I'm on a Quest...a Quest for a Platypus.

Hi Friends!

So…anyone worry that I died in the Rapture? Anyone? Anyone? Really? No one is surprised I’m still here? Just kidding! Haha. Well, if you were concerned, I’m still here. I’ve just been very busy and slacking majorly in my blog writing. Sorry everyone! Last I posted, I was…at Cinco de Mayo. Wow, I didn’t realize I was slacking that badly. Crap. Well then, let’s begin.

The week after I posted (May 10) was really drowning with assignments. I had one major assignment that was for Destination Marketing. Life lesson: never take a 3^rd year marketing class if you have never taken a serious marketing class before (actually, I don’t remember if I ever took a marketing class at Rosen).  But, I did learn a lot about marketing from this project—mainly that I never want “marketing” to be the focus of my career. Fortunately, we got an extension (it was due Friday, May 13, but there was no way it was going to be done. My professor gave us an extension, though. Thank goodness!) and that made all the difference between getting a reasonable grade and failing in the most spectacular way possible (I did not like this option).

On May 11, I celebrated my Friend-iversary with Kaleb. How fun! Now, if I could remember dates that I met all of you, we could all have friend-iversarys, but for whatever reason, we were able to figure out the day we met and it’s been lots of fun ever since.

May 13^th was a ticket-buying day for me. I now have tickets to Melbourne/Adelaide and back to the Gold Coast. As long as nothing is delayed, I’ll be ok. If something gets delayed…we’re just going to hope it doesn’t.

The rest of the week was trying to get myself out of deep project water and plan for my upcoming adventures. Saturday I worked at Skyline again and Sunday was working on my Tourism, Culture, and Society assignment. Fun, yeah?

Really, this makes my life sound very boring. I guess the thing of it is that Australia is expensive and so when I do something, I go all out, but otherwise, I am just enjoying the city and having fun without necessarily having daily “Eat, Pray, Love” moments (as my friend from Canada calls them). And really, I’m not “bored” ever, I just have a lot of days that are, literally, nothing to write home about. I experience pretty much every other emotion with regular frequency in Australia: frustration, excitement, happiness, sadness, anger, joy, craziness, whatnot, but never boredom. Really, there’s no excuse to be bored, ever. Especially not when you’re in a different country than your home.

But, as far as things to tell you that you’ll care to hear about, the next week is better, I promise. Lol. Really, it can only get better, right?

Monday, the 16^th, I did lots of group work and Tuesday I had classes. Northing thrilling to share there. Except that I FINALLY got my Destination Marketing project turned in. HECK YES!!! Anyway, Wednesday, after class, I went to dinner with my friend, Larissa down in Surfers Paradise. After we had Noodle Box (surprisingly good, even if the name is a bit off-putting), we went down to the beach where there was a really cute craft market set up. It was so fun. There were lots of cool things that, provided I had a lot more money and a bigger suitcase, I would have loved to buy, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I am a poor college student and cannot afford an extra suitcase home (actually, funny story about that later on. Keep reading).  I also got a really fun package from Jess Schenk involving fake snow. It made me really happy and excited to see snow/home again.

The next day, Thursday, I hopped on the Queensland Rail and went north to the Sunshine Coast. It was so nice to go away from Gold Coast. I love it here, really, but I’m not a big city person and need to go to a slower pace sometimes to feel normal. Lol. The train ride up was gorgeous. It went past the Glasshouse Mountains, which are definitely on my list of places to visit next time I come to Australia (provided I come with someone who will go and hike in them with me!) as well as lots of other forested areas.

My main reason for going up to the Sunshine Coast was to visit Len and Judy. Len and Judy are Kerri’s parents (Kerri is David’s wife—David is Merle’s son) who I met at Lachlan’s (Merle’s Grandson) birthday party on about the 3^rd day I was here. They invited me to come up and I eventually did. It just was near the end of my trip.

Friday was spent visiting some of the Hinterland and the walking trails as well as some of the small towns in the area. There was a beautiful waterfall and rock pools in a rain forest walk. I was a bit irritated that I wasn’t dressed well for a hike, but it was still great fun. The Sunshine Coast is absolutely beautiful. I had a great time exploring with Judy and Len. They are really fun people to be around and are friendly as golden retrievers. Plus, they have travelled Australia extensively and have lots of stories to tell about it. Their story of crocodiles underneath their campervan makes me never want to go to Darwin in my life. Kerri and David dropped off Lachlan that night—they were headed up to Noosa to run a half marathon—and Lachlan jokingly complained about him never being able to escape me. Really, though, I know he likes having me around. Merle and his parents have told me so.

The next day, Saturday, Lachlan and I headed off to Australia Zoo. Now would be an appropriate time to tell you that I have had an obsession with finding a platypus while on the continent of Australia. As in, I have looked everywhere for one and have not seen one. Australia Zoo sounds like a promising place to find an Australian animal, yeah?

Well, Australia Zoo sadly has no platypus. To me, this is tragic. But, we had a great time anyway. Being the home of the Croc Hunter, there were, as you would expect, an ungodly number of crocodiles in various habitats throughout the park. There were also plenty of other animals (kangaroos, koalas, tigers, and the like) and some fun shows that showed off the crocs. It is pretty amazing how prevalent Steve’s image is at that park 5 years after he died. His picture is EVERYWHERE! You can’t escape it—like Mickey Mouse at Disney, only times fifty. That prevalent.

Overall, I would call the Australia Zoo outing a success. I saw a few more animals that I hadn’t seen yet, I got to pet another koala (didn’t have to pay this time!), fed some ‘roos, and fed an elephant! Yes, an elephant. Not exactly Australian, but still really cool. And I picked up my stuffed koala souvenir. I’m thinking I’ll name him Ned Kelly. Any other Australian sounding name suggestions?

Sunday I headed back to the Gold Coast with Lachlan, David, and Kerri. I hadn’t really been in a car for a long ride in a while. Kinda weird. New Zealand is going to be a trip! Lol. That was also a bit of a homesick day for me, since it was Corey Okes and Katie Seiffert’s wedding!!! Congratulations guys! Wish I could have been there!

I also finally have a ticket to New Zealand, which was necessary to be in the correct country for me to get on my flight back to the USA. That was a mess in itself. Lesson from buying tickets through Student Universe: CHECK BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE before paying. I had a ticket on Emirates ($215), but it only allowed me 30kg of luggage total. That’s about 66lbs. I was allowed 32kg on my way, which is about 70lbs. Those bags were full. Do you see the problem? Throw in that I have purchased more and it is just ugly. The extra weight, though, was going to cost me an additional $180. What?! Shenanigans, I say. So, after being very to Student Universe on the phone, I was able to cancel that ticket and bought one from Air New Zealand for $235 and an extra bag only costs $40. I am OK with this plan (so are Mom and Dad). Fortunately for my flight home, Qantas gives me 46kg of luggage, which is plenty I think. Thanks, Qantas!

School kind of wrapped up last week. I had my Sustainable Tourism project due (90%!) and my Destination Marketing presentation (80%--this may not sound exciting, but I was not expecting this high of a mark). So, if I do well on all of my finals, I will end up with all D’s here. Which is good. Distinction is about their “B,” but it is anything from a 75% to an 85% and, BONUS!, will transfer back to the USA as an A. I like this fact a lot.

Wednesday night was the first “State of Origin” rugby game. State of Origin is when the best players from Queensland are on one team (the Maroons) and the best players from New South Wales are on the other team (the Blues). It’s pretty much one of the biggest things ever here. Almost like the Super Bowl mixed with the Pro Bowl (where the best players are selected to represent), except that there are 3 State of Origin games. It’s all about home state pride. I went to the Uni Bar to watch the game with Anna, Kayla, and Michelle. I think I was one of the only people in the room not wearing a blue or maroon jersey. It was crazy! But we had a great time. We thought it was really funny that of the four of us, only one of us was actually Australian and therefore had a “State of Origin.” The rest of us were just out of place. Haha. I’m gonna go ahead and say, though, that my support is for the Maroons, mainly since I’ve been living in Queensland since February. It’s more my “State of Origin” than New South Wales, even if only by a bit. If anyone is interested, Queensland won. :)

A lot of my free time was spent planning my epic two-week adventure in New Zealand. Am I doing some very silly things? Yes. Can I even tell you how excited I am? No. I am beyond words with excitement. But I will share all the details of my trip in another blog post. They would seriously fill up the awesomeness quota of this blog post and I would not be able to finish with what has happened rather than what will happen.

I also met up with Larissa again to finalize our plan for Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. I’m stoked about this trip. It will be great. We figured out our rental car (pray for me—driving on the left side of the road scares me a lot) and our hostels and plane tickets and everything. Whoot!

Saturday was my last day working at the Gold Coast Turf Club, which has definitely been an experience. I’m glad I was able to work there for the semester, but I don’t think the food service industry is my calling. I didn’t love it. But I did work with great people and I’ll miss seeing them around every Saturday.

Sunday I went with Merle to see “Water for Elephants.” Good film, not as good as the book. It’s a fantastic book. And it rained a lot that day. A lot a lot. Enough that I didn’t even want to go out and go running in it and I love running in the rain.

Which brings us to Monday. Monday was a great day. Monday also needed to be a distracting day—staff training at RTLC began on Monday and I was very sad that I was not there for this summer. I know that I’m having my own amazing adventure on the other side of the planet and all that, but still…it makes me a little sad. Hence, I was in need of a distraction. I decided that on that fateful Monday, I would make it a monumentous day and would succeed in my quest for a platypus. So, after a quick internet search, I found that the only place with a platypus on the Gold Coast was a wildlife park called David Fleay’s. David Fleay’s is literally at the other end of the Gold Coast. This went from being a quest to being an epic quest. Three busses later, I found myself at David Fleay’s Wildlife Park. The sign had a platypus on it. I had come to the right place. Come to find out, David Fleay is the first person to ever breed a platypus in captivity, so I was definitely on the mark. A short time and a few signs later, I was wandering in the Nocturnal House and there, before me like the Holy Grail before King Arthur, was my sought-after platypus. Actually, there were two of them! So exciting. I probably stood there and stared at these platypuses for about 20 minutes—they’re such cool/cute animals! They’re really little, though. Adorably little. I wanted to take one home, but I think that this would have been frowned upon by the Australian Customs officer.

I arrive...

The logo has a platypus...this is promising. 

And a poster with a platypus...I'm close, or this is false advertising.

Nocturnal House with a platypus symbol...I'm so close! 

A SIGN! It's pointing me right to them! 

Guess who's excited!!!

PLATYPUS!!!

AND AGAIN!

Learning about the Platypus

Who had a successful quest? That's right, this girl!

Tuesday and Wednesday signaled the end of my classes. I turned in my “Twilight Tourism” paper on Wednesday and have nothing left to do except final exams. Kinda strange having such a large gap between classes and exams, though.

WHAT THAT MEANS is that I am currently sitting in the airport, waiting to board my flight to Melbourne with Larissa, one of my Canadian friends. We’re renting a car and heading out on the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles, the London Stacks, and whatever else there is to see! We’re stoked. After that, Larissa will be coming back to Gold Coast and I will be heading to Adelaide for a few days to stay with Gia’s friend, Caryl. I’m very excited for this new trip! I’m just hoping everything works out! I have a lot of potential for something to go horribly wrong, so keep this trip in your prayers, please. Somewhere between hostels, planes, layovers, transfers, cars, and driving on the right side of the road for Australia, which is, of course, the left, I am a bit freaked out. Haha. But seriously.

Here’s hoping life is splendid for you all back home or wherever your adventures have taken you! I miss you all and can’t wait to be back with you. I land in LA on the 10^th of July and will be back at RTLC on the 11^th, then back to Orlando around the beginning of semester. I’d love to hear from any of you!

Big Hugs,

leahj.