December 28

**I spent Boxing Day with Mark's family on his Dad's side. This is everyone by the lake!**
Boxing Day was great! We went to a near-by lake and spent the day chillin by the water. Mark's Dad brought his sail boat and a surf-ski so everyone was having a blast in the water. Mark brought his tinny and tried to catch some crabs, but sadly there weren't any bites. We had lunch at the park and played some beachy games. Overall, a great day!
Yesterday, I spent the day looking online for work. I'm looking mainly in Sydney, but have applied to places all over Australia. I'm looking for Graphic Design as well as reception. Today, I got a call for a job interview in Sydney on Monday! The place is called 'Office Team' & it's a reception position. Hopefully it goes well, wish me luck!
For Christmas, Lindsay gave me a gift certificate for a pedicure, so I went for it today. It was luxurious & holy, did I ever need it, hahaha. My toes are pretty pink now, ready for the beach concert on New Years Eve. Thanks Linds!!!

December 25

**This is from Cairns. Christmas in summer???!!**
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
How strange, celebrating Christmas in the summer!
I had a great night out on Saturday with Lindsay & Monique and a bunch of her friends. It was a great farewell to Lindsay Sunday, the three of us went to the beach and then to the mall what a classic girly day! Lindsay was excited to get a little bit more tan before she had to go home and loose it all :)
Monday morning, we all packed up and headed to Sydney. Mark and Monique dropped Linds & I off at the airport so that I could spend the last hour with Linds before getting on a train to Mark's mum's for Christmas. The two of us checked Lindsay's baggage and wandered around the airport talking about how much fun we've had together and how surreal it was that she's going home. We had Starbucks. mmm.
Her plane took off at about 1pm. Goodbye buddy!! It doesn't feel like I won't be seeing her again until I get home. I called my family and felt a little more homesick. Oh, Christmas, I'm sure all will be back on track once the holidays are over.







*** Lindsay & I on Lindsay's First night in Sydney, back in September. WOW, that seems like a century ago!!!**







At Mark's mum's house, we had a very nice family night on Christmas eve. The Ramsey family has made me feel SO at home. They are incredibly welcoming.
We were up at 5:45am Christmas morning. Wow, early. We opened gifts. Lindsay and I printed a couple of photo's from our trip and framed them. One for Mark & Monique and on for Mark's mum, Deb. I delivered them. I got a few gifts too. Some bath and manicure products & Lindsay left Monique with a card for me with a certificate for a pedicure in it. How sweet is that!!?! She included a card that I couldn't read until I was alone because of my teary-eye issues. Greg & Kristal also sent me a package from my family with pictures of them all with each letter of "MERRY CHRISTMAS". I took one look at the first picture and saved it for later too. I was feeling SO sentimental! It was great to talk to and hear from SO many people on Christmas day. Thank you all for calling or messaging me. It really made the day for me.. realizing that you all really care!!
We had a great day! Breaky was croissants and Mango's and cheese. We played Cranium for most of the day. For dinner, the main dish was prawns. They had all their shells and heads (even eyes) still on. I was having a terrible time de-shelling them, so Mark's grandpa, Pop, peeled SO many for me. He just kept peeling & peeling. I think I ate a hundred. mmmm. It was fantastic! Everyone included me just like I'd always been a part of the family. It was very comforting.
Mark, Monique & I drove back to Newcastle at night & When I got home I took a bath with some of my new bath stuff. It was so relaxing!
I haven't heard anything from Lindsay yet, so I'm not sure if she's home yet. Although, I'm sure she is. (part of me is hoping that she changed her mind half-way and is on her way back as I type..)

December 21

Lindsay is Leaving :(
I'm gonna miss you, buddy

December 16

**A picture from a couple of weeks ago, sailing..**
Lindsay & I are now staying the next few days with Mark's Mum, Debbie. It has been SO nice for her to let us stay at her place. It's close to Sydney and it's been a great rest after backpacking. It is chilly here! We're wearing jeans and t-shirts for the first time in forever. We've been feeling incredibly homesick lately. It's SO hard to think of my family celebrating all together and I'm not there!! Anyone want to buy me a plane ticket home for two weeks?? hahaha, that would be a dream come true.
In any case, if you're reading this.. leave me a comment!! or send me an e-mail!!! I love getting e-mail or hearing from home, or knowing that anyone is actually reading this. THAT would also be a dream come true. :)

December 15

**Matt, Ninja, Lindsay & I.. we met up with Matt for 2 more days in Cairns. Said goodbye to him again, but I'm sure we'll see him in Sydney sometime soon**
The last couple of days in Cairns were pretty good. We took walks along the esplanade and snuck into movies. We saw "The Bee Movie", "Fred Clause" and "The Heartbreak Kid" all for free. haha, it was necessary though. We're poor backpackers and it was too hot outside to go the whole day without air-con. Since Cairns was our last stop on the backpacking tour, we made a list of things we loved about backpacking.
* Linds & I walking down the street singing. Always singing.
* The 'Mine', ;Five', 'Right' game. Rules: day or night, if one of us catches the other saying any of those words, the consequences are doing pushups, 'cat/cows' or star-jumps. We've been caught in some really awkward places. In a grocery store, on a bus, in the middle of the street & on the dance-floor in a bar. Imagine either of us doing 10 pushups in the middle of the sidewalk.. so embarrassing and the other just walks away and pretends they don't know the other person.. even worse!! Best game ever, hahaha
* Our daily rituals (Breaky, tea, pack lunch, various daily adventure, make dinner, have pre-drinks, go out)
* Lolly's, Worthers & giant candy snakes
* Our tuna sandwich lunches... made with sweet chili sauce instead of mayo because the mayo always goes bad
* The only two dinners we ever make: stir-fry and Thai noodles
* All the money we saved by not being able to shop.. no room in the suitcase!
* The constant planning for the next trip. Planning, planning, always planning
* The 3 shirt, 3 pairs of shorts rotation
* Our iPod speakers. We couldn't live without them.
* Staying in touch with new friends through facebook & texting
* Un-identified bug-bites and bruises, everywhere
* Vitamin C chewables
* sneaking into movie theatres
* The unrealistically short and tattered shorts that we could NEVER wear back home
* The constant lowering of our standards of living.

We left Cairns on Friday morning. Our flight was just three hours long.. It seems strange to think that it took us three months to get all the way up north. Getting off the plane we immediately noticed the temperature change. It's COLD (well, not cold, but considering where we came from..) Sydney is beautiful. I like it a lot more this time around. We feel like dirt-balls though, none of our clothing seems to work here, everyone's so dressed up and we only have beach-wear. We went our Friday night with some of the guys that we met in Byron Bay! When we lived in Byron, they were there for the weekend on a Footie League trip & we stayed in contact. We first went to a bar filled with young professionals. They were dressed SO nicely in their suits and ties. It was very refreshing. I've never seen anything like it before, absolutely everyone so high class. We left that place and went to another where Linds & I couldn't get in because of our sandals. "Do you have another pair of shoes, girls?" the girl at the door asked us. As if we were going to say: oh ya, I have my heels right here in my purse. No, no, we only have sandals now because we're grubs these days. We ended up just going somewhere else, haha, it was still a blast!

December 12

Sadly, we left Matt on the bus in Mission Beach so he could go for a sky-dive, but Lindsay & I have travelled from Magnetic Island to Cairns, our last destination on this northern journey. Cairns is really nice. It's the biggest city we've seen since Brisbane (but not huge) and it's HOT HOT HOT. Our hostel room is terrible. It's a cramped space, shoved with 8 beds and an air conditioner that blows the cold air outside instead of in.
We decided to rent a car for a few days!! On Monday we went to Crystal Springs and Mossman Gorge. We got to swim for a bit beneath the waterfalls at Crystal springs, it was spectacular! On Tuesday, we took the long journey around the Highlands and stopped off at about 7 different sites. We saw the Cathedral Fig Tree, a massive 500 year old tree that we could walk around as well as part of the way through (it sounds cheesy, but it was actually incredibly impressive). We had a picnic at Crawfords Lookout, at the top of a huge gorge. We went to about 4 different waterfall sites, created by the area's volcanic past which got more and more beautiful as they got higher. We went to Julianna Falls which had a huge flat rock under it, where we could climb up and slide down like a massive water slide. SO fun! Poor Lindsay slipped on a patch of slime and hit her head, but before I could ask her if she was ok, the water rushed in and swept her down the rock-slide. She made it out alive.. with only a small bump. ouch! We hiked around a clear volcanic crater lake & swam with the fish. The most spectacular part of the day was the driving. We took lush scenic routes and off-highway treks around quaint towns. The rolling green mountains and the stark red dirt, lined with cows, goats and wild turkeys were stunning and endless. Fields full of sugarcane and I-dunno-what with farm houses were as far as the eye could see. Australians seem to like putting up signs to watch for every animal you could think of. In one day we saw "Drive carefully" signs under kangaroos, cows, sheep, koalas, cassowaries, tree kangaroos, etc. Definitely something we could never have seen without the car. By the end of the day our senses were overloaded.. too bad we don't have a quiet room to go to sleep

December 8

**Lindsay & I with our super-cool scooters**
Magnetic Island is so gorgeous! We woke up early this morning so that Lindsay & I could go kayaking out in the ocean. We had a bit of trouble getting the kayak away from the shore, but once we got out into the water it was smooth sailing. I was feeling a little sea-sick (it's pretty common these days) so we came back to shore. We packed a lunch today and hired some scooters!!! It was fantastic! Since we're on an island, there are only a few different places to go, but to go from one end of the island to the other takes about 30 minutes, mostly because we never drove faster than 50k (when going up-hill we couldn't go any faster than 30). First we went to Picnic Bay to eat our lunches and then travelled to the northern part of the island to go hiking. The landscape here is beautiful & most of the roads are right along the ocean.. palm trees everywhere! After our hike we drove all around different streets and found an off-beat road where there were a few kangaroos running across the street!! It's so fun to see wild kangaroos. We loved our scooters so much & driving on the wrong side of the road wasn't too bad either. We didn't get too confused. It was sad to say goodbye to our scooters. Tonight, we made our dinners at about 7:30 and ate at some picnic tables outside. There were possum's wandering around all over. We were sitting by the pool later, just watching the stars & more possum's. They didn't seem too scared of us. Tomorrow, we're heading to Cairns, the last stop on our bus ride. We will be taking the ferry back over to the main land and catching our bus at 1:30. The bus is another 6 hours north. It's only going to get hotter!! It's already way too hot to stand here. We're sweating buckets basically all day. ew. We're very excited to finally get back to Sydney in a couple of weeks!!

December 7

**First, this is "The Clipper". Second, Matt and I with the 'sand-man' that we made at Whitehaven Beach**
The three of us just arrived in Magnetic Island. Lindsay, Matt & I spent the last three days on a Whitsunday Island sailing trip (I went for free, woo hoo!!) We left on Tuesday at about 2pm and went down to the Marina to get onto our boat and begin the trip. Our boat was called "The Clipper" and had 5 crew and 53 passengers. It was SO great that it was big!! I loaded myself up with ginger before we left so that I wouldn't get sea-sick. I even got sea-bands and gravol just in case. The three of us stayed in the same room, our cabin was pretty nice. At first we were confused because we were separated from the rest of the passengers in a room near the back of the boat. We later realized that we were sleeping in one of the crew rooms & were lucky to have air conditioning and our own personal bathroom. At one point, one of the other passengers noticed me coming out of there and asked 'is it boiling hot down there too?' hahaha, I just said yes and hoped she didn't notice we were getting the royal treatment. The first day we didn't get off of the boat at all. We took the time to meet some of the other passengers, eat dinner and start the party. The night was great!
I woke up in the morning at about 5am... SO seasick!! By 5:30am I gave in and got out of my cot to sit on the deck for a while. Only the crew members were up and told me I had JUST missed the sunrise. Too bad. I tried eating some fruit salad to make myself feel better, but it just didn't do the trick. One of the crew members that I had made friends with the night before, Jimmy, took me under his wing to try to help me feel better. He showed me all kinds of cool things about the boat and even let me drop the anchor!! Pretty special, I know. We went to whitehaven beach. It was GORGEOUS! crystal clear water, bright white sand & mountains in the distance. We couldn't swim without wearing stinger-suits. In the afternoon we went snorkeling. It was incredible! The great barrier reef is stunning. We got out of the boat and were floating at times about 3 feet away from the reef, with bright fish swimming all around. We loved it!!!! When I got into the water, I didn't realize that the coral was so close and I cut my foot on it. It's SO sharp. Apparently coral is so dirty that I could have a really serious problem with the cut, so I'm trying hard to keep it clean. We went snorkeling twice that day. After getting back on the boat, my sea-sickness went away (hallelujah) and the rest of the day was great. That night was another party on the ship. It was funny because Lindsay and I had made friends with 2 of the crew members so we spent a lot of the time talking with them. Almost all of the other girls on the boat were really ... (looking for a good word) ... crazy & loose. They were running around drunk in their bathing suits and trying to get the crew to notice them. Lindsay and I laughed so hard every time the guys just rolled their eyes and avoided contact. Another good night.
We were up early again the 3rd day, but I didn't feel sick at all! A lot of the people on the boat woke up in the morning covered in bed-bug bites. The three of us didn't have any problems at all, but it's scary & gross to think about. We got off the boat and wandered another beautiful island before heading back to the boat and sailing home. It was a pretty fantastic trip. & I have to thank the boat company for making a mistake and letting me go for free.
This morning, we got on another coach and took the 5 hour bus ride to Townsville. From there, we took a ferry over to Magnetic Island where we're spending 2 nights. This hostel is gorgeous & right on the beach front. It's nice to be out of Airlie Beach where every night was a party.