The highlight of my trip so far was on Thursday when we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I'm normally not the biggest fan of zoos but this was entirely different. I got to hold a koala! Yes, she was cranky and scratched me a little, but it was so cool. My favorite part was definitely feeding the kangaroos. We paid $2 for food to feed them and just walked right into the field where there were probably 20 kangaroos just hanging out. I had heard that kangaroos can be aggressive, but they were so nice! My hand was completely covered in kangaroo slobber but it was so worth it. We hung out there for a while and made ourselves look like idiots as we attempted to get the perfect kangaroo selfie. Not to brag, but I got some pretty good ones. There was this one kangaroo that we called the hulk of the kangaroos. He was straight up MASSIVE. And quite terrifying. His forearms were really muscular... it was pretty creepy.
ACU arranged for us to have a trip to the Gold Coast this past weekend. We were all excited to spend our Valentine's Day there, as shockingly we haven't found Australian husbands yet. The Gold Coast is about an hour south of Brisbane. Most people from Australia prefer the Sunshine Coast, which is north of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is very touristy, especially now because it is the end of summer here. We stayed in a hotel/apartment complex that was a 5-10 minute walk to the beach. We were all super excited to see a real Australian beach because the beach near our apartment in Brisbane is man-made. On our way to the beach, a young girl stopped us and asked if we were planning on going out that night. She persuaded us to drop $50 and sign up for a pub crawl that night. If you're ever at the Gold Coast and someone tries to convince you to sign up for a pub crawl, here's some advice: DON'T DO IT. We had to start at 5:30 and it was awful. The "drinks" they promised us barely had any alcohol, which did not help when it came to having to tolerate the weird people on the crawl. When we got home, at like 11, stone cold sober, Shannon and I found a lizard in our apartment. A real lizard. He was harmless and just stayed on the ceiling, but it was not comforting to go to sleep knowing he was there. When we turned on the air conditioning, a huge bug fell out of it and I had to kill it with a spatula, guts flying everywhere. We were definitely homesick for Brisbane on Friday night.
On Saturday, ACU had arranged for us to go to an amusement park (which the Gold Coast is known for), but we decided to ditch and go to the beach instead. How often is it that you can swim in the massive waves of the South Pacific ocean?! Skipping the amusement park was a great call, as we had a really nice beach day. The waves here are really strong, and you have to swim in between the flags in order to stay safe. At first I was reluctant to go in the water as there are sharks everywhere, but I'm still alive so it was worth it! The ocean is basically turquoise here too, it's so beautiful. We also all got really tan. Australia's sun is so strong. Wanna know why? There is a hole in the ozone layer above Australia, which I did not know before coming here.
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| The city is literally right on the sand! |
Saturday night we did our own thing and it was a million times more fun. Today we went to the beach again and left at 3. We were all really excited to leave the Gold Coast and get back to good old Brizzy. The beach at the Gold Coast was amazing, but that was pretty much it. I think we all had really high expectations and it was just too touristy for me. Plus, I really don't like the whole club scene, and that's what the Gold Coast is all about. I'm really happy to be back in Brisbane. We have this week off and start classes next Monday. I'm exhausted after taking a vacation from my vacation. I'm just going to lay low this week and try not to spend money. Everything is SO expensive here! Their minimum wage is a lot higher, and essentially everything is two and a half times as expensive as it is in America. Thinking about money is really overwhelming, so I've just accepted that I'm going to be poor. The only other negative about Australia is the time difference. Every time I want to talk to people from home, they're all sleeping. Being 15 hours ahead is really weird because it seems like I'm behind. I wake up in the morning and it's night time in America, but I'm actually a day ahead instead of behind. The whole time difference is annoying, but at least I'm tan now. I think that's all for now!
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