AWESOME NEWS DUDES!!!

DEAR READERS

NEWS FLASH:

I went to UniLodge today once again, just to check in and see if anything has happened, and because Dad is currently talking to Oxy about the payment because Oxy is arguing that we reimburse them for the whole semester's rent that they sent to UniLodge, since they thought the room wouldn't ever be filled (which is TOTALLY unfair, I do believe, making me pay for that awful place they sent me to when I am not even staying there) but, when I got there and asked about my room, they told me...

My room was filled!!!!!!

Yesterday!!!! AGGHHHHAWOFJSRGOJVNINRFOJAEOGJIBVNSL Best news ever!!!! So my lease is officially broken and they are going to send Oxy the money that would have paid for the rest of the semester! So pretty much, if Dad and I have to pay for what Oxy sent to UniLodge for the couple months that the room wasn't filled, it will only be about half what it would have been for the full semester. which is GREAT.
See a while ago, Dad was looking at the amount of money Oxy was saying we would need to pay them for UniLodge, since they are arguing that we would have to cover it, and he told me that the cost of this might keep him from coming to Melbourne in November, which has been our plan since, like, when I heard I got into study abroad in like March. But now it is way more likely that my Dad will be able to come, even if we have to pay for UniLodge. Hooray!

That news just made my day. It was fabulous! I just feel like I am completely free of UniLodge now, which is a wonderful feeling. I just have to turn my key in. I can't believe they didn't call me to tell me someone was taking the room! Jeez. I mean, their whole organization was just weird to me from the start so...

And that is all! I am having a great time, and up next is pictures from my Cairns trip! Life is good. Love and hugs to everyone back home!!!! Xoxoxoxo!

Oh Here I Am!

Ya found me. :)

So I know I have been terrible lately at posting, but I have been sooooo busy. I WENT TO CAIRNS!!! IT WAS AMAZING! The first trip I have ever taken on my own, other than, you know, the flight here and all that. Five days all to myself. So I didn’t have anyone else to think about, I didn’t have to change my plans at all for other people. It was a very selfish vacation.

I got extremely sunburned. I mean, allover, really red, hurts to touch sunburned. Even still, I can’t put any pressure on my back. My legs and stomach are okay, and my arms aren’t really burned at all, because I did put enough sunscreen there, but I can’t even wear a bra right now, it hurts my back so much. :(

So, these past three days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, I have been holed up in my room, applying about four liters of lotion and aloe vera to my skin, watching Alias. I should be working on my 2000 word paper that’s due in a week, and I should be updating this blog (which I am getting to now…), buuuuuuut I love this show. Sooooo much. Especially the first couple seasons, and I am in the first. I cannot WAIT for Sark to come back on. He was one of my favorite characters.

Anywho, my skin is in all kinds of states right now and I am kind of focusing on nursing that back to health, because the tan lines on my chest are seriously embarrassing. Luckily I can pretty much cover up my entire body here in Melbourne because it is still cold here. My face is peeling, mostly on my forehead, but it’s not so red anymore, my stomach is sooooo itchy, but I can’t actually itch it, because it ends up hurting me rather than making me feel better, so I have resorted to tapping my skin. My back is extremely red. I can barely put on lotion, because the pressure of my fingers just hurts that much. I can lean against a pillow alright, as long as I don’t move, and then I’m okay.

Ok, so that’s my sob story.

But other than that, this past week has been AMAZING. Utterly, superbly amazing. At the top of the list, the best things I did were snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, hold a koala, and feed kangaroos. A very Australian experience, no doubt. It was great. :D

I also met some strange people though. I’ll have to tell you all about those.

So I guess I will go through chronologically, as usual. And then I think I will do a couple picture posts, because adding pictures into text takes oh so long. So pictures are forthcoming!! Here goes!

So, I went to the airport at about 7:30 Monday night because my flight was supposed to leave at 9:20. I took the shuttle bus there from a big train station in downtown Melbourne. When I got to the airport, the line at my terminal for Tiger Airways was huuuuge! I waited in line for 45 minutes. And then it turns out my flight was delayed until 11:30 that night! Agghhhh. I rarely have delayed flights, so I am very anal about getting to the airport on time, and now I had to wait an extra two hours in the airport. :( So I had to wait in line, only to be told that I was supposed to check in online, and that it would be a fine of $30 to check in at the counter. WHAAAAT.

On top of that, about five other Tiger flights were delayed, so the terminal was packed. People had to sit all along the walls and absolutely all the chairs were taken. I luckily found one open.

I finally got on the plane at about 11:30, then we took off at about midnight, I think. The flight takes about 3 and a half hours, so I got to the Cairns airport about 3:30 am, then had to wait for a shuttle to take me to my hostel, Cairns Central YHA Backpackers Hostel. I finally got to the hostel a bit after 4 am, then I got in bed by 4:30 am. *__*

So on Tuesday, I slept till about ten, as long as I could with the other girls in the room all getting up before me, and then I had the day to explore the city and get some food for the hostel so I can have breakfast and possibly lunch there everyday, to save some cash.

So that morning, I went across the street to the shopping center, which was just like a mall, but had a Coles, which is a grocery store. I bought some breakfast bars, muesli with chocolate chips (the store brand, so they ended up being kind of gross…), and whole wheat bread and nutella to have in the mornings. Mmm do I love nutella. For a lunchtime snack, I had a couple pieces of bread with nutella, since I didn’t yet know where to go for food or anything.

Then I went to the front desk to see where to go for the day and got a map of the city. I decided to go down to the nearest part of the beach, the Esplanade.

It was SO. HOT. And humid, which made it so much worse. It was a good change from Melbourne though.

The Esplanade turned out to be this really long street that went along the coast where there were tons and tons of bars, tourist shops, and restaurants. Then right along the beach, there was a giant pool called the Lagoon, which was free and filled with people. I figure it gets even busier than that, because when I was out there, it was overcast and rainy. There were also signs for the UV rating, kind of like those forest fire-warning signs you see in Oregon and sometimes in California, I think, and it was in the bright red “extreme” zone. Jeepers. I remember being glad I put sunscreen on even on that cloudy day.

I walked along the Esplanade for a while, seeing all the shops and bars (which were, by the way, always filled with people, even at 12 noon), and I walked down to a dock filled with boats. As I reached the dock, though, it started absolutely pouring. There was no cover on the dock, so I ran back to the nearest restaurant, a gelato place, soaking my shorts and sandals. Not the best clothing for such heavy rain, but I would have been so hot with any real clothing on.

After that, I walked along the “beach.” I call it a “beach” because, seriously, it was soooo dried up. And it wasn’t really beach-like, it was pretty rocky and had little streams flowing from drains from city streets. BUT I did see some incredibly attractive men whilst walking along. They were doing their daily jog, probably, and they were shirtless. Siiggghhhh. They were firefighter calendar types, if ya know what I mean. ;) All strong and manly and all that. And tall. They passed me twice, because they went one way along the beach and came back the same way.

By the time I got to the end of the beach, I was super duper hungry, so I walked back to the shopping part of the Esplanade and got a late lunch. It was this barbeque chicken sandwich thing. YUM. I liked that place so much, I went back on my last day. It was one of the less expensive places too, though that only means a meal is like $12, so not actually cheap at all.

After that I back to the hostel to shower and hang out, since I didn’t have any plans for the first day. Then that night, I got a toasted sandwich for dinner, and just hung out at the hostel. I went to bed early, because the next day I was going to the reef and had to be at the check in center at 7:30 in the morning.

So the next day, Wednesday, I went to the GREAT BARRIER REEEEF!!!!! How awesome is that???

Got up at 6:45 so I had time to eat something before I left, then went down to the Reef Fleet terminal to check in to get aboard my boat, and we headed out at 8 am. The weather in the morning was a bit cloudy and rainy looking, so I was nervous for the day, but once we got out on the water it cleared right up.

Being on the reef was absolutely amazing. Breath-taking. Not in a million years would I have thought five years ago that I might be taking a trip to the Great Barrier Reef at 20 years old all on my own. And there I was. It was a great feeling.

Took us two hours to get to the first dive. That was at Paradise Reef. That was my favorite stop. On the ride there, they went over diving, for people who wanted to try it (I didn’t because I hadn’t even gone snorkeling yet and it cost a heap of money), and snorkeling, just stuff like how to wear your mask and how to blow water out of your tube, stuff like that. I was kind of nervous, because I am actually afraid of waves when I’m at the beach, and I had never been out in open water like that, where it’s really deep. But I decided, screw it, I don’t know when I will ever get a chance to do this again, and I am a good swimmer and not afraid for help, especially since the crew were so nice and generally attractive, so I watched a couple people get in, then I let my nerves go and jumped in.

Best decision of my life. Well, other than deciding to study abroad, or to go to Cairns on my own.

Snorkeling was so simple. All I had to do was float and breath through my mouth, and I could see tons and tons of coral and fish. The open water wasn’t scary at all either, since we didn’t go far from the boat and the coral was only about ten feet below us. At one point, I was trying to figure out my camera a little better, so I just floated, and then when I looked down, there was no coral below me I could see and I was way off to the side of the boat, but I just swam back to the reef. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

(Ahhh, I am so proud of myself now that I'm reading this... :D)

I will dedicate a post entirely to my underwater pictures, by the way.

Then we had some lunch on the boat. It was actually really yummy, with a little salad and pasta with pesto sauce. After that, we went to the second stop, Michaelmas Cay, which is a little island where this one species of bird flies every year from Alaska to make babies and nest. Right off the island, there’s a little reef which we swam over to get to shore. The reef there was sooooo close to the top of the water, I was actually afraid I was going to hit it with my stomach or my fin while I swam over. That actually made it kind of nerve racking, because I tried to swim between the higher parts of coral, but then I got stuck in the middle of all this coral and was afraid to swim over. I swam to shore as soon as I could, then coming back I swam over as fast as I could. Right off the beach, there were all these little fishies that swam around your legs and came up really close. The crew on the boat told us there were fish that liked to latch onto your fingers and toes, but they didn’t have any teeth so they didn’t hurt you or anything, but I think those were them.

At Michaelmas Cay, we were told there were a ton of sea turtles there, but I didn’t see any. I didn’t see any sharks either. If I had, I don’t think I would have been scared, because the sharks are pretty small and probably only want to eat fish, not people.

After that, we headed back to the boat and started our trip back to Cairns. They gave us a little snack of coffee and bread. The boat rides were honestly also really nice. Sitting on deck (getting extremely sunburned, I later found out) they played music, including Bob Marley, the Eagles, Jason Mraz, and Mika! I was like, sheesh, did you take this from my iPod? But then they also played some funny stuff, like a weird Karaoke cover of “Fashion” by David Bowie. That was strange.

Then that night, I got back about 5:30, realized my entire body was sunburned, and took a cold shower. I also slathered myself with this travel size bottle of lotion, so most of that got used up that day. And that night I got dinner at this pasta place that was relatively less expensive and hung out at the hostel. I think it was that night that I met Michael. He was a seventeen-year-old Australian kid on vacation with his Dad. He was actually from Melbourne. He was super easy to talk to, and we kept hanging out each night, but I’m pretty sure he was kind of into me. He figured out where I hung out in the evenings, in these deck chairs outside the door to my room, so he would kind of linger there… awwwkwaaaard. We would talk about partying a lot, probably because that’s on the mind of a seventeen-year-old boy pretty much nineteen hours a day, and he kept saying we should go get a beer. Maybe he just wanted me to buy him a beer, since he couldn’t legally and I could, but really I’m pretty sure he thought I was a twenty-year-old American mega hottie, which I am. ;) Kidding you guys, but seriously, he was all up on my shizz.

Oh! I forgot to tell you about another guy who was all up on my shizz! NORMAN THE GERMAN LURKER. He started talking to me on the boat ride to the reef, and I was in a good mood of course, because I was on a boat going to the reef and on probably one of the best vacations I will ever have, so I kept talking to the guy and letting him tell me about his travels, blah blah blah. He also told me he was “thirty plus” when he said he was hanging out with some “crazy young guys” or something about that. See, when I hear a guy says he’s “thirty plus,” I imagine he is just a guy being friendly on a boat full of tourists who probably wants someone to talk to for the day. That’s innocent enough. But oh, was I wrong.

On the way back from the reef, they opened up the bar and people started getting their drink on because, hey, that’s what you do on vacation! I didn’t because I am generally broke and didn’t really want a beer at 3 in the afternoon, but Norman asked me if I drank, and I said yes, sometimes, and he told me he would like to “invite me for a beer” in his very accented English. I politely declined, saying I didn’t really feel like it and didn’t want to pay for it.

It continues.

We got back to shore and got off the boat, and at this point I was generally avoiding Norman (GOD what a creeper name) because he went from friendly weird German tourist to thirty-five year old guy hitting on me really quickly, but I accidentally started walking down the dock right next to him.

Now this time, he asked me if I had any plans for the night and if I wanted to go to a bar. I said no, giving him the excuse that I don’t like the nightlife here because it is so touristy and not really my scene (really, Norman wasn’t my scene… yuck.) But then he says there’s this one bar, PJ’s, that is nice and I guess classier than the rest of the bars. AHEM. I had walked past this bar called PJ O’Brien’s a couple times and noticed that outside the front doors, they had three or four signs advertising “Pole Idol,” an amateur pole dancing night where they give out prizes. Yippee hurray, Norman was asking me to the creepy stripper bar!

I asked Norman, “PJ O’Brien’s?”

And he said, “yes.”

And I explained to him that that “classy joint” has signs for amateur pole dancing night, so thanks but no thanks, I won’t be going there with you. And we parted ways, saying “nice to meet you,” even though it wasn’t.

And that wasn’t the last of Norman.

Now actually, I walked some more around Cairns and I did find a bar that I think might have been PJ’s also, just a block down the street (…weird) so maybe Norman was talking about that, but seriously dude, I turned you down once, don’t make me do it again! And I really don’t feel bad about it, so really it’s just you that gets burned. Sorry (I am not).

So, in conclusion, lots of guys all up in my grill on vacay. It was really unwanted attention, I was not so into finding some guy to be into for a week in Cairns and then dropping him once I got back to Melbourne.

This was my nice, selfish, all-about-me vacation, I don’t want to care what guys think of me whatsoever. I would like to hang out in a tropical location, gazing at the attractive shirtless men with no makeup on, not having done my hair for the past three days. Which is what I did, except some dudes were trying to flirt with me. I don’t have time for their pointless flirtation! So I let them talk at my face and I nodded and laughed two times within the conversation, then I was able to get up and ignore them the rest of the day.

Okay, back to my story!

The next day, I went to Kuranda, a village in the middle of a big rainforest that you take either the skyrail or scenic train to get to, so I took the skyrail there and the train on the way back!

The skyrail was GREAT. It was so amazing to see the rainforest up high and actually go over it. And it had a couple stops where you can get out and take a walk through some rainforest and see views of Barron Falls, which goes down into Barron River. In the wet season, which I think is November to May, the falls absolutely gush with water. It completely covers this huge rock face. Kinda wish I could see that.

I sat in the same hanging gondola thingie with a girl named Stephanie, an American nurse from Pennsylvania, I think. That was nice, we bonded over being American and it turned out we were both staying at the YHA hostel, so the rest of the day we went around together. When we got to Kuranda, we went to the Koala Center and Birdworld. At the koala center…

I HELD A KOALA!!!!!!

NO BIG DEAL, just held a koala. No big thaaaaaang. It was so fuzzy and cute and it had massive claws. But it’s adorableness took away from the sharp scary claws. And the koalas at this place were actually active, moving around and eating. I got a great video of one eating. Also I FED KANGAROOS. A double amazing experience!!!! I really loved the kangaroos. They were so sweet and cute and they let you pet them. They would lift their cute little noses up if they wanted food. One actually got up and stood so it could eat out of my hand better!!! :D It. Was. Awesome. Also I had a PARROT ON MY SHOULDER. Never done that before. It kind of ate my hair, but really, we became best friends. He (I felt the parrot was a boy) was really nice too and his also giant claws didn’t hurt my shoulder. It was a big day for animals. An AWESOME day for animals. I had to pay a heap of money to hold the koala, but it was soooooo worth it. Pictures shall come. :)

The scenic train on the way back wasn’t as great as the skyrail. It was assigned seating, and I got a middle seat, so I couldn’t really see out the window. My camera also died halfway through, though that wasn’t that much of a bad thing, since all my pictures were blurry from the train moving. But I was in the same car as Stephanie, so I had someone to walk back to the hostel with.

The next day I had to hang out around Cairns and go to beaches! So I decided to go up to Palm Cove, a recommended beach by the woman at the front desk of the hostel. I took a forty-minute bus ride to get there (cost $5!!! Sheesh! What’s with the price of public transportation here?!) And it was pretty beautiful. Super clear water, palm trees all over the place. And it was warm and less humid there. And I saw a super cute puppy who looked like my dog Charlie that I had when I was eight. Awwww, Charlie. I miss him. We couldn’t keep him because he was a border collie and he just had way to much energy and kept chewing on everything in the house, but he was really great.

That night, I went back to the place where I got a sandwich my first day and got a really yummy burger, then I actually bought a couple beers and drank them at the hostel with Michael (I felt bad for the guy, I let him have some, don’t tell anyone!) and then I had my flight that night. I actually went on my snorkeling trip with Casey, an American girl from Queens, who turned out to be on the same flight back as me, so we decided to get a cab together. Michael actually wheeled my suitcase to the hotel for me. I think he felt like I was going to get attacked on the street or something because I am a girl, even though it is super public and well-lit there, so when he kept offering I just let him take it. I felt kind of bad for he guy, if you can’t tell. And we got there really early, because I checked out of the hostel at 11 and the cab wouldn’t come until 11:45, so I really had to be adamant to Michael that it was okay that he just left me there to wait. Haha, gosh, what a silly guy. I mean, I guess he is a seventeen-year-old.

My flight was supposed to leave at 1:15 am but was delayed till 2:30 and didn’t take off until 3. I swear, I am never flying Tiger again for the rest of my life. I got back to Melbourne at about 6:30 am, then I got to Queens at about 7:45 after a shuttle to the train station and a cab from there. I was in bed at about 8 I think, and then… I slept until 4 pm. Ha! Awesome. It actually was awesome, I felt so well rested and I totally just slipped back into my regular sleeping schedule.

And that’s my story! God, that was long. Sorry about that. Hope you guys got through it okay!

Now I’m back in Melbourne, have been in my room the past three days, nursing my sunburn and watching Alias. …Aaaaaaaaaand my life is awesome. THE END!!! Thank you and goodnight!!!

Snazzy Pants Video Blog, Just for You!!!

*just a note: I originally made a much prettier, cuter little video than this one with better lighting/maybe sound (for some reason my sound just sucks!! I'm sorry) but then it cut off filming in the middle, so I had to start over! Anyway, enjoy you guys!! Lots of love!

Good Morning Starshine! The Earth says Hello!

WHY YES I AM ALIVE.

No, I have not ceased to exist. I am not floating through a black hole, forever without a sense of time or space, slowly shrinking and becoming a tiny particle of a being that used to exist on planet Earth.

Right now, I am like the end of Carrie, where she doesn’t actually die and her hand pops out of the grave because she’s ready to come back and unleash her evil powers on all the other awful high schools and insane mothers of the world. Or was that a dream sequence? I don’t remember. I just remember Carrie’s hand popping out the grave (or was it her mom’s hand?) and that was the only time in the movie where I jumped out of my seat.

Ah HA! It was a dream sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAXU_7EyXFE

You see, you, dear readers, are the lady with the super perm in the white dress, who have come to my grave, thinking I am dead and gone, to leave me some flowers because you actually thought I was a nice person even though I burned my fellow high school students alive at prom, but SHAZAAM!! Can’t get rid of me that easily! Hahahahahaha!!!! Now I haunt your dreams and you will probably be stuck in a mental hospital for the rest of your life! Yeah. That's how my blog is.

Anyway, I am going to go through these past two weeks very vaguely because there is sooooo much to cover, but if you would like a more detailed account of the wonderful things I have been doing, I would like to direct you to my mom’s blog, since she actually wrote down everything we did and described it the way you guys like descriptions, as in super detailed. Gooooooooo here!

http://susangoingtoaustralia.blogspot.com/

Well I have a TON of stuff to cover. Ok. Here goes.

First of all, while my mom was here, she and I ate SO MUCH FOOD. AND IT WAS ALL DELICIOUS. I got sooooo spoiled. I went to dinner at Queens last night, like I would normally, but it was just so bad compared to what I’ve been having, it was hard to eat it. I ate about half, and then I was like… that’s all I need. The best places for me were Coda and MoVida. They were both sort of fancy places, like you are supposed to drink wine there and have little portions and they were both expensive, but they were both soooooooooooo good. Coda was my favorite I think. Coda was best overall, to me, but MoVida had an AMAZING beef cheek dish and AMAZING potatoes with a spicy sauce. Mmmm the potatoes were soooooooooooo goooooooooood. AGH. But Coda had these crispy rice papers rolls that I LOVED and a broccolini dish and a lettuce dish that I also adored. And maybe I enjoyed the experience more. Mom and I sat at the bar and got to get advice from the super attractive bartender and the people sitting on either side of us that could recommend stuff to us. Phew, I will have to put in pictures. The food was completely amazing.

Oh, I also had eggs Florentine for the first time. WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME EGGS FLORENTINE WAS SO GOOD?!? Jeebus, it was delicious. I had it in Apollo Bay, a tiny town along the Great Ocean Road.

Oh, and Mom and I also got hot chocolate at this one place called Chokolait that only serves chocolate, of course, that was A-MAZE-ING. It was pretty much melted Belgian milk chocolate that you could drink. So so so so good.

And now I’m going to have to get used to regular food again. Sighhhh. :(

So while Mom was here, I did tons of things. I played chicks footy for Queens!!! That was awesome. I’ll have to put pictures of that too.

Oh snap! Well now’s a good time to tell you I guess. The other night, I was trying to get rid of old files on my computer because I am running out of space to upload pictures and stuff, so I was going through pictures and word documents and downloads, putting them in trash so I could delete them forever. And I guess I selected my iPhoto library, which means absolutely all the pictures on my computer, and I put it in trash somehow, and I emptied my trash. Emptying my trash means I no longer have the file anymore. It is off somewhere in cyberspace, with no label saying it is a picture file or anything, it is dead and gone. At first, I freaked the eff out. I cried and cried and searched all over my computer for some undo button, or some hidden place where my pictures may still be stored, but there was no hope. I don’t know how I did it, I cannot believe I deleted them, and I am hitting myself for not checking the trash before deleting everything in it. So I looked into data recovery software, and I went to a couple computer stores the next day to ask their opinion, and there are services you can get to have them recover your files, but it wasn’t guaranteed that you could get them back and it cost a lot. I would also need an external hard drive, because now I am freaking out about having important things stored on my computer.
But now, I am optimistic and I have come to terms with it. I definitely do not have a couple hundred dollars to spend on getting the pictures back, so I’m not going to. Most of them are on facebook, and I have all mom’s pictures from her trip, so I think I will be ok. But still… I’m so upset with myself that I did that. I have lost all the ones I had of Cleo, my dog, or Kitty, that I didn’t put on facebook, and I don’t have the pictures from chicks’ footy, some of which were really great because I was covered in mud and looked pretty bad ass. Ugh, I don’t want to think about it though. Moving on.

Mom and I went to a fashion show for Melbourne fashion week! That was cool. Tickets were only twenty bucks, and we sat up above on a balcony. We saw designs made by RMIT students, which is a local university. It was pretty legit too. Not cheesy amateur designs. Very groovy.

Then we went to the ZOO!!!! Yesssss, I love the zoo! As you all know. And this time, I got to see the OTTERS!!!!! I do believe they are the cutest creatures in existence. Aaaaaaaaaand they have officially replaced owls as my favorite animal. I know, I know, crazytown. I do love owls, but otters are just so amazing and adorable and they squeak and groom each other and UGH they are so cuuuute! And fun-loving. I want to be like them. And we got to see seals, and we saw a lot more of them than I did the first time, which was great. We ran out of time though, because the zoo closed at 5 or something, so we didn’t hit up the entire zoo.



Mom and I also went to St. Kilda’s, which is a beachy area in a bay or a port or something. That was very pretty. Quite cold though, because it’s still winter and it’s super windy by the ocean. Oh, we went to this great place for food though. I think it was called the Grapevine. They just had great atmosphere and reeeally tasty steak. I would certainly go back there.



Then last Friday, mom and I went to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade!!! AHHHHHHHHHH IT WAS SO AMAZING. We went to a farm part of the island, where they had wallabies, and we went to the koala conservatory, where there were only like three sleeping boring koalas hangin’ out, but then we went to see the penguins. It was so adorable!!!! They are so adorable!!! Mom and I paid for extra good seating, so we got to be about seven feet from the penguins and they swam ashore and walked up to the their homes. It was so cool. There are something like 60,000 penguins that live in the island, and each night tons of them swim ashore to rest and recuperate from fishing and so they can take care of their mates or feed their kids. Awwwwww!!!! There was one really old penguin named Harry who had a nest right off the shore, a beachfront home. Hee hee. It was such a great experience. We couldn’t take any pictures, though. Sorry!

Wallabies!

The koalas were super disappointing. They were just balls of fur hangin' out in trees. :/

Haha, Mom got a little angry. ;)

Then last Saturday, a week ago today, mom and I got on a train to Ballarat to then rent a car and drive to the Grampians, an immense, beautiful mountain range not far from Melbourne. Mom and I had some insane luck. We were running late (my fault, of course, I am always late) and we couldn’t find out where to buy tickets for the train, but it was leaving in two minutes, but I asked a man working there about it and he was like, “BUY THEM ON THE TRAIN YOU CRAZY AMERICAN!! GO GO GO!!!” and I was like, we can do that? So mom and I sprinted to the train, the last ones on, and it took off. If we hadn’t made it, we would have had to wait an hour and a half for the next one. Yesssss!

But then, when we got to Ballarat, the car rental place wasn’t actually open, or something, but we called the office number and the lady was like, “oh, you need a car? I’ll come over now” and she just drove in to open the office. It was weird. It was like they still rent out cars on Saturday, but they don’t open the office…? But luckily, we got a car. For a while, I thought we would be stuck in Ballarat. Blech. There would have gone our weekend!

We drove to the Grampians to stay at Hall’s Gap at the YHA hostel. Mom drove the whole time! On the left side of the road and the right side of the car! And she was very good at that. I don’t think I ever feared for my life, haha.

THE GRAMPIANS OHHHHH SNAP.

They were amazing. Here are pictures. Like. Oh. My. God. It was like I was above the earth looking down at it. Such an amazing feeling. Oh and we went to Mackenzie Falls. Beautiful. I want to go back.





HAHA BEST SIGN EVER!!!!

















Moving on!

Driving down to the Great Ocean Road, mom and I start the road in Warrnambool, where there is supposed to be good whale watching. On the way there, I drove a little!!!! Mwahahaha! Only for like, half an hour, though, I think. Still, it was great. Now I can say I’ve driven in Australia!! In Warrnambool, we didn’t see any whales, but we did see a beautiful beach.

Then we decided to drive to the Twelve Apostles and see them when the sun sets. Oh my God, it was life changing. I always thought the world was beautiful and amazing, because it does such amazing things, but I have never seen anything like this with my own eyes.











That night, we drove to Apollo Bay to stay in a hotel for the night and get dinner. We ended up getting dinner at a very good restaurant where we got garlic and cheese pizza and very yummy stir fry veggies, and our waitress was AMAZING. I know that sounds weird, but we ended up talking about tons of stuff. Her name was Sinead, (I know! An actually person named Sinead other than Sinead O’Connor!!) and she was British and travelling everywhere and just living and working wherever she wanted. She was nineteen. And she had been EVERYWHERE. I think she said Thailand, Lau, Vietnam, all over Australia, New Zealand, and of course Europe, because she’s from there. I was speechless. I want to be just like her, and she’s a year younger than me. She gave me her email address, so I am going to email her about what to do in New Zealand. She said it was the most amazing place, and so beautiful. I cannot emphasize enough how inspired I was by her.

The next day, Mom and I drove down the Great Ocean Road to stop sometimes but mostly just take in the ocean. We stopped once to see a waterfall, which turned out to be a bit of a hike away, but it was very pretty. We also stopped in Torquay, I think it was, to try to see surfers and get fish and chips. The surfers we saw seemed like they were still learning, but there were a ton of them. A lot of teens, I think. And the fish and chips were GREAT of course.

And after that, we drove back to Ballarat, because we needed to drop the car off there, and then took the train back to Melbourne. We ended up not having to pay for the car for that day, and we had luck on our side yet again when the train was set to leave ten minutes after we got to the station.

And that was the Weekend of Awesome.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, I think so.

We got back Monday night, I was completely wiped out, and somehow I still wanted to go to Turf with Olivia. Ha. Not much story there. I got a couple glasses of one dollar champagne, Olivia was flirting with this guy most of the night, so I was sort of just hangin’ out. Some of the Newman girls I had hung out with before along with Andrea came later, but they weren’t very fun. Luckily, Olivia didn’t want to stay long, so we walked back to Queens to snack on crackers with jam and watch an episode of Friends before I passed out in bed. I have been so permanently tired lately. So so much that I feel I need to do.

Tuesday to Thursday, mom and I didn’t do too much. We went to Queen Victoria Market and GPO, this big shopping center that used to be the post office. Wednesday night was the night we went to MoVida. I am still recovering from that. My meals are so much smaller now, because I ate so much at MoVida. And that was three days ago haha. It was a bad idea to get that second beef cheek, mom!

Thursday night, I stayed with Mom at her hotel. She was leaving in the morning, so we thought that was the best idea.

And I will write another post for yesterday and today! A detailed one! Because I know you guys like those more. And this post is already ginormous. I hope my absence wasn’t too hard for you guys! Hee hee. I love and miss everyone a TON!!! Xoxoxo!

Yeah, Yeah, I Know

It's another one of those upsetting "I can't write anything right now!!" posts. Sorry, dear readers!

I have been soooooo so so busy with my mom here and two papers to write by Friday that I have had no time to even putter around on the internet! Which is what I usually do with my free time!!! pant pant pant. I'll just do a short summary:

I played chicks footy on Saturday! It was MONDO FUN!!!! It was all muddy and gross, it was hilarious.
Also, I booked my spring break trip! I am going to Cairns for five days. Alone. Gulp. But I think it will be alright. I'm staying in a youth hostel where I should be able to meet some cool people to hang out with for four days.
Went to the zoo today with mom and SAW THE OTTERS!!!!!!!! AY AY CARUMBA THEY ARE SO CUTE!!!! I think they are my favorite animal. Not owls. Sorry, owls. You are in a tie for second place with seals.

Aaaaaand that's all the latest. I swear I will post a real update soon! But not very soon. Mom and I are going to the Grampians this weekend!!! Don't know what they are? LOOK 'EM UP. I don't care to explain what they are to you.

Alright, I am running low on sleep right now, seeing as I wrote like a thousand words of an essay today, so I'd best be off. See ya on the flip side, brothas!!!!