home home home!

After 20 hours of flying and living Monday twice.... I made it back to Chicago!  Carly and I managed to get on an earlier flight out of LA so no 12 hour layover (thank god) and made it back around 7pm.  Becky picked us up from the airport!  I was super tired but alas could not fall asleep until 3am (stupid jet lag).  I hope you all have enjoyed reading this blog.  I might post some stuff later so check in.  

Homeward Bound!

Carly and I are in the New Zealand International Airport waiting for our plane! So this will be my last blog entry from overseas! I can't believe it has been 6 weeks already. I am really excited to go home and see everyone but am also kind of sad that it is over. Australia/New Zealand have been way too much fun and I have had so many great experiences. Be ready for a giant photo album because I am going to make everyone of you sit down and look through it (I have like over 1500 photos... be ready. hahaha. See you all soon!

Woo hoo photos!

Some pictures

My giant latte... so good after freezing in the van all night


Carly spotted a Gandalf stick so of course we had to take pictures

The van and the stick
"You shall not pass"
We took it will us but it was so big it had to stick out the back sunroof. We got many weird looks with our green and purple unicorn van.
Wild pony in the forest preserve... so cute!
A waterfall we found while driving through the national park place
Sunset
Cooking some beans next to some sheep
Hiking to the top of this mountain... it was so freaking long and straight uphill
But the view at the top was great!
We went to an Irish Pub for some drinks in Rotorua. They had these dark sexy cocktails (Guinness and chocolate liquor... yum!)

Kiwi: Bird Fruit or Person?

New Zealand is so pretty even if we are freezing our butts off at night in our van! Yesterday we left Taupo and started heading to Roturua. Randomly we decided to drive to the coast so proceeded to drive through a Forest Preserve. Little did we know that the road becomes unpaved and winds so much that we are going about 10-20 miles per hour the whole way through (4 hours). It was really pretty though and we saw a bunch of random animals (cows, goats, sheep, horses) all chillin by the road. We got out the preserve and made it to the nearest big town on the coast then decided we didn't want to take the East Coast tour since it would be just as bendy so we took another road straight up through New Zealand and looped around back to Roturua. It was a random road trip that took all day but totally fun. Today we went hiking at a thermal vent place. We hiked to the top of a mountain that proved how out of shape we were but the view was great. Then we made lunch out of the back of our van and walked around downtown Roturua. Tonight we probably will go out for a little bit and see the local bar scene. First we have to find a place to shower... hmmmm. Unfortunately photos are not loading on this computer so just imagine lots of hills with sheep and cows and cool steam rising out of rivers. I can't believe in 3 days I come home!!

Random pics from Cairns

Out of order but I forgot to post these pictures earlier..

Carly and our Dutchmen (TJ and Stephen)
The Crazy Welsh Guy (no one could understand him so we didn't know his name, something like yellow)
TJ cooking us a spaghetti feast
The view from our balcony... pretty!!
"there is a large Dutchmen on my floor" (He didn't fit on the bunk so he put the mattress on the floor)
Carly and Hungry Jacks (Australia is too cheap to pay for the Burger King name so they named it Hungry Jacks. New Zealand has Burger King though)
Crazy sunglasses
They board flights from outside in Australia (and feed us lunch and show us entertainment on domestic 2 hours flights)
Carly and I on our way to Brisbane from Cairns
The Great Barrier Reef from the plane

We are living in a van...

a pretty awesome van!! It was way cheaper to rent a camper van and drive randomly around New Zealand than stay in hostels and such so we got our Jucy Van and away we went!! We were going to drive to Roturua on the first day but then decided to drive a little bit further south and got to Taupo.. some random town with a lake and tons of hot water vents. We camped out last night at some random reststop in our great van then woke up this morning and went for a couple hikes. Then Carly did laundry and we bought a few DVDs to watch tonight in our van.

The inside of our van... this part converts to a bed

Cows and sheep and rainbows... pretty much sums up NZ
We drove up a road that said scenic outlook... um yeah the cows we found up there were prettier than the outlook
Carly and our kickass van
NZ has exclamation points... this one was for steam... we have seen others for car park and waterfall... who knows
Cooking out of the back of our van... yummmm beans
Me and our dinner in the van
We found a fat kitty before our walk
He joined us for a little bit
STEAM!!
RAWR!
RAWR!
Pretty hike
Waterfall/river place
Us and the Huka Falls

GBR photos

Carly and I got our waterproof camera developed from the Great Barrier Reef! The pictures don't do the reef justice but they are better than nothing.

Giant clam!
Nemo!!!
The reef
Bunch of fishes
Turtle!!

Bye bye tropics...

Hello winter!

Today Carly and I are leaving the nice warm weather of Cairns and heading to New Zealand where it is winter. Oh boy. We are renting a camper van and just driving around and chilling for a week. Hopefully it won't be too cold!

Yesterday we just hung out. I got some laundry done. Then we went and bought stuff for dinner with our roommates and made pasta and had a party in our room. We have some pretty cool roommates this time. 2 guys from Holland, 1 (crazy) guy from Whales and a really nice girl from Ireland (plus some other random people but they don't talk). We all played cards last night and talked for many hours. It was a lot of fun.

Hopefully I will have access to internet in New Zealand but we will be in a van so who knows! My phone will work there though!! See ya!

My horse riding need has been filled

We went riding today and I think I will be okay without horses for the next week....

Carly and I went on the most amazing trail ride. We went to a farm in the mountains and had a private trail ride with two guides. First they took us on a little walk trot warm up, with a little canter back to the farm. Then they let the horses rest because some law only allows them to go for an hour at a time which we were totally okay with. Then since we knew what we were doing we went on a lovely canter to the rain forest. Then we got to go swimming in the stream. My horse likes to lie down so I let her because they said she wouldn't roll. So she lays down and plays around then gets up and we continue. Then one of the guide's horses had a really bad loose shoe so she got off and switched horses with the other guide who took her horse back by hand walking. So it was just me and Carly and this really nice girl. The horse she switched to was used to be ridden in the back by complete beginners and got very happy being the front so when we asked them to canter up the hill he took off and our horses were like WHEEEEEEEEE!!!! So we got to gallop all around the outside of the rain forest. Basically by the end the horses knew we could ride and the guide was having fun with us so instead of trotting where they usually do we were allowed to full out gallop. Great fun!!! Then they gave us lunch and drove us back to Cairns. Now we are just hanging around and relaxing until we go out to dinner and celebrate the 4th of July tonight. I am on a horsie high right now!

My horse Lilly:

She was a very cute appy

Carly and her horse Chardonnay

The view from the farm

Gypsy the dog went the whole trail ride with us:

I FOUND NEMO!!

And tons of other creatures in the Great Barrier Reef.

OMG! Wait wait wait... OH MY GOD!!! Carly and I just got off our overnight trip to the Great Barrier Reef and it was so much fun! We got on the boat at 7am not knowing what to expect. The crew was very professional yet super welcoming and fun. They assigned us our beds and where to put our stuff then we all met on deck for a overview of the trip. It took us around 3 hours to get to the reef. This is when everyone suited up to go diving. I can't go underwater so I just got my snorkeling stuff and watched Carly get ready for an introductory dive lesson. Then I took my noodle float and kicked on out to the reef. HOLY COW! Words cannot describe the feeling of swimming over many different colors of coral and TONS of fish. I am so setting up a saltwater tank when I get home. Everywhere I looked there was something to see. Carly joined me on the reef after her dive and we found Nemo (clown fish). They are so cute swimming in and out of the anemone. We also were lucky enough to see a reef shark. It swam right underneath us and was a fairly large. Really cool shark. I was also cleaned by a cleaner fish. Apparently I was dirty or something. He stayed on me cleaning for awhile. Then we swam back to the boat and had a fantastic lunch.

We got to meet a bunch of people on the boat. The nice part about this boat was that there were only 16 people max allowed plus the 5 crew so you got to know everyone. We moved to another reef and went snorkling again. Just as pretty and awesome. Snacks after this snorkle and more socializing. Then we moved to another reef. This one was more sandy but had GIANT clams. I was lucky enough to see a turtle. I tried to swim with him but he was like hell no and took off. Then we had a fantastic dinner and watched the sunset. The sunset was probably the best sunset I have ever seen. The crew said they haven't had a sunset like the one we saw in like 4 months. Then a couple people went for a night dive while we just chilled on board and got to talk and such. After the divers got back our captain gave us a talk about the reef.

Our captain was named Jason Sparrow. And he totally could have been Capatain Jack Sparrow's brother or cousin or something. He gave us the talk while drinking straight rum out of a flower print plastic cup. He knew what he was talking about so it was really interesting and informative. The best part was when he was talking about how the reef reproduces and a creepy man from Germany keep asking questions. To keep this blog PG, let's just say they went on a reef reproduction rauncy banter for about 5 to 10 minutes. The German guy was being serious and Jason was being as sexual as possible. Great fun. Carly and I called it an early night and went to our bunks. We woke up at 6:45 for a morning snorkle at a new location. This reef was just as pretty. The waves were bigger so I couldn't stay out too long because it was stressful trying to keep my ear dry. We had a great breakfast (can I just stress how good the food was on this boat.... it was so freaking good.) They moved the boat to our last snorkle location. I went out to finish up our waterproof camera and to see what this reef was like. I think this reef was my favorite because it had huge gulleys and many different levels. If the waves weren't so choppy I would have stayed out there a long time.

We then spent the afternoon eating and sunbathing. My legs are finally tan after years of never seeing the sun. Then we had a long boatride back to shore. Tonight we are meeting the crew and people from the boat for free pizza and beer at a resturant courstesy of Captain Jason. He is crazy but really nice. Tomorrow we are going horseback riding then celebrating the 4th of July!!! Cairns has been really fun even if the city isn't all that fancy.

Carly getting ready at the sink in our hostel room... it was so small we had to take a picture.

Our itinerary on the boat:
Carly leaving the bay.

Part of the boat
Carly's wetsuit was really hard to get on.
Lunch the first day
Carly and I with the sunset.
The absolutely amazing sunset.
Um yeah words cannot describe this.

Captain Jason... hopefully I will get a better picture of him tonight.
Carly and I enjoying the sun
I found Carly in the hatch!

Where we slept
Cairns
Carly kissing the ground after feeling a little seasick most of the trip.