I am currently sitting at my dining room table in Lynbrook with my suitcases strewn throughout my house. Obviously, I am no longer "down under." I wanted to write this one last post to just close off my trip.
I could not have asked for a better last hoorah in Sydney. Although I had a lot of time dedicated to studying for a final, I was able to spend time with friends and doing things that I still wanted to do. Also, when I got back to Sydney the weather was amazing. (Even though when we were in New Zealand the weather was amazing too, but still cold). Several days were spent hanging out on the beach, roaming through the city, meandering through the markets, etc. Several of the last nights we were there, I got to watch the sunrise on the beach with some of my favorite people. The last night I was there, or I guess the last morning, I was convinced to go surfing in a dress. That is the kind of random experience that makes traveling exciting.
So I guess there's no need for me to continue. I'll take this time to pull an awards show speech and thank my loyal readers. I hope you enjoyed the journey I have taken you through. I would like to thank my new friends for giving me some amazing memories, and my old friends for sticking with me no matter how far apart we are. Most of all, I will publically thank my parents for giving me the opportunity to travel and also for not panicking and contacting international officials when I fail to call or email for a few days.
A little part of me will always be Down Under and it will always be sunny in Australia.
Until next time, because there will be a next time...
Cheers,
Lara
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
I can't drive a car, but I can fly a plane: Kaikoura, NZ
Long title, yes. Let's get right on it...
6/11/09
My roommates were heading back to Sydney today but I had plans to stick around for a few more days. Their flight was in the early afternoon so I decided to take an early (7am) bus to Kaikoura, about 2 and a half hours north of Christchurch. I fell asleep for most of the bus ride which I Was happy about because I was exhausted but sad because I missed the scenery. I figured I would get to see it on the way back to Christchurch. I got to the hostel a little before 10am and my room wasn't ready so I locked up my stuff and meandered into town. I fell in love immediately. The hostel was right on the Pacific Ocean and I could smell the salt. You know, that ocean smell. It reminded me of home. But it's so much stronger here. I was able to hear the wakes breaking, but there were small, none more than a foot. The beach isn't exactly one there you would want to go swimming. First of all, the water was freezing and the beach was rocky. Town was about 2km for the hostel, about a 20 minute walk. It was small, just a strip of stores really. So I just went to the grocery store and came back tot he hostel. I had lunch ans tried to figure out what I was going to do. I decided to just grab a book for the book exchange shelf. Most hostels have these and I think it's a really good idea. Backpackers spend so much time actually traveling from one place to another and reading is a way to pass the time but you wouldn't want to carry around so many cooks. So you have one or two and at each hostel you drop off those and take new ones. So, I took a short book with plans to finish it that day. I read outside then it got a little too cold so I moved inside and just sat on the couch with a view of the ocean and the snow topped mountains and finished the book. I felt quite accomplished. I went to bed early because I knew the next day was going to be one of the best days of my life.
7/11/09
People may think that I am exaggerating that I think this could rank up there with one of the best days of my life, but it was absolutely incredible. I got up early with plans to rent a bike and ride down to the seal colony on the Kaikoura peninsula, about a mile away. However, I knew I was going to be rushed because I had something special scheduled at 10:30. I had initially planned to leave Kaikoura in the later afternoon and stay two more days in Christchurch but after seeing how little there was to do there, I decided to extend my stay in Kaikoura another day. So the seal colony would wait until tomorrow. I sat outside in the warm sun, once again looking at the beautiful blue water at high tide and the snow topped mountains. At 10:30, Adam the pilot picked me up. I was off to the Kaikoura airstrip to FLY A PLANE. And by fly a plane I mean actually take control and fly. When we got to the airstrip Adam briefed me on what we were going to do and basically told me how a plane worked. It was pretty cool that I really knew what he was talking about. He was throwing in some fluid dynamics/mechanics terms and I was wondering if most people actually understand him. We were flying a little two seater Cessna plane. The seats were side-by-sde. I got to see all of the controls and monitors and everything. I even got one of those cool headsets. I knew it was going to be awesome. So we taxied up to the runway, he told me how to take off, and then I did. I pushed and controlled the throttle and pitch of the airplane! It was so cool. I did not think I was actually going to be doing that much. He controlled the rudder at the beginning (kind of the stability mechanism, it's a flap at the back of the plane) but I got to turn it. We got up to 2,000ft and stayed at about 80-100 knots. It was funny because we were talking about altitude and I told him that this was nothing because I jumped out of a plane 14,000ft in altitude. I'm just that badass. I got an amazing view of the mountains and the coat. I was able to take a few pictures and a quick video but I wanted to get back to controlling the plane; that's what I was up there for. He took over the controls and showed me how 2-G feel and how negative-G feel. Both were very weird, especially in such a little plane. Then he did a roll, which was awesome. I couldn't even explain it. It was definitely the coolest thing I did during the entire trip. I mean, how many people can say they have flown a plane and gotten to do a roll in it. I had a 20 minute flight and it went by so fast. I felt like I was up there for no time. He even taught me how to land. Keep 60 knots and then lift the nose of the plane slightly with the throttle right before you touch down. It was amazing. I didn't say anything about not having a drivers license. Adam just said, "If you can drive a car, you can fly a plane." I just of giggled to myself. I guess I technically can drive a car, I'm just not allowed to. The peddles to control the rudder were in the same place as the gas and brake peddles. Basically, when you turn left, you push the left peddle and the rudder turns left. If you don't turn the rudder, the nose of the aircraft will swing right before it turns left. It's all technical, and you know I'm clearly a pro now... But I wish I could go take some more flying lessons but a. I don't think they would let me and b. I looked it up and they are only out of Macarthur Airport, too far away. I called my parents after I flew and told them about the next crazy thing I did and surprisingly my mom wasn't nervous at all, but in fact jealous. I expected the same reaction I got when I went skydiving. The entire day, I could not stop smiling. I was so happy.
It was also nice being alone for a little while, being on my own schedule, not having to compromise with other people for a few days. Traveling with 5 other people can be difficult so the time to myself was relaxing. After I talked to my parents I walked back into town, got some coffee and cake, went back to the grocery store where the kid doing checkout was no older than 15, and they found myself in this recycled fashion store. For the most part it was a museum of costumes made from random collected material--bottle tops, old jeans, the stuff you make casts with, ties, plastic bags, mirrors, etc. They were incredible and quite absurd. There was also some clothing on sale, but none of it was exactly my style, and I have to say some of it was pretty ugly. They also had a bunch of artwork and I did end up getting one thing because I thought it was absolutely beautiful and hand made by the people who own the museum. I think it was worth it. So I went back to the hostel, cooked some dinner, then started on a new book that I actually picked up from the Birdsong Hostel a few days back.
When I decided to go to bed, I went to my room and there were two French girls in there speaking very fast. I could pick up a few words here and there but I definitely could not understand what they were saying. They the fourth person came in. She was in her 60's and immediately started talking about her life. She was from Toronto and has literally traveled all over the world. She has traveled all over Australia and all throughout Europe. She said she hitchhiked through some places and such. It was absolutely crazy. I could never imagine doing that now. I was happy when she stopped talking though, because she was going for a while... I fell asleep once again to the waves breaking on the rocks. I could definitely get used to that.
8/11/09
I'm getting lazy so I'm going to sum the end of this trip up real quick. I woke up and checked out of the Kiakoura hostel. Then I walked over to the Kaikoura peninsula and checked out the seal colony and climbed up the hill to get an awesome panoramic view of the area. It was beautiful. But I took some pictures and headed back. I got a bus to Christchurch at 4pm and by the time I arrived I basically just ate and went to bed. My flight was too early to stay awake.
9/11/09
I woke up at like 3:30am to get on a 4am shuttle to the airport. Exhausting. It was an interesting travel day, filled with adventure and exploding bottles of rum, but that story is just way too long to be fully told. I got back to Sydney around 6pm and started the end of my adventures down under...
Ok, finally done.
6/11/09
My roommates were heading back to Sydney today but I had plans to stick around for a few more days. Their flight was in the early afternoon so I decided to take an early (7am) bus to Kaikoura, about 2 and a half hours north of Christchurch. I fell asleep for most of the bus ride which I Was happy about because I was exhausted but sad because I missed the scenery. I figured I would get to see it on the way back to Christchurch. I got to the hostel a little before 10am and my room wasn't ready so I locked up my stuff and meandered into town. I fell in love immediately. The hostel was right on the Pacific Ocean and I could smell the salt. You know, that ocean smell. It reminded me of home. But it's so much stronger here. I was able to hear the wakes breaking, but there were small, none more than a foot. The beach isn't exactly one there you would want to go swimming. First of all, the water was freezing and the beach was rocky. Town was about 2km for the hostel, about a 20 minute walk. It was small, just a strip of stores really. So I just went to the grocery store and came back tot he hostel. I had lunch ans tried to figure out what I was going to do. I decided to just grab a book for the book exchange shelf. Most hostels have these and I think it's a really good idea. Backpackers spend so much time actually traveling from one place to another and reading is a way to pass the time but you wouldn't want to carry around so many cooks. So you have one or two and at each hostel you drop off those and take new ones. So, I took a short book with plans to finish it that day. I read outside then it got a little too cold so I moved inside and just sat on the couch with a view of the ocean and the snow topped mountains and finished the book. I felt quite accomplished. I went to bed early because I knew the next day was going to be one of the best days of my life.
7/11/09
People may think that I am exaggerating that I think this could rank up there with one of the best days of my life, but it was absolutely incredible. I got up early with plans to rent a bike and ride down to the seal colony on the Kaikoura peninsula, about a mile away. However, I knew I was going to be rushed because I had something special scheduled at 10:30. I had initially planned to leave Kaikoura in the later afternoon and stay two more days in Christchurch but after seeing how little there was to do there, I decided to extend my stay in Kaikoura another day. So the seal colony would wait until tomorrow. I sat outside in the warm sun, once again looking at the beautiful blue water at high tide and the snow topped mountains. At 10:30, Adam the pilot picked me up. I was off to the Kaikoura airstrip to FLY A PLANE. And by fly a plane I mean actually take control and fly. When we got to the airstrip Adam briefed me on what we were going to do and basically told me how a plane worked. It was pretty cool that I really knew what he was talking about. He was throwing in some fluid dynamics/mechanics terms and I was wondering if most people actually understand him. We were flying a little two seater Cessna plane. The seats were side-by-sde. I got to see all of the controls and monitors and everything. I even got one of those cool headsets. I knew it was going to be awesome. So we taxied up to the runway, he told me how to take off, and then I did. I pushed and controlled the throttle and pitch of the airplane! It was so cool. I did not think I was actually going to be doing that much. He controlled the rudder at the beginning (kind of the stability mechanism, it's a flap at the back of the plane) but I got to turn it. We got up to 2,000ft and stayed at about 80-100 knots. It was funny because we were talking about altitude and I told him that this was nothing because I jumped out of a plane 14,000ft in altitude. I'm just that badass. I got an amazing view of the mountains and the coat. I was able to take a few pictures and a quick video but I wanted to get back to controlling the plane; that's what I was up there for. He took over the controls and showed me how 2-G feel and how negative-G feel. Both were very weird, especially in such a little plane. Then he did a roll, which was awesome. I couldn't even explain it. It was definitely the coolest thing I did during the entire trip. I mean, how many people can say they have flown a plane and gotten to do a roll in it. I had a 20 minute flight and it went by so fast. I felt like I was up there for no time. He even taught me how to land. Keep 60 knots and then lift the nose of the plane slightly with the throttle right before you touch down. It was amazing. I didn't say anything about not having a drivers license. Adam just said, "If you can drive a car, you can fly a plane." I just of giggled to myself. I guess I technically can drive a car, I'm just not allowed to. The peddles to control the rudder were in the same place as the gas and brake peddles. Basically, when you turn left, you push the left peddle and the rudder turns left. If you don't turn the rudder, the nose of the aircraft will swing right before it turns left. It's all technical, and you know I'm clearly a pro now... But I wish I could go take some more flying lessons but a. I don't think they would let me and b. I looked it up and they are only out of Macarthur Airport, too far away. I called my parents after I flew and told them about the next crazy thing I did and surprisingly my mom wasn't nervous at all, but in fact jealous. I expected the same reaction I got when I went skydiving. The entire day, I could not stop smiling. I was so happy.
It was also nice being alone for a little while, being on my own schedule, not having to compromise with other people for a few days. Traveling with 5 other people can be difficult so the time to myself was relaxing. After I talked to my parents I walked back into town, got some coffee and cake, went back to the grocery store where the kid doing checkout was no older than 15, and they found myself in this recycled fashion store. For the most part it was a museum of costumes made from random collected material--bottle tops, old jeans, the stuff you make casts with, ties, plastic bags, mirrors, etc. They were incredible and quite absurd. There was also some clothing on sale, but none of it was exactly my style, and I have to say some of it was pretty ugly. They also had a bunch of artwork and I did end up getting one thing because I thought it was absolutely beautiful and hand made by the people who own the museum. I think it was worth it. So I went back to the hostel, cooked some dinner, then started on a new book that I actually picked up from the Birdsong Hostel a few days back.
When I decided to go to bed, I went to my room and there were two French girls in there speaking very fast. I could pick up a few words here and there but I definitely could not understand what they were saying. They the fourth person came in. She was in her 60's and immediately started talking about her life. She was from Toronto and has literally traveled all over the world. She has traveled all over Australia and all throughout Europe. She said she hitchhiked through some places and such. It was absolutely crazy. I could never imagine doing that now. I was happy when she stopped talking though, because she was going for a while... I fell asleep once again to the waves breaking on the rocks. I could definitely get used to that.
8/11/09
I'm getting lazy so I'm going to sum the end of this trip up real quick. I woke up and checked out of the Kiakoura hostel. Then I walked over to the Kaikoura peninsula and checked out the seal colony and climbed up the hill to get an awesome panoramic view of the area. It was beautiful. But I took some pictures and headed back. I got a bus to Christchurch at 4pm and by the time I arrived I basically just ate and went to bed. My flight was too early to stay awake.
9/11/09
I woke up at like 3:30am to get on a 4am shuttle to the airport. Exhausting. It was an interesting travel day, filled with adventure and exploding bottles of rum, but that story is just way too long to be fully told. I got back to Sydney around 6pm and started the end of my adventures down under...
Ok, finally done.
Adventures in Christchurch: New Zealand, continued
I would be better about posting but my computer keeps dying. And it has been absolutely beautiful outside so I've been at the beach instead of by my computer. I think you understand. So where were we...
4/11/09
We left Lake Tekapo early and headed to Spencerville for what I was most excited for--The Adrenalin Forest! Once again, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect because I didn't do any of the planning but it sounded pretty cool. Basically, it was a ropes/challenge course. There were zip lines (what they called "flying foxes") and ladders (horizontal and vertical), and all different kinds of rope challenges. I stayed in the back for most of it and took a lot of pictures so I don't think there are many of me. Laura only did 2 courses (the rest of us did 4, but we could have done up to 6) so she took pictures the rest of the time. There was only one challenge that I had a really hard time with. There were hanging ropes with stirrups at the end and two parallel ropes to hold on to. The goal was to move your foot from one stirrup to the next by shifting all of your weight to the other foot. All of my muscles were shaking whiles I was doing this. There was a Scottish guy helping us out with the course, like talking us through some of the challenges and he really helped me with that one. I was so relieved when I got to the next platform. At some point through the course I must have banged my leg on something because I got a pretty good size mark on my leg (it is still there now). It didn't bleed or anything, it kind of looks like a burn. But it definitely hurt for a while. There were a bunch of really fun challenges like the Indiana Jones swing and the Spiderman swing. Essentially for both you held onto a rope and swung into a net or a web. Really run. My muscles were really sore after the whole course. It's probably a good thing we stopped after 4 courses. The 5th and 6th were even harder and I don't know if my body could take it. Sad...
So after that we headed to out final stop as a group--Christchurch. It was only another half hour or so from Spencerville, which was good because I think we were all very sick of being in a car. We checked into the hostel and got some dinner ($4 fish and chips, that's were its at) and then figured out plans for the night. They had 2-for-1 drink coups for this bar at the reception desk so we grabbed some of those and decided to check it out. To say the least, it was dead when we got there. It was a pretty big place, 154 Bourbon St, and there were maybe 5 or 6 other people in there besides us. We got our 2-for-1 drinks and moved on. The people at the reception desk at the hostel told us about some other bars to check out in the area so we decided to try to find them. We passed one bar with a lot of people outside so we thought that might be worth checking out. But before we could go in, this guy stopped us and told us that although it looks busy it wasn't any fun because it was all of his business partners. I guess he saved us some time. So he told us of another better place to go, which was the same place the hostel told us about. It was called His Lordship. When we got there it was kind of slow but there was a live band setting up so we decided to stay. And we were very glad we did. The band was more like one lead guy playing guitar and singing and another guy doing percussion and some background vocals. The lead guy was awesome. He had a reggae feel about him. I was really surprised by the music he played. Some Kiwi music along with Ben Harper, Bill Withers (Lean on Me, classic). The amusing thing about that last song... So the same guy we ran into earlier in the night came to His Lordship with some of the people he worked with. They were all pretty hammered at that point but we were talking to them and having a good time. For whatever reason, when the band started playing Lean on Me, we all got into a big circle and started swaying and kicking, like Rockette style. It was pretty hysterical. When he played any Kiwi song, the guys made sure we knew it, they would keep yelling "This is a Kiwi song!" over and over. When the band stopped playing, which must have been before 12 (they didn't play long at all), we decided to leave. we weren't too disappointed though because we were all tired from the days adventures.
5/11/09
Day 2 in Christchurch was much less eventful. We initially had plans to go on another gondola over the city and walk on a few paths where the gondola ended but we figured it could not top the beautiful gondola ride we had in Queenstown. Also in an effort to save money, we decided to figure out new plans for the day that were preferably free. Unfortunately, that started with retuning Deli, sadness. She was a good car. But we lasted without her. We decided to walk around the city a little and try to find the actual Christ Church. We did, and we walked through it. I actually assumed that it would be much larger than it was. But it was very beautiful with some wonderful stained glass windows. We took some pictures and left, probably spent no more than 10 minutes in there. We continued to roam with no real direction. There was a tiny market in the city center right outside the church where there was this chalice structure (hard to explain). There were vendors selling clothes, jewelery (mainly Paua shell), and other random items. Nothing too exiting. We didn't stay long. We went into a Starbucks right next to the market and realized that the red cups are back. Jackie Dolan, you must be excited! On that note, it's really amusing to see all of this Christmas stuff everywhere. It is the same theme as it is at home--red and green, Santa, snowflakes, etc. However, it's hot here during Christmas, so no snowflakes. I think it's odd that they completely adapt to Northern Hemisphere Christmas images. But I guess, what else could they use? Moving on... We roamed though some of the over expensive stores and then decided just to go back to the hostel. Everyone decided to just sit on the courses in the lounge and read, I wrote for a while and then ended up napping on the couch. Kind of seemed like a wasted day but we really couldn't find anything else to do. At night we went back to 154 Bourbon St for some more 2-for-1 drinks (By the way, it was not on Bourbon St). Then we roamed to some other bars that we heard about and they were all so dead. It seemed like no one was out. Or maybe there were a lot of people out but they were too spread out at different bars. We joked about herding them together into one bar so it is busy and fun, I guess that was kind of a NZ sheep joke. So, we went back to the hostel early and I set my alarm really really early for the next day...
4/11/09
We left Lake Tekapo early and headed to Spencerville for what I was most excited for--The Adrenalin Forest! Once again, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect because I didn't do any of the planning but it sounded pretty cool. Basically, it was a ropes/challenge course. There were zip lines (what they called "flying foxes") and ladders (horizontal and vertical), and all different kinds of rope challenges. I stayed in the back for most of it and took a lot of pictures so I don't think there are many of me. Laura only did 2 courses (the rest of us did 4, but we could have done up to 6) so she took pictures the rest of the time. There was only one challenge that I had a really hard time with. There were hanging ropes with stirrups at the end and two parallel ropes to hold on to. The goal was to move your foot from one stirrup to the next by shifting all of your weight to the other foot. All of my muscles were shaking whiles I was doing this. There was a Scottish guy helping us out with the course, like talking us through some of the challenges and he really helped me with that one. I was so relieved when I got to the next platform. At some point through the course I must have banged my leg on something because I got a pretty good size mark on my leg (it is still there now). It didn't bleed or anything, it kind of looks like a burn. But it definitely hurt for a while. There were a bunch of really fun challenges like the Indiana Jones swing and the Spiderman swing. Essentially for both you held onto a rope and swung into a net or a web. Really run. My muscles were really sore after the whole course. It's probably a good thing we stopped after 4 courses. The 5th and 6th were even harder and I don't know if my body could take it. Sad...
So after that we headed to out final stop as a group--Christchurch. It was only another half hour or so from Spencerville, which was good because I think we were all very sick of being in a car. We checked into the hostel and got some dinner ($4 fish and chips, that's were its at) and then figured out plans for the night. They had 2-for-1 drink coups for this bar at the reception desk so we grabbed some of those and decided to check it out. To say the least, it was dead when we got there. It was a pretty big place, 154 Bourbon St, and there were maybe 5 or 6 other people in there besides us. We got our 2-for-1 drinks and moved on. The people at the reception desk at the hostel told us about some other bars to check out in the area so we decided to try to find them. We passed one bar with a lot of people outside so we thought that might be worth checking out. But before we could go in, this guy stopped us and told us that although it looks busy it wasn't any fun because it was all of his business partners. I guess he saved us some time. So he told us of another better place to go, which was the same place the hostel told us about. It was called His Lordship. When we got there it was kind of slow but there was a live band setting up so we decided to stay. And we were very glad we did. The band was more like one lead guy playing guitar and singing and another guy doing percussion and some background vocals. The lead guy was awesome. He had a reggae feel about him. I was really surprised by the music he played. Some Kiwi music along with Ben Harper, Bill Withers (Lean on Me, classic). The amusing thing about that last song... So the same guy we ran into earlier in the night came to His Lordship with some of the people he worked with. They were all pretty hammered at that point but we were talking to them and having a good time. For whatever reason, when the band started playing Lean on Me, we all got into a big circle and started swaying and kicking, like Rockette style. It was pretty hysterical. When he played any Kiwi song, the guys made sure we knew it, they would keep yelling "This is a Kiwi song!" over and over. When the band stopped playing, which must have been before 12 (they didn't play long at all), we decided to leave. we weren't too disappointed though because we were all tired from the days adventures.
5/11/09
Day 2 in Christchurch was much less eventful. We initially had plans to go on another gondola over the city and walk on a few paths where the gondola ended but we figured it could not top the beautiful gondola ride we had in Queenstown. Also in an effort to save money, we decided to figure out new plans for the day that were preferably free. Unfortunately, that started with retuning Deli, sadness. She was a good car. But we lasted without her. We decided to walk around the city a little and try to find the actual Christ Church. We did, and we walked through it. I actually assumed that it would be much larger than it was. But it was very beautiful with some wonderful stained glass windows. We took some pictures and left, probably spent no more than 10 minutes in there. We continued to roam with no real direction. There was a tiny market in the city center right outside the church where there was this chalice structure (hard to explain). There were vendors selling clothes, jewelery (mainly Paua shell), and other random items. Nothing too exiting. We didn't stay long. We went into a Starbucks right next to the market and realized that the red cups are back. Jackie Dolan, you must be excited! On that note, it's really amusing to see all of this Christmas stuff everywhere. It is the same theme as it is at home--red and green, Santa, snowflakes, etc. However, it's hot here during Christmas, so no snowflakes. I think it's odd that they completely adapt to Northern Hemisphere Christmas images. But I guess, what else could they use? Moving on... We roamed though some of the over expensive stores and then decided just to go back to the hostel. Everyone decided to just sit on the courses in the lounge and read, I wrote for a while and then ended up napping on the couch. Kind of seemed like a wasted day but we really couldn't find anything else to do. At night we went back to 154 Bourbon St for some more 2-for-1 drinks (By the way, it was not on Bourbon St). Then we roamed to some other bars that we heard about and they were all so dead. It seemed like no one was out. Or maybe there were a lot of people out but they were too spread out at different bars. We joked about herding them together into one bar so it is busy and fun, I guess that was kind of a NZ sheep joke. So, we went back to the hostel early and I set my alarm really really early for the next day...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
New Zealand road trip, continued: Too much activity for a catchy title
So, continuing from the last post...
2/11/09
We got up early to do one of the things we were most excited for: gondola ride and luging! I let my roommates do most of the planning for this trip because the two weeks before were chaotic for me, so I honestly did not know what to expect from this part of the trip. When I heard gondola I was thinking boat ride like in Venice, and when I heard luge I was thinking ice. I was wrong. We were able to walk to the gondola from our hostel which was pretty exciting because I think Gina was pretty sick of driving by that point. The gondola was a little 4-seat cable car that lifted up the mountain. We got amazing views of Queenstown. It was beautiful. Once again, I tried to take pictures but I don't know how well they came out. The luge track was at the top of the mountain. They were kind of like go carts without motors. Any chance I get to drive something though, I get excited. We did two different tracks: a "scenic" one and an "advanced" one. The only difference was the more advanced one had steeper falls and tighter turns. Since there was no motor, the speed was dependent on the steepness of the track. It was really fun, and I definitely could have done those tracks a few more times, but we had plenty more things planned for the day.
When we got back to the hostel, we had lunch and I had initially planned on going skydiving again. But, somewhat last minute I decided against it and went horseback riding with my roommates instead. I think it was a good choice. We got picked up in town and when we got to the stable our guide, Gale, assigned us all horses. I got Charlie and Gina got Mac (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, anyone?). It was pretty amusing because the two of them seemed to be competing the entire time for the front of the pack. Mac always won. Typical Charlie. We rode for over two and a half hours, but it flew by. There were some parts when I was definitely kind of nervous. We were going up and down mountains and Charlie was walking very close to the edge of the path at some points. We saw a lot of sheep (not surprising) and cows during the ride. In fact, one cow was actually on the path where we were riding. It kind of just stood there as we passed, but then as someone's horse passed (I think it was Jackie's or Lauren's) the cow literally jumped off the edge of the mountain. Gale said it just walked down, but I don't see how you walk down that steep of an edge. Suicidal cow. Anyway, we saw some amazing views during the ride. I tried to take some pictures but I was also holding on for dear life at some points. Towards the end we were going through a bunch of rivers or creeks. Mac would go through the deepest part of the river, so Gina got kind of wet. Charlie insisted on trotting every time we got out of the water, so that was kind of scary and made my bum hurt real bad. I think he just wanted to catch up with Mac though. When we got back to the stable, I had a significant amount of trouble getting off the horse, and I knew I was going to be in a lot of pain later.
We got back to the hostel at like 8pm, got dinner, but didn't do much that night. We had more driving the next day...
3/11/09
Luckily we didn't have to wake up as early because we weren't in any rush to leave Queenstown. We checked out at 10am and headed to Lake Tekapo. We didn't really have many plans there, it was more of a stop over between Queenstown and Christchurch. The YHA hostel in Lake Tekapo was booked so Lauren found a villa for us. We got the sweet hookup. It was three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, balcony, huge living room. Since we didn't really have anything to do there, it worked out nicely that we had a comfortable place to stay. We intially had plans to do this "skate and soak" package, but we were under the impression that it was ice skating and hot tubs. When we realized it was roller skating and warm pools we decided to save money and find something else to do. Instead, we played in the freezing cold Lake Tekapo for a while. Really, you can't come to Lake Tekapo without actually playing in the lake! So, we took some pictures and hung out there for a while then roamed around some more. We found a playground with swings, and jungle gym build like an elephant, a tractor, and a seesaw and naturally we spent about an hour there. We were like 10 year olds making up games and stuff. Oh to be young again... After some miscommunication between Chelsey and I ended in me being throw off the seesaw into woodchips (why they think those are safe, I will never understand), we decided to assess the rest of our day. Since there was basically nothing else in town, we decided to cook family dinner! And by that, I mean we decided that I cook dinner. We we went to the only grocery store in town (which happened to be at the gas station...) and picked up some necessary supplies. But this grocery store had NOTHING. It was amazing. I have no idea how people live there. Anyway, we ended up making salad, garlic bread (pre-made, not too impressive), and baked ziti with chicken (with jarred sauce, I was ashamed...) Of course we were extra classy and got some goon to go with it. The dinner was definitely successful and a lot of fun to cook. I'm excited to go home and cook again, and I think my family is excited for that too. The rest of the night we just spent playing cards, first out on the balcony then in the living room in front of the fireplace when it got too cold. It was definitely a relaxing day but I think it was needed after the excitement of the previous few days and upcoming days.
More coming, I promise...
2/11/09
We got up early to do one of the things we were most excited for: gondola ride and luging! I let my roommates do most of the planning for this trip because the two weeks before were chaotic for me, so I honestly did not know what to expect from this part of the trip. When I heard gondola I was thinking boat ride like in Venice, and when I heard luge I was thinking ice. I was wrong. We were able to walk to the gondola from our hostel which was pretty exciting because I think Gina was pretty sick of driving by that point. The gondola was a little 4-seat cable car that lifted up the mountain. We got amazing views of Queenstown. It was beautiful. Once again, I tried to take pictures but I don't know how well they came out. The luge track was at the top of the mountain. They were kind of like go carts without motors. Any chance I get to drive something though, I get excited. We did two different tracks: a "scenic" one and an "advanced" one. The only difference was the more advanced one had steeper falls and tighter turns. Since there was no motor, the speed was dependent on the steepness of the track. It was really fun, and I definitely could have done those tracks a few more times, but we had plenty more things planned for the day.
When we got back to the hostel, we had lunch and I had initially planned on going skydiving again. But, somewhat last minute I decided against it and went horseback riding with my roommates instead. I think it was a good choice. We got picked up in town and when we got to the stable our guide, Gale, assigned us all horses. I got Charlie and Gina got Mac (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, anyone?). It was pretty amusing because the two of them seemed to be competing the entire time for the front of the pack. Mac always won. Typical Charlie. We rode for over two and a half hours, but it flew by. There were some parts when I was definitely kind of nervous. We were going up and down mountains and Charlie was walking very close to the edge of the path at some points. We saw a lot of sheep (not surprising) and cows during the ride. In fact, one cow was actually on the path where we were riding. It kind of just stood there as we passed, but then as someone's horse passed (I think it was Jackie's or Lauren's) the cow literally jumped off the edge of the mountain. Gale said it just walked down, but I don't see how you walk down that steep of an edge. Suicidal cow. Anyway, we saw some amazing views during the ride. I tried to take some pictures but I was also holding on for dear life at some points. Towards the end we were going through a bunch of rivers or creeks. Mac would go through the deepest part of the river, so Gina got kind of wet. Charlie insisted on trotting every time we got out of the water, so that was kind of scary and made my bum hurt real bad. I think he just wanted to catch up with Mac though. When we got back to the stable, I had a significant amount of trouble getting off the horse, and I knew I was going to be in a lot of pain later.
We got back to the hostel at like 8pm, got dinner, but didn't do much that night. We had more driving the next day...
3/11/09
Luckily we didn't have to wake up as early because we weren't in any rush to leave Queenstown. We checked out at 10am and headed to Lake Tekapo. We didn't really have many plans there, it was more of a stop over between Queenstown and Christchurch. The YHA hostel in Lake Tekapo was booked so Lauren found a villa for us. We got the sweet hookup. It was three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, balcony, huge living room. Since we didn't really have anything to do there, it worked out nicely that we had a comfortable place to stay. We intially had plans to do this "skate and soak" package, but we were under the impression that it was ice skating and hot tubs. When we realized it was roller skating and warm pools we decided to save money and find something else to do. Instead, we played in the freezing cold Lake Tekapo for a while. Really, you can't come to Lake Tekapo without actually playing in the lake! So, we took some pictures and hung out there for a while then roamed around some more. We found a playground with swings, and jungle gym build like an elephant, a tractor, and a seesaw and naturally we spent about an hour there. We were like 10 year olds making up games and stuff. Oh to be young again... After some miscommunication between Chelsey and I ended in me being throw off the seesaw into woodchips (why they think those are safe, I will never understand), we decided to assess the rest of our day. Since there was basically nothing else in town, we decided to cook family dinner! And by that, I mean we decided that I cook dinner. We we went to the only grocery store in town (which happened to be at the gas station...) and picked up some necessary supplies. But this grocery store had NOTHING. It was amazing. I have no idea how people live there. Anyway, we ended up making salad, garlic bread (pre-made, not too impressive), and baked ziti with chicken (with jarred sauce, I was ashamed...) Of course we were extra classy and got some goon to go with it. The dinner was definitely successful and a lot of fun to cook. I'm excited to go home and cook again, and I think my family is excited for that too. The rest of the night we just spent playing cards, first out on the balcony then in the living room in front of the fireplace when it got too cold. It was definitely a relaxing day but I think it was needed after the excitement of the previous few days and upcoming days.
More coming, I promise...
Monday, November 9, 2009
Hello best 11 days ever, it was nice to meet you: New Zealand Road Trip
After 11 days of traveling, I am finally sitting in my bed. And of course my first actions were shower, laundry (after my clothes got soaked in rum, but that's a later story), eat, and now sharing all my fabulous stories with you, my loyal readers.
This trip was such a whirlwind that I barely know where to start, so logically I will start from day 1. First I will introduce the participants in the trip: my roommates Gina, Lauren, Laura, and Chelsey, and our neighbor Jackie. Usually I am one to take the reigns on planning things, but because I was so crazy busy with school work the two weeks before we left, I barely contributed to the planning process. So, Chelsey provided us all with DETAILED itineraries before we left. And this is what happened...
30/10/09
We got to the Sydney airport bright and early for our flight to Christchurch, got through security without any issues, then it was DUTY-FREE TIME! Now, most people may not get excited about this, but if you knew how much liquor cost here, you would understand our excitement. But we had an even better surprise. While we were shopping, we realized that there was a woman handing out samples. Samples of liquor! So, naturally, Chelsey, Lauren and I booked it over there. At 8am we were taking shots of Baileys. It did a really good job in knocking me out for the flight.
When we got to the Christchurch airport, we picked up our final participant in the journey, DELICA! (Our rental car. Or should I say "Luxury People Mover," as written on the website.) We went to the rental car desk and the price was higher than what was originally quoted because they didn't include the under-25 surcharge before. Damn fees. But, we sweet talked our way into getting the GPS for the week free.
Our first stop on the journey was Hokitika on the west coast of New Zealand. It was about a 3.5 hour drive from Christchurch. We saw a lot of sheep. And that was really it. Sheep, cows, beautiful snow-topped mountains, fields, and sheep. In Hokitika we stayed at the Birdsong Hostel which was actually really nice. We dropped off our bags and went to "town" but it was pretty much one road and almost nothing was open by the time we got there, which was no later than 7pm. But, we did find this one take-away place and I got a huge portion of some awesome fish and chips for NZ$7 (like US$5.50). We then stopped at a food store to pick up sandwich supplies for the next days adventures and some other snacks. This food store had the greenest bananas that I had ever seen actually being sold. But the woman working there said it was fine and that "they would be yellow by tomorrow in this heat." Heat?? We were walking around in sweatshirts, jackets, and scarves. (Surprisingly, she was right...) When we got back to the hostel we were planning on hunting for glow worms but it wasn't yet dark enough, so we walked over to the beach. It was less than a 5 minute walk, but we had to cross train tracks. I, unlike some other people I know, luckily did not eat it on the train tracks (sorry, too soon? hahah). The sand was so black. And because I always find it necessary to touch the water, I took off my shoes and frolicked in the Tasman Sea. Not to my surprise, it was very VERY cold. But it was beautiful, the scenery and everything. We got there and the sun was setting, there were beautiful mountains, the water, everything was just amazing. There was a huge piece of driftwood on the beach that kind of looked like the piece of coral I made out of Styrofoam. Also, every time I see driftwood I get all sentimental about Picch's class. BFTP. We didn't want to be out there when it was dark so we went back to the hostel. When it got dark enough, we drove down to the dell (about 5 minutes drive) and prepared to search for glow worms. It was so dark. Luckily we grabbed a flashlight before we left. We were all holding onto each other walking down the walkway and we didn't see anything too special and they we realized that the walls all around us were glowing. It was pretty cool. They are actually firefly larvae. These just constantly glow instead of just flashing. It's a reminder that they are bitter (Curious George movie anyone?). There really wasn't much to see, so after that 5 minute mini-adventure we just went back to the hostel. There was a little lounge in the hostel with a small fireplace and some tables so we were sitting in there for a little while. I was working on my paper and everyone else was playing cards. There was another guy who was staying in the hostel who was being really creepy. He just sat there, not doing anything. They asked him if he wanted to play cards but he said he only plays when he drinks, but he still just sat in the room staring. It was a little creepy. Anyway, I finished my paper (wooooo) and went to bed very excited for the next day's adventures...
31/10/09 - HALLOWEEN (not that it mattered...)
We left Birdsong early and headed to Franz Josef to hike a glacier. You know, no big deal. But we got to the check-in office early so we got a chance to shop around in the little town (once again, veryyyy little). Then the people who worked in the glacier hike office briefed us on what to expect from the trip. They told us the equipment that they would be supplying, including a few articles of clothing. They had a mannequin displaying everything. Chelsey got really excited and basically yelled "Is the fanny pack included??" The woman talking to us just looked at us weird than said yes and moved on. Later we were wondering why she gave us a dirty look but it was only until after we stopped thinking about it that we realized that "fanny" here has a much different meaning. So, they are called bum packs. We embarrassed ourselves. Several, several times. So we got all of our equipment and then got on a bus up to the glacier. We had a 4-5 hour hike ahead of us. From the bus to the actual glacier was about 2km. Throughout that walk our guide, Ryan, would stop and give us some geologic history of the area. Naturally I was interested in this. I got into a debate about something with him, and I still think I'm right. He said that the glaciers appear blue because light is refracted, I said it was because light is scattered. According to the USGS, I was right. Yes, I did just look that up to prove that I was right, not that it matters to anyone but myself. I really am a nerd... Anyway, he showed us a fault line that runs through the valley and explained how the area is well overdue for an earthquake. This made Lauren very uncomfortable because she had a dream the night before about earthquakes. Luckily, nothing like that happened. This whole part of the hike was probably the coolest for me because I got to see how everything interacts--the glacier, the mountains, the fault line, the weather. All the stuff that I had been studying for the past few years was now in front of me. I was finally living in the world that I have been studying. When we were hiking on the glacier (like, legitimately digging the crampons on our feet into the ice) I tried to take pictures. But, it just would do no justice. It was so beautiful. The glacier had a blue tint to it, which was the source of the debate between Ryan and me. Going down was so much scarier than going up, I was digging my spikes in as much as possible. When we got to the bottom I was somewhat happy that I made it out alive (I did slip a few times which was kind of scary) but I was also sad because it was so beautiful up there I wanted to stay.
When we got back to the hostel we were all pretty exhausted we just showered and went to bed. Apparently, everyone had stayed up to read and talk for a little while, but I started snoring almost immediately when I climbed into bed. Typical. No complaints though because we had another early morning the next day.
1/11/09
We left bright and early once again for Queenstown, collectively our favorite stop throughout the trip. The drive was absolutely beautiful, but very long. After several trips to and from Charlottesville, I'm used to long car rides. And we had Chelsey's mix CD's getting us through. But the scenery was breathtaking. Once again, I tried to take pictures but it just would not do it justice. I took a few videos of us driving, just because I could. There were more snow-topped mountains, and green mountains, lakes, creeks. There were these one-lane bridges over creeks and Ryan (our glacier guide) told us that they are only one lane because they are regularly washed away. Comforting.
When we finally got to Queenstown, we went directly to our first activity--jetboating over the Shotover River! Basically, you get in a jetboat with about 10 other people and the driver takes you on a thrilling ride through the canyons and gets you soaking wet. But its ok, they give you a raincoat. It was a lot of fun and the canyons were really beautiful. We did 360's, during which we got the most wet, and they were a lot of fun.
After that adventure we went to the hostel and checked in. We walked around the city for a little while (this time it was more than a little town, quite refreshing). We decided to get some dinner at this pizza place Winnie's. We were really hungry but it was actually pretty good. Upon returning to our hostel, we made plans for the night. First we went to this place the Thirsty Ram and I thought of Ms. Shannon Moody, because I feel like a bar with that name should be on her campus. Then when we realized that kind of sucked, we went back to Winnie's and had a really good time. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped at Fergburger, the Queenstown equivalent to the White Spot. But sooooo much better. Mouth watering... Anyway, we got back, went to bed, and not surprisingly, the next day was filled with even more adventures.
But, that's all I'm going to write about for now, I have picture to upload and such. I'm a busy girl, what can I say. Don't worry, I know you are on the edge of your seat. Day 4 of my 11 day journey is on its way...
Until then...
Cheers,
Lara
This trip was such a whirlwind that I barely know where to start, so logically I will start from day 1. First I will introduce the participants in the trip: my roommates Gina, Lauren, Laura, and Chelsey, and our neighbor Jackie. Usually I am one to take the reigns on planning things, but because I was so crazy busy with school work the two weeks before we left, I barely contributed to the planning process. So, Chelsey provided us all with DETAILED itineraries before we left. And this is what happened...
30/10/09
We got to the Sydney airport bright and early for our flight to Christchurch, got through security without any issues, then it was DUTY-FREE TIME! Now, most people may not get excited about this, but if you knew how much liquor cost here, you would understand our excitement. But we had an even better surprise. While we were shopping, we realized that there was a woman handing out samples. Samples of liquor! So, naturally, Chelsey, Lauren and I booked it over there. At 8am we were taking shots of Baileys. It did a really good job in knocking me out for the flight.
When we got to the Christchurch airport, we picked up our final participant in the journey, DELICA! (Our rental car. Or should I say "Luxury People Mover," as written on the website.) We went to the rental car desk and the price was higher than what was originally quoted because they didn't include the under-25 surcharge before. Damn fees. But, we sweet talked our way into getting the GPS for the week free.
Our first stop on the journey was Hokitika on the west coast of New Zealand. It was about a 3.5 hour drive from Christchurch. We saw a lot of sheep. And that was really it. Sheep, cows, beautiful snow-topped mountains, fields, and sheep. In Hokitika we stayed at the Birdsong Hostel which was actually really nice. We dropped off our bags and went to "town" but it was pretty much one road and almost nothing was open by the time we got there, which was no later than 7pm. But, we did find this one take-away place and I got a huge portion of some awesome fish and chips for NZ$7 (like US$5.50). We then stopped at a food store to pick up sandwich supplies for the next days adventures and some other snacks. This food store had the greenest bananas that I had ever seen actually being sold. But the woman working there said it was fine and that "they would be yellow by tomorrow in this heat." Heat?? We were walking around in sweatshirts, jackets, and scarves. (Surprisingly, she was right...) When we got back to the hostel we were planning on hunting for glow worms but it wasn't yet dark enough, so we walked over to the beach. It was less than a 5 minute walk, but we had to cross train tracks. I, unlike some other people I know, luckily did not eat it on the train tracks (sorry, too soon? hahah). The sand was so black. And because I always find it necessary to touch the water, I took off my shoes and frolicked in the Tasman Sea. Not to my surprise, it was very VERY cold. But it was beautiful, the scenery and everything. We got there and the sun was setting, there were beautiful mountains, the water, everything was just amazing. There was a huge piece of driftwood on the beach that kind of looked like the piece of coral I made out of Styrofoam. Also, every time I see driftwood I get all sentimental about Picch's class. BFTP. We didn't want to be out there when it was dark so we went back to the hostel. When it got dark enough, we drove down to the dell (about 5 minutes drive) and prepared to search for glow worms. It was so dark. Luckily we grabbed a flashlight before we left. We were all holding onto each other walking down the walkway and we didn't see anything too special and they we realized that the walls all around us were glowing. It was pretty cool. They are actually firefly larvae. These just constantly glow instead of just flashing. It's a reminder that they are bitter (Curious George movie anyone?). There really wasn't much to see, so after that 5 minute mini-adventure we just went back to the hostel. There was a little lounge in the hostel with a small fireplace and some tables so we were sitting in there for a little while. I was working on my paper and everyone else was playing cards. There was another guy who was staying in the hostel who was being really creepy. He just sat there, not doing anything. They asked him if he wanted to play cards but he said he only plays when he drinks, but he still just sat in the room staring. It was a little creepy. Anyway, I finished my paper (wooooo) and went to bed very excited for the next day's adventures...
31/10/09 - HALLOWEEN (not that it mattered...)
We left Birdsong early and headed to Franz Josef to hike a glacier. You know, no big deal. But we got to the check-in office early so we got a chance to shop around in the little town (once again, veryyyy little). Then the people who worked in the glacier hike office briefed us on what to expect from the trip. They told us the equipment that they would be supplying, including a few articles of clothing. They had a mannequin displaying everything. Chelsey got really excited and basically yelled "Is the fanny pack included??" The woman talking to us just looked at us weird than said yes and moved on. Later we were wondering why she gave us a dirty look but it was only until after we stopped thinking about it that we realized that "fanny" here has a much different meaning. So, they are called bum packs. We embarrassed ourselves. Several, several times. So we got all of our equipment and then got on a bus up to the glacier. We had a 4-5 hour hike ahead of us. From the bus to the actual glacier was about 2km. Throughout that walk our guide, Ryan, would stop and give us some geologic history of the area. Naturally I was interested in this. I got into a debate about something with him, and I still think I'm right. He said that the glaciers appear blue because light is refracted, I said it was because light is scattered. According to the USGS, I was right. Yes, I did just look that up to prove that I was right, not that it matters to anyone but myself. I really am a nerd... Anyway, he showed us a fault line that runs through the valley and explained how the area is well overdue for an earthquake. This made Lauren very uncomfortable because she had a dream the night before about earthquakes. Luckily, nothing like that happened. This whole part of the hike was probably the coolest for me because I got to see how everything interacts--the glacier, the mountains, the fault line, the weather. All the stuff that I had been studying for the past few years was now in front of me. I was finally living in the world that I have been studying. When we were hiking on the glacier (like, legitimately digging the crampons on our feet into the ice) I tried to take pictures. But, it just would do no justice. It was so beautiful. The glacier had a blue tint to it, which was the source of the debate between Ryan and me. Going down was so much scarier than going up, I was digging my spikes in as much as possible. When we got to the bottom I was somewhat happy that I made it out alive (I did slip a few times which was kind of scary) but I was also sad because it was so beautiful up there I wanted to stay.
When we got back to the hostel we were all pretty exhausted we just showered and went to bed. Apparently, everyone had stayed up to read and talk for a little while, but I started snoring almost immediately when I climbed into bed. Typical. No complaints though because we had another early morning the next day.
1/11/09
We left bright and early once again for Queenstown, collectively our favorite stop throughout the trip. The drive was absolutely beautiful, but very long. After several trips to and from Charlottesville, I'm used to long car rides. And we had Chelsey's mix CD's getting us through. But the scenery was breathtaking. Once again, I tried to take pictures but it just would not do it justice. I took a few videos of us driving, just because I could. There were more snow-topped mountains, and green mountains, lakes, creeks. There were these one-lane bridges over creeks and Ryan (our glacier guide) told us that they are only one lane because they are regularly washed away. Comforting.
When we finally got to Queenstown, we went directly to our first activity--jetboating over the Shotover River! Basically, you get in a jetboat with about 10 other people and the driver takes you on a thrilling ride through the canyons and gets you soaking wet. But its ok, they give you a raincoat. It was a lot of fun and the canyons were really beautiful. We did 360's, during which we got the most wet, and they were a lot of fun.
After that adventure we went to the hostel and checked in. We walked around the city for a little while (this time it was more than a little town, quite refreshing). We decided to get some dinner at this pizza place Winnie's. We were really hungry but it was actually pretty good. Upon returning to our hostel, we made plans for the night. First we went to this place the Thirsty Ram and I thought of Ms. Shannon Moody, because I feel like a bar with that name should be on her campus. Then when we realized that kind of sucked, we went back to Winnie's and had a really good time. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped at Fergburger, the Queenstown equivalent to the White Spot. But sooooo much better. Mouth watering... Anyway, we got back, went to bed, and not surprisingly, the next day was filled with even more adventures.
But, that's all I'm going to write about for now, I have picture to upload and such. I'm a busy girl, what can I say. Don't worry, I know you are on the edge of your seat. Day 4 of my 11 day journey is on its way...
Until then...
Cheers,
Lara
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Hate to burst your bubble...
But don't expect an update for the next 11 days. I know all my avid readers are crying "WHYYYYYYY???" Well, it's simple.
I am shipping off to New Zealand for 11 days! We are leaving tomorrow morning and coming back Monday night. Hanging with the Kiwis in Kiwi-a-gogo-land for a few days, I think so.
I'm going with my roommates Gina, Lauren, Laura, Chelsey, and our neighbor Jackie. It's going to be pretty insane. I will have SO much to write about when I return. Don't worry, your insatiable thirst for hearing about my adventures will be satisfied then.
But until then...
Peace, love, kiwis, and koalas.
I am shipping off to New Zealand for 11 days! We are leaving tomorrow morning and coming back Monday night. Hanging with the Kiwis in Kiwi-a-gogo-land for a few days, I think so.
I'm going with my roommates Gina, Lauren, Laura, Chelsey, and our neighbor Jackie. It's going to be pretty insane. I will have SO much to write about when I return. Don't worry, your insatiable thirst for hearing about my adventures will be satisfied then.
But until then...
Peace, love, kiwis, and koalas.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Holy ****: One month left
Sorry for the profanity, it's the only way to express my amazement that my time here has FLOWN past. I still remember writing my first post about being alive and finding it amusing that Asian people can have Australian accents. The theme of this post is basically summarizing what I've been doing in Sydney lately and what I have coming up in the near future.
Like I said in the last post, I feel like I have been neglecting my adventures here in Sydney. After all, I am studying here so I should have more stories about being here. All throughout October has been the Crave Sydney Festival. It is a combination of food, art, culture, etc. I've gone to a bunch of events with a bunch of people. I went to the Latin festival in Darling Harbor at the end of Spring Break with my friends Matt and Ken who were stopping over in Sydney after their trip to New Zealand. Some of my roommates also came with us. There was a ton of Latin food, music, art, crafts. There was a woman at a booth who told us if we got our picture taken we would get cupcakes. So, that we did. They gave us this little gift bag with 2 cupcakes each! That pretty much made my day. We roamed around for a little while and then it started POURING so we decided to go to happy hour. Logical, right?
Actually, the day before I decided to roam around Sydney by myself and I was looking for the Latin Festival but I couldn't find it. (Turns out I was in the wrong part of the Harbor. Clearly, I don't go there enough.) I did stumble upon a craft fair in The Rocks, one of my favorite parts of Sydney. It's hard to explain The Rocks. Everything is kind of old fashion looking. There are a bunch of bars and little pubs. One of the most popular clubs, The Argyle, is down there. It's right by the water. Some of the sidewalks are cobblestone, maybe giving it the name "The Rocks." Anyway, it's really nice down there. Quaint, in a way. So I wandered through the market stopping at some of the booths and talked to a few of the vendors. Asked them their stories, suggestions they had for things to do in Sydney and around Australia, etc. I got a few presents for people (and myself...) while I was there as well.
Also in The Rocks is this restaurant Pancakes on the Rocks. It is apparently one of those "must do" things here. It is a 24-hour restaurant and I really wish we knew about that earlier because we have always been looking for late night food. NOTHING here is open late, surprisingly. We went there a few nights ago I got the most amazing chocolate pancakes. So good. They had normal food too, somewhat iHop-esque. Honestly, I'm not really sure why people rave about it so much but it was fun.
[If you haven't noticed yet, this isn't going to be in any chronological order. It's more of a stream-of-consciousness thing.]
Another part of Crave Sydney was the Night Noodle Market. I suggested going to my roommates and they thought I was joking based on the name. Yes, it does sound pretty ridiculous. Gina and I decided to head over there one night. It was in Hyde Park in central Sydney. To start, Hyde Park is beautiful. It is one of my favorite places in Sydney. Kind of reminds me of parks in Manhattan. Anyway, When we were walking up to the market, there were huge pictures posted on both sides of the pathway. They were part of the "Art and About" section of Crave Sydney. There was a booth where you could vote for your favorite and Gina and I did that, mainly just because the entry could win you a free digital camera. Anyway, after voting we continued our journey to the noodles. There was some live Asian music playing and every kind of Asian food you could think of. Himalayan, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, etc. We got some Thai food but it honestly wasn't that great. We were planning on going back, but we just never got the chance. I think it is still going on so maybe we will make it back there before it ends.
In keeping with my environmental roots, I decided to go to the Live Green House exhibit, another part of Crave Sydney. Sydney is really environmentally conscious, so seeing this whole exhibit with new tips on how to use the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle!) was really cool. This other company was doing a presentation on vertical gardens that was pretty interesting, but I didn't get to see too much of it. It was pretty much about maximizing space and resources by growing plants on a wall, basically. It's kind of hard to explain. From there, I went to Paddington Reservior and listened to some jazz music and then I went to Paddington Market. The latter is not part of Crave Sydney. It happens every Saturday outside this school in Paddington, a suburb of Sydney were a lot of good shopping is. I roamed around, not really looking for anything in particular. A lot of the clothes are times-ly, in the words of Kerri Horgan. Aka, a lot of the clothes were pretty weird looking. There was a guy selling chocolate and I got into a conversation with him about a bunch of stuff. He gave me a ton a free samples and even offered to give me some to take home! People are so nice. I probably should have limited my chocolate intake though because I went to yoga right after...
Last Sunday was also the UVA va UMD football game! Well, it was Saturday back at home but here it was Sunday at 7am. Rough. So we got up early, I made some guac, put on my orange and blue dress and pearls and went to watch the game with my UMD friends. Just as we predicted, it was an INCREDIBLY embarassing game for both teams. However, Virginia won and I still rub it in their faces. I am very glad we won though because if we lost I would never hear the end of it from at least 5 very passionate Terps.
My roommates and I have also been planning our upcoming trip to New Zealand! We are leaving a week from today!! Crazy... Here is a little taste of what's on our agenda:
We are landing in Christchurch, renting a car, hiking through Franz Joseph Glacier, hanging out in Queenstown, going to Lake Tekapo... that's all I can remember right now... but my roommates are leaving on the 6th but I am staying until the 9th. So I believe I am heading up to Kaikoura (about 2.5 hours north of Christchurch) to do this eco-tour. Me = nerd. On the 9th, bright and early, I am flying to Melbourne. Then on the 10th I am flying to Alice Springs--no, not the chicken (bad joke). On the 11th I'm going on a 3-day tour through the Outback and then I'm flying back to Melbourne on the 14th. I'm hanging out in Melbourne for a few days then flying back to Sydney on the 16th.
Then, more adventures around Sydney and... I don't want to say it but... home on the 22nd.
Well that's all I can think of for now. I should get back to work. Yuck.
Cheers!
Like I said in the last post, I feel like I have been neglecting my adventures here in Sydney. After all, I am studying here so I should have more stories about being here. All throughout October has been the Crave Sydney Festival. It is a combination of food, art, culture, etc. I've gone to a bunch of events with a bunch of people. I went to the Latin festival in Darling Harbor at the end of Spring Break with my friends Matt and Ken who were stopping over in Sydney after their trip to New Zealand. Some of my roommates also came with us. There was a ton of Latin food, music, art, crafts. There was a woman at a booth who told us if we got our picture taken we would get cupcakes. So, that we did. They gave us this little gift bag with 2 cupcakes each! That pretty much made my day. We roamed around for a little while and then it started POURING so we decided to go to happy hour. Logical, right?
Actually, the day before I decided to roam around Sydney by myself and I was looking for the Latin Festival but I couldn't find it. (Turns out I was in the wrong part of the Harbor. Clearly, I don't go there enough.) I did stumble upon a craft fair in The Rocks, one of my favorite parts of Sydney. It's hard to explain The Rocks. Everything is kind of old fashion looking. There are a bunch of bars and little pubs. One of the most popular clubs, The Argyle, is down there. It's right by the water. Some of the sidewalks are cobblestone, maybe giving it the name "The Rocks." Anyway, it's really nice down there. Quaint, in a way. So I wandered through the market stopping at some of the booths and talked to a few of the vendors. Asked them their stories, suggestions they had for things to do in Sydney and around Australia, etc. I got a few presents for people (and myself...) while I was there as well.
Also in The Rocks is this restaurant Pancakes on the Rocks. It is apparently one of those "must do" things here. It is a 24-hour restaurant and I really wish we knew about that earlier because we have always been looking for late night food. NOTHING here is open late, surprisingly. We went there a few nights ago I got the most amazing chocolate pancakes. So good. They had normal food too, somewhat iHop-esque. Honestly, I'm not really sure why people rave about it so much but it was fun.
[If you haven't noticed yet, this isn't going to be in any chronological order. It's more of a stream-of-consciousness thing.]
Another part of Crave Sydney was the Night Noodle Market. I suggested going to my roommates and they thought I was joking based on the name. Yes, it does sound pretty ridiculous. Gina and I decided to head over there one night. It was in Hyde Park in central Sydney. To start, Hyde Park is beautiful. It is one of my favorite places in Sydney. Kind of reminds me of parks in Manhattan. Anyway, When we were walking up to the market, there were huge pictures posted on both sides of the pathway. They were part of the "Art and About" section of Crave Sydney. There was a booth where you could vote for your favorite and Gina and I did that, mainly just because the entry could win you a free digital camera. Anyway, after voting we continued our journey to the noodles. There was some live Asian music playing and every kind of Asian food you could think of. Himalayan, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, etc. We got some Thai food but it honestly wasn't that great. We were planning on going back, but we just never got the chance. I think it is still going on so maybe we will make it back there before it ends.
In keeping with my environmental roots, I decided to go to the Live Green House exhibit, another part of Crave Sydney. Sydney is really environmentally conscious, so seeing this whole exhibit with new tips on how to use the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle!) was really cool. This other company was doing a presentation on vertical gardens that was pretty interesting, but I didn't get to see too much of it. It was pretty much about maximizing space and resources by growing plants on a wall, basically. It's kind of hard to explain. From there, I went to Paddington Reservior and listened to some jazz music and then I went to Paddington Market. The latter is not part of Crave Sydney. It happens every Saturday outside this school in Paddington, a suburb of Sydney were a lot of good shopping is. I roamed around, not really looking for anything in particular. A lot of the clothes are times-ly, in the words of Kerri Horgan. Aka, a lot of the clothes were pretty weird looking. There was a guy selling chocolate and I got into a conversation with him about a bunch of stuff. He gave me a ton a free samples and even offered to give me some to take home! People are so nice. I probably should have limited my chocolate intake though because I went to yoga right after...
Last Sunday was also the UVA va UMD football game! Well, it was Saturday back at home but here it was Sunday at 7am. Rough. So we got up early, I made some guac, put on my orange and blue dress and pearls and went to watch the game with my UMD friends. Just as we predicted, it was an INCREDIBLY embarassing game for both teams. However, Virginia won and I still rub it in their faces. I am very glad we won though because if we lost I would never hear the end of it from at least 5 very passionate Terps.
My roommates and I have also been planning our upcoming trip to New Zealand! We are leaving a week from today!! Crazy... Here is a little taste of what's on our agenda:
We are landing in Christchurch, renting a car, hiking through Franz Joseph Glacier, hanging out in Queenstown, going to Lake Tekapo... that's all I can remember right now... but my roommates are leaving on the 6th but I am staying until the 9th. So I believe I am heading up to Kaikoura (about 2.5 hours north of Christchurch) to do this eco-tour. Me = nerd. On the 9th, bright and early, I am flying to Melbourne. Then on the 10th I am flying to Alice Springs--no, not the chicken (bad joke). On the 11th I'm going on a 3-day tour through the Outback and then I'm flying back to Melbourne on the 14th. I'm hanging out in Melbourne for a few days then flying back to Sydney on the 16th.
Then, more adventures around Sydney and... I don't want to say it but... home on the 22nd.
Well that's all I can think of for now. I should get back to work. Yuck.
Cheers!
Monday, October 19, 2009
The name isn't lying: Surfers Paradise
Yes, I know I am getting lazy with the blog. That's because I am out exploring the world! (sometimes...) But now that I am laying in bed almost dying and unable to focus on schoolwork because my head is pounding, I think it's time I finally complete the story of Spring Break in Australia.
We left Hervey Bay at the crack of dawn and took the train back to Brisbane. Jackie decided to go right away to Surfers Paradise but Gina and I decided to spend the day in Brisbane. We really had no idea what to do so we just "went were the wind took us." We roamed around for a little while, passed more Royal Botanic Gardens (seriously, this country LOVES gardens) and then we realized we have no idea what we are doing. So we went to a hostel and picked up a city map. There were a bunch of different suggestions for things to do in the city but since we only had a few hours we decided to just pick one--XXXX Brewery Tour! Gina and I had been talking about going on a brewery tour for a while but we didn't know if there was one in Sydney. This was perfect. At the entrance to the brewery, they had this awesome old school delivery car.
The tour was pretty interesting, honestly not much different from many other brewery tours. But, they did talk about the environmental aspects of brewing beer and how they are updating the brewery to be more "green." That made me happy. But what made me even more happy was the 4 beers they gave us at the end of the tour. It basically paid for itself! We got to try XXXX Sparkling Ale, a beer that was no longer going to be brewed after that week. I don't know why because it was really good. While we were there, a huge group of people dressed in the strangest costumes came in and they were quite...spirited. Definitely an amusing group of people. We later realized it was a pub crawl. Apparently, the bar is actually legit. Once we finished our beers we went over to the souvenir shop and picked up some gifts. By then it was about time to go so we walked back to the Greyhound station and waited for our bus. When we were there, some random guy came up to me and said "University of Virginia?" I looked down and realized I was wearing a Virginia Volleyball shirt and just said "...yea" He responds with "Class of 2006, Wahoowa." Love it. Quite random. Also random, we ran into a girl who was on our Fraser Island trip in the Greyhound station. The bus ride to Surfers was actually pretty sweet. Our driver was really cool and he just popped in a movie for the trip. There were some people who were going to be on that bus for a lot longer than we were, so I guess that made it bareable (the ride to Surfers was about an hour and a half, some people were on that bus for 12 or more hours, yikes.)
We got to Surfers and found our hostel (Backpackers in Paradise) and got settled in. We called Jackie because it was her birthday and we were going to go out to celebrate. She was staying at a house with some friends from her school in Wollongong. We walked over there and hung out for a little while and then went out to celebrate her birthday at midnight. A few of our friends who live with us in Sydney actually met up with us at the bar we went to. It was a lot of fun with everyone there. We ended up taking a cab back to our hostel because we weren't exactly sure where we were, but later that week we realized we were like 4 blocks away from it... I think we got ripped off...
We didn't really have any plans for our days in Surfers, mainly just sit on the beach and hang out. So, that's what we did. It's such an awesome beach town--a lot of shopping, restaurants, bars, and of course surfers. Uni Games was going on that week so there was a ton of students from colleges all over Australia competing in every sport imaginable. From what I hear, most people don't take it too seriously; they are just there to have a good time and happen to play whatever sport they play. I really wanted to get involved with volleyball, but I just didn't follow through with it early in the year. Anyway, the second day we just sat on the beach, ate some fish and chips, sat on the beach some more. We went to Hard Rock for dinner for Jackie's birthday. It's the only one in Australia. That surprised me a lot. We back to Jackie's hotel and then went out from there. We were going to do this bar crawl but Jackie, Gina and I decided to go back home; at that point we were too tired to function. The third day was a lot of the same, but we decided to go to the pool at Jackie's house. Before then, we had plans to go bike riding along the Gold Coast but you had to put a $100 deposit on each bike and we weren't really into doing that. So sitting by the pool and the hot tub sufficed for the day. I don't think we went out that night either, the sun pretty much whipped us out. The fourth and final day was just as productive, we once again sat on the beach, watched beach volleyball this time, and saw a girl get rescued. Ok, I didn't see it because I fell asleep on the beach but everyone else did. We went in the water a few times which was beautiful and so refreshing since it was so hot in the sun. But when the sun went down it got a little colder so we kicked around a soccer ball for a little and I reconfirmed my hatred for sports involving things hitting my feet. When it was time, we packed up and headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and jump on the bus to the airport.
Goodbye Surfers Paradise, hello Sydney.
After the horror that began our trip, the relaxation in Surfers was the perfect way to end an awesome Spring Break. I was so nice and tan when we got back, and now I look and my pale sickly self and whimper. Sadness...
But, looking back on all of my blog posts, I realized that I've almost completely neglected my adventures here in Sydney. I've been having more and more since I came to the realization that my time here is quickly coming to an end. I will definitely update you on more of those, but it will have to be next time. Now, it's paper writing time because yes, I am actually at school here though it may not seem that way...
Much love,
Lara
We left Hervey Bay at the crack of dawn and took the train back to Brisbane. Jackie decided to go right away to Surfers Paradise but Gina and I decided to spend the day in Brisbane. We really had no idea what to do so we just "went were the wind took us." We roamed around for a little while, passed more Royal Botanic Gardens (seriously, this country LOVES gardens) and then we realized we have no idea what we are doing. So we went to a hostel and picked up a city map. There were a bunch of different suggestions for things to do in the city but since we only had a few hours we decided to just pick one--XXXX Brewery Tour! Gina and I had been talking about going on a brewery tour for a while but we didn't know if there was one in Sydney. This was perfect. At the entrance to the brewery, they had this awesome old school delivery car.
The tour was pretty interesting, honestly not much different from many other brewery tours. But, they did talk about the environmental aspects of brewing beer and how they are updating the brewery to be more "green." That made me happy. But what made me even more happy was the 4 beers they gave us at the end of the tour. It basically paid for itself! We got to try XXXX Sparkling Ale, a beer that was no longer going to be brewed after that week. I don't know why because it was really good. While we were there, a huge group of people dressed in the strangest costumes came in and they were quite...spirited. Definitely an amusing group of people. We later realized it was a pub crawl. Apparently, the bar is actually legit. Once we finished our beers we went over to the souvenir shop and picked up some gifts. By then it was about time to go so we walked back to the Greyhound station and waited for our bus. When we were there, some random guy came up to me and said "University of Virginia?" I looked down and realized I was wearing a Virginia Volleyball shirt and just said "...yea" He responds with "Class of 2006, Wahoowa." Love it. Quite random. Also random, we ran into a girl who was on our Fraser Island trip in the Greyhound station. The bus ride to Surfers was actually pretty sweet. Our driver was really cool and he just popped in a movie for the trip. There were some people who were going to be on that bus for a lot longer than we were, so I guess that made it bareable (the ride to Surfers was about an hour and a half, some people were on that bus for 12 or more hours, yikes.)
We got to Surfers and found our hostel (Backpackers in Paradise) and got settled in. We called Jackie because it was her birthday and we were going to go out to celebrate. She was staying at a house with some friends from her school in Wollongong. We walked over there and hung out for a little while and then went out to celebrate her birthday at midnight. A few of our friends who live with us in Sydney actually met up with us at the bar we went to. It was a lot of fun with everyone there. We ended up taking a cab back to our hostel because we weren't exactly sure where we were, but later that week we realized we were like 4 blocks away from it... I think we got ripped off...
We didn't really have any plans for our days in Surfers, mainly just sit on the beach and hang out. So, that's what we did. It's such an awesome beach town--a lot of shopping, restaurants, bars, and of course surfers. Uni Games was going on that week so there was a ton of students from colleges all over Australia competing in every sport imaginable. From what I hear, most people don't take it too seriously; they are just there to have a good time and happen to play whatever sport they play. I really wanted to get involved with volleyball, but I just didn't follow through with it early in the year. Anyway, the second day we just sat on the beach, ate some fish and chips, sat on the beach some more. We went to Hard Rock for dinner for Jackie's birthday. It's the only one in Australia. That surprised me a lot. We back to Jackie's hotel and then went out from there. We were going to do this bar crawl but Jackie, Gina and I decided to go back home; at that point we were too tired to function. The third day was a lot of the same, but we decided to go to the pool at Jackie's house. Before then, we had plans to go bike riding along the Gold Coast but you had to put a $100 deposit on each bike and we weren't really into doing that. So sitting by the pool and the hot tub sufficed for the day. I don't think we went out that night either, the sun pretty much whipped us out. The fourth and final day was just as productive, we once again sat on the beach, watched beach volleyball this time, and saw a girl get rescued. Ok, I didn't see it because I fell asleep on the beach but everyone else did. We went in the water a few times which was beautiful and so refreshing since it was so hot in the sun. But when the sun went down it got a little colder so we kicked around a soccer ball for a little and I reconfirmed my hatred for sports involving things hitting my feet. When it was time, we packed up and headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and jump on the bus to the airport.
Goodbye Surfers Paradise, hello Sydney.
After the horror that began our trip, the relaxation in Surfers was the perfect way to end an awesome Spring Break. I was so nice and tan when we got back, and now I look and my pale sickly self and whimper. Sadness...
But, looking back on all of my blog posts, I realized that I've almost completely neglected my adventures here in Sydney. I've been having more and more since I came to the realization that my time here is quickly coming to an end. I will definitely update you on more of those, but it will have to be next time. Now, it's paper writing time because yes, I am actually at school here though it may not seem that way...
Much love,
Lara
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A DINGO DRANK OUR GOON: Fraser Island
Ok, I know. Once again I've gotten a little lazy with this blog. I have SO much to tell everyone, but I'll start with Spring Break. Yes, it is spring here.
To start off with:
Dingo = deceivingly adorable wild dog
Goon = boxed wine
Anyway, I traveled with Gina and our friend Jackie who goes to Wollongong University here in Australia. Our adventure started off a little rocky to say the least. We had plans to fly to Brisbane on Sept 24th then take a train to Maryborough then a bus to Hervey Bay where our first hostel was. The plans were solid with plenty of time between each transfer. So we got up at about 4am on the 24th (which was pretty rough since I was still recovering from a somewhat crazy 21st birthday, but I won't go into that here...) and we took the train to the airport only to find out that our flight to Brisbane was cancelled because of the dust storm.
Let me do a little side note about that dust storm. It was easily the most insane thing I have ever seen. From my apartment, I can see the Sydney Harbor, bridge, and opera house. Well, I can normally see them. But during the dust storm, everything was red/orange. We couldn't see the city. Dust from the Outback had actually blown all the way onto the east coast. It was apparently the biggest dust storm in like 70 years. Glad I got to see it, not so happy it messed up my travel plans, to say it nicely.
So, going back... Our flight got rerouted to Gold Coast (where we were planning on spending the second half of our break, but I will talk about in another post). Then we got on a bus to Brisbane (about an hour and a half). The train station was right outside the airport and right as we got there, of course, the train pulled out and left the station. Wonderful. So after a lot of discussion, we ended up taking the next train to Maryborough West but then we found out that there was no bus to Hervey Bay. So, we were in Maryborough West, essentially the middle of nowhere, for a few more hours until the next bus came. By the time we got to our hostel it was past 9pm. We left our apartment at like 4:30am. Talk about a long day of traveling. But we finally got there, so it was ok.
We got up early the next day for a meeting at the hostel. We were leaving from Hervey Bay to go to Fraser Island and go camping. At the meeting we got split into groups of 10 and Gina, Jackie and I were in quite the eccentric group. We had an awesome English guy, Matt, who was the only one we trusted with driving, three Japanese girls whose English was VERY limited, a German couple (simply referred to as "the couple") and a random Swiss guy who happened to speak German. First we went grocery shopping for the 3 days we were going to be camping. They gave us the option of getting this meat package with steaks, sausage, mince (ground beef), something I didn't recognize and therefore didn't eat, and lunch meat. (Most of that honestly went to waste). We got the basics, like bread and peanut butter, pasta, I don't really remember what else. The couple put long-life milk into our group basket. Seriously? Who drinks long-life milk? I think I can go 3 days without milk. And they got a shit ton of it. She also got "meat spread" which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It was ham and chicken ground up and put in one of those tubes (like the ones that slice and bake cookies are in) and you just open it and spread it on bread. I'm close to vomiting while writing about it, sorry. The Japanese girls got SO many snacks, chips, candy, cookies, etc; they were eating the whole time and it was annoying because we didn't have much room in the car. But it could have been worse. Anyway, after that adventure, we went over to this garage and loaded up the 4WD car with tents, sleeping bags, food, cooking equipment, random other camping stuff, etc. And then off to the ferry to Fraser Island.
Let me tell you a little bit about Fraser Island from an environmental background. It is one of the biggest sand islands in the world. Seriously, it is just sand. It is on the World Heritage List and after being there and a few other World Heritage places I have made it my life goal to go to as many as possible. The only method of transportation on the island is 4WD because of the loose sand. There are a bunch of beautiful fresh water lakes all over the island, and it is chock full of dingoes.
We had a pretty strict itinerary for the three days because our travel depended on the tide times. Driving through salt water was not an option and you could go significantly faster on the hard sand on the coast than the inland loose trails. The first day we got there we went to Lake Makenzie, an absolutely georgous freshwater lake.
That's me lounging in the lake. The water was such a perfect temperature, especially since it was really hot. We stayed there the entire day (which wasn't that long after we actually got to the island and then found the lake). We decided to leave before it was going to get too dark so we could set up camp and cook dinner.
The first night I didn't do as much setting up the tents as I did cooking dinner. But, we kind of started too late so we were cooking when it was really dark. Very difficult. But ultimately we succeeded and got to eat. After dinner, Gina, Jackie and I sat on the dune behind our camp and drank some goon and just enjoyed the beauty of the island. The three of us got up for a little and mistakenly left our cups out and when I turned around to go back there was a dingo drinking out of one of the cups! Basically I yelped because I was pretty terrified, more out of surprise than anything else. We didn't stay up much longer because the next day was starting pretty early.
We had to get up at like 6am on Saturday because of the tide times. It wasn't that difficult because the tents got real hot real early. We packed up the tents and the cars and started the day. First we drove down to the Maheno shipwreck and walked around for a little. We didn't really stay there too long because honestly, there wasn't too much there but some rusty metal. Then we headed to Lake Wabby. It was quite the hike there, and all sand. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got to the lake. The swim was very refreshing. The lake definitely wasn't as nice as Lake Makenzie, but it was definitely really cool still. There were so many fish in the lake swimming right where we were. The shore was so steep so it was pretty interesting when I fell asleep and legitimately started snoring. Whatever, I got like no sleep the night before. We headed back to the camp earlier than the day before becuase we didn't want to be cooking in the dark again. When we got back, I did less of the cooking and more of the tent setting up. Looking back, I probably should have participated in the cooking a little more because we ate the most overcooked pasta I have ever had in my life. It was borderline nasty. But, looking back to Hab4Hum'05, beggers can't be choosers. We drank a little more goon and sat on the beach, and luckily had no more experiences with dingoes. We did see other wildlife--WHALES! It was so cool! We saw humpback whales breaching. It was pretty far out so we couldn't see it too well, but they were definitely there. Jackie and I were sitting on the dune and Gina was standing near the water collecting shells. I yelled to Gina to try to get her to turn around and see the whales but she just got really concerned when she heard me yelling to her. She wouldn't turn around. Later she told me that she thought there was like a dingo about to attack her. Oops. Once again, we went to bed pretty early because we had to wake up early, and there wasn't really anything to do.
On Sunday we packed up the tents and headed all the way down to the tip of the island to Iron Head Rock. We climbed up to the top and from there we could see a bunch of dolphins and more whales. There was a huge school of fish moving around the shallow water around the rocks. The water was absolutely beautiful. After a bunch of pictures, we decided to go on our merry way. We had a few options for the rest of the day until we had to go back to the ferry. We decided to go back to Lake Makenzie for the rest of the day. We just hung out there until it was time to go back to the ferry, pretty much the perfect way to end our trip to Fraser Island.
Throughout this entire trip, we had some interesting experiences with the couple and the Japanese girls. First, the couple asked for the own personal tent and a double sleeping bag. Seriously? The tents took up so much space in the cars, there was no way we were getting another one. The guy at the hostel actually laughed at them when they asked that. The German guy always wanted to drive and it was incredibly uncomfortable when he did. It was very bumpy and we got airborn a few times in the back. We were really only comfortable with Matt driving, mainly because he was used to the whole, driving on the left side of the road thing. It was very amusing. The whole trip was a really good time.
When we got back to the hostel at Hervey Bay we were all really hungry so we decided to get dinner at this Irish pub a few blocks away. We ordered at the bar and then they gave you a little sign to put on your table. A lot of restaurants around here do that but most just have numbers on the sign. At this Irish pub, they had county names on the signs. I was hoping to get County Kerry in honor of a certain someone but we didn't. Sadness. We got County Waterford. That's not really important at all. Once again, we got to bed pretty early because we had a 5am bus back to Maryborough West and then the train back to Brisbane.
But, that's for another day and another post. Until then...
Cheers.
To start off with:
Dingo = deceivingly adorable wild dog
Goon = boxed wine
Anyway, I traveled with Gina and our friend Jackie who goes to Wollongong University here in Australia. Our adventure started off a little rocky to say the least. We had plans to fly to Brisbane on Sept 24th then take a train to Maryborough then a bus to Hervey Bay where our first hostel was. The plans were solid with plenty of time between each transfer. So we got up at about 4am on the 24th (which was pretty rough since I was still recovering from a somewhat crazy 21st birthday, but I won't go into that here...) and we took the train to the airport only to find out that our flight to Brisbane was cancelled because of the dust storm.
Let me do a little side note about that dust storm. It was easily the most insane thing I have ever seen. From my apartment, I can see the Sydney Harbor, bridge, and opera house. Well, I can normally see them. But during the dust storm, everything was red/orange. We couldn't see the city. Dust from the Outback had actually blown all the way onto the east coast. It was apparently the biggest dust storm in like 70 years. Glad I got to see it, not so happy it messed up my travel plans, to say it nicely.
So, going back... Our flight got rerouted to Gold Coast (where we were planning on spending the second half of our break, but I will talk about in another post). Then we got on a bus to Brisbane (about an hour and a half). The train station was right outside the airport and right as we got there, of course, the train pulled out and left the station. Wonderful. So after a lot of discussion, we ended up taking the next train to Maryborough West but then we found out that there was no bus to Hervey Bay. So, we were in Maryborough West, essentially the middle of nowhere, for a few more hours until the next bus came. By the time we got to our hostel it was past 9pm. We left our apartment at like 4:30am. Talk about a long day of traveling. But we finally got there, so it was ok.
We got up early the next day for a meeting at the hostel. We were leaving from Hervey Bay to go to Fraser Island and go camping. At the meeting we got split into groups of 10 and Gina, Jackie and I were in quite the eccentric group. We had an awesome English guy, Matt, who was the only one we trusted with driving, three Japanese girls whose English was VERY limited, a German couple (simply referred to as "the couple") and a random Swiss guy who happened to speak German. First we went grocery shopping for the 3 days we were going to be camping. They gave us the option of getting this meat package with steaks, sausage, mince (ground beef), something I didn't recognize and therefore didn't eat, and lunch meat. (Most of that honestly went to waste). We got the basics, like bread and peanut butter, pasta, I don't really remember what else. The couple put long-life milk into our group basket. Seriously? Who drinks long-life milk? I think I can go 3 days without milk. And they got a shit ton of it. She also got "meat spread" which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It was ham and chicken ground up and put in one of those tubes (like the ones that slice and bake cookies are in) and you just open it and spread it on bread. I'm close to vomiting while writing about it, sorry. The Japanese girls got SO many snacks, chips, candy, cookies, etc; they were eating the whole time and it was annoying because we didn't have much room in the car. But it could have been worse. Anyway, after that adventure, we went over to this garage and loaded up the 4WD car with tents, sleeping bags, food, cooking equipment, random other camping stuff, etc. And then off to the ferry to Fraser Island.
Let me tell you a little bit about Fraser Island from an environmental background. It is one of the biggest sand islands in the world. Seriously, it is just sand. It is on the World Heritage List and after being there and a few other World Heritage places I have made it my life goal to go to as many as possible. The only method of transportation on the island is 4WD because of the loose sand. There are a bunch of beautiful fresh water lakes all over the island, and it is chock full of dingoes.
We had a pretty strict itinerary for the three days because our travel depended on the tide times. Driving through salt water was not an option and you could go significantly faster on the hard sand on the coast than the inland loose trails. The first day we got there we went to Lake Makenzie, an absolutely georgous freshwater lake.
That's me lounging in the lake. The water was such a perfect temperature, especially since it was really hot. We stayed there the entire day (which wasn't that long after we actually got to the island and then found the lake). We decided to leave before it was going to get too dark so we could set up camp and cook dinner.The first night I didn't do as much setting up the tents as I did cooking dinner. But, we kind of started too late so we were cooking when it was really dark. Very difficult. But ultimately we succeeded and got to eat. After dinner, Gina, Jackie and I sat on the dune behind our camp and drank some goon and just enjoyed the beauty of the island. The three of us got up for a little and mistakenly left our cups out and when I turned around to go back there was a dingo drinking out of one of the cups! Basically I yelped because I was pretty terrified, more out of surprise than anything else. We didn't stay up much longer because the next day was starting pretty early.
We had to get up at like 6am on Saturday because of the tide times. It wasn't that difficult because the tents got real hot real early. We packed up the tents and the cars and started the day. First we drove down to the Maheno shipwreck and walked around for a little. We didn't really stay there too long because honestly, there wasn't too much there but some rusty metal. Then we headed to Lake Wabby. It was quite the hike there, and all sand. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got to the lake. The swim was very refreshing. The lake definitely wasn't as nice as Lake Makenzie, but it was definitely really cool still. There were so many fish in the lake swimming right where we were. The shore was so steep so it was pretty interesting when I fell asleep and legitimately started snoring. Whatever, I got like no sleep the night before. We headed back to the camp earlier than the day before becuase we didn't want to be cooking in the dark again. When we got back, I did less of the cooking and more of the tent setting up. Looking back, I probably should have participated in the cooking a little more because we ate the most overcooked pasta I have ever had in my life. It was borderline nasty. But, looking back to Hab4Hum'05, beggers can't be choosers. We drank a little more goon and sat on the beach, and luckily had no more experiences with dingoes. We did see other wildlife--WHALES! It was so cool! We saw humpback whales breaching. It was pretty far out so we couldn't see it too well, but they were definitely there. Jackie and I were sitting on the dune and Gina was standing near the water collecting shells. I yelled to Gina to try to get her to turn around and see the whales but she just got really concerned when she heard me yelling to her. She wouldn't turn around. Later she told me that she thought there was like a dingo about to attack her. Oops. Once again, we went to bed pretty early because we had to wake up early, and there wasn't really anything to do.
On Sunday we packed up the tents and headed all the way down to the tip of the island to Iron Head Rock. We climbed up to the top and from there we could see a bunch of dolphins and more whales. There was a huge school of fish moving around the shallow water around the rocks. The water was absolutely beautiful. After a bunch of pictures, we decided to go on our merry way. We had a few options for the rest of the day until we had to go back to the ferry. We decided to go back to Lake Makenzie for the rest of the day. We just hung out there until it was time to go back to the ferry, pretty much the perfect way to end our trip to Fraser Island.
Throughout this entire trip, we had some interesting experiences with the couple and the Japanese girls. First, the couple asked for the own personal tent and a double sleeping bag. Seriously? The tents took up so much space in the cars, there was no way we were getting another one. The guy at the hostel actually laughed at them when they asked that. The German guy always wanted to drive and it was incredibly uncomfortable when he did. It was very bumpy and we got airborn a few times in the back. We were really only comfortable with Matt driving, mainly because he was used to the whole, driving on the left side of the road thing. It was very amusing. The whole trip was a really good time.
When we got back to the hostel at Hervey Bay we were all really hungry so we decided to get dinner at this Irish pub a few blocks away. We ordered at the bar and then they gave you a little sign to put on your table. A lot of restaurants around here do that but most just have numbers on the sign. At this Irish pub, they had county names on the signs. I was hoping to get County Kerry in honor of a certain someone but we didn't. Sadness. We got County Waterford. That's not really important at all. Once again, we got to bed pretty early because we had a 5am bus back to Maryborough West and then the train back to Brisbane.
But, that's for another day and another post. Until then...
Cheers.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Things still left to do/places to go...
...because my dad wants to know.
Sydney Food Festival
Sydney Latin Festival
Go to the planetarium
Manly Beach
Coast walk
Surfing
New Zealand
The Outback (no, not the restaurant)
Paddington Market
Paddy's Market
Blue Mountains
(ew) schoolwork
Pancakes on the Rocks
That's all I can think of right now. 7 weeks left to complete that list. Wish me luck.
More updates later about my holiday in Hervey Bay, Fraser Island, Brisbane, and Surfers Paradise.
Sydney Food Festival
Sydney Latin Festival
Go to the planetarium
Manly Beach
Coast walk
Surfing
New Zealand
The Outback (no, not the restaurant)
Paddington Market
Paddy's Market
Blue Mountains
(ew) schoolwork
Pancakes on the Rocks
That's all I can think of right now. 7 weeks left to complete that list. Wish me luck.
More updates later about my holiday in Hervey Bay, Fraser Island, Brisbane, and Surfers Paradise.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Jackie's kind of trip: Newcastle
I dedicate this post to the one and only Jackie Dolan. The past trips I have been on required airplane travel, my favorite. However, to get to Newcastle I got to spent 2 hours on the train traveling through Australia. Although the train tracks have not been Jackie's friend, she LOVES trains. So, this one's for you Jackie.
The weekend after getting back from Townsville I went to Newcastle with Ean, Jeff, and Chris (all from UMD). Saturday had somewhat of a rocky start because the guys almost left without me. Although we discussed this the night before, Ean thought I had said I wasn't coming. I guess it probably wasn't the best idea discussing it after a night at the Golden Sheaf... But I caught up with them at the train and the day went on as planned.
Surprisingly I totally relinquished the reigns on this trip--I planned nothing. Jeff did most of the "planning" which was "lets just go where the wind takes us." At least we had a place to stay. We got to the YHA hostel and it was BEAUTIFUL. I was so surprised. It looked like an old Victorian house. We checked into our room and not only were the rooms just as nice (compared to other hostels that is) but the bathrooms were really nice too. After settling in we decided to just walk around the beach and the city. We climbed up some of the cliffs at the beach and got a great view of Newcastle. We didn't really go onto the beach or into the water because the guys all wore sneakers. Not so much the sandal type I guess. So we roamed into the suburbs of Newcastle and they were incredible. The houses were so cute, with stained glass windows and beautiful flowers all over. Some had amazing wrought iron gates and balconies that just gave them this old charm. Definitely a type of place I would love to live. The suburbs were surprisingly hilly so the walk was kind of tiring but it was definitely worth it. I wanted to keep going but Newcastle isn't that big; I don't think there was that much more to see. When we were roaming through the city we passed an antique store and saw some awesome stuff. Jeff really wanted to get this Tooheys cooler, like the Gatorade coolers with the tap. It was really sweet but definitely would be pretty difficult to get home. There was a bunch of Aussie beer paraphernalia that was really cool but I decided to pass up on that. We found this little pub for dinner that I think was called Frog in a Sock but I don't remember now (a side effect of waiting so long to post) and I can't find it online anywhere. We had a few drinks and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
Greg and Pat (UMD and Cornell, they live with the rest of the guys) came to Newcastle the day before and were staying at the same hostel so they came over to our room to pregame with some goon (boxed wine) and talk about our plans for the night. There were a bunch of clubs that Jeff's brother told us about (he studied here in college) so we decided to check them out. The line for one of the bars was insane, one of them didn't exist anymore, but the last one we went to was pretty fun until the very end. Cliff notes version: Chris got yelled at for being American and because some random Aussie thought that Obama sucked. This almost ended in a big fight but luckily the guys I was with are rational enough to know that fights = being deported. So to say the least we went back to the hostel and called it a night.
The next day we got up and met up with Greg and Pat and went to the beach again. Everyone was going to leave in the late afternoon but I decided to stay an extra night by myself. There were a bunch of stores and apparently good shopping so I wanted to spend some time walking around there. But anyway, we all walked down to the beach and did some of the same trails that we did the day before. We walked over to the lighthouse and it was not as exciting as we thought it was going to be. There were a ton of dogs in the area though which was pretty cool. Also, I was a pretty big nerd a saw a bunch of beach mitigation efforts in the area that made me happy. I won't go on any further because I will bore people. We also decided to walk down to Bogie Hole, this ocean water pool. Getting down there was pretty interesting because the steps were really slippery and there wasn't much to grab on to. Ean ended up wiping out and luckily I did not go through with my first reaction to try to catch him because that would have ended in me falling as well. We went out onto the rocks and pretty much as soon as we were talking about how high the waves could get on the rocks I got hit with a lot of water. It felt pretty amazing though because it was hot. After that we walked up to Fort Scratchly. It was interesting to see how Newcastle was important during WWII. One guy at the fort offered to take us on a tour but it was about an hour long and we weren't too into that. So, we just walked around on our own for a little bit and mainly just sat at the top of the fort looking out on the beach and the harbor. We headed back down and Ean, Jeff, and Chris decided to catch the train and head back to Sydney. I stuck around with Pat, Greg, and their friend Katie from England. She had come along with us throughout the day's adventures. We spent the rest of the day laying out on the beach but I forgot both a towel and a bathing suit so it wasn't as fun as I would have liked. The water was beautiful and I would have loved to go in. But I just napped on the sand, probably my new favorite pastime. A few hours later we all headed back to the hostel and Pat and Greg picked up their bags and left for Sydney. Katie and I made plans to meet up later that night to go to the free dinner at the hostel. So I got ready and a few hours later headed down to the lobby to meet up with the big group going to dinner.
The restaurant was quite interesting. There was an open mic going on and the first guy was TERRIBLE. It was legitimately painful. Unfortunately there were only a few better than he was. But it was still a lot of fun talking to other people who were staying in the hostel. I learned that Katie had been traveling around Australia for the past year and she was going back to England a few days after we met. I met a Kiwi, Mark, who told me some stuff to do when I go to New Zealand (trip is finally booked!) I talked to a few Germans, although the language barrier was a little rough, and a few Swedish girls who were my new roommates in the hostel. Katie and I shared a few jugs (pitchers) and then went over to the beach with a few other people in the hostel who were from England. One of them was hysterical because I could not understand a word he was saying. But some of the other English guys told me they don't even understand him sometimes, so I didn't feel as bad. Conversation was amusing because there are so many different words that just can't translate, even though we speak the same language. One guy was telling a story and he called a guy something that I had never heard before and I asked him what that was and he tried to describe it using a bunch of other words that I had never heard before. Finally one of the English guys said it's like the same as calling someone a "hick" and clearly that I understand. So we just sat on the beach and drank some goon and chatted about traveling, school, and so many other things. Throughout our trip Jeff kept pointing out the barges that just sat out in the harbor. None of them were moving and we were all joking around that they were cardboard cutouts in the scenery of the water. I discovered through talking to the English guys that those were coal barges. I should have known that because Newcastle is the biggest coal exporter in Australia and apparently those bargest can queue in the harbor for months waiting for a shipment. It was pretty interesting. Later in the night some little teenagers egged us putting a total damper on the night so after the English guys confronted them we decided to just call it a night and head back to the hostel. We tried to watch a movie but most of the ones they had were on VHS. We tried to watch Hook but the VHS player ended up not really working, buzzkill number 2. But we stayed up talking for a while after that. I love talking to people from other places, other cultures, other backgrounds. It's starting to give me a greater perspective on things, definitely something I hoped would happen from traveling but I wasn't sure if I would be successful. I'm definitely getting there...
So on Monday I got up early, checked out and started to roam around Newcastle. I started by walking down Hunter St, an outdoor mall a few minutes walk from the hostel. It reminded me of the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. I got breakky at this little cafe with an amazing cup of coffee. I was people watching for a little while and then I decided to go shopping a little. Since my birthday was coming up, I wanted to get a cute new dress or outfit or something. On Hunter St I found a few things but nothing that I loved. So I walked up to Darby St which is the main shopping area in Newcastle. I looked through a few stores and discovered that it was slightly out of my price range but it was still fun roaming around. There is such different fashion here that honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start with shopping. I figured I would wait to get back to Sydney to find something for the big 2-1. I stopped at a little cafe on Darby St and got a piece of amazing chocolate cake and another cup of coffee and continued to people watch. It was really nice and really relaxing. A little while later I decided I didn't have anything else to do and I decided to head back to the train station and then back to Sydney. But of course, my luck, right as I got to the train station the train pulled out. So, I had another hour to wait for the next one. Pretty boring but maybe I should start looking at schedules before I travel places...
Overall it was a really successful trip. I'm very happy I stayed in Newcastle an extra day. It's a beautiful city that I really enjoyed.
Two updates in one day, I'm spoiling my readers! And, check out my pictures on Snapfish. The link is posted in the sidebar. All this got updated because, well, it was not sunny in Australia today...
The weekend after getting back from Townsville I went to Newcastle with Ean, Jeff, and Chris (all from UMD). Saturday had somewhat of a rocky start because the guys almost left without me. Although we discussed this the night before, Ean thought I had said I wasn't coming. I guess it probably wasn't the best idea discussing it after a night at the Golden Sheaf... But I caught up with them at the train and the day went on as planned.
Surprisingly I totally relinquished the reigns on this trip--I planned nothing. Jeff did most of the "planning" which was "lets just go where the wind takes us." At least we had a place to stay. We got to the YHA hostel and it was BEAUTIFUL. I was so surprised. It looked like an old Victorian house. We checked into our room and not only were the rooms just as nice (compared to other hostels that is) but the bathrooms were really nice too. After settling in we decided to just walk around the beach and the city. We climbed up some of the cliffs at the beach and got a great view of Newcastle. We didn't really go onto the beach or into the water because the guys all wore sneakers. Not so much the sandal type I guess. So we roamed into the suburbs of Newcastle and they were incredible. The houses were so cute, with stained glass windows and beautiful flowers all over. Some had amazing wrought iron gates and balconies that just gave them this old charm. Definitely a type of place I would love to live. The suburbs were surprisingly hilly so the walk was kind of tiring but it was definitely worth it. I wanted to keep going but Newcastle isn't that big; I don't think there was that much more to see. When we were roaming through the city we passed an antique store and saw some awesome stuff. Jeff really wanted to get this Tooheys cooler, like the Gatorade coolers with the tap. It was really sweet but definitely would be pretty difficult to get home. There was a bunch of Aussie beer paraphernalia that was really cool but I decided to pass up on that. We found this little pub for dinner that I think was called Frog in a Sock but I don't remember now (a side effect of waiting so long to post) and I can't find it online anywhere. We had a few drinks and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
Greg and Pat (UMD and Cornell, they live with the rest of the guys) came to Newcastle the day before and were staying at the same hostel so they came over to our room to pregame with some goon (boxed wine) and talk about our plans for the night. There were a bunch of clubs that Jeff's brother told us about (he studied here in college) so we decided to check them out. The line for one of the bars was insane, one of them didn't exist anymore, but the last one we went to was pretty fun until the very end. Cliff notes version: Chris got yelled at for being American and because some random Aussie thought that Obama sucked. This almost ended in a big fight but luckily the guys I was with are rational enough to know that fights = being deported. So to say the least we went back to the hostel and called it a night.
The next day we got up and met up with Greg and Pat and went to the beach again. Everyone was going to leave in the late afternoon but I decided to stay an extra night by myself. There were a bunch of stores and apparently good shopping so I wanted to spend some time walking around there. But anyway, we all walked down to the beach and did some of the same trails that we did the day before. We walked over to the lighthouse and it was not as exciting as we thought it was going to be. There were a ton of dogs in the area though which was pretty cool. Also, I was a pretty big nerd a saw a bunch of beach mitigation efforts in the area that made me happy. I won't go on any further because I will bore people. We also decided to walk down to Bogie Hole, this ocean water pool. Getting down there was pretty interesting because the steps were really slippery and there wasn't much to grab on to. Ean ended up wiping out and luckily I did not go through with my first reaction to try to catch him because that would have ended in me falling as well. We went out onto the rocks and pretty much as soon as we were talking about how high the waves could get on the rocks I got hit with a lot of water. It felt pretty amazing though because it was hot. After that we walked up to Fort Scratchly. It was interesting to see how Newcastle was important during WWII. One guy at the fort offered to take us on a tour but it was about an hour long and we weren't too into that. So, we just walked around on our own for a little bit and mainly just sat at the top of the fort looking out on the beach and the harbor. We headed back down and Ean, Jeff, and Chris decided to catch the train and head back to Sydney. I stuck around with Pat, Greg, and their friend Katie from England. She had come along with us throughout the day's adventures. We spent the rest of the day laying out on the beach but I forgot both a towel and a bathing suit so it wasn't as fun as I would have liked. The water was beautiful and I would have loved to go in. But I just napped on the sand, probably my new favorite pastime. A few hours later we all headed back to the hostel and Pat and Greg picked up their bags and left for Sydney. Katie and I made plans to meet up later that night to go to the free dinner at the hostel. So I got ready and a few hours later headed down to the lobby to meet up with the big group going to dinner.
The restaurant was quite interesting. There was an open mic going on and the first guy was TERRIBLE. It was legitimately painful. Unfortunately there were only a few better than he was. But it was still a lot of fun talking to other people who were staying in the hostel. I learned that Katie had been traveling around Australia for the past year and she was going back to England a few days after we met. I met a Kiwi, Mark, who told me some stuff to do when I go to New Zealand (trip is finally booked!) I talked to a few Germans, although the language barrier was a little rough, and a few Swedish girls who were my new roommates in the hostel. Katie and I shared a few jugs (pitchers) and then went over to the beach with a few other people in the hostel who were from England. One of them was hysterical because I could not understand a word he was saying. But some of the other English guys told me they don't even understand him sometimes, so I didn't feel as bad. Conversation was amusing because there are so many different words that just can't translate, even though we speak the same language. One guy was telling a story and he called a guy something that I had never heard before and I asked him what that was and he tried to describe it using a bunch of other words that I had never heard before. Finally one of the English guys said it's like the same as calling someone a "hick" and clearly that I understand. So we just sat on the beach and drank some goon and chatted about traveling, school, and so many other things. Throughout our trip Jeff kept pointing out the barges that just sat out in the harbor. None of them were moving and we were all joking around that they were cardboard cutouts in the scenery of the water. I discovered through talking to the English guys that those were coal barges. I should have known that because Newcastle is the biggest coal exporter in Australia and apparently those bargest can queue in the harbor for months waiting for a shipment. It was pretty interesting. Later in the night some little teenagers egged us putting a total damper on the night so after the English guys confronted them we decided to just call it a night and head back to the hostel. We tried to watch a movie but most of the ones they had were on VHS. We tried to watch Hook but the VHS player ended up not really working, buzzkill number 2. But we stayed up talking for a while after that. I love talking to people from other places, other cultures, other backgrounds. It's starting to give me a greater perspective on things, definitely something I hoped would happen from traveling but I wasn't sure if I would be successful. I'm definitely getting there...
So on Monday I got up early, checked out and started to roam around Newcastle. I started by walking down Hunter St, an outdoor mall a few minutes walk from the hostel. It reminded me of the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. I got breakky at this little cafe with an amazing cup of coffee. I was people watching for a little while and then I decided to go shopping a little. Since my birthday was coming up, I wanted to get a cute new dress or outfit or something. On Hunter St I found a few things but nothing that I loved. So I walked up to Darby St which is the main shopping area in Newcastle. I looked through a few stores and discovered that it was slightly out of my price range but it was still fun roaming around. There is such different fashion here that honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start with shopping. I figured I would wait to get back to Sydney to find something for the big 2-1. I stopped at a little cafe on Darby St and got a piece of amazing chocolate cake and another cup of coffee and continued to people watch. It was really nice and really relaxing. A little while later I decided I didn't have anything else to do and I decided to head back to the train station and then back to Sydney. But of course, my luck, right as I got to the train station the train pulled out. So, I had another hour to wait for the next one. Pretty boring but maybe I should start looking at schedules before I travel places...
Overall it was a really successful trip. I'm very happy I stayed in Newcastle an extra day. It's a beautiful city that I really enjoyed.
Two updates in one day, I'm spoiling my readers! And, check out my pictures on Snapfish. The link is posted in the sidebar. All this got updated because, well, it was not sunny in Australia today...
Environmentalists should be outdoorsy: Townsville and Maggie Island
Ok, I know, I'm slacking off with this blog. I have a long list of things to write about so I better get started...
I got back from Melbourne on August 31st and I was back on a plane to Townsville on the September 3rd to visit my friend Ken from Wantagh (it's ok, he didn't go to Wantagh High School, he went to Chaminade.) He is also in the Study Australia program but goes to James Cook Uni. My flight was at 6am and my roommates were very surprised that I made it. Those who have lived with me know I hate mornings, especially when the night before ended not long before I had to wake up (sorry Mom). But the flight was about 3 hours so I got to sleep a little. Ken's friends had to pick up a rental car at the airport at the same time my flight was getting in so it was really convenient for me. However, as soon as I got to the airport I dropped my phone in the toilet leaving it incapacitated. This was extremely inconvenient because I had no idea where I was supposed to meet up with Ken and his friends. After roaming around for a little I found them and we were on our merry way back to campus. It was very interesting being in a car with someone who was driving on the left side of the road for the first time, and it was even more interesting hearing a GPS with an Aussie accent. I want one, even though I don't drive.
Anyway, we got back to campus in time for lunch (can I admit to almost missing the dining hall?) and then we played Wii until Ken had to go to class. Not surprisingly, I still suck at Wii. Ken went to class and instead of spending my time perfecting my Wii table tennis moves I decided to take a nap because I was still sleep deprived. One of Ken's roommates had quite the booming voice so when he came back to the apartment I was quickly awoken, which probably wasn't a bad thing. So I decided to be social and hang out with Ken's roommates and friends before he got back from class. While talking to them I realized one thing that I am definitely missing living in Bondi Junction with a bunch of Americans--I feel like I have a very limited Australian connection. I simply don't know many Aussies. It's unfortunate but I don't really know how to remedy that. So moving on, we watched some footie and then got some dinner and just hung out some more before going to Uni Club for the night's festivities. They had $2 rails so I ordered cranberry vodka, pretty foolproof I think, and they didn't have any cranberry juice. Seriously? Ok, not that big of a deal but I was still surprised. I got to see my friend Megan at the Uni Club too which was pretty cool. She is in the Study Australia program also and all three of us did the pre-semester trip to Hamilton Island and Cairns.
On Friday we got up pretty early, had brekky, and then got on the ferry to Magnetic Island (Maggie Island). I had my first outdoorsy experience; I actually went camping for the first time. I set up my own tent and everything (ok, with a little help). We were both pretty hungry so we decided to venture out and find someplace to get lunch. We stumbled upon the Fat Possum Cafe which was just a homey little short-order restaurant. After lunch we walked back to the hostel but instead of walking on the main street we decided to walk down the Esplanade. I saw a sign that completely summed up the feeling in the area:
The sand was so white and the water was so clear. When we got back to the hostel we just hung out on the beach before the Full Moon Party--basically the reason why we went to Maggie Island. I'm sure completely sure of the history behind the Full Moon Party but apparently it started in Thailand and a bunch of places have adopted it. Maggie Island is one of those places. It was a lot of fun, but it was just like any other club/bar. And then this random came up to us with neon green paint and brushed paint on my legs and arms. I was too confused to actually do anything about it. Ultimately the paint got on my Rainbows and it is still there even almost a month later. I guess it's not too big of a deal, my Rainbows are completely shot. So I ended up being pretty lame and falling asleep not long after midnight and had one of the worst sleeps in my life. Hard ground, no padding, no blanket... not so fun. It was so cold at night and then I woke up before 6am because it got so hot. I definitely didn't want to sleep late though so I wasn't upset about that.
On Saturday we started our day once again with the Fat Possum Cafe. I got awesome pancakes that were smothered in maple syrup and it made me miss pancake nights at the Hank residence (can we bring that back?) We were planning on doing the Forts walk--basically a nature hike through an old fort but we missed the bus and we would have had to wait another 45-ish minutes for the next one so we just decided to hang out on the beach. No too shabby of a concession. There was this random dog on the beach that grew very fond of Ken. He would follow Ken into the water and whine when no one would play. The dog, who we named Buddy for lack of anything else, developed the most interesting game. He would get a piece of wood and put it right between himself and Ken. Then it was like quickdraw to grab the stick. Buddy would lift his front paw in like a strike pose. But, he did not do fetch well. Quite an interesting dog. There were a bunch of dead-looking people on the beach probably from the craziness that was the night before and we were slightly concerned for a while but they did eventually wake up. After spending a significant amount of time in the sun we decided to go hang out at the pool at the hostel and stake out two of the hammocks. I got one but Ken wasn't quick enough. He saw some people that he knew from JCU (his school) so he was talking to them while I fell asleep. I woke up about 2 hours later (oops...) and we decided to just eat dinner at the hostel bar instead of walking over to the Fat Possum again. We had a few drinks and hung out on the beach for the rest of the night.
We were planning on leaving Maggie Island at 3:30ish so we decided to get up early (though it wasn't much of a decision because the insane heat woke me up) and try to do the Forts walk. We got brekky at the hostel then got on a bus and headed up to the trail. The walk was amazing. Apparently it is a wild koala habitat but we didn't see any during our walk. We took a bunch of the side trails and climbed up a bunch of boulders that gave us incredible views of the island. Each time we got climbed higher and higher on the island and I felt more accomplished. It was one of the most fun things I've done here. We stayed at the top lookout point for a while just to relax because it was so hot. The walk back was a lot quicker than the walk up but when we were almost at the street we saw the bus pull away. Buzzkill. So we had to wait about 30 minutes for the next bus. I guess it could be worse. It was so beautiful up there I really couldn't complain. So we took the bus back to the hostel, got our bags, and walked back to the ferry to go back to Townsville. After a long ferry ride and bus ride back to campus I was very happy just to finally shower and relax. We hung out with his roommates and his friends and decided to watch Dexter (my new obsession) and some weird movie that I could not even pay attention to. Conveniently, the same people who picked me up at the airport needed to drop the rental car off at the airport before my flight. Pretty sweet that I never had to pay for a taxi. I got to the airport pretty early to I got to make a few phone calls to some friends from home which was like the cherry on top of an awesome trip. However, once I sat down on the plane I was so lucky to have an infant next to me. The dad just said to me "So, have you ever flown next to a baby before?" and laughed. Jackass. The baby didn't cry too much though so I guess that's good. Seriously, why do you need to travel when you have 1 year olds?
Anyway, that was my trip to Townsville and Maggie Island. Sorry it has taken me almost a month to share it. At the moment I am working on a Snapfish account so I can share pictures with those non-facebook folk (aka my parents and everyone they want to show). I'll post the site later.
I'm starting another post right after I publish this one so get excited!
I got back from Melbourne on August 31st and I was back on a plane to Townsville on the September 3rd to visit my friend Ken from Wantagh (it's ok, he didn't go to Wantagh High School, he went to Chaminade.) He is also in the Study Australia program but goes to James Cook Uni. My flight was at 6am and my roommates were very surprised that I made it. Those who have lived with me know I hate mornings, especially when the night before ended not long before I had to wake up (sorry Mom). But the flight was about 3 hours so I got to sleep a little. Ken's friends had to pick up a rental car at the airport at the same time my flight was getting in so it was really convenient for me. However, as soon as I got to the airport I dropped my phone in the toilet leaving it incapacitated. This was extremely inconvenient because I had no idea where I was supposed to meet up with Ken and his friends. After roaming around for a little I found them and we were on our merry way back to campus. It was very interesting being in a car with someone who was driving on the left side of the road for the first time, and it was even more interesting hearing a GPS with an Aussie accent. I want one, even though I don't drive.
Anyway, we got back to campus in time for lunch (can I admit to almost missing the dining hall?) and then we played Wii until Ken had to go to class. Not surprisingly, I still suck at Wii. Ken went to class and instead of spending my time perfecting my Wii table tennis moves I decided to take a nap because I was still sleep deprived. One of Ken's roommates had quite the booming voice so when he came back to the apartment I was quickly awoken, which probably wasn't a bad thing. So I decided to be social and hang out with Ken's roommates and friends before he got back from class. While talking to them I realized one thing that I am definitely missing living in Bondi Junction with a bunch of Americans--I feel like I have a very limited Australian connection. I simply don't know many Aussies. It's unfortunate but I don't really know how to remedy that. So moving on, we watched some footie and then got some dinner and just hung out some more before going to Uni Club for the night's festivities. They had $2 rails so I ordered cranberry vodka, pretty foolproof I think, and they didn't have any cranberry juice. Seriously? Ok, not that big of a deal but I was still surprised. I got to see my friend Megan at the Uni Club too which was pretty cool. She is in the Study Australia program also and all three of us did the pre-semester trip to Hamilton Island and Cairns.
On Friday we got up pretty early, had brekky, and then got on the ferry to Magnetic Island (Maggie Island). I had my first outdoorsy experience; I actually went camping for the first time. I set up my own tent and everything (ok, with a little help). We were both pretty hungry so we decided to venture out and find someplace to get lunch. We stumbled upon the Fat Possum Cafe which was just a homey little short-order restaurant. After lunch we walked back to the hostel but instead of walking on the main street we decided to walk down the Esplanade. I saw a sign that completely summed up the feeling in the area:
The sand was so white and the water was so clear. When we got back to the hostel we just hung out on the beach before the Full Moon Party--basically the reason why we went to Maggie Island. I'm sure completely sure of the history behind the Full Moon Party but apparently it started in Thailand and a bunch of places have adopted it. Maggie Island is one of those places. It was a lot of fun, but it was just like any other club/bar. And then this random came up to us with neon green paint and brushed paint on my legs and arms. I was too confused to actually do anything about it. Ultimately the paint got on my Rainbows and it is still there even almost a month later. I guess it's not too big of a deal, my Rainbows are completely shot. So I ended up being pretty lame and falling asleep not long after midnight and had one of the worst sleeps in my life. Hard ground, no padding, no blanket... not so fun. It was so cold at night and then I woke up before 6am because it got so hot. I definitely didn't want to sleep late though so I wasn't upset about that.
On Saturday we started our day once again with the Fat Possum Cafe. I got awesome pancakes that were smothered in maple syrup and it made me miss pancake nights at the Hank residence (can we bring that back?) We were planning on doing the Forts walk--basically a nature hike through an old fort but we missed the bus and we would have had to wait another 45-ish minutes for the next one so we just decided to hang out on the beach. No too shabby of a concession. There was this random dog on the beach that grew very fond of Ken. He would follow Ken into the water and whine when no one would play. The dog, who we named Buddy for lack of anything else, developed the most interesting game. He would get a piece of wood and put it right between himself and Ken. Then it was like quickdraw to grab the stick. Buddy would lift his front paw in like a strike pose. But, he did not do fetch well. Quite an interesting dog. There were a bunch of dead-looking people on the beach probably from the craziness that was the night before and we were slightly concerned for a while but they did eventually wake up. After spending a significant amount of time in the sun we decided to go hang out at the pool at the hostel and stake out two of the hammocks. I got one but Ken wasn't quick enough. He saw some people that he knew from JCU (his school) so he was talking to them while I fell asleep. I woke up about 2 hours later (oops...) and we decided to just eat dinner at the hostel bar instead of walking over to the Fat Possum again. We had a few drinks and hung out on the beach for the rest of the night.
We were planning on leaving Maggie Island at 3:30ish so we decided to get up early (though it wasn't much of a decision because the insane heat woke me up) and try to do the Forts walk. We got brekky at the hostel then got on a bus and headed up to the trail. The walk was amazing. Apparently it is a wild koala habitat but we didn't see any during our walk. We took a bunch of the side trails and climbed up a bunch of boulders that gave us incredible views of the island. Each time we got climbed higher and higher on the island and I felt more accomplished. It was one of the most fun things I've done here. We stayed at the top lookout point for a while just to relax because it was so hot. The walk back was a lot quicker than the walk up but when we were almost at the street we saw the bus pull away. Buzzkill. So we had to wait about 30 minutes for the next bus. I guess it could be worse. It was so beautiful up there I really couldn't complain. So we took the bus back to the hostel, got our bags, and walked back to the ferry to go back to Townsville. After a long ferry ride and bus ride back to campus I was very happy just to finally shower and relax. We hung out with his roommates and his friends and decided to watch Dexter (my new obsession) and some weird movie that I could not even pay attention to. Conveniently, the same people who picked me up at the airport needed to drop the rental car off at the airport before my flight. Pretty sweet that I never had to pay for a taxi. I got to the airport pretty early to I got to make a few phone calls to some friends from home which was like the cherry on top of an awesome trip. However, once I sat down on the plane I was so lucky to have an infant next to me. The dad just said to me "So, have you ever flown next to a baby before?" and laughed. Jackass. The baby didn't cry too much though so I guess that's good. Seriously, why do you need to travel when you have 1 year olds?
Anyway, that was my trip to Townsville and Maggie Island. Sorry it has taken me almost a month to share it. At the moment I am working on a Snapfish account so I can share pictures with those non-facebook folk (aka my parents and everyone they want to show). I'll post the site later.
I'm starting another post right after I publish this one so get excited!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
St. Kilda and more roaming: Melbourne part 4 and 5
The guys were flying home today so we decided to split up. I went over to the Queen Victoria Market after breakfast for a little by myself just to walk around and also to get another doughnut... the things were addicting. When I was walking around part of the market we initially missed (it was that big) I passed this guy selling wine. They had some in bottles but most was just in barrels. The company was "ReWine." Basically, if you brought your own wine bottle you got $2 off the price of the wine. It was an awesome concept. Recycling can only do so much; reusing is where it is at. So he let me try some of the wines (yes, this is at like 10am) and I was talking to him about things to do in Melbourne and also about the company (very eco-friendly). After all that I decided to get this Spanish wine that was incredible. Wine in hand I headed back to the hostel.
Gina and I found out about a craft fair in St. Kilda and figured we would take the bus to check that out. St. Kilda is a suburb of Melbourne with a beach (if you can even call it that), a boardwalk, a bunch of stores, and Luna Park (an amusement park). It was real cold, especially by the water. We walked around for a while looking at the craft tents. There were a bunch of people selling jewelry, pictures, clothing, and even cutting boards and other woodwork. I got another souvenir from that craft fair. We walked down to the beach and it was pretty disappointing. There was debris everywhere--bottles, garbage, etc. Pretty depressing. We didn't really know what else to do there so we just headed back to the city to continue our adventures for the day.
By the time we got back to the city we were definitely thinking about lunch. We decided to go back to Lygon St. (the Italian area). When traveling, do as the locals do. With that in mind, we followed a bunch of people into the busiest Italian restaurant on the street. The food was real good, but still nothing like home. After lunch we walked around more parks and saw a group of like 100+ people on speed bikes drinking beer. Yes, very bad combination. I went up to one of them and asked what they were doing and it was something like a skidding competition. It didn't really make sense when he was explaining it but we stayed and watched for a little. Basically, each person had a turn to race up to this line and then they had to skid on their tires and the person who skid the farthest won. It was interesting to say the least. We definitely didn't stay too long. We continued our walk and passed the Melbourne Museum which pretty much looked like a rubix cube. We just continued to wander around and made it back to Federation Square all the way on the other side of the city. We walked through the back alleys of the Square and saw the most amazing graffiti that I had ever seen. During my time here I have come to realize that Australians see graffiti as art, not destruction. It was pretty cold so after that we just decided to head back to our hostel.
The Melbourne Underground Film Festival was going on the entire time we were in Melbourne and we were planning on going to the closing night on Sunday. However, when we found out how far away it was and that transportation was somewhat unreliable we just decided to stay in and drink the wine I got at the market. We called it a pretty early night since we had to wake up early and check out on Monday.
I tried to wake up extra early on Monday and find a post office to ship the gift that I got for my parents. It is somewhat large and is going to be difficult to get home. Long story short, the post office wouldn't ship it and I couldn't find the FedEx that I got directions to. So about two hours after I left I returned to the hostel and Gina and I proceeded on our last day of Melbourne adventures. Initially we were going to take a bus down to the Docklands area but we realized that we really didn't have enough time. So instead we headed down to our favorite area, Lygon St, once again for some gelato. It was pretty fabulous. I got a Toblerone flavor and Gina got lemon and blood orange. When we were done we walked around the outskirts of the city a little, saw the huge rock climbing wall, saw the restaurant "Witches in Britches" (which we initially thought was Witches and Bitches, the sign wasn't too clear) and then walked back to our hostel because it was time to catch the bus back to the airport.
The ride to the airport was easy, but once we got to the airport there were plenty of problems with my luggage. They made me check my bag and the gift I got for my parents and I was convinced the latter was going to get destroyed. Luckily it got to Sydney undamaged and we were able to get on the train and head home after a long weekend of traveling. Or almost a week of traveling...
And it was going to be 3 days until I was back in the Sydney airport...
Well, that's Melbourne. Finally.
Gina and I found out about a craft fair in St. Kilda and figured we would take the bus to check that out. St. Kilda is a suburb of Melbourne with a beach (if you can even call it that), a boardwalk, a bunch of stores, and Luna Park (an amusement park). It was real cold, especially by the water. We walked around for a while looking at the craft tents. There were a bunch of people selling jewelry, pictures, clothing, and even cutting boards and other woodwork. I got another souvenir from that craft fair. We walked down to the beach and it was pretty disappointing. There was debris everywhere--bottles, garbage, etc. Pretty depressing. We didn't really know what else to do there so we just headed back to the city to continue our adventures for the day.
By the time we got back to the city we were definitely thinking about lunch. We decided to go back to Lygon St. (the Italian area). When traveling, do as the locals do. With that in mind, we followed a bunch of people into the busiest Italian restaurant on the street. The food was real good, but still nothing like home. After lunch we walked around more parks and saw a group of like 100+ people on speed bikes drinking beer. Yes, very bad combination. I went up to one of them and asked what they were doing and it was something like a skidding competition. It didn't really make sense when he was explaining it but we stayed and watched for a little. Basically, each person had a turn to race up to this line and then they had to skid on their tires and the person who skid the farthest won. It was interesting to say the least. We definitely didn't stay too long. We continued our walk and passed the Melbourne Museum which pretty much looked like a rubix cube. We just continued to wander around and made it back to Federation Square all the way on the other side of the city. We walked through the back alleys of the Square and saw the most amazing graffiti that I had ever seen. During my time here I have come to realize that Australians see graffiti as art, not destruction. It was pretty cold so after that we just decided to head back to our hostel.
The Melbourne Underground Film Festival was going on the entire time we were in Melbourne and we were planning on going to the closing night on Sunday. However, when we found out how far away it was and that transportation was somewhat unreliable we just decided to stay in and drink the wine I got at the market. We called it a pretty early night since we had to wake up early and check out on Monday.
I tried to wake up extra early on Monday and find a post office to ship the gift that I got for my parents. It is somewhat large and is going to be difficult to get home. Long story short, the post office wouldn't ship it and I couldn't find the FedEx that I got directions to. So about two hours after I left I returned to the hostel and Gina and I proceeded on our last day of Melbourne adventures. Initially we were going to take a bus down to the Docklands area but we realized that we really didn't have enough time. So instead we headed down to our favorite area, Lygon St, once again for some gelato. It was pretty fabulous. I got a Toblerone flavor and Gina got lemon and blood orange. When we were done we walked around the outskirts of the city a little, saw the huge rock climbing wall, saw the restaurant "Witches in Britches" (which we initially thought was Witches and Bitches, the sign wasn't too clear) and then walked back to our hostel because it was time to catch the bus back to the airport.
The ride to the airport was easy, but once we got to the airport there were plenty of problems with my luggage. They made me check my bag and the gift I got for my parents and I was convinced the latter was going to get destroyed. Luckily it got to Sydney undamaged and we were able to get on the train and head home after a long weekend of traveling. Or almost a week of traveling...
And it was going to be 3 days until I was back in the Sydney airport...
Well, that's Melbourne. Finally.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Where's the little guy/Roald Dahl: Melbourne part 3
On Saturday we made sure to wake up early again to get our free brekky. During breakfast we decided that we were going to go straight to the AFL (Australian Football League) game from the hostel. The title of this post comes from a comment made while getting ready for the game. Long story short, we started calling Chris "the little guy" and later "Roald Dahl". Anyway, we all got ready and jumped on the free tram to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We had to walk a little to the stadium but it was pretty awesome. The game was actually really intense. There were fans of both teams with huge pompoms on their respective sides of the field. People were all dressed up in team apparel and such. Not much different from a normal football game. The Hawthorn Hawks and the Essedon Bombers (much more badass than the Sydney Swans...). We wanted Hawthorn to win, or so we were told. The Hawks had a significant lead into the 4th quarter an then they just blew it. The funny thing was the Hawks had the ball at the end but I wasn't sure when the end was! I don't understand sports that have timers that count up instead of down. So it was like hot potato, I didn't really know exactly when the game was going to end, only that it was ending soon and that they had to score soon! But they didn't and it was depressing, I guess. But overall it was definitely the most fun sporting event I've been to here. After the game we hopped on the same tram and went back to the hostel to figure out our plans for the rest of the day.
By the time we got home we were all pretty hungry and thought about dinner plans. We decided to go check out the Greek Precinct and Chinatown. When we got there, Chinatown was definitely more festive and decorated but we decided that we have enough Asian food in Sydney and we should branch out. We stopped at this small Greek place and had souvlaki and other typical Greek food. It was pretty good, but probably nothing like what Shannon got to eat this summer.
Well after dinner we decided to go to... the Velvet Underground! Starting to see a pattern? We had no idea what to do at night so the VU was a good place to start, as always. When we got there, no one was in the bar. I mean, besides us there were maybe 3-5 other people. It was odd. We decided to play some kind of drinking game and after much deliberation we decided on speed quarters. But it was more like speed 10 cent coins with smaller than normal shot glasses. So, it took a little getting used to. We stocked up on jugs (pitchers) before happy hour ended and then continued to play for a while. I think it was about 10pm when the bartender said it was last call. Let me remind you this was on Saturday night. But we were basically unfazed since we had already thought ahead. We stayed there and about 15 minutes after the staff left a guy came down looking to have a drink. He was pretty pissed to see that it was closed but we started talking to him for a little. His name was Brian and he was from Ireland but he had lived in Australia for a while (mixed Irish and Australian accent, awesome.) He told us about this bar he works at so we decided to go there that night. So after finishing off our jugs we headed up to our room to get ready to go out.
Brian told us to go to the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre and then to the Lion Hotel (in Australia bars are very often called hotels). It was really cool. When we got there, a live cover band was just starting. Some jackass tried climbing onto the lighting fixtures by the band and he quickly got tackled by the bouncers. (Later we learned that he was an American and it was his birthday, making this shenanigan even worse.) We saw the bartender pouring this weird shot that we later found out was called the blue waterfall or something. He lit a bunch of alcohol on fire in a cup and then poured the flaming alcohol into a shot glass and then covered it with the glass and then the person taking the shot inhaled the smoke from the alcohol burning. It looked totally unsafe and unpleasant and way too confusing. The guys left not too long after being in the bar and Gina and I left to go to a different bar after a while. The other bar kind of sucked so we called it a night and went home.
Andddd that was day 3.
By the time we got home we were all pretty hungry and thought about dinner plans. We decided to go check out the Greek Precinct and Chinatown. When we got there, Chinatown was definitely more festive and decorated but we decided that we have enough Asian food in Sydney and we should branch out. We stopped at this small Greek place and had souvlaki and other typical Greek food. It was pretty good, but probably nothing like what Shannon got to eat this summer.
Well after dinner we decided to go to... the Velvet Underground! Starting to see a pattern? We had no idea what to do at night so the VU was a good place to start, as always. When we got there, no one was in the bar. I mean, besides us there were maybe 3-5 other people. It was odd. We decided to play some kind of drinking game and after much deliberation we decided on speed quarters. But it was more like speed 10 cent coins with smaller than normal shot glasses. So, it took a little getting used to. We stocked up on jugs (pitchers) before happy hour ended and then continued to play for a while. I think it was about 10pm when the bartender said it was last call. Let me remind you this was on Saturday night. But we were basically unfazed since we had already thought ahead. We stayed there and about 15 minutes after the staff left a guy came down looking to have a drink. He was pretty pissed to see that it was closed but we started talking to him for a little. His name was Brian and he was from Ireland but he had lived in Australia for a while (mixed Irish and Australian accent, awesome.) He told us about this bar he works at so we decided to go there that night. So after finishing off our jugs we headed up to our room to get ready to go out.
Brian told us to go to the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre and then to the Lion Hotel (in Australia bars are very often called hotels). It was really cool. When we got there, a live cover band was just starting. Some jackass tried climbing onto the lighting fixtures by the band and he quickly got tackled by the bouncers. (Later we learned that he was an American and it was his birthday, making this shenanigan even worse.) We saw the bartender pouring this weird shot that we later found out was called the blue waterfall or something. He lit a bunch of alcohol on fire in a cup and then poured the flaming alcohol into a shot glass and then covered it with the glass and then the person taking the shot inhaled the smoke from the alcohol burning. It looked totally unsafe and unpleasant and way too confusing. The guys left not too long after being in the bar and Gina and I left to go to a different bar after a while. The other bar kind of sucked so we called it a night and went home.
Andddd that was day 3.
You had me at free drink: Melbourne part 2
On Friday we all woke up early (mainly because we were getting free brekky) and then decided to walk around the city. We started with Queen Victoria Market again and it was HUGE! There were vendors selling everything from tourist-y keychains, one-of-a-kind paintings, leather jackets, sweatshirts, etc. It was awesome. I was able to snag a few souvenirs during that trip. Gina was able to find real Australian Uggs for a steal. There were so many vendors selling Uggs, we were bound to find some inexpensive ones. Through the journey we got separated from the guys so we just reconvened at our hostel, dropped off our purchases, and continued our walk around the city.
We walked back down to Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, and then along the Yarra River. Near the Flinders Street Station there was a group of people handing out these brochures and when they saw us holding a map and looking a little lost one of them came right over to ask if we needed help. She gave us this map of the free tram and bus system in Melbourne. It ended up being really useful later in the weekend. We got lunch in this little food court and then we split up--the guys went to this 360 degree observation tower looking over the city and Gina and I walked over to the Olympic park and the Royal Botanic Gardens. The Olympic park was huge and they were still building on it! There were stadiums for tennis (the Australian Open), football (AFL), soccer, rugby, etc. We ran into this guy and he asked us for directions (maybe we are starting to look like locals!!) but when he heard our accent he got really excited that we were from America. He asked if either of us was from California and Gina is. He got even more excited because he was "half Australian and half Californian." We didn't really know what to say to that because it sounded pretty ridiculous. We then crossed the street (Batman St) over to the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was incredible. There were a bunch of different sections, like the rainforest section, the grey section, the rose gardens. The were ponds and benches set up everywhere. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. We walked around there for a few hours and took lots of pictures. By the end of our walk we realized we were very far from our hostel, but that free bus map came in handy. There was a bus stop right outside the gardens so we searched it out and took it part of the way back. We met the guys back at the hostel, they had spent the day roaming around the city as well and they went to the casino, which is apparently the biggest one in Australia. I wish I made it out there but we only have so much time.
By the time we got back, we definitely had to start thinking about dinner. We decided to head to Lygon St. (the Italian precinct) for some food. The walk from our hostel was really short. When we got onto Lygon St. we realized that it wasn't just Italian food; there was plenty of Thai, Indian, Chinese, etc, also. But we had our minds set on Italian. We passed a few places and then the owner of this one restaurant was standing outside and pretty much cornering people and convincing them into coming to eat there. He told us we got a free drink with dinner. We were convinced. That didn't stop him from talking. They had typical Italian food and I got risotto. I was a little disappointed but I was very happy to be eating Italian food finally.
After dinner we decided to head back to our hostel and check out the happenings at the Velvet Underground before going out for the night. Andddd it was karaoke night! Usually karaoke is terrible, but most of the singers were actually really good. Not surprisingly no one in our little group wanted to perform so after a few drinks we headed up to our room to get ready to go out. Gina knew someone in Melbourne so he decided to take us all to Chapel Street where most of the nightlife is. We had to take a taxi so I called one from the hostel but they never asked me how many people we needed to ride. So when the taxi got there all 5 of us piled into the taxi no problem. Well, about 10 minutes into the ride the taxi driver asks us how many people are in the car and we tell him and he pulls over the car and says he can't take this many people. That would have been nice to know before we got in... So two of the guys got out without knowing where they were and got another taxi. That was an interesting way to start the night... Once we got to Chapel Street we couldn't get into the first place we went to because there were too many guys in the group (bars around here are weird like that). So we went to a different place that was more like a pub than a club. The decor of the pub was quite interesting, almost Witches Brew-esque (for my New Yorkers). As per the suggestion of one of the Aussies we were with, we all tried this house beer, Fat Yak. It was amazing. It kind of tasted like a sweeter Blue Moon. We had a few drinks there and then Gina and I headed back to the first bar we tried with Gina's friend and the guys decided to call it a night and head home. Gina and I hung out at the first bar for a while talking to the Aussies and learning more about stuff to do in Melbourne and the rest of Australia. We went home not too long after getting there because we knew we were going to be waking up early the next day.
Ok, so that was day 2...
We walked back down to Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, and then along the Yarra River. Near the Flinders Street Station there was a group of people handing out these brochures and when they saw us holding a map and looking a little lost one of them came right over to ask if we needed help. She gave us this map of the free tram and bus system in Melbourne. It ended up being really useful later in the weekend. We got lunch in this little food court and then we split up--the guys went to this 360 degree observation tower looking over the city and Gina and I walked over to the Olympic park and the Royal Botanic Gardens. The Olympic park was huge and they were still building on it! There were stadiums for tennis (the Australian Open), football (AFL), soccer, rugby, etc. We ran into this guy and he asked us for directions (maybe we are starting to look like locals!!) but when he heard our accent he got really excited that we were from America. He asked if either of us was from California and Gina is. He got even more excited because he was "half Australian and half Californian." We didn't really know what to say to that because it sounded pretty ridiculous. We then crossed the street (Batman St) over to the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was incredible. There were a bunch of different sections, like the rainforest section, the grey section, the rose gardens. The were ponds and benches set up everywhere. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. We walked around there for a few hours and took lots of pictures. By the end of our walk we realized we were very far from our hostel, but that free bus map came in handy. There was a bus stop right outside the gardens so we searched it out and took it part of the way back. We met the guys back at the hostel, they had spent the day roaming around the city as well and they went to the casino, which is apparently the biggest one in Australia. I wish I made it out there but we only have so much time.
By the time we got back, we definitely had to start thinking about dinner. We decided to head to Lygon St. (the Italian precinct) for some food. The walk from our hostel was really short. When we got onto Lygon St. we realized that it wasn't just Italian food; there was plenty of Thai, Indian, Chinese, etc, also. But we had our minds set on Italian. We passed a few places and then the owner of this one restaurant was standing outside and pretty much cornering people and convincing them into coming to eat there. He told us we got a free drink with dinner. We were convinced. That didn't stop him from talking. They had typical Italian food and I got risotto. I was a little disappointed but I was very happy to be eating Italian food finally.
After dinner we decided to head back to our hostel and check out the happenings at the Velvet Underground before going out for the night. Andddd it was karaoke night! Usually karaoke is terrible, but most of the singers were actually really good. Not surprisingly no one in our little group wanted to perform so after a few drinks we headed up to our room to get ready to go out. Gina knew someone in Melbourne so he decided to take us all to Chapel Street where most of the nightlife is. We had to take a taxi so I called one from the hostel but they never asked me how many people we needed to ride. So when the taxi got there all 5 of us piled into the taxi no problem. Well, about 10 minutes into the ride the taxi driver asks us how many people are in the car and we tell him and he pulls over the car and says he can't take this many people. That would have been nice to know before we got in... So two of the guys got out without knowing where they were and got another taxi. That was an interesting way to start the night... Once we got to Chapel Street we couldn't get into the first place we went to because there were too many guys in the group (bars around here are weird like that). So we went to a different place that was more like a pub than a club. The decor of the pub was quite interesting, almost Witches Brew-esque (for my New Yorkers). As per the suggestion of one of the Aussies we were with, we all tried this house beer, Fat Yak. It was amazing. It kind of tasted like a sweeter Blue Moon. We had a few drinks there and then Gina and I headed back to the first bar we tried with Gina's friend and the guys decided to call it a night and head home. Gina and I hung out at the first bar for a while talking to the Aussies and learning more about stuff to do in Melbourne and the rest of Australia. We went home not too long after getting there because we knew we were going to be waking up early the next day.
Ok, so that was day 2...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Take my scissors, but not my ID: Melbourne part 1
This past weekend I went to Melbourne (pronounced more like Melbin) with Gina, Ean, Jeff, and Chris. I left Thursday morning with Gina and the guys met us there Thursday night. The title of this post comes from one of our first somewhat ridiculous experiences during traveling. In the airport, they never once checked my ID when I was getting on the plane. Not to get my boarding pass, not to go through security, not to go on the plane. They did, however, take away my tiny safety scissors. Seriously? Oh, airport security.
Also, who would have known that the Melbourne airport isn't in Melbourne? There are two different airports and I figured they were like JFK and LaGuardia--both very accessible. I was very wrong. The other Melbourne airport, which was actually in Avalon, was about an hour from the city. It was like flying into MacArthur airport or something. We booked the hostel that we did because they had a free airport transfer but of course it was from the other airport. Well, live and learn I guess.
After the flight and hour bus ride we arrived at the Hotel Discovery, a hostel in the central business district. We had a 6-bed room and it was dorm style (communal bathroom). The beds were actually pretty comfortable and nothing was falling apart, so it was promising overall. Luckily we were traveling with guys who also have some pretty low standards.
Before the guys got there, Gina and I decided to walk around a little bit. There was a market, the Queen Victoria Market, right by the hostel so we decided to walk through there first but it was starting to close down (at 2 pm!). There was a food court there though so we stopped and had some lunch before continuing our adventures. As per the recommendations of a friend we walked down to Federation Square. There were a bunch of awesome buildings; it was definitely really artsy. We past some shopping malls but they were RIDICULOUSLY expensive. We didn't even bother stopping to go shop. Just past Federation Square was Queen Victoria Garden (detecting a pattern yet?). It was really pretty and we were exhausted so we ended up just laying down in the grass for a little while. Eventually we decided to get up and head back to the hostel and wait for the guys to arrive. Once we were all settled in we decided to go get some dinner. We walked back in the direction of Federation Square because we passed a lot of restaurants but by the time we got there most had stopped serving food. So, we ate at this Italian place run by Asian people with Australian accents (multicultural at its best). We headed back to get ready to go out. However, by the time we got back the buses and trams had stopped running, and even if they were running we would still probably have a problem because of our unfamiliarity (later we realized they were really easy to figure out). So, we decided to hang out in the hostel bar, The Velvet Underground. It was techno night and there were probably a total of 15 people there including us. We just observed some crazy people dancing, watched this one creepy guy walk around aimlessly talking to himself (more stories about this guy coming), and planned out our next few days. We called it an early night so we could get up early on Friday to start another day of adventures.
Well, that's Melbourne part 1. Much more to come hopefully tomorrow, but now its definitely time for bed.
Also, who would have known that the Melbourne airport isn't in Melbourne? There are two different airports and I figured they were like JFK and LaGuardia--both very accessible. I was very wrong. The other Melbourne airport, which was actually in Avalon, was about an hour from the city. It was like flying into MacArthur airport or something. We booked the hostel that we did because they had a free airport transfer but of course it was from the other airport. Well, live and learn I guess.
After the flight and hour bus ride we arrived at the Hotel Discovery, a hostel in the central business district. We had a 6-bed room and it was dorm style (communal bathroom). The beds were actually pretty comfortable and nothing was falling apart, so it was promising overall. Luckily we were traveling with guys who also have some pretty low standards.
Before the guys got there, Gina and I decided to walk around a little bit. There was a market, the Queen Victoria Market, right by the hostel so we decided to walk through there first but it was starting to close down (at 2 pm!). There was a food court there though so we stopped and had some lunch before continuing our adventures. As per the recommendations of a friend we walked down to Federation Square. There were a bunch of awesome buildings; it was definitely really artsy. We past some shopping malls but they were RIDICULOUSLY expensive. We didn't even bother stopping to go shop. Just past Federation Square was Queen Victoria Garden (detecting a pattern yet?). It was really pretty and we were exhausted so we ended up just laying down in the grass for a little while. Eventually we decided to get up and head back to the hostel and wait for the guys to arrive. Once we were all settled in we decided to go get some dinner. We walked back in the direction of Federation Square because we passed a lot of restaurants but by the time we got there most had stopped serving food. So, we ate at this Italian place run by Asian people with Australian accents (multicultural at its best). We headed back to get ready to go out. However, by the time we got back the buses and trams had stopped running, and even if they were running we would still probably have a problem because of our unfamiliarity (later we realized they were really easy to figure out). So, we decided to hang out in the hostel bar, The Velvet Underground. It was techno night and there were probably a total of 15 people there including us. We just observed some crazy people dancing, watched this one creepy guy walk around aimlessly talking to himself (more stories about this guy coming), and planned out our next few days. We called it an early night so we could get up early on Friday to start another day of adventures.
Well, that's Melbourne part 1. Much more to come hopefully tomorrow, but now its definitely time for bed.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
So, it's been a while...
First, I would like to apologize for the delay in updates. I have no excuses, I've just been lazy. So here goes a long list of things I have done lately. They may not be in chronological order because my memory sucks.
Since my last post I have gone to the Australian Museum, an Australian Rules Football game, Max Brenner's, Bikram Yoga, and random adventures around the city and beach. I will start with the museum because I will be a nerd and admit it was the coolest.
When Gina, Marcus and I got the the museum we went right to the dinosaur exhibit. Marcus was amazed because I think he didn't believe in dinosaurs. We first saw a skeleton and then as we walked arou
nd there were dinosaur recreations and videos playing. I took a bunch of pictures at the stegosaurus section to amuse Jackie Dolan's obsession. One section was a hands-on paleontologist exhibit where we got to talk to one (or we had the opportunity to do so, but some old woman would not shut up). We got to use a brush in this pile of fake dirt to find bones and stuff. It was pretty cool. We then ventured around through the birds and insects and other animals and saw stuff that was unique to Australia an some that was endangered or extinct (obviously models of those animals). It was interesting to see species that I had never seen before. We then found this room with a bunch of computers with digital teaching programs, books, and an art section. This was definitely used for kids but of course we stayed in there for a while and played on the computers. But in the same room there was a terrarium with stick insects (living) and the keeper told us all about them, like how the males and females differed and how the species differed. Then he let us hold them for a little while. They were constantly trying to climb up, like feeling around for something higher to grab
on to. All of the insects really did look like leaves, really good at blending in. The last exhibit we went to was EASILY my favorite... CLIMATE CHANGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY! The whole exhibit was built with recycled cardboard and it was so interactive. There was one display where we got to dance on floor tiles and generate electricity, a technology some dance studios and dance clubs are looking into. There was an interactive game-type thing were with four players and you were each a leader of a different country and you had to make decisions about green issues but every decision you made affected your budget, popularity, or green status. The winner was head of the next world green conference (great prize, right?). Regardless, we stood there playing it for quite a while. There was a board were you could post a card with what you will do to help the environment. There were some really funny ones. One of them was something like this girl won't straighten her hair as much, another one said he will wear a snuggie instead of turning the heat on. Almost all of the cards were written by kids but that didn't stop Marcus, Gina, and I from adding to the board. I don't think it mattered too much because the exhibit was ending two days later (we got there just in time!). Just walking around the entire exhibit was so cool because it was all stuff I have been researching, reading about, and studying for the past 3+ years. We finally walked th
rough an exhibit with a bunch of skeletons of more modern species. Th
ere was this weird display of a human reading a book with a dog next to him and a cat chasing a mouse... all skeletons. It was boarderline creepy. After that we decided to get some dinner in the Harbor and head back home.
Last weekend I initally had plans to go to Wollongong with a few friends but I decided to stay in Sydney and go to an AFL game on Saturday night, the Sydney Swans vs. Geelong (really Sydney, you couldn't think of anything more intimidating than the Swans?). The game was in the Olympic Park, which is absolutely incredible. We were only in a small part of it, too. I definitely have to go back there and roam around to see all of the stadiums. So, it took us a while to get to the stadium so we got there a little before half time. Luckily I was sitting next to my friend Ben who is playing AFL for USyd. I kept badgering him about what was going on, but at least now I kind of understand the sport. At half time they set up like 6 or 7 smaller fields and little kid teams got to play. That has to be one of the coolest things ever, getting to play on the Olympic field. I mean, I am probably 8-10 years older than those kids and I would be stoked. Unfortunately we lost by 1 point and sadly I didn't even really notice when the game ended (I don't understand why some sports count up instead of down). The trek home was terrible, it took us over an hour and by the time we got home we all just wanted to sleep so that we did. But it was an awesome night and I'm glad I stayed in Sydney to see the game.
Apparently we have Max Brenner's at home so when I get back to NY I am finding it and going there. It is a chocolate bar. It is glory. I went there a few nights ago with Gina, Ben, Colin, and Everett and I think we all agreed that the trip must be repeated. Gina and I split waffles with chocolate, bananas, strawberries, and ice cream. If I ate the whole thing myself I would have exploded. I didn't feel too bad because earlier I did...
Bikram yoga! I just discovered this because there is a studio about a 3 minute walk from my apartment. It is essentially yoga in a sauna. The room is about 40 degrees C (roughly 104 degrees F) and really humid. Pretty much as soon as you walk in you start sweating. It is pretty awesome though. It feels good to work out again. At least my Dad will be happy with that.
So other than that I have just been venturing around the city and the beach, exploring and adventuring. Gina is taking a photography class so I go with her to Centenial Park, Hyde Park, and Bondi Beach when she takes pictures, mainly because I have no other plans. The parks are so beautiful here. Hyde Park reminds me so much of Bryant Park.
The next two weeks are going to be packed with excitement. On Wednesday I have my first assignment due, Thursday I leave for Melbourne with Gina, Jeff, Ean, and Chris. I come back Monday and then then Thursday I leave for Townsville and come back Monday. So I will have plenty of adventures to report.
Until then,
Lara
PS: I am trying to be more creative with the blog, so I hope you like the pictures. I'll keep them coming in later posts!
Since my last post I have gone to the Australian Museum, an Australian Rules Football game, Max Brenner's, Bikram Yoga, and random adventures around the city and beach. I will start with the museum because I will be a nerd and admit it was the coolest.
When Gina, Marcus and I got the the museum we went right to the dinosaur exhibit. Marcus was amazed because I think he didn't believe in dinosaurs. We first saw a skeleton and then as we walked arou
nd there were dinosaur recreations and videos playing. I took a bunch of pictures at the stegosaurus section to amuse Jackie Dolan's obsession. One section was a hands-on paleontologist exhibit where we got to talk to one (or we had the opportunity to do so, but some old woman would not shut up). We got to use a brush in this pile of fake dirt to find bones and stuff. It was pretty cool. We then ventured around through the birds and insects and other animals and saw stuff that was unique to Australia an some that was endangered or extinct (obviously models of those animals). It was interesting to see species that I had never seen before. We then found this room with a bunch of computers with digital teaching programs, books, and an art section. This was definitely used for kids but of course we stayed in there for a while and played on the computers. But in the same room there was a terrarium with stick insects (living) and the keeper told us all about them, like how the males and females differed and how the species differed. Then he let us hold them for a little while. They were constantly trying to climb up, like feeling around for something higher to grab
on to. All of the insects really did look like leaves, really good at blending in. The last exhibit we went to was EASILY my favorite... CLIMATE CHANGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY! The whole exhibit was built with recycled cardboard and it was so interactive. There was one display where we got to dance on floor tiles and generate electricity, a technology some dance studios and dance clubs are looking into. There was an interactive game-type thing were with four players and you were each a leader of a different country and you had to make decisions about green issues but every decision you made affected your budget, popularity, or green status. The winner was head of the next world green conference (great prize, right?). Regardless, we stood there playing it for quite a while. There was a board were you could post a card with what you will do to help the environment. There were some really funny ones. One of them was something like this girl won't straighten her hair as much, another one said he will wear a snuggie instead of turning the heat on. Almost all of the cards were written by kids but that didn't stop Marcus, Gina, and I from adding to the board. I don't think it mattered too much because the exhibit was ending two days later (we got there just in time!). Just walking around the entire exhibit was so cool because it was all stuff I have been researching, reading about, and studying for the past 3+ years. We finally walked th
rough an exhibit with a bunch of skeletons of more modern species. Th
ere was this weird display of a human reading a book with a dog next to him and a cat chasing a mouse... all skeletons. It was boarderline creepy. After that we decided to get some dinner in the Harbor and head back home.Last weekend I initally had plans to go to Wollongong with a few friends but I decided to stay in Sydney and go to an AFL game on Saturday night, the Sydney Swans vs. Geelong (really Sydney, you couldn't think of anything more intimidating than the Swans?). The game was in the Olympic Park, which is absolutely incredible. We were only in a small part of it, too. I definitely have to go back there and roam around to see all of the stadiums. So, it took us a while to get to the stadium so we got there a little before half time. Luckily I was sitting next to my friend Ben who is playing AFL for USyd. I kept badgering him about what was going on, but at least now I kind of understand the sport. At half time they set up like 6 or 7 smaller fields and little kid teams got to play. That has to be one of the coolest things ever, getting to play on the Olympic field. I mean, I am probably 8-10 years older than those kids and I would be stoked. Unfortunately we lost by 1 point and sadly I didn't even really notice when the game ended (I don't understand why some sports count up instead of down). The trek home was terrible, it took us over an hour and by the time we got home we all just wanted to sleep so that we did. But it was an awesome night and I'm glad I stayed in Sydney to see the game.
Apparently we have Max Brenner's at home so when I get back to NY I am finding it and going there. It is a chocolate bar. It is glory. I went there a few nights ago with Gina, Ben, Colin, and Everett and I think we all agreed that the trip must be repeated. Gina and I split waffles with chocolate, bananas, strawberries, and ice cream. If I ate the whole thing myself I would have exploded. I didn't feel too bad because earlier I did...
Bikram yoga! I just discovered this because there is a studio about a 3 minute walk from my apartment. It is essentially yoga in a sauna. The room is about 40 degrees C (roughly 104 degrees F) and really humid. Pretty much as soon as you walk in you start sweating. It is pretty awesome though. It feels good to work out again. At least my Dad will be happy with that.
So other than that I have just been venturing around the city and the beach, exploring and adventuring. Gina is taking a photography class so I go with her to Centenial Park, Hyde Park, and Bondi Beach when she takes pictures, mainly because I have no other plans. The parks are so beautiful here. Hyde Park reminds me so much of Bryant Park.
The next two weeks are going to be packed with excitement. On Wednesday I have my first assignment due, Thursday I leave for Melbourne with Gina, Jeff, Ean, and Chris. I come back Monday and then then Thursday I leave for Townsville and come back Monday. So I will have plenty of adventures to report.
Until then,
Lara
PS: I am trying to be more creative with the blog, so I hope you like the pictures. I'll keep them coming in later posts!
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