The end of my adventures in Australia....

People amaze me. I had every single item I own swabbed and tested in the “why would you ever bring this on a plane!?” machine. I was led through a mysterious line and another random, clearly aggravated passenger yells ‘congrats you’ve done something wrong too.’ The attendant says “Are you two together? Because you are now!” And so then my new "assigned significant other" decides to lose his mind. He is yelling at the people how ridiculous this is and is partially refusing to be put in the “this will awkwardly blow streams of air all over your body” machine. He says “I have never in my LIFE been suspected of a crime!” Really, sir? Then go right through, we had no idea. You are not making yourself sound like a raging lunatic at all. Well, at the end of the full search his clothes were scattered all over the room and mine were neatly packed. I left, I think this means we broke up.

I am officially spending my 55th hour trying to get back to Florida. Luckily I have had at least one shower in between then. Only two more flights to go! (It ended up taking me 3 and a half days total to get home!). Qantas had so many delays. They even had us on a plane at one point. I fell asleep immediately of course and work up an hour and a half later to find us in the same spot and it was about 103 degrees in the cabin. They had been giving us so much food and ice cream so that our mouths would be occupied that I was about to have a heart attack. I am pretty stoked to have redeemed like 35 meal vouchers at this point in my trip. When we got here in San Francisco people were getting hostile and screaming. And I was the only one that told the most insane lady to stop screaming because I knew the only man helping us was going to walk away after so much cursing and screaming… which he did. Well anyway, I am on now on my way to Detroit to get my connecting flight. Moral of the story... don’t scream at employees! Duh!

This has been a big dramatic finish to say the least, but of an incredible trip. The last two weeks have been so busy and gone by so quickly I hardly know where to start! Leah and I left for the Whitsundays coast for a three-day three night sail on the great barrier reef. The weather cleared up so nicely at the end of the trip so it was awesome. I finally just learned to wear my wetsuit all day so I was warm as our 75 ft. maxi yacht was crashing through waves and washing over the deck. There were so many hilarious people with us on the boat so it was a lot of fun to meet and talk to everyone. People from France, Germany, England, Sweden, the States, Australia.. all over! It was sweet. It was also awesome to visit the reef again. They brought us out into the middle of the ocean and we definitely saw some beautiful creatures while snorkeling. We also got to dive for a little bit. There was also this fish that visits the boat at one of our stops. He was HUGE and acts like a dog! He was very sociable and Leah got to pet him. We also visited Whitehaven beach which has beautiful white sand that is apparently 3x the grain of talcum power. We got to relax and go hiking around Airlie beach for a few days and just had such a good time catching each other up on the last few months of our lives.


For Leah’s last week here we hit up as many places in Sydney as our tired bodies would take us. We visited the Opera house and harbour bridge of course, Darling Harbour, Lindt Café, Wildlife World, the Sydney Aquarium, the Rocks, Epping, Toranga Zoo, Paddington and the market, Hillsong Service in a catholic cathedral, Pancakes on the Rocks, Manly beach via an insanely rough ferry ride, and saw Hamlet at the Opera House! (Which might I add was one of the most incredible productions I have ever seen, Brendan Cowell was so good!! And we enjoyed hearing Sara Blasko who is a great Aussie artist.) One of the funniest moments we had was at the Toranga Zoo. We started off with the Koala encounter and usually they are sleeping and will wake up for half a minute if you are lucky. You get Leah in there though and they were fighting with each other… biting and clawing!! It was amazing. The employees were all very impressed with our rare pictures! Who knew they were actually very grumpy animals that hate being touched? Then later in the kangaroo and wallaby walk through, there were two roos battling! We got video of it and it was so cool. They were hoisting themselves up on their tail and kicking each other in the belly. We finally got to pet a small roo. Leah was bending over to pet him and get a picture with him and no sooner than the words “Hey little guy… I wanna be your friend…” left her mouth the thing started attacking her. Once I realized she wasn’t going to die it was quite literally the funniest thing I have ever been a witness to. Just as I was taking video of him chasing people, he stops in front of me, scratches himself, then goes for me! He was hugging me, pushing me, biting my jacket, licking my hands and then he finally just kicked me in the shins. He was little though so it didn’t hurt I just couldn’t stop laughing. I think they were just waking up and being a little psychotic being it was getting dark out. We have some incredible pictures, it was so much fun! Also, I finally saw a platypus and I feel like my trip was nearly complete from that point!




The morning Leah left, Daniel flew in from Melbourne, so I spent a good amount of time in the airport taking a rest. Which was a nice change considering I spend two weeks completely wearing myself out. Early the next morning Daniel and I left for New Zealand which was just absolutely beautiful. Oh my gosh we had so much fun and saw so many incredible places. Australia is diverse, but New Zealand has so many different landscapes and in a much more condensed area. We rented a car and just spent our 9 days road tripping around the south island. We just picked places on the map that we wanted to see and drove around, stopping to explore, hike, and take pictures. We were definitely enjoying the days of cold before heading back to Florida. It was awesome to be standing on a tropical beach watching the waves breaking and then a couple of hours later attempting to hike up a glacier! Which we discovered you cannot climb wearing regular tennis shoes. I guess we are the very reasons they have to post warning signs! We also saw the coolest rock formations, including pancake rocks and these awesome little boulders that were perfectly round like dinosaur eggs! One of our favorite places was Milford Sound. The mountains, birds, and waterfalls were so beautiful and we had been enjoying driving through the snow to get to it. Good thing it was a beautiful place because we actually ended up getting snowed in when they closed the road going out for 2 nights! So it was definitely a leisurely and relaxing trip. We enjoyed just being mesmerized the whole time by all of the beautiful sights we were taking in.




(I still can't stop looking at all of our pictures! Even though they never quite capture everything!)

My last couple of days in Sydney we went to the zoo again, which is probably one of my most frequent and favorite events in Australia, went to one last service at Hills (SO AWESOME!) and found an absolute treasure in Parramatta. Max Brenner Chocolate Café, I can't believe we almost missed this experience completely. We found it while trying to catch a bus and it was quite literally one of the best things my mouth has ever tasted! Then, I finished packing up and said goodbye to the last of my friends, Macquarie Uni, and my seemingly endless diet of pasta and peanut butter and began my long journey back home. Where, might I add, it is wonderful to be!! The semester has been so good though. I am so grateful to have learned so much, seen so many beautiful places, and spent time with such wonderful people!

Hold up, wait a minute.. put a little love in it!

Oh man the weeks have been going by like crazy! Last week Hannah (hands-down my favourite Australian) and her family adopted me for the weekend. We had so much flippin fun. It was so incredibly nice to be in a real house with a real family! And her mum was such a good cook so I literally could not have been happier. Her mum asked so I told them all stories at dinner. It was also hilarious to meet a bunch of sheltered Aussie kids who were actually incredibly excited at the fact that I was American. Except for one of them told Alex she was gonna “G-unit” him. Which I was ready to see happen because apparently that’s how we do in America! It was like my own personal episode of Summer Heights High. Then Hannah and I rolled down a hill until we almost threw up. It was awesome. We made kangaroo stir fry, ate homemade meat pies (the ultimate Aussie comfort food), lamingtons!!!, pancakes, homemade banana cake, ooooh glorious day! I also got to go surfing again and get pounded which was a blast!

This week I was completely done with finals by the time class ended which is nice but it meant I was running around like a lunatic getting everything done. I had the best music final on the planet.. literally the most fun I have ever had taking an exam. And I had a performance exam for African Drumming, which was a blast. I ended up getting to set the pace for everyone else nearly the whole time, which was sweet!

Leah got here and has been waiting for me to finish my papers.. which at 2:07 am, I am finally done with. My paper by the way, was written about a local band that I saw in Sydney and an interview with the guitarist. How fun are my papers? Answer: FUN! Which means.. I am pretty much a college graduate at this very moment! We are leaving in not so many hours for Whitsundays coast to go hang out on the great barrier reef for a few days. And then New Zealand. And then HOME. I am beyond excited!

Check out this dude.. this is the stuff dreams are made of...

I believe I just found a Badumna insignis (formerly Ixeuticus robustus) under my bed. You read it correctly people, the former Ixeuticus robustus!






Seriously though, if they day ever comes that I wake up with one of these on my face... I will beyond freak out. I will straight up flip a pancake.

OOOoooh I wanna dance with somebody!

Last week I was rushing to finish some assignments and pack for Brisbane. The week ended with a cut-throat critique of my vocal abilities from my music teacher. Her assessment… my breathing was too shallow, my transitions poor, not giving enough support for my head voice/high notes, I wasn’t shaping my vocal tract correctly, my tongue was in the wrong position, I was pronouncing some vowels incorrectly, have to sing softer for lower notes because I am not a “belter” etc etc etc. I didn’t know I could do so many things wrong! But she told me not to worry about most of these things for the performance assessment because I wouldn’t be able to fix most of it by then! Oh good! So my focus is relaxing and having fun with it because that is all I can do!!

In my reading contemporary music class I am having an absolute blast. We will be analyzing songs from artists like Led Zeppelin, Ben Harper, Beatles, etc. for our final exam. How sweet is that!? Our professor was ranting in class about the annoying girl that has the ridiculously addictive song about “tickles my nose all the way to my toes” meaning that he was referring to Colbie Caillat’s Bubbly. I found this amusing considering our ensemble for vocal class would be performing this song. He actually ended up showing up to our performance. He sat next to me so I kindly asked him not to throw anything at us when we sang and he agreed. Then when my teacher read the set list and mentioned Bubbly he looks at me with horror and says "I thought you were joking!" I wasn't joking! My voice teacher told me in class the next day that she had also recently sent him an email saying that he just had to get her cd, oops. It went well though and was fun!

Sydney and I got up early on Friday to fly to Brizzy. 6:00am came much to early considering Sydney and I have been insomniacs for the past couple of weeks. I think she is excited about getting engaged but I am pretty sure I don’t have an excuse. We got there and found our hostel pretty easily. I met a couple on the train that was visiting Oz for a couple of weeks so I was trying to teach them some lingo while we were waiting. It was $20 to upgrade our 8 bed room to our own room for the weekend so we did and I was so glad because we walked by some of the rooms and they were so gross and people are weird. This also allowed us to make several really impressive music videos with out disturbing too many people. We explored the city for the rest of the day and found a really sweet artist doing a live painting. He made the coolest pictures using only spray paint and random materials to give it texture. It was really cool.

Saturday we got up early again for the Australia Zoo that is owned by the Steve Erwin family. It is huge, almost 100 acres. We had a blast!!!! I felt like a little kid. The first thing I got to do was feed an elephant and he slobbered all over me and it was awesome! It was literally the coolest thing ever because they are my favourite! The tiger we saw was also incredible. One of the most beautiful animals I have ever seen! The keeper was leading the tiger around and he was sitting up on his hind legs and drinking milk from a little carton! We saw a show where they were feeding crocodiles as well. That was awesome. The guy was trying to entice the croc to eat the small piece of meat he was holding but he wouldn’t go after it he was just getting closer and closer. The man was actually getting a little nervous and was mumbling something about how the croc usually didn’t act like that and made note that his eyes were focused on his legs. I was thinking this man is going to get eaten alive right in front of us! Sydney and I were looking at a croc later in one of the glass-enclosed ponds and it was stalking us! It was insane! It was following the vibrations from out footsteps around the pond!
We also got to see a lot of snakes (including one I think Daniel and I saw in the Grampians, I asked about it saying “It was a small black snake with a red belly” and the guy says oh I reckon that’s a reb-bellied black snake. Which makes sense now doesn’t it! And they are really venomous and native to Eastern Oz! Eeek!) We also saw koalas, kangaroos, cassowary (the most insanely scary bird on the planet), wombats, tasmanian devils (they disproved their stereotype and were quite cuddly), dingos, tortoises, iguanas and more that I'm probably forgetting. Sydney was taking a picture of an iguana and fell over almost in slow motion, it was hilarious and I am laughing out loud thinking about it. But we were on our way into the bird sanctuary and we had to enter into a separate protective cage that was a barrier to keep the birds in. We were all in the cage and the guide tells me to carefully open the door inside and I accidentally slammed the door, literally putting all of the birds into cardiac arrest. Ooops.
Oh and I didn’t get to meet Bindi because she was probably making a fitness video or working on her clothing line. But it was an awesome day and we had sooo much fun!

We watched some movies that night and spent our last day in the city, checking out the contemporary art gallery, and taking naps on the grass in the sun. Sydney and I make a good pair, we fight like siblings and laugh way too much. When her mom met me at the airport she laughed and said “Sydney, you two will get along... she is your type!” So that is one of our jokes and she tells everyone I’m her type. Although today, I sort of accidentally hit her in the forehead with a tube of lip-gloss and gave her a welt and she came up behind me when I was writing and poured water down my pants. It’s rough love but it works for us.

... This is what the sign in the airport said. You can have a huge ego... but only a bag this size. Keep that in mind next time you are traveling with your ego!

Yesterday and what we could be, it don't matter... gettin' more of what we don't need, it don't matter...

I had a GREAT break.. it was pretty chill except for after everyone had left the house, I am talking on skype and I thought I heard the door shut. So I go to wander out there and when I open my bedroom door I am face to face with the burly maintenance man and I about flipped a pancake. I spent a lot of time reading, swimming, watching house/learning about weird medical conditions, and worked on assignments. There wasn't too much to do considering everyone evacuated the international ghetto I live in to go on trips. Sydney and Josh went to Cairns, New Zealand and Fiji for break. Josh proposed in Fiji and Sydney came back with a ring big enough to knock someone out. I went to a BBQ with my friend Phing and we played ice breakers and stuff after lunch. Which is a (semi-)social introvert’s flippin nightmare, but I am getting the hang of this talking to new people thing. Had a good time, ate a chili pepper, then got a little car sick, good stuff. Before I left I caught up on some work, had a little Jesus time and was in high anticipation of going to Melbourne again for a visit.

The airport was quite the adventure. My domestic flight was cleverly disguised as a transfer flight to Bangkok. They send me to the international terminal, which was conveniently only about 300 miles away. And then, discovered that the stupid American girl didn’t have her passport. (Keep in mind that last time I went to Melbourne, I could of said hello my name is Charles and I’m planning on being a little hostile on the flight over and they would have said “Great! Would you like an upgrade, sir!?... I’m talking I didn’t even need my ID or know how to spell my own name last time.) Sooooooo I went back to the domestic terminal and they switched me around a few times until I got a flight. And you better believe after all that I bought a krispy creme donut to ease the pain. I am being dramatic because in reality even when I thought I was going to have to wait 7 hours for a flight I was sitting there thinking there is no way I’m gonna let this bother me because this is gonna be an awesome week and I’m in Australia… Hello!!?? It was well worth it though. The flight was good… slept the whole time and was so disappointed to have not met any cool old people.

Daniel picked me up from the airport and brought me back to Monash. We got to hang out for a couple of days and cook, play frisbee, volleyball, watch movies, had a little op-shop adventure and relaxed until our camping adventure could commence. We decided on a road trip to the Grampians, a mountain range/national park. We drove over on Wednesday night after class and found our first campsite which was sweet! We found a spot and made a good campfire to make dinner, and our own rendition of s’mores made with cookies. As the night went on more and more wallabies and kangaroos were making their way around our site. Finally we spotted one of them up on his hind legs, shopping for food in our car. He swiped our loaf of bread and we ran after him to retrieve it. We ended up luring them over to play with us by the fire by throwing marshmallows at them. It was so much fun! We found soft place on the ground to sleep and they hopped around us all night. It was sooooooo cool.

We did a lot of insanely awesome hiking the next day. The first mountain we tackled was Mt. Stapylton which was about a 4 1/2k hike. The cliffs on the way up presented us with an amazing array of red and orange shades and also saw some wind caves. The top gave us our first view of the park from up high. Of course we ate some food, cause that’s what fatties do.

The second mountain we found was Mt. Difficult. We had to dominate this one because I mean, come on.. “Oh what did you hike? Oh nothing too much just Mt Incredibly Difficult! Mt. “ you have to be ripped to make it up this one” Difficult. Danny was joking that we rename it Mt’ Easy. Lol, Seriously though I pulled a groin muscle on this one. This hike was a good 9km and had 450 meters elevation change. It was literally the coolest trail though and we had to climb steep rocks to get through. It took us about 2 hours to get up there which was a short amount of time relative to the incredible view we had. After we left, we went back to Mt Stapylton for a good spot to see the sunset. I am disappointed now that I was incredibly distracted by my injury because I was hurting, but I was still so thankful to be there. It was so awesome. We were just being reminded constantly of how incredible God is and how much he loves us that he created that spot for us to sit and enjoy Him.


Friday morning we went to the top of Mt. William to see the sun come up. It was another great spot but it was so incredibly cold at the top! Despite the wind that was chaotic and blowing there were several eagles gliding around so peacefully. One came so close and just hovered right above us. It was so beautiful.


I liked the hike to the pinnacle because there was an incredible view of the small town below so you could reference how huge the mountains were. We sat for a while with our feet over the edge and looked as it dropped dropped dropped.

Next was hollow mountain. This was another one of my favorites because there were layers of rock shelves winding through a hollow cave. The interior was smooth and curvy. We also found a sweet spot were people were bouldering through a horizontal and narrow cave opening extending all the way through these massive rocks. All the rock climbing reminded me of the friends from home and I was happy to think about our plastic wall climbing days at school. We ended the day with a hike down to a really sweet waterfall. The weekend brought a lot of people there for the last couple of stops but it was still really cool.



On our last night we cheated and got some pizza for dinner (and brekkie.. this reminds me of my grandma always eating weird things for breakfast).

And oh my gosh we hit a kangaroo. I don’t care how tough people say they are, you still don’t expect that thing to come hopping out from underneath the car if you actually hit it! I am pretty sure I laughed out loud but it was definitely not funny, I just didn’t know what else to do! I was amazed when we skidded to a stop and that thing paused for about 3 seconds before it popped out and kept on going like a trooper! Pure beastly muscle I tell you!

Oooh and I got to drive on the wrong side of the road for a little as well! That was awesome because I miss driving so much. I am pretty sure I was probably a little scary though.

We headed back home as the rain looked like it was on its way and the temperature was dropping. I enjoyed being back at Monash again. There was a talent show that was really cool and we took over Abhi’s room (who is Danger’s hilarious RA) and watched some grrrrreat movies. On Sunday, we went to the city and ate some pancakes! I had so much fun with everyone on this trip, especially because I have the best road tripping buddy on the planet. And I really love my friend Faker that I got to hang out with (who might I add is an amazing chef and has some schmerious frisbee skills.) I was so sad to leave because I have such a good time there. Everyone has been asking me about my break this week and they are probably sorry they did because I go blabbing on and on about it. I told a bunch of people in class stories and about the wallaby stealing our food! People just laugh at me and are amazed because a lot of locals say that they haven’t done as much as I have in my short time here. Which makes me so stoked that I have been able to do so much and make the most of my time here! I know I am blessed and so thankful for it!


ps... Aaaahhh!!! I believe this is a Golder Orbweaver.

Tell me that you want those kind of things.. that money just can't buy

This is finally that first day of break without rain so far! Yesterday I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. It was sweet and I loved it. There was some creepy stuff but a lot that was really cool. One artist took US dollars and made about 30 different species of bird's nests out of them. And they appeared to all be meticulously weaved together without any type of adhesive. I was laughing at this little kid who walked in and goes "Mom, oh my gosh is that American dollars.. oh my gosh that's the biggest waste of money!!!" He was increasingly angry at every exhibit and his dad was patiently explaining the context of each piece and what its meaning might be. He said "What do we use money for? Shelter? Food? So, in this context what could a bird use it for? Its use is the same but does the value change.." And the kid was just not having it. It was funny. I felt like I was in painting class again, usually ending in me making a face and my teacher asking everyone to turn around and look at it. There were not many paintings besides aboriginal art. Which is cool but so highly repetitive but I guess that also makes it distinguishable.

So have I mentioned the devil birds lately? You might be thinking to yourself, "oh goodness.. she does not appreciate nature.. what an ungrateful little freak.." So I made a video just now! Never mind the visual.. just take a moment to listen. At the end you can see them dive bombing the camera if you look in the bottom corner. Have a little journey right outside my back door without ever having to put your shoes on... This is what begins at 6am. (And might I add that the dinosaur birds are not even around on this occasion.)It is actually incredible how many species we have around campus.

Sydney and I organized a trip to the blue mountains… where there are no mountains and nothing is really that blue. But not to worry we have a guy putting in a request to the government to change the name to something more accurate. Just kidding though they can call it what they want because it was awesome! We actually went on the perfect day. It had been raining so there was actually a waterfall to see and it cleared up and was nice perfect weather for hiking.

Our train from Epping was a little late so once we got off we were running through the station to find George street. We just knew the place we were meeting was somewhere on this street. So we were running around frantically trying to find it.

We made it just in time and our tour guide was rounding us up… now I saw this man and thought to myself, “there is no way.” And I think that might of come out of my mouth as I was staring at Sydney looking for her reaction. Luckily, our psychopathic tour guide was wearing fake teeth and a wig because he looked insane. He was hilarious though. This is a pattern among all of the tour guides and employees that we meet in our travels. A great sense of humor mixed with little sarcasm just seems to be the Aussie way and its great!

On the way there he was telling us (I didn’t check to see if this is accurate) that Mariah Carey now holds second place for number of #1 hits in the US. Beating Elvis Presley and if she gets one more, she will surpass the Beatles. He then said, “So look, if you really like her, just download her stuff for free and don’t tell anyone you listen to it because no one wants to see this happen!” Then he gave us a rundown of the 5 richest women alive. Which I don’t remember but clearly this was one knowledgeable dude.

We stopped at a little spot in the forest while it was early to see if we could find some kangaroos. We found some and every one was standing so far away but I’m an idiot so I got right up there and gave them a little hello. I was trying to make friends with one that was all sprawled out on the ground but he was clearly getting pissed off and Sydney was very worried that I was going to get kicked in the face. I just go with the strategy of no sudden movements at times like these. Brilliant. Worked like a charm. But it would have been worth it and would be a good story. “Oh, what’s wrong with my face??… oh nothing, a kangaroo kicked me in it but its healing. Didn’t even hurt really.”

Then we went for several wonderful hours of hiking. We also dominated quite possibly the worst stone staircase ever constructed to get to the bottom of the waterfall. Each step was the size of a small child and it was ridiculously steep. I woke up this morning and could not move my legs.

It was well worth it however. I just sat for a while at the bottom (mostly because my legs had magically turned to jello) and watched the waterfall. The sun was dancing right through the drops as they fell. It looked like diamonds falling from the sky. The cold mist rushed to my face and I was so happy that God bothered with all these little details for us to enjoy.

I also saw several funnel web spiders. What are those you ask? Oh those? Just the most deadly spider in the world that’s all. What? Was I afraid? No I ate one for lunch. I came across this article where someone was trying to figure out it they had been bitten by one….

If you’ve just been bitten by a spider and you can manage to go online, find this website and have read this far, then no, you weren’t bitten by a funnel web spider. This is one of the many ways in which funnel web spiders are like Jack Bauer. If you were attacked and aren’t already in hospital, then you don’t need to ask the question because you’re dead.

If, on the offchance you HAVE been bitten by a funnel web spider and your friend, assuming you have one (who can read), is reading this site, then this is the world of pain you can expect:

* It hurts like hell at the site of the bite (unlike wussy snake bites)
* You then hurl your guts up and experience the pain that John Hurt’s
character did in Alien, just before the creature burst through his
chest, except in your abdomen
* You will then start to spazz out when you realise that you can no
longer breathe and all your muscles don’t work or have become
numb
* Fluids will start leaking from orifices you didn’t even know you had
* You will sweat a river, and salivate like a rabid dog
* Assuming your lungs are still working, you will cough, a lot

If you were bitten in Australia in parts of the country where funnel web spiders are known to lurk, then the nearest hospital should have an anti-venom for what ails you. I would go there now if I were you.

…So I didn’t touch any.

And I definitely got front row tickets to Jerry Springer on the train coming home. Anywhere there is a “lady fight” and a midget who is not happy (so which one is he? Idk) … you know it’s going to be a good time. Slash not at all. I should probably add here that the midget said he liked how my neck had such flexibility, which he noticed when I was rockin out with my ipod trying to tune out the crazies. I would have had a picture to document this but Sydney said No. She keeps me under control.
Now I am off of school for break and will attempt to do a semesters worth of homework in the next week so I can play some more!