Surprise!!

Bet you all thought I was giving up on this thing…Thought wrong! I am back…

We have a lot of catching up to do. Since we’ve last spoken Australia, and specifically Queensland, has been hit with TWO natural disasters. Firstly the floods. I was lucky enough that these floods did not have a huge affects on me and my lifestyle: I missed one day of work because we didn’t have power, and I had a chance to take some pretty amazing and shocking pictures. Others were not so lucky. The city my friend was from was one of the hardest hit. Unexpectedly, a wall of water came rushing through the town, ruining homes, washing away vehicles and the worst of all, taking lives. They actually called it an inland Tsunami.

Brisbane, the city I was living in, luckily got much more of a warning about the floods. Fairly gradually, the river broke its banks, and as the water level rose, and those who happened to in low lying areas were hit hard. Full on homes and business were underwater and people were boating through what once were streets. The water level rose almost 5 meters higher then usually is. Imagine if the canal suddenly rose 5 meters?! … Ya, crazy! And just as the water had gradually rose, it also gradually subsided. This meant that some people could not return to their homes for over a week, and what they did return to was not a pretty site. As the water was also full of sewage and filth, people’s homes were filthy and destroyed. There was a lot of cleaning up to do!

About a month after the floods, things were starting to finally look up. The rains had stopped and the weather was beautiful. Things were going back into their regular ways, electricity was being fixed, homes were being cleaned and redone. Life was looking good. Then came Cyclone Yasi.

Cyclone Yasi was meant to hit everywhere in Queensland that had not been effected by the floods…Just in case they thought they were going to get off free. Homes and hospitals were evacuated and people were living in safe evacuation centers, waiting for what was expected to be the biggest cyclone to ever hit Australia. It;s worse damage was expected to hit Cairns. All of Australia was nervous. We were all going to bed that night, not knowing what was going to left of North Queensland. Thankfully, the next morning was a relief. The cyclone went from what expected to be a level 5, only ended up being a level 2, causing much less damage than expected. It also hit the hardest in a town called Tully, not in Cairns. As Tully is much smaller then Cairns, this is definitely good news!

Poor, poor Queenslanders. It has been quite a crazy year…and its only February!!

As for me, although no natural disaster personal stories to report, a ton has happened. For a month I lived in a really wicked house in Brisbane with an Australian roommate named Bianca and her super cute dog Boss. It was an amazing house, and Bianca was a super fun roommate. We were a 10 minute walk from my work, and a 2 minute walk to everything else. We had always kept our windows open which meant we had geckos EVERYWHERE! At first, it was really weird to find geckos all over the place…but once I got used to them they were actually really cool. And they make really crazy noises! Youtube it.  My favorite day in this place was Australia day, where Bianca got a blow up pool and invited a bunch of her friends over, so we had a BBQ and sat in the pool all day long Listening to Triple J (a local radio station)’s top 100 songs of the year. This, apparently is true Australian way to celebrate their Birthday! Cool.

There was a job opening at the Peterpans in Surfers Paradise, so about 2 weeks ago, I moved here! I figured, if I am in Australia I may as well live by the beach!! The job is going great. I spend most of my days working alone, which means I have a lot of autonomy and responsibility. It is really cool! I spent a week and a half living on my friend Lindsay’s couch. It was really fun staying there and hanging out all the time. It was a slice of home brought down under. Just yesterday I moved into the GREATEST apartment ever. It is super new, nice, clean and modern. I am living with an Australian girl from work named Eloise who is super cool. Best of all, out my bedroom window, I have a great view of the beach and out my front door I can literally roll to the bars. How much better can it get?!

The Real Australia

First of all, HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!

Sorry again for such a late post, but here is my story from my Christmas adventure:

My fabulous friend Phil: an Englishman I met when I was in Newcastle, has spent this past 7 weeks working on a farm doing program called WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms) where he works for a few hours a day for his accommodation and food. The family he is wwoofing with graciously invited me to come spend Christmas with them and their friends! So Friday afternoon, after my first full work week, I made my way to their friend’s home right outside Nimbin. When I finally arrived, after a 5 hour bus ride to Lismore and a 40 minute drive to their home, I knew this weekend was going to be a cool experience; The family lived in a cute, cottage-like home right in the middle of the rainforest. The family was not the only creatures inhabiting their land, they where sharing it with two diamond pythons who live on the roof, some wallabies (kind of like mini kangaroos) who hang around, and, in true Australian style, some of the worlds most poisonous spiders.

Phil, Josh (one of the kids of the family Phil works for who is really cool!) and I stayed in a cabin that was not attached to house, but was a muddy up hill walk to get too. Because of the torrential rain that was happening all weekend, the walk was pretty much a slip and slide. I was lucky to have borrowed a pair of gumboots (New Zealand word for rain boots!). The weekend was filled with delicious food, great company and some fun adventures.

On my second day there, we drove into the town of Nimbin; known as the Amsterdam of Australia (if you catch my drift…). The town is only a couple blocks long, smack in the middle of nowhere. It is surrounded by mountains and fields, and filled with dread locks and hippies. Our drive there was quite an journey. The car’s battery was perma-dead, and had been that way for quite a while…Issue? Not for these practical people! Solution: We had to push the car down a hill, work some magic to spark the ignition and VOILA! Battery. Ya…I was pretty impressed.

Anyways, we got back from Nimbin right on time for a glorious Christmas dinner spread: Roast lamb, many different salads, potatoes, bread, tons of beer and wine…YUM!! We spend the night with the family: the adults where friendly, warm and hospitable and their kids where so outgoing and adorable. I really felt like part of the family and it was great to be in a home again for a bit.

That Sunday night, I headed back to Brisbane, to my real world (if you can really call this the real world…). So far, work has been going really well and starting on Saturday my training will be over and I will be a travel agent! Woohoo!! So, if YOU are looking to book anything throughout Australia, you know who to call…