no worries..

...I can still write about the rest of our week...more than 9 days after I started. ha!

so I think day 3 (Sunday) was next...we went to Maggie Island! Mark and Julie took us over on the boat, and our first stop was Florence Bay where we went snorkeling! Of course stinger suits for a must because jellies were still in season (only for a week or two longer, but we didn't want to take any chances, since I'm pretty positive I promised Momma and Hawke's family I would send everyone home safely). We saw a GIANT stingray chilling at the bottom in the sand! I thought its tail was just a stick or something, but then it moved and I saw its body as well. It's pretty silly to talk when you are under water and you have a snorkel in your mouth, you sound pretty ridiculous. After snorkeling we had coffee on the boat then headed to Horseshoe Bay to ski and tube! tons and tons of fun, lots of beautiful shells and sand dollars to pick up!, and lots of water up the nose. Hawke tried water skiing for the first time and he was pretty good at it! I'm too scared to try it there because of the sharks, crocs, and jellies that are probably hanging around there for me. We all tube a lot, and tried (unsuccessfully) to stay in...I'm really terrible at getting back on the tube, and we had lots of silly pictures taken of us when I fell out while going, Hawke fell out just while we were sitting..probably because he was laughing at me while I was trying to get back in...and Maya laying all the way off of her tube to help me get back in mine, and then she fell out.

After that we probably had lunch on the beach I forget...oh yea, because we bought a whole chicken on the way to put the boat in the water...so we had chicken avocado tomato sandwiches on rolls. That kind of sandwich is actually a huge part of my diet here, because that's all the have.. well not all they have, but whatev.

Then we caught a bus...I think its name was Friendly Fred...and got dropped off by the start of thehike to the forts. (Maggie Island used to be used for military something). Apparently this hike is where people see WILD KOALAS sometimes!! When they see one, they know that make some sort of arrow on the ground pointing to the tree that they found it in, which is pretty neat if you ask me. Anyways, we saw TWO on the way up!! It was absolutely amazing! I never thought I would see that in my life! At the top of that hill/mountain/whatever the Aussies would call it were the forts and it was such an amazing view! You could see all around Maggie!

Then we took the boat to Nelly Bay to steal the nice hotel's showers again, then headed to Picnic Bay which is where we were going to eat dinner...it was a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant, some wine, lots of delicious food, and then a stuck boat...apparently Mark had anchored the boat WAY too far in to the shore and he hadn't checked the time that it would be low tide...apparently low tide comes in around dinner time, maybe like 8ish. That means we were stuck at Picnic Bay if we wanted to wait to get the boat out, or take a taxi to the ferry and take that home...so that's what we did. It was a little funny actually, but Mark was frustrated at himself, but things happen. Anyways, my dad and Mark went back at like 5:30am the next morning to bring the boat home before it was low tide again.


Day 4: Monday...we hung around Townsville...practiced driving more...Daddy did anyways. We went to the Reed HQ which is the Aquarium in Townsville, which is apparently the largest coral reef aquarium in the world!...even though it's kind of a small aquarium, they give really great talks and information about everything! very very interesting! Then we had a drive down the strand just so they could see it and a stop at the Bottle-O to pick up some supplies, then it was BBQ time! Mark's parents were over and everyone was home and there was tons and tons of food, and Maya, Hawke and Daddy had their first official Australian BBQ!

Then I'm not really positive about the split up of the next days I don't think, but here I go..

Day 5: left Townsville! Heading up to Mission Beach for the night...on the way we stopped at Cardwell, where they have the best meat pies in Australia apparently...Maya and I got a chicken, cheese and asparagus one to share, and my dad and Hawke both got beef and kidney pies, yuck! haha. We took a little look around, but there isn't much there to see, there was a nice beach though, and Hawke and I climbed a GREAT tree. We got to Mission Beach sometime that evening, and found Bingil Beach which is where the rain forest meets the beach, it was absolutely beautiful! I found out about that beach thanks to a nice person who suggested it to my blog :) Daddy picked up a million cuttlefish bones, we got some more shells, and watched the sunset. Then we ate at Coconutz again..Hawke and I took a walk on the beach that night and it was perfect weather and temperature (which you don't get all the time in Australia) and it was an early night for all of us.

I should probably start now..

(11:30am, Monday)
I'm in the computer lab waiting for my lecture to start again, so I'll write some about this week...there won't be any pictures yet since I'm here and not the house, but I'll put those up later.

So first of all, Maya Gene, Daddy, and Hawke: thank you thank you for making my week so wonderful! I think I'll be able to last the last two months because you guys came here. I had such an amazing time and it's going to be with us forever! I love you all.

ok here we go: first of all, their flights made them end up getting here 5 hours later than we expected, I probably was going crazy, but they got here safely, and Julie took my to the airport, and they had already gotten their luggage and everything by the time we got there, so while Julie and I were looking at the flight board someone called my name and I turned around and it was them! I wasn't ready to be in shock yet I don't think because I didn't think they would be there yet, but they were, and I was, and it was beautiful.

First adventure: Daddy figuring out how to drive on the other side of the road...and go around roundabouts, since there are a million in Townsville....also the drivers seat is on the other side, and the gear changing thing, and the window wipers and the blinkers. everything I guess. This meant that he would lots of times make the window wipers go rather than the blinker, it was pretty funny. I'm sure driving all backwards like is hard to get used to, but he got it mostly. Oh also, we said things for the roundabout like "all the way around and then to the right" and "straight means you go straight through the roundabout, but you still have to go around it"...I guess that kind of thing could get confusing definitely.

uggg. break time. I have to go back to class now, and then watch a movie for the class I didn't go to the viewing for last week then I'll walk home and eat some lunch...if I have any...and then I'll get back to this. I love you all!

haha so actually it took longer to get back to this than expected, now its 8:15 pm, but at least it's still on my Monday.

hm..let's see, back to the first day...oh, tacos and quesadillas for dinner(which remember, the pronouce the L's in that word at my house here), then bed time for everyone I guess

---I'm not going to write all of the days on one blog because that would be too long, so I'll break it up into a few different ones---

oh, and also the pictures I'll be putting up will mostly be one's that my dad, Maya, and Hawke took because I can't find my camera cord right now.


told you they were cool

Day 2:
Billabong Sanctuary! There were SO many neat animals that we got to pet and hold and feed and not feed and not get near (you know, those crazy crocs)...here's a list of the animals we saw there...except I can't remember every single one of them, but anyways: koalas!, kangaroos (that were just chillin or walking all around the place), a crazy cassawary, kookaburras, saltwater and freshwater crocs, Australian ducks who liked to fight, the "most poisonous snakes in Australia" (which probably means the world as well), a wombatt's butt (it was sleeping and that's all we could see), a wedge tailed eagle named ZENA who was HUGE!, emus who make a ridiculously crazy noise, and a white masked owl. It was a perfect day of course.

I really love kookaburras

Daddy and a koala!!




that's what a cassowary is, they are crazy looking, and
crazy killing when they have babies around


Then we went to see Mark (my host dad) play guitar at the "Stardust Drive-In!"...it was really neat, there was a market going on, but I kind of wish the drive-in was playing a movie because I've never been to one before...especially one called the Stardust Drive-In.

Oh! We also went to town that night. haha. it was fun. Deanna and Dana came with all of us and it was quite the eventful night, everybody had fun.

so. this is perfect. just so everyone knows. I need everyone in my life soon too, but this is such a nice taste of it for now. I'll write about everything when I don't have to pay for the internet.

but just so you know, we saw TWO koalas in the wild!

lovelovelovelove

fidgety.

So I'm sitting here in the computer lab, where I've been for hours, writing a paper analyzing gender roles in Snow White and Beauty and the Beast, which is actually an interesting topic, except there is one problem. I can NOT concentrate right now, you know why? oh yea, because my dad, Maya, and Hawke are ON THE WAY HERE RIGHT NOW. I think they should be on their flight to Australia out of LA already, that means they are so close to being here (well minus all the freaking hours it takes to get her). I'm going to write more of this paper, catch the bus, go back to the house, cook dinner because of course it would be my night, put in some laundry, finish this paper, go on a cleaning spree, try to sleep (which my not work because I'm so excited!), wake up, come to Uni to turn in my paper, catch a ride to the airport with Kat, get directions from her from the airport to Annandale, then SEE THOSE THREE WONDERFUL PEOPLE! oh my goodness, my mind is really all over the place! I just can't wait!! I can't believe that in the next 18 hours I'll get to see them! I'll get real hugs and kisses from people that I love and it will be wonderful!!!

Also.

I miss my mom.

pictures!

Here's some pictures that I promised a long time ago from my visit to the Sunny Coast and Brisbane to see KRISTEN!!

Her room is full of questions. Also, she is beautiful.

That was a long walk back to her apartment while carrying a heavy backpack home from the grocery store.

I know, we miss you too. tons.

Thanks Maya Gene...he really likes Australia.

That's me tip toeing across the rocks in front of the beautiful ocean at the Sunny Coast....you can swim anywhere here! No stinger nets! except we didn't swim, we just collected beautiful magical things.



The could probably kill everyone ever...really, look at those eyes, but they don't.. they just hang out and eat grass on Kristen's campus

They aren't so vicious looking in the day.

This is my favorite painting I think I've ever seen...it's by Charles Blackman, and apparently he has an entire collection of "Alice paintings".

This was a dandelion fountain! I think they should be everywhere. They are so beautiful.

Easter Weekend

So I'm not really sure why I haven't updated much on this for, well a pretty really long time, sorry about that. Actually maybe it's because the internet at my house is sucking for sure. I'm not sure why, usually it's really fast and good, but maybe I've just been taking advantage of that and then all of the sudden...boom it sucks.

Oh my! It must be POURING outside! I love it when it does that. I tried looking out of my window, but it is pitch black right now. Oh, now it's almost finished, it will be back soon though. It's silly, because the sound that I always hear sounds like my ceiling fan just turned itself onto a higher level, but then I realize that it's the rain. I love the rain when it's so loud.

Anyways, let me tell you about my Easter weekend. JCU had Friday and Monday off, just like everyone else, so we went to Mission Beach with Deanna's host family. Well, really we just caught a ride with them there and back. I forgot how it feels to travel in close proximity with a million brothers and sisters until this weekend. In the car there were the parents in the front seats, Deanna me and Calen in the middle seat, and then Zachary and Jaden in the back seat, and there was a lot of tattle telling, name calling and bugging going on.

Anyways, Mission Beach is 2 ½ hours north of Townsville. We got there and were dropped off at our hostel so we checked in and began to look around. We really wanted to do something adventurous when we were there, but sometimes it is hard to plan things before you get there. After we got settled in the hostel we talked to the lady at the front desk (who reminded me of my 7^th grade Science teacher Mrs. Upton, except not as crazy) and decided to sign up for a SCUBA DIVING course!!! After that we went to eat lunch at a little place down the road, then we went to the beach. Of course, we could only go swimming in the stinger nets, but really didn’t really get in that far. Deanna is really scared of jellies because apparently they aren’t as avid jelly sweepers as the people in Townsville, and it doesn’t go so deep anyways, so we just stayed around the edge collecting coral. Oh! On the way to the stinger nets, we observed and took pictures of Bubble Crabs!! They are tiny crabs, well they can get bigger but we just saw tiny ones, and when they dig their holes they make these round balls of sand and throw them out of their hole. They were EVERYWHERE!

We also collected tons of cuttle fish bones. Then we laid out on the beach for a while and took a little sleep (that’s how Australian’s say took a nap), and when I woke up there were parachuters flying down from the sky at us! It was so wonderful! There were 6 parachutes and I caught the last one just as their parachute was opening. It loved watching them flying down until I thought they were going to land straight on me, but then they turned at the last second and landed about 100 feet from us. It made me want to go parachuting SO badly! I think I will someday. Hm..that night we ate at a restaurant calling Coconutz and I ordered the “Mexican nachos and a Corona” special, and the nachos were soooo amazing. I miss Mexican food so badly, I even told this German girl in our hostel about El Carreton. Oh also that night we met a man named Hiked who works at our hostel and talked tohim for a long time.

Day 2: SCUBA DIVING DAY!!! We finally got up and hour after we said we would, but we still had time to get some brecky and catch our van on time. After everyone from Mission Beach was on the boat, we have to go over to Dunk Island and pick up the rest of the people then after that it was about another hour to get to Nelly’s Reef, which is on the Outer Great Barrier Reef. The water was ridiculously choppy on the way there, and a couple people got sea sick, but I just went to sleep for a little while. After we got there, “Little” Andy who was the dive instructor on the boat gave us a crash course about having to equalized the pressure on your way down and back up when you are in the water with all of your scuba gear on….all you do it hold your nose and pop your ears every meter on your way down. I actually figured out how to pop my ears just with my breathing instead of having to do the nose things. Sorry I’m getting ahead of myself…after that we had to get into our scuba gear…we wore wetsuits, really heavy weights around our stomachs that would help us go down to the bottom of the reef, and the whole backpack-air tank thing. It was SO heavy by the way. We also had on our flippers and masks, and learned out to breathe through our regulators and check our gauges and stuff. The most important thing to remember while you are scuba diving is to not forget to breath! So we have to actually stand up with all of our gear on and walk to the back of the boat, and I’m pretty sure that this was the hardest part about scuba diving for me, haha I almost fell over the whole way there.

Then we jumped off, and hung out around a rope for a while, while we just put our heads under water to become more comfortable with breathing…you know, the whole breathing while you are UNDER WATER thing is quite a crazy sensation. Then we swam away from the boat with Andy and he took us down two at a time (there were three of us at that time) to get used to the pressure, it didn’t bother me at all and I was fine the whole time, Deanna had some trouble for a little while and had to go back up a couple of times, and then the other girl just freaked out and didn’t even really try so we went back to the boat. When Deanna was comfortable enough, we started our first dive, and on this one we held our instructors hands the whole time…on this dive we saw a two meter shark (which kind of freaked me out) and so many beautiful fish and coral. I’ve never seen schools of really big fish together, but we saw a ton of those, I don’t really know much about fish, but I’m pretty sure some of the schools of fish were giant Angel Fish…we got to touch a sea anemone which just kind of stuck to our fingers when we touched it, I think it was actually stinging us but we couldn’t feel it, and then the instructor showed us the bottom of the anemone but fluttering his hand sort of under it, and the under part felt like velvet or something. I had no conception of time when we were under the water, but apparently on the first dive we were under for about 45 minutes! Then we went back up and had some lunch and it was time for the second dive! This time we saw a sting ray, another shark (but smaller, about the same size as the sharks in the touch tank at the Science Center), and a GIANT sea cucumber!! It was probably about 2 ½ or 3 feet and about 6 inches wide. Andy swam to the bottom and brought it up for us to touch, at first we just felt the top of it which was pretty odd, then he flipped his hand over and it had suction cupped itself to his hand! Then we all held it and we accidentally played a little bit of catch with it, but we didn’t harm it at all…it was sooooo crazy. It looked and felt completely fake. On this dive we got to swim by ourselves mostly, I didn’t really hold his hand at all and we were under water for an hour! I did get scared once when we were swimming into murky-ish water a little away from the reef and I just pictured a giant shark coming towards us like in the movies, but don’t worry that didn’t happen.

It’s so hard to explain how you feel when you are scuba diving…I was told that it would be just like I was in a giant fish tank, and that was totally true! Also, I felt like I could have been in space…it was so amazing. Everyone should try it, I want to do it forever.

(check out those sweet marks on our faces from the masks, oh yea!)

Oh dear, on thing bad that did happen was that as soon as we were finished with our second dive, and had clambered our way somehow back onto the boat with all of our million pounds of gear on, a little girl and her dad swam back to the boat and told the people in charge that they had gotten stung by a jelly....thank goodness it wasn't deadly or anything, it was called a Blue Bottom Jelly or something like that.