Cairns!

I don't know how much I want to do this right now, but I'm going to do it anyway and fill you all in on the trip that was Cairns!

First of all it was amazingly great. The weather was lovely, it was actually warm, a bit humid and sunny all three days! It started with an early morning plane flight that Ann Marie and I couldn't take any longer by the time we left Sydney for our connecting flight to Cairns. We made it though and all was good. I made it through the jerk next to me taking up heaps of space with his stupid elbows...

The first day we just chilled and kind of checked out the city. We got about $24 back from the hostel each because STA had booked us for three nights instead of 2. This we used as an excuse to spend more money. Basically we shopped for things not really needed and then for food that wasn't really needed either, but we did it anyway. I think Ann Marie and I are are a terrible combination when it comes to shopping in the sense that we are just bad influences on eachother. The shopping trip was good, it was all rather funny especially when picking a color towel (neither one of us had remember to grab a towel), she wouldn't let me choose black, so I chose purple and she was pleased.

Our second day consisted of spending the whole day, a very beautiful and sunny day, on a sailboat and snorkeling in the reef. We went on the trip with the Passions of Paradise boat and crew who were all completely awesome and good fun. The ocean was beautiful and the hills/mountains all around were amazing as we left the dock. We did two dives and both were amazing. Ann Marie and I both had issues with our snorkels at the first spot but were able to get them working so that we could enjoy ourselves. THe first spot was Paradise Reef, the second was Upolu Cay. Both had heaps of coral and sea life to see. At the second spot we swam to a little island and chilled there for a bit. Needless to say we got a lot of snorkeling in and also heaps of time just sitting on the boat soaking in the sun and taking in the wonderful views. I don't know how else to explain the gorgeous-ness that was our day. Ann Marie made friends with Simon one of the crew members who was heaps cool. We got back and we walked around the city more and spent more money that we shouldn't have. Got dinner and ice cream. Ann Marie ended up buying almost 21 postcards! Haha. this again is where we are bad for eachother, we let eachother spend too much money. We were completely pooped from the day and laid around most of the night and were out by 10 pm, again.:-)

Our third and final day in Cairns began with us not wanting to get up once again, but we did anyway. We checked out and all that good stuff and then we went on a half day excursion. We did some horseback riding in the rainforest. IT wasn't real rainforest, it's kind of low on the rainforest scale but technically it still has some of the qualities of one, which we learned from one of our guides Glenn. He was awesome. He was adopted by aboriginals and lived in the rainforest for something like 13 years! The best thing he had to say was what he learned while living there which was the concept of "no worries". If you're worrying, you're not living life. The horse ride was really neat. I had never ridden a horse before so it was really cool to experience it for the first time. Nope, girl scouts or nothing I was involved in ever took me horseback riding. My horse's name was bob tail. He liked to stop every once in awhile, but otherwise he was cool. After that we went back to the hostel and chilled until we could get a ride to the airport. We sat in the airport and some how when I tried ordering a flat white with a vanilla shot, I got a flat white with no vanilla and then a "vanilla milk shake". I was so confused. The "milk shake" was terrible and I tried to put some of it in my flat white. I was too nice to go back and say that they fucked up so I just drank both drinks. It was kind of a waste of $7. We were really good on the plane to Brisbane. We had our cosmo and we had some energy so we kept ourselves fairly busy for that whole trip. We even had a chat with the lady next to us. We got off in Brisbane for a couple of hours, had a shit dinner, and then waited for the flight. The flight seemed to take forever...we got really tired and cranky again, but we finally did make it to Adelaide where Ann Marie's boyfriend Nick was there to pick us up!

Overall I had an amazing trip. Ann Marie and I had a great time and we got along really well which was awesome. I'm sad that we hadn't spent more time together before this trip because she is so awesome and that this trip is where I really got to know her because we have to leave eachother in two weeks! :-( She's awesome and we've already made plans to get together when we are back in the states. :-) Oh the wonderful joy of making friends!!!

Anyway I'm pretty buggered now and I'm amazed that I made it through this post alive, but hopefully it explains most of what went on. Hope you enjoyed reading that one. It's great to be back in Adelaide except that it's freaking cold and rainy! :-P ah well... I love this place no matter what!

cheers!

smuder