Snakes, on MY plane? I dont think so....

Only a few more hours until my journey back to America begins. I’m practically on the edge of my seat to leave this island nation, filled with laid back people, beautiful wild life, amazing beaches and excellent people. What am I leaving it for? Why, because I love spending 50+ hours on an airplane! That’s why!! Quantas better have some sweet movies, or I’m throw a temper tantrum. When I flew back from Italy one time, United was playing GHOST with Patrick Swazy (or however that dirty dancing man spells his name). Who wants to watch Whoopie Goldberg on an airplane? Seriously. I’m talking about maybe some SNAKES ON A PLANE. That’d be a good movie to keep the aussie-crowd’s moral up, eh? They love snakes here man. Oh, Steve Urwins funeral is today, 200million viewers are expected to tune in. Crazy ass Australia, and… planet Earth.

Ooh! My laundry is ready! Ok, well I am leaving here at 5:50am on the 21^st, and I get to Greensboro on Friday at 12:05am. I’ll be at Elon Friday-Monday, so try to find me if ya can. Richmond people: I’ll be there Monday-Saturday, so you can also find me. Well, cheers mates! I’ll put up mega tons of pics from the wedding. Well, I say I will. That’s the only guarantee you get for now.

Here I come Brandon and Katie!

Brandon <3's Katie.

Poland, Beaches & Farts.

My lovely flat-mate from Poland, Karolina, says that she is mad at me because I never write about her on my blog. So here goes. Special K, as we call her, is a whole lot of fun and full of foul language and polish expressions that are sure to amaze even the most experienced sailor’s mouth.

For the past 2 years Karolina worked for the super luxurious #1 low airfares airline in Europe, Ryanair. I’ll try to put a picture up of her… at work. Haha, right. Crazy Europeans. OK, that should do for your shout-out, Special K. If anyone else feels neglected in my blog… be sure to let me know. I’ll post embarrassing pictures of you- or maybe tell a funny tale.

I went to Scarborough Beach here in Perth a couple of days ago. Nick and Mike were already there, suited up in their super-narly (how do you spell that in surfer terms? Not like, gnarl- like growl- right?) wetsuits ripping up some sick swells. The waves were absolutely beautiful blue-green with white foam that crawled up the shore just to our feet. The non-surfy’s just laid out and busted a beach-chill for the day. Its about time the weather is hot enough for the beach. Australia was making me nervous for a while. I though when I came here, it was going to be like 90degrees everyday, and really sunny. I never really took into consideration that we arrived in the middle of their wet/winter season. It’s a very mild cold though, and most days from about 12-4pm its in the 70’s. So, I should probably just stop complaining. I’ll write more about the amazing weather when its extra cold and rainy at Elon. SUCKAS!

I’ll be home to Richmond and Elon in one week for my brother’s wedding! I get into Greensboro Friday morning, and Im going leave Monday afternoon. So catch me while I’m there Elon’ers. Woo hoo!!

I’ll put a pic of Brandon and Katie (my soon-to-be sister-in-law). Weird! I’ve never had a sister. I hope that she bakes me cookies and stuff. Is that what sisters do? Hum. Well, I’ll be sure to fart on her, and shoot her with water guns and stuff- so she feels like we are connected on the siblings level.

More Cairnes Tails (like fish-tails, heh)

"Artists use lies to tell the truth, politicians use lies to hide the truth." - ???

OK, so a couple posts ago I promised a few more stories from Cairns, so here they come. Oh, right, well- right after my apology for the last post… I was a little… ummm… right. Sorry. Haha.

Driving on the other side of the road. Running out of things to do in the hub-town of Cairns, we decided that renting a car would be a good idea. Hum. Well, first the first thing that Nick and I were reminded of as we arrived at A-1 car rentals, was that they drive on the other side of the road. That doesn’t really seem like a big deal at first, but then you realize that you are sitting on the other side of the car, seatbelt is going the wrong way, shifter knob on the left, blinker wand on the right side of the steering wheel etc. Its all backwards. Other backwards things here include: the toilette flushing the other way, the seasons, and they say “see you” instead of “later.” So whenever someone says “see you” to me, I feel like I’m finishing their statement for them by saying “later.” Anyways, I digress….

I guess the Elon-ers in London can relate the best to the whole driving on the other side of the road thing. AND turn-abouts. Those things are crazy. At my first opportunity, I took our sleek royal blue 2003 Hyundi Elantra for a skull-busting 1080degree turn (That’s 3 full circles) around and around the round-about. Weee!! I later found out that is illegal. Whoopsies! We zig-zagged all over the mountains and through the sugar fields for the day, and ended back at Calypso safely 200 kilometres later.


Swimming with the turtle from Finding Nemo:
All suited up in top of the line snorkelling gear, I did a graceful plop off of our catamaran that took us to the Great Barrier Reef. The water was around 80degrees Fahrenheit, and absolutely crystal clear. The sunlight danced on the crests of small waves that you could see for miles. Shades of blue and green were everywhere under the water from the darker areas of coral. Honestly, Nemo’s neighbourhood looks exactly like what the reef really looks like. (Ah! Australian Microsoft word, made me spell neighb-o-r-h-o-o-d that silly brit way with a “ou”.) Mel and Maggie found a sea turtle that they followed around for the better part of the afternoon, and I searched for a sea cucumber to jack off. Haha, did anyone else see that episode of Jackass?

I had midterms this week. Thank god those are over. Advertising was quite tricky, while the Marketing exam was a bit easier. The first question asked us to describe the marketing impacts that Busta Rhymes’ song “pass the Courvoisier” had on the liquor industry. Ahhaha. Saaweet.

OK seriously

where is this post

IM BACK BABY!

I’ll start off by saying “big up” to Uncle Toby’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars. MMmmm. Mad respect for having such a gay gay name, but being so delicious. Uncle Toby is pretty much like the leading snack food producer here in Australia.

I haven’t written anything on this here blog for so long because Curtin University doesn’t allow me to post for some reason? But I came up with a solution! Thanks to my beautiful and willing girlfriend (hi Maria) I can still post on the blog. I now just have to email her the posts. Then she applies my words from the electronic-mail to the World Wide Web via her web browser. Technical stuff, sorry- you probably don’t get it.

Last week was sick-nasty. We had off 10 days from school so, of course we planned out the most rad vacation possible. That would be to Cairns, North Western Australia. Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) is a little port city surrounded by sugar cane, bananas and amazing jungle beaches. Most of the time was spent lazin’ on the fantastic white sand beaches, staring off into the emerald water that is as clear as a pool. Not one of those shitty YMCA pools in mid-july, but one of those nice ones that you see in the Corona commercials. Wooord.

The first 3 days in Cairns we spent about an hour North of Cape Tribulation. There we were surrounded by the most stereotypical rainforest you’ve ever seen. We had spider-monkeys, Toucan Sam, Jurassic Park plants, Huge-as-heck Crocs, and dredy locals that got drunk and swam naked in watering holes. Maybe you don’t think of rainforests with locals, but our forest had them. Me and my CREW (Mags, Dukers, Moose-Trax, Anna Tolnake, and Mike Finer-than-hell) made some sweet bon fires on the beach both nights in Cape Tribulation. These were no ordinary bon fires though, as the pictures above detail. These were aboriginal-influenced flames from spirits of our great indigenous ancestors from thousands of years ago. That, and we used hollowed out coconut to dig the hole for the fire pit. So maybe it was just more like being Tom Hanks in Cast Away, with out all the Fed-Ex packages. Whatever. Forget you. The fires were sweet. Next story.

SKY DIVING! That’s right. Sitting around the dinner table at calypso (our backpacker’s hostel) Nick, Maggie, Moose and myself decided it would be fun to sky dive …. In 12 hours. $250USD later, and my balls in my chest, I found myself 2 hours south of Cairns, and deep in a banana field with dirt roads getting ready to take off in a single engine plane with an Aussie strapped to my back telling me “don’t worry mate! I’ll explain what to do once we get in the air.” Sweet. As we approach our 14,000ft destination well above the clouds, the man securely strapped to my back tells me “all ya gotta do mate is cross yer arms an’ toss ya head back, I’ll do the hard shit, we’re next. Lets go!” At this point, Nick Duke had already gotten ripped out of the airplane and was long gone, hurling towards the great barrier reef--- which approached at 120 MPH.

**SIDE NOTE** Steve Urwin [croc hunter] has passed away, taken by the very same reef that we were diving 4 days prior to his death. flippin’ sting rays. Australia is in shambles. RIP Steve.

OK, so nick is screaming like a little girl somewhere about a mile below me. I’m trying to control my bladder (which was successful, good thing peter wasn’t flying with us). On the count of 2 the instructor throws us out of the plane and all I see is plane, ground, sun, plane, ground, sun, plane plane plane plane. Spinning in a beautiful uncontrollable tornado of excitement we finally level out to the position you think of, when you think of people skydiving. The curve of the Earth was right in front of my face. I wasn’t falling, I was flying! After 60 seconds of freefall, Aussie-man yanked the ripcord and the deafening wind came to a still on my face, and I could take in the reef, the beaches, the mountainous jungle, and the excruciating pain the harness was placing on my inner thighs and wiener area. As soon as it began, it was all over. My feet were sinking into the sand and my face was overcome by a grin that wouldn’t leave my face for 2 hours. Man, that was a really descriptive narrative. You’re welcome.

This is turning out to be pretty long. Whoops. OK, well- I will finish up some stories later on. Things you have to look forward to:
1Swimming with the turtle-dude from Finding Nemo
2Driving on the other side of the road.
3Me eating this subway cookie on my desk.