My own little finding Nemo...

I spent three days and nights on the Anaconda III visiting the Whitsundays... beautiful beaches, diving and snorkeling. I have never been so hot in my life but another amazing trip. I tried scuba diving for the first time and got to do a dive at the great barrier reef, sadly I didn't see any sharks. However when I was snorkeling I got to see black and blue versions of Nemo, a sea annemiy and a giant sea turtle eatting jelly fish. The sea turtle was by far the highlight of the trip. Finding Nemo is my "make me happy" movie, whenever I am grumpy I watch it because I can't help but feel better...so this may be why the sea turtle was my favorite.

We also got to visit Whitehaven beach the second best beach in the world... it was pretty good but nothing spectacular. I think I had my hopes up, but it does have the finest sand in the world. The Great Barrier Reef was pretty amazing and I am looking forward to seeing it again in Cairns. Another highly entertaining point of the trip was when one of the crew caught a huge fish (check out the picture).

Had Christmas turkey... :)

I had a surprisingly great Christmas Day. It started off really sad just thinking of all the people that I miss at home, however luckily that was remedied when I got through to my brothers. The boys were at Nay’s new house having a couple of drinks; just hearing from them really brightened my day.

After that my friend Gayle that I met in Brisbane brought me to her house to spend Christmas day and night with her family. It was really sweet, they have five children in the family and their excitement about Christmas really made it a great day. I really think that children make Christmas. I enjoy the party aspect as well, but Christmas day is really the best with that bit of extra excitement. They took me in like I was a part of the family and really that is what I needed. If I was going to be away from home I think that is a great way to spend the day. Oh and I can’t forget I got turkey :)

Today is Boxing Day, I spent the day playing with the kids, giving them piggy backs, play catch and all the things you do with children between the ages of 3-8. We also went for a walk on the beach which was really nice. Tonight I am getting on a sailing boat to the Whitsundays. I should get to do a lot of snorkeling and will get to see part of the Great Barrier Reef. I am sure I will update again in a couple of days.

Missing everyone at home very much.

I may have found a new calling...

A couple of days ago I had a highly interesting and entertaining day in the outback. I have to say it was one of the best things that I have done in Australia so far. We visited Kroombit Cattle Station, an active farm, and got to participate in the farming duties. It was really unique. Turns out I am a natural. Throughout the day I mustered goats, lassoed a goat, shot my first gun (a shotgun – I got 3/5 clay pigeons), cracked a whip, and got on a mechanical bull. I have to admit that the only part I seriously lacked was staying on the mechanical bull for long. If it wasn't for that I would have had to seriously consider moving to the outback... sadly I guess I am destined to be city foke.

I am currently in Arlie Beach for Christmas until I get on a tour of the Whitsundays on the 26th. After that I head to Magnetic Island for a Full Moon New Years Party.

Merry Christmas everyone! Really missing the snow and everyone at home! x

Sand is the enemy...

I am just back from Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. I went on a self drive tour (don’t worry I didn’t drive) with ten other people… we were randomly selected, given a 4x4, food, tents, and a map and send to the island. There were no showers for two days, one day we didn’t even find a fresh water pond, I will be picking sand out of my belongings for weeks, but it was by far one of my best trips in Australia so far.

We got to see one of the top ranked lakes in the works, Lake McKenzie. See a lake that won’t exist in ten years because a sand dune will eventually overtake it, sleep in front of a ship wreck (even though we weren’t suppose to), drink more goon then any group of people really should, and all around just have an amazing time. The group I was with was made up of four Canadians including myself, two girls from Hong Kong, and five from Germany. Couldn’t have asked for a better group of people, everyone was really laid back and fun. If I had to go again I would still want to go with that group of people.

At this point I am ridiculously tired and slightly disoriented. The shower after this trip was probably the best of my life. The start to this East Coast adventure has been pretty awesome. Next is a trip to the outback in a couple of days… not sure what to expect there… riding a mechanical bull… shooting a gun…who knows.

Farewell my sweet, well the time now has come and the road has begun to move beneath my feet – Amos Lee

As most of my friends are decorating their trees, singing Christmas carols, wrapping presents and drinking festive drinks I prepare for a tropical adventure. It is currently 35 degrees in Brisbane and it is only going to get hotter up the coast. Christmas will be spent on a beach, Boxing Day I will leave to go on a three day cruise of the Great Barrier Reef and New years will be spent on a tropical island. I am pretty sure this years plans couldn’t get much more different than lasts years… even regarding friends. I am traveling alone for this little stint of the trip, whereas in the past Christmas has been all about friends and family.

I am ridiculously excited and can’t wait to start moving again. Once I have seen the East Coast I head back to Brisbane for three days and then onto New Zealand to explore as much of the country as I can in three or four weeks. My Mom and Aunt are coming down for this portion of the adventure. This will be the fancy part of my year, as I will be staying in hotels and not hostels and renting a car and not taking the bus.

The dates of travel are December 15th to Feb 5th (at least). I will do my best to post often, take lots of pictures, and keep up with my emails (however I feel this last one might be a tad ambitious).

A day a the races

I have had a fabulous week in Brisbane. I am really starting to settle in, I have different groups of friends and there are always things to do now. It is starting to feel more like home…not sure if this is where I want to be but it is good for the time being. Two weeks until I head up the coast. I have several different Christmas invites but I think I will just spend the day with Maria and Dean up the coast on a beach.

This week I had a couple of girls’ nights, went to see Australia, became completely addicted to sushi, had a decent week of work and went to the races. It was another fabulous Australian experience, I have never really watched horse races and I thought that they only really dress up for Melbourne cup, but apparently they do every race day. I went with my flat mate Jo and her friends. It is essentially a day of dresses, hats, betting and debauchery. I would highly recommend it for a fun day out.

Next week work is having a fancy dress party, which means a uniform costume party. I am not sure what I will be yet but it should be entertaining. As well, the event will involve more karaoke… bound to be a fun.

As the holiday season gets near I am really starting to miss everyone from home. At least I get to see my Mom and Aunt Sherry in a little over a month in New Zealand.

Tropical paradise…maybe not…

Everyone keeps telling me that I should be used to the extensive amount of rain since I am from Newfoundland and the only other place I have lived is Scotland… I am not. I didn’t move to Australia to deal with downpours all the time. On Sunday Brisbane experienced the worst storm in twenty years. A guy died in my suburb, there are over 4000 homes damaged, and they are still expecting more storms.

They told me when I arrived in Brisbane that there were 300 nice days a year. This is a lie. I haven’t made it through one week without it raining at least once. As I am typing I can hear the torrential rain hitting the tin roof of the house… While on occasion I have a fond love for thunder and lighting (despite my grandmother once getting hit by lighting) it loses its glamour after weekly bouts.

I still haven't left Brisbane... it seems the stop that never ends. On a good note the reason that I am hanging around is to save some funds before heading up the coast and onto New Zealand (Mom and Sherry are coming). I have a job doing in person sales getting people to sign up for Amnesty International, so it is a pretty fun job. Looks like the end of December onto the beginning of February will be pure travel. Still no idea what I will be doing after... but that isn't important.

A couple of weeks ago Maria and I headed back to Byron Bay, the home of the best gluten free food!! It is really sad how much food is one of my favorite things in life. There is a reason that no matter how much exercise I do I will never be a skinny person. I had the best steak sandwich...oh the simple things in life. We also went to Nimbin the hippiest place that I have ever been in life. Everything is painted with murals, the locals are all pot heads and the museum is the most eclectic amount of random things ever. It was a really fun weekend and just nice to get out of Brisbane.

Nothing too exciting is planned for the next while, settling in and saving money is the only real plan. End of November I am going to head to the horse races with the girls. I am pretty excited; dresses and fancy hats...should be fun.

Takin’ it all in

The longer I am here the more interesting this place gets. Every country has its own unique things, a couple of fun, random or weird things about the land down under:

Currency – they don’t deal with pennies, they have been entirely cut out. If something cost $4.44 you pay $4.45. I am sure this significantly reduces the weight of wallets… I wouldn’t be oppose to this being introduces in Canada.

Toilets – I have yet to see one flush in the opposite direction, they don’t spin so I don’t think I will witness this. As well, they have a half or full flush option, which I am guessing is quite handy for water conservation.

The most popular hairstyle of Australia… is the mullet (pictures to come in a later post.) Another trend I don’t get is wearing a black bra under a white shirt to work… classy. Other trends I’m not loving jean shorts on men, man purses, and people wearing no shoes in malls.

Everything is shortened names, speech and resumes (one page max).

Guys… are particularly childish and rude (however they are taller). Most of the time I feel like a piece of meat, people older then 25 lean out of their cars to yell at you, way too many people old and young wink, and on a whole I have had the worst conversations with males in my life in this country. I am sure this doesn’t relate to the entire population, only the guys that have approached me.

Sun block – the highest that you can purchase is 30+ or zinc (which is really attractive – see pink streaks on my cheeks form nationals). Apparently 30+ is the equivalent of our 75… but I don’t understand why they just don’t label it like that.

No Halloween – only the foreigners celebrate Halloween, there will be no trick-or-treaters this year sadly. While downtown scares me slightly during Halloween I do appreciate house parties, going to miss that this year.

No Thanksgiving - which isn’t that surprising, I am just sad that I missed out on turkey and will again for Christmas. At home mom makes turkey for everything, like 5 times a year when my brothers come home or leave, or say they might leave, or just get cranky, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Remembrance day (well not every one but pretty frequently) … way more turkey then one family probably needs but I really miss it.

Weekend of running

After three days of running around a field I am pretty much exhausted. The tournament was really fun and it was a great chance to meet piles of people and play some fun games. Our team didn’t place very well but on a whole did well for a team that didn’t get to practice much together, every game the team got better. We managed to get five points on the team that eventually went on to win nationals (it counts even if it was the first game and they went a little easy on us).

We got to play three of the teams from Brisbane that I have been practicing with so that was really fun to play against people that I knew. Even though I have only been in Brisbane for a month I am really going to miss that group of people.

Overall I thought I would learn a lot from this tournament but didn’t really see anything amazing (I think Mutiny would have held their own in the tournament.) There were some spectacular individual plays and players but on a whole there weren’t any new or interesting strategies. The most popular zone, which we don’t use much at home, is a puppy/fence zone. It seems to be the most effective zone with no wind. I get the overall impression that Australia is quite a bit behind North America when it comes to the popularity of Ultimate. As well, it seems like the men’s and women’s nationals that are held in April are the really competitive competitions. I would like to seem them have a competition where there is only one team from each state (right now there are several from most states), there are some amazing players here. On an interesting note, most of the players on the winning team were 30+.

I had a fabulous weekend and was super luck to get to play. The Tassie team was great to play with and get to know. Now I just need to figure out what state I will be in so I can try out for a women’s national team.

BrisVegas was also good fun, sadly this is the most Vegas like outfit I had with me.

I am super excited about Mixed Nationals tomorrow. Our first game is at 8:45 and we are playing the top ranked team in the tournament. I probably shouldn’t be too happy about this, the team isn’t, but I figure it is a great chance to see what the best is and to learn strategies and what all around makes them the best team. The tournament is over three days with three or four games on Saturday and Sunday, your placement decides how many you have on Monday. Tasmania is going in with a ranking of 16th out of 24 teams.

Today I had a fabulous day which will hopefully be the start of an amazing weekend. I got to start my day with a web/video chat with Mom, Sherry, Maggie, and Shelley and later in the day Jenn arrived from Tasmania. I also got to meet the team I am playing with for the weekend and they all seem really great. I am really looking forward to the weekend and hope to learn all kinds of stuff… cause I am pretty geeky. It has already been really helpful playing with the Brisbane teams, I even got to play with a couple of people that played worlds.

BrisVegas party on Sunday…hopefully I have time to track down something sparkly. For some strange reason people call Brisbane BrisVegas.

Suffering withdrawal

I am a little unsure on a whole what to do with my time. I have settled in Brisbane to play Frisbee Nats and other then pickup games and the gym I have an extreme amount of free time. Anyone that knows me fairly well knows that I don’t deal well with spare time, unless there is an objective for the time like watching a movie, coffee with someone, baking, or exercise…

Half of the reason I decided to travel half way across with world without a real plan was to break myself of my workaholic tendencies. It is finally catching up with me. I miss work horribly and all I can think about is what job I want to try for in February… when I first really settle in for any length of time. I will have to get some work in November/December to help pay for New Zealand (looks like I am heading there in January) but unfortunately it isn’t going to be something in my field, because no one is going to hire me for two months in marketing/event planning. On the bright side of horribly missing my job at least I know that I picked the right field to work in…

And like my brother said I still have 30+ years to work. However, I don’t think this is just work withdrawal maybe it is more productivity withdrawal… clearly the answer is to go on another ‘vacation,’ looks like I will be heading up the coast soon.

Settling in… for a little while

After a week and a half of living in Brisbane the place is really starting to grow on me. I still think I will only be here until Nationals but it is a pretty decent place to settle into. The people are awesome; I have never had so many random people talk to me in my life. The weather is beautiful, on average 300 nice days a year and I have finally found some Frisbee leagues!!

I moved into a house just outside of Brisbane and have my own room for a change, such a relief (it isn't as small as it looks). It is nice just to get all my stuff out of my rucksack. I can cook for myself, since I am not a huge lover of takeout (I prefer to cook/bake as most of you would guess) I think that is one of my favorite things. And my flat mate happened to have a Frisbee contact so I now have teams to play with!

Thursday I played my first game in a month and a half and was a little worried that I would suck. Fortunately I have been jogging to keep up my endurance and every day I walk heaps. My throws were also right on, probably do to the fact that they have almost no wind here. It was sooo awesome playing again. For the next week I will get to play Monday with one of the leagues, Tuesday with the Brisbane national teams, and Wednesday with the university team. I might keep a record of any drills/plays and send them home if anything is good, such a Frisbee geek :)

On a less exciting but somewhat entertaining note, I tried “bowls” this weekend with my flat mates and their friends. My first real Aussie experience. I didn’t really expect to play lawn bowling during my time here, but I figure that I have to give everything a try. It was really fun, the best part might have the group I was with drinking and heckling and the very intense old people, all in white, sending looks to our side of the field.

Today, I went skydiving. I jumped (well kinda fell) out of a plane at 14,000ft in the air!

I had been planning on doing this for about a week, the goal was to do it on my birthday but it was too windy. On our third go we finally got to do it. I am somewhat afraid of heights so over the past couple of days I have been trying not to process what I was about to do. When we get to Redcliff, where we are going to do the jump, Maria and I are there for approximately three minutes and they have us in harnesses explaining put your body like a banana, hands on harness until I tap your shoulder and then hands above your head, five minutes later they have us in a plane. I don’t even think if finally sunk in what we were about to do until we were leaving the ground.

The flight up was really something interesting, at about 3,000ft all I could think was that I was going to die, for some reason at about 7,000ft the feeling leveled out and I was excited again. There was a video but I couldn’t really warrant spending $100 on it. I was smiling until I essentially fell/jumped with dude out of the plane. Then there was an elaborate stream of curse words. Fortunately in free fall you can’t hear anything, so I didn’t offend the guy that was keeping me alive. I would explain that minute of free fall as the longest minute of my life, crazy invigorating, but horrifying at the same time.

Once the parachute was opened he let me hold the handles and steer for a while, very cool. We did all kinds of spins, got to see a lot of landscape, and showed me the cross on the beach where we would land (he did the steering to land). It is kind of surreal that I even did that today, it was such a rush I can’t fully comprehend it. Great way to start off my 26th year… even if it is five days later.

Brisbane

For a little under a week I have been in Brisbane, I am trying to figure out where exactly I stand on the place. It is the first place I have been to that doesn’t have a beach…which caught me a bit off guard…probably could have done a bit more research. However they do have a man made lagoon… not really the same feel but a good substitute.

On a whole there isn’t a huge amount to do here, most things close at six and unless you are going drinking or fine dining it seems like the city comes to a bit of a halt. On the other hand the people here are the friendliest I have met so far. I have had a bunch of people ask me if I need to be shown around the city, they are really interested in why you are here, and just appear to want to randomly chat with anyone. The nightlife seems to have a good vibe as well.

I had a really great birthday that involved a piece of gluten free cake from the girls and then a bunch of us went out for the evening. It was probably my first time really drinking since I have been here. It was such a fun night, Kirstie and Andrew that I met in surf camp came out, Maria who I met in Sydney, Emma and Joe who I met in Byron Bay, Dean who I know through Maria, and some random guy my hostel that had no idea what he was getting himself into. It was really great to have a group of people come out after only being here for two weeks.

Newsworthy

Since it looks like I will be settling in Brisbane for a while, I anticipate a slowing down of interesting things to write. However, I am in a pretty interesting spot, with some pretty interesting news, so maybe it wont get too boring :)
Here are a couple of classy reads about Australia:

Fattest Country - this blows my mind, it is so nice I would have thought people would be more active... portions are out of control here, much like the States. Sydney was pretty skinny but since I have started traveling you can kinda notice.

Man Drought - I think this is hilarious. You can't really notice on the coast (or I haven't anyway). I also hang out with a lot of backpackers so that wouldn't correspond with the statistics very well.

Ugly Women should head to the outback ... and I thought Andy was an interesting cat...

I would highly recommend it. They took us to some random farm with cows all over the place and pushed us down the hill… doesn’t get much better.

Mixed Frisbee Nationals!

I am going to get to play Frisbee mixed Nationals next month!!! Super pumped. My friend Jenn hooked me up with her team, Tasmania. They needed an extra girl and I was passing through Brisbane (my next destination)at the right time so they asked me to play in nationals on October 18th-21st. I super miss playing so I am pumped to get back at it. It will also help me make contacts for the summer leagues in January, maybe help me decided where I want to live. I am also a little sick of moving around so this will force me to rent a place for a month and finally empty out my rucksack. All good things!

Over the last several days I have been making an attempt at learning to surf, incredibly hard but very fun. I don’t think I have any natural skill as a surfer but I can get up by myself, however it’s often short lived. It reminds me of golf in how when you are doing poorly it is entirely frustrating but when it does go right it is great fun. On my first day surfing there were heaps of dolphins swimming next to us, there were about six within 15 feet of me at one point.

The surf coaches are horribly dodgy, hilarious and aged from all of the sun. I find a lot of people from here seem to age rather poorly from all the sun.

I really like Byron Bay, it is really laid back and more what I expected of Australia. It is kind of a hippy surfer town. I can’t imagine anyone here having a serious job, even though I know people must. The strangest thing about this place is the mass quantity of people that don’t wear shoes… I find that mildly disturbing. The nightlife here is pretty good I went to see a battle of the bands with the girls I met in Sydney and the couple that I surfed with on my first day. I also went to a dodgy backpacker bar called the Cheeky Monkey with the two Canadians and two guys from Switzerland that I also met surfing. It feels like I haven’t stopped doing stuff since I have arrived in Australia, I am really looking forward to Brisbane. It looks like I am going to up settling there for a month or so. They have all kinds of Frisbee pickup games, so I can’t wait to get back to playing a sport I don’t suck at.

Yesterday I toured the Blue Mountains, went on a three hour hike, saw the Three Sisters (rated one of the top things to see in Australia) and had the best sandwich of my life. Yup, that’s right, one of the highlights was the sandwich. They actually had gluten free bread that tasted normal, I haven’t had bread that was normal tasting in over seven years. Oh how the simple things in life is really what makes it worth living.

But back to the mountains, they were beautiful. I especially liked the part of the hike where we got to go on our own. I love hiking and outdoorsy activities but I find them horribly boring if the pace is slow. Because a couple of the people on the tour were older it felt more like a lazy walk at times. Of the things that I have done so far I wouldn’t rank it that high on my list of things to recommend. Speaking of my list, this is my current list of things to see or do in no particular order (I am sure that it will expand over the next several months):

- Bungee jumping
- Hold a koala (not going to happened, but got as close to it as I could)
- Visit Tasmania
- Visit Uluru (Ayres Rock)
- Go to a movie by myself (it has been on my personal to do list for a couple of years now)
- Get a picture of a wild kangaroo
- Sky diving
- White water rafting
- Learn to surf (will have done that by the time this is posted)
- Play in an Australian Frisbee league

I am up for suggestions if anyone can think of something that I should try while I am traveling and working here.

Somehow days keep getting better in some strange way. I got to meet Brett Dennen at his concert a couple of days ago, super exciting. If you don’t know who he is I strongly suggest you check him out. It was strange because it was the first time I have ever gone to a concert by myself. I had going to a movie alone on my to do list, so I figured this was close enough. It turned out really awesome, aside from meeting Brett I also met two Americans from L.A. that are good friends with him and I may meet up with them when I pass through in L.A., really sweet people. It is really neat how doing something that is somewhat uncomfortable seems to work out really great.

Yesterday the girls and I visited Bondi Beach, the best part of Sydney, too bad we realized this so late in our stay here. We went to a tapas bar and then another bar; it was just a really simple and fun night with a beautiful view of the beach. It really makes me look forward to heading up the coast.
Tomorrow I head to the Blue Mountains for a hike and to see some of the best landscape in Australia. After that I head up the coast for surf lessons and to go zorbing before I make my way to Brisbane to meet up with Jenna and Maria again for my birthday. Right now I think I might stop in Brisbane for a while, I have a hop on and off bus ticket up the coast so I can take as long or short a time as I want to do it. Right now I have planned a total of seven days ahead… bit of an improvement.

Such a great day!!! For the record I am a HUGE fan of zoos. Today I visited the Taronga Zoo one of the best zoos in the world. I paid extra and got a personal tour around the Australian animal exhibits where I got to feed and pet all kinds of cool animals. The only down side was that I will not be holding a koala on my trip down under because it is illegal in most of the country and really bad for their health. Upsetting, but I will live.
I don’t know what the best part was… some of the better things were getting my picture with a Koala, seeing a new baby koala two days after it poked its head out of the pouch, seeing platypus’ mate (it was just kind a cool/weird water dance), feeding an emu, feeding and petting a bilby, touching a short-beaked echidna and I really liked seeing the elephants (but they are always my favorite).

Half way across the world!?!

I have been in Australia for only two days but it feels like I have settled right in. I have decided to extend my stay in Sydney for at least three or four days. I have seen Darwin Harbour, the Opera House, Sydney Bridge and visited a couple of pubs. Nothing overly exciting but I am hoping to go to the Zoo and visit the Blue Mountains in the next little while.

Sydney really feels like it could be any big city, sometimes I forget that I am half way around the world. It is your typical city but every now and then I hear the cool accent. My plan for the moment is to head up the East Coast and eventually make my way to Melbourne. I hear that the West Coast is amazing so we will see if I can make it there. The plan changes daily but I definitely see a lot of moving in my future.

After my first island I spent two nights on the Waniki Cruiser that was stationed off of a different set of islands. It was okay but not nearly as enjoyable as lying on the beach all of the time… hard life I know. I did get to go on a beautiful hike (although it was a bit short), attempt to see a manta ray and finally even out my tan.

On the final day of resort hoping I went on an all day sailing trip to several islands. We visited the island where Castaway was filmed and got to go into a Fijian village where there ware a traditional Kava ceremony. It was pretty cool. Kava is the drink of Fiji and apparently causes you to get sleepy and stoned, however in order for it to take full affect you would have to drink upwards of 30… it tastes and looks like muddy water… I didn’t drink 30.

The trip overall clued up on an extremely small but cute island. I have the option to stop into Fiji again on my way back from Australia and I am seriously debating taking it. A year is a long way away so I don’t want to make any solid plans… I don’t seem to be planning more then 3 days ahead these days…

Bula!

After 22 hours flying, 13 hours in airports, and a five hour boat ride this was my first sight when I finally got to relax… well worth it. It feels like forever since I read a book in the middle of the day, highly enjoyable.

After some slight nervousness about traveling to a tropical location by myself I quickly realized that half of the people at my resort were doing the same thing. I picked a table for lunch and had five instant friends. Funny how in two days traveling with people you know an overwhelming amount about them, but in a good way. It was quite sad to separate from them when we all moved onto different islands. I see a lot of goodbyes in my future and too many facebook friends to count.

Fiji seems to alternate between a lot going on to essentially nothing. So far, I have been on two hikes, explored a cave, played volleyball and went snorkeling. I have two days left and hope to see Manta rays and officially get rid of my ankle brace tan line.

For a little bit more factual information I am traveling through the Yasawa Islands, which are a group of 20 ancient volcanic islands. I am staying on two islands and visiting two others.

Stuffing my life into one bag

It is two days before I leave for my big adventure in Australia, I am saying my goodbyes hanging out with the family and firmly keeping myself in denial that I am actually leaving. While I am super excited at times, overall I am just so busy that I haven’t fully digested it.

The trip plan as of right now is leave on the first, fly to Toronto, LA and onto Fiji. I stay in Fiji for seven days and then continue onto Sydney. I have two days accommodations in Sydney and I have no idea what I am doing after that. I have been debating a tour of Australia’s East coast but I don’t really want to commit to anything before I get there. This is my break from normal life where I make commitments and plans far too frequently… the hope is that for at least a couple of months I will give myself some down time… only time will tell.