Monday-Wednesday: "Shhhhh, it happens"

I've been writing about this road trip for a month, and I'm kind of done with it. So, I am going to bullet point the rest of the road trip.

Monday:
-Got up early
-Went to mechanic (ate yogurt)
-Left Exmouth
-Had the first morning of a REAL road trip (ie: singing loudly, dancing, taking
rando picturs, etc)
-Arrived in Coral Bay (ate carrots at our campsite)
-Went to the clearest/bluest/most beautiful beach I have EVER seen
-Almost ran through a patch of sting rays (Megan saved us)
-Sun bathed
-Sarah chased a seagull,unsuccessfully (one of my favorite stories, ask me about
sometime!!)
-The same seagull stole Jess' top ("I don't know, can't rememba...")
-Made sausages, beans, potatoes for dinner
-Megan and Jen took scalding showers (in salt water)
-Jess had another fabulous quote "There are more stars on our side" when making a
point about where we should sit
-Played on the round-about thing ("Mess with my TOMS, I'll mess with your face."

Tuesday:
-Got up early
-Had another great morning of driving (minus the fact our van was sucking more
than usual)
-Drove on the wrong side of the road so that we could drive next to the other van
-Again, lots of singing, dancing, picture taking
-Stopped for lunch in Carnavon (Diet Coke refueling)
-Left Carnavon...and made it 15 minutes down the highway
-Van wouldn't go faster than 50 kph
-Van filled with smoke and burning smell (our seats were right above the engine...)
-Found out that our rental company had an expired membership with roadside
assistance
-Found out we had a burned out clutch
-"Towed" back to Carnavon
-Jen, Megan, and I sat in the car park at the Mechanic's for 3 hoursand sang
loudly to angry music (we also drank a lot of Diet Coke)
-We were told our van wouldn't be repaired until Friday, the mechanic had no idea
what was wrong with it (or how to fix it)
-Cried a lot, terminated our contract for the van, and got a ride into town
-Found out we were stranded in the crime capital of Western Australia
-Bought 3 Greyhound bus tickets for 3:40 am Wednesday morning
-Sarah, Jeni, and I slept in a nice, random woman's cabin since all 6 of us
wouldn't fit in one van

Wednesday:
-Caught Greyhound bus at 3:40 am
-Experienced the longest 13 hours of my life
-8 screaming children who beat each other, spit on each other, and ran up and down
aisle
-Realized the woman next to us was rolling her own smokes (hopefully tobacco?)
-Jen and I watched the people in front of us meet, fall in love, and (I'm pretty
sure) decide to get married
-Jen and I discovered Megan sleeps with her eyes OPEN
-We took pictures, lots of pictures
-Almost missed the bus at a bathroom break because we had to buy more Diet Coke
-Got picked up from the bus station
-Made it back to Cat's alive

And that was my road trip. It was a disaster and we lost a ton of money, but looking back on it I'm glad it didn't go smoothly. How boring would that have been if all had gone to plan? I mean, all 6 of us survived and I think our friendship is a lot stronger because of it! I know that in 20 years when I look back at my semester in Perth I'll still remember this road trip and all the craziness. It's a great story, at least 85% of the things we experienced was straight out of a movie.

However, this weekend Jeni and I are headed back up to Exmouth to do some more diving and the other girls are going to Margaret River...as much fun as we had, hopefully "Road trip: Round 2" goes better. Fingers crossed the stories are just as good, without the almost dying and losing all our money parts. That would be nice.

Sunday: Exmouth

So many blogs about the road trip. At this point I'm not even sure it y'all are reading them anymore. I promise, after Sunday, there isn't much left to talk about.

Saturday night was my turn to sleep in the top bed. From the "mattress" to the ceiling of the van there is probably about a foot and a half of space (just enough room to wiggle into your sleeping bag and then be able to roll over). When my alarm went off at 6:30 Sunday morning I instinctively sat up to try to find it, and bashed my head on the roof of the van. Then, I looked towards my feet and saw only black and panicked because I couldn't remember where I was. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to remember that I was in the top bed and I saved myself from hitting my head a second time.

We had packed all of our bags the night before, so Sunday morning pretty much consisted of getting out of bed, putting on our suits, locking the vans, and we were off to dive on Ningaloo Reef. We didn't have time to make ourselves breakfast so Megan and Jen walked next door to the caravan park to grab something to eat before the dive bus picked us up. While we were waiting for our bus another dive shop's bus pulled up and we overheard one of the employees telling their costumers that the dives and snorkeling for the day had been cancelled due to weather. At this point we thought this was the bus we were waiting for and Jess immediately left to go tell the girls at the Caltex that our dive had been cancelled. As it turned out, it wasn't our company and moments later our bus pulled up to get us...minus three girls. We ended up picking the other three up from the Caltex.

The diving was AMAZING. I am so decided that if the whole law school/federal law enforcement track doesnt work out than I am going to buy a boat and open a dive shop. Seriously, everyone who works on a dive boat is so friendly and they're all goofy people. And for some reason, they all really enjoy making fun of me. On the boat out to our dive sites Jess got seasick, and refused to take the seasickness medication for like half the day. She looked miserable and we tried really hard to convince her to take the medication but she was being stubborn and refusing to admit that she was seasick. Jeni and I were diving while the other four girls snorkeled.

We had our first dive and I was kind of nervous to dive for the first time without a divemaster checking in on me every few minutes, but it turned out to be really easy and the greatest thing I have ever done. On our first dive we got in the water (I did not fall on my face striding off the boat like I did the first time I did a boat dive) and when Jeni tried to equalize her mask a few feet down she must have popped a few blood vessels in her nose because she started bleeding profusely into her mask. It was super gnarly. The entire nose well of her mask was full of blood and it was splattered on the inside of the lenses too; I can only imagine how creepy it must have been to have had to look out of the blood splattered mask. And, I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit worried about sharks. Apart from Jeni bleeding everywhere, it was an really successful dive! We saw a MASSIVE manta ray, lots of pretty little tropical fish, and even a little turtle. More than anything, I was so happy to just be back underwater. It's really nice to swim through the coral and see things that so relatively few people ever have the opprotunity to see. And in itself, it's just awesome to be able to breathe underwater for 45 minutes. Speaking of breathing, apparently I don't breathe very much air at all; the divemaster actually asked me if I was a mermaid. I didn't know how to respond.

After our first dive we had our surface interval which mainly comprised of eating doritos and sitting in the sunshine. The morning had started out really, really rough with massive swells and kind of chilly, but by the afternoon it had turned into a beautiful day! I easily could have slept in the sunshine and been a happy camper. During our first dive the others had done their first snorkle trip as well; the weather had still been kind of crummy when they had gone out and from what I heard, it was kind of more work than it was worth.

Our second dive was even better than the first dive. We went further into Ningaloo Reef and it was gorgeous. There was so much color and all of the coral was just so delicate and exotic. The idiot we were diving with kept touching things and poking at stuff. I wanted to beat him upside the head with a wooden spoon! What kind of idiot doesn't know that you NEVER touch the coral? Jeez. I guess there's always that one person, which helps explain the accelerated rate at which our coral reefs are dying off at. Anyway, the water on the reef was so clear, you could see forever. It was also warm, which was a really nice change from diving at Rottnest. The swim throughs we did were all really pretty too, I think they are my favorite part about the reefs. At one point we were headed down towards another swim through when our divemaster did the hand signal for "shark" and pointed in the direction we were swimming some 20 feet ahead. It was a little reef shark, probably only a little longer than me, and it was just lazily swimming through the reef without being in any kind of particular hurry. Being the stupid humans we are, we swam towards it until it darted off and then kind of circled back up ahead of us. He was really pretty and I was so excited to have actually seen a real shark, but I made a point not to swim at the back of the group after he disappeared. We actually saw him later on our way back to the boat in the same place he had been earlier. So, I did not find Nemo (I'll have to look for him on the GBR) but I did see a shark!

Again, the other girls had done their snorkeling while Jeni and I were diving, and as part of the package we had signed up for Jeni and I were able to snorkel once with the girls as well. We had to pass Turtle Beach to get to our third site and as we got closer to the beach we noticed HUNDREDS of sea turtles on the beach and in the water. For a while we all sat on the boat and watched the turtles before the crew decided that we wouldn't find a much better place to snorkel than right there with a couple hundred sea turtles. Spring break of my freshman year of college my family went to Hawaii without me; when they came home they told me about everything they had been up to, and there was a story about how my little brother got attacked by a sea turtle when he was body boarding. Apparently the turtle had been riding the same wave as my brother and when he went to use his fins to swim my brother was too close to him and got "scratched" (if sea turtles can do such a thing...). The encounter left my brother with scars on the back of his leg. So, while I'm swimming with these turtles I remembered my brother adamantly telling me that a sea turtle attacked him, and all the subsequent jokes he was the butt of. Besides laughing at my brother's misfortune with sea turtles I also thought of Finding Nemo. Noggin'.

The turtles will really cool at one point I was swimming right next to one and I swear it looked me right in the eye when it glanced my direction. I kind of expected the turtles to be a little skittish and be uncomfortable with humans, but they didn't really seem to notice or care that we were swimming with them. I even got close enough to touch the shell of one. It was a really awesome experience and it started to make up for the awful stuff with the vans.

We finished up with the turtles, had lunch on the boat, and on our way back we came across a pod of Humpback Whales just off the coast! There were like 6 or 7 of them and even a little baby. We watched them for a while and it was like having a free whale watching trip on our dive trip! Bonus! I do have to say though, the unbelievably attractive divemaster on our trip was a pretty great addition to the overall awesomeness of the day. It's actually kind of impossible to describe how attractive this man was.

For dinner that night Megan made us breakfast tacos (more commonly known as breakfast burritos) and it was one of the best meals I have had in Australia. We had fun watching Jen, Sarah, and Jess enjoy their first experiences with breakfast burritos as well; apparently they aren't a normal breakfast food in England. We also played this card game after dinner that Jess convinced us would be SO much fun. It's called Chase the Ace and it was awful. I think we had more fun making fun of the game than we did playing it. Chase the Ace is definitely one of those games you play as a kid and it's a blast (like War) but then when you try to play it again you realize that being a kid was probably the only thing that made the game good. So that's how we spent our time in Exmouth. It was overall, the best day of our trip!

Saturday: "What happened?!" "Jenny! Did you NOT see the sheep??"

Here we go again. I'm hoping I'll be able to fit more than one day into a post, but it probably wont happen. I just have so much to tell y'all about. So here goes with Saturday.

If you remember from the last post, on Friday night we ran out of gas in Jurion Bay and were forced to stop for the night out any reservations. So we slept in the car park of a bar/motel. Sketchy right? Anyway, we all survived the night and woke up bright and early Saturday morning at 5:45 am in the freezing cold vans. I had no idea that it would get so cold at night, and the sleeping bags we had were not made for any temperatures below moderately warm. As Megan and I talked about how we had slept and how the bed was surprisingly kind of comfortable we heard Jen from her position on the top bed waking up as well. Megan asked her how she had slept and we got the most pitiful response I have ever heard. We hear Jen's voice (it's super quiet and kind of muffled since her head is at the opposite end from ours) say, "...I'm so cold...I could die." Jen is always cold, so it's nothing new for her to say it, but the way it came out was so funny in such a sad way. When she eventually climbed down from the coffin bed we covered her with all of the sleeping bags with the hope that it might warm her up a bit faster. Somehow we managed to back our huge camper vans out of the tiny car park and made it over to the gas station we had seen the night before. We got there just after six, which is what time we were told the gas station would open, to find it closed only to realize that it wouldn't open until 7 am. Thankfully, I decided to ask this nice old couple pulling into the car park next door if there was another gas station in Jurion Bay that opened at 6; turns out we were pretty much across the street from the gas station we had been looking for. Everyone had spent the nights in the vans without a bathroom or running water, so it was a mad dash to the bathroom while Megan got stuck with the job of filling up the the vans with gas. I can now officially add "got dressed and brushed teeth in gas station bathroom" to the list of things I did in Australia (along with "slept in sketchy car park"). By the time all six of us had used the bathroom, filled the vans, picked up coffee and reloaded ourselves it was almost 7 am. So much for being on the road by 6:30! Whoops! Megan offered to drive, stating that Jen and I had done the driving yesterday which meant this morning was her turn. We were all in kind of a rush, so we were kind of worried about whether or not Megan would be able to pick up driving manual quickly. But alas, she was a rockstar! I don't even think she stalled once! She picked it up so quickly, it was impressive.

Anyway, as we tried to figure out which way we needed to be headed no one could remember if we had pulled off the main highway to get to Jurion Bay the night before. And there were NO STINKING ROAD SIGNS to tell us what road we were pulling out on to. I had been so tired last night and everything looks so different in the pitch black night of the Australian outback that I couldn't remember exactly if I had pulled off or if the highway went straight through Jurion Bay. We came to the consensus that we would drive back the way we had come the night before and hope to find the main highway quickly. As we drove out of town (the wrong way) I became more an more agitated that there were NO road signs anywhere to help us figure out if we were going the right way. My frustration with the lack of signs added to Megan's nervousness about driving for the first time which was not a good combination. After about 5 minuets I was convinced we needed to turn around and go the other way, so we did. We made it back to the gas station and since Jen was sitting in the passenger seat we had her run into the gas station to ask what road we were on. We needed to be on the North West Coastal Highway. From the car Megan and I yelled at Jen to "run!" and run she did. For those of you who don't know Jen, or haven't seen any pictures, she has the world's longest legs and she's overall long and lanky. Watching her try to get those long legs of hers to cooperate with the movements needed to run was so funny, it lightened the mood in both vans considerably. As she ran back to the van we all watched as Jen bowed her head and pumped her arms furiously in an attempt to move faster. It was hilarious, I wish I could describe it better. Needless to say, it became a joke to tell Jen to "run" as week every time we went somewhere. Thankfully, she took the joke well and laughed along with us.

The morning's drive went really well. I can't actually think of anything that went overly wrong. We had fun navigating through the town of Geraldton where Megan stalled at this one light 4 times. The most amazing part was that we had time to stall 4 times and still make it through the green light!

We stopped for lunch at the Overlander Roadhouse and used their first class, clean as a whistle bathrooms. Please note the heavy sarcasm. The bathrooms were so nasty, if there hadn't been so many flies outside I might have considered peeing behind a bush. We made sandwiches for lunch and ate Tim Tams on one of the picnic tables before packing it up and carrying on. The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful except for one roundabout when I was driving in Carnavon. As I drove around the roundabout the cupboard door flew open and all of our food scattered across the van; from that point onward we had to put our big jugs of water in front of the cupboard door to try to keep in it place. Like I said, the vans were ghetto. After the cupboard incident we stopped for gas and Jenny switched driving; as she pulled out of the station and on to the road we all realized at the same moment that we were going the wrong way down a one way road. The other van realized it around the same time as well and started waving wildly at us in an attempt to get our attention and have us turn around. After leaving Carnavon we literally drove in the middle of nowhere until we reached Exmouth that night. We could drive for miles at a time without seeing another car. Right before making the turn off for the road to Exmouth we stopped one last time for gas at this sketchy looking rest stop. While Megan paid for the gas and chatted with the other van, Jen and I stayed with our van. We were in the middle of doing our "driving exercises" (which mainly consisted of making our "humph" faces and waving our arms around) when this guy in a truck pulled up along side our van and watched us creepily. After a minute of two he put the truck in reverse and backed up so that he was parked nose to nose with our fan. When Megan got back we quickly packed ourselves back into the vans and attempted not to make eye contact with whoever this guy was. Just as Megan was closing her door he appeared out of no where beside us and started saying something about how we were lucky to have someone to talk to on such a long drive, Megan smiled and said "Sorry! We have to go" and slammed our car door in his face. Jen wasted no time in getting us out of there. If you have ever heard of the Australian horror movie Wolf Creek, that guy could easily have been the star and basis of the movie.

As we were driving down the Exmouth highway we passed the Tropic of Capricorn sign, where we of course had to stop and take photos together! We have this little bumble bee thing (his name is Bruce) that we got in a kid's meal at Hungry Jack's one night when we went to dinner after formal hall that we took on our road trip. Our goal was to get as many pictures of Bruce in crazy places as possible...so we had Jess climb up the pole of the Tropic of Capricorn sign and hold Bruce above it just so we could get a picture. It was pretty epic. We also did planks in the middle of the road and pretty much ran around burning up some of the energy we had built up while sitting in the vans for so long.

We still had a solid 2 hour drive to Exmouth ahead of us once we got back into the vans after taking photos, and it was getting dark. We still hadn't been able to fix the head light on our van and we were in the middle of the bush; we were all really worried about hitting a kangaroo, turns out our van should have been more worried about the cows, sheep...and stray carousels! We were going the speed limit of 110k/hour and came up over the top of a hill and were headed down into the dip on the otherside when we saw a herd of sheep in the middle of the road. Megan was driving and I didn't want to panic her any further by screaming, so I did my best to maintain my cool as I said "Stop. Stop! STOP!" Megan swore that she heard me yell "Oh my god! STOP THE CAR!" but I think we've finally agreed that she only heard that in her head. Impressively, Megan maintained her composure and remembered to press in the clutch at the same time she was breaking (and not swerving). This all happened in a matter of seconds and as the van came to an almost abrupt stop the bedding and sleeping bags we had piled on the top bed during the drive came flying foward and managed to land solely on top of Jen in the passenger seat. I hadn't seen them come forward, and once I realized I was still alive I looked over just in time to see Jen pulling a sleeping bag off of her head (it took her a long time to figure out how to get it off her head) while shouting "What happened?!" Megan, who at this point must have been close to having a heart attack shouted back "Jenny! Did you NOT see the sheep???" (Earlier in the night Jen hadn't seen the herd of cows that had been standing on the side of the road...at this point we just kind of assumed that she was blind to livestock). Jenny's reply was, "No, I closed my eyes...and then the sleeping bag fell on me!" Once again, I really hope you can picture this in your head, because it was so funny. I hope it's not one of those stories where you had to be there in order to appreciate the humor in it!

While Australia is really, really awful at posting road signs that are helpful, like the names of roads, they are really, really good at posting random and slightly annoying road signs. For instance, there are these signs that say "Floodway" posted every other mile that indicate a lower area of road that might possibly be underwater in the occurance of a flash flood. I don't know much about rainfall in the outback, but I can't imagine flash floods are as prevelant as these signs make them out to be. Another really obnoxious sign is the one that has an image of a cow and a kangaroo on top of it which warn drivers that both cows and kangaroos are present for the next x amount of kilometers. In our van we liked to joke that kangaroos would be jumping over cows for the next x amount of kilometers. It was a bad joke...I'm pretty sure I came up with it. But, I think my favorite ridiculous sign was that one that looked like a carousel horse; all we could make out as we drove by them was a horse with something sticking out of its back. Serious as could be as we drove by one, Jen tells Megan, "Watch out for stray carousels in the road."
It was kind of a let down when we drove by one of the signs in the daylight and realized that what we had thought was a pole was actually a person. The sign was warning to watch out for horseback riders. Lame.

After nearly hitting a herd of sheep and being lucky enough to avoid the stray carousels we arrived in Exmouth in one piece! The other van hadn't been so lucky. Jess was driving and at one point she saw a kangaroo on the side of the road, just as she drove past it the girls heard/felt a big thump. Jess hit the first kangaroo she had ever seen. Kind of sad, isn't it? We like to think that the big guy just shook it off and kept right on hopping. In Exmouth we stopped at a gas station to fill up our van, which at this point was burning through gas at twice the rate of the other van (clutch and engine problems). The other van was in kind of a rush to get to the caravan park and in their haste to get out of the gas station they didn't pay attention to what was behind their van. Unfortunately, Jess backed the van straight into one of the poles in front of a gas pump. The scariest thing about it was that if she had been even a foot further to the right, she would have crashed right into the actual pump. At first the damage didn't look too awful, but it turned out that she hit the cement pole with such force that it actually bent the tow bar back into the bumper which in turn dented the hatch shut. Later that night we figured out that without being able to open the back hatch there was no way to get the table out which was needed to create the bottom bed. Megan, being the epic problem solver that she is, used part of our van's bed to create workable beds in both vans. Like a said, she's kind of a rockstar.

We ended up getting fish and chips for dinner from this really nice lady at a near by shop (who was actually closed for the night but took pity on us) and ate as a group on the front porch of the caravan park's incredibly expensive restaurant. Then, after the longest two days of driving in POS vans of my life, we finally got into the caravan park and were able to start setting up camp. We had gotten powered sites for both vans so that we could charge electronics, keep our food cold, and keep Megan's medication cold and I took it upon myself to plug my van into the power port. Guess what. It didn't work. We spent the next few minutes flipping switches and turning things on and off trying to get the power to work, it became impossible to know if power was actually running through the extension cord or not. I was attempting to make sure the cord was plugged into the van correctly when I got the scariest electrical shock of my life. I actually had little burn marks (or something like them) on my fingers from where I had touched the extension cord. It hurt so badly and the only thing I could think to do was cuss and jump around like an idiot until Megan came running out of the van and made me put my hand in the dirt. My hair was a static-y mess for the rest of the night (which probably explains how so much of my hair ended up on the roof of the camper van since I slept up there that night). After the electric shock we stopped messing with the vans for the night and I decided it was time for me to shower and go to bed. We were all exhausted and had to get up early the next morning to be at the front of the resort to be picked up for scuba/snorkeling so we all went to bed as soon as we could.

I think that about wraps up Saturday! Sunday I went scuba diving on the Ningaloo Reef and it was AMAZING. I'll tell y'all about it in my next post since I don't have time to write about it now. (I really need to work on some homework).

Love always.

Friday: "We're at the road where we can go left or right...which way do we turn?"

Our road trip was a disaster. I think that about sums it up. But really, it was doomed from the morning we left, and it didn't really get any better. It's been kind of hard to remember all of the fun we had while we were gone because the bad stuff has been so overshadowing, but I think we did a good job of finding silver linings and making the bad situations fun. I think it will just be easier to break the road trip down by days, that way I don't forget to write about something important.

Thursday:
Jess, Sarah, and Jeni were in charge of going grocery shopping for our trip and they went Thursday night while I was in class. I'm actually a little bit surprised at how well they did in buying good food (not just crisps, sweets, and chocolates). We had strawberries, celery, carrots, and apples which all turned out to be much better snack foods on our long drive anyway; when crisps are the only thing you eat all day you feel kind of sick. Anyway, Jess stayed the night at Cats on Thursday night so she would be here with all of her stuff Friday morning when we left after her class. As usual, I didn't pack until the night before leaving, so at 11:00 I was running around trying to get my stuff together so I could go to bed at a reasonable hour. You know how you always forget to pack at least one thing? I forgot to pack an extra pair of contacts. I was so worried all week that I would lose a contact and be blind for the rest of the trip (thankfully I remembered to pack my glasses though).

Friday:
I got up super early with everyone else so we could get brekkie and get the last minute things together before going to pick up the vans. Jess had class until 10 am, but she ducked out at 9:30 to meet us at the bus stop so we could get the vans as early as possible. Originally we had planned to pick up the vans at 9 which was the earliest we were allowed to get them; but a few days before we left Jess' class was un-cancelled, which threw a bit of a wrench into our planning. That was the first thing that went wrong...we should have seen it as a sign and called it quits then!

Megan had been in charge of finding directions to the van pick up place, but unfortunately she didn't know that Perth has more than one bus station. Megan had accidentally assumed that the Wellington bus station, where we wanted to go, was the bus station located near the center of the city where we go to shop and do things like that. She was a little bit wrong. We ended up at the wrong bus station and spent a few minutes running around trying to find another bus that would take us to the bus station that we wanted to be at. We eventually found a bus that would take us to Wellington, the driver was a little bit creepy (Perth bus drivers have kind of a bad habit of muttering to themselves and acting kind of crazy). At Wellington we had to catch one more bus that would take us to Newcastle St. It was really obvious that we had no idea where we were going and the sweet bus driver (not a crazy one) was really helpful and shouted when we were at the stop we needed to get off at. He even helped point us in the right way when we got off the bus.

The rental place was pretty easy to find and when we arrived they weren't too busy. I was expecting we would be able to slap down 2 credit cards, grab our vans, and be out of there in 30 minutes. I was really excited, even though the rental place looked dodgy as all get out. However, Megan's credit card wouldn't work and we had been given wrong information about third party credit cards when we had called weeks previous, so Jeni's dad's credit card wouldn't work either. We had to go through this super long process of calling Megan's credit card company and trying to get ahold of Jeni's dad so he could sign paperwork for us to use his card. At this point there were tons of people waiting behind us to get their rentals and all of us were starting to feel a little stressed. When it seemed like working out the details of Megan's card was just going to be too much to deal with I offered to put down my dad's AMEX for the $3,000 bond on one of the vans. And then stupidly (I really didn't think my choices through...I just wanted to get our vans and leave since we had already wasted almost two hours) I put down my own debit card on the bond for the second van. With the money down we were able to continue with our rental and actually got our vans. They were total pieces of sh**. Honestly, they were ghetto. But we were so excited to be getting them and leaving that we didn't really care. We did all of the paperwork and learned about how to make sure the stupid things were maintained "properly" and then we were off to St Cats to pack up our stuff and hit the road! It was decided that Jenny and Jess would drive the vans back to Cats since they are both familiar with driving manuals on the left side of the road (in the right side of the car). We figured having the Americans figure out the whole driving concept in the city would be a bad idea.

We made it 3 blocks from the rental place when the van I was in (Jess was driving) started having all of these issues with shifting. Jess couldn't get the car to go into 1st gear unless she bashed on the shifter, and once in first the stupid thing wouldn't shift up at all. We were stalling in the middle of the road trying to figure the stupid things out, which was really stressful. We eventually made it to a parking lot where Jess pulled over and we tried to call the other van to come back and find us. We were worried that if they got too far ahead we wouldn't be able to make it back to Cats since we didn't have a map (it later turned out that our map was in the map folder in our car, but since it had been folded in half Jeni hadn't seen it and assumed we didn't have one). We spent a solid 15 minutes calling each other and trying to figure out where we were in relation to the other van. When we finally found each other we thought that maybe the van was just having issues because Jess was really nervous and wasn't driving right. Sarah and I drove the van around the car park and didn't experience any issues with the clutch or gear box, so we just assumed that we were correct in thinking Jess had just been stressed. Sarah offered to drive the van back to Cats instead and Jess took her place riding in the van that Jen was driving. We made it another block, and then Sarah started experiencing the exact same issues that Jess had experienced with the gear box.

We pulled over and called road side assistance. Funny thing, they couldn't find our registration in their database, but they attributed that to recently we had rented the vans. They just assumed that our data hadn't been updated into the system. Roadside assistance sent out a mechanic/tow to look at our car and he jumped us and sent us back to the rental place to have them look at our van. When we showed back up those idiots tried to tell us there was nothing wrong with the van and that the battery would be fine all the way to Exmouth and back (it's a 16 hour drive to Exmouth). We actually had to argue with the employees about putting a new battery in the van, they were not happy about it. We also asked them to drive the van since they didn't believe us when we told them there was something wrong with the gears. They finally caved and took the van to a "mechanic" aka some creep who's friends with the people at Traveller's Auto Barn. The tightened the gear box and it seemed to be working better, but it wasn't working the way it should have been. We tried asking them to exchange the van out for a different one so they could look at the issues the van was having and let us a take another one, but they wouldn't even consider it.

By the time we finally left the Traveller's Auto Barn it was pushing four in the afternoon...we wanted to be leaving perth at 11:30 at the latest. We got back to Cats and had to pack all of our stuff into the vans before we could leave too, so I think we were finally ready to leave at around 5, which was unfortunate considering it was rush hour. We had Google Maps directions that were supposed to direct us out of the city, but somehow we got lost. The van behind us got separated at some point and kept calling to figure out which way they needed to turn at which street to stay on the same path we were taking, at one point Jeni called Megan and said "We're at the road where we can go left or right...which way do we turn?" It was hilarious. There was a long pause before Megan replied that she needed more information than that to help them out. My phone also rang while we were driving through the city and at the time of the call I was busy trying to read the map and figure out where we were at, I assumed it was the other van calling again so when I answered I snapped/yelled "Yeah?" in a pretty annoyed/stressed tone. Turns out that it wasn't the other van on the line, it was my hot dive master, Dean. Yes, the one time I think I have ever answered the phone in a rude way was when Dean called. Just my luck. He just wanted to let me know that my dive card was in at the shop and I could pick it up whenever. I felt so bad; I tried to explain why I snapped at him, but it was just awkward and I really just wanted to hang up and pretend it hadn't happened. Moral of the story, always be nice when you answer the phone, you never know if it'll be a hottie on the other end. After my conversation with Dean we were still in the city and we were still trying to find our way out. Megan was in the middle seat and she had a fold up road map that she had purchased at the Caltex which had an ok map of the city that she was trying to look at. As she unfolded the map she was kind of flailing around with it and smacked me in the face with it multiple times as she turned it this way and that looking for the right map. (Imagine her with her arms completely outstretched with this huge map flipping it upside down and turning it over while trying not to get in Jen's way of driving. It was beyond funny, I really hope you can picture it in your head.) These two guys on the sidewalk saw all of this happen and they just stood there laughing at us until the light we were stopped at turned green and we were able to drive away. Honestly, the should make a movie about our road trip, with as much crazy/awful stuff that happened (and the fact that we are all alive and still friends) it would be a box office hit.

We made it out of the city eventually and made good time for a couple of hours. As it started to get dark we thought it would be a good time to try to teach Megan and Jeni how to drive manual. We pulled off the main highway and onto some back road that looked like it was fairly empty. Megan picked it up really quickly; she only stalled the van a few times. It was little bit harder for Jeni, she didn't really understand right away when she needed to upshift and downshift. We spent around an hour driving up and down this one little road while Megan and Jeni practiced. Then it was my turn to drive! I'm actually really, really proud of myself. I didn't stall the van once! It did take me about 3 days worth of driving to break myself of the habit of trying to shift with my right hand. I had bruises and small cuts on my right knuckles from all the times I hit the driver's door when I trying to shift. Driving on the left side of the road was really easy to pick up as well, it's only when I went to turn that I had to make sure that I stayed to the left and think through my turn. By the time our trip came to an abrupt end I had the driving thing down! (Hopefully when I come home I pick up driving the "right" way again just as quickly! Watch, when I drive manual I'll have to break myself of the habit of trying to shift with my left hand!). It was funny actually, everyone wanted to drive, no one in our van ever tried to wiggle their way out of their turn behind the wheel. Driving was fun, plus with those POS vans when you were driving at least you felt like you had a little more control as opposed to when you were a passenger and you were praying the engine didn't blow up underneath you.

It was getting dark so we decided we should probably get back on the road...turns out my van had a burnt out headlight and the other working headlight as well as the brights were directed downward and to the left, so they didn't even light up the road! It was awful we had to drive with the brights on just to be able to see at all. At around 8 we decided we needed to stop for gas and get something to eat for dinner. We found a little town called Lanclin just off the highway that we figured we could stop off at to get some gas and grub. As we drove into the town we realized it was DARK and it was DEAD. There was literally nothing around us. We found one small pizza place on the side of the road and that was it, we didn't really want to drive much further down the deserted road so we pulled over there. The pizza place was super tiny and this nice, but strange, woman was the only one working. We ate outside and all joked about how if we were in a movie we were at the point just before we all started to die. For some reason we were talking about walking down the road to find the bar, I think so we could use the bathroom, and Jess said "Oh, I've seen this movie! We're going to die if we try to walk to the bar." She was probably right. Lanclin was spooky to say the least. After dinner we were discussing how far we should go before we stopped to fill up on gas. (Earlier we had decided we would just drive straight through the night to make up for lost time at the rental place earlier in the day). We realized that in the middle of the outback, the gas stations close at 8 pm...which meant we could go as far as we could get on a tank of gas and then we were stranded until the gas stations opened at 6 am the next morning.

We made it as far as Jurion Bay before the other van ran out of gas and we had to stop for the night. We didn't have reservations in Jurion, so we had no idea where we were going to sleep since the office at the caravan park had closed hours before. Jen, Megan and I drove further into town (we left the other van parked near a park so they wouldn't run out of gas) and found a hotel/bar that was open. This bar was a mad house. Imagine what you think a bar in the middle of the outback would be like...that is this bar. There were no women and it was full of these crazy strange men. And it smelled awful. The man at the reception desk (which was in the bar) told us that we could rent a room for some ridiculous price, which we weren't willing to pay for...so we decided we would go into the bar, buy something and then sleep in the car park (parking lot) and hope that no one would come along and kick us out. Going into the bar was an awful idea. These guys flocked to our table and were all strange and kept trying to hold our hands and do weird things. We didn't stay long before telling them we had to walk to our "hostel" for the night. We used the bar's bathroom and then snuck out before the bar closed so we could be in the vans before everyone came out. While we were moving around trying to get ready for bed the other van called us and whispered "Don't move! Stop moving! There are cops outside the vans!" Immediately all three of us stopped moving..which was hilarious since Jen was only halfway up onto the top bed (it's impossible to get up there without shaking the van like crazy). We lie there for what seemed like forever not making a sound while we waited for a cop to knock on our door and tell us to move. Thankfully no one came to kick us out, so after a while we decided it was safe to move (just a little bit) so we could get comfortable. As I was falling asleep these drunk guys walked by our vans and I heard one of them say, "Hey look at those camper vans! Wouldn't it be fun if we tipped them over?" Right afterwards Megan says, "Lynz? Did you hear that?" I whispered back that I had to which she replies "Well, if we hear a big crash I guess we know what happened to the other van..." It was so funny, I've never in my life had to try so hard not to laugh out loud and draw attention to myself.

I guess that about wraps it up for Friday. I'll write another post(s) about the rest of the trip later. I figure as long as I get one post up, and since this one is so long, it should get some of yall off my back about my road trip.

Check in later for more.

Love always.

In the Land Down Under, acting your age is an option, not a requirement.

How ya goin?

Honestly, I don't really have much to write about, but if I'm blogging it means I'm not doing homework (which is fine by me!). In fact, I would much rather be laying on the beach right now avoiding my homework than sitting on my computer avoiding my homework, but it's cold out! Last weekend was so beautiful when I was getting my dive certification! It was 25 degrees and sunny all weekend, and this week it's more like 17 degrees, rainy, and windy.

Every morning I wake up in Australia and it still amazes me that I live here; I can't quite wrap my head all the way around the idea. The Perth area is just so beautiful...even on days like today!

I had a pretty eventful week. Tuesday was Sarah's 21st birthday and we spent the week celebrating it; we had some great times! I also ate emu and camel this week, and we are putting the final touches on the plans for our road trip (we leave Friday!!). Sheesh, I just introduced three topics, so I guess I'll start with the food. The dining hall has this awkward habit of making strange entrees, but not making anything else, like normal food, so you're pretty much going to go hungry if you don't eat the bizarre meal of the day. One night dinner was camel meat and another it was emu, no one else was willing to try it, but I figured "why not? It (probably) wont kill me!" The emu was alright, kind of tough meat, and it tasted a little bit like beef. The camel meat was super weird though! It was chewy and it didn't have a taste that is easy to describe, honestly I've never tasted anything like it. Truth be told, I probably won't be eating either of the meats ever again, but at least now I can add them to the list of things I did while in Australia! During my road trip up north I am really hoping to be able to try some Kangaroo steak. Apparently the meat is an awkward purple/red color but is really good! Can you believe that Australians eat their national animal? Sad day. But I guess it doesn't seem so bad when you think about how there are 5 kangaroos to every person in the country, crazy right?

So Sarah turned 21 last week and we had so much fun planning for it and attempting to make her birthday in Australia one that she will never forget. Megan and Jenny, being the artistic girls that they are, made Sarah's birthday card as well as the "banner" that we hung up on her door. The card was huge and super fantastic; they carried it around the college Monday night collecting money for Sarah's gift as well as letting everyone who wanted to sign it. The girls ended up collecting $100 for Sarah which we gave to her with a certificate explaining that for her birthday we had all chipped in to pay for "an experience" during our road trip. I'm pretty sure that Sarah is going to use the money to help pay for the snorkeling the girls are doing in Exmouth while Jeni and I dive. So Tuesday morning (Sarah's birthday) Jeni, Jenny, and I got up early(ish) to blow up a thing of balloons and decorate Sarah's door with the streamers that someone had picked up at a party store. Jeni had been blowing up balloons much longer than I had been and she got to the point where her fingers hurt too much to tie the balloons; so she would sit there and hold 2 inflated balloons in her hands and one in her mouth until I was able to tie them for her. It would have been funnier if I had been more awake. Jess made a chocolate birthday cake for Sarah which we had later that day, and it was amazing. I had to get my piece and then dash away to make it to my 6 o'clock class. I left a little bit later than I usually do so I was power walking across campus trying to eat my cake without dropping any of it. I looked classy, for sure. I made it to class just in time to finish my cake, sit down, and pull out my notebook. I don't know why people gave me so many weird looks for eating cake and walking across campus, I mean, aussies don't wear shoes. That's much more strange.

Tuesday night when I got back from class we went out for dinner for Sarah's birthday--no one should be forced to eat St Cats food on their birthday. It was a suprise for Sarah, so it was a lot of fun hustling her to the bus, through Freo, and eventually to Little Creatures, which is this awesome brewery right on the harbor, so the entire side that faces the waterfront is glass so you can see the water while you eat. The 9 of us ordered 3 pizzas and 2 massive baskets of chips...there was so much food and all of it was delicious. At the end of dinner was funny to watch the 9 of us try to figure out how to split the bill, who knew math could be so hard when 9 people are trying to do it! It took a whole lot longer than it should have, but the amazing part was when we finished we had the exact amount of money that we needed. We left dinner and Jess pulled sparklers out of her purse...it was like 4th of July, only without the BBQ and fireworks. The plan was that we were going to catch the train back into Perth after dinner, but we found this really epic park to play at instead! It had one of those massive rope spider web things that you can climb, jump, and swing on that we played on for a while, but it's really hard to climb that thing in skirts and dresses. The park also had those zip line things that go between the different platforms! I haven't been on one of those since I was a kid, it was so much fun!! I also did the monkey bars, climbed slides, played on the swings, and pretty much ran around the same way I did when I was in elementary school. Sometimes acting my shoe size is just so much more fun than acting my age! So by the time we finally left the playground it was almost midnight, and on a Tuesday night in Perth, that means everything that is open "til late" was closing. We called it quits and took the train back to Claremont where we would catch the last bus back to UWA. We turned the corner just as the bus pulled up to the stop so Mary ran to catch it and she got to the doors just as the bus driver closed them and pulled out. He was such a jerk. There was NO way that he didn't see us all running down the street, there was no one on the bus, and he was the LAST bus of the night, yet he still didn't wait an extra 30 seconds so we could get home. We had to hail a taxi and pay to get home that way. I'm still kind of bitter about it, in case you couldn't tell.

Friday night was less formal and more of just a night out on the town. We put on our dancing shoes, wrapped Sarah up in a banner that said "HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY" and went into the city for the night. It was a lot of fun and thankfully the 80s place didn't play Twist and Shout like they did last time we were there. The song was stuck in my head for days after that.

Last night was a chill out night, we just kind of hung around pretending to be productive since Jeni and I were signed up to dive today with the shop we got our certifications at. DSS had the harbor shut down for the day and as part of "Project Aware" were were going to dive in the harbor and clean up trash. Jeni's dive master last weekend was telling her they once found an entire four poster bed during another clean up. But the monsoon woke me up at 6:20 this morning and I knew there was no way we were going to dive in weather like that. The wind was practically trying to knock our college over, and the rain was coming down in buckets...sideways. Jeni was adament that we were not going to be diving, but I was still kind of hoping the weather would be nicer in Freo and/or the weather would clear up in time for our dive. We caught our taxi, got to the train station, waited in the monsoon, and got on the train to Freo before my phone rang. It was the dive shop calling to let me know they were rescheduling the clean up dive for another day. I was kind of a little bit bummed because on top of really wanting to dive, I really wanted to see Dean again. I have one of those "teacher crushes" on my dive master; but I think it's ok. He's only like, 27. Plus, he does all this hardcore stuff and has a hot aussie accent. You really can't blame me. Anyway, after the call we were kind of stuck. The buses don't run until 9:00 on Sunday mornings and it was 7:45, so unless Jeni and I were going to pay for another taxi back to St Cats, we weren't going anywhere. We ended up taking the train to Cottesloe where we stopped in at some adorable little diner for breakfast. I am very much looking forward to having my leftovers for breakfast tomorrow! The weather didn't end up getting any better until around 5...and then the next batch of rain blew in. I actually had to drag my heater back out (today was the first time that I've used it since 'the spider incident'). But, I just have to push through the next four days and then I'll be headed up the coast with the girls towards beautiful beach weather!! It's supposed to be in the low 30s all week in the Exmouth area...which is really 85-90 degrees! WOOT WOOT! I'm gonna get my tan back!

Anyway, Jeni and Sarah have been calling my room phone for the past hour harassing me, I figure it's about time I go down and figure out what those crazy people are up to. I'll tell yall more about our road trip plans real soon! Or I'll just wait until we get back and tell you all about it then!

Miss you all!

Love always.

"So, the Big Blue. Whats it like?" "Um...big...and blue?"

Oh gosh, I have been so busy in the past few weeks that even the idea of writing a blog was exhausting and slightly overwhelming; but I've finally found a few minutes to sit down, breathe, and more importantly for y'all, write another post.

I've been up to so much since the last time I posted and I don't even really know where to start, so I think I'll just write about the most recent adventure and then work my way backwards as I remember things. Good plan? I think so.

I remember writing in almost all of my blogs how I planning on scuba diving, then about how I signed up to scuba dive...well, now I can tell you that I am a certified Open Water Diver! I did my certification course this weekend and diving is one of the best things I have ever, ever, ever done in my life (and one of the most exhausting, I am so sore and tired)! My course was three days long and included 2 pool dives, 2 shore dives, 2 boat dives, and a written exam. I started Friday morning and had to be in Fremantle at 8 am. The buses here are kind of hard to figure out and I really didn't want to be late for my first day. I got up at 6 am and left for the bus/ATM at 6:30; turned out that the bus didn't come until 7:04 so I ended up sitting at the bus stop for about 20 minutes, and then the bus ride was speedy quick so I sat in front of the dive shop for another 30 minutes before it opened. Being half an hour early is always better than being 5 minutes late...but at 7:30 in the morning all I could think about was how I could have slept for another half hour. All that waiting was so worth it though when the dive shop opened and I realized that my Dive Master/Instructor was a total babe, turned out that he was a good instructor and interesting person too (bonus points!). My class consisted of 3 other people, Rick, Anne, and Luke, all of whom were really nice and super interesting as well. Friday was an introduction, we spent a couple of hours going over the homework before learning how to use the scuba equipment in the pool. We spent the afternoon putting together and taking apart our equipment, breathing through the regulators, taking our masks off and clearing them underwater, and doing basic, simple things like that. Here's a list of the most important things I learned Friday: 1)Putting on a wetsuit (dry or wet) is hard and you HAVE to do the wetsuit dance, 2)there is no graceful way to do the wetsuit dance, 3)it is impossible to look cute in a wetsuit, 4)if you hold your breath while diving, your lungs will explode (bit of a hyperbolic statement, but not by much), 5)Australians pronounce Aluminum wrong (they say "Al-uh-min-ee-um"), and finally 6)"real" Aussies don't wear shoes. Even though I spent the day diving in a swimming pool I was exhausted by the time I got back to Cats. The equipment weighs so much more than I realized, especially after you have to strap a weight belt around your waist.

My friend Jeni (I'm sure you all remember her) was also doing a dive course this weekend, and she finishes up tonight to get her Advanced Open Water certification (the next cert after mine). Jeni and I both had to be at the dive shop at 8 am Saturday morning and to save us the hassle of getting up earlier than need be, we spent the night at Jess' apartment since she is closer to Freo. We planned on getting up at around 6:45 and catching the 7:15(ish) train into Freo since the train stops a five minutes walk from Jess' apartment. Jeni and I got up nice and early and went to the bakery down the street before heading into Freo, we got these delicious iced coffees as well that came in little milk cartons! This iced coffee gives Starbucks a run for its money, I suddenly don't feel so sad that Starbucks hasn't reached this part of the world yet. Jess' roommate's sister ended up driving Jeni and me into Freo so we didn't have to catch the train. It was nice not to take public transport, but I accidentally walked to the driver's side instead of the passenger's side of the car...

Saturday I had my two shore dives out at Woodman's Point. The visibility was terrible, I could hardly see my hand when I put it out in front of my face, but it was still so much better than being in the pool! Since we did shore dives, we parked in the carpark and got dressed and put all of our equipment on right there and then had to make the 5 minute trek down the path to the beach, I'll tell you right now, that gear gets 10x heavier when you have to walk up hill and through sand! Our first dive we just walked into the water and did our dive around the pier; we got down to about 8 meters and just practiced more of our skills in the new environment. It was a lot more difficult to take my mask off in the ocean than it had been in the pool, but after the first time (when I didn't drown) it got so much easier and by the end of the day I was comfortable with taking off and putting my mask back on underwater as well as throwing my regulator out of my mouth and then finding and replacing it. For our second dive I got separated from the group and after spending 1 minute looking for my buddy I ascended to the surface to wait for my dive master to come retrieve me. As I was going up this big dark shadow swam quickly past me, coming so close as to actually brush my leg. I'm not going to lie, I was convinced that it was a shark and I was about to die; there was a shark attack not too far from here two weekends ago, a surfer was attacked and died as a result of his injuries. When I got to the surface, somewhat panicky, I realized the thing that had touched me as it swam by was a wild dolphin! Can you believe that? On my first ever dive in the ocean I got to "swim" with wild dolphins! There were a bunch of people fishing of the pier and the 3 dolphins had come for the free meals; people were climbing down the water holding fish out for the dolphins to come eat. It was so amazing! Dolphins are by far the greatest animals. Shortly after ascending Dean came up to find me. I got a little bit of a lecture about staying close to my buddy and then he made me take off my BCD (buoyancy control device--the vest that my scuba tank and gear is all attached to) at the surface and prove that I could put it back on again. Then he told me to go back to the bottom and dunked me. We spent the rest of the dive just swimming and getting used to moving in the water with scuba gear. After our two dives we went back to the shop and Dean gave us an hour lunch break before we had to be back to take our written exams. The four of us went to Little Creatures, one of the best breweries in WA. It was a bad idea. Our hour long lunch break turned into an hour and a half because Little Creatures was super busy and it took forever to get our pizzas and chips. Since we were late we tried to suck up by bringing back all of our leftovers for Dean, its a good thing guys are so easily appeased with food.

Saturday night was also the St. Catherine's formal ball at the major casino in Perth. The ball was Phantom of the Opera themed and had an open bar. Jeni and I rushed back from Freo after Saturday's dives to shower really fast and get ready for the ball. The buses were supposed to pick us up at 6:15 in the St. Cat's carpark, but at 6:30 we were all still standing in the carpark all dressed up with no where to go (or at least no way to get there). It turned out that something had happened with our reservation and the company we had rented buses from had us scheduled for the 11th instead of the 10th! Backup transportation was being arranged, but by this time I was fighting off a migraine and was tired beyond belief. Sadly, I chose to go back up to my room and go to bed instead of going to the ball...so I guess you can say that in my version of Cinderella's fairytale, the princess misses the ball in favor of a good night's sleep. After listening to all the girls talk about the highlights (and the drama) of the night I am super sorry that I missed the ball, but I know it was the best choice for me considering I had to dive again Sunday. I ended up going to bed at 8:30 and got something around 9 and a half hours of sleep. It was so nice and I felt so good when I got up yesterday morning.

Perth, being the city that it is,doesn't have public transportation that runs prior to 9 am on Sunday mornings and thankfully I realized this when I randomly woke up at 10 pm Saturday night. I ended up having to order a taxi (online since I kept getting put on hold when I called the taxi company...) to take us to Freo Sunday morning. I don't take many taxis in Denver so I don't really have much of a reference point, but holy smokes do taxis cost a ton of money in Perth! Jeni and I ended up having to pay for a $28 taxi. When we arrived at the dive shop they took my picture (for my diving card) and Dean gave me a hard time for wearing makeup just for the photo, but hey, I have to have that card for the rest of my life, I didn't want to look like a total goon on it. Thankfully, my photo turned out pretty good, I'm pretty happy with it. After taking every one's pictures we loaded up all the gear and caravaned over to the docks. Our group was going out with another dive shop and the trip was packed with 39 divers. I met so many new people, and learned so much about diving (like where to go to dive before I leave Aussie). My first dive was to 14 meters and it was amazing. AMAZING. We swam through rock formations, I chased the fishes, and pretty much demonstrated that we are capable divers. After our first dive we had lunch on the boat, they made us these delicious chicken burgers and I spent more time flirting with Dean. He's pretty much one of my new favorite people, think of the craziest things you can and I can pretty much guarantee he's done. He's done everything. The first dive was glorious, and the second dive was even better. I touched a jelly fish! It was just a little one, but still, I was pretty stinking excited. I also got to hold this squishy little sea cucumber looking thing that was bright orange and really pretty. During the second dive we actually were on a small reef and even though it's bad practice we dove deeper than we had on the first dive, reaching 18.5 meters. Dean showed us an eel and Jeni even saw a sea turtle with her dive master. It was a really great dive. It was a great day in general. When we got back to the dive shop that afternoon we had some paperwork we had to finish filling out before they would give us our temporary certifications (printed sheets of paper that will eventually be replaced with a pretty little card). While the four of us were filling out the paperwork Dean came out of the dive shop with a 6 pack of beer. Oh yes. I could get used to a life like this. Honestly, now I understand while people spend their lives running dive shops and living on beaches. Life is good living like that. I'm officially hooked...my backup's backup plan is to open a dive shop and spend the rest of my life scuba diving and drinking on a beach.

I guess all together, it was the best weekend I've had since I got here..and I feel like it's the first real "Australian Adventure" I've had! I can't wait to do it again in 2 weeks! Jeni and I are doing some dives up in the Exmouth area while we're there over the study break and we have talked about flying out to the east coast before coming home at the end of the semster so we can dive the Great Barrier Reef. I've been told the GBR isn't the prettiest or the greatest dive in Aussieland, but it's one that I have to do since the reef is so famous and likely to be gone in the next 20 years. How sad is that? Also, I finally have tan lines after spending so much time in Aussieland! I have suit lines from when my wetsuit wasn't all the way on, and I have an awesome goggle tan. Oh yeah, rockin it!

I didn't get much productive done this weekend, and I have a paper due on Wednesday that I haven't started yet (yikes!). So I think I'll call it quits for now and write again (hopefully) soon to keep yall up to date on my life in the land down under.

Love always!

Attack of the massive, disgusting spider.

How ya goin?!

If you have spent any amount of time with me, you have probably heard me say "I almost died," followed by some crazy (and usually hyperbolic) story at least a couple of times. I realize that in looking back at my earlier blog posts I think I have yet to include this in any of my stories, until now...

Earlier tonight Jenny, Sarah, Sharlene and I all met up in Jenny's room to watch an episode of True Blood (stereotypical vampire story, only more addicting than most); when it ended our conversation meandered from topic to topic until finally when we were talking about the nasty red back spider that Sharlene saw last night near the vending machines on the first floor. Red back spiders are one of the (many) poisonous things that live in Australia and they are similar to Black Widows (nasty, nasty, nasty). As Sarah and I were walking back to the main part of St Cats where we live we were talking about how awful it would be to find a spider in our rooms and I was thinking about how happy I am to be living on the second floor, where spiders are LESS likely to be. It's like karma. I was thinking about how fabulously lucky I am...and then BAM. Tonight it's kind of cold, we have a bit of a cold spell (rain and all) moving through right now, so I figured I would turn on my heater until I was ready to go to bed. I have one of those old-school-oil-radiator-on-wheels heater deals and I was pulling it out away from the wall when this GIGANTIC and toally disgusting spider darted out from underneath it. I almost died. Naturally, I screamed (loudly). I jumped up on my bed when it ran TOWARDS me (I kid you not, the spider charged me. I fully do not believe that fluff about them being more afraid of me than I am of it) before leaping from my bed, out the door and into the hallway where I proceeded to sprint towards Den's room (still half-screaming). Den is from the outback and she lives on a legit farm, she's a total rugged country girl, I figured she would be able to kill it for me. At this point I realize that I have now left the massive (and potentially poisonous) spider unattended, it easily could have found a new hiding place where it would have laid in wait for me to fall asleep so it could come out and bite me. I thought I was going to have a panic attack! I really hate spiders. A lot. Anyway, it turned out to be something nasty called a Hunstman, which is similar to a nasty Wolf spider, and Den half picked it up, half carried it in tupperware to the balcony door where she released it...instead of killing it... I'm pretty sure the thing can get back in and refind it's way to my room. Ugh. So nasty.

Prior to the vicious spider attack that I suffered, I had a really good night. Right now we are doing something hall Hall Games which are based off of the Harry Potter books. In the books (and the movies, if you haven't read the books...shame on you) the houses all compete and get points that go towards winning a cup at the end of the year; all of our different hallways are doing the same concept and we get points for things like attendance and participation (since we can't play Quidditch). Tonight was the first event and we did something called Sock Wrestling where the goal is to get your opponent's sock off their foot before they can get your sock. I played, more for the fun of it than to win, and lost. I was really afraid of hurting my opponent with my long nails...and at one point I had her in a choke hold...there's picture evidence of that. If you can't picture sock wrestling in your head (don't worry, I couldn't either when I first heard about it) then you should just look it up on YouTube, it's hilarious and totally worth 2 minutes of your life. It was a lot of fun, if I'm every an RA again I think I'll have to bring it back as a floor activity.

If sock wrestling isn't enough to make your day pretty darn good, there is one thing that surely will! Good food! Which is what we had to eat today (no bugs!). This morning was waffle morning (just like it is every Thursday, which makes getting up and going to 9 am tutorial that much easier) and for dinner we had fish! I know y'all are probably pretty tired of hearing about food, but I seem to be living on a pear, rice, and bread diet, so when there is fish (AND WAFFLES) I get pretty stinking excited. I honestly think I ate waffles until I was almost too full and tired to go to class.

Today I also went and paid for my portion of the camper van rentals, which makes it official! We are going on a road trip (Northern west coast, watch out!). Jeni and I went together since all of the other girls had already been over to pay their shares; while we were sitting at the desk waiting for our agent to finish a different phone call he was dealing with we were looking at a world map. A couple of students at the desk next to us were talking with their agent about their plans to travel to the US and then up to Canada; they asked a lot of slightly ridiculous questions, one of them being if planes flew to Canada from the US east coast. Through listening to their conversation and looking at the map Jeni and I got to poking fun at Canada about how big it is and how incredibly empty it appears on the map...turns out our travel agent is from Canada. Talk about a situation with major potential to be very, very uncomfortable (open mouth, insert foot). Thankfully, he was really cool about it and seemed to have just as much fun harassing us for being Americans. And I got a funny joke out the situation (well, I think it's funny...you might not): How do you spell "Canada?" C-eh-N-eh-D-eh. I don't know about you, but I laughed. Anyway, back to good stuff about our trip! Earlier in the process we were informed that we would need to go to the DMV equivalent and get Aussie driver's licenses, possibly after having to pass a driving test. But! It turns out that my Colorado DL is valid to drive here with too! Woot, woot! Now I just have to learn how to drive manual...on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, shifting with the wrong hand. It shouldn't be too hard, right? I think I can do it. We leave in a month and I am so excited about it, we can hardly wait to get going!

Tomorrow I am also planning on going to the SCUBA place and registering to get my Diving license so I can do some diving up north. I am really, really, really excited for it! It seems like a really solid deal, and as a bonus the Dive Master Jeni and I talked to is really cute. I'm kind of sort of hoping he ends up teaching my course, I wouldn't mind spending a couple of weeks with him! We also have big plans for going to the beach again this weekend, the cold front is supposed to be gone and sunny warm weather should be headed our way!

I didn't have any good "Aussie Adventure" stories for you tonight, but hopefully I'll be able to find something more exciting to write about this weekend!

I hope this post finds you happy and well (and not being attacked by massive spiders, that would be ideal). Have a good Thursday afternoon, I'm headed to bed!

Love always.