Here we are back in Sydney, getting ready to head to the airport. Our month long Aussie adventure has come to an end. We arrived back in Sydney late Monday night, and were greeted with a warm welcome by Jaclyn and their brand new toasty fireplace. We had 3 days left in Sydney, and a few sights left to see. On Tuesday morning, Jimmy was kind enough to drive us to the famous Bondi Beach, where we did some shopping and took a scenic coastal walk to the town of Coogee. After a long day of walking, we met Jaclyn back [View Full Entry]

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Jungle-surfing. For those of you who don't know, this is a fancy term for zip-lining through the canopy of the Daintree Rainforest. In this case, we were flying between platforms, ranging from 25 to 78 meters high. As the brochure happily told us, this activity is fun for everyone from ages 3 to 103. Some of you who know us well, may be curious as to why we would embark on such an adventure. What can we say, after eating roo, croc, and emu - we were ready to conquer anything exciting that came our way! We did it; however, [View Full Entry]

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When we last left you, we were headed out for a night on the town in Cairns. Per recommendation of several friends who had been to Cairns while studying abroad (10 years ago), we headed to the infamous Wool Shed. We were greeted at the door by a burly bouncer offering us drink tickets: 5 drinks for $10! That was the first sign that this was not the classiest of establishments. Not the types to turn down a good drink deal, we marched upstairs through throngs of inebriated 20 year olds to order ourselves some Bundaberg rum and diets (skinny [View Full Entry]

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We reluctantly left sunny Magnetic Island on the 11:10am ferry on Monday morning. Even more reluctantly, we hopped on a Greyhound Bus for a 6 hour ride to Cairns. Ineffective air conditioning, bad movies (The River's End and The Spiderwick Chronicles), and potent whiffs of B.O. made for an extremely pleasant journey. We finally arrived in Cairns at 6pm. We were pleasantly surprised by our spacious private room (with AC!) at the Caravella Hostel on the Esplanade. We had a low-key evening - we poked around souvenir shops, hired an underwater camera - best decision ever!, and grabbed [View Full Entry]

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1. Arcadia Beach Guest House- right on the beach, king sized bed, amazing shower, breakfast waiting for us in the morning, picked up from the ferry in a Rolls Royce, our own fridge..does it get any better? 2. Relaxing on beautiful coral strewn beaches- Alma Bay, Geoffrey Bay, Horseshoe Bay 3. Wine, brie, bread and shapes for dinner on the front porch overlooking the ocean 4. Friday night dinner at the RSL- RSL stands for Returned and Services League. They are found in most towns in Australia, and are basically the same thing as the Elks (shout out to Big Tim!). [View Full Entry]

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So to get back to our surfing adventure... Picture it - Australia 2009, two young American school teachers get off a bus in Mooloolaba for a surf trip that they essentially have no information about. Fears of a creepy man in a white van pulling up to take them away to his parent's basement run through their heads as they wave good-bye to their Fraser Island friends still on the bus... Indeed, a white van did pull up; however, it did look very legit with surf safari logos covering it and it was driven by a smiling tan surfing instructor- [View Full Entry]

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We left Melbourne at 8AM on our skybus shuttle, arrived at Brisbane Airport at 12:15PM, and after 2 very hungry and slightly grouchy hours, we made it to our cute little hostel, the Halse Lodge, in Noosa. A far cry from our city hostel, our new room featured high ceilings, twin beds, a ceiling fan, and french doors opening onto a spacious lanai-complete with rattan furniture. We quickly changed from our winter gear into tank tops and flip flops, and set out to explore the adorable seaside town of Noosa. First stop:food. We happened upong the Noosa Surf Club overlooking [View Full Entry]

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We left Sydney on a beautiful Monday morning and traveled by ferry, train (maybe 2-slight detour-oops!), plane and bus before finally arriving at our hostel in the Central Business District of Melbourne around 3:30 PM. It quickly became evident that the luxurious leg of our journey was over. Jaclyn and Jimmy's cozy and welcoming apartment had been replaced with bunk beds in a windowless room with no bathroom. Not allowing this to dampen our spirits, we dropped our backpacks and headed out into the crisp Melbourne evening. Unlike in Sydney, it really did feel a bit like winter. Many of [View Full Entry]

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Tim-Tams. For those of you who don't know, no trip to Australia is complete without sampling this local favorite. As we settled down last night to watch the critically acclaimed Run Fat-Boy Run, we decided it was high time we sampled some. Our sampling resulted in a Run Fat American Girl Run this morning over the Sydney Harbor Bridge to burn off the entire package that we devoured last night over the course of the movie. After running to burn off our Tim-Tams, we returned to find a full Australian breakfast - cooked by Jaclyn and Jimmy. We feasted, showered, and [View Full Entry]

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After a home alone like dash to our connecting flight at LAX and 14 more hours of flying, we arrived safely in Sydney at 6:30am. Unfortunately, no kangaroos or Crocodile Dundee look-a-likes greeted us. Instead we were whisked away by a crazy cab driver, who stopped us short with the news of MJ's passing. At first, we thought it was some strange twist on Aussie humor, until the reality sunk in that the King of Pop had really left the building. The rest of the cab ride was a blur as we sat in silence listening to the poetic lyrics [View Full Entry]

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