although we couldn’t see it when we arrived late at night, it was in the perfect location in Central Cairns. The next morning we had to wake up at 6 am, and knowing me that was not easy! We walked to the harbor and got on a catamaran headed to the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the world’s largest coral reef system, consisting of an area of approximately 133,000 sq miles. There are over 150 species of coral and more than 1,500 fish species, and I was going to be scuba diving in it! I’m not scuba certified but luckily I found a beginner scuba tour group that let’s you dive for 20 minutes while holding hands with an instructor. When we finally arrived at the reef—it’s located about an hour and a half away from shore—we had a quick lesson on diving and then hopped in the water to snorkel. The coral reef is unlike any I’ve seen before. There are so many different kinds of coral: soft, hard, orange, green, etc. We quickly found a few clown fish living in a sea anemone and immediately thought of Nemo who lives at the Great Barrier Reef! 

Finally it was our turn to dive! The instructors put all of our gear on, which made it pretty difficult to walk across the boat and jump into the water, and then we slowly headed deeper and deeper in the water. The instructor showed us different corals we were allowed to touch and picked up a sea cucumber for us to play with. Towards the end of the dive we even saw a barracuda  which I have to say was a bit scary. It was huge and how really big teeth! After what felt like 5 minutes, but was apparently 20, we got back on the boat and were greeted with a huge buffet lunch. 

We spent the rest of the day snorkeling and two different locations on the reef where we saw an octopus and a white tip reef shark! After the dive tour that day we headed to a local bar on the harbor that had a two for one drink special. After about an hour is started down pouring outside so we decided to just stay at the bar for dinner and then run home to our hostel in the rain. That night we went to grab a drink at a pub near our hostel and ended up being convinced to join a pub crawl that took you to five different bars throughout the night and included a free drink at each. Even though we were exhausted from the day, we had tons of fun at each bar and didn’t make it home until 1:30 am which made waking up at 6 am the next morning extra fun! The next day we were picked up in a bus outside our hostel heading to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. The bus ride up north was long but we stopped at a wildlife habitat in Port Douglas on our way up where I got to take a picture hugging a koala bear and feed kangaroos!

 We then stopped at the Daintree River where we boarded a little boat and had a cruise down the river. We saw one crocodile and spent the rest of the tour looking for tree snakes. Lunch was next and then another long bus ride up to a “hike” through the rainforest. The “hike” was about 15 minutes long and on a wooden paneled trail—not exactly what we were expecting. However it was pouring rain like I’ve never seen! It felt like being under a shower head. Everyone else on the tour brought rain jackets and umbrellas but silly us only showed up in our shorts and tank tops. We were soaked by the end of the walk and had learned the lesson that it does rain in the rainforest. After toweling off a bit and hopping back on the bus we arrived at Cape Tribulation Beach. In one of my biology classes I took about a year ago, we spent quite a bit of time learning about the box jellyfish—a deadly jelly fish that lives off the coast of Northern Australia. One of the power point slides we studied featured a picture of a sign in Australia warning the beach goers to stay out of the water. When we arrived at Cape Tribulation Beach I realized that I had found that exact sign. I was so excited I couldn’t help but run to the sign and jump with joy—my friends of course thought I was a complete nerd. 

However, even though seeing the sign in real life pretty much made my day, it also meant that we weren’t allowed in the water. So we walked around the beach a little bit and then hopped back on the bus ready to conk out on the 3 hour bus ride home. When we arrived back at the hostel we all took warm showers which felt amazing after being soaked all day and then went out to a nice fish dinner on the harbor. We went to bed early that night because we were all so exhausted, and then spent the next morning wandering through the shops in Cairns before boarding the airplane back to Sydney. It wasn’t too hard to leave the wonderful town knowing I’d be back in the less than a week with my parents!