Hi Everyone! After parting company with Emma in Canberra I took the bus to Sydney and spent some time with friends there. Then I took the overnight train to Brisbane, since it only cost $69, and I didn't have to pay for accommodation for a night on the train. It was 6am when I got to Brisbane, but I was able to get into my hostel room right away. Brisbane is called the River City, probably because it has a river that runs through the middle of it. You can always trust the Australians to be sensible about names. It rained almost the entire time I was in Brisbane, so it made for a depressing ambiance while I was sightseeing. My favorite thing to do in a city is visit the museums, so I did that ... read more

Welcome back to the road trip with Emma and Jenny. After spending the week in Melbourne Emma and I debated extensively about the price verses value of visiting Phillip Island and the Great Ocean Road on a tour or trying to drive it ourselves. It would cost about half the price of the tour, but it would be more stressful. Finally Emma decided that she was confident enough to drive. We invited our Friend Marcella, from the Fruitshack, to come along since she had just arrived in Melbourne as well. So I studied the map and we trudged our way through the traffic of the Melbourne suburbs and made it to Phillip Island in about two hours We stopped at tourist information and bought a "3 park pass" to see Churchill Island, The Koala Conservation Center, ... read more

Last week was Thanksgiving. I spent two days cooking and baking a proper American Thanksgiving from scratch. Because Australians do not celebrate Thanksgiving they are lacking all the nice short cut products like stove top stuffing and canned pumpkin. I ended up mashing potatoes and drying bread crumbs for stuffing. Boiling pumpkin for pumpkin pie. It was very labor intensive. I am really impressed with my Grandma that she cooks this much every year for my family. I will always remember the first Thanksgiving I was in charge of being in Australia and cooking for 15 Europeans in a tiny little gas oven. I am the only American at the fruitshack now, and there are only two Canadians that have experienced Thanksgiving dinner before. It is interesting to really see your culture from another perspective. Especially ... read more

Hi Everyone, I am sorry that it has been so long since my last update. I am still alive and working in Leeton. In my last blog I talked about the Fruitshack where I am living with other backpackers. Now I am going to talk about the place I am working: Mick's Bakehouse. So far most of the people I have met have been other travelers but working for a small business means I talk to lots of Australian's everyday! Of course that offers challenges in itself. I love the Australian accent but it isn't always easy for an American to understand. Or at least for me to understand. (I also have problems understanding other Americans but I can't blame that on language differences.) I am constantly running into problems at the bakery because people order ... read more

Hi Everyone! I am coming down to my last days in Sydney. I can't believe that I have been here for a month. It is easy to loose track of time. I have had a really great time here and met a lot of really fun people. Since it is the low season for tourism in Sydney most of the travelers that I have met are here on a working holiday visa like me. We all have a lot in common. We are all looking for work and planning on being away from home for a long time. There is so many decisions that go into living abroad in a foreign country, even if that country is an English speaking one. A few years ago I couldn't even contemplate coming to a foreign country without a ... read more