How to save $2000 in a week: The Surprise Ending

How to save $2000 in a week: Quit. Just wake up one morning and quit your vacation. Go home.

Move your flight so that instead of spending another couple days kiteboarding in Cairns and then flying to New Zealand and having a blast snowboarding in Queenstown, you just go home. See how easy that is? No planes, no hostels. No restaurant bills, no bar tabs. No board rentals, no powder. Wait... ugh. :'(

Long story short, I had to cut my trip short by a week due to work stuff. Out of respect for my readers, I will cut this blog short as well. Instead of rambling or subjecting you to my (questionable) taste in music, I'll just post a captioned photo album.

Let's start with some real Australia stuff: Aminalzzz!!! We took a trip to Symbio, a small zoo near Sydney for the two tourist traps:

KANGAROOS!

KOALAS!!
sO fLuFy!

They also had ponies. One nearly bit Pat's pinky off.

And alpacas. They had the most gorgeous eyes with dark rims and thick lashes. Unfortunately, they liked alfalfa better than modeling for Maybelline. 

This guy was SO COOL. But I don't have to tell you that. What I have to tell you is that we saw an ALBINO PEACOCK fanning its tailfeathers. Breathtaking.

Moving on.  We'll look at some nighttime activities.  After all, the people are part of the culture. Ironically, I only met about 4 Aussies throughout the whole trip. Turns out Europeans are keen on Australia too.

My wonderful British roommates from Gilligan's.

These Finnish guys taught me how to play Horse Races with a deck of cards and a box of Goon.
Their names are Rob and Bob. I am not kidding. 

Why are all the pool balls yellow and red? Because it's not pool! It's snooker.
Or, as Lauren and I more affectionately refer to it, Schnookums!

Tiesto Club Life (not)

Adorable.

And now for the food section.  Of course we have this:

Burger by the beach. My last one in Oz. Complete with egg, bacon, beetroot, onion, cheese, and pineapple.

Thanks, Mom, for feeding me cookie dough before dinner.
Thanks, Dad, for serving birthday cake for breakfast.

There is a mandate that every third store must sell chocolate. They have entire restaurants dedicated to it called Chocolate Bars. Like I said, Australia is heaven. 

To build up an appetite for that kind of fine dining, I played a little basketball with Pat's family. Forget the Olympics; Team USA beat Team Australia in 2012.

#Ballin' !!!!

And now we return to my favorite part of going places: the nature. Australia has so much coast line and they know what to do with it: surf, tan, kite, scuba, volleyball, awesome ocean swimming pools like the one below:

Tide pool in Austimer. Note the crazy people swimming at dusk in winter. Double note: I am not one of the crazy people (for once)

Pat of the Rocks!

The coastline at Cape Solander

Ummm... hard to caption this. I think the idea is that I was punching the holes in that rock.  Charlie's Angels status?

Errrr rightttt... once again with the caption. I believe this was intended to resemble a rock hot tub.
I did my very hilarious  impersonation of Sid the Sloth here because the scenery reminded us of Ice Age. Email me for the video footage. (Please don't.)

The End ....?

I had an awesome time in Australia. I learned to kiteboard and scuba dive, I saw kangaroos and koalas, I met people from all over the world (ok, just Europe) and I saw some gorgeous landscapes.  But there's still a lot left for me to do: snowboarding in New Zealand, partying in Perth, swimming in the ocean during the summer, see a rugby match... It is perfectly safe to say that I will return to Oz. Soon.

Big thanks to my parents for the financial aid and to Lauren and Pat for showing me around/hosting me and to everyone else I met along the way for making my trip what it was--heaps of fun!

Extreme Sports Part IV: Are you guys for SCUBA?

The Great Barrier Reef

Lauren took this picture--if you squint and don't look at it for very long, it almost seems like the turtle is shooting up into the sky like a rocket. 

My first scuba dive. I was pretty worried about equalizing and ear pressure, but it was fine and we got down about 12m.

Me modeling a lovely... ummm.... reef lump.

Some sealife is not quite as photogenic as I.  Here is a sea slug:

Underwater really is the Final Frontier.  Check out this super-terrestrial landscape:

1 fish, 2 fish. Yellow and blue fish.

My favorite fish was the parrot fish.  They are a shocking palette of neon colors which, if you ask me, is pretty poor camouflage.

Extreme Sports Part III: ZOMG! Kiteboardinggggg!!

Ya. Everything I wanted and more :) I don't really need to say anything. 

 With an 8m kite at Yorkey's Knob

Ok, I'll say something. The day after the bike race, I flew up to Cairns. Cairns is a tourist town located in the very northeastern part of Australia, about 3hr plane flight from Sydney.  They have warm water and, among other things*, kiteboarding.  Kiting is AWESOME!!!!!!! I've now been a handful of times and it takes a while to learn all the little logistical kite set-up details.  This is my instructor, Jason. I think there is a shortage of names in Australia.

*other things = the GBR, Great Barrier Reef, one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.

 Family Portrait--with Sam the Dog :)

Alright. If you're still following, you must have a very long attention span. In which case you'll remember what time it is..... BURGER TIME! Today, we have a sampling from Grill'd. Needless to say, it was fantastic.

Just so you know, life isn't always easy here; Australia is not all beach and burgers. You have to party too. I know, I know, it's hard work. But someone's got to do it. And that someone would be Lauren. She flew all the way up to Cairns to help me.  There are exactly 3 places to go out in Cairns:

1. PJ O'Briens (you know how I feel about Irish bars). This is Christmas in July--fun fun fun!

2. The Woolshed (this place built their tables specifically for dancing upon)

3. Gilligan's. (the biggest, fanciest hostel in Cairns. The whole bottom floor is a nightclub with an outside deck area, a small private lagoon, and a 150" screen for viewing the Olympics.  Some people have some very good times here. Lauren and I are some of those people.)

We also ate Barramundi--a really good white fish--and lobster, prawns, salmon, etc etc. We are doing a great job sticking to our shoestring backpackers' budget.
P.s. Mom and Dad--Send money.    
       xoxo, Susanna