Oh Life is So Hard.

The past week I have had a lot of time to myself. It has been good. I have never been one to enjoy alone time and at first it was hard but now I totally enjoy it. For the past week my routine has been: wake up, go onto the computer, look for jobs, apply for jobs then go off to the beach. Such a hard life, lol. It's about a half hour bus ride to the beach that I go to so I get a lot of reading done on the way to the beach. I am currently reading Twilight (yes, I gave in and have decided to read the oh so popular book!). It is a really good book. I have had to slow myself down so that I do not read it too fast. It definitely makes the time fly when I am riding the bus (Dad, I now see how you get so much reading done on your bus trips). I have almost missed my stop a couple times.

Oh, I have a funny story. It's actually quite crazy. When Stephanie and I were on our Whitsundays trip we really got to know everyone really well. One guy I had met I regretted not getting his contact info because we were both coming to Sydney not really knowing too many people trying to find jobs. I thought he would just be a fun friend to have so it wouldn't be so lonely. Well, I on and off thought about it. Then on Sunday I had asked my flatmates if they new of any Irish hostels in Sydney (that is where he said he may be getting a job). I told them my story and that was that. Later on that day I was in the park, with thousands of other people (there was a Film Festival going on). Well, on my way to find the bathrooms I totally saw him walking towards my direction!!! haha how weird! Sydney is huge! What are the odds that I run into him?! Anyways, he has been my beach bud for the past couple days. I still cannot get over how weird it is that I ran into him.

On Sunday, Monica (another friend from the Whitsundays trip) will be coming to Sydney to stay in the house here. Her and I will work and do some traveling together. I am looking forward to that. Hopefully, I will also be able to get together with Kristin again sometime soon! She is pretty busy with teaching and all right now!

Well, I think that is all for an update for now...

oh...here is another couple albums

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66149&id=507288525&l=96dec

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67542&id=507288525&l=6d67e

Holly

Roomies

Okay, so first of all...I found out why a lot of you could not post commenst! haha. I had it so only people who had profiles on here could post comments. I made it so anyone can post now. I know a few people said they had tried to post comments so now you can.

My first couple days have been great here! Yesterday I went and got some money out to pay my landlord and then went off to spend the afternoon at Coogee Beach with Tami. It is out by the famous Bondi Beach (where a recent shark attack has occurred. haha) After the beach, we went to Paddy's Market. Paddy's Market is like a chinese market where they sell a whole bunch of "stuff", I guess you would say, and then a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables and meat. Tami and I like to go there because its delicious and cheap. But maybe it was not such a good idea for me. haha. I then went to Cole's and picked up some containers to put my fruit into and then decided to carry this all back to my place. Which is about a half hour walk. I had to make many stops and by the end of my trip my bags were all ripping and stuff was falling out. It didn't help that it was hot either. I will have to take the bus next time...lol. When I got home I was greeted at the door by my room mate, Stacey. I have a share room and my room mate has had her stuff there but I have not met her yet. We chit chatted for a bit (she is a really nice girl) and then she went out for the evening and I haven't seen her since. lol

I was so excited to cut up all my fruit and in mid cutting my landlord came. I, smart one, answered the door with pineapple juice all over my hands and of course he stuck out his hand for me to shake it. I warned him about my pineapple juice hands (and I probably had a mango covered face) and shook his hand. lol. He is very young. Well older than me but a younger looking guy. He is super nice. Quiet and shy too it seems.

I was also lucky enough to have TWO Yummy suppers last night. I couldn't resist. My flat mate from Holland started to make supper and asked if I wanted to have some with her (after she told me that she has been to chef school and all). It was so good! Then Carolina and Hosea came home and made supper for myself and two of our other friends who were coming over. They are also very good cooks! I think I may be well taken care of while I stay here. haha.

Anyways, time to look for jobs and then go to the beach!

Salsa Dancing

So yesterday I moved into my new place. I was greeted by Carolina, she is from Spain. We talked for a bit basically how we are both looking for jobs. I told her that I was a substitute teacher back home (its called a casual teacher here). I then met Neil and Jackie, a couple others who live in the house (Jackie is from Holland and Neil is from England). By this point Carolina had left and I was trying to move my heavy stuff up the stairs, with the help of Neil of course. All of a sudden Carolina called me into her room for a second. She showed me an ad for a casual teaching position! She had gone back to her room to look up jobs for me! How sweet!!! After meeting everyone that was in the house for the evening I had to drop off Tami's keys at her work. It was dark out so I asked Carolina if she wanted to come for a walk. At first she said no because she had to look for jobs, then all of a sudden she was looking up salsa nights on the internet. She asked if I knew how. lol. Yes, but not very good. So then all of a sudden she was in for going to drop off the keys. We also got Neil to come along. It was great fun! I mostly just watched. Carolina is amazing! I am super excited because I totally wanted to continue my ballroom dancing while I was down here and it looks like it is going to happen. Carolina tells me she goes almost every night.

We met up with her friend Gotham (thats how she says it is but they pronounce it differently) he is a dentist and he was SHOCKED when I told him that my dentist has a tv that I can watch and listen to while I am getting work done on my teeth. I thought that was rather funny! Even Neil, had never heard of anything like that before. Go Canada! haha. Later on, Carolina's boyfriend, Hosea, met up with us. I am really happy that I have clicked with them so far. They all seem to be sleeping still but I think they are off to the beach as well today. Unless, they had already left. Anyways, I have to run to the bank because the landlord is coming today and then I am off to the beach! Do not worry, I will put on the sunscreen!

Holly

Chippendale

So after a couple days of looking for a place to stay, I have found a place! I am so excited about it and so happy! Apparently alot of people here had to look through some dodgy places before finding the home they are in now. I have been looking online at a couple different sites and this ad caught my eye. It was a house that had a bunch of rooms in it and they were looking for people who were personable and friendly. I decided to just check it out and see what I thought and everything went really well. It has a big kitchen and a backyard. It has a nice lounge area and a Spirally staircase going upstairs (I have always wanted to live in a place with that). I clicked right away with the girl showing me the house and we sat and watched So You Think You Can Dance Australia together. I can move in on Wednesday or Thursday so all I have to do now is open a bank account and give them a bond of two weeks (which apparently is also pretty good. It sounds like it is hard to get a two week bond.) I will take some pictures when I get over there so you can all see how wonderful it is. It has been nice living with my friend Tami but I feel bad as she just lives in a room. So there is not much personal space. She has been wonderful to me though and I am excited to have her and others over to my new home! hahaha.

Chippendale ....lol. That is the area of the city that I am living in. It is a good area of town. It's like a five minute walk to Central Station and George St (which is one of the main streets in Sydney). It is also just 20 minute walk from the CBD (downtown) and Darling Harbour.

If you want my address or anything just let me know and I will email it to you.

Holly

More Photos!

Road Trip Album 1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66053&id=507288525&l=ef3cb

Photos.

For those who do not have facebook here are some of the albums I have gotten up!

Photo Album One :

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=61067&id=507288525&l=6f122


Photo Album Two:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65720&id=507288525&l=0ec2d


Photo Album Three:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65765&id=507288525&l=ddc42


Photo Album Four:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65768&id=507288525&l=1062a

Rain Rain Go Away.

I feel like I have not had a nice hot sunny day for awhile. The rainy weather seems to have followed me all the way back to Sydney. Last night Tami and I went out with two of her friends and we spent a lot of time running around in the rain. Today was a pretty laid back day. We had slept over at the other girls' flat (Catherine and Emma) to save us from walking back to Tami's place. It was definitely a lot more spacious than what we have here. Tami has one little room and I will be sleeping on the floor! We will see how it works out.

Today didn't even feel like Valentine's Day to me...except for the split second where I had passed a random guy on the street and he said "Happy Valentine's Day" lol. Oh right, it's valentines day to day...hahaha. We were planning on meeting up with Catherine and Emma for lunch but the train to Bondi Junction was down and the bus would take too long so we ended up going to a little restaurant in the area. We then walked around in the rain for a bit and headed back to Tami's flat. She is now at work and I have been trying to find different places to live. Hard to know where I want to go. I will need to talk to Kristin and figure some things out. Lots to do in the next few days. I have a couple places in mind. I will have to call the people up and take a look. Yikes. Maybe I will just go traveling again. Looks like I may have a travel buddy from the sailing trip! That is pretty cool!

Hopefully, it will start to get nicer here. Not much to do when it's always raining. I think tomorrow I am going to open up a bank account here. I have ran out of Australian Cash...hahaha

Anyways, that is all for today!

Holly...


Oh....I almost forgot! I posted a whole bunch of pictures up on facebook!

Eating Tim Tams at Tami's.....later. hah

I wanted a witty title. We don't really have Tim Tam's right now...but we will probably go out and get some later.

Today, after spending a wonderful night in a beautiful apartment (at the Comfort Inn), Stephanie and I taxied on over to the International Airport where I dropped off Stephanie and headed off on my own journey! Yikes...feel like a thousand dollars later. I am finally in Sydney staying in the CBD (Central Business District - I just call it down town and get laughed at...haha). Tami, a girl I worked with at the Regina Inn is living in a little apartment here and I am staying with her until I can figure out living arrangements and what I will be doing for the next few months. Jobs are looking a little hard to come by right now and not sure where to travel or what to do. I have sooo many ideas but not sure.

Anyways, back to my thousand dollar day. haha. I wasn't sure if I was going to actually head to Sydney today or not. I was feeling kind of lousy and Vave's mom had offered her home to me if I needed it. After lugging my stuff everywhere I decided that rather than lugging it around even more I would just leave to Sydney. So, dropped Steph off...paid for a taxi to the domestic airport. SICK...20 bucks. I didn't take the train because I thought that 14 dollars was high. I got to Qantas and asked to book a flight for the cheapest ticket they had. 179 dollars!! So unlucky. He told me they were busy on fridays and that was why (Duh). I had the option of staying and leaving early saturday morning or monday night and paying 89. I saw prices for 140 and thought that wouldn't be too bad. Note to self: Book tickets online when I see them. Getting around was easy until my flight. There I had a wonderful window seat and a man sitting in the same row as me in the aisle seat. He was very friendly and we talked the whole hour and 20 minutes. He was working in Brisbane, his wife and kids are in Sydney. He flies to Brisbane during the week and comes home on the weekends. What a life. He told me he didn't want to move because they have all their friends in Sydney. I found out he was from Lebanon and he told me I had to go visit it because it was so beautiful. He also told me that it is not dangerous there anymore. He ALSO offered for me to stay in his house that he owns there if I ever go there, bringing anyone I wanted. He said he would give me his number after the flight but we didn't really talk after. He was really nice and it made the trip go by fast.

Next, I went out to get a taxi, easy stuff since I did it at the other one. haha. I thought it would be around 25 bucks since the sign said 1 hour was 48 dollars and I definitely wouldn't be driving for that long. I had a really nice chatty guy from India. I think he enjoyed that I asked questions about him and where he came from. Especially since the first part was him awkwardly ttrying to make random conversation. "The weather sucks today." "I have a friend that lives in Calgary." haha. When he dropped me off outside Tami's apartment my fare came to 42.26 or something like that! OUCH!!!! But now I am here and happy. Tami and I went down to Paddy's Market (a Chinese market that goes from Thursday til Sunday and has yummy cheap vegetables) and picked up some fresh vegetables. We also went and supported the Bushfire victims in Victoria by going and getting the rest of our ingredients at Coles (all the profits they make today will go straight to that cause).

I am now satisfied after a yummy bowl of chili and we are trying to decide what to do tonight. It is very yucky out and has been raining all day so it may be a movie night or something!


There is a nice little update for you!! Miss you all! Don't worry! It's not too hot here today or for the rest of the weekend...Only in the early 20s.. ;)

Holly

Back to Brisbane

So Stephanie and I are now back in Brisbane at Vave's house. We are headed to drop off our camper van (sad face :() and then head to the hotel where we will spend the night. Stephanie takes off tomorrow. I am still trying to figure out living places and what not. I also realized that I forgot our cd of Whitsunday pictures back in Rockhampton. So when I get back to Sydney I will have to catch up with someone and get their pictures. At the hotel we are staying at tonight they have internet..so hopefully a bunch of pictures will be able to get put up!

Short and Sweet!

Blog ya later! haha

Sea Sick....

So....we survived the Whitsundays....We'll I did anyways. Stephanie not so much. Poor girl ended up being sea sick for the whole time. I had a wonderful time! I would love to work on a boat on the ocean. It rained about poured the whole time but we still managed to have a good time. Steph had a good time, when we were off the boat. We got to see turtles come to the surface and dolphins playing in the water at night time. The sight under the water was to die for! So beautiful! I don't think snorkelling will ever be the same again for me. We also met some really cool people. 3 boys from Wales, 1 boy from London...some americans and a couple canadians! woo! We got free dvds of pictures from the whole weekend! When I have time to put up pictures.

After the three days we now back in Rockhampton hanging out with three crazy boys from London. Anyways, time to go for a sleep!

Write a longer one later!

Fraser Island and On

I believe I left off at Fraser Island. I will hopefully finish up our trip so you can be caught up to now. To get to Fraser Island we had to take a 30 minute ferry across from Hervey Bay. Our tour guide was wonderful and he told us to call him Captain. He knew so much about the Island that it made the long parts of driving through the forest very interesting. Fraser Island is a sand island. So you can only drive 4x4s there. We had a huge 55 passenger 4x4 bus. These things cost approximately 600,000 dollars. Yikes! Our tour guide told us that Fraser Island had all of Australia compacted into the island with all its different kinds of forests, grasslands and deserts. For alot of the trip we drove along down side the ocean on the sand. This is part of the number 1 highway in Australia. It was cool. Driving on sand...Next to the ocean...registered as a highway. Most rules were the same except pedestrians have the right of way and you can pass other vehicles on either side. It was also a run way for airplanes. Those have the right oof way. We saw a few dingos. They are the purest in the world as there are no other domestic dogs onthe island. We also spent time in Lake Mackenzie. (We could not swim in theocean because it was too dangerous with all the current and undertow...as well as all the dangerous man eating sharks...no joke. haha. Lake Mackenzie is a beautifulfresh water lake that is made only froom rain. It was the bluest lake i have ever seen and has the whitest sand. You can polish silver withthesand and its better than what jewellers use apparently. We also learned about the deadlieest spider...A spider that mmakes the sydney funnel web spider look whimpy (sydney's is supposed to be the most dangerous spider). Yikes...apparently there is no records of anyone being bit by this spider. Our tour guide assumes that back when there were people workig on the island in the 1800s there may have been.

After Fraser Island we went to Rockhampton...more cowtownish than Calgary. There were cows everywhere. Also, there were statue cows everywhere. This is basically where we spentthe night to resst.. It was hot so we went swimming and met a couple in their 50s who have been W.h.a.r.f.ing for the past 8 months. They encouraged mee to try it...we will see. We also learned a brown snake had been killed the day before at thecamp ground

Timeis up!

I have got youup to date. Airliebeach

Brisbane......

Sorry guys! I had typed a huge thing but I guess that it did not save and post. Oh well. I will try to update as much as I can as I have the lovely 15 minutes of internet and a really bad keyboard.

In Byron Bay, we basically just walked around and looked at all the shops around the mainstreets and decided to go and book a trip to Fraser Island. While we were there we saw an ad for zorbing. So we asked about it.....and within 20 mminutes the man was there to pick us up and take him out to his farm!!! If you don't know what zorbing is you basically strap yourself into this huge bouncy ball and you roll down the hill. It was freaky! But definitely fun! Don't know if I would do it again..lol. I really liked it though. On the ride back to the city we learned about this man's recent break up with his girlfriend and the best fish and chips place ever! He dropped us off there and boy was it good! It was called Fish Mangers...or something like that. Now being the old ladies that we are we headed back to our campground (after many wrong turns with our wonderful Ken, the gps voice!) We talked for quite a while with our neighbours and learned all about their Australian adventures (She was South African and he was Irish). They were older than us....probably in their late 40s, early 50s. As we went to bed, they headed out go to a pub and experience the niight life of Byron Bay.

Next morning we headed off to Brisbane. We found a car park right away (underground) and decided to park there and walk around....no driving the big van in the city (I dont know how people drive minivans around all the time...ekks!) We found ourselves underneath part of the HUGE Queen Street Mall. This is like 4 cornwalls with side street stores all along every side too! We decided to travel around first and do the mall last. Bad idea. What we thought would only be a 30 minute walk ended up being an hour and when we finally decided to give up we found out that where we were wanting to go was actually a few kilometers outside the city. So we started to walk along the water and saw some beautiful buildings.. that we had wanted to go to...but coouldnt because of distance. We walked into the wonderfullly air conditioned casino and thought we would play a couple coin machines. Well as we walked towards the room a guard stepped in front of us and told us we were not allowed in there without covered shoes! stupid flip flops...(or thongs as they call them here) We spent the rest of our afternoon over whelmed with the Queen Street mall and then headed to Redcliffe, just outside of Bribane where Vave's mom opened up her home to us. Her and Vave were so wonderful to us. Vave's mom and her roommate had to go to bed quite early so he gave us a tour and history of Redcliffe and then we went into Brisbine to Mt. Cootha to get a good look at Brisbane at night time! Woooweee was it beautiful. We then sat there and had coffee and chatted as we overlooked Brisbine.

We got up early morning the next day to head out to Australia Zoo!! Good times we had there. I got to have a personal encounter with the wombats (in the pouring rain I might add). Stephanie got to watch a trainer get up close and personal with a tiger. We got our picture taken with koalas (Stephanies pooed on her). We saw lots of crocodiles and watched visitors feed elephants. There was a show where it showed many of their animals. Part of the show they had birds fly in froom all over the zoo to the main place where the show was. The lorikeets (cute little colourful birds) got really close to the audience's heads. I am sure Auntie Lois would have loved that ppart of the show. It really was a fun time and we got lots of sweet pictures! It was one of the major highlights of the trip. We spent the night at a really creepy caravan park. We were up and out of there pretty early. We stopped and went to a look out point of the Glass House Mountains (google them). They were a beautiful sight! I would have loved to have more time and hike up one of them.

Next stop was Hervey Bay (pronounced Harvey). This was where we had to be to catch the ferry to Fraser Island. This was the best campervan place ever! The man who checked us in (I am assuming the owner) was polite and friendly and told us right off the bat where all to go in the town. He was also seen all over the site doing maintence and always smiling! I loved it. The first place we went to was this really neat museum. There is a guy who lives in Hervey Bay who believes that if a "man eating" shark injures a person or animal it should be killed. He is world-known. Vic Hislop (another google). His museum was more to be an awareness to people that these particular sharks are very dangerous. He had lots of bones from animals found in sharks (dolphins :() and many clippings of deaths and disappearances from shark attacks. The main attraction : 3 real life sharks in a freezer. SICK, big and scary sharks... I would not like to see them inthe ocean. This is the only museum where you can see real life "man eating" sharks. Sea world and other water attractions cannot have these kinds of sharks in their aquariums. All sharks that you see that are man eating and in an attraction like that are usually fiberglass! It was exciting and freaky to go there. We walked along the beach and the shops and found a nice place to eat right across from the ocean. We watched the sun set. Beautiful. I went out on a limb and tried Kangaroo. It was pretty delicious!

The next morniing we woke up and got ready to be at our bus (that picked us up at our site) at 7:00am.

Uh OH It is starting to rain reallly hard right now and I am outside. I think I am stuck here for a bit till it stops.

My time is almst up. I will tell you more about our trip to Fraser Island in a few days. Tomorrow Stephanie and I are on our way to do a sailing trip in the Whitsundays. It willl be raining but the sites wwill still be beautiful. Up north there are monsoons and cyclones. Steph actually had to c hange her flight to get picked up in Brisbane because the highway is closed to Cairns. It is rainy season here right now.

There is a little update for yoou all!

Seee ya later!