"BOOM!"

Alright y'all, it is nearing the end here in Australia and I am pretty torn about it.... I'm gonna miss the amazing people I've met, and I love Sydney, but I really can't wait to get home either! I have some funny stories from last night, and some great pictures from our last couple days, but the computer isn't letting me put up pics and I'm running out of internet time... plus I'm sleepy lol. I should have time tomorrow before we check out to give you a quick update of the past day or so- if not, I apologize!
We leave Sydney at 2:45 pm tomorrow, arrive in San Fran at 10 something am, and then spend the rest of the day getting back to Cinci. Loooooong "day" ahead! Love you all and I'll try to get somethin else up here before I get home :)

We are waiting for our shuttle to the airport and I figured I would get on here and tell ya about the last couple days. So, we ended up getting that "job" and it was the best "job" ever!!! Lol. All we did was sell scarves outside of an Aussie Rules Football game (aka soccer game), but the place we went to sell them had basically nobody walking by. Our "boss", Carl Kyle, set us up right near the gate and Kacey and I were selling machines!!!! ....for the 10 minutes we were allowed to sell before we got in trouble and were told to go a mile down the road and sell stuff there. Once we got all the way down there we realized that we had walked by every person going into the game and nobody was around- so back to Carl Kyle who was basically done with the whole selling deal and was ready to go back to the pub we started at and have an "afterwork" beer. haha. Before we left he taught us the best sales pitch ever: "Boom". It works like this- when somebody walks by and you offer them a scarf and they say no, you wait until they turn away from you and you say, "BOOM!" It works pretty well. Not. But it was hilarious!
So we went back to the Fox and Lion and were handed 50 bucks and were bought 3 rounds of beer and we split a mixed drink. After not drinking for so long and spending most of my days kinda dehydrated, 3 beers was enough to have me pretty drunk. A brown-out as my friend Emily likes to call it, haha, I wasn't blacked out, I definitely remember most things, but about 10% of that time is a little fuzzy.... I know that we learned Scottish cheers/songs and hung out with the other sales girls and laughed a lot... and then Carl Kyle paid for our cab home and we went to Scubar! As you may have put together, we never ended up attending either of the sports games we were working to earn money to attend haha. Oh well, it was fun anyway!
Yesterday, we had a really relaxed day. We woke up, had free brekky, got cleaned up, and then went to the Hay Market where we tried on wigs :) Kacey and I both can pull of blonde! Who woulda thunkit?!? It was fun and we actually almost bought them. Luckily, Kacey talked me out of it and I decided to wait til I'm back home haha. We came back and said bye to Poli, :( it was really sad, and then we got with Meagan and got cheap delicious lunch at Star Bar. We also split wedges! Yay!!! We went back out later and found Royal Theatre, which we were expecting to be really old and cool.... it wasn't lol. Its ok, we walked around and saw the city at night. The rest of the night we just packed up and chatted with Meagan and then went to bed :)
Now its back home!!!! Only 30 somethin' hours of flights and airports and I'll be back in Cinci- and then I get some sleep and see Wesley!!! Yay!!! Love you all, can't wait to talk to you all and see you again :) Thanks for keepin up with my blog and I'm sorry there aren't pictures- its really hard to load them up here for some reason. Once I get home and show the family my pictures, I will be making Facebook albums and possibly adding some more pictures to this too!

Finger Pointing and Hair Shaking

Yesterday, we woke up at 6am and got ready to catch our bus at 7:15 back to Sydney. It was a nice new bus- only problem was that they had assigned seats, but not for us, so we randomly got knocked around seats all day until we finally ended up in the very back row smelling the bathroom for the last few hours. Boo. But the bus ride itself wasn't awful. As always, by the last 2 hours I couldn't wait to get the hell off the stupid bus, haha, but it went by pretty quickly :)
Once we got here, I was literally jumping for joy! It feels great to be back somewhere familiar and it got even better when we walked in and saw Poli working the desk :) He hooked us up with some brekky and put us in a room, and after catching up for a bit, we went up to our room. We were both ready to just chill in pjs and get on the computers for a little bit, and as we were sitting on the ground floor checking "facey", Poli made an announcement over the hostel-wide system that we were back! Haha, the guy in Melbourne may have made fun of us for thinking that the YHA workers here in Sydney remembered us at all, but they really do love us! Then Ross and Pete appeared, just off work, and invited us to go to Scubar to grab a few afterwork drinks. When we went upstairs to get ready we met one of our 4 roommates, and she's from Ohio!!! Pretty cool, huh? She seemed really sweet :)
So we traveled back down to Scubar and people watched, completely entertaining, for a couple hours. We picked up some pretty sweet dance moves in the process of watching ;) And also got some pretty fun pictures- I'll find some time to put them up later for ya.
Now, our bellys are full from our brekky and we are trying to figure out a way to get into the Aussie Rules Football game later- there is apparently some guy that asked the YHA to find girls to sell merchandise for 2 1/2 hours for 50 bucks and Ross called and tried to get us spots. The guy said he was full, but Ross kept telling him he would love us, so he's gonna call back here in a few and let us know if he wants us to work or not! Fingers crossed!
Thats all for now, I'm just gonna enjoy my last couple days here and probably go out tonight with Poli and the gang :) Then back home to Wes and the fam and the beach and my friends!!! Love you all, hope everybody is doing well and enjoying the end of summer :)

Rainforest, Airport, and Melbourne

Alright, so, I slacked a bit on the blog so I'm gonna go back in time a few days and let ya know what we've been up to. Since I have a lot to write about and a terrible memory, I'm basically going to write down what I have in my journal- sorry guys, this may get kinda long, but I'll do my best to edit out the unnecessary parts :)

We hit up the rainforest 2 days ago, which was really different and pretty to see. We took the Skyrail up to Kurunda and it stopped at two spots along the way- one was a boardwalk through the jungle, and one looked out at an enormous waterfall. The hanging gondolas made me a little nervous, they would go past poles and rumble around; it was just unsettling, but a neat thing to do/see nonetheless. And check out the cheesy photoshopped picture they take LOL! Kurunda itself was a boring place- a normal tourist town. I did buy mango wine that I got to taste test and it was delicious- a bottle for Mom and Terry and a bottle for Wes. We had 4 hours to kill there, but by the 2nd we were ready to get outta there! Luckily, we were able to trade our 3:30 tickets for 2:00 and take off. The train may have been my favorite part of the day :) It was a beautiful ride with a little bit of interesting history about the building of the tracks and such. It was a relaxing and scenic 2 hour ride that dropped us off right behind the shopping centre in Cairns. Once we got back, we picked up break and cinnamon sugar from he grocery- its frustrating to go in and see all the cheap meals we could make if we just had enough time in one place to refrigerate and keep food. We had a quiet night in after that and packed up for our plane to Melbourne....

A couple of odd things about the Cairns airport- they never checked our IDs, you're allowed to check liquids, and you don't even have to take off your shoes when you go through security. I was randomly selected to be checked for explosives, which was funny, but a pretty simple process. She just wiped a bunch of my stuff and my shoes and pants with this wand and then stuck it in a machine. Lucky for me, she didn't find my TNT.... haha, what a weird little place. Another weird thing: when the seat belt light went off on the plane, everybody got up and moved around and got their bags and shuffled about. In the states, that light doesn't mean anything. Where are you gonna go? You're on an airplane? It was so unexpected for half the passengers to start moving about all the sudden lol.
Once we got to the airport in Melbourne we had to pay 20 dollars for a shuttle to our hostel- it was good and bad. We got to see a lot of the city cause we were on the shuttle forever, but we also had to pay 20 dollars and listen to the drivers sob story about how stressful his job is... what an awkward moment that was! I felt bad for him, but honestly, what do you say? A cool thing about Melbourne is that the trams go straight down the middle of the lanes of the road- cars can drive behind them and stuff! I couldn't get over how crazy that was. The YHA here is cool- its small yet spacey at the same time, hard to explain. Plus, we get a 4 person room again! We made Ramen as soon as we got to the hostel and met this guy that's really nice but awkward/creepy and he has this scary looking rash that he itches constantly....sooo that's quite uncomfortable. The bar downstairs has 5 dollar gourmet pizza and 12 dollar beer jugs, so we got dressed cute and went down there- what a cool, swanky place! I got Espanol pizza- goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and chorizo- delish! It was not what I expected from a bar under a backpackers, but it was a nice surprise :) It ended up being trivia night, which was fun even though we never won a round. Also, creepy itchy guy showed up and lingered around a few times before sitting with us. He's ok for awhile, and he knew some trivia answers, but the scratching just gets to me! What if its contagious or something?! Anywho, we went to bed early, as always and I slept great!

Today, we woke up and made toast and then showered up for the day. We booked Sydney Central for the next 3 days and we have a bus ride at 7:15 tomorrow morning- eek! We walked around the city- went to Federation Square and China Town and just saw the sights. We came back and grabbed fries and another gourmet pizza (an Athenian one this time, yummm, complete with lamb and tsaziki sauce) and then went back out on the town. We found a City Circle Free Tram that, surprise, makes a circle around the city! Haha, it was a cool way to find out more about the city and we even got off and tried to go to the Queen Victoria Markets- oddly enough, they were closing down even though it was 3 in the afternoon...riiiight. So we went into a petshop instead! There was this adorable pitbull, which by the way, are not called pitbulls here and don't have the same bad rep- they're called Staffys! I wanted to hold it but the lady said no... she explained why but I couldn't really figure out what she was saying so I just said ok lol. We got back on the bus, barely, it was packed, and then 4 stops down the line the driver just popped out of his little box and was like "Peace out, see ya later, be back in 6 minutes, better start walking" Haha, ok, not those exact words, but that was the basic gist of things. So we got off and walked the rest of the way, which was kinda long but I was all hyped up on coffee so it went quickly. Have I told you coffee here is all fancy shmancy? No filtered coffee here, its all espresso and named all sorts of weird stuff- like, an espresso with cream and sugar is called a flat white. So thats what I get. Cause I don't understand the other stuff, lol, I'm a stupid American. So yea, we came back, and I did some laundry, and now I'm here, updating all of you lovely people :) Speaking of, I need to go check my laundry! Hope you all are doing wonderfully, I miss you, and I'm hoping everything goes well the next few days and we get ourselves and all of our things back into the states soon!!!!

Green Turtle and Hillbilly Fish :)

- I'll sum up yesterday for you, chatted with Caleb, ate lunch, wandered, Casino, watched Inception, bar for a snakebite, back to hostel, got in pjs, had a beer with Caleb. The end.
Ok, so today was woooonderful!!! From the moment we woke up it was gray and rainy outside, but that didn't ruin our trip to the Great Barrier Reef at all! Our boat took of at 8 am and we were treated with coffee and chocolate muffins, plus friendly crew members :) About half way to the reef somebody spotted whales!!! They stopped the boat and we watched four humpback whales playing around the boat- I have pictures, but they really don't do the experience any justice. It was amazing to see and it made me so happy I didn't spend extra money going on a whale watching tour earlier on. Our first stop, Michaelmas Cay, was a small island, reserved mostly as a bird sanctuary, and I didn't know what to expect- but I donned my wetsuit, grabbed my flippers and mask, and took the glassbottom boat out to the cay. It only took a couple minutes to get used to breathing through the snorkel, huge relief, and as soon as I put my face in the water I started to see the most beautiful fish! I didn't know if the fish would be as colorful and as plentiful as the videos I've seen of the reef, but they deffinitely were! Look up fish that stay around the reef, particularly parrott and trigger fish, and you'll see these vibrant neon green and blue and yellow fish. It was unbelievable. Because it was cloudy, the reef wasn't super colorful, but there were still these huge clam-like creatures that were bright blue around their "mouths" and coral that looked like it had blue fiberoptics on the ends of it. I also spotted my favorite fish of the day, I believe it was a Titan Triggerfish. It was larger than the parrottfish and when it turned to look at me it had teeth like big, crooked, yellow, human, buckteeth- as soon as I saw its mouth I laughed underwater and had to come up because I filled my mask with water. I lost the fish and named it the Hillbilly fish- it was hilarious! Apparently, during this time, Kacey was following around an enormous Green Turtle, I wish I would have been at the same spot as her, it sounds like it was such a neat experience!
By the time I made it out near the boat, I was freezing and exhausted but I stayed out as long as we could because I didn't want to miss out. We got back on the boat and dried off and lunch was served! They had a buffet with all kinds of cold salads and then two choices of entree- I had tandori chicken, it was all delicious. Then they did a quick fish feeding which was another great thing to watch!!! After that, they took us to our second dive spot, Paradise something lol, which was just out in the middle of the ocean. It was sooo rough. From the moment I got in the water I was pounded with waves, and every few minutes a wave would either force water into my mask or down my snorkel- but it was still a wonder to see everything. Plus, I saw another Hillbilly Fish! I accidently lost Kacey's mask (I thought she was holding it and she thought I was holding it, hard to explain) and we went back on the boat- they called everybody in just few moments later and I was getting tired so it worked out well :) The whole way back we hung out with some of the crew and some other guests and we played riddles and watched card tricks- a really fun ride. And, after a little while, when we got close to being back, they served us all coffee, tea, and cookies. We landed, said goodbye to the crew, and walked back to the hostel completely covered in sand and saltwater, hair completely a mess, completely exhausted, and completely ecstatic about the day :) This was my favorite day since I've been here, for sure!!!!

So, Its a Cold Bubbly Tub?

We arrived in Cairns yesterday and discovered that it is a different kind of place than where we've been so far. There's one main street/strip with a huge shopping center on one end and the bay on the other. Our hostel is near the shopping center. In between, there are endless restaraunts, bars, souveneir shops, and clothing stores. On the bay side, there is a huge infinite pool open to the public and a "promenade" that goes along the water, or mud, depending on the tide. Its pretty touristy, but its nice for a change, too. So many of the food places smell gooood when walking by, but a lot of them are way too expensive too! Last night we were lucky and found a 10 dollar meal deal at a pub and I got to eat my first full meal since I've been here :) I had roast beef with gravy, Yorkshire pudding (which is really just a fluffy roll thing, like those egg puffs mom makes sometimes), roasted potatos, and steamed veggies, plus a whisky and coke! I was stuffed 1/2 way through but I couldn't let it go to waste so I pressed on and finished it all- yummm :) Its odd because the last two days we did the least walking and its when I've eaten the most! So much for the Aussie diet lol.

We also stumbled upon a Casino and Kacey tripled her money at the slots!!! -she started with one dollar and ended up with four- We bought gelato, as if we needed it, and ate it on the promenade; pretty romantic, haha. The next on our list was to get back to the YHA and get into the hottub, so we suited up and went downstairs and turned on the jets.... and the hottub was cold. After looking for a temp. switch, Kacey went to ask if it was broken and she was told that it wasn't a hottub after all... It is a cold tub. That bubbles. If any of you know what the purpose of that is, let me know! haha. We played some cards instead and then I ended up passing out at 9, sorry bout that Kacey- she wanted to go back out and I was debating changing clothes and I fell alseep! Oh well, at least we're both super rested. Today is just a relaxing free day, should be nice, even though its super overcast and rainy :)

Ninja Bird and Our New Baby!

So, back to yesterday- We got to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and ended up only paying 25 instead of 28, which made me very happy! We started out looking at bats, and birds, and a platypus and then moved on to the main attractions- koalas and kangaroos! I HAD to do the "cuddle a koala" picture dealio even though I had told myself I wouldn't if it cost extra... it was just too great to pass up. Kacey and I took the cutest little family photo (featured above lol) and I even got pooped on! Horay! The koala was definitely sick of being held and the handler kept making this weird oo-oo-oo sound to make it hug us... and then eventually gave up. I don't blame the poor furry little man, he's forced to hug strangers all day, I wouldn't wanna do it either!

After that, we bought Kangaroo food and entered this huge enclosure full of emus and wallabys and kangaroos; this was definitely my favorite part of the sanctuary! All you had to do was walk up and hold your hand down and the animals would take the food from you, some would let you hang out with them and pet them, too. The kangaroos have zero expression on their faces but they are still so oddly adorable and fun to be around! I found my favorite roo before we left the enclosure area- he looked kinda old and never opened his eyes all the way, he had a spotted little nose and he let me pet him and cuddle him just like Nevada does! He's the one on the bottom right, I loved him :)

We saw other animals there, like dingos and wombats, and they even had a barn animal area that cracked me up- 2 enormous pigs, some ponies, goats, chicks, and then enclosures with, you would never guess this, guinea pigs! hahaha. Goofy Aussies, thinkin' guinea pigs are cool enough to put in a zoo, lol. We had an hour to wait for our bus when we left so we sat down to relax at a little cafe by the river. I decided to munch on a granola bar, when all of the sudden, this black and white devil-ninja bird flew into my face, distracted me, and stole my bar!!! It was probably hilarious to see from a distance, especially when he dropped it in the dirt right in front of me and casually pecked at it... what a jerky bird! haha.

We finished the day with some really awful Japanese food back in the city and then a trip to the grocerey. When we got back to the hostel, we had time to kill, so we rested and planned a night in. Eventually, I went to make my corn and bacon chowder (more exciting than it should have been after noodles all the time) and the two guys from the game room the night before were cooking too. We all sat down at the same time and they asked Kacey and I to join us- yay new friends! More people joined and we ended up spending the evening drinking wine and German beer with Alex and Daniel from Germany, Marcus from Austria, Danya from Canada, and these two obnoxious guys from Canada. It was fun! We eventually got kicked off the 5th floor for being too loud and all piled into somebody's room to hang out until everybody went to the bar (Kacey and I had to be up too early and it was way tooo cold outside to join). This guy came back to his room and we were all in there- the two Canadian guys didn't realize they had a new roommate! All in all, it was a pretty amusing night, and we finally went to bed at midnight when the others all went out to "make a party." It was a great last night in Brisbane!

Now I'm in Cairns after a 29 h0ur Greyhound ride and I'm ready to go find some numnums! Missin all you at home, love you muchos!

Time is not normal here...

I want to start out saying that Kacey and I stayed up super late last night watching Cast Away in the TV lounge area of the Cooly YHA.... we went to bed at 11:00 pm!!! GASP!!! Its crazy, but that literally is the latest we have stayed up except for the salsa dancing night, and it was rough getting to that point- I was exhausted!
This morning we had free breakfast, a huge deal for us, and then got Matt/Brian to shuttle us to town for our next greyhound ride. The bus ride was only 2 1/2 hours but it seemed to take forever, no matter how much time I tried to kill by sleeping or writing in my journal, we just kept on driving. That happens all the time when on a car ride, so I didn't think too much of it. We had quite the aerobic exercise goin on when we walked from the bus station to our hostel, and we finally arrived at the newest YHA in Australia around 11:15 am. We stored our luggage (our room wouldn't be ready until 2) and headed out on our normal wander.
At this point, I was still in my lounge clothes from the night before, because I got ready for a quick exit from Cooly the night before and planned on changing once we got to Brisbane. This was not an option, so walking around the city in bright yellow sweat capris commenced :P We stopped in a souveneir shop, where I finished my gift shopping and then continued to explore the city. We found a little market area with some free samples and then an outdoor/indoor mall square with hundreds of stores and a high school jazz band performing. We searched for an electronics store for what seemed like forever, following two different sets of directions but never getting to where we were supposed to get. Finally, we found one on the top level of the mall, and I then had to debate on buying a "cheap" camera that would probably suck and cost me loads of money in batteries and a memory card, or a camera for about $100 more that was an upgrade from my old camera (no extra costs necessary). I went ahead and bit the bullet- I bought a spankin' new, shiny, fancy, expensive, Fuji digital camera. I knew I should have looked on the bright side- a new camera is so exciting!- but like my horoscope said today, "even in sunny skies, a storm cloud will hang over your head", I couldn't help but think about the more important things I needed that money for...
To make myself feel better, it was time to eat. The cheapest food possible. Enter the always amazing sushi stands that are everywhere in Oz cities- even in the mall food court! $2.00 for any roll, even the really hilarious ones like Fried Chicken and Tuna salad. I made fun of what I call the "fake sushi" until today when tuna salad just sounded really comforting. After $4.00 I was stuffed and a tiny bit happier. That's when we realized the time. I'd like you all to take a moment and look back over all of our activities, keeping in mind that the center of town is at least 5-10 minutes away from our hostel. It was 1:00 pm. Literally an hour and 45 minutes from when we arrived in Brisbane. "Impossible," you say!?! It is apparently very possible here in Australia. I don't know how to prove it, but time is definitely slower here.
Anyway, to sum up our day, we wandered into a Museum, checked into seeing a play (too much $), and then walked through two Art Galleries- I love how the arts are mainly free in cities here, its really too cool. I was pretty grumpy all day, my backpack was heavy, I was wearing the wrong shoes, and my legs are sore. Plus, I'm just missing some of the comforts of home- a car, a bed, no luggage, no endless bus rides.... Enough of that though- I'm on the most amazing vacation!!! The rest of the evening, Kacey and I hung out at the hostel, ate some Ramen, played Wii and then debated on going out (we didn't lol). Tomorrow should be a really great day- we're going to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!!! I can't wait! And I'm thinkin that storm cloud will definitely blow over by then :) Love yas!
Aussie Facts of the day: Kacey just informed me that the government encourages euthanasia for anybody over 80, McDonalds is called Mackers, and everything here is shortened into something cutesy, ex: Facebook=Facey