This past week was lecture recess and me and three of my friends from Uni hit up the most amazing adventure of our lives- travel domestically through Australia! We first stopped in Brisbane were we all felt all grown up going to the airport checking in ourselves and finding our gate and making it there on time with everything we needed! Once we boarded the plane it was so exciting to be travelling throughout the country and going places where we knew no one and no one knew us and have the ultimate freedom of exploration it was so freeing! We touched down in ‘Brissy’ on Saturday afternoon where we had to rush to the train that was leaving in 5minutes to our hostel at Roma station. The train reminded me of my time in Germany and I just thought of the time where my family and I were trying to get to the Mercedes Benz museum and we just kept watching it go by on the train back and forth and having no idea how to get there, we had somewhat of the same experience. First off we are all lugging around way more than the allowed carry on baggage on a train we are hoping is going to where we need to be and there are no like train maps anywhere so we are sitting here listening to the loud speaker and hearing this is an express train and thinking…. Umm when should we get off? Luckily someone noticed our lost puppy stares and told us when the right time to disembark would be. Another adventure begins when we get off the train at the Brisbane Transit station and step outside into the city and go “now where is the hostel?” Fortunately we had the address which comes in handy when you know where streets are, and this we did not, all we knew was that our hostels name was Chill Backpackers on Roma Street and that it was teal. We decided to take a leap of faith and walk to the right a couple of blocks where we stumbled upon a tall teal building, our hostel! We got checked in to our room, which was pretty much an elongated shoebox with five beds jammed in it. At least we all like each other! We hit the streets and went exploring down the rest of Roma Street to find food that wouldn’t empty our already low back accounts and discovered up in an apartment building a naked women hanging her laundry… one this to note about Brisbane is that it’s a city and people are looking all around and who the hell dries their clothes in the nude! Anyway we walk around and cross a really cool bridge, Australians really know how to make bridges! We ventured down this boardwalk and come across South Bank, which is a boardwalk along the river, it was beautiful! After our stomachs could no longer take it we made our way back to the hostel to ask about where to eat for cheap, the ‘chill dude’ told us of a place right up the street where we made our way to have some pure blonde and the best pizza that has ever touched my lips! After becoming fat and happy and ditching some seedy guys we headed back to our hostel and passed out at the late hour of 9 PM. Our adventure for the next day was to hit up ‘Goldie’ and surf at Surfers Paradise!!!!!
We woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM and made our way to the train station to catch the 6 something train to the Gold Coast and then a bus to Surfers Paradise! We were like kids in a candy store running around amazed by all the surfing culture and shops and surfer boys and boards! We settled down composed ourselves and had some delicious brekky at a little hole in the wall coffee shop, then proceeded to hire some boards and hit the surf! The waves were rolling in perfect sets and were HUGE bigger than anything I had ever surfed on and I was about to use a shorter board, worried I wouldn’t get up and eat more sand than was on the beach. We lotioned up and left our worries with our towels and ran into the ocean! After getting thrown around in the wakes for a little bit we found a nice spot and had some OMG IM IN AUSTRALIA SURFING moments then paddled into some gnarly waves and let life pass us by for awhile ☺. I was so proud of myself for one not making a complete fool of myself and being able to stand up on the board and ride some serious swells into the shore. However, not with out the awesome wipeouts and the fact I almost left my bathing suit in the surf it was an amazing morning surf sesh! We went and grabbed lunch and explored surfers and were the tourists taking pictures of everything including restaurant napkins. We had some awesome afternoon waves and ended up meeting up with some friends from college, which was a strange feeling being in a country where you know possibly 100 people and you are on vacation somewhere you have never been walking along the beach and you run into two people you know, I felt like a compete local ☺. We shopped until we dropped down in subway and caught the bus back to the train station and the train back to our hostel where we still had some room for ice cream and managed to find a hidden little nook of Brisbane called the ‘barracks’ which held a bunch of little restaurants and shops along with a little street called Caxton where all the bars and dinner places were. It was a really cool little find because you had to take the lift (elevator) up to a sky walkway to the barracks and then down the street to Caxton. By this time we were all exhausted and passed out in our shoebox for the next days adventure of exploring downtown Brisbane and South Bank. South bank is a very nice scenic walk way down along the riverside in Brissy. We found the wheel of Brisbane after the girls rolled down a hill and I took picture because I was in a dress and I didn’t want all of Brisbane to see my jocks. We wanted to take a little ride on the wheel of Brisbane, but we soon found out as we have many times before that nothing in Australia is free, it cost 15 bucks and we cut our losses and continued walking around south bank until we were tired and had taken enough pictures to fill an entire photo album trying to be artsy and what not. Tonight we had scheduled to go to the XXXX brewery and take the tour and sample all their beers. We were keen to go and catch the 5:00 Pm tour so we made the trek not knowing exactly how to get there, but it was an adventure and we had to cross through the ‘ghetto’ of Brisbane and run across a main road, but we made it 5 minutes too late and found out you couldn’t wear thongs so we had to hire shoes like at a bowling ally… and wait around in the bar for an hour before the tour, we were all losing faith in this and getting a little anxious, but the time came and we headed to the tour. And man were we glad we stayed! We got to help make the beer by adding some of the ingredients and watch all the beer bottles get labelled and capped and sped down conveyer belts where they were wrapped and packaged. It was so cool! I have never seen more beer in my life then we went where they kept all the kegs and MAN there were thousands, like you could build a home for a family of four and all the furniture with the amount of kegs that were in the warehouse! It was unreal. At the end of the tour we got our beer passes, which gave us 4 free drinks at the bar, we soon found out we would have to consume these before the bar closed in an hour which we were a little worried about. We got to pour our own from the tap and sample each of the beers that the brewery makes, which was really cool. After the brewery we left happy and starving so we set off in search for a yummy meal and went to our hostel changed and hit up the Hogs Breath Café and had delicious steaks and garlic bread and even fondue. It was very yummy, but left us so full that we couldn’t even dance at the little club we went to across the street so we decided to head back to the hostel and shower up and sleep because tomorrow was off to Sydney!!!! The next day we packed and didn’t have much planned until we had to be at the airport later that av so we leisurely walked along the streets of Brisbane and stopped at a little coffee shop and had some very yummy pancakes and OJ then headed back down to South Bank where we walked the rest of the way down to almost the end and came across the lagoon and some very yummy looking restaurants ☺. We stopped at a little hole in the wall organic lunch flower shop place where I had some organic pannini thingy that was so good, no idea what it contained, but it was so good! Then it started to pour rain so we hung at the little shop until it stopped and then headed to the airport for our next adventure to SYDNEY. Here we come!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Trip to Cairns
Last weekend I travelled back up the Coast north to Cairns to go home with a friend of mine from college, Tom. Took the smallest plane I think I have ever been on! It only fit 35 people, and we were ‘those guys’ that the plane is like leaving the runway and we are running on the tarmac trying to wave it down to stop so we could get on… but we made it on the flight, that’s probably the moral of the story. We took off in the shoebox and got brekkie and literally twenty minutes later landed in beautiful tropical North Queensland. There is just something absolutely magical about Cairns, that as soon as you land there you just immediately feel right at home… that’s how I know that is where I was meant to be. ☺
His father picked us up in his Ute (truck) and drove us back to his house, which was like a dream! He lives on top of a small hill in a beautiful tropical rainforest like neighbourhood and you get out of the truck and look all around and all you see is mountains and the city, drop dead gorgeous! I just looked at him and said don’t EVER take this for granted because you could have grown up in the lovely state of Connecticut where the only tropical thing that happens is if you and your sister buy a pool from Wal-Mart one day and set it up in your backyard and have a blow up palm tree set up next to the pool… his house was very modern and windows everywhere with beautiful views out every single one! I probably looked as if I had never seen four walls and a roof before as I got the grand tour, mouth hanging open possibly drooling. We then had crazy fruits like pummelo and some spiky red fruit that was very delicious. For the rest of the day we took out their boat on the reef with his brother and sister and snorkelled around coral islands with crystal clear blue water and not a cloud in the sky! It was the perfect day. We boated around to the reef crest, or as Nemo would know, the DROP OFF, where we hopped into the ocean and I think my heart stopped for a good 30 seconds, after I struggled from almost drowning in the state of Awe I was able to open my eyes without collapsing and just did a 360 and tried to take in the amount of life that was all around me, I had never seen the amount of coral and fish species that was all around before in my life it was like I died and went to some magical coral ocean heaven. The water was so clear and the colours on the reef were out of control I was so keen to jet around for hours! We swam all around the reef and saw a family of clown fish, tons of parrot fish, sea cucumbers, coral trout, and even a nice 4 foot long white tip reef shark decided to join the party and swim by! That checked off one of my Australia buck list bullets. Swim with wild shark CHECK! Then as if the day could get any better I was just swimming along and under this bommie (large coral head) I spot an at least 5 foot grey nurse shark! I almost drowned again trying to find the surface to yell over to Tom and his little brother to come see, we hung out by it for a good 20 minutes getting closer and closer to it, then out of nowhere it left its little cave and swam right AT ME!!!!! It got literally 3 feet from my face than swam away! I almost had a heart attack it was the most amazing thing that I think has happened to me since I have been in Aussie! When we finally got back on the boat I was like all right I can die right now my life has been fulfilled. We then drove back to port as the sun was setting and I just sat on the bow of the boat as the water was splashing at my feet, thinking and smiling IM IN AUSTRALIA! It was the best feeling in the world! We docked the boat and headed back to his house all salty and sleepy and overwhelmingly happy. However, after showering that nice sometimes you realize you probably should have put on a little extra sunscreen on your back when floating around in the water for hours… at least I did not peel!
The next day we drove to the Cairns botanical gardens fro breakfast where I had my first Australian waffle lets just say they got it down! It was caramel banana amazingness! We they walked all through the botanical gardens and I felt like I was in some tropical dream and I was just waiting to wake up and realize I was back in my bed in Connecticut. It was perfect, pretty much the only way to describe it. We then got ready for another boating adventure with some fishing. Drove to this beautiful beach and took a quick dip before his family swung over and picked us up in their boat from the beach, yeah I felt like a local! We jetted along the coastline peering at the mountains and scout hat and Double Island before reaching our ‘secrete’ fishing spot with the ten other people who share the same ‘secrete’ spot. However our fishing skills were very slack and we turned out to be more interested in my possible future office of the GBR and the delicious chips that made it on board our vessel. we trawled around for a little while longer until heading to Double Island for a little swim on the leeward side and the fished arounf the point before heading back into port and passing a nice 6 foot salty (salt water crocadile). that night we headed into town after having a homemade dinner of tacos! and met up with a few of Tom's friends for drinks and a walk around town. it was the PERFECT weekend!
this past week in school has been very busy and jam packed with lab reports and mid semester assesments and essays on coral growth rates and conserving marine wildlife, making this coming vacation week so exciting!!!! We leave on our jet plane adventure tomorrow morning at 12pm and jet set off to Brisbane for some awesome days in the sun and surf! many many stories and photos to come!
cheers
His father picked us up in his Ute (truck) and drove us back to his house, which was like a dream! He lives on top of a small hill in a beautiful tropical rainforest like neighbourhood and you get out of the truck and look all around and all you see is mountains and the city, drop dead gorgeous! I just looked at him and said don’t EVER take this for granted because you could have grown up in the lovely state of Connecticut where the only tropical thing that happens is if you and your sister buy a pool from Wal-Mart one day and set it up in your backyard and have a blow up palm tree set up next to the pool… his house was very modern and windows everywhere with beautiful views out every single one! I probably looked as if I had never seen four walls and a roof before as I got the grand tour, mouth hanging open possibly drooling. We then had crazy fruits like pummelo and some spiky red fruit that was very delicious. For the rest of the day we took out their boat on the reef with his brother and sister and snorkelled around coral islands with crystal clear blue water and not a cloud in the sky! It was the perfect day. We boated around to the reef crest, or as Nemo would know, the DROP OFF, where we hopped into the ocean and I think my heart stopped for a good 30 seconds, after I struggled from almost drowning in the state of Awe I was able to open my eyes without collapsing and just did a 360 and tried to take in the amount of life that was all around me, I had never seen the amount of coral and fish species that was all around before in my life it was like I died and went to some magical coral ocean heaven. The water was so clear and the colours on the reef were out of control I was so keen to jet around for hours! We swam all around the reef and saw a family of clown fish, tons of parrot fish, sea cucumbers, coral trout, and even a nice 4 foot long white tip reef shark decided to join the party and swim by! That checked off one of my Australia buck list bullets. Swim with wild shark CHECK! Then as if the day could get any better I was just swimming along and under this bommie (large coral head) I spot an at least 5 foot grey nurse shark! I almost drowned again trying to find the surface to yell over to Tom and his little brother to come see, we hung out by it for a good 20 minutes getting closer and closer to it, then out of nowhere it left its little cave and swam right AT ME!!!!! It got literally 3 feet from my face than swam away! I almost had a heart attack it was the most amazing thing that I think has happened to me since I have been in Aussie! When we finally got back on the boat I was like all right I can die right now my life has been fulfilled. We then drove back to port as the sun was setting and I just sat on the bow of the boat as the water was splashing at my feet, thinking and smiling IM IN AUSTRALIA! It was the best feeling in the world! We docked the boat and headed back to his house all salty and sleepy and overwhelmingly happy. However, after showering that nice sometimes you realize you probably should have put on a little extra sunscreen on your back when floating around in the water for hours… at least I did not peel!
The next day we drove to the Cairns botanical gardens fro breakfast where I had my first Australian waffle lets just say they got it down! It was caramel banana amazingness! We they walked all through the botanical gardens and I felt like I was in some tropical dream and I was just waiting to wake up and realize I was back in my bed in Connecticut. It was perfect, pretty much the only way to describe it. We then got ready for another boating adventure with some fishing. Drove to this beautiful beach and took a quick dip before his family swung over and picked us up in their boat from the beach, yeah I felt like a local! We jetted along the coastline peering at the mountains and scout hat and Double Island before reaching our ‘secrete’ fishing spot with the ten other people who share the same ‘secrete’ spot. However our fishing skills were very slack and we turned out to be more interested in my possible future office of the GBR and the delicious chips that made it on board our vessel. we trawled around for a little while longer until heading to Double Island for a little swim on the leeward side and the fished arounf the point before heading back into port and passing a nice 6 foot salty (salt water crocadile). that night we headed into town after having a homemade dinner of tacos! and met up with a few of Tom's friends for drinks and a walk around town. it was the PERFECT weekend!
this past week in school has been very busy and jam packed with lab reports and mid semester assesments and essays on coral growth rates and conserving marine wildlife, making this coming vacation week so exciting!!!! We leave on our jet plane adventure tomorrow morning at 12pm and jet set off to Brisbane for some awesome days in the sun and surf! many many stories and photos to come!
cheers
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Orpheus Island Round 2
Well round two of Orpheus Island with my Life History and Evolution of Coral Reefs classes was about the same as last weeks trip however, way more water time which was so exciting! We snorkeled as soon as we docked the boat on the island! For over an hour I floated around in the water identifying corals and looking and beautiful fish! We then had an amazing cooked lunch (way better food this time around, but don't tell Scott: P) then back into all our gear and headed out to the point to snorkel around and take samples of our personal coral, which was in the genus Fungidae, our species was fungia, they are these little round discs that are scattered like buttons on the reef crest at around 2 meters down and are single free living polyps that are solitary and can actually move around using their tentacles, pretty much they are bad ass!
We snorkeled around observing our fungias competitive interactions.... which there were none cause they prefer the solitary life style contemplating life alone on the ocean floor :) so my time was spent mostly cruising around in the water trying to find cool stuff to take pictures of! I saw a moray eel, I think he wanted to take a nice bit out of me and I may have gotten a little too close but that is OK, I saw a live puca shell (not sure what the mollusk is called however), and I saw a nudibranch (little blue dude they are like the caterpillars of the ocean :) also saw a TON of HUGE parrot fish! beautiful colors of everything corals and fish! I never wanted to get out of the water. The next day we snorkeled twice as well, so I can proudly say I could enter a contest on the fastest someone can get in a wet suit now, I have never had to put on and take off my wet suit so many times before in my life! Over the entire trip was a blast! The people in my class and my teacher Betty were amazing to talk to and hang out and play card games with. One French student even did some card tricks for us that were super neat! The best surprise of the trip was Sunday after the first snorkel of the day we all came back to take a nap and found that the EASTER BUNNNY had come and put little chocolate eggs under our pillows! So exciting!
This week has been filled with doing homework and writing up lab reports taking tests and writing essays, and now the beautiful weather is starting to show up… boo! However this past Tuesday me and a few of my friends decided to go out and get gelato ice cream in town and got interviewed and our picture taken for the Townsville Bulletin and had a huge picture in the paper the next day! How cool is that! Highlight of the week! This weekend I’m heading to Cairns with my friend Tom to sight see with a true Aussie and get some inside tips ☺ pictures to come!
Cheers! Hope everyone had a great Easter
We snorkeled around observing our fungias competitive interactions.... which there were none cause they prefer the solitary life style contemplating life alone on the ocean floor :) so my time was spent mostly cruising around in the water trying to find cool stuff to take pictures of! I saw a moray eel, I think he wanted to take a nice bit out of me and I may have gotten a little too close but that is OK, I saw a live puca shell (not sure what the mollusk is called however), and I saw a nudibranch (little blue dude they are like the caterpillars of the ocean :) also saw a TON of HUGE parrot fish! beautiful colors of everything corals and fish! I never wanted to get out of the water. The next day we snorkeled twice as well, so I can proudly say I could enter a contest on the fastest someone can get in a wet suit now, I have never had to put on and take off my wet suit so many times before in my life! Over the entire trip was a blast! The people in my class and my teacher Betty were amazing to talk to and hang out and play card games with. One French student even did some card tricks for us that were super neat! The best surprise of the trip was Sunday after the first snorkel of the day we all came back to take a nap and found that the EASTER BUNNNY had come and put little chocolate eggs under our pillows! So exciting!
This week has been filled with doing homework and writing up lab reports taking tests and writing essays, and now the beautiful weather is starting to show up… boo! However this past Tuesday me and a few of my friends decided to go out and get gelato ice cream in town and got interviewed and our picture taken for the Townsville Bulletin and had a huge picture in the paper the next day! How cool is that! Highlight of the week! This weekend I’m heading to Cairns with my friend Tom to sight see with a true Aussie and get some inside tips ☺ pictures to come!
Cheers! Hope everyone had a great Easter
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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