BALI BALI BALI

So, about a week ago some friends and I decided to head to Bali. What started as a joke is now a reality as I sit relaxing in the warmth of sunny Seminyak waiting for a ride to Ubud. Backpackers are the best. Spontenatiety is a way of life and it simply never grows old. But i'll get over my rambling mind and  give you a quick update on what happened in our 2.5 weeks in Bali.

PLANE PROBLEMS.

--Our flight got cancelled not 10 minutes after we had checked in. So after waiting in line for another hour and hearing 1000 different options of how we might have to get to Bali (including waiting 2 days, going through Melbourne, paying more for another flight etc) we were told we could leave later that night for a flight to Adelaide and then go from there to Bali.

--Given that Adelaide is the COMPLETE opposite side of the country, it seems a tad ridiculous, but none of us had been there before, we got to explore a wee bit, and we got set up in a PHENOMENAL hotel for the evening before we flew. PLUS we got to Bali just one day late instead of 3. Win.

KUTA, BALI

Stayed in Kuta for 2 nights trying to get our bearings. Pretty ugly city overall. But, the nightlife was awesome and food was great. Though one girl got mugged and had her money stolen before the night  was over. And waking up for check out at 10 was a bit rough after getting back at 4am. But overall a success. Even managed to hit the beach for a day.

SEMINYAK, BALI

Left Kuta for the upscale city of Seminyak where we ate delicious food and hung out at the fancy-schmancy PotatoHead Beach Club for the day drinking faulous cocktails and soaking up the sun until we could watch the beautiful sunset. Attempted to go out that evening but unfortunately the night life just wasn't as good as the drinks themselves. The following day we booked a bus to Ubud which is the cultural center of Bali.

 

                                 

UBUD, BALI

-Balinese cooking class NOM NOM NOM

                    

                                  

               

-Monkey Forest!

 

 

-hiked mt batur a volcano in the middle of Bali for sunrise

-heading to gili

GILI TRAWANGAN--sort of.

Ended up finding out upon arrival on the island that our accomodation fell through. So, we spent the next 4-5 hours wandering the entire island looking for places to stay but everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE was sold out. So we finally headed back to the restaurant where we'd left the guys with our bags and drinks and hung out until our new recruit---a friend of Dani's--arrived and then headed to Lombok to figure out life.

On the BRIGHT side.....Marine and I got this sweet selfie with some cows.

MATARAM, LOMBOK

Hung out in Mataram the first night. It's the capitol of Lombok but with NOTHING to do in the way of nightlife or anything. Primarily because it's a Muslim country. Then on day 2 of being there we headed to South Kuta Beach about 2 hours away and spent the day lying in the sand.

SENGGIGI, LOMBOK

--flooding hostel---but really GREAT beds....but the showers flooded everywhere. Horrendous.

--booked Komodo boat trip WHAT WHATTTT

--AND I got to play Volleyball!!! I'd been wanting to for ages....and i never get good vball pics so seeing as this is my blog i'm going to shamelessly put these up here. No worries.

 

--kids in the water were EVERYWHERE. It was somewhat annoying but also.....they were adorable and loved hanging out with us and i became bffs with some of them. And they all just looked SO happy to be at the beach.

KOMODO BOAT

Basically this was 4 days 3 nights of going to different islands, snorkelling, swimming, eating rice and noodles with sambal and trying not to get seasick followed by a trip to Komodo Island. While overall the boat was fun, the worst part was that the hull was shallow so the waves we're SO easily felt. We had one portion--an 18 hour stretch of boating where I and a lot of others just wanted to die. BUT we made it and it was worth it! The final night on the boat our crew kind of headded up a boat party with music supplied by the lovely Dani. We had the entire boat dancing, drinking and laughing. Even the crew got involved! It was an awesome night. The next day our fairly hungover boat had to do a trek followed by snorkelling n some beautiful water. Luckily swimming helped everyone out and by the end of the afternoon the guys were throwing crew members off the ship as a joke. Casual boat trips in Indonesia ya know?

   

 

LABUAN BAJO, FLORES

Labuan Bajo is the city the boat docked in when we finally got off. It wasn't a crazy town but we had a nice littel hotel with a STUNNING view and ended up going out that evening with the crew and the rest of the boat to a littlel bar and just had a good night of laughing.

SOUTH KUTA, BALI

Finally we ended up in South Kuta to tyr somethign different from mainland Kuta. Pretty out of the way of things, but at least we had a swimming pool and had an amazing last night out in Kuta trying a bunch of different bars and clubs. Lots of dancing-----Bali success!

Unfortunately now we're back in Darwin attempting to figure out the next step of our lives. Lots of praers about where I should be next would be appreciated cause goodness knows whats happening now!

Roadhouse Ready

So, since it's been ages and I don't have wifi anymore (whattup 3G) for the next few months, i figured i'd do a quick update on my life at the moment.

I am working at a roadhouse about 1.5 hours from Darwin in the Northern Territory. Basically...I do everything. A roadhouse is a full service rest stop in Aussie-land. So we have a caravan park, a few cabins, dongas (little one room sheds basically lol), a bar, an information desk and even 2 water buffalos and 2 emus for good measure. So our job is basically answer questions, take food orders,deliver food, work the bar, clean things up, clean cabins, make food, re-stock things, blah blah blah.

The hours can be pretty long some days ---a split shift is 7am-1pm and then 6pm-close (midnight) usually. But, given that there's not a whole lot to do around here other than hit the pool and check fb it's not too bad. The management is terrible. A lot of reasons for this...mostly disorganization, an inability to let others do their jobs and inexperience. BUT the people are awesome and it's so fun getting to know everyone. there are THREE Americans here. WHAT?! and ALL from the East coast. Me, this kid Andrew from Philly and a girl named Emily from Vermont. So random. But there are also a French girl, Italian girl and a bunch of Brits and Aussies to round it out. We all get on super well too so that's well nice.

I make good money so...yay for that. Hopefully most of it doesn't get spent on alcohol since sitting chatting and drinking is pretty much what we do in the evenings. Ahh well. But we get to meet all these miners (gold is huge around here) and they tend to buy us drinks--as do a few of the guys on staff who have adopted me as their younger sister. I'm learning to play pool again (HEYO Lextasy) and the guys are all trying to give me tips cause they're all well good. I'm getting there hahah SORT of. Actuallly, to be fair. Since writing this update I won $50 in a game of pool....so not too bad. 

umm....let's see. Love doing bar work! Everyone's friendly and it's fun to chat with people and tease them about life. It's nice to have regulars who get to know you and treat you like a sister/daughter etc. Although you can get hit on quite a bit...which can be annoying. But overall it's really good. One thing i will say is that Aussie-land definitely teaches you not to judge people based on appearances. The number of times you'll meet people who you would in NO way call classy...but they're making 6-7 figure salaries because they're miners. It's INSANE. Also great if they befriend you and buy you drinks haha.=]

Got to speak a LOT of German last week because we had a German kid working, met a German miner, and then one of my really good friends here is engaged to a German girl so he speaks Bayerisch (which is the dialect of German where I studied abroad in HS) SO much fun. But he's leaving soon and German worker kid left. Sad day.

OH OH OH. Also---i discovered that when i say town down and whatever else with ow in it I sound Aussie. hahhahaha sooo even though those are the only things I can say in an Aussie accent---it's good to know they fit in somewhere =P hahah

anyways life is good albeit not quite in a routine as of yet. Can't wait to get off on the next leg of my journey but happy to be at a standstill for a bit. Love you all so so much!!

I'll update facebook with pictures and whatnot when i get a chance. =]