Hanging out at the Edge of the Earth

This last weekend, Mother Goose swept us up, up and away to a land even further down under.

But, before I go much further, have I introduced Mother Goose yet?

A brief synopsis: He's our guide to the land down under.
And takes us on all of these fantastic adventures.
His name is mother goose, because we follow him around much like this:



So, Mother Goose was our guide to Albany, approximately a six hour drive.
In the back of a church bus.
Have I ever mentioned that I get really, reallllly motion sick?


And let me just tell you, Albany was absolutely gorgeous. If you get a sense from the map and the following pictures, it felt like we were on a cliff at the edge of the earth looking out at the abyss.
So, needless to say we had a fabulous time.
Despite any initial nausea.

In these pictures it's awfully hard to tell, but Albany was rainy and freezing for our weekend there. And it looks much closer to the coast of Ireland in my mind than the coast of southern Australia. My mind was blown.

At least all of this rain gear makes it appear like the weather was a bit gross.

We got to experience some pretty crazy things at the edge of the earth.

Including the natural bridge and the gap.

Here's the thing though, we spent a weekend in cold, windy, rainy generally speaking, crap, weather, but it definitely added to the beauty of everything.
It even made a shit photographer like myself make it look like something beautiful.

After the beauty that was the gap, we wandered over to a wind farm.
Let me just say, coming from the midwest and having to drive through wind farm country every time I want to drive somewhere, I was less than enthusiastic.
I was cold. And it was still gross out. And all I could think was, you want me to go back out there to hike up a hill and look at some windmills?
you've gotta be kidding me.


But even the windmills were beautiful.

And the view from above was spectacular.

If the weekend would've stopped there, I would've died happy just from the view I got to experience. 

But, we continued on to the Valley of the Giants.
This was... spectacular. Again, these photographs basically took themselves. Because I have negative skill.

And the whole gang:

And one of my favorite moments with one of my favorite girrrlz.

This picture doesn't do the height of the bridge justice. But I love this picture because it captures the energy of the weekend so greatly.

I'm sorry it's been so long since a post. 

I'm sorry for such a long, picture heavy blog post.

Okay. You caught me again, not really.

I took hundreds of gorgeous photos, and managed to narrow it down to these few, plus a few I stole from my besties that they captured.

But, for the sake of stopping this before it becomes a three page post, I'll cut it off now. This doesn't give a feel for the whole weekend, or explain the meadery or vineyards, but that's okay, because that'll just give me an excuse to post again :P

Tata for now.

XOXO

All Good Things Must Come to an End.

This is a philosophy that I tend not to abide by.

Why should good things come to an end? More over, why should they have to.

Anyways. To those slightly jealous of this crazy adventure, fear not, for there's always a bit of trouble brewing in paradise. 

Reasons why today I'm a negative nancy:

My phone/connection to the world has stopped functioning.

This seems like an easy solve: just buy a new phone. But, when your phone was too expensive for words, that's a ridiculous option. This can't be happening to my phone. Surely not.

-_-

But alas, it is. 

And it just makes you feel like an idiot for throwing money away on technology when all this time I could've been working on acquiring a falcon and getting my falconry certification so I could have both a stealth hunter and messenger. 

Due to my over-reliance on technology (to be clear, I'm blaming societal pressure on my generation as a whole for this reliance not me or my particular upbringing), my entire life has gone into shambles.

I can't coordinate or contact or set alarms or check my calendar or get un-lost. This is most certainly a problem. I'm working on it.

So, I blame this on screwing up my memorized time for lectures.

Which means that I thought my Monday morning class started at 10am, but I was way wrong. It most certainly started at 9am.
Thankfully, the lecture notes are online, but that's not helping this gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach as I contemplate how I unintentionally skipped the 2nd week of a 3 hour lecture. 

whoops.

Throughout this entire mess, I've also meant to apply to grad school.

Which hasn't happened, because it's like professors don't understand e-mail.

And without the base knowledge of replying to an e-mail, I'll never get letters of recommendation lined up while abroad.

So, now I'm behind on that.

And then of course there's always the cost of living here. Which is high. Much, much higher than the U.S.

People make a lot more here. Which would be awesome, except job applications aren't panning out.

So, I'm soon to be the person who can't do anything fun especially traveling as my money comes to an end.

So, I don't mean to bitch. Okay. I lied. I did mean to. sorry. Almost done. Promise.

It might just be an entire bottle of wine while watching Quentin Tarantino anything kind of night and wallowing in only a little bit of self-pity. 

I'm never leaving.

Only deportation or the threat thereof could make me leave this wonderful country.

The first few weeks here have been a giant party of meeting people and having an overall wonderful time.

I've met fabulous Aussies both from the area and from all over the country. I've met wonderful non-Aussies as well from all over the world.

To anybody that was nervous for me (myself included), have no fear, I'm in heaven.


Because I get to sit on giant rocks and admire the beach after a full day at work.


Next to a giant sculpture-esque crawfish lobster.

Even if I don't understand the Metric system (thanks 'merica) or Celsius or the accent half the time, I've irrevocably fallen in love.

I adore my flatmates (aka the five other fabulous girls I live with plus some other adoptees).

I adore everyone in this whole living arrangement.

I adore the other Americans I've met.

And I most certainly adore every last Aussie.

So take it from a now sort of moving a long way a way pro: don't be nervous to make a major life change. You can do it. You'll find friendly people. Trust me, if I can do it full of sarcasm, you can do it while being a genuinely nice person too. (I guess this doesn't apply if you're a total jerk. Total jerks, rethink things).

I started classes this week, and so far I guess I even adore those. (hahahahah, sure).

Just another sunset on the beach

XOXOXO

So You Want to be a Pro Surfer? And Other Nonsensical Adventures...

As part of this whole study abroad program thing I'm on, I get to do some pretty sweet stuff.

Right after a few other Americans had landed, our program leaders swept us all up and took us up to a couple day surf camp.

For some of us, that meant just landing in a foreign country on complete jetlagsomnia and then immediately packing back up for a pretty sweet trip.

Welcome to Yanchep.

Where there are kangaroos everywhere.
And the Koalas seem keen on making friends while chomping away.
And there's more culture at one Inn than experienced in most places in the world.

This area was gorgeous. And filled with adventure.

On to the "Pro" "Surfing" part...
I apologize for the complete lack of photos at my complete failed attempts at learning to surf.
We'll play another imagination game.
Close your eyes and imagine that you're in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The water here is salty. For the full effect, feel free to throw some salt in your eyes and dump it down your nose.
Refreshing.
(Jokes. Please don't do that. The falling head first part into the ocean and being bombarded by waves was not the best part of the trip... let's move on...)
You see a wave. Try to catch it with the techniques you just learned.
You have approximately five seconds to complete the tasks at hand and stand on the board before hitting shore line. Maybe you're killer at this. Or perhaps like myself, you suck ass at this and are completely incapable of following the task at hand.
That's okay. If you fall into the former category, way to go! You keep on surfing. I'll ring up the press.
If you fall into the latter, just enjoy holding onto the board as a flotation device and bobbing up and down with the waves. There's nothing quite that relaxing.

Until next time, enjoy this video of a koala eating a leaf while being sprinkled on.

You're welcome for that.