Catching Up on Family Time

Well it has been quite a while since I have last updated you all, so I will now take the time to do it. Since our April Holiday things have been crazy busy. The group of friends that we established from that trip became so close that we all were staying busy enjoying ourselves. With people in and out of each others units it seemed like a bigger version of Friends.


The Wednesday nights being the ultimate nights here became even more fun! Here is a picture of Julie and I with our sweetest roommate Ryu. He was such a great addition to our place with his love for upbeat music and his cheerful innocence.

Here is a picture of Julie and I with some great girls we became close with. Kristy (next to me) is from Texas and attends Texas Tech and has an amazing resume. She has owned some of her own businesses and is completing 2 majors in three years while doing 3 study abroads in a row! Her next move is Manchester, I don't know how she does it.  Jenna is next to Kristy and is from Wisconsin! She lived right next door and was such a bummer that we didn't become close until the second half our time here.

As the wednesdays carry on with the themes, of course one of them was Cinco de Mayo! After explaining to numerous aussies what Cinco de Mayo even is, they learned how to celebrate it the right way, with some mexican beer and tequila! We really realized how much we Americanize these holidays. Here is Julie and I with Grant, one of the boys from Indiana that I went on break with! He was very proud of his mustache, as were we.

Here is one with Henry and I, another boy from our trip! You might be hearing lots about him in the days to come.. :)

Love must have been in the air here during this semester because my roommate, among many others, met a boy. He is an Aussie, and such a great guy. He is a great addition to our unit 11 family and I have gotten to know him very well, as she is my best friend and roommate. I am always third wheeling and impeding on their hangout time, but neither parties never seem to mind. So we always joke about how the three of us are a family. I cannot even imagine coming so close to someone throughout her time here and having to leave it. No wonder there are so many stories of Americans never returning from Australia.. Anyways, here we are :D 

So many of our friends constantly comment on how lucky we all are for how great our roommates turned out. There are 5 persons to a unit here, and we all hang out. Many people did not even know any of their roommates let alone go out with them all the time. We got spoiled with having Max, who loves to cook and was constantly taking care of his girls.. He was always surprising us with lots of desserts fresh from the oven and lots of candy. Safe to say his sweet tooth matches mine.

Great Barrier Reef!

On our first day in Cairns, the city closest to the Great Barrier, we did an all day snorkel trip. It was a 9am - 4pm trip that included two different sites and of course lunch in between! We had the option (of course for additional costs) to scuba dive as well. A few decided to do that, but we figured and were told that most of what you want to see is right on the surface anyways. On our first dive out we saw a sea turtle right away! SO COOL! Everything we saw really did just remind us of Finding Nemo. This picture looks exactly him in anemone. Even the sea turtles were great!

I am so thankful I had the underwater camera - the colors were amazing. And since the reef is only estimated to be around for another 10 years - well worth the investment. All of these pictures were taken by my camera - and as you can tell - the underwater portion is much more exciting and has much higher quality. We had to be super careful while snorkeling over the sites because coral only grows 1-2 cm a year. 

These two look like they are straight out of a postcard :)

The reef was a blast and we saw all we could. It was so beautiful and would go back in the drop of a hat if I could! Meanwhile, the bar crawls and nightlife was a great time as always. We felt like we were in Cancun, with every bar having dance contests, jelly wrestling and other crazy things. I decided to enter a challenge where girls had to get down and string a piece of wrapped bubble gum up a gentlemen's pant leg and down the other. The first one to do that and then blow a bubble with the piece of gum won a trip to a getaway island. The nice fellow running the pub crawl gave me two since I told him I wasn't traveling alone. The tickets are for some castaway island in which you are flown in a little private plane and basically left to camp on your own. You can collect oysters, enjoy the sun, snorkel, kayak, fish etc. They have a community kitchen areas and basically little porta potties. Another boy from our group one the same thing the night before so we might take a trip out there, but it is still a ways north and we would have to fly north just to get to the port to get us there. It would definitely be an experience though. 

This is a picture of our group plus the many mates we met in our hostel. The hostel was like one big dorm room with 3 sets of bunk beds, a balcony, and a bathroom/shower. It was a bit strange to be living with complete strangers but since the area is common for dive trips and things like sky diving and bungy jumping, nobody was there except to shower and sleep. We met a few germans, and actually met a boy (on the left) from Texas who works as a summer counselor in a camp in Michigan (right outside of Kalamazoo). He is backpacking Australia then off to Europe. What a small world. This is considered one of the crazier hostels so majority of everybody is 30 or younger and enjoys the nightlife. The bar area was right on the first level of the hotel and is free entry to those that are guests there. Below is a picture of the group that made it to Cairns! The one on the right is from Boston, and the one with the snorkel on is from Indiana. The small petite girl is from Chicago, and Steven next to her is from Michigan (as well as Julie my roommate). They all attend Marquette in Milwaukee so we have a little bit in common from being in the mid-west! Travis of course is from Colorado but he fits in too!

Of course the next and best part was the bungy jumping.. Still cannot believe I did it - but it happened. Here is the professional video for those of you that haven't seen it. I had a minor freak out and wouldn't let go of the poor blokes shorts. There were different dives you could choose from and I chose to do what is called the titanic. I knew I would not jump on my own once I stepped onto that platform. So (even though you cant tell because I was so ungraceful and scared) it would mean that I would stand out onto the platform and have the middle of my feet resting on the edge with my toes pointed down. The man would be holding my harness from the back and I would not know when he would let go. I was supposed to have my arms out, as Rose did in the movie.. but thats not how it went.. 

But you know what.. I did it. There are a few other versions and was going to post the video of Grant doing the actual titanic form but for some reason there's an error for the rest of the uploads. I will try to get them up soon. 

The Great Barrier was such a blast and the bungy jump was quite the experience. I am glad I did it though! Not sure if I could ever get myself to do it again, but that's another story! I will be slowly updating this trying to catch up on all the activities so check back soon :) 

<3 Kali

The Best of the Rest (Gold Coast Part 2)

(Surfers Paradise)

Well the nightlife was amazing, lots of clubs and (stripclubs) in the area. Many irish pubs as well, which was kind of a surprise to see. We saved lots of money by making our own dinners so we were able to splurge on some beer! So great, and so nice to get away from the boxed wine for a bit. 

We did get a solid few hours at the beach one day! But then of course the wind picked up and buried our beer so we got out pretty quickly. A few of the danish men that were with our camping friends tried to go skydiving and had to cancel 3 times because of the wind so it was kind of a damper for everyone.. but we fought through!

On the last day, we decided to make something of the bad rainy weather so we all rented a car (which is so amazingly cheap in this country) and drove about 40 minutes out to a great waterfall we read about. This is the view from the top, and it was a 45 minute hike down.

Of course being with boys, we had to hike on down and into the bottom of the waterfall! A little nervous in flip flops, but well worth it! The rain didn't seem so bad after being down there.. 

Here's a picture of us all at the top before the hike. The leeches on the path got a little annoying because for some reason they suckered between the toes and went unnoticed for a little while until they got bigger.. ayyye that was a fiasco! 

Being the adventurers that we were that day, the path to go underneath the waterfall was gated off but the boys of course had to climb around. So I'm not staying behind. We ran underneath it and it was a bit scary because of my clumsiness combined with the lack of friction from my flip flops.. But I did it! 

And here are just a few of the amazing views from the top of the mountain on the drive up as well :)

Beginning of the Gold Coast

Where do I even start? This has been the most amazing few weeks! Well to begin, we took a flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast early wednesday (the 17th of April) morning and arrived in Surfers Paradise by 9am. Not realizing we couldn't check in until 2pm, we took our hangovers straight to the beach to sleep them off. Unfortunately we didn't catch the best weather while we were there. Still warm weather but lots of rain and wind so the beach was quite a sand storm at the time. After checking into our place, we were so relieved because we had such a great setup! We had a full kitchen, a bed, a pull out couch, and even another little loveseat. For 5 people - it was perfect! We were able to get the grocery shopping out of the way and then quickly walked down the beach to meet some friends that road tripped up the coast and were camping nearby. Here's a picture of part of the group! Yeahh me and a lot of boys I suppose.

After a few attempts to go to the beach and getting covered in sand, we realized to cut back the day drinking and looked into buying passes for the Seaworld and waterpark that was nearby! We went to seaworld and it was amazing! I have never seen penguins before, which must have been the most entertaining for sure. This little guy just kept running in little circles in and out of the water.

Then there were some pelicans. And of course a sealion show which was phenomenal! 

Then there was of course the underground aquarium view which was really really cool! 

Of course the last one looks like Dori for those of you familiar with finding nemo! :) Then we used the same passes to go to a huge water park the next day. These rides were unlike any waterpark I've ever been to. The one behind us in this picture was so crazy. They gave you a back protector since you ride on your back the whole way down. You step into this capsule that feels like a personal space shuttle that counts you down. The platform drops from under you and you soar straight down and gain enough momentum to soar all the way around and down. I was only able to do it once. The boys took a second go at it.