Dive Madness, Day Two :)

My initial fear about older and superior divers not liking me were firmly dispelled almost immediately; everyone was SO very friendly (and I started observing people right away and literally taking notes so I could remember everything). I'm pretty terrible at remembering people's names, but I did my absolute best because everyone was so nice and friendly and I wanted to know and remember them all.     

My lovely fellow passengers :)

After this trip, I realize how fortunate I have been to get the chance to dive in such pristinely superb locations, with some even cooler divers. Gwen and Troy, an Irish/Australian married couple from Sydney were great fun, as were Martijn and Nicole (originally from Eastern Europe somewhere, but now current residents of Australia). Paul and his 16-year-old son Justin live in Sydney, and were quite fun to chat with. John and Jane Winters (who wore Hawaiian shirts a lot), and their grown son John (all from Wisconsin) were excellent additions to the jovial bunch, and documentarian David Ireland and his cameraman Grant told some RIDICULOUS (and often mildly inappropriate) jokes. Tor was a very tall amateur photographer (who took excellent pictures) from Norway and Andre was a friendly and bald man (with cool tattoos) from Holland. Sascha and Aaron were both from Australia. Rayna had worked for Mike Ball previously, but she and her mother, Faye were just passengers on this voyage. Faye had awesomely colored slouchy beach pants. My dive buddy was a pleasant German woman named Suzanne who was on holiday from work. She was a good person for me to dive with because neither of us particularly wanted to go super deep or super far, so we had nice relaxing dives (except for the one where I almost ran out of air, but that's another story). Also, her reluctance to lead dives (she wasn't that good with a compass) allowed me to work on my navigation skills and take charge of leading our dives. I never got us lost once :D     

Potato Cod

  After our 7AM breakfast, our first dive was at Cod Hole. The water temperature was a pleasant 83 degrees Fahrenheit, the visibility was about 30-40 feet, and our average depth was 26 feet. We had Shea, one of the instructors, lead our dive so we could get used to the site. The best thing about this dive was seeing the potato cod: giant mottled fish (1.5 meters long) who were not remotely afraid of people whatsoever. I got courted by one who followed me around the whole dive and swam all the way back to the boat with me! Courted by a cod :) Other cool things I saw were Moorish Idols (Gil from Finding Nemo), Clownfish, Zebrafish, White-tip Reef Sharks, these little fish that looked like white fish dipped in black paint, and too many corals and sponges to name. This was my first real dive on the reef (excluding my first dive I did on the day trip which was really more of a dive to get used to using my new gear) and it was ASTOUNDINGLY wonderful.       

Blue Christmas Tree worms. They live on coral and retract like the large plants in Avatar (these are what those plants were based on, but these ones are barely an inch high).

After an hour of surface interval time, we headed back into the water (after wriggling and squeezing ourselves back into already wet wetsuits--an attractive process for everyone). On this dive, we saw an Undulated Moray Eel, Trumpetfish, Pipefish, White-tip Reef Sharks, Peacock Grouper, a Bull Shark (!!!!), Squirrelfish, Christmas Tree Worms, and, of course, the Potato Cod. Suzanne didn't want to lead this dive, so I stepped up to the plate and reluctantly did. I was super OCD about checking my compass every few minutes--I'd never led a dive by myself before, other than swimming in a 30m x 30m square with Dan for my navigation dive for my Advanced Open Water certification. When we were nearing the end of the dive, I began to panic because we should have been back at the boat and I didn't think we were anywhere close to it. Then I looked up. We were directly under it. Navigation win :D I grinned throughout our three minute safety stop. I need to stop being so excited underwater because grinning with a regulator in makes seawater leak into both your mouth and your mask.

Sand goby in his hole

  We motored off to Challenger Bay while eating a delicious lunch (the food alone would have made the trip worth it). Diving here, I saw a free-swimming (not hiding in the coral) Moray Eel! They are HUGE! We saw three cuttlefish, which are one of my top three favorite underwater creatures (the other two being nudibranchs and Christmas Tree worms). We hovered and watched the cuttlefish for a while; they are quite mesmerizing. We also saw sand gobies and their crab roommates. They have a super cool relationship: the tiny little translucent crab digs a hole while the goby keeps watch, then when danger comes around, they both dart into the hole for safety. Sand keep getting in the hole, so the crab just digs it out again. It was fascinating to watch, even though they are both so small.    

Giant Trevally. They have a lot of teeth.

  We stayed at Challenger Bay for our night dive. First of all, everyone should go on night dives, they are AMAZING! We tied glow sticks to our tanks so that we could all see each other, and we had our dive lights as well, so we could see where we were going. The highlight (although it got annoying after a while) was that groups of Giant Trevally would use our dive lights to hunt by. It's quite resourceful of them, actually, but you'd be looking at some cool little fish and then BAM a three foot long fish would shoot past you and eat it. After a while, we got good at diverting them with our lights so they wouldn't eat everything we were trying to look at.      We had an excellent dinner and all chatted about the fantastical things we saw that day. Four dives in a day is exhausting, and everyone had gone to bed before 9pm, myself included. We motored through the night and we were crossing a patch of open water not protected by the reef, so it was pretty rough and choppy, but I managed to get some sleep.  

Dive Madness, Day One :)

All the nitrogen has been safely off-gassed from my body. All my SCUBA gear is dry. I have my land legs almost completely back (occasionally I still get the feeling that I'm on a boat, particularly when I am sitting still in a small-ish room). And now, I will tell you all about my dive trip!

The Mike Ball Dive Expedition office is just outside of the main area of downtown Cairns, and I dropped my luggage (meaning my giant orange duffel bag full of mostly scuba gear and a few pieces of clothing) off there and checked in around 3:30pm. I then had about two hours to kill before boarding, so I mooched around Cairns for a bit, and went to P.J. O'Brien's (an Irish pub) for dinner. They have quite decent $10 meals which include a small mug of beer. (Also, unrelatedly, a picture of Oscar Wilde is painted on one wall, but he TOTALLY just looks like Snape and I was all, "Why is there a painting of Severus Snape on the wall of an Irish Pub in Cairns" and then I saw the quote painted next to it by Oscar Wilde and thusly realized it wasn't actually Snape).

Walking up to Spoilsport

We were instructed to meet near the pier at 6PM and slowly everyone congregated there and began introducing themselves. My initial fears about not being friends with anyone on the boat were quickly banished as everyone was very friendly. Then two of the Mike Ball Dive Expedition crew members walked up and introduced themselves and immediately started learning our names (with compulsory nametag wearing, of course). They walked us over to the boat, which was named Spoilsport, and I was pleasantly surprised before even getting on board: it was very nice.

This was taken from the doorway. Tiny!

Once all of us were on board, we were directed to our rooms where our luggage had already been delivered (it was like being at Hogwarts!). My room was roughly 8 feet square with a bunkbed, set of drawers, cabinet/closet, bedside table, and air conditioner. The sheets and bedspreads had a cute seahorse and seashell pattern on them AND we got a freshly made bed and a pillow mint every morning! My room was a double occupancy room, but I had it all to myself and I was very glad of that. It meant that I got the bottom bunk, two pillows, two towels, more tiny bars of soap than I'd ever care to use, and best of all: privacy. Not that I wouldn't have LOVED sharing a closet-sized room with a complete stranger for four days...We were then asked to come upstairs where we got the welcome talk and the safety talk, along with complimentary champagne (yes, it told me how nice I looked, Dad, ha ha ha). Then we got introduced to the crew.

The bald captain's name was Pete and he frequently wore a pirate bandana and always wore his silver hoop earring with a piece of shell on it. Yes, he was pretty much a pirate all the time. The first mate was Leigh, who's shoulder length brown hair and mustache were both streaked with blonde from the sun (but don't worry, his mustache wasn't shoulder length. That'd be really creepy). He was rather shy, but very nice and could play the harmonica and sing quite well. The trip director was a pleasant Scottish man named Craig and he kept everyone organized and on time during the trip. Andrea was the chef in training and he was from Italy. Anita was the pleasant German hostess who was excellent at remembering and using everyone's names. Gus was a tall, SUPER freckly ginger man who has never lived in one place for more than three years. Shay was a short and nice dive instructor who is also an excellent photographer and guitar player; he and Gus were the first two crew members we met. The boat's engineer reminded me of a tiny little hermit crab, but I never learned his name. The main chef was another ginger (although he had hair more my color) and he had many crazy tribal tattoos, and I think his name was Karl. The boat's photographer/videographer was an American named Lawrence, who was nice and very good at photography, but always seemed a wee bit butt-hurt/disgruntled about something or another most of the time. Then there were two volunteers: Patrik, from Switzerland, helped out in the kitchen, and Philippe, a French Canadian, was a general helper. All the crew were dive certified, and most of them were also certified Divemasters or Dive Instructors. Everyone was exceedingly pleasant and helpful and seemed genuinely happy to have all of us passengers along.

View of half the dive deck

After all our meetings were done, we were each assigned a dive station out on the dive deck and we set up all our gear for the morning. Almost everyone had gone to bed by 9:30pm (which makes sense, given that breakfast was at 7am and we had a full day of diving ahead of us), which left the dive deck deserted, and an excellent place to journal. It was the perfect temperature outside, not warm, but not cold, with just the slightest hint of a breeze, and it made me smile how at home I felt on this boat.

My dive station! :)

I'm doing my best to split these dive posts up by day, so that's all for this one.

Up next: meeting my fellow passengers and hearing about our first day of diving :)

If you'd like to see all my pictures from this trip, click HERE to go to my Facebook album.
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Song of the day: If It's Love by Train

Swimming in a giant fish tank

Scuba diving is one of my favorite things in the world.

Yesterday, I got to dive on this side of the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

After schlepping my 35 pounds of scuba gear all the way here from Oregon, I am bound and determined to use it as much as physically (and monetarily) possible. So last week I signed up for a day diving trip through Ocean Spirit Cruises, one of the many dive companies in the greater Cairns area. I got a student deal through my school, and then they upgraded me for free (a $60 deal) when bad weather forced the trip to get rescheduled.

Check in was at the boat at 7:45AM, which meant that I had to wake up at 5:30AM in order to catch the 6:25AM bus that got me into Cairns at 7:00AM, which gave me enough time for breakfast and coffee before lugging all my gear in my bright orange duffel bag seven blocks down to Pier A, where Ocean Spirit I was docked. I was expecting a nice medium-sized dive boat that held about 20-30 divers, but no. This boat was HUGE.

The front half of the boat

I checked in and boarded the large boat in the stunning sunshine. Once all the passengers had arrived, there was probably around 75-100 people on board, including the crew (I'm super bad at estimating, but there were LOTS). I (obviously) started taking pictures immediately.

We had a safety briefing once we had headed away from the marina and towards our destination of Michaelmas Cay. The crew member doing the safety talk was a pleasant Australian named Matt and he was the boat biologist. One of the emergencies he covered was the worst kind to Australians: running out of cold beer. We all chuckled appropriately at that. After the briefing, we were free to lounge about as the boat motored 40km out to our diving and snorkeling spot. (Not everyone on this trip was diving; most of the people were just snorkeling, with about 25 people actually going scuba diving.)

At 9:30, there was a slideshow/presentation in the saloon (that's just what they called the main cabin area for passengers, but I felt a little like a cowboy anyway). One of the crew members, a friendly and smart guy named Cane was giving a talk about the history of the reef and the kinds of fish and plants we'd be seeing on our dives (I know his name is probably spelled Cain, but I'm spelling it this way because it makes me think more of sugar cane, and less "I'm going to kill my brother by hitting him in the head with a rock.") He good-naturedly made fun of me for taking notes, but I just found everything super fascinating and wanted to make sure I remembered everything (like how the reef is 10,000 years old and you can see it from outer space, or that it extends 2,400km down the coast of Queensland, or that there are 20,000 nesting seabirds on the cay we are going to and you will have to pay a $9,000 fine if you go outside the roped area, or how there are 360 different species of coral in the Great Barrier Reef). I probably looked ridiculous because I kept grinning at all the cool facts he was telling us, but I couldn't help it, I was just SO EXCITED TO FINALLY BE HERE AND ABOUT TO DIVE!

Next, we had our dive briefing and found out when we'd be diving (we had to go in shifts to make sure there were enough divemasters/instructors with us at all times). I was scheduled for a dive at 1:15, and it was just before 11am, so I went out on the semi-submersible tour. Steered just like a boat, a semi-sub is just like what it sounds like: a water vehicle that is half submerged in the water. Cane was leading the tour of this as well, and he got to fill our heads with even more information about the native wildlife that lives on this mid-shelf platform reef. He started off by telling us that this was the best day, weather-wise, that they've had in over a month, which made me pleased.

White-tip Reef Shark. Derp.

Peering through the windows of the semi-sub that were 1.8 meters underwater, we saw lots of super cool things, the coolest being five White-tip Reef sharks circling (probably around an injured fish or something), a Green Sea Turtle, and a Manta Ray that was 2.5 meters across! Cane said that he'd never seen a manta ray while doing one of these tours before, so we were super lucky to have seen it. Again, I couldn't keep myself from grinning; THIS WAS SO FREAKING AWESOME! After 30 minutes, we headed back to the boat. Lunchtime!

After lunch, I reapplied my SPF 55 and got the nice lady from Switzerland I met earlier to put some on my back for me; Daniella and I were sunscreen buddies :) Finally, my dive time rolled around, and I donned my stinger suit (a very thin wetsuit to protect your skin from jellyfish stings--a wise choice in this area) and started getting my gear together. Even though I'd gotten my gear as a Christmas present this year (from my favorite dive shop, Salem Scuba!), I hadn't had a chance to use any of it yet (silly giant tonsils needing immediate extraction, rude of them). So this was my first dive using all my own gear and I was very excited.
 There were 12 people heading out in the small boat to a dive site just a short way away, so we all piled our gear into the boat and then piled ourselves in as well. At the large orange buoy that marked our dive site, we all started to gear up, and one by one, we fell backward over the side of the boat and into the water (my first boat dive!) I was in a group with two other certified divers and our divemaster, and we descended to Coral Gardens, about 10 meters below us.

Black and white nudibranch

The water temperature was 79 degrees Fahrenheit and the visibility was about 26 feet. I saw a White-Tip Reef Shark (don't worry Mom, it was only about 3 feet long and super scared of us), a black and white nudibranch (nudibranchs are my favorite!), a large sea cucumber with its guts out, and many Giant Trevally, Spangled Emperor, Humbugs, and Tiera Batfish. And those are just the species I recognized! (I really need to invest in a fish ID book for this area.) I felt like I was swimming in a giant tropical fish tank, and I had expected all the fish to be about the size of fish in a large fish tank (I'm not quite sure why). Not so. The round Tiera Batfish looked similar to a yellow angelfish, but were about a foot across! Even underwater, I was grinning, but that made seawater leak around my regulator and into my mouth, so I tried to suppress my smiling as to breathe in only air.

After a pleasant 35 minute dive, we surfaced and de-geared in the boat. Once all 12 of us were back on the boat, we motored back to the big boat and cleaned off our gear. Everyone who has used a stinger suit had left them in a big wet pile near the back of the boat, and Cane had sat down and was turning them all right side out and putting them back on hangers. I sat down to help him and asked him lots of (probably annoying) questions about how he landed such a sweet job like this (because getting to scuba dive all day and tell people about awesome marine life and getting PAID for it would be an ideal job for me) and where his favorite dive site was and what the coolest creature he's ever seen. He was very helpful and answered all my questions without throwing me overboard for being irritating.

We pulled back into the dock at Cairns around 5pm and the crew all got off first and then stood there in a line on the dock in their cute little navy and white striped polo shirts, thanking us as we walked down the stairs and off the boat. I thanked them all profusely for a wonderful day, my grin pretty much a permanent fixture. Hoisting my (now wet and thus heavier) gear, I trekked back to the bus stop and waited for the 2A to take me back home to the Lodge. I was exhausted (but not at all sunburned!) and sore, but SO very happy :) I love scuba diving, and now I can't wait for my next dive trip, which is a 4-night live-aboard trip out to the reef north of Cairns. Yay!

If you'd like to check out the rest of my pictures, click HERE to go to my Facebook album.

*Edit: I found out his name is spelled Kain. My bad.*
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Song of the day: Change of Seasons by Sweet Thing
(the first 30 seconds are weird, but then the song starts and I love it)

Happy

Ladies and gentlemen, this will be my shortest blog post ever (I promise), but I just wanted to write these very few words extolling how FANTASTIC the Australian Postal Service is: eight days from Portland to Cairns. Gloriously wonderful.

I love snail mail.


And now I'm off to go dance in the sunshine :)

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Song of the day: Sing My Lonesome Away by Matt Wertz

The wheels on the bus

Just the other day, I was sitting at the bus stop right outside the Student Lodge, a cool breeze on my face, I realized how much I enjoy riding the bus. Yes, it sometimes is frustrating to have to plan out my day based on when the buses run. But waiting at hot bus stops, sitting in blue and turquoise and navy patterned bus seats, and walking between bus stops and where I need to go--all of these actions give me more time to think. Instead of jumping in my car, turning on the radio, and getting to my destination exactly when I want to, exactly when I was planning, I have to wait. And that waiting is good for me. I can often be very impatient, and this is helping me to slow down and not be so antsy and uptight about things, especially involving being "on time" to things. I may want to get into Cairns at a specific time, but I will simply get there whenever the bus does, and I have no control over that.

I could just put in my iPod headphones and tune everyone out with my music, but I have this hope that by not wearing earbuds and staring vacantly out the window (like half the people on the bus do), by looking people in the eye and smiling, that people will be more likely to interact with me, to sit down and talk to me. And if not, that's fine, I'm still being a much more active participant in my environment than they are. And without music, my thoughts are free to somersault around in my head as much as they please :)

I have thought of 13 different subjects for future blog posts. I have imagined exactly what I would say and do if I ever met Aragorn, son of Arathorn (and I know this is the 2nd blog post in a row in which I've referred to Lord of the Rings, but I swear I'm not obsessed with it, really,  I've just watched it recently. Twice). I have identified that my biggest pet peeve here is that my bath towel is always wet (it never fully dries unless I spread it out in the sun). I have deeply pondered the surliness of most Sun Bus Transport bus drivers. I have composed postcards to friends back home in my head. I have brainstormed some spring break travel ideas. I have thought about which two artists I am going to compare in my art review for my Art, Artist, Environment class. I've daydreamed about the luxurious and over-extravagant trips I would take around Australia if I was a multi-millionaire. I have people-watched and made up stories and names for my fellow bus-travelers.

I love riding the bus :)

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Song of the day: The Fox (cover) by Nickel Creek

Sweating and more sweating

Yesterday, I went hiking with my friends Katie, Amanda, and Sam. We caught the bus to the Cairns Botanical Gardens and started walking up the Blue Arrow trail that starts behind the gardens. I don't know how hot it actually was, but I started sweating almost immediately, despite the tree cover over most of the trail. The Blue Arrow trail is about 8km round trip (which is a little under 5 miles) and it was very steep and switchback-y in parts. I am not in the best of shape, and this hike was hard.

I felt like two different Lord of the Rings characters at various points on the hike: Samwise Gamgee when he loses sight of Frodo around the bend when they're just starting their journey, about to leave The Shire, and almost has an epic freakout; and Gimli the dwarf when he, Aragorn, and Legolas are running across Middle Earth to rescue Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai, and he is panting and falling over and getting left behind his fitter counterparts. But I didn't get lost or left behind, and the four of us survived the hike with little more than a few bug bites and mud streaked legs and feet.

And my legs were complaining like Pippin when he realized that Aragorn didn't know about second breakfast, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, or supper. My right knee (that I kinda messed up pushing our stuck van off a beach in Mexico, and again climbing into a volcano in Lee Vining, CA) was bugging me, as it tends to do when I overexert it. I'm glad I brought me knee brace thing with me here. Also, I felt super healthy after completing my hike, and somehow I always forget that I love hiking, even when it is a hard trail. Oh, and I also felt like I was on LOST because we were right across the street from the airport and could hear planes loudly taking off quite frequently. Hearing loud jets while hiking through a tropical rainforest just made me feel like I was following Jack as he led the group on a hike to the radio tower to use the satellite phone to call the freighter to be rescued (except the freighter wasn't there to rescue the Losties. Anyway.....)

Today, Katie told me about Zumba in the park, which happens outside at (you guessed it) a park in downtown Cairns every Tuesday and Friday evening. And it is FREE (classes normally cost about $15 per class), so we headed into Cairns on the bus.

Called "exercise in disguise," Zumba is a crazy, latin-inspired, high-energy dance workout to super upbeat music, most of it designed or adapted specifically for Zumba. If you've never tried it, I strongly encourage you to. I was skeptical at first, because I don't really enjoy dancing in public and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I decided to just go for it, and I'm SO glad I did!

Before the class started, I warned my friends that I was about to make a huge fool of myself. I needn't have worried: over half the people there looked more ridiculous than I did (hopefully) and most people didn't know what they were doing, but they were doing it anyway. No one just stands around and makes fun of people; the instructors tell everyone who walks by/lurks around watching to just join in, because anyone can do Zumba. I saw a 3 year old girl there with her mom and a 65+ year old man, and everyone else in between. And let me tell you, you haven't really lived until you've seen a 65 year old man in a singlet and short shorts shimmying to a Shakira song.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't think that I'd be doing a sweaty dance workout in a park in Cairns with 200 other people, but that's just what happened.


I can't wait until next Tuesday :)

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Song of the day: Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) by Shakira

Meat pies and a muddy river

My friend Peter drives a ute.

Affectionately named "car-truck" by yours truely as a child (and a "pickup-pickup" by my dad when he was a kid), these odd vehicles were a rare sight growing up in the Pacific Northwest. I don't know if Americans have a real name for them, but in Australia, they are called utes (short for utility vehicle, I'm guessing).

They are EVERYWHERE.
And they look like this:

But Peter's is white, not this vomitous mucusy green-yellow atrociousness.

Anyway, we had made plans to venture to this bakery in Gordonville (a town on the other side of Cairns, about half an hour away) because Peter had discovered that I had never had an Australian meat pie. This was the best place to get them, according to him, and as he grew up in Queensland, I trust his judgment on local baked goods. So we arrived at Pie-fection Bakery on the main strip of this 4,500 person town and walked into meat pie heaven. There were SO MANY kinds to choose from. They had meats ranging from chicken to lamb, not to mention various kinds of beef (I don't know what all the different cuts mean, clearly I'm still a vegetarian in my head), paired with different vegetables (if desired)--potatoes, carrots, shallots, etc.-- and gravy. I ordered a chicken and shallot one, and got a carton of chocolate milk to go with it. We got our still-warm pies and chilly beverages and went to a table outside.

With a brief wish I had brought my camera as to document this momentous occasion, Peter and I said "cheers" and dug in.

MAGICAL DELICIOUSNESS. Oh my goodness, it was EXACTLY what I had imagined meat pies to taste like, and it was just what I wanted. So damn tasty. I wish this place was closer to where I live, but it is probably a good thing that it isn't, otherwise I'd have to buy two seats on the plane ride back to carry my giant pie-fattened girth back to the states. But I will be back to this pie place.

After thoroughly enjoying our pies, we headed back to the ute and back towards Smithfield. We made a pit stop at the Barron Gorge Hydro Plant. Driving in on a narrow road cut into the side of a very green and rocky mountain, I was amazed at how beautiful everything was, and cursed myself again for not bringing my camera (oh, it's raining, you won't be taking pictures and of COURSE the weather won't change into sunny gorgeousness or anything *grumble*). We got out and walked across the bridge over the frothy brown Barron River. Because of all the rain, the river was quite full and surging, and the "No diving, jumping, abseiling, or swimming" signs on the bridge seemed to make a lot of sense.

Everything here was beautiful.

The big green mountain was close enough to touch.

The sunshine was warm on my hair.

I saw a big Ulysses Butterfly, which look like this:

They are unique to the World Heritage Rainforests of Far North Queensland, and they are quite large and incredibly incandescent.

All the rain also greatly increased the flow of this waterfall, which apparently is quite small normally:

On our way back, we stopped at this very cheap (but legit) meat warehouse and Pete bought a bunch of steaks and mince (ground beef) for him and his roommates to eat this month. I entertained myself by looking at funny names of cuts of meat: bulk thick pork, fatback, rump, Boston butt, chuck arm. Good times. Then we voyaged back to the Student Lodge.

All in all, it was an excellent day :)

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Song of the Day: Toes by the Zac Brown Band

God bless the budgie smuggler

Or perhaps God bless the cultural norms here in Australia that allow glorious gorgeous golden Aussie men to proudly wear Speedos in public without fear of ridicule or subtle photo taking for submission to Fail Blog.

And now, here are some more gems I have from people watching at the lagoon earlier today:

-A mustached man wearing shorts so minuscule I could barely see them underneath his shockingly bright retina burning orange work shirt. Excellent.
-A SUPER intense dreadlock mullet, oh my goodness.
-The Glee version of My Life Would Suck Without You was playing from the Lagoon Cafe (not really having to do with people, but it made me chuckle anyway).
-An 80-ish year old man wearing a singlet (tank top) imprinted with the words "Go hard and do drugs."
-A ridiculously blonde and long-haired Asian man (not a wig, by the way, DEFINITELY his real hair).
-A pair of Italian men in quite possibly the tiniest and tightest Speedos I've ever had the pleasure or displeasure of witnessing (I realize this may sounds like a shallow double standard about men in snug swimwear, but I don't really care. But am sorry if I offend anyone).
-A man wearing only shorts and an iPod practicing bartender tricks with a bottle and glass (I bet he was listening to a mix of the 12 songs that ALL CLUBS play so that he's used to mixing drinks to Ke$ha and "I Just Had Sex" and Enrique Iglesias).

I have come to realize that the styles of the 30 and under crowd in Australia, or at least in Cairns, appear to be an obscure and random, but somehow pleasant, collection of 90's douchebag, hipster, and urban hippie. It is fantastic, and people watching NEVER gets boring!


PS: It is now thundering and lightning-ing intensely right now, along with the utterly TORRENTIAL downpour. Exciting weather :)
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Song of the day: Rhythm of Love by the Plain White T's

Sharks and spiders and scorpions, oh my!

So today, my friend John offered to give me a tour of the aquarium on campus.
Obviously, I said yes. I had no idea that JCU even had an aquarium, and apparently most people don't know it exists either. It isn't really an official labeled proper type of thing, but it is still SO COOL! There is a super huge tank with all sorts of fish and one shark (only about 2 feet long or so) and sea cucumbers and anemones and rocks and plants and more fish. There were lots of tanks, inside and outside, full of all sorts of excellent and strange marine life: corals, jellyfish and jellyfish polyps (including some Irukandji jellyfish polyps, which are the ones that are the size of a fingernail and can KILL YOU), rockfish, unknown species of anemones, clownfish, a 5 foot white-tip shark, crabs, lobsters, parrotfish, mantis shrimp (which have to be put in thick glass tanks because they can run at the glass and CRACK it. A shellfish!), and lots of other crazy things that I cannot remember (ugh, should've taken notes).

*Side note* I feel like this post is being overly dramatic, and I apologize for that and my gratuitous use of CAPS LOCK, but I just get SO EXCITED about COOL NATURE THINGS. And I may have had a few too many cups of tea today :D

(Also John, if you're reading this, please feel free to correct me on anything I got wrong)

After the aquarium tour, John had to go feed the spiders and scorpions. He is studying to get his Master's degree in Entomology and is in charge of a lot of creepy crawly things. I hesitantly went along.

Until this summer, I thought that I was perfectly fine with spiders, but then I discovered a HUGE BIG FAT YUCKY spider in a box of stuff in my room and had a sweaty freakout high-pitched voice shivery moment where I put on heavy shoes and garden gloves as to better combat the dark purple spider of death that was OH MY GOD crawling around in my personal space. Yeeerughthgfhhhhhhhh.

But I digress.

Anyway, so I followed John and he started off by taking out a large glass container full of bark and newspaper and spider food. AKA cockroaches of varying sizes. They really do scatter when light is turned on. Anyway, next, various boxes containing spiders and scorpions were removed from the temperature controlled metal refrigerator-like apparatus where they spend most of their time. I learned that scorpions (at least the ones JCU has) glow turquoise/teal under black lights, and nobody knows why they do. However, I think that if they were turquoise all the time, they would be much less creepy.

He fed and watered the scorpions, then moved on to the tarantulas. There were a few different kinds, all equally disgusting and fascinating. There was one baby tarantula only about an inch long and I hate to say it, but it was super cute. However, it is a good thing I remembered to put on deodorant that morning because I may have been sweating about three times as much is normal.

THEN, he discovered the shed exoskeleton of one of the adult tarantulas and pulled it out of the box. And then let me keep it to freak out my friends and family :D

You can see the FANGS (sorry, not in this picture). It's AWESOME.

Now, I'm off to Thai food with Katie, and Ladies Night in Cairns!
(the spider exoskeleton will stay behind in my room)
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Song of the day: At the Bottom of Everything by Bright Eyes

Fortnight

I have now been in Cairns for two weeks.

I still am in love with the tropical rainforesty landscape of Far North Queensland, but it hasn't all been sunshine and beach parties. Adjusting to living in a foreign country is hard. Because the language spoken here is the same (relatively speaking), it is sometimes easy to forget that I'm over 7,000 miles across the ocean away. But then I see a (super confusing) multi-lane intersection or someone hitting cane toads with a golf club for fun, and I remember.

(*Side note* Cane toads are a massively invasive species here in Queensland, originally brought in as an attempt at biologically controlling the destructive cane beetle. Not only did the toads fail at controlling the intended pests, they became one instead, eating both the food of native frogs, and sometimes even the frogs themselves! They also carry and spread diseases that affect the biodiversity of this region. And they are everywhere. Almost all Australians hate them. Now, I'm not remotely justifying the drunk cocky Aussie's cruel actions [I literally couldn't believe it was happening], but merely attempting to provide some sense of cultural context).

I have been frustrated a lot since I've been here.

Getting yelled at by an angry bus driver for not knowing the correct schedule, route, or price is not fun, nor is sitting in your room as groups of people traipse by, already the best of friends. Don't get me wrong, I have made some awesome friends here (and will continue to do so), but it sometimes seems like it is so much easier for everyone else to do. Foods don't taste the same here, and it takes strong determination to hunt down everything I need in the grocery store. I still sweat out what feels like half my body weight every time I go outside or exert any type of physical activity like walking or breathing, and I just LOVE meeting new people when I'm red-faced and sweaty (AKA most of the time here).

However, I have also had many victories!

One day last week, I wanted to go to Smithfield Shopping Center (closest mall to us, just a few miles from school). I needed a few groceries and wanted to open a bank account at Westpac Bank. So after finishing reading my book by the pool (and acquiring a few bugbites, causing me to add bugspray to my mental shopping list), I headed for the bus stop. I went to the right one for the direction I wanted to go (sometimes confusing because of having the road directions all switched around), and a bus showed up in 3 minutes. I told the driver (in mostly correct terms, I think) that I wanted a round trip student ticket to Smithfield and handed over my money. I smiled cheerfully at the wonderfully surly bus driver, my good mood refusing to be dampened by his withering glare. I even managed (without too much thinking) to get off at the right stop!

(*Another side note* I don't understand how everyone I have met from this country is so incredibly friendly and nice, yet most of the bus drivers act like a shark with diarrhea took a dump on their pillow. Then again, if I had to drive a bus for a living, I'd probably be a wee bit grumpy too.)

I have met loads of awesome people, both Australians and other foreign students, and have gotten flirted at by attractive Australian men. I successfully completed my first week of classes and have a feeling I will learn a lot this semester, and it is all stuff that I'm wildly interested in! (I'm going to do another post about my classes later this week, providing the internet doesn't decide to stop working for three days again). I have gotten to talk to my family and friends via the wonders of technology, and have started writing people back home postcards (again, let me know if you'd like one). I survived wading through a flooded underpass (either that or running across the highway in the dark, and no, there weren't any creepy crawlies in it [snakes, bugs, etc.]. We checked.)

Yes, I am still adjusting. Yes, I still have issues. Yes, it is getting easier. Yes, I'm still 100% glad I came here :)

Time for my weekend trip to Chillagoe Caves!

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Song of the day: Go Do by Jonsi

Pictures, round one

My room!

I love that I live here :)

There are some crazy awesome plants here

This is what the apartments I live in look like from the outside

SO PRETTY

IS THIS REAL LIFE?!?!

James Cook University!

:) :) :)

If you would like to view all 97 pictures in my album, you may go here: Australia Photos via Facebook
Let me know if you would like any more information about any of the pictures/places they were taken, or if the links don't work.

And now my camera and I are off to the market!

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Song of the day: Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club

Trust me, this is an interesting place

Short shorts on men are not regarded as strange, and are quite a common occurrence. As are Capri pants. I am ok with both of these things.

Tropical rain is fun :) But VERY wet. Drenching, one might even say.

Puddles are SUPER fun.

There is a very large and colorful beetle in the tree outside my window.

Being barefoot in public places (malls, grocery stores, buses, etc.) is much more normal here than in the sates, but NOT allowed in places that serve food, for obvious health code reasons.

Looking left first for cars before crossing a street could get you hit by a hurtling vehicle. Which will be coming from the right (look right, left, right, not the other way around).

They do not have slugs here. "What's a slug?" is a very strange question to be asked. I hope the answer "kinda like a snail without a shell" was sufficient.

Geckos are cute. Buses are confusing. People are friendly. Plants are vivid.

All my clothes and shoes fit into the tiny wardrobe in my room. Pleasantly shocking :)

Cheddar cheese (excuse me, Tasty cheese) is very pale yellow here. Makes me wonder what is in our blocks of Tillamook....

Everything is expensive here. Minimum wage is about A$18/hour. I feel like those two things are connected.

I keep forgetting and walking on the right side of sidewalks and paths, and then having awkward encounters with native Australians who are on the correct side. Good thing I'm not driving a car!

I got invited to a LAN party by a drunk Dutch millionaire last night.

I do believe that I will spend the next six months sweating out half my body weight every day. Give or take a few kilos.

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Song of the day: Oh, It Is Love by Hellogoodbye

Finally.

I am here.

After knowing about this trip for over a year, preparing for it for months, and being ready for it for weeks, I am finally, FINALLY here! I still can't quite believe it, even after the (roughly) 37 hours total spent in airplanes and airports over the last two days. Yet when I woke up the first morning, I knew exactly where I was.

I think I'm going to like it here :)

As I type this, I'm attempting to log into the finicky wireless internet the Cairns Student Lodge is nicely letting us use for free for a week or so because someone accidentally cut the internet hard line that goes across the street to the college. Ah, success.

It has poured rain six times since we've been here, but it is lovely warm fat splatty rain, and I think it is fantastic!

I ventured to the grocery store yesterday, which was an adventure in itself. First of all, everyone drives the shopping trollies (not carts) on the left side of the aisles, just like cars on the road here. The prices of everything seem higher, and probably are, but they are fairly consistent from store to store. The cost of living is just higher here. Also, I need to look up what cities and such are close to here, because I am still going to try and eat as locally as possible, and when a bag of apples says that it's from the Riverina, I have no idea where that is (I looked it up later, it is in Tasmania).
I ended up just trying to get the basics: oatmeal, peanut butter, jam (not jelly, because jelly is Jell-o and they will look at you strangely if you want to put jelly on your toast), bread, eggs, pasta, veggies, cheese (cheddar cheese is called "Tasty Cheese" here, which I find quite appropriate), hummus, chips/crackers, tomato juice, tuna, rice, and pasta sauce. All that should last me for a good while. AND today my roommates and I may venture into downtown Cairns and go to Rusty's Market, which has delish and local fruits and veggies (so I have been told) for reasonable prices.

Off to more adventuring!

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Song of the day: In the Dirt by S. Carey

Eleventh Hour Alphabet

*Note: This was supposed to have been posted before I flew out of Portland on Tuesday, but the internet was being silly and didn't let me. So here it is now.*

A is for Australia. Duh :)
B is for big bags: two 49 lb. ones to check, and then my hiking backpack and tote bag to carry on the plane.
C is for Cairns (pronounced "can" or "Cannes" like the film festival in France, hence the title of this blog is kinda a pun).
D is for Daintree Rainforest, the 1200 square miles of super diverse, tropical plants, mammals, birds, and reptiles that is just north of where I will be staying.
E is for EXCITED, because I am SUPER STOKED about everything!
F is for flora and fauna. 80% of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, exists nowhere else. Bitchin.
G is for Great Barrier Reef, where I will (hopefully) be scuba diving (somewhat) shortly after my arrival (within a few weeks, perhaps?).
H is for hugs, because of all the wonderful ones I've gotten from my awesome friends and family the past few days :)
I is for In a Sunburned Country which is an excellent and hilarious travel novel (by Bill Bryson) about Australia that I got as a gift and have read twice already. I highly recommend it.
J is for jet lag. Cairns is 18 hours ahead of the Pacific Time Zone. Jeez.
K is for kangaroos, which are apparently quite common to just see around, kind of like squirrels are here (and by "here" I mean Oregon/Washington).
L is for learning. I am taking super awesome classes and I'm stoked to learn stuff outside of class too!
M is for meeting lots of new people!
N is for nervous, because I am also nervous about this. But an excited nervous.
O is for Oz, the land down undah.
P is for public transportation, which is apparently rather good in Cairns. I will be using it a lot.
Q is for Queensland, the state Cairns is in (and it is roughly the size of all of Western Europe put together).
R is for red. Which my skin will NOT be, because I'm bring 8 tubes of SPF 55 and I will wear it EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME
S is for showering, because that's the first thing I will do when I get to my place of residence.
T is for tree kangaroos. They are quite rare, but super cute, and I really want to see one.
U is for upside down and under. I wonder if their maps are upside down (to us) and if their toilets flush the other way....
V is for vegetarianism of mine. Which may go out the window depending on food choices there. We shall see.
W is for wine in a box. Apparently, it is often the drink of choice. *shrug*
X is for X-country/continent flight (I know it is a cop out, but really, what good words are there for X?)
Y is for yummy fresh local produce that I have been encouraged to try whenever I go to the market.
Z is for Zealand, New (another cop out, I know) where I would really like to visit, while I'm in that neck of the woods. Relatively speaking.

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Song of the day: Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver

I Have

It is my last night in my Kirkland home for about 6 months.

I have packed 2 large suitcases, a carry-on backpack, and a totebag, weighed them, and repacked and redistributed the weight as to not incur oversized baggage fees.

I have hugged all my family members, Molly (the best dog in the world) included, many, many times.

I have checked items off To Do lists, and organized all my necessary papers.

I have made sure I have no contraband items in my carry-on bags; all my knives and scary more-than-3-ounce containers of liquid and nail clippers are tucked away in my checked baggage.

I have all my scuba gear packed and ready to use.

I have my follow-up tonsillectomy doctor appointment in the morning and he better say that I'm allowed to fly because I'm doing it anyway (apparently, you aren't supposed to fly for 2 weeks after having your tonsils removed).

I have my reservation number for my train ticket to Portland printed out and ready for 2pm.

I have my passport in a specific pocket of my tote bag, and I have checked that is still there roughly 52 times today.

I have my clothes laid out for tomorrow.

I have the worst posture ever when I type on my computer, especially late at night.

Clearly, I need sleep, so I am going to go to bed.
I hope I have everything.
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Song of the day: Wonderful by Gary Go (click to hear the song/see the video)

Packing Monster

This journey of mine starts with an impossibility: I do not exist for a whole 24 hours.

Flying from LA to Sydney, I lose an entire day. For all of February 9th, 2011 (Happy Birthday, Mom, by the way), I do not exist. Impossible! And very strange to think about. Kinda hurts my brain to do so, so for now I simply won’t.

I’ll focus on packing instead! Oh no. Packing. I don’t mind the physical packing, the Tetris-like cramming of 6 months worth of clothes, shoes, scuba gear, and life into two 50 pound (or I guess 23 kilogram) checked bags, and one 15 pound (7 kilogram) carry-on bag. But when it comes to deciding upon the actual objects to bring along and shove into those bags, I’m terrible at it. But what if I need it? is the question I ask myself most often as I examine my pair of purple suede 5 inch heels or 13 of my favorite books or my beloved blue pea coat.

Since the weather is going to be roughly 70-85 degrees Fahrenheit while I am in Cairns, I will need hardly any of my clothes suitable for Oregon/Washington weather. My leg warmers, coats, scarves, boots, wool socks, and flannel will keep my room full while I am away. Instead, I will be packing dresses, skirts, shorts, tank tops, sweaters, and sandals.

Deciding which shoes to bring will probably be the hardest thing for me regarding packing, simply because I love shoes and have (probably far too) many pairs of them. I'm limiting myself to 6 pairs. Not including scuba fins :D

Attempting to pack up enough of my life to last me six months in a country so full of unknowns is really hard. It makes me realize just how many possessions I have, which doesn't always make me feel great. Mother Theresa, I am not. Yes, I have a lot of things, and I know that I should try and pare down my possessions in order to live more simply, but that is really hard to do. I'm working on it, but it isn't easy.

As for packing, a difficult aspect is simply not knowing what I will be needing while I'm there. Yes, the weather will be warm because I am in a temperate rainforest, but if I travel elsewhere in the country, it can get super cold at night. I just have so many questions. Will I need hiking boots? How much walking will I be doing? Will there be a place close by to purchase dishes/cooking implements? Is there a library with good books to check out? How much would I get made fun of for wearing a fanny pack? (Although I wouldn't call it that because fanny means the same thing there that it does in Europe. Go UrbanDictionary it if you don't know.)

I'm sure I will manage to get all my packing and organizing done, but right now, it seems a massively large and overwhelming task.


:D

PS: I'm also going to try and do a 'Song of the Day' every time I post a blog so that I can share some of my current favorite music with everyone!

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Song of the day: When I Go by Brett Dennen
(Click the song title to hear it via YouTube!)

The Beginning

I fly out of the country in fourteen days. This is how my journey will go:

• Drive from Kirkland to McMinnville (hopefully) on the afternoon of Feb. 7th
• Drive from McMinnville to PDX on the afternoon of Feb. 8th
• Fly from PDX to LAX at 5:50pm on Feb. 8th
• Fly from LAX to Sydney International Airport at 11:50pm on Feb. 8th
• Arrive in Sydney at 9:25am on Feb. 10th
• Fly from Sydney to Cairns at 1:25pm on Feb. 10th
• Arrive at the Cairns airport at 3:30pm on Feb. 10th
• A shuttle/greeting service from James Cook University will meet me at the airport and take me to the Cairns Student Lodge (the awesome apartments where I will be staying)

Then, holy moley, I will be in a different country, 19 times zones away. And I will be there for roughly six months. SIX MONTHS. The longest I've ever been away from either home, Kirkland or McMinnville, has been when I've been at the other place and it's incredibly, incredibly weird to think that I will be going somewhere completely different and strange and new for such a long period of time.

But on the other hand, it is a massively exhilarating feeling. I will be in a completely new place where I can develop whatever sort of routine I want, or simply live without a routine. Other than classes and orientation, there's nothing that I am required to do. However, I plan on exploring the campus and town, scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef, poking around local markets, cooking new foods, and figuring out the metric system, as well as meeting lots and lots and lots of new people, both Australians and other foreign students. I hear everybody in Australia is incredibly friendly and nice and I can't wait to meet people there.

But first, I have to collect the rest of my things from my apartment and check out. And then tackle packing. AHHHH!!!!!!!

:D