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.