February 7, 2010 I’m waiting for my train to Coffs Harbour with Charlotte, Ryan & our newest addition Allisandro (or Alli). Alli is 26 from northern Italy and looks just like me! A blonde haired, blue eyed, pale Italian, who would’ve guessed?! He is about to move to London to work in investment banking I believe so before he does he’s taking a 1 ½ month vacation, nice. He seems to have some money but the only reason he stays at hostels is to meet people. His accent is not Italian at all however because he studied in Quebec for a while where he learned French so his English accent sounds like a mix between Canadian, French and Italian. Very nice boy, speaks English very well but doesn’t understand it all the time. It’s hilarious because ... read more

Day 10-17 I’ll try to summarize the last week because I’ll probably forget the order of events! Tuesday was Australia day but we didn’t really do much, Australia Day eve was the big outing. Tons of families were on the beach for the holiday when I went to lay on the beach for a bit. I went with my friends Charlotte, Ryan and Joe. Me and Charlotte laid out while the boys went surfing. I still haven’t mustered up the courage to try it, every time I see someone have the board flip over on top of them it really doesn’t give me much motivation to try it! The weather has been a little cloudy on and off with some rain but it’s stayed consistently 80-90 degrees. Even though that sounds hot there’s been days it’s ... read more

Day 7 - January 23, 2010 So the hotel was full and I couldn’t get another night which meant I had a little over an hour before check out to find somewhere to go and pack. It’s amazing how much stuff I have and how it exploded all over the room…so not like me! The packing took longer than finding a place to stay for the night! I booked a place at another YHA in the Rocks area right on the Harbour. So with the hurry, needless to say, there was no showering and no make-up. This is a newly opened hostel built on top of an archaeological dig! The hostel is open so when you walk out your door you’re basically outside and in the center, when you look down, you can see the dig ... read more

Day 4 Sorry about the late post of yesterday's blog and as for the video I'm having a hard time getting it to load. I'll work on it and hopefully you can see it soon. Today I had orientation with Work Travel Company to tell me about traveling, working and taking care of my bank account here, taxes and getting my YHA/Work Travel Company ID card. With that card I get discounts at other hostels around Australia and New Zealand (we’ll see if I feel more comfortable or more broke later on) as well as discounts at different stores and travel options. We met at the hostel and walked over to the WTC office where the group of 30 of us sat in a room for a couple hours of information. Surprisingly I was the only ... read more

Day 2? Monday January 18th 2010, 2:50am EST Still feels like day 1 but technically it is a day later…yaaawwnn. I’m in LA now waiting to board my flight to Sydney. My plane was delayed by about an hour so now it won’t be leaving until 1am west coast time 4am your time! I forced myself to stay awake on the last flight and now I’m wondering why! I never drink coffee but this seems like the perfect time to start so I bought a very overpriced Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino (the bottled refrigerated kind not the fluffy fresh frozen kind) and a croissant (the processed packaged kind not the fresh toasty kind). Hopefully that should get me through another hour or so! On my last flight I got to watch “Fame,” which I had never seen. ... read more