Australia Week 2

Hello again!

Hopefully everyone has deduced that we are, in fact, still alive :) Liz has been posting pictures on Facebook so that helps!

Well, it's been a DELIGHTFUL week on Hamilton Island. We've been spending most of our time at the beach (Liz in the sun, I in the shade), sitting and reading books (we've both read 3 or 4 at this point), and playing in the freakishly warm water. It's been just lovely. We have done some exciting things though too spaced out here and there:

We cuddled koalas AGAIN! There's another wildlife center here on the island and they offer lots of fun things. We went over there for breakfast and our table was right next to a koala in a little tree enclosure, it was super cute. Then a couple days later we got to hold one of them and they're just SO CUTE!!! I love them to pieces!


We also went parasailing! It was so cool and fun!! We went out on a boat and they put you in a lifejacket and a harness, then they clip you onto the sail and then up up up you go!! The view was amazing and the water looked so pretty. Then the skipper slowed down a little bit so we started to come down and he dunked us in the water a couple times! It was awesome and the water felt so good and then he sped up and back up we went. It was really awesome.

Then we spent a day or two at the beach, eating ice cream, Tim tams, and playing in the water. :)

Then we went on a catamaran sail boat and went snorkeling! It was cancelled the first day because the wind was coming from the wrong direction so it would have been unsafe to go to the two spots we were supposed to go to, so we decided to come back the next day and try again. So we did and boy are we glad we waited!!! The snorkeling was good, although nothing will probably ever compare to our dives up on the reef in Port Douglas. But the second stop we made was at Whitehaven Beach, which is a very famous beach around Australia (and the world I think) because it's over 4 miles long and is almost entirely pure, white silica sand. It really is beautiful, although it was incredibly HOT the day we went. We arrived and were informed there was a really nice lookout spot if we went for a 15 minute hike, so naturally we went for it. Although it was honestly like 90 degrees, sunny, and there wasn't much breeze in the forrest, and we were just in our swimsuits and flip flops, I was DYING. I was seriously so hot...Liz tried to take my picture at one point and I was honestly just an angry toddler. The lookout was indeed lovely, but all I wanted was to get back to the beach and get in the water! Once we did, it was pure heaven. Playing in the ocean after that hike was seriously one of the highlights of my trip haha! It felt so so good! The wind picked up on our way back so we actually got to sail for real on the catamaran, which was also very fun.

Then we spent a day or two at the beach, eating ice cream, Tim tams, and playing in the water. :)

Then we went on an airplane tour! It was an itty bitty little plane, with propellers and it held maybe 12-15 people including the pilots. It was quite cramped, I was pretty uncomfortable honestly, but the views made up for it! We flew out over the Whitsunday islands and out over the reef and it was just incredible. We flew over Whitehaven beach, where we had been on the sailing snorkel tour, which was gorgeous. The reef was equally awesome, I didn't realize the Great Barrier Reef was SO huge! I thought it was just up north nears Cairns and Port Douglas, but the reef stretches over 1,400 miles and covers an area of around 133,000 square miles! That just a little less than GERMANY! It's just crazy big and here in the Whitsundays we're only about halfway down the coast of the reef, it just keeps going! It was so pretty to fly over and see the views, although I was happy to get out of that cramped airplane :)

We have just one day left and we're both super sad to leave :( It's been awesome to hang out at the beach and lounge around. So on Saturday I'm flying to Sydney, where I will be for two nights before flying back to the US! I knew the two weeks would go by fast, but jeez it flew!

Australia Week 1

So the last time I posted on this blog was 2010... a mere 9 years ago...

The only reason I'm back is because all my previous travel blogs have disappeared off the internet and this blog website seems like it will withstand the sands of time so I might as well put it here. Ive like specific travel blog websites before because they'll map out where I go. But since Liz and I aren't traveling around Australia much and we're just staying in one place for a long stretch, it doesn't seem as necessary.

So anyway, Liz and I got to Australia almost a week ago! We flew from Dallas to Sydney on a 17 hour flight that was the longest flight I've ever been on and with moderate success! We both slept a fair amount (it was actually helpful to have long enough on the plane to really attempt to sleep a significant amount. With shorter flights you just don't have enough of a chance to really sleep since you can't sleep as soundly and you wake up a lot) So we both only ended up watching 2 or 3 movies and slept the rest of the time! We then flew up to Cairns where we spent our first night. We arrived, walked around Cairns for a couple hours and then promptly went to bed around 6pm :)

The next day, we drove up to Port Douglas, about an hour north of Cairns. This is supposed to be a really good place to access the Great Barrier Reef with fewer crowds than Cairns, which it turned out to be! And on our way up to Port Douglas, we stopped in a little town called Kuranda to go to a tiny zoo where you could hold a koala!! This was at the top of my list so I was very excited about it. It was heaven, I only wish they had let me hold her a little longer. She was so cute and cuddly!!

The rest of the drive was so pretty! Just beaches and blue water and beauty everywhere!! We found our hotel which was pretty cool, the center of it which had a pool was sort of jungle themed. So it was very lush and full of plants and waterfalls and stuff. We enjoyed some beach time and a much quieter area than Cairns. The next day we drove up into the rainforest, which this area is also famous for. We stopped at a gorge to walk around and then drove up to Cape Tribulation where there was a GORGEOUS beach and it was just so pretty!!! Rainforest and beaches and it was just to lush and tropical! We also found this fun little ice cream place that had a tropical fruit flavored ice cream sample cup. There were some weird/interesting flavors (jack fruit, coconut, some kind of plum, and waddle seed. Never heard of waddle seed but it was different!) So anyway, it was fun to try those.

The next day (Tuesday) we went diving on the Great Barrier Reef!! I'd been looking forward to this for a while, this was one of my biggest regrets on my New Zealand/Australia trip a few years ago so I was pumped to get my chance! It was a two hour boat ride out to the reef and we got a good introduction to diving from our dive master, Wayne. He's been diving for over 30 years and he was the nicest guy ever. I've only been diving once a LONG time ago, so I was rusty and Liz had never done it before so he was very kind and patient with us. He gave us all the safety information and let us move nice and slowly so we could get used to it. Liz had a moment of panic when we first got in the water so Wayne literally held her hand throughout all our dives throughout the day so she would feel more comfortable. He was awesome. The fish and coral were AMAZING!!!! Wayne would show us which coral we could touch and it was so fun to feel all the different textures!! There were so many different colors of fish! It was the coolest, definitely a huge highlight of the trip. 

Wednesday, we got up early and drove back to Cairns so we could fly out to Hamilton Island where we will be spending the remainder of our trip! We'd both heard about and seen pictures of the Whitsunday Islands and it looked amazing and tropical so we decided we needed to go :) 

Hamilton Island is the most populated of the Whitsunday Islands and it's BEAUTIFUL! Our airbnb is on the top floor of the hotel and it's a little one bedroom apartment with an absolutely INSANE view!

We've spent all our time since our arrival going to the beach, the pool, eating Australian chocolate cookies called Tim Tams, eating ice cream, and just enjoying the gloriousness of the island. There are no cars allowed except for shuttles and maintenance vehicles, so everyone gets around by golf cart and its hilarious. All parking spots, driveways, and garages are tiny because they're meant for golf carts! Also, the island is privately owned, although there are also private residences, so many of the hotels and accommodations are owned by the same family that owns the island so everything is weirdly connected. It's sort of feels like a Disney cruise that's actually an island, or if the town of Celebration was an island. It's sort of odd, but we also kind of like it :P 

So I think that catches us up to the present!! :) We will continue to go to the beach, eat, swim (the ocean is CRAZY warm and comfy!!!) and generally just enjoy ourselves I'm sure. We have a plane tour and a sail/snorkel tour planed later next week. But tomorrow we're going parasailing and I'm excited!!! That's all for now!

Dingle-Blunder

True Story from Today: (I don't know why I feel like it's necessary to disclaim that this is a story that actually happened today, wouldn't that be assumed if I'm blogging about it TODAY? I digress.)

*Ahem* Once again, TRUE STORY FROM TODAY:
Mom and I were about to do something, I don't remember what, and we both decided to we needed to go to the bathroom before we did said mystery activity. So we start walking down the hall towards our respective bathrooms and we come upon a dark, small, poop-looking object on the floor. (It's amazing how often poop seems to come up on this blog) I had seen it there for a while, but I had just disregarded it at a black fluff or a leaf or something. But mom stoops over, looks at it, and this is the conversation that followed:
Mom: "Ugh will you get me some toilet paper to pick this up?"
Katie: "Eeeeew, really? Did she (the dog) really just do that one little poop right in the middle of the floor? Why would she go here? Doesn't she normally find a good hiding spot or something?"
Mom: "Well I think it was one of those clinger types from when she went outside"
Katie: "Like a dinglehopper????"
Mom: "Yeah."

Now this is where the conversation ended on the outside, but on the inside my mind was still thinking about what I had just said. If you're the type that is well versed in colloquialisms then you know that the term that I just used was totally incorrect. Fortunately, I kind of sensed that that wasn't the right word, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it would be... Now if you're the type that is well versed in useless Disney trivia, like myself for example, then you will also know that a "dinglehopper" is the term that Scuttle from the Little Mermaid used to refer to a fork...

So, as I was pondering what the right word was for the situation that had just ensued, it only took me a minute to remember that what I had actually meant was "dingleBERRY" not "dinglehopper"....but then I remembered what a dinglehopper actually was ("actually" being relative considering this term that is used in the Little Mermaid is still totally fictional) and broke into hysterics. I don't know why, but for some reason the fact that I had used dinglehopper instead of dingleberry really hit my funny bone. I explained my blunder to my mom but she failed to see how funny it was...

Oh well, I guess my only child-ness made an appearance today.

Well that was unexpected...

Well, I said I would let you know how the Mousse Chocolat went didn't I?
Story:

So this morning (WOO CHRISTMAS DAY!), after appropriate Christmas morning festivities, I remembered the mousse and got pumped to try it. I went in the fridge and took a few bites, and it was good!! I little on the pudding-y side, but still tasted good and wasn't nearly as bad as pudding. (I'm not a fan of pudding) So I was like, great! Good job Katie on the awesome mousse! Rock on! But alas, it wasn't to be....

About an hour later, I started to feel a little funny. My head started hurting and I really needed to lay down. Then a few minutes later, I felt REALLY nauseous...and a LOVELY couple hours later, I, uh..how do I say this nicely...lost my cookies you might say. So then of course, a nap was necessary since it had been an exhausting few hours and after wards I felt a lot better. Therefore, while the mousse chocolat tasted delicious, I will be going nowhere near it for a while...or at least until I make a different recipe that the final product doesn't include raw eggs. Although, to be fair we did make soup last night from a mix that was kind of old, so who knows what made me feel so terrible. Either way, I'm not taking my chances...

The first time chocolate mousse has let me down...also the first time that I made it. I guess I'll leave it to the professionals from now on...

Mousse Chocolat

So after reading my France posts and then the title of THIS post, you're all probably out there going "ENOUGH WITH THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE ALREADY FOR THE LOVE OF PIZZA!!" Well I'm about to write more about Chocolate Mousse. So cry about it!

So SINCE mom and I are now hard core connoisseurs of fine chocolate mousse, I decided I wanted to try and make some for our Christmas dinner tomorrow. I found tons of recipes, but all the reviews for them said that were more like pudding and less like mousse. Pass. What was so awesome about the french chocolate mousse was the texture and how light and fluffy it was. So I was determined to find a recipe that wasn't going to be like pudding.

(This feels so Julie and Julia right now...maybe I should stuff a duck or something tomorrow too)

FINALLY I think I found one. Notice my word choice there... I "think" I found one. I used said verbiage because of the following:

It's Christmas eve (duh), ergo I figured it would be good to make the mousse tonight so it had enough time to set in the fridge. So I started melting the chocolate and whipping the egg whites, but the chocolate never fully melts. There's little lumps in it. The recipe said to add a few tablespoons of water to help the chocolate melt...hmm. So mom and I decide to not worry about it and press on. So I "fold" the egg whites into the chocolate (that is now mixed with egg yolks as well) and what we end up with is a light brown splotchy mess that looks kinda like nasty poop. (sorry for the blunt delivery there, but there's really no other way to explain it without going into full detail. No one wants that.) Nonetheless, in our typical fashion we decide to pour it into glasses and put it in the fridge anyway. We both tried it pre-chill/set and it tasted good, so we'll just have to wait and see.

I'll be sure to update you tomorrow.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

HOME.

WE MADE IT HOME!!! HURRAY!!! I am currently laying in MY bed writing this blog entry. It's glorious to the extreme. So. Happy.

So yesterday and today were filled with airports. Well only like 3 or 4, some for much longer than others. So yesterday morning we left our hotel on a shuttle for the airport that we had booked the previous night. After picking up some other people at other hotels, we made our way to the airport where we had been hearing people were stuck for days waiting to get out of Paris. But we were keeping a good thought about the whole thing, however what we arrived to was chaos. There were gillions of people EVERYWHERE. I had to leave mom and the luggage and go find someone to ask where the heck we were supposed to go, since we were in France and there weren't any signs.
French attitude (with heavy accent): SIGNS?! HOHN! (nasally sound) We are too good for signs! You figure it out on your own you stupid Americans! Ohn hohn hohn!!
My response: I kill you!

Anyway, after finding someone we realized we were actually in the wrong terminal, so once we got to the right one things went much smoother. There were fewer people where we were, so we checked in and made it through security without a hitch. Our flight had been delayed by 2 hours right off the bat, which was annoying but not exactly surprising. But our flight had also not yet been assigned a gate, which I found to be rather odd but Mom said that happened to her at Heathrow over the summer, so we just had to wait and watch the TV monitor. So we shopped and ate lunch and watched the screen with no avail. FINALLY after probably 2 hours or so, we decide this is just getting ridiculous and we go up to a worker-man who just finished sending off a flight to Seattle at one of the gates, and he actually said that our flight to Boston was going to be leaving from that very gate! Perfect! Then, not 30 seconds later he looks at his computer screen and goes, "Oh wow, they JUST changed it and now it's in another terminal. You have to go out past security, take the train and go back through security to the other side of this building/terminal/thing." I'm sorry.....WHAT?!? We have to LEAVE security and go through it AGAIN?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!?!? IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN A HUGE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT??!!? I tell ya. If I ran the world, things would run so much smoother...

So basically I was pissed. Mom can vouch for the angry and racist (would we consider France it's own race? I feel like not, but then what would the correct term be for hating only the French? Frenchist? I have no idea) remarks that I was muttering under my breath the entire walk to the other terminal. Short version: France and I were not friends right then.

Anyway, we went through security AGAIN and found our gate and it turns out that a flight to Washington DC had just been canceled so there were a million people all trying to get on our flight to Boston. So it was a little hectic. Then we sat around and waited as our flight was delayed yet ANOTHER hour, so now we were going on 3 hours late. Then the time approached when we were supposed to be boarding, so people just started gathering and getting in lines (more like mobs, the french don't really do lines. I think they might actually not know what a line is because they're always trying to get ahead of each other) but they never even announced over the speaker that they were boarding! They just started taking people and you had better figure it out or you were gonna miss it! It boggled my mind, yet again. Also, I will never understand why people push to get onto a plane. If it's Southwest, I kind of understand since it's open seating. But if not, you're essentially pushing and shoving to sit and wait in a seat that you will be sitting in the for the next 7 hours. Why are you trying to crush everyone in your path to get a jump start on that? Those seats are NOT comfortable...but I digress.

Anyway, we made it onto the plane, took off, and landed in Boston. PRAISE HEAVEN. I watched 3 movies. It was sweet :) Actually, this is was a huge achievement because we had actually made it out of Paris on the day we had planned to leave Paris. There were people that had been trying to get from Europe to the States for DAYS. One woman we talked to had been traveling all over Europe for 4 days just trying to get to Boston, she started in Germany and had been to Zurich, London, and now Paris in 4 days. So we were incredibly grateful to have gotten out on the first try, even if we did miss our connection to Atlanta and then home last night. We just stayed with my aunt and uncle in Boston, no sweat.

So today, we got up and went BACK to the airport. Weeeeeeee......I love airports....not. So we're waiting in the security line and there's a woman in front of us drinking coffee. As we get closer, one of the workers tells her she's going to have to throw away her coffee before she goes through. Now, we've been talking and she says she's flown to Europe and all over the country, but what is her response to this worker? Wait I can't take my coffee through? What about this unopened bottle of water I just bought????

Um, Hello???! Have you ever been to the airport before? What a dope...

So today was chock full of flying and impatience with the general population of this world. Some people just aren't the brightest crayons in the box my friends. Another funny story: We arrived in Atlanta and were waiting in line for the Ladies' room (since there's ALWAYS a line) and this was a hefty line. Quite long, and definitely going out the door. But what happens? A woman just comes walking in and starts passing people in line and then goes, "oh wait, is there a line?" No, didn't you know? Standing in hallways at the airport is the new thing! It's the greatest hobby and you even lose weight too! BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Join now and you'll get a free bathroom break! OF COURSE THIS IS THE LINE YOU MORON!!!! I tell ya....I even had a girl tap me on the shoulder whilst we were in line and ask if this was the line for the bathroom!! No, I'm waiting in line to look in the mirror....WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE WOMAN?!?! Sweet heavenly porkchops...

So anyway, we finally got to St. Louis, got in the car, grabbed some delicious pizza on the way home, and now we're here. Laundry. Shower. Bed. It's so good to be home. :)

SHOVE IT UP YOUR NOSE!

Today we got up and left Tours (HURRAY! We didn't really like it there..) and got on the road back to Paris. Mom has finally gotten the hang of driving in France, as she now doesn't care if she cuts people off, gets in the way, or basically does whatever she wants. This is how all French drivers drive, so it takes some getting used to. But today, as we were leaving Tours, we realized our turn was on the left and we were on the right side of the road. So we had to make our way across 2 lanes of traffic rather quickly. Fortunately, Mom just went for it and responded to the honks with "EHH we're tourists, leave us alone!!" It was AWESOME. I died laughing naturally...There were also some cuss words strewn in there that I will spare you for the sake of the children. However, we were discussing how we could avoid using cuss words in our email/blog updates, and I told her about how at camp we have a song that goes "Brown squirrel, brown squirrel, shake your bushy tail. Take a peanut in your hands and SHOVE IT UP YOUR NOSE!!" So I told her that some of the counselors at camp would avoid cussing in front of the campers by saying "OH SHOVE IT UP YOUR NOSE!!" So that was the phrase of the day today, and it was HILARious...

Also on the road today we saw SNOW PLOWS. Now if you read my previous post from when we were in Paris last week and my comments on how they don't plow or shovel, this will make more sense. But we saw like 3 or 4 snow plows today plowing the other side of the highway! We both saw them at the same time and were like, "Oh my gosh..PLOWS!!" It was incredible.

So now it's time for some gratitude. The closer we got to Paris today, the more snow we saw. Apparently, the snow up here, and the rest of Northern Europe, as been creating a bit of mayhem for travelers the past couple days. However, we are determined to keep a positive attitude and know that we will have safe and harmonious travels today and tomorrow! So as we got closer to Paris and saw more snow, we started saying out loud that everything was going to work out and that we would be provided with everything we needed. Our plan was to go to our hotel first, check in and drop off our bags, then go fill up the gas tank and take the car back to the rental car place. Now parking in Paris is...interesting. Spots are non-existent and most people just make up their own spot by parking on the sidewalk or just double parking and wreaking havoc. So if necessary, we were prepared to do this just to unload, check in real fast, and then be on our way. So we made our way through the traffic, found our hotel, and there was a parking spot RIGHT IN FRONT of the hotel!! It was PERFECT!! We were super grateful!! So God in action #1. Now to #2. Find a gas station. If you haven't figured out, there is zero extra space in the city, therefore we thought we would have to go out of the city to find a gas station. So we looked on the GPS and there happened to be one less than a Kilometer away! We made it over there, filled up and payed without a hitch! Gratitude moment #2. Then we had to get back to the rental car place, which is in a much more populated part of the city, about 10 minutes from where we were. Also, since there's no space, the rental car office is in a different location than the cars. Now, the GPS knew where the office was, but didn't direct us to the parking garage where the cars were stored, which is where we needed to go. But once we made it to the office, we were able to find the garage without a hitch and returned the car no sweat. Gratitude moment #3. At this point, we were planning to take the metro back to our hotel, and I had been looking ahead of time to find where the closest stops were to where we were, and where out hotel was. But the station we were going to was a big station with lots of different lines all crossing each other, which can be pretty confusing. But in the snowy slush, we made it to the metro and found the right line with ease. We made it back to our hotel without a problem and were dancing in the elevator because we were SO HAPPY about how it all worked out!! It really couldn't have been any more perfect and we are SO GRATEFUL!! What could have been a pretty stressful situation turned out to be such a smooth transition. HURRAY!! So now we are knowing that everything tomorrow with our flight will just be a continuation of the smoothness that we have experienced today! DONE. :)

I also wanted to comment on the car that we rented this past week. It was a Peugeot something-er-other, some kind of station wagon type with a hatch back. Basically it was the smallest thing we could get that had an automatic transmission, and for France it was still a good size car. We definitely wouldn't have wanted anything bigger. But as for this car's transmission, technically mom didn't have to manually shift, but boy oh boy you could feel the car shifting. It was just like mom was actually shifting, the same lull for the clutch and the jolt into the next gear. So when we would be speeding up to merge on the highway, it took WAY longer than a US automatic car because you had to wait for the car to awkwardly shift. Anyway, we started calling it by name saying "C'MON BESSIE!! YOU CAN DO IT!! GO! GO!" Oh man, it was so funny. So the car was officially dubbed "Bessie". We loved that car, but mom was ecstatic to give it back today because that meant no more driving in France! Well, I think she was more grateful to not be driving in Paris more than just France in general.

So anyway, we're off to the airport tomorrow to head back to the States! It's been a fantastic 2 weeks and we have had a blast, but we are definitely ready to be home. But everything will work out tomorrow with the weather and the plane! Keep a good thought for us! :)