Here it is, my final blog. 

I'll give you a quick rundown on what we've been up to on our final week abroad, then i shall try my best to conclude myself on this thing. 

So, we arrived in Koh Phangang, and immediately got hustled by a tuctuc driver who wanted 100baht from each of us to take us up the street to our hostel. Sadly, he had the price written on a laminated paper which is apparently the only way to stop a price from being negotiated. The hostel was just a bit too far to walk, and all the drivers shared these laminated papers, so pay 100baht we did.

We arrived at our hostel and were greeted by the owner, a Canadian for Oshawa. Josh and Tom (who I am now convinced is the funniest man alive) dubbed him "coconut head" because he was bald with a shiny round head. He was also a total douche who drank protein powder twice a day, was rude to all international people, and was more interested in preventing bad reviews online than taking pride in his work. Seriously, the amount of times he answered with "I'd rather just _______ for you and not have you write a bad review about it later because I didn't". I think he must have had some kind of traumatizing bad review that has forever scarred him. He was also extremely unhelpful. another one of his favorite answers was "ya there are plenty just look down the street" whenever we asked for any advice. Probably the rudest Canadian we've met on this journey which puts him at the bottom of a pretty big pool.

The hostel itself was pretty nice. The six of us (Jess, me, josh, Chris, Lindsay and Tom) all shared a room with comfy beds and a decent bathroom. The first night we were pretty zonked so we watched a movie and hit the sack. 

We woke up the next day, got owned again by selfish cabbies who made us pay another 100 baht to get to the beach, and sat on the sand in what ended up being the first day of bad weather out of several in a row. We still made the best of it. Chris and Lindsay had a case of frisbee fever and looked to throw the disc at any possible opportunity, so that passed some time. 

We also sauntered into town and bought some neon attire for the black moon party we were attending that night. Most of you probably know about full/half/black moon parties... It's basically a rave on a beach that you pay an insane amount of money to attend with lots of neon things everywhere and the same house song on repeat for 4 hours. 

Before the party we had a bit of a hostel wide pre drink and body paint session (check the FB pics). There we met an awesome Swedish couple that we fell in love with, some Irish and a group of unmemorable Brits, although one did wake up the next morning in a hammock alone and shoeless miles away from our hostel with no idea how he got there. 

The party itself was pretty awesome. Lots of dancing and drinking, basically what you'd expect from a rave. Definitely didn't beat out the night Matt walked through the fire though. Josh was the king of the party with all the pretty ladies after him and all the best moves (who is this guy, right??). 

We woke up the next morning definitely in no mood to do anything, and luckily the weather agreed win us because it was horrible. We started off the day watching an awful scottish film called trainspotting that none of the canadians could understand, and in what appeared almost to be an act of mercy, tom blacked out while ordering a drink and fell off of a high stool. I can make light of it now because hes fine, but he was out of it for a few minutes and it was actually scary. The swedish couple proved their saint status by nursing him back to health. Jess and I went on to watch the final 2 Harry potter movies and topped it off with employee of the month, which I'm embarrassed to admit. Eventful day. Needless to say, we did nothing fun that night but did attend a lovely restaurant run by a lovely owner. Tom, being the big spender that he is, ordered the ribs... He was also back on the Chang (Thai beer) so I think he was feeling better. 

The next morning we woke up eager to leave. Eager to leave the bad weather, eager to leave the blatant scamming of tourists, and most of all eager to get away from the crabby clutches of coconut head. We hopped on a ferry to our final destination: Koh Samui. Sadly, so did the weather. 

We dropped some mad cash (20$) on the first two nights and stayed at a great resort with an infinity pool and beautiful bathrooms... It's so funny how excited I have gotten over nice bathrooms in Thailand. We were 2 rooms of three, so josh slept on the cot in mommy and daddy's room and Tom slept on the cot with me and Jess. Our first day there was spent playing in our new pool and on our new beach. 

Sadly we once again picked kind of an unideal location with no good bars around, so we had a group bonding night and partied in our connecting rooms. 

The next day was songkran, aka Thai new year, the biggest holiday of the year. To celebrate this, each town/city/island hosts a water fight that lasts between 1-3 days. In Samui, the water fight was island wide and mercifully only lasted 24 hours. We took a cab into town to check it out, oblivious to what we were about to experience. Literally everyone, from small children to old ladies, are fair game. People chase each other with buckets of water and just slam each other with them. We got our hands on some McDonald's cups and water guns and started our assault. Chris and Jess were the most merciless, but we were all pretty evil. The scariest thing was watching people slam people on scooters in the face with water, but I quickly joined in the madness and somehow didn't see anyone crash. We literally spent 5 hours in the midst of the water right, with only one break to get some 50 baht cocktails, eventually having to rest at dinner. After spending some time in the street parties, we returned to our home and scrubbed ourselves for what seemed like hours... You would too if you had seen the water we were fighting with. 

On our last day we moved across the island to chaweng to stay in the party district for our last night. We spent the morning on our old beach and said goodbyes to the beautiful place, then went shopping. We had our last group dinner, my last pad Thai :(, then we hit the changs while Tom got pumped up by reading my copy of 1984. I thought he may pull a Bangkok Tom and pass out be he did make it out with us and we had a big night. En route to finding a bar, a local literally threw a small monkey onto my head and it peed all over my shoulder. lovely start to the night. We then, pee and all, arrived at a pub where we struggled to keep Chris awake and watched some creepy old men hit on young Thai girls who were asking for it, then hit a dance floor down the street hard. The rest of the night was great fun and it was the perfect way to spend our last night all together. 

We woke up the next day and began the unfathomably long journey home... First we got on a 17hour ferry/bus combo to get us back to Bangkok, then we had to kill 15 hours at koahsan road waiting for our 9pm flight, then we has to fly to India, then we had to fly to London, then we had to kill 12 hours on our stopover at heathrow, and finally we boarded our final flight back to Toronto. Thank god we only live half an hour from the airport.

And there it is for you. This is where my trip ends. It sounds cliche, but it honestly feels like yesterday that josh and I were sitting in the maple leafs' lounge at Pearson while Mikey was claiming he spotted Samuel Jackson in line at a restaurant, all of us preparing for New Zealand. 

To cap it all off, here are my final lists... 

Things I missed most while traveling...

My shower, my wardrobe, my friends and family, not having to use a shampoo that quadrupled as body wash, shaving cream and conditioner, food, exercising in canada, my blow dryer, frisbee, bleeding out money...

Things I'll miss the most now that I'm back... 

Always being surrounded by amazing friends, always having something to do, the weather, hostel life, beaches, lagoons, the horrible early mornings somehow..., seeing new things every day, the partying.... sigh aurora. 

Bests and worsts...

Best places- Koh Tao, Byron Bay, Cairns, Queenstown, Nelson, poo pub, Fraser

Worst places- Bangkok. I hate you bangkok. 

Best days- Songkran in Koh Samui, Mount doom, Queenstown days with the crew, Fraser Island

Worst days- day 1 in fraser, first day in bangkok, the last 80 hours travelling home to our great country

Best hostel- Royal resort in Koh Tao

I'll keep it at that, because you've already heard most of the bests and worsts. Thailand was amazing, but it just couldn't compete with the first two mind blowing countries. Coming home is bittersweet. I'm happy to be back and I have so much to look forward to in the coming months, but I am gutted to know my time with my amazing friends has come to an end. One last time, I'd like to thank Lizzie, Wild, Rishi, Karan, Annie, Laura, Jess, Slinger, Ryley, Carl, Mikey, Joshy, Amy, Shauna, Marie, Wong, Lindsay, Matt, Tom, and everyone else that we met up with along the way. It wouldn't have been the same without any of you...

And that's all she wrote, my friends. Once again, thanks for taking the time to read this. I have loved writing this blog, and I hope at least a few of you have found it a worthwhile read. This is goodbye, but who knows, maybe I can start this thing up again sooner rather than later. 

XOXOXOXOXOXO

4 canadians, 3 brits and a ladyboy

WOOO ASIA
new country, new friends, new crazy atmosphere.

It all started in the singapore airport... I got off the plane, immediately realized I'd left my phone in the seat pocket, and when I tried to get back on I wasn't allowed. They proceeded to "search" for my phone which shockingly they couldn't find. This is the same airline that had no tvs for either of our 7 hour flights, charged money for a glass of water, charged 160$ to check your bag (pleasant surprise), and basically ignored you all flight long if you weren't thai. Never fly jetstar asia. never. I'm fairly confident my phone was sold on ebay to help cover staff wages.

Anyways, just to add insult to injury, this was my birthday. Maybe the worst one ever. When we finally got to Bangkok, Josh told me to wait while he changed. I waited for 35 minutes (no exaggeration, I was sitting under the clock and watching it) wondering where he was. I ended up just leaving, convinced he was abducted or lost. The only place I knew by name was Khoa san road, so I went there.... If you know anything about Khoa san, you'll know it's one of the worst possible places to go when you're scared or confused (both of which I was... mostly scared of Josh's wrath when he found me). There's about one million people on a 20 meter stretch of road, and 1/10 are screaming at you to buy a suit or eat the scorpion they just fried up. The next 2 hours were spent frantically trying to get a hold of josh on the internet, hard without a phone, but even harder when he tried to arrange to meet me at an abandoned restaurant called Mr Yim's. Eventually we did thankfully find each other and booked the first place we ran into. After that we walked around Khoa san for a bit, and even though it's a short road you can walk up and down it for hours because its always changing. We got dinner and  beer for 3$, which was lovely, but Josh also lost 500baht in a bit of a suit scam, which he can tell you about...

The currency here is the baht. 100 baht is about 4$, so we could usually get a room for about 300 baht. Why they choose to work with such a crazy currency I don't know, but it definitely makes you feel rich when you take thousands of baht out of the ATM.

Onwards with our first day... We planned to meet up with our friend from home, MC. We planned to pre with her and then hit skybar. The problem with Thai taxis is that they rarely understand where you're trying to go unless you have the directions written for you in Thai (something we had yet to learn) so the cab driver took us way out of the way and dropped us off.  This was only after he begged us to come to his friend's suit shop. After speaking to the lady at 7/11, we realized we were still 20 minutes away, so we trudged back, found another cab and went home to bed. Once again, this was our 23rd birthday. 

Thankfully things started looking up the next day. Bright and early we met our first friend, Tom. Tom is an animated and hilarious guy from northern England, which basically means his sense of humor is crude and he loves to drink. Tom had gotten to khoa san at 3am the previous morning after getting scammed 2500 baht for his cab from the airport (i paid 350) and he, like us, was extremely rattled by the place. The 3 of us moved to another less crazy place in Bangkok. By that I mean there was still millions of people around you at all times but they weren't shouting at you and pulling at you non stop. On route we ran into his 3 foot woman who kept touching Josh and Tom and licking their sweat off her fingers and then cackling. terrifying woman. The hostel was called smile society and the owner was an absolute gem. There we met up with three of our German friends from Germany: Doris, Ana and Judith. It definitely felt soothing to meet up with people who understood the culture shock of coming from Australia to Bangkok. We also met 4 Brits.. Matt, Matt 2 (aka "the ash man"), Myles and Luke. We walked around a bit and then hit sky bar that night, which is basically a really nice bar on the outdoor patio on the 65th floor. Amazing views but as you can imagine it was insanely overpriced. After one drink we left to find a new place, where it became a game to avoid the cockroaches running all over your feet. 

Myles was a bit obsessed with the concept of lady boys, which are basically really convincing transvestites (look it up), so he dragged us out to find them... We found a place called thigh bar ...... Where inside a few girls were dancing (unconfirmed lady boys) and we had some cheap drinks. I also had my first experience with a squat toilet, which is basically a hole in the ground that you do your business on. In Asia you definitely appreciate western toilets, and when you find one it feels like you hit the lottery as they mostly don't have toilet paper as are usually squatters. You also aren't allowed to flush toilet paper, you have to throw it out... Sooo when you go number two they have a hose in the bathroom that you're supposed to use to clean up. The toilet in this place was literally a hole in the ground with a red plastic seat situated in the strip club's storage room and instead of a door there was a curtain. Not delightful, but at least now I know(hope) I've faced the worst. 

The next day the Germans, Tom, josh and I headed by boat to the grand palace. When we got there we found out it was 300baht to get in, so the boys and I went to an air conditioned cafe to wait for the Germans to see it. After some confusion involving china town on the way home, we treated ourselves to McDonald's and went back to smile society. For dinner all of us including the Brits went out for dinner and had a horrible experience being hated on by the Thai servers. All of the boys and I then started to pre (the Germans bailed) and we all ended up just talking at the table. The Brits dared Matt to break off from their group and come with us, claiming he'd never have the balls to do it. I didn't think he would do it either, but the next morning he announced he was going to come south with us and meet up with them in a day or two. Of course they ended up going north and screwing him for 5 nights, but he's happily on his way to meet them now.

Anyways, after we checked out of smile society we finally met up with Chris and Lindsay (friends from home for those of you who don't know) and that made me and josh incredibly happy. The 4 of us plus Tom and Matt headed to the bus stop, where we waited for 8 hours for our bus... The highlights there included horrible manicures and being forced to stop playing president by security because they insisted we were gambling. 

After that 8 hour wait we were finally getting out of Bangkok. I'm still not sure how I felt about it, but I'm leaning towards saying i strongly disliked it. Too much hustle and bustle, too much mayhem. Don't get me wrong though, very cool atmosphere to be involved in. 

We then faced a 7 hour bus ride which was thankfully air conditioned, followed by a 3 hour ferry which was so awful that I was seriously considering kamikazeeing into the ocean. Thankfully at 11am we arrived at the absolutely beautiful island of Koh Tao and checked into an amazing bungalow at royal resort. Our first way was an easy one at the beach, which was a top 3 beach of this trip. The only problem was that the water was actually too hot. Matt ended up getting fried, and the rest of us got a bit of heat stroke. 

We planned for a big night that night, but Matt was feeling ill and Tom had managed to turn a nap into a sleep for the 3rd night in a row (dreadful habit) so the four of us headed out. Chris had quite a big big night but that is his story to tell. The bar we went to was called castle and they played awesome music. On the walk home Chris taunted every wild dog we passed and I thought he would get us killed but we made it back. The next day was pretty similar in that we hit another beach. We also spent a big portion of the day booking our scuba trip for the next day. The only other activity of the day was eating. 

The next day we all (except josh) got up early to scuba dive. Our instructor was a babe from Switzerland so that was nice. He took us to two sites, Japanese gardens and twin rocks, both for 50 minutes. We saw about a million types of coral and some huge fish called emperors, but he scariest one was the trigger fish. It was my first scuba so initially I was panicking but it ended up being awesome and I wish it could've been for longer. 

That night we had our big big night. We had a fun Predrink then headed down the beach, led by a stray dog we picked up at the hostel. He came all the way with us 3 km down to a place called lotus bar where things got a bit crazy for Matt and Tom.. Matt managed to walk directly through a fire show to puke in the ocean and then back several times... The four of us plus Jess (great friend from NZ that we met up with and are now traveling with) danced and laughed all night about the other two, then walker the long way home at 4am, sadly without our dog friend. 

The next day was equally as exciting. We rented scooters and immediately Jess had a minor crash into the wall that cost her 100$. I climbed on the back of one, too scared to drive, only to crash 5 minutes into the trip on the first turn. Thankfully both me and the driver (identity kept secret to protect the ego) were unscathed, just a little rattled. Mom, do not worry! The crash count remained at 2 for the rest of the day. We drove or scooters to a place called shark island. Sadly I had a mild case of food poisoning so I mostly slept and moped, but everyone else had a great day and most of them saw sharks while they were snorkeling. Bad day to be ill. When we got back to the hostel I think we were all pretty relieved to be ok. We had a group dinner then josh, Jess, Tom and Matt went back to lotus bar. Matt actually stayed up to watch the Manchester game at 2am, what a trooper. 

Today we got back on the scooters, not quite rattled enough to avoid them. We hit some other beach and hung out in the water all day. I also managed to spot a Toronto ultimate disc and stuck up a convo with a weirdo Canadian who now plays in tssc... 

We said out goodbyes to Matt, dealt with the problems with the bikes and now the 6 of us are on a Ferry to koh phangan, which is basically the party island in this area. 

That's all for now..... Thanks for sticking it through this post amigos! Home in one week xoxoxo

CAIRNS CAIRNS CAIRNS I LOVED YOU

NJSDFKGHG I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M NOT IN AUSTRALIA ANYMORE. I literally cannot explain how much that sucks! I miss it so much already, thankfully bangkok is so confusing and overwhelming that I haven't really had the time to think about it. 

I will just do an Australia wrap up blog here though, best not to go cross blog, that would get confusing and painful I think. 

So, last we left off (i feel like that is ALWAYS how I start... I wish I could come up with something more innovative and catchy), we were just en route to Cairns, and what a wonderful and glorious place Cairns is. When we were told that it was the biggest backpacker party in Australia, they weren't lying. If anything they were underselling. 

We got there on Wednesday night after a 12 hour bus, totally zonked obviously. Met our first roommate Elinor, a swede who looked more like a jungle queen. She was awesome and super fun, but we didn't get to say goodbye! Bye Elinor!!! Anyway, she introduced us to her British friend Jack and some of her other Swedish friends Hannah and Anna. The first night we past out early, which kind of sucked since we were staying in the world's best hostel, Gilligans. Gilligans is basically a backpackers resort. They have something like 500 beds, which is absolutely insane, 3 floors, 3 kitchens, a massive pool and the city's best bar attached right to it. Every night the entire hostel gathered on the first floor for drinking games and then headed to the bar. 

We woke up the next morning, hit the lagoon, and ate, and went back to the bar. This became a cycle for us. Wake up, lagoon, eat, drink, repeat. Cairns is actually also home to many rainforests, waterfalls, and of course the Great Barrier Reef. We pulled a super loser move by seeing none of that... Not that we didn't want to, but we waited too long to book and because it was Easter none of the tours had space for us. Anyways that night out was pretty fun, but because of Easter Friday they closed the bar at midnight and didn't open til midnight the next night. I could fill you in on what happened between those 24 hours but all you really need to know is that we repeated the cycle. The next night we had a massive pre on our balcony with our new British friends Jake and Ash (two smoking hot babes), Jack, the Swedes and a Canadian named Dan. Dan was a sketchy character, referring to himself as a white rapper "like Eminem". He nagged and nagged Josh because he lost his debit card, so he kept having to e-mail transfer Josh money who would then take it out for him. It became a bit of a running joke to all of us behind his back. We headed to the bar around 1, danced our faces off til 5 and came back to find a lizard on the ceiling. Everyone in the room was extremely paranoid and tried to rationalize why the lizard wouldn't end up in their beds... As far as we know he ended up in no ones, but also as far as we know it was never possible for him to leave the room. creepy. 

Once again, we woke up and repeated the cycle. I actually managed to work out every day in Cairns which I'm really proud of. I had to move to a new room by myself on the last night where I met 3 of the funniest British people I've ever met, and definitely the funniest and HOTTEST swede. Best room I've had the whole trip... Should have ditched the boys ages ago. They had a sick room full of some Canadians we met in Rainbow as well, so worked out for all of us. By then we had realized that a girl from home, Lisa, was also staying in our hostel. Such a small world. Anyway, we pre'd with Lisa plus the rest of the gang, also met up with a group of like 7 Americans (oops should have mentioned them earlier, they were really cool), and played basically every drinking game known to man, followed by one more massive last night out. The best part about Gilligans were that pitchers were 3.50, an absolutely mind blowingly cheap price for Australia. Once again we strolled home super late. I woke up 4 of my roommates sharing beds with each other and the Swede taking pictures of me drooling on my pillow, as I said, a lovely bunch. Terribly, gut wrenchingly sadly, 

this marked out last day in Australia. Ironically, Mike, Josh and I spent the majority of the day watching King of Queen's, the episode with his parents' living will. I know you all know the one. We hit the lagoon to say goodbye to Max and Minh who we caught up with the night before, caught a bit more sun, and boarded a plane to perth with Jack.... but that story is for another time. 

I'll cap this off with some bests and worsts... 

Best stops: Byron, Fraser, Brisbane and Cairns

Worst stops: Rainbow, surfer's
Best/Coolest new friends: Ash, Jake, Derek, Minh, Max, Henreike, Charlotte, Lisa, Seren, Sam, Amy, Shauna

Best bar: Gilligans and Cheeky Monkeys

Best beach: Byron

Worst beach: Airlie (jelly fish city, or as minh calls them... jellies)

Best lagoon: Brisbane

Best day: every day on fraser (except the first)

Worst day: the first day on fraser, and every day we had to be on a bus for 12 hours
Best hosts: Amy and Shauna (& will I guess....)

Best meal: Amy and Shauna's dinner

Best nights out: every night in Gilligans, Cheeky Monkeys, St Pattys

Worst night out: Airlie night number 2.... horrible.

Most jokes stop: Nimbin

Best hostel: Gilligan's, Base Sydney, Nomads Byron

Worst hostel: Fraser's at Rainbow... that's really the only bad one 

Best Wheels: Ash and Jake

Best dancer: Derek and Minh

Best tan: any of our swedish friends 

Best restaurant: Gilligan's 

Best kitchen: Gilligan's

Worst kitchen: any base pretty much... 

Best accent: Ash

Best drinking game: ANIMAL

New Zealand was amazing, and I thought we could never beat it. Now I'm not so sure. I usually think calling something a tie is a cop out, but I cannot pick which 5 weeks were more amazing. Australia, I will definitely be back for you, next time with more money and SPF 15. Once again, massive thanks to everyone who made my time there absolutely amazing. Here's hoping Thailand can compete! 

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

ps no more pics cause my phone is on a trip somewhere across the world.

Fraser island then some !

4 more nights in Australia!
So wild. I'm sitting here on the bus (a 10 hour bus from airlie beach to cairns) and I'm just baffled by how fast the last month has gone by.

It's been about a week since my last post, so I'm giving myself a pat on the back for not letting an absurd amount of time pass.

Last we left off josh and I had just gotten to rainbow, which was a bit of a shit hole. Our hostel was more of a villa style and inside it was full of dirt and past guests' garbage. If you were brave enough to open any of the cupboards you would find old rotting food and used latex gloves... But I guess that's what 17$ gets you in Australia, the most expensive country on the planet.

Didn't do much that day other than a workout where I came face to face with a massive cockroach who literally sprinted towards me as I was lying in the grass. Thankfully I spotted him, jumped up, booted him as hard as I could and sprinted away. What was the most frightening was seeing him 20 mins later right beside me at the end of the workout. Clearly he was stalking me and that is pretty terrifying.

That night we hung out a bit with our roommates and they were pretty meh... Rainbow beach was pretty meh.

Caught up with the mikster the next day and headed to our Fraser island trip briefing. Fraser island is meant to be one of the most beautiful spots in Australia. It's basically a giant sand island that's been marked as a world heritage site where 90% of the things that grow there don't grow anywhere else in the world. We signed up to do a 2 night trip on the island where you drive 4WD along the beaches all day, check out the best spots and camp.

We met or car mates, 4 Germans named Henrike, Charlie, Minh and Max as we as this 30 year old Irish woman who's name is currently escaping me. After a quick grocery shop for the trip the excitement of the day was pretty much over and we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up, loaded the jeeps and headed to Fraser. Right away we knew our guide, jimmy, was going to be a total whack job but definitely also entertaining. He was a middle aged man who looked about 70 with a Baseball glove appearance to his face and brown or missing teeth. We had another guide with us named Beaver who somehow knew all about hockey and talked with the boys about it for ages. He once used the phrase "shiver me timbers" in a totally sincere and not joking way which made the boys laugh for like 20 minutes.

Back to Fraser... So the first day was awful and given the choice that day I would have gladly returned to our bug infested hostel. It poured on us all day, and 20 minutes in one of the cars broke down. Our guides disappeared to fix the car for 3 hours without telling us anything and left us at a beach where we sat in the car and waited for them to come back and get us. Eventually some random man who "didn't work for the company but was going to start soon" picked us up and took us to a cafe where we continued to wait and thankfully beaver and jimmy did eventually come get us. Finally we did get to the campsite where our car had a BBQ, then the whole group had a bit of a party night. We were with two other cars, including one filled with Swedish girls that the boys obviously loved and I actually kind of did too. Jimmy gave us the long and true version of the woman who's baby got eaten by the dingo ("the dingo ate my baby") and also instructed us that if you ever get chased by an alligator you should run in circles. We got a rousing game of ride the bus going, then animal, and eventually crashed. I got woken up by josh and mike absolutely shrieking in terror about some giant ant on our tent. Such babies i'm traveling with.

The next day, thankfully, was gorgeous. We got an early start and headed to the champagne pools, which are these pools created by the native people to catch fish from the ocean. We played in there for a bit then did a mini hike up Indian head where we saw one of the best views of the trip, all on fb of course. I had my turn driving on this day and it was pretty cool to both drive on the wrong side of the car and on the beach. Beaver took us to this place called Eli creek where the creek is basically a lazy river but it's full of eels. We passed on it and when we got back to the cars the transport inspectors were ticketing beaver because our car's hand break didn't work. A little sketchy and him and jimmy had to take it in and have it repaired, just another little incident of the trip or as jimmy would say, "all part of the adventure". In the afternoon beaver took us sand boarding on what at first appeared to be a death cliff. Eventually we all worked up the courage to go down and it was heaps of fun, josh even took a snowboard down it and did pretty good. The only bad part about it was that it was a 20 minute walk up a giant sand dune in the blazing heat, and for those of you who don't know this, walking up a sand dune is the hardest form of walking. So tiring. We got back to the site and had a bit less of a party than the night before and headed to bed.

On the last day we got up, packed up the site and took the cars to check out this shipwreck (pictures on fb). It was pretty cool to see a giant steel boat washed up on shore. Apparently it's been there for years and its starting to fall apart. We saw a picture of the boat from before the crash and it looked pretty big and sturdy, so there's just one more reason to fear the ocean.

Speaking of fear... I have become increasingly aware of how much death surrounds you in Australia. Everywhere you go (especially on Fraser) there are venomous snakes and spiders. On Fraser we were actually told never to walk anywhere alone because it was too dangerous, and we were also given dingo sticks which are long poles used to defend yourself if a group of dingos chooses to come after you. All very very scary especially in the darkness.

Anyways back to our last day... We finished the trip up at lake Mackenzie, which is what they told us is the pinnacle of Fraser. On the way there our guide's car popped a tire and we sat for 45 minutes waiting for someone to fix it because he didn't have a jack...... Brutal. Lake Mackenzie was nice, but I think it was a bit of a disappointment. Either way we had fun swimming with the Germans and the weather was great so it wasn't a bad way to end the trip... Little did we know the adventure wasn't over yet.

On the drive back, we noticed we had very little gas. Jimmy waved it off saying we'd be fine. We weren't. We ran out of gas... In the worst possible place. Josh was driving when we ran out midway through a 20 meter stretch with the highest tide we'd seen. We stopped right as a giant wave hit us, and they kept coming after that for a few minutes. I didn't realize how bad this was until I saw jimmy and beaver sprinting towards us in panic. Obviously the sub tank was empty, so jimmy hopped in and just revd the engine until somehow the car drove again, but only after absolutely destroying beaver for not knowing how to do it. What a whack job. And so ends our time in Fraser. Despite all the mishaps, it was perhaps the best 2 days of the trip and definitely one of the most beautiful places we've been. Didn't hurt that we had sick company in our car either.

We got back to our dirty hostel, actually happy to be there because it was a room and not a tent. That night we partied with the Germans and another friend Adrian and despite the fact that we didn't leave the picnic table we started at all night it was a really fun night, despite Minh being a hooligan and pushing me fully clothed into the pool. I got back to the room before the boys that night and me and my 7 foot tall male roommate spent an hour hopping from bed to bed dodging cockroaches, he frantically killing them with cockroach spray and me pointing and screaming... The cockroach massacres continued the next morning.

Finally we were ready to leave rainbow. Josh and I hit the beach with the Germans. It wasn't a spectacular beach but definitely nice. After that the three of us hopped on the greyhound for an 18 hour trip to airlie beach. It's disgusting how much time we've spent on the greyhound... I think it's close to 50 hours now. Josh got stuck with this Canadian freak beside him who small talked him the whole trip about a lot of weird stuff, but we also met another cool Canadian so I guess it all balances out.

Finally the next morning we got to Airlie, a cute little town with a wasaga vibe. Like Brisbane it had a manmade lagoon where we spent most of our time. We couldn't swim in the water because it's infested with jellyfish, another thing in Australia actively looking to harm you.

The Germans caught up with us on the second day and we were very happy to see them. We had a nice family bbq and even treated ourselves to a cake for dessert. That night we all hit the strip (kind of a sad excuse for a strip) and had a not so hot night out. Minh woke us up bright and early the next day to take mike and I to a waterfall. I will admit, before I came on this trip I was expecting to see a waterfall a day... Once again I was wrong, this is only the 2nd real waterfall we have seen, but it was awesome. We played in it or ages and then had a very long photoshops which will undoubtedly be popping onto your newsfeed any day now. Josh would've come but he was unfortunately dealing with a paralyzing hangover. this reminds me that I haven't told you guys about goon, which is the only thing we've been drinking in australia. Basically it's boxed "wine" if it can be called that and you can get 5 liters for 11$. Of course, with this deal comes a trade off... I've tried not to look too much into it but I know that goon contains traces of things like fish bone, fish eggs and other questionable ingredients. I don't understand how it exists but it does and it somehow tastes delicious. The most unfortunate thing about it is that when you wake up the next day it feels like an 18 wheeler has driven through one ear and out the other, as josh so accurately exhibited on this fine morning.

We had to say goodbye to Minh and max that afternoon because they were getting on a sailboat to check out Whitsundays (a place much to expensive for us but that I would've loved to do) but we got to party with Henrike and Charlie one more night. We also got one last chance to catch up with Annie, Laura and Seren a they got there on our last night. We had a big party in our room with our swiss roommates and night out and it was a pretty good way to say goodbye to everyone.

That brings me to this morning. By 8am we were up as hauling our sad selves to the greyhound station for a 10 hour trip up to our last stop, cairns, which is like the mecca for backpacker partying. We'll be there for four nights and then we say goodbye to this beautiful country, but for now I'm not going to burden myself with those sad thoughts.


Thanks for sticking with me as always! In 3 weeks we can have all these discussions in person back on the homeland xoxo

Yoyoyo

Friends! What's up? I'm chillen in the back seat of the greyhound (Australia's version) on my way out of Byron bay and towards surfer's paradise. It's been quite a while since we've last been in touch and to be honest the thought of spending the next half hour writing this is unbearable but I know some of you have just been sitting on the edge of your seats in anticipation for another edition of this, so here goes nothing.

Last we left off we were in Sydney. We ended up staying there for about a week and I will say that I wish it could've been for longer. After our old roommates left we ended up partying with sam, the famous lost boy (refer to previous blogs), annie, laura and Seren. We ended our time there at Annie's beach house... That's right, beach house. She's quite the high roller. Her house is massive and backs on to a harbour where he basically has her own private beach with no one else in sight. The walk down to the beach is basically through a jungle, which obviously is the boys' worst nightmare since there must be millions of spiders just lurking in there... I did see a few lizards and spiders and josh had quite the ordeal as well during his workout. The girls made us a lovely dinner and we watched Drive which may be the weirdest movie ever, but also pretty great.

After that we headed to coffs harbour, where their claim to fame is a giant (maybe even the world's biggest) banana. To get there we had to take a 9 hour overnight greyhound which was atrocious. We got into coffs at 4am and somehow got into our hostel room 10 hours before check in, which was pretty much the highlight of our stint there. We also went to the beach but it was average at best and raining. Didn't even see the banana.

Thankfully we got out of coffs at 6am the next morning and this time boarded a bus that was only 5 hours. Our next destination: Byron bay. Byron is a touristy beach town filled with surfers and stoners. I think it will probably go down as one of the best stops on this 3 month escapade . The beach was really nice, the waves were huge and the sun was shining. We ended up staying for 3 nights and definitely could've stayed for more. Almost right after getting there we ran into Marie and Will, two friends that we met in New Zealand. This trip has shown me many times that the world is a very small place. We all got on a bus the next day to go to Nimbin. Nimbin is a very small hippy village outside of Byron where you get bombarded with offers for any kind of drug you could want. It was pretty crazy to see it all happening so publicly and it made me feel like I was being punked. Super cool and super jokes overall. On the bus we also met Sarah & Charlie, two girls from the Uk, and Derek, our first american friend.


Anyways a few days have gone by since what I wrote above and I'm now in rainbow beach.. Got a little sidetracked by fun!

Byron bay continued to be awesome until we left, including another trip out with the gang and another beach day with the sweeds, Marie, William and Simon. We also got to catch up with Annie, Laura and Seren on the last night which is always a treat. We went to this one legendary bar called cheeky monkeys where the dance floor is entirely made up of tables and basically everyone just acts ridiculously and has a wonderful time.

The next morning, derek, the boys, Charlie, Sarah and I got back on the greyhound and headed for surfer's paradise, which is a pretty cool city north of byron. We got on the shuttle to our hostel and realized it was way out of town, which was unfortunate, but it had a great pool, big rooms and a theater room so it wasn't all bad. Charlie and Sarah found a bar crawl for us... For 13$ we got entry to 4 bars, a BBQ, pizza, free transport and an hour of bowling. Its always quite the rush to find a deal like that as a traveller and it made the night even better knowing how cheap it was. We had a great time tearing up the dance floor and the alley. It was also Charlie's birthday so not a bad way to celebrate I think.

The next day the 6 of us headed into the city to shop and check out the beach, both of which were great but would have been better if it weren't raining. We watched 3 old people getting surf lessons on the beach and absolutely sucking at it and I got a waffle cone fudge ice cream at McDonald's (amazing. Did you know that was a thing?).

That night we ended up just watching some movies... American beauty (so messed up) and Happy Gilmore, and went to bed. The next day I tragically misplaced my camera in my room, which was unlocatable despite scouring the entire hostel. I have developed a few conspiracy theories regarding the Swedish girls doing the laundry and somehow washing my camera then throwing it out, crazy I know but I'm SO convinced. I had to buy a new one which basically killed my soul as does any time I have to spend more than 20$. Not to mention how much my soul was damaged by the loss of a month's worth of photos... Thank god for fb and tagging.

Once again we all boarded the greyhound, this time to Brisbane. Brisbane might be my favorite city ever. Its so pretty, has so much cool architecture going on and is full of stuff to do surrounded by young people. There's also an awesome man made lagoon on the south side (pictures below) where we ended up spending the majority of our first day. After that we wandered everywhere from the art gallery to the botanical gardens and had a lovely afternoon.

That night Derek took us to a gay bar (a first for all 3 of us) and I was very impressed by the boys' ability to maintain confidence with their straight boy dance moves making them stick out like sore thumbs. To be honest I think they provided quite a bit of entertainment for everyone around. We walked home with one stop to comfort a lost bride who had been ditched by her bridesmaids at her bachelorette. Probably the most hostile person I've ever met but I supposed times were tough...

The next day was st pattys, which is funny since yours is just wrapping up at home. As all of you know, we take this holiday very seriously at home, so it was a little disheartening to realize that all our international friends didn't, but we made the most of it. We began the day with Derek, Annie, Laura, Marie and Seren who caught up to us in Brisbane, found Sarah and charlie and headed to the lagoon to start the festivities. A few hours and a Chinese feast later we were in fine form and ready for early bed, but we rallied. There was a huge party on the roof of our hostel, and after that we headed to a few bars. The coolest stop was this Irish club that was all lit up and had a band of old men playing some jigs. The crowd was going nuts and the dancing was wild. I had my first Guinness which tasted like newspaper. We strolled home with a few snack stops and fell fast asleep after a hard day's work.

Today josh and I got up at the crack of dawn to get to rainbow beach, and mike will catch us tomorrow. Saying goodbye to Derek sucked because he was such a calm presence in such an aggressive group, but he's off to some amazing times in New Zealand. We'll see everyone else sometime before we're done here... Which is in 2 weeks! Time goes so fast and I really wish I could make it stop, but definitely looking forward to mtg up with Wong and Lindsey in Thailand!

That's it for now! Sorry for this absurdly long post, that's what happens when you procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate! Love you all and will try to be in touch again soon!

Australia is not baaaad

Hello to my north american subscribers! (all 3 of you)

This is my very first blog post in australia! And I have chosen a delightful place to sit down for the next 30 minutes to write it... I'm at an internet cafe undernearth McDonalds filled with gamers playing WOW. It's all about the atmosphere.

Anyways, tomorrow will mark the end of our first week in Australia, which seems absolutely insane. It's been an amazing week and we've seen so much and met so many people.

Our first night in Sydney was a bit of a wash. We got in pretty late after our fleury of flights and shuttles, rolled up to our 10 man room, met our roommates and passed out. We woke up and pretty much hopped right on to a train headed for Wollongong. Wollongong is a university town a few hours out of Sydney, and the boys and I headed over there to catch up with Will and Lizzie and also to get amongst some of the O Week action. Lucky us, we've gotten to experience 2 O weeks on this trip... Does make me feel a bit old and creepy though. When we arrived our lovely buddies were there to escort us to Will's place on a free (wooohoo) bus. We rolled on to the campus where they had 1000000 booths set up, a magic act happening on the quad, and several creepy humans dressed as animals running around. I thought I loved the University of Otaga, but I think Wollongong was even cooler. Will lives in student housing called KB, which is basically a village of townhouses right beside the school. Luckily because it was O Week they were doing a bunch of free (woohoo) stuff and we scored a free brunch and a free dinner. Right away we met some pretty sweet people including Will's roomies, Pat, Sam and Jarred. They were a bunch of really cool guys who liked to party and liked meeting new people even more. The first night we hit up a house party that was absolutely massive and then headed to the bar... It was all a pretty big blur and Mike is telling me I was the worst wingwoman of all time so I don't know how successful of a night it was, but it was really fun. The next day me, lizzie and Amy and Shuana (two of the radest and nicest girls I've ever met) headed over to the gym to watch the boys play basketball. I have to tell you, dear Canadian friends, that Australians are not the best basketball players I've ever seen. In fact, they're amongst the worst. It was pretty painful to watch but thankfully was pretty brief. Afterwards we joined them for a game of on the rack where I sunk a half court shot granny style and won fame and admiration for a glorious 2 seconds before mike sank the exact same shot non-granny style right after me. Once again we hit the bar where it was retro night. As you can imagine, artists such as b44, aqua and blink all blarred all night long and it was totally awesome. This is also the night that I had the pleasure of meeting Cameron, a tall tree like basketball player (we actually met 3 guys who played for wollogong including him). He lost a bet to me, and to avoid paying up he elaborately managed to get himself kicked out. Quite impressive. Since we were having such a good time in Wollongong, we decided to extend our stay one more night. Willy, Lizzie, Shauna and Amy took us shopping and then Shauna and Amy took us home to make us the most amazing dinner I've had since I've been gone, including chicken parm from scratch, roasted potatos, sweet potato fries and salad, thus making them the best cooks I've had the pleasure of knowing. Sadly the weather was never that good while we were there (tons of rain), so we didn't get to see the beaches, but I've been told they're pretty great. We had a movie day post shopping... 10 things I hate about you and Anger Management. totally underrated and amazing movies. After dinner, we got a bit caught up in a Nitro Circus marathon courtesy of Amy and ended up watching the entire first season instead of being social. I do not regret this though, because I now know that I'm meant to marry Travis Pastrana. . After a long day, me and the boys had a sleepover with Amy and Shauna where the boys spent hours worrying about poisonous spiders attacking them in their sleep, woke up and shipped out back to Sydney.

We got back to base and found out we had been put in the sickest room ever, a 6 man ensuite that could easily fit 2-3 more bunk beds in it. My dream room. We met our new room mates, Kali and Elita (probably just butchered that spelling) from Taiwan, and Connor from Britain (obviously). Overall this was probably he most fun and united room we've had other than with the kiwi experience, but sadly all 3 of them have left or are leaving tomorrow :(

Anyways, our first day back in Sydney was also the last day of Mardi Gras, so the three of us and Connor got to go see the parade which was absolutely ridiculous but also absolutely amazing. After that we caught up with Kali and Elita and played slap the bag (so fun) then all headed out to club 333 to meet Annie, Laura, and some of their friends including Sam, the outback survivor man (refer to previous blog post). We had a great night and lots of dancing was done. We woke up in the morning a lot worse for wear and once again went shopping which i'm realizing is the boys' favorite activity. Mike contemplated buying some vans and settled on a stripped t, josh withheld and Connor slept on anything he could lean on. After that the boys and I headed to see the famous opera house and the harbor bridge which were kind of cool but also kind of meh. We finished up the day at nandos, which is basically the equivalent to a Swiss chalet but better, then once again had a room pre and headed down to scary canary, then off to a casino where Mikey won 50 dollars playing the slots.

Connor left this morning, and the Taiwanese girls are leaving tomorrow morning. We got a new dust roommate in the bunk above me named Haymish who talks too much ("never kiss a Dutch girl, they are bad kissers") and rolls around in his bed nonstop so not the best first impression, but he is British so maybe we should give him a chance. Today we hiked up to uSyd and grabbed a frisbee from one of the profs there courtesy of a hookup through Tushar. Lovely guy. I am very excited about being back in the frisbee business ! After that Annie and Laura came and picked us up and took us to Bondi beach. It felt so good to see a sand beach again, which we haven't had since Nelson. The waves were amazing and it was a very sunny day, which sadly is a first for our time here but I'm optimistic that the weather is changing for the better. Tonight we haven't done much, and will probably have an early night and get up tomorrow to hit up Manly beach. We have 3 more nights in sydney, ending it with a sleepover at Annie's house and then heading north up to Byron Bay.

Australia is actually crawling with beautiful girls, but the boys are all short and stocky which is a bit of a travesty. It is also frighteningly expensive here. In nz we were paying 20$/night for hostels, here we pay 40. Their dollar is also annoyingly strong so we're getting smacked every time we take money out, but its honesty pretty worth it. Sydney is such a cool city, so live and sooooooo busy even compared to Toronto. Hoping it only gets better from here!

That's all for now! Until next time my friends

The end of part 1

Good evening to you my lovely friends,

The time is currently 1:36am. I am writing to you from the overnight area of the Christchurch airport where Josh, Mikey and I are spending our last night in New Zealand. Doesn't get much more tragic than that my friends. Our flight leaves at 8am tomorrow so we are only just beginning the all night battle at the airport. Josh and Mike have of course already found some cute girls to flirt with and I have already managed to fall asleep only to be awakened by airport security telling me to be more vigilant with my bag watching.

Anyways on to the happier stuff, because yes, thankfully things did get better post Queenstown depression.

Some of you have said my blog has lost some of its zest and enthusiasm as of late, so here's hoping this blog entertains you guys.

As a three man crew our remaining days on Queenstown became pretty routine... Go to the casino in the morning so the boys could bet on hockey, go to the beach which was rock, not sand (aka bad) , go back to the casino so the boys could collect their winnings from the hockey bets, proceed to watch mike march over to the roulette table where he would contemplate betting on 16, would end up betting on red and proceed to lose his winnings, usually in addition to an extra 5-10$. Josh was a little more cautious with his winnings but did occasionally follow the same misguided path. Other than that, we got to watch a Canadian street performer named Billions Cobra wiggle his body through a flaming tennis racket (pretty impressive), we watched some movies with hostel buddies, and got many 60 cent Mcdonalds cones for late night treats. We also played the Queenstown frolf course which was sickkkkk but embarrassingly I got my ass whopped, even by Mike.

Now I know what your guys are thinking: "What happened to these guys? Where's the action, where is that youthful irresponsibility that they possessed before their friends left?". To that I say be patient, we are slowly working our way back and it started in the lovely city of Dunedin, our next stop.

I have to admit, when the three of us were deciding where to spend our last days in New Zealand I was horribly stubborn. I wanted to go back to sunny, amazing Nelson, and that is all I wanted. I stomped, I huffed, I puffed, I scowled, but the boys resisted my temper tantrum and out ruled me, deciding to go to Dunedin. For those of you who don't know, Dunedin is a university town in the almost very south of New Zealand, and it just so happened that we rolled in just in time for the tail end of frosh week. The city was buzzin with kids running around and I realized pretty immediately that it was going to be awesome. That being said, our hostel was not at all awesome. The hostel owner was an overweight ginger woman well beyond her prime. She was grumpy and useless and she knew it. The hostel itself was small and it gave the impression that someone had rubbed mothballs all over it. The decorations hadn't been updated in years. On the walls hung creepy folky pictures of clowns, teddy bears and the like. She had also glued a blue string across the entire room like it was wall paper.. I'm not sure if that was ever in style but I can tell you it somehow terrified me. There was also a note, clearly attempting to be funny, saying all encounters with the hostel ghost should be reported to the ginger, and Mikey got quite scared when he claimed he heard the ghost on our first night.

Dunedin actually ended up being a really beautiful place. We saw the campus and it brought us all back to our glory days. Mike was especially nostalgic. On our way to campus we walked through student housing and it honestly reminded me of fanshawe student housing post homecoming/frosh/st patty's. The kiwis definitely know how to rage, I'll give them that. We also went shopping and checked out the worlds steepest road (pictures to follow) which was actually pretty fun. It took us 2 hours to get to the road and we were starting to get delirious but thankfully found it just in time! When we got to the top we met a group of American and Canadian students who were heaps of fun and we watched people drive up the hill and rip down it which was pretty scary at times. Scary fact: 2 people have died going down, one using a garbage bin to get down. We took some scenic pics and walked back through the botanical gardens (average) then headed home. The big social event of the 3 days there ended up being the Saturday. Our roommate, a German girl named Meike, introduced us to some of her friends, 2 Chilean hostel workers named Pablo also joined us along with 2 of our new German friends, Marie and aly and we hit the town. We ended up going to this underground bar (literally under the ground) and had an awesome night dancing. The boys were disappointed by the gender ratio but I think it was a welcome anomaly.

Just saying this for the purpose of saying it and it has no relevance, but the 383994th German that we met on this trip was a 19 year old standing at 6'9". I lie to you not. Josh and mike looked like they were midgets that this guy could crush.

Another exciting thing about Dunedin was that it was crawling with All Blacks and other pro rugby players because they had a game while we were there. We ended up catching up with a few that we met at the bar in Queenstown and had a nice chat. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

On Sunday morning we hopped on another inter city bus (makes me desperately miss the kiwi) and headed to our real final stop, Christchurch. For those of you who don't know, in 2011 the city was hit by an earthquake and it pretty much ruined the middle of the city. This makes for some pretty cool sites, but also severely limits what you can do there. Yesterday we had a pretty great time walking around the "red zone" and checking out the damage. It was really kind of eerie being in such a quiet and dead place when you knew what it used to be.

Once again we got stuck in a shotty hostel with an even more annoying owner, but these things are easily bearable for one night. Today we woke up and had to check out at 10am with no plan and no place to go other than the airport by 10pm. We ended up spending most of the day in search for any food other than McDonald's, and just as mcdonalds seems to ensure will happen, we failed. When we weren't eating, we were sponging free wifi wherever we could get it to help pass the time in the boring place that is Christchurch. The highlight of the day hands down was watching Mikey get pooped on by a seagull, but he really took it in stride. Props to him for that. At 9pm we hopped on a bus to the airport and didn't look back.

Despite ending this trip in one of the worst possible places, these 5 weeks were the best of my life. I never thought I could love another country so much but New Zealand has definitely won me over.
I also never expected to meet so many amazing friends, but I did. To commemorate our time here, Ive made a bit of a list of the bests and worsts of the trip...

Best 3 places: Wellington, Nelson and Queenstown

Worst 3 places: Kaiteriteri, Waitomo and Christchurch

Best day: Mount doom hike

Worst day: today in Christchurch

Best nights out: Wellington, poo bar and 1st night in Queenstown

Best bar: El Horno

Best dance partner: Karl

Best use of a staircase: Ryley

Best Canadian accent: Annie

Worst Canadian accent: Karl (wow you made the list twice!)

Best bus driver: Gary

Best way to spend 40$/second: Nevis Bungy

Worst way to spend 120$ in a day: Milford sound

Best hostel: tie between base taupo, nomads queenstown and prince Al's in Nelson

Worst hostel: base Wellington

Best beach: cathedral cove by hot water beach

Worst beach: Queenstown rock pit

Best view: mount Victoria in Wellington

Best cook: tie between Jess, karl and wild

Cutest couple: Karl and will (followed closely by Annie and Karan and then I guess by Jess and will)

Worst coordination: Lizzie but only just barely beating out Rishi due to the tumble down mount vic

Best roommates: the super 6

Best photographer: Wild

Best nickname: the ice man

Best restaurant: far badgerz in Queenstown

The person that everyone wants to be: Eoin

Best buddy: tie between Rishi, Lizzie, Will Wild, Annie, Jess, Laura, Slinger, Ryguy, Karl & Karan <3

New Zealand, I love you and I'll never forget you, but I've got a plane ticket to Sydney that's telling me we've got to go our separate ways. I will be back, but for now it's on to the land down under!