I LIKE TO... MOVE IT!

Currently, I am sittin gin my hostel in Airlie Beach which is the place to be in order to get to the Whitsundays. The entire day has been a nice reprieve from the constant moving i had been doing the past few days. Here's a quick recap of my life:

Friday Left Brisbane to head out to Hervey Bay (whale watching capitol of the world)

Saturday Left Hervey Bay at 7 a.m. to head ot to Fraser Island, a World Heritage site, and the largest sand island in the world. Spend all day sightseeing, swimming and hanging out with the people i meet there. Fun fact: it is one of the primary reasons that the Great Barrier Reef has been able to survive--Fraser Island collects the sand that wold otherwise erode the reef.

Sunday Wake up early on Fraser Island to do some more touring, swimming and 4WDriving! Get back to the hostel around 9:30 p.m. then proceed to catch up on emails until Midnight

Monday Hang out at the hostel all day until my bus arrives at 8:50 p.m. then we are making our way to Airlie Beach!

Tuesday Arrive at Airlie Beach about 9:30 in the morning and hang around the giant lagoon and the harbour that this lovely town sits around.

Basically, I have been sleeping in a different place ever night for the past week. While that was thrilling, it's nice to be somewhere and hang out. There seems to be a bit of rain coming in until Saturday, so i may have to postpone my sailing until then. Unfortunately, there's only so much to do at Airlie Beach, so i'd like to get up to Cairns sooner than later, but egal (that means doesn't matter auf Deutsch..I just think it is a simpler term and Americans should adopt it). 

Fraser Island

I headed to Fraser Island with a friend I had met at the hostel the night before. She was a wonderful French girl who could seriously make friends with anyone. Another girl happened to be going from our hostel, so we allstrted chatting while waiting for the bus. Once on the bus we ran into a wonderful woman from the UK. She was British but living in Aberdeen (SHOUT OUT TO AMANDA!) which was great as that's somewhere i've actually been in Scotland so we had a good time talking about that. So that was sort of our core group of people on the trip. The entire tour group consisted of about 20 backpackers, and we eventually got to know everyone pretty well (spending two full days with people will do that), but it was nice to have a core group of people to talk to and hang out with.

On Fraser, we got to see some great stuff. It is an entirely sand island, so you can only get around by 4WD, and since it hadn't rained in a while the "road" was not only really bumpy, but also quite easy to get bogged (stuck) in. Luckily, our tour leader was incredible and we never had an issue. In fact, more often than not, we were rescuing other people! But more on that later. 

Some thing we got to see:

Shipwreck  This was actually a really cool shipwreck left on the beach. The ship had helped out in multiple wars as it was one of the fastest ships at one time. But it got shipwrecked as it was on its way to a Japanese ship dumping ground. So unfortunately there is no epic wreck story to go with it.

Lookout Point Not much to say about this other than it was really beautiful.

 

Rainbow Pinnacles: which beautiful sand pillars of orange and white. There is a beutiful aboriginal dream story about them, but unfortunately you cannot tell dream stories outside of the land they belong to, so i can never tell you about it=( Just get to Fraser Island and see them yourself! Following the rainbow pinnacles we headed out to a 

Freshwater Lake that sits atop the island. It is basiclaly a collection of rainwater that you can swim in being held up by tree debri which keeps the water from sinking into the sand.

Champagne pools which is an area of beach that is surrounded by rocks wherre the ocean water comes in creating a champagne looking effect. It was a bit rainy when we hit these so not too exciting unfrotunately

Rainforest This was cool. There is literally a small patch of rainforest area in the middle of this island. If you know anything about where Fraser Island is, and where the tropics start you'll realize this little rainforest section doesnn't belong there. But for whatever reason God decided to throw us for a loop and throw some rainforest growth up there!

River I will remember the names of these at some point, but until then this was definitely one of the highlights.  We got to run up to the top of this spring water river and take tubes down until the bottom. The water was very cold, but the sun was out and we all had great times. I know one of the girls brought her GoPro, so hopefully that video will make it to facebook in the future.

A Bogged Bus Now, I should explain that we are driving around the island in tour buses that happen to have 4WD. That is to say, not little cars with 4WD but giant tour buses. Keep that in mind. Now, like I said previously, with the lack of rain the sand wasn't stcking too well. So, this other driver (Steve) who had already broken a window on our bus, got his bus bogged. And well, his passengers were a lot of generally older folks or families with young kids. So, who gets recruited to fix the problem? WE DO! hahh but it was honestly a lot of fun. By this point we had all gotten to know each other and were cracking up about having to get under this bus and dig out sand, so i'm actually quite glad it happened.=] The only obnoxious thing was that the sand is so fine, that it literally would run back down like water when you pulled it out. So you ended up having to have teams of 2 people one person to throw ouut the sand and the other to push it further away from the bus. Things got crazy.

Anyways, that's the story of my Fraser Island trip. I'll hopefully be headed on a sailing trip later this week and then up to Cairns to do some real Great Barrier Reef diving/snorkeling. I'll try and update as I can!

ACCENT UPDATE: Unfortunately, due to the large number of Brits I hung out with on Fraser, my accent kept returning to British instead of Aussie. But, the Aussie is coming back.

IN OTHER NEWS: I either lost or had stolen all of my iPod and iPad cords. So, I am unfortunately not sure when I will gain use of my ipad again for texting/skyping/emailing etc. I am waiting to hear back from the previous hostel to see if they have found anything, but i'm pretty positive someone probably took them. =( So, I may end up having to wait a week or two before I get replacements. This also means pictures will have to be placed on this blog post at a later date. sorry!

Goodbye Brizzie!

Today has been a spectacular day.

After waking up this morning I ran to do a bunch of errands: meeting at the bank, getting travel plans sorted and itineraries printed at the State Library, packing for the next day, and generally plling my life together for departure tomorrow. At about 3:30pm I was to meet a girl who goes to the University of Queensland, who happens to be a friend of a friend. Honestly, I walked into this meeting not quite knowing what to expect. What was I supposed to talk about? I had pretty much done my time in Brisbane at this point so any suggestions she might have of things to do would be not all that helpful... I was pretty concerned over this little social interaction. HAH. As I would discover, these worries were completely unfounded. Claire was a wonderful person who helps out recruiting at her university for Semester at Sea. We had a great chat about where to go in Australia, what uni in Oz was like, how to get more Aussie students to study abroad in the US and Semester of Sea of course! It was so nice to talk to someone who completely understood where I was comng from in terms of how to travel and the best ways to experience life in other counries. Oh, and did I mention that when I stepped off the bus at the University, I was immediately handed about 6 packs of Haribo gummi bears? (mein lieblings Gummibaerchen!) It seriously could not have been better.

OH WAIT. It could. Because oddly enough, a bit before that meeting took place, a gent named Marc, who again, is a friend of a friend, texted me about wanting to possibly meet up later that night. So, right after getting back from hanging with Claire, I ran up to the hostel, threw down some of my stuff and headed out to meet up with Marc. Again, this was such a blessing. Marc was incredibly nice and quite easy to chat with--much like my lovely friend Huw who put us in contact=] (not that this is a competition or anything). Marc had gone to UVA for a semester and it was surreal to be hanging out on the other side of the world chatting with someone about Charlottesville, UVA basketball, and eating at Christians. To top it off, we ended up going to the lookout, which I didn't realize was on top of Mt. Coot-tha, the one place i'd been meaning to go all week and hadn't gotten a chance (hahah oh how sneaky God can be sometimes). Anyways, all that to say that I couldn't have asked for a better day....so thank you to Claire and Marc for showing me around, as well as Annie and Huw for putting us in contact. You all are wonderful, and it has made all the difference in my time here so far!

Before I close off here, I feel I should point out is that one of the first things I did this morning was hve a quick chat to God about how much I really just wanted someone to talk to today. Now, I've met lots of lovely people in the past week, and had a few fun conversations, but I cannot begin to tell you what a difference today made. Not only did I met up with both the connections I had through friends from home, but upon returning to the hostel chatted for about an hour with two of my roommates about life and travel and the insanity of doing a working holiday. I cannot call today anything but a huge blessing from God. Once again, when I needed it most, He came to the rescue. And, once again I am reminded that I have nothing to fear this coming year as long as I continue to lean on Him when things are hardest. I am so excited to see what other surprises He has in store this year=]

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." 

--Matthew 7:7

Paid to People Watch

This is the story of observations, gross generalizations and thoughts from this Tuesday's day of work wih a fundraising company in Australia. Let me preface this list by saying that I am not proud that I worked for this company, as they were an honestly terrible business that gave somewhere around 10% of what we made to the charities we were fundraising for, while the collectors (as we were called) got 40%. On the brightside, I met some really interesting people, got a chance to really people watch, and well, I did make a bunch of money. So, while I won't be back again, I guess the experience was a worthwhile one.

Observations, Gross Generalizations and Thoughts:

1. Everyone in Australia has tattoos.

honestly, I was at this store fundraising form 9 am to 7pm, and I saw ZERO people between the ages of 18 and 45 without at least one tattoo. Now, don't get me wrong, I love tattoos. But, it was honestly crazy to see so few people WITHOUT them.

2. Is marriage a thing? Or do people just not wear their wedding bands?

I actually will probably end up googling this not long after I post this, having forgotten to do it beforehand. But, I saw an incredible amount of pregnant women and couples with oung children and very rarely did I see wedding rings. The wedding rings I did notice were primarily on older men and women. So perhaps this is a generation gap thing? Either that people don't get married, or simply choose not to do the rings.  

3. Young men in this country are unbelievably attractive.

But seriously. The number of attractive men this country produces is astounding. They should get an award.

4. Young women are just sort of average.

This sounds mean, but I also see myself as average, and I have more to say about Australian women later on, I promise. ALSO, they're really incredibly nice people. 

5. The previous statistics flip significantly starting around age 60

This was a strange phenomenon I noticed. Generally, the younger men were REALL attractive and the women were just okay, then you get to the 60-70s and this reverses! Women looked wonderful and had aged super well while men just really let go of themselves. 

6. Surprising number of obese people. 

Okay, I realized as I wrote that, that there's not really a nice way of putting it. But, perhaps it's due to my stereotypical Australian image is of an exremely fit cattle rancher in the outback, or Steve Irwin wrestling a crocodile. I was really quite surprised at the number of people who were pretty overweight.

7. Walking on the left is far more difficult than i previously assumed

This doesn't need more detail other than to say that while people have a right to do as they wish, right handed is more prevalent and therefore I deem RIGHT of way should be on the right at all times. That is all. Struggle city up in here.

8. Country music DOES get played! SUCCESS!

I was really hoping this was the case, since Keith Urban (mentally said that in an Aussie accent) is from here, and it is!

9. Children with accents actually are the best.

Yup.

10. People here do actually seem to like animals more than people sometimes.

The amount of sypathy i got for animals due to the wildfires was crazy. Several times I brought up that I was glad more people weren't hurt, and almost invariably people responded with, yes, well, they can at least leave. AKA if they died it's on them, animals don't have a choice. To be fair, animals also have the ability to move, and normally a better sense of impending destruction, so....really it's on them too.

11. I'm pretty positive Australians secretly breed models somewhere.

Okay, I promised I would talk about women more. Here it is. So, if you haven't noticed, the famous Australians most people know happen to be incredibly attractive male actors, or insanely beuatiful female models. GUYS. I saw SO MANY girls that were over 5'11'' it was CRAZY. And all of them were stunning. Sidenote--this was in a outer suburb of Brisbane, so who KNOWS what Sydney will be like. All of this to say that i'm pretty positive they must pair all the beautiful women with really tall (invariably attractive) men in order to breed a race of models so stunning the world can do nothing but accept their superiority. Just a theory,

12. I got asked out by a 60 year old man in wheelchair. 

Real life.

13. The older the man, the shorter the shorts

 This just seems to be some strange rule that people go by here. I assume the shorter shorts stems from rugby shorts being short, but....some people jst don't need shorts that small. Just saying.

Well, those are my thoughts during a day of fundraising at a grocery store in a suburb. Let's hope the entertainment keeps on rolling in=]

One Direction to Koalas and Kangaroos.

Saturday:

Well, today was interesting. Instead of getting up at 9am as planned (in order to get my body on the right schedule and catch up on sleep missed on the plane ride over) my body decided that 6:30 am was a good time. Honestly, this wasn't too bad. I got up, skyped my parents, packed up, grabbed breakfast and wandered over to my hostel by about 9:45ish. So productive! Then after checking in and getting settled, I decided I had two goals for the day: 1. visit the Doctor Who pop-up shop and 2. Hold a koala. So here's the run down of what happened.

1. Head towards Queen Street to find the bus station to take me to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

2. Can't find it to save my life and decide to keep walking til I find the pop-up shop. It happens to be in Fortitude Valley which is about 30 minutes from where the bus stop should have been.

3. Get to where the pop-up shop should be and initially can't find it. Which wouldn't be the worst thing ever, as these close up when they sell out, and ith the 50th anniversary coming up I had figured that was a possibility.

4. Turn the corner....BAM. DOCTOR WHO WONDERFULNESS! But actually, I couldn't stop smiling. I felt like a little kid. I wanted to buy everything, but (be impressed...) held back considering I had other things like, oh, travel to pay for. But, I did get pictures with the tardis. Real Life. Today already couldn't have gotten better.

                         

                      

5. Leave the Doctor Who shop and walk the mile or so back, determined to find the correct bus station.

6. Miraculously find the bus station. SIDE-NOTE: everyone was crowded around the entrance to the bus station and I couldn't figure out why until a girl right next to me jumps out of her place and in front of a guy while someone snaps her picture. He is not amused. In fact he just looked frustrated at everyone, poor guy. Not an angry frustration, just an exasperated, I just want to shop frustrated. OH. You're probably wondering who it is. It happened to be one of the gents from One Direction--Harry Styles specifically. I unfortunately didn'get his picture because I don't really care about 1D (in retrospect this wasa terrible   decision) and had to google the band in order to find out who it was. BUT, it did make me think of all the lovely Ohana girls who loved them. So, for you all, I apologize for not getting the pic=]

7. Anyways, I got onto the bus and headed to the sanctuary where I held an adorable koala (well except that part where he fondled me. Gotta watch out for inappropriate Koalas.) AND I got to pet baby kangaroos, and feed them. Honestly I think the second part was a bit more exciting. The kangaroos were so cute and happy and it was lovely.

                                                 

                         

                               

8. Headed back to the South Bank where I took a free ferry up the river then walked the rest of the way to my hostel. I then proceeded to chat with one of my roommates (Germans! ja Deutsch!), grab dinner and pass out for a few hours before deciding bed sounded best.

                                      

                                          Strolling the South Bank

                         

And so that is the story of the day in which I fulfilled my Doctor Who desires, held a koala, fed a kangaroo, took a ferry and saw a One Direction boy bander. Oh Australia, what else do you have in store?

Fun Fact: Angelina Jolie is currently shooting a movie in Brisbane, so while she has mostly avoided he media, it is inevitble that I will meet her too (I assume) hhaha.

Well, tomorrow I get to go to church in Brissie! So excited! 

Sunday--

 This was a pretty chill day. I headed to church just down the road this morning, after a quick breakfast at a local brunch place (i'm still in jet lag mode and getting up at like 6am every morning. curses). Church was WONDERFUL. I chatted the entire time with a young woman named Josie who I had seen doing a bible study at the barracks shopping center earlier in the morning. I also met an American woman worked at the church who could tell that I was American based on the dress I was wearing! haha She had gotten the same one from GAP last time she was in the states and immediately recognized it. The sermon was a good reminder of why i'm here and just generally trying to love those around me. So good job church people of Brisbane. Okay, well, good job God.

After church I grabbed some lunch at the hostel then headed out to the Queensland Museum, Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. All of them were fun and interesting in their own ways but nothing overly exciting to report. The best part of the evening was when I eventually headed back to the hostel to make dinner and started chatting with a German girl at the hostel. We chatted all throughout the dinner making process, and for the next few hours =, both in German and English which was great! I should mention that about 90% of the backpackers at my current hostel are German. So, while only like 5 of them realize I speak German, only like 3 realize i can understand most of what theyré saying, which is kind of a fun "fly-on-the-wall" experience sometimes. 

Anyways, I digress, I really enjoyed talking to Julia and it was honestly such a blessing to find someone to really talk with for a while. Sunday was the first day I felt sort of lonely. To be fair, I have only been here 4 days. So, thhe longer I stay the more friends I will make, so i'm nowhere near freaking out. No worries. And, honestly, the fact that i'm NOT freaking out is a huge blessing. I generally do not deal well with feeling like no one around is interested in or cares about me, and don't like to be on my own that often. However, while, throughout the day I was VERY aware of how alone I was in this city, I also wasn't exactly lonely either. I can only say that God definitely was watching out for me, and has been giving me really great intereactions with people JUST when I need them to keep me from getting lonely. Well, until I make actual friends of course haha=]

Monday--

Today has been pretty much entirely dedicated to the Australia Zoo. I woke up around 8, got ready, grabbed some food, and headed to the train station to catch the train to Beerwah, where you can get a shuttle to the Zoo. I had such a good day! To be totally honest the zoo itself was rather small compared to our lovely (FREE) National Zoo, but it was set up in such a beautiful way, and i have never seen happier zookeepers. Granted, this is the Crocodile Hunter's Zoo, so perrhaps he just rubbed off on everyone, but everyone was so happy to talk to guests, and i spoke with a woman who was taking care of some rhinos, and then ran into several women walking different animals (a cheetah, wombat, and parrot..separately of course haha). The people who work at this zoo are truly dedicated to the prservation of the habitat s of these animals and it was just really fun to be in an environment with people so enthusiastic about what theyré doing. Plus, it was awsome to watch the Wildlife Warriors show in the famous Crocoseum, which is where Steve Irwin would often present his crocs. Now i'm just getting my ipad charged up and then heading back to the Hostel to make dinner. 

               

                                             

                                

                             Statue of the Irwin family who own the zoo. In memory of Steve=(

                                 

                                 

                                      can we just talk about how cute this baby rhino is?!

                           

                                                   

                                                Emus are pretty emotionally fragile birds.

Sidenote: The Australian accent is getting better. I'm starting to pick up more of the differences in the way they say things. Still slipping into a British accent ore often than not when I try it out, but progress people, PROGRESS.

Love you all!

 

To the Land of Oz.

Well, my lovely friends, i've made it to the other side of the world! And, i'll be honest, I've only been here a day and I could totally see myself staying. I love this country so much. But let me backtrack so ya'll get a sense of what i've been up to until now.

                        

                                                   Ready to head out!

The travel portion of my trip was surprisingly not too terrible considering I was in the air for a total of 19 hours. I left home for the airport about 3pm on wednesday, and after a few hours of waiting headed to LA, where I had a short layover before heading to Brisbane! LAX was what I am considering the start of this journey, because it is where I first began to meet people. In LA I had a great chat with an Aussie guy who'd just gotten back from being in Colombia for a few months. It was great to talk with someone who had done a lot of backpacking and understood the insanity and excitement of travel. We chatted for the hour or so until our plane boarded, and perhaps i'll run into him again as I head south in later months. 

                                

                                        Mandatory "sunset-out-the-airplane-window" shot

Once on the plane I was lucky enough to sit next to a woman who had grown up in Brisbane and had lots of suggestions about things to do and see when I got there. While the flight was long, I did enjoy catching up on all my movies, (Em and Hil! I watched The Way, Way Back--SO GOOD.) and chatting with my seatmate. Oh, and beyond seatmates, I lucked out by being the absolute last row in the plane, which meant I had a little extra legroom, could put my chair back without annoying anyone, was on an aisle seat, and yet had no one to my right to block the window! Such a success.

Literally from the moment I landed, I have had the most wonderful interctions with people. The weather today was a bit dreary with clouds everywhere, and drizzling rain here and there. But, the excitement of being in a new country coupled with awesome people has made today beyond wonderful. I caught the train to my hotel (which is SUPER nice) and then showered and pulled my life together before heading out for a meeting at the bank to get my accounts in order. I walked around the city for a bit, saw the Queen Street Mall, which was really fun and just had a general enthusiasm surrounding it that you couldn't get past. The second I met my banker Rose we were laughing and chatting about travel and mango smoothies, and birthdays. She was unbelievably helpful and I now have all my accounts here ready to go and can actually start spending money! YAY! Just kidding, that's the last thing I want to be doing right now.

                                                

                                               A far away view of Queen Street Mall

After the bank, I just wandered the banks of the Brisbane River that runs through the city. I explored the Botanical gardens, ran into a couple of Kiwi gents who loved the Packers (Shout out to EMHAZE!) and the Ravens, weaved my way by the Maritime Museum and through Queensland University of Technology. I was planning on heading back to the hotel and napping for an hour and heading out again, unfortunately my body had other plans. I woke up 4 hours later and have just been hanging out and pulling stuff together for tomorrow since then.

                           

                                   The two lovely New Zealanders I met on my walk

                            

                                           The South Bank of the Brisbane River

                           

                                  Walking along the South Bank----Bogenvilla galore!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cloudy and rainy again so i'm thinking i'll try and hit up some museums after I get settled into a hostel, but we'll see what happens!=] Today has been truly wonderful, and I cannot wait to get up and start walking this city again tomorrow. I cannot even express how blessed I feel to be here and have this chance to live out this crazy adventure.

Anyways, Sorry that was extrememly wordy for not that much exciting info, but I love you all and will hopefully have more exciting stories over the next few days!=]

 

                                                    

Bring on the Tears.

Well, it's official. I leave the country in exactly 2 weeks for the land of Oz. Its a strange sensation seeing it in black and white like that. I have been preparing for this trip for so long that it no longer is even really on my mind. My guess is that it will hit me in 3 big phases, and when it does it will be a barrage of tears and those awkward gasping breaths that are so terribly hard to stop once they start.

1. As I say goodbyes--This includes individual goodbyes to people as well as the horrific trek to the airport with my family. Which, i can only apologize for in advance as i know i will be all tears and emotions.

2. The flight from LAX to Brisbane-- this is when it will set in a second time. I will finally be realizing that oh my gosh. i'm not staying in California with family but actually leaving everyone i know behind to head off to a whole other side of the world. well frick.

3. About 2 or 3 weeks into my trip, after my initial gallivanting around is done--I can already tell you that the first few weeks i'm n Australia I will feel like i'm on vacation. I will be seeing Fraser Island, the Great Barrier Reef and chilling out in hostels. So, it is not until I start to look for a job that I will suddenly realize that it will be another year before I see my family and friends from home again. 

It's not that I'm dreading these moments (with the exception of the first one which I will hate with the entirety of my being due to the number of times I will probably cry in front of people). Actually, quite the opposite. I relish moments of sadness lie this in travel. Yes, they are hard but they are a reminder that I am loved and that if all else fails i have people to come home to. Of course there is the old cliche that life wouldn't be as sweet without all the bitterness. Well, yes. Sometimes missing home is just the push i need to venture further into my new environment. It is a reminder that God provided incredible relationships before and He can do it again. So yes, I am terrified for the horrible bouts of loneliness I am  more than likely to encounter (if you know me at all you probably have caught on that i don't deal with being alone well). However, I look forward to the change, to the ways in which those hard moments can help me grow. 

Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So let perseverance complete its work in you that you may be whole and complete.

James 1:2-4