dreams

since i have study brain and i can't really think, let alone write, i will just have this picture as my blog post.

oddly enough, i had a dream i went to australia with my mom and cousin last night. the lovely thing about dreams is the flight was super fast, we found just what we were looking for (for some reason that was seals) and i woke up content and happy.

ahh back to the 10 hour study session!

love

hug a tree today

feeling blue...hug a tree!

just because...

- i don't really know what to post
- the countdown is on till i see some beaches of my own (eek...16 days!)
- i really miss those sunny skies and said beaches

i will give you this picture of a time so long ago...but really not!

love

kangaroo rock

since i really have nothing to write about today. another trip down memory lane is in order. this was in oz at the steve irwin zoo. similar to the petting zoos here...but in australia its kangaroos. this guy doesn't seem all that impressed however...

love

a tale of two chocolate stories

i feel that i am becoming slightly obsessed with chocolate as of late. however, with halloween to be commencing in less than 7 days i must say...i have tried to be strong. nothing in the house even resembling a mini-chocolate bar has been allowed to pass. until yesterday, grocery shopping, observing the pretty colourful boxes of chocolate, each one exclaiming, "buy me". yes, you heard it here...i cracked. and i cannot even say i was buying it for trick or treaters because we don't get trick or treaters at our place...sigh. and in terms of what i bought...my go-to-candy bar...anything with a combination of peanut butter and chocolate...that includes crispy crunch, wunderbar, peanut butter cups, etc.

this brings me to another story, of an australian variety. when i was in oz, i became obsessed with peanut butter and chocolate. why??? because that kind fails to exist in the land down under. weird as it may seem, i scoured every store from the east coast, to the outback, to the northern point and to no avail. so what did i do to crave my urge of this delicious combination:

yes...i would bought a jar of peanut butter, and would dip plain chocolate bars into it...not quite as good but enough to satisfy! :)

have a great day.
love

faced with fear

i have always been a big fan of the water but i NEVER had an inkling of a want to scuba dive. when planning the big trip to oz one of the major expeditions for my travel companions was to scuba dive the great barrier reef. for me, a person who had never snorkelled before, i couldn't understood why. as a kid, i hated my swimming lessons~ back and forth, back and forth throughout the length of the pool. why would i want to do that underwater?

here is the story of my first open water dive:

the day before
tense
couldn't speak
silent.
when spoken too i would break into tears
too much anxiety/pressure/everything!
secretly hoped/wished/willed that i would be unable to go
wanting to fail the medical
get stuck in another place
sleep in
but to no avail.
i was on the boat!

our first dive,
put air in my pfd
put the regulator in my mouth
jumped
let out the air out of my pfd
my body would not go underwater.
i willed it not to
definite hypervenilation
underwater now
i took a breath
then two
three, four, and many after!
it was okay
fantastic
fell in love

JAWS: the clownfish

their home

okay so this is not real although we did see a shark but it was night, so picture is unavailable. looks pretty realistic though hey???

ladies and gentlemen i would like to introduce...

...WALTER THE WOLF SPIDER!!!!

set scene: a fun filled day of shopping and attempting to learn to boogie board; three girls needed a night of relaxation in a local pub, with great food and drinks.

what happened?: Cheeky Monkeys! a backpacker's bar where competitions include "the dirtiest positions", where you win pitchers of beer for nickels, and end up dancing on tables.

cut to Walter: met him in the bathroom! the biggest living creature that crawls on walls that i have ever seen. he also just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time! knowing that some person under the influence of quite a bit of liquor may not feel the same love we felt for the spider, we retrieved the bouncer (hey it's a big spider, a bouncer is the only one that could handle that kind of job!). he followed us to the bathroom and retrieved the little/big guy in a cup, and released him into the wilderness of byron bay (or a sidewalk).

so walter lived happily ever after (in my eyes) from that day forward!

THE END

wtf mate?

sooo, you know when you go travelling and you get suckered into things. you spend too much money on a tour, or you are told you are getting something and end up getting nothing. those experiences haven't eluded me either.

went on a three day tour of the outback.

stopped at this ranch looked over and saw what looked to be llamas.



"tour guide will, are those llamas?"

(think aussie accent)"oooo no, in the outback they breed sheep and camels together, those are shamels."

"what are you talking about?" (fits of laugher) "why would you want to do that, what would be the purpose???"

tour guide will, "no purpose, just something to do."

two weeks later, another country, another tour guide, another ranch and more shamels...

"tourguide jo, you have shamels too? wtf? why why why?"

"wtf? what are you talking about, those are llamas, what the hell are shamels?"

(fits of hysterical laughter) "sucker sucker sucker"

the worst is the fixation on this subject for two weeks...the combos that came out~crocaroo (crocodile and kangaroo), kowallabee (koala and wallaby), and on and on....

i was on the amazing race...

...okay so not really but it sure felt like it. i went to australia in 2004 with two friends i used to work with. it was a specutacular trip, full of laughter, tears, fun, with a mixture of extraordinary sights. byron bay was one of the best places on that trip. the age i was, the mentality i had and the atmosphere byron had worked well together. it had a hippie, relaxed feel to it, yet all those good tourist things i wanted were at my feet.

cut to the amazing race...the most easterly point on the mainland of australia was in byron bay (it already sounds like a destination that contestants would have to go to, right?). we decided to rent some bikes from our hostel, trek up to the lighthouse and then down the path to the point.

THE CATCH: the bikes had to be back before sunset (more on that later) all of us, having done so much walking at this point thought this should be a cakewalk, or not...

now comes the excuse portion of this story: our bikes ONLY had three gears as we rode up the hill...no no let me rephrase that: MOUNTAIN. that with the combination of the extreme humidity, one water bottle between the three of us, we were just slightly underprepared.

THE RESULT: one of us could go no farther up the hill/mountain. really it is just a point after all...it can be seen from a distance, right? the other two were stubborn, bound and determined to go to the actual point. i mean one million dollars was at stake!!! past the lighthouse, jumped off the bikes and running down the path towards the destination...weird from this angle it kind of looks like the sun is setting doesn't it??

needless to say we did not make it before sundown...and i think the importance on why we needed to be back before dark was the ride back down. one of us got accosted by a bush turkey. life flashed before her eyes as she was shocked that she would go out of this life by a bird eaten on thanksgiving day. swerved away just in time, life back on track. another, i cannot speak for how she felt, but by the blood curdling screams i think her bike lacked brakes (who needs brakes down a monstourous deathtrap of a hill~i mean mountain??) three girls, in the dark, on a winding road leading us to our end, screaming who knows what...

...we definitely deserved the million!