As I sit in the Sydney airport waiting for my flight to SFO, I am looking back over these last three weeks and can't help but smile. I am exhausted of course, but am coming out of this trip having gained so much. I have experienced so many incredible adventures, seen so much natural beauty, taken a ton of pictures, made new lifelong friends who I can't wait to visit in their home countries and set my sights on a new life goal (well, actually rejuvenated an old one). In addition, the combination of all the delicious vacation food with the [View Full Entry]

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I spent the last few hours I had in Bicheno on Friday wandering around the town (which was quite small and wonderful) and enjoying the ocean before I hopped on the bus to Hobart. The bus was hot and stuffy since the day was so warm, but the scenery was gorgeous. We drove along the coast most of the time. The ocean here is such incredible blues and greens and so much clearer than off the California coast. Pretty interesting when you think that sometimes I am actually looking at the same ocean (the northern half of the east coast of [View Full Entry]

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It's raining, it's not raining, it's sunny, now it's raining again. It makes leaving the house nearly impossible! I went up to Cradle Mountain to do some hiking on Monday. It would go from completely pouring, to so hot I had to take my jacket off, to pouring again all within 20 minutes. I got soaked to the bone on the 2 hour hike around Dove Lake, but it was so beautiful to be up there with the mist coming off the mountains and the raindrops creating ringlets on the lake. I made a deal with Mother Nature that if I [View Full Entry]

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Sorry guys, but my heart now completely belongs to Tasmania (well, Tasmania & New Zealand). Think I would like to stick around this part of the world for a while. Swim over to NZ for a few months, then swim back when I am needing some devil time. I had an amazing time in Sydney and Melbourne but now that I am here I wish I had been here the whole time! There was for sure some great wilderness and scenery on the main land, but you had to head pretty far out of town to get there. In Tassie (and [View Full Entry]

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Well lucky you guys! Posts two days in a row?! So, my plans changed at the last second and I am staying one more night here in Melbourne. The ferry to Tasmania was fully booked for tonight and I could only be put on a waiting list for tomorrow night, but I am so antsy to get down there that I just booked a flight for tomorrow morning first thing. The ferry would have been a wonderful experience, but who knows the chances of me making it off the wait list for tomorrow night and I already have so little time [View Full Entry]

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Koalas: Ever since I was a little girl, koalas have been my favorite animal. Not for any particular reason, I just always loved them. And going to the Sydney Zoo totally reinforced that fact! I went completely soft for them. Now, I don't consider myself particularly girly, but get me to a zoo and I go gaga over the baby animals, especially the baby Asian elephant that was just born in July! *sigh* I had always assumed Koalas slept around 18-20 hours a day because eucalyptus leaves had something in them similar to tryptophan in turkey, but turns out eucalyptus leaves [View Full Entry]

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Yes, that's right, I said Batman. But sorry folks, you are going to have to wait to hear about that one until after I talk about this SUNSHINE! So ever since I arrived, everyone has been talking about last Tuesday and how it was 39 degrees Celsius and so hot and amazing. But the rain arrived Wednesday morning (along with me) and has kept up ever since...UNTIL TODAY! It was sunny and warm and beautiful, with a breeze so it didn't get too hot. Hopefully this was a preview of what the rest of my trip will be like. And such [View Full Entry]

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Except the rain actually. I would be happy with the rain staying the way it is or going away all together (of course some sun would be wonderful, but I am not going to be too picky). But please more of the best espresso (every.single.time), old churches, more wonderful pubs, more local beer I have never tried, more drag queens and gay bars, more breathtaking scenery and more fascinating people! Yes, please. *Apologies in advance for the long post, but so much has happened since the last time!* So let's see, I left you all on my way out to adventure [View Full Entry]

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I have arrived!! I was planning on posting last night, but I ended up passing out at 9pm (actually pretty impressed I was able to stay up until 9pm!). Right now I am sitting in my wonderful hostel in central Sydney, just ate some delicious brekkie (god the Australian's have wonderful terminology!) and am getting ready to start out on my adventures for the day. Sydney really feels a lot like SF in terms of how diverse it is and the attitude of the city. Although for how international SF is, it can not challenge the amazing amount of languages you [View Full Entry]

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As I sit here nursing my sprained ankle, trying to motivate myself to pack and always being asked by folks if I am excited, I realize that I always have a hard time getting excited for trips because they never feel real. Not until I am zipping up my fully packed bag and heading out the door to the airport does it start to sink in. Therefore all of this prep work feels a bit silly and I probably have not done nearly enough of it. I got severely sidelined by this ankle injury that happened in my soccer game on [View Full Entry]

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