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!
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