HOLIDAYS

Yesterday morning we met at 350am to get going for our 6am flight to Brisbane::wait, round of applause for Tiger Airways - for no cancelations and no delays:: I dont remeber the flight... I was running on no sleep... though I did drift off and then my own open mouth snoring woke me up- yeaa... not attractive. Our excitment over powered how delusional we were from not sleeping when we exited the plan and noticed it was warm !! Cloudy ... but I'll take it. Melbourne has not seen many warm days thus far. A 25 minute train ride took us into the heart of the city where our hostel was located - Base Backpacker :: sound familiar Jason Pennington ?:: Other than the dim lighting and weird Barney colored ways Base was not half bad. May I add, they had an awesome deal on dinner. Still in desperate need of sleep we found the energy to explore the city. Brisbane has much more of a city feel to it than Melbourne- feels more bussiness city. We started our journey on South Bank which is where we saw a bit of an art gallery and ... ::deep breath:: the VALENTINO: Past, Present, and Future exhibit. Valentino dresses every where... need I say more ??? Wish they allowed photos :( On our way to the other side of the city we stopped by a book store ; Brisbane seemed to have a lot of books stores with really amazing sales on like crappy romantic novels. We alsop took a ton of pictures of just about anything and everything, Amber and I took it upon ourselves to satisfy our random urge to roll down a grassy hill in by the river. Don't ask. I Ccan't explain it myself. We walked to china town - Julia of course lead the way :P Unfortunately this China town was not as exciting as we were hoping. It was a bit ... umm, sketchy. Run down buildings, not many people. We made a short loop and bought some snacks at an Asian market. Julia introduced us to sesame cookies - WARNING very addictive. As a rest stop we enjoyed the cookies at a near by park. We were so exhausted, poor Erika was falling asleep everywhaere she got the chance. So it was about time we head back for a nap. Btw it wasn't even 5pm at this point. Nap- Dinner which was slightly interupted by a random guy who clearly had way too many drinks after work. That night the bar downstairs was having an international party.... the bar wsas called Down Under... Clever ay?! I feel like any place with such an unoriginal name gives itself away as a hotspot for tourists. It was a toga night so there were heaps of drunk foriegners with their blankets just draped over their shoulders. I helped this one confused bloke with his toga- don't think he liked my Valentino inspired halter design. It was not the busiest night at Down Under but we sure did make the best of it. I practiced my spanish with 2 Colombian exchange students who seemed very sweet. And we busted some dance moves with our two roommates Eva- Germany and Joong - Finland... no Denmark...or maybe it was Austria. Any way I found his "1 and 2 and 1 and 2" dance moves pretty amusing. He had a dance off with Amber of which he totally won with a cool spin move. Down Under also helled a Hard Man competition- sounds skecth doesn't it. Well three guys had to race to eat a cup of beans, do 10 pushups and sit ups, eat an entire onion, and down a jug of cola. It was as bad to watch as it sounds. The winner was fifty bucks richer :: Good on ya ! :: This morning checked out, went for breckie, and caught the greyhound for Hervey Bay. Not a bas bus ride- sure did get exciting when the driver played Cactus Jack lol. FACT- Men and women who are not related can not sit on the bus next to each other. It was a 5hour ride of which I was asleep for most of. Basically just drove past "the mid of no where" and "no man land". This one creepy town- Maryborough or something just had a lot of shacks for homes.... one of those creepy places that is especially creepy bc you get the sense no one has left the town ever in their life... Maybe I am over thinking it. Any way at Hervey Bay we were picked up by a guy from Nomads Backpackers whos long blonde hair and large upper body made him look a lot like a retired wrestler. FACT- Hervey Bay is the Whale watching capitol of the world, and the fastest growing city in Australia. Nomads is not too bad. Thought the bathrooms are not too .... ehhhh nice. And there are giant rats aka possums every where. Just climbing staring at everyone with that "hey feed me" look. There is also a bar where we played darts and giant jenga. And of course we went to the beack though it was dark. The sand felt like baby powder in between my toes. And though its dark you can tell the water is clear. We also saw sharks !!! ... well according to the receptionist it was most likley Dolphins but I think sharks is way cooler for story telling. So far, so amazing. Tomorrow we are doing a day tour of Fraser Island- largest sand island in the world... I think. Until the next time I find a computer.

CHEERS.