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!!!