In the lane, snow is glistenin'

"Its like Edward Cullen is in the air!!!"
"CAMDEN IM GONNA SLAP YOU"

this was our exchange yesterday as we were skiing down big mountain. occasionally, if you're lucky, a magical thing happens on the mountain. driving up the day appears to be foggy and dreary and not too pleasant, but halfway up the chairlift a miracle happens. things start to get brighter. the fog starts to thin out bit by bit, and then all of a sudden you break free of the clouds into a land of impossibly blue skies, sparkling white snow everywhere, and trees that look related to the marshmallow man from ghostbusters. its amazing. its an inversion.
yesterday, the inversion was epic. on the lower half of the mountain the clouds were thin enough to still let a bit of light through. right before you broke out of the fog and into the bluebird afternoon the blue sky was visible above, but snow was still falling all around. im not a meteorologist, so i had no idea how this was happening, but it did prompt my sisters edward cullen comment. the clear, sunny air had a slight sparkle to i as you skied down the hill. at one point i stopped and looked out as the clouds were at eye level with me. it was like putting your eyes right at the edge of a table and looking at the surface- it seems to stretch for miles and miles, except these were clouds and they did stretch for miles and miles, interrupted only by the occasional mountain poking its head into the heavens above. gorgeous.

i honestly couldnt have asked for a better christmas day, which got me thinking about former christmas days. so now i will take you back through some of my fonder memories.

age 3 or 4- at this point in my life i was convinced that santa's big day was always right around the corner. whenever i heard anyone walking around the house at night i would spring from my bed and race down the hallway into the living room to make sure santa was not there putting presents out for me to play with. im fairly certain i did this whether it was the dead of winter or not. this christmas is the first that i can distinctly remember being amazed, dumbfounded, and all around astonished at santa's great feat. i woke up and went out to the living room while the house was still cloaked in darkness (not surprising though, sunrise is like 8:30am vampires would love it here.) there, waiting for me under the tree was the coolest train set i ever could have possibly imagined. santa had painted a piece of plywood green and blue to look like land and lakes and rivers, and then set up a wooden train set on the piece of wood for me to play with. i couldnt believe it. santa was the coolest dude ever. i played with those trains for years to come and if i could find them now i would definitely play with them again.

age 5?- one christmas, a couple years after the train thing probably, i asked for a barbie for christmas. well, skipper to be exact. barbie's sister. my uncle jamie heard this and said that if i was getting the barbie, then i also needed a GI joe. christmas morning rolled around and i opened my barbie and promptly set to work on making her tail change colors (she was a mermaind. nbd) and my GI joe was cast aside. fortunately it did not end up on the island of misfit toys, my baby sister adopted it instead. to this day i have never lived the barbie incident down- i have heard the story at least three times this christmas and it is also told regularly at family gatherings, birthdays and any time my family wants to embarrass me. damn you barbie and your color changing tail. damn you.

age 10- finally after years and years of begging, santa brought me a nintendo 64! my mom had sworn to never let video games in the house, but HA! victory is mine!!!

age 11- i was having some issues at this point in my short little life and the fact that my extended family had all decided to go to san francisco to see my cousins instead of coming to whitefish as usual made me very angry. i mean, so what that my aunt had had a baby on november 27th? we are way more important that a baby! plus i was bitter because i felt like everyone like them better than us (have i mentioned that im irrationally competitive and will resent even a baby for stealing attention from me?). a couple days before christmas rolls around, camden has some sort of swine flu predecessor, harrison, at age 5, has a perpetually runny nose with boogers everywhere, and I have a whole bucket of issues that kept my parents busy. they loaded us into the car and said we had to go pick up a package at the airport for our friend whose lugguage got lost or something. we stop in front of baggage claim and my mom drags me inside and i survey the scene. big deal, its a tiny airport in northwest montana- not much is happening. then i look at the christmas tree and see some people sitting under it... ok wierdos, so i kept kinda looking around. then i move closer to the tree and look again. HOLY SWEET LITTLE BABY JESUS!!!!!!! its my aunts holly and jennifer, my three year old cousin caroline, the infamous granny gigi, and my brand new three week old cousin alexandra, later to be dubbed lexie on a family vaca to the jersey shore. I was speechless and like... wow. best christmas surprise EVER. so after that we all did the whole christmas thing, blah blah blah, and we havent missed a christmas with that crew since then. also, fun fact- that was when zelda: occarina of time was all the rage. i got it for christmas to use on my N64. that shit gave me nightmares so bad i had to sleep on my parents floor for a month, and that was the end of video games in the covey household for a looong time.

age 18- im sure between the ages of 11 and 18 i had some great christmases with great memories, but im getting tired of typing, so we will fast forward a bit. that year we had a whole bunch of folks in town for the holiday festivities. gigi, grandma and grandpa covey, my moms sisters holly and jennifer, cousins caroline and lexie, my dads sister carmel and her husband richard and their two kids michael and andrew, and our friends from whitefish the whitakers. this whole clan had just finished christmas dinner and went out for our annual nog walk. this is where we walk around the loop in our neighborhood to help with digestion and drink ridiculously alcoholic and delicious eggnog. occasionally we sloppily carol to our neighbors. its good times. this particular nog walk our song of choice was "feliz navidad," but those are really the only two words we know of the whole thing, so to help us out jennifer and camden started talking in mexican accents, sort of like speedy gonzalez, and yelling "jorge go boom!" and talking about gang murders in new mexico, where jennifer lives. festive, eh? after the nog walk we went back into my house and turned on some bumpin tunes and my moms side of the family as well as some of the whitakers started dancing in the living room. my dad's side of the family, who are considerably more conservative and resereved, were not so impressed with our sweet moves and chose to watch from the sidelines. this was all well and good until my humps came on. its my mom's jam so of course good ole stace started to rock out (she dances with some aggressive arm motions). never one to be shown up, jennifer jumped up on a chair, put one hand against the wall to brace herself, and started slapping her ass while screaming "MY HUMPS! MY HUMPS MY HUMPS MY HUMPS!!!!" i died. i could barely breathe from laughing so hard. my dad's family took off faster than santa's eight tiny reindeer and, unfortunately i havent seen them since that christmas season. we may have scared them slightly. sorry for partying, jesus.

age 21- besides the epic ski day christmas has been an all-around good time. christmas ever i pounded a couple of brewskis before church and donned my purple tie that says "I <3 Jesus" and musical notes in shiny gold all over it. those catholics have never seen something so festive, im sure of it. after getting two new high scores on bejeweled while listening to an overzealous american idol reject sing religiously charged christmas carols (some of them IN LATIN! are you kidding me???), we set out for our delicious seafood feast waiting for us at home. successful night. christmas morn dawns and i start pounding water to counteract the christmas wine from the night before. presents start being thrown every which way and before you know it i have a new pair of skis, a New Zealand all blacks jersey (which im currently wearing) and a kindle (which i had told my parents i had no interest in a couple of days before... awkward.) at this point i was having conflicting feelings. i had just recieved some epic holiday cheer from santa and my family and i loved it and i was thankful, but at the same time i was a little bummed that i didnt get a new phone, which i wanted the most. its ok if you hate me for being an ingrateful bastard, i hated me too at that moment. then my mom said "ok one last present" and handed us little boxes. i thought it would be some cheesy thing that me, cam and har all got kindof as a joke. then we open them and see the trademark apple logo on the black box. wait... i already have an ipod. WAIT!!! HOLY SHIT AN IPHONE!!!!!!! we all started yelling and screaming at our brand new phones- this wasnt even in the cards. we dont have AT&T we have verizon, but apparently my parents had switched it on us without telling. sneaky sneaky. epic christmas surprise. yesssssssssss.

my friends in la they dont know...

well none of my friends know really. i imagine that many people out there have a vision of my life as a care free and lavish adventure spanning the globe from berlin to sydney and everywhere in between (except asia and africa- they have way too many peanuts involved for me to ever even set foot there). while that may have been true for a while, i have now been reduced to housewife status due to unemployment and a bank account that seems to drop precipitously with every passing day. gone are the days of surfing, scuba diving, and living in a van named gollum:



now my days really are what every housewife aspires to. i wake up at my leisure, drink my coffee and check the morning news (by morning news i mean facebook and twitter because lets get real, i could give a shit about the rest of the world). then i might have an omelet- egg white of course, choc full of veggies, followed by a nice work out. after getting all schwetty i generally eat a healthy lunch, i watch tv, search for a job, more facebook, and generally do nothing. eventually i make myself something delicious for dinner- a steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions in a red wine sauce perhaps, and watch more tv whilst drinking alone. today however, i am doing the other end of the housewife work spectrum: dishes and laundry. how fun is that!

in all reality though im just dead up bored. my friends are all still at school and i have little to entertain me besides illegally streaming episodes of bones online (i watched 14 episodes yesterday). i dont even have any funny stories to impart. i went to LA last weekend for a little getaway and while it was a barrel of laughs nothing outlandish happened. oh except that alyssa peed in a del taco cup on the bus on the way to the sorority function. that shit was funny. and i had an extremely awkward man from texarcana, arkansas sitting next to me on the plane. he kept trying to make conversation with me by way of looking out the window, away from me, mumbling something clearly intended for me to hear so i was forced to say "come again?" "whats that?" or "pardon?" roughly 34 times. i was just trying to read my book! he also was an AVID fan of sky mall. he picked it up and said "you know, they got some really good stuff in here. i've got my eye on a few things that i might just have to get." i was afraid to ask what for fear that he would indicate a yearning for the meerkat lawn statues or the neckpro traction device:

its a little too S&M for my liking but hey, whatever floats your boat. overall he was a nice guy but he clearly just didnt pick up the signals that i dont do small talk. i am content to sit in silence and mind my own business without any distractions about mountains or lakes or whatever else one can see from a plane.

so since that brief interaction i have been job hunting, house wifing and doing nothing. unfortunately no one is hiring. at all. at least im not above being a craigslist man whore for hire.

lionfish, tiger sharks and barracudas, oh yes

things i have learned:

swimming in rainforests is a clothing optional activity
wallabys, while cute, can be creepy
driving on the left side of the road is just stupid
aussies dont say shrimp on the barbie
aussie dudes straighten their hair and wear jorts and drink bitch beer and its acceptable
macdonalds is my favorite
koalas are heavy
i am not allergic to the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle
sharks do not think i am a tasty treat
it is possible to drank a coca cola at the bottom of the ocean under 80 feet of water


ok so i have been working on this post for like a week because i just dont have the time/energy/money to spend too long on the internet when i could be out learning/doing any of the aforementioned things. so i will just skip over part of my epic adventure (it would have been some good stories too)and move on to the most recent stuff. SCUBA SCUBA

last monday morning, so a week ago, kit and i started getting our dive certifications in Cairns, which is roughly two stone skips and a shark attack away from the great barrier reef- so pretty damn close. we were picked up, bleary eyed and discombobulated, at the ass crack of dawn outside of our hostel. we mumbled hellos to the other novice divers anxiously picturing their own watery deaths (ok maybe it was just me) and went on to pick up a couple more people, including Mei. now mei is a special one. she is from china i think, but currently lives in scotland. if you have never heard a thick asian accent mixed with a twinge of scottish gruffness then you have never truly lived. its as if jackie chan and fat bastard had a ridiculously uncoordinated and awkward child. i may be in love. mei's grand entrance into my life will forever be remembered. as she attempted to hoist herself into the passenger seat of the large child molester-esque van that we all were riding in, she failed. apparently after hefting her bag into the car she only managed to get half her ass onto the seat, and then she fell like the berlin wall out of the van and onto the pavement. OHHHHHH SHIIIT. that just happened. no worries mei, just dust yourself off and pick up your dignity from the sidewalk. she needed it you see, because she had plenty more opportunities to lose it throughout the week, but more on that later.

our first two days of diving were split between a classroom, where this mad cool instructor janine would train us in the theory of breathing underwater. let me sum it up for you- dont hold your breath, dont run out of air, and dont be retarded, you are not going be attacked by a megaladon while diving (that was my real main concern). suffice it to say that monday and tuesday were sufficiently boring, however mei did manage to nearly drown in the 12 foot deep pool. janine had to haul her up from the bottom and hold her head above water whilst mei gasped for air and refused to inflate the inflatable vest that ones wear scuba diving. oh mei, how i cherished your plump little face compressed in the folds of the BCD while janine held you, tenderly, by your airtank and yelled "INFLATE MEI! INFLATE!" i nearly j'd in my p on the spot.

finally, bright and early on wednesday morning- and i mean bright and fuckin early as in 6am, we boarded our trusty ocean faring vessel and headed for the reef. on the ride out there we made better friends with our fellow scuba enthusiasts including three hilarious irish girls, a really cool couple from the UK, a Czech guy who spear fishes and a doctor from LA who may be my new hero because she went to an ivy league school, graduated with a degree in engineering, went home and waitressed for a while, worked in animation for several years and now is an ER doc and goes on badass vacations on the side. kit and i now have hope that we will be successful and productive human beings... someday. three hours later we arrived on the reef and suited up for our first dive.

the first day we did two dives and it was pretty damn awesome. we saw a giant moray eel with a green head and spots all over his body. the fish there are unreal. they are everywhere and waaaay bigger than any that i have seen in the past. absolutely massive buggers. especially these ones called bumperhead parrot fish. they are like two feet long and 18 inches high and they just sit in schools and drift. not even swim. drift. we also saw some christmas tree worms, which are way cooler than they sound, turtles, and stingrays. epic.

the next day we saw alot more of the same, including nemo and dory and the dude with the scar in the fishtank. on one dive we even saw TWO sharks. count em. TWO. i didnt even poo my wetsuit either. i was so stoked. mostly because they were little bastards. even so, i was trying to make friends with them.

that night we had a night dive. i hate going into the ocean at night. hate it. all my years of shark week and animal planet and steve irwin have taught me that night time is when the scary shit comes out to get you. however, i was not about to pass up this opportunity. right before we got in the water we all ate dinner. after dinner we rinse the plates in the water and usually fish school all around the boat. usually these fish are red and kinda cool. this time however there was a six foot shark cruising around with them. what the eff. i did not sign up to swim with a six foot shark at night. hell to the no. oh god. my adrenaline was already pumping and we had an hour before we went under the surface. right after this janine gathered us around a table and gave us the DL about what we were going to do and see. she of course said that we were going to see some sharks and most of them would be harmless little reef sharks, but occasionally there are some larger tiger sharks and hammerheads. uuhhh what? i do not like that. not at all. i hate them in fact. my interest piqued i leaned forward across the table and tried not to soil myself (i'm a nervous poo-er what can ya do). janine continued, "occasionally these animals can get to be aggressive. if they start circling us and acting like they may attack, we are going to do whats called the ring of steel. we will all face inwards with our tanks facing out. this will help protect us from the animal if it should attack. after we link arms, what do you think we are going to do." some people not as versed in shark behavior said "go to the surface." WRONG BITCHES. sharks attack from below!!!! GO DOWN GO DOWN!!!! i knew this fact but at this point i had stopped producing saliva and my brain was slowly shutting down. "we will head to the bottom," corrected janine, "it doesnt matter what we are over, coral, sand, rocks, we will go to the bottom. now, right before the shark attacks, they will bump their prey. if this happens, there is really nothing that we can do. if the person next to you ends up getting bumped, let go of their arm. they are on their own to swim to the surface, we need to focus on getting the rest of us to safety." at this point i was on the verge of tears. my hands were shaking and i was about to pass out. several people let out some nervous laughter before janine and the other instructors on the boat burst out laughing so hard that i thought they were going to die. apparently there are no tiger sharks where we were, and they almost never see anything besides reef sharks. fuck that. i am sitting here having a panic attack and these idiots are hootin and hollerin like they're at a nascar race. however, i couldnt be pissed because i was laughing too and also so ridiculously relieved that i didnt have to worry about any more sharks. after that i happily went to put on my gear even though they staff played the jaws theme song complete with the blood curdling scream as we were being dragged into the water. i think that night took about six years off my life. oh and also we saw a sleeping lionfish- them shits are venomous. cool.

the next day we woke up for another dive- this time a deep dive because i decided to go for my adventure scuba dive certification. this means that i can go to 30 m- 99 feet without an instructor. after you hit about 23 meters the nitrogen levels in your blood build up significantly and everyone experiences something called nitrogen narcosis. its similar to being drunk, but more fun and waay more dangerous because you are under six stories of water and have a very limited amount of air before you die- especially me. i went through air like a fat kid at an all you can eat buffet. they had to give me an extra large tank just so i could make it down to the same level as everyone else. back to the dive- we got to 27 meters and janine had us do an activity where you point to 12 numbers in a grid in chronological order. the numbers go to 13, but skip 7. to be finished you had to tell her which number was missing. i was the last to go so i knew 7 was the missing number and i was all ready to go and get the thing done in record speed. i made it through all the numbers and then held up my hands proundly. nothing. janine was still timing me. i looked at my hands just to make sure it was right -five fingers on one hand and three on the other- 7. it took me several more seconds to realize that 5+3 is 8. what can i say i dropped out of school alright. after that game janine whipped out a coke in a can and popped the top. nothing happened- it just stayed in there. she proceeded to take out her reg and drink the coke. then we all passed it around the circle taking drinks of it. it was soooooo awesome. for some reason me and one of the irish girls thought this was hilarious- keep in mind you feel drunky this deep- and i ended up rolling around on the ocean floor because i was laughing so hard. probably one of the best experiences of my life.

after one more dive that lasted 54 minutes, my personal underwater record, we had to head back to dry land. bummer. that night however we did manage to go out and dance on tables with the other people from the trip. the only downside is that at one point i was deserted by my diving friends and left to dance with rosa and gerda- the german mother daughter team that did not talk to anyone all week but strangely went out and raged with us. the best part- rosa, the non-milf mother- doesnt shave her pits or her legs. wanna puke in your mouth yet? i know i sure do!

aussie hip hop? hellz yeah

who knew that aussies could be all thug life and shit. ok well they're not but this week at surf camp i was introduced to a whole new realm of musical possibilities: australian hip hop, specifically bliss n esso. it was waaaayyy cool. every morning on the way to the beach our instructor would bump it and i would just get amped for the day.

ok, now lets briefly rewind. i went to five days of surf camp which was awesome. effing awesome in fact. monday morning in sydney kit and i stumbled out of our hostel at 715 and dragged our bags do the bus station, briefly got way lost, and then eventually found our bus for Waves Surf School. for the next five days we surfed for hours on end on big blue foam surf boards (so we dont bonk our heads and hurt them, which is what happened to a wee british girl named joooodi) and then as soon as the sun went down it was party time. apparently there are three kinds of surf camps: ones that are serious about surfing, ones that surf alot with drinking on the side, and ones that drink alot with surfing on the side. this camp was the latter. the first night we played an uncomfortably sexual game of never have i ever in which you say things you had done and let me tell you the european girls are FREAKS. we're talking threesomes, foursomes, moresomes, lesbian experimentation, anonymous sex in alleys. WOW. after that i felt like the little sweet baby jesus compared to some of these people. no worries though, it didnt stop us from becoming fast friends... or not. almost everyone was german or german speaking (including a swiss-italian, let me tell you a deutch loving guido is not any better than the regular american verson) and kit and i were the only americans out of our group of 18. fine by me we had to rep america right. we did. everyone kept telling us "oohh you americans are lightweights, you are all idiots, you talk funny" well guess what bitches, the second night of surf camp was the biggest party of the week and 4 europeans puked. FOUR. how many americans? NONE. who was up raging the latest- you guessed it, AMERICA!!!!



this competitive streak in me resurfaced later in the week. a couple of times actually. the first was when we were having our end of the week surf competition. i was all gung ho to win and i surfed my ass off. i mean i got up on waves, i tried to do a sommersault while moving, i did the dead cockroach while moving, and did 180s on the board like it was my job. i thought i was a shoe in to win that shit, cuz lets face it, im a big deal. after our competition we ate lunch and waited for rhys, our instructor, to announce my victory. buut nooooooooooooo. the GD swiss guido won. doubleyoo tee eff. i totally was way cooler than him! and i dont have dumb pierced ears. bitches.



that night i got all competitive again. like unhealthily competitive. we went to this bar in byron bay called cheeky monkeys with the whole surf school crew and there was also another surf school there for their end of the week party. the issue? they were raging way harder than us. i was soooo mad. they were dancing on tables, drinking margaritas and getting rowdy. meanwhile, waves was just sitting and sipping our free beer. whaaat??? i thought we were supposed to be the partiers who only surf on the side!!! have i been mislead by my faithful leader/ aussie surf bum? NEVER. next thing you know i was bumpin and grinding on the table with the dirtiest of all dirty germans (no really, she did XXX rated things on the dancefloor on a previous night, dont worry, not with me though, i was preoccupied with a much hotter and less infected german). we rallied the troops, starting with my trusty partner, kit, and before you knew it we had ourselves a table dancing good time. we only stopped dancing for competitions involving mock fellatio onstage (...) and another little contest that i participated in that involved getting naked to win a skydiving trip. dont worry, i tried my damndest to get a free skydive but after stripping to my skivvies onstage in front of all my new BFFs i decided i would keep my boxers and my dignity on, put my pants back on, and got off stage.

its alright though... my consolation prize was a bangin goodbye kiss with the afformentioned hot and disease-less german. i gave her my heart... and my name for facebook and i dont even get a friend request in return. alas, i ache... i pine... i booze.

did we go to the pub?

yoooooooooooooooooo

the blue mountains were a spectacular sight to see indeed. we even made friends with our roommate, as i said earlier. well our second night at the far from lovely katoomba mountain lodge we were eating dinner when our friend came busting into the dining room, several beers deep, and told us that he had come specifically to take us out to the pub with him. ok i suppose we can handle that. after a couple drinks in front of the fire and being yelled at by the proprietors small daughter we braved the cold night. we arrived at the pub to only find like four people there. one of whom apparently knew our friend, whose name turned out to be angus. first thought upon learning that tidbit- burger. flame broiled angus burgers from burger king (which is called hungry jack's here) to be exact. we promptly moved to the pool table after brief introductions. the fellow who knew angus is named adrian, and kit and i are reasonably certain that he is homeless. he was wearing a flannel shirt, perriwinkle addidas track pants and some strange kicks. he also insisted on calling me mistah C and that i call him mister tiger. hes a bengals fan you see, so he was very sure that they would win the superbowl. even I, with my limited football knowledge, knew that it just wasnt going to happen. sorry mister tiger. you shall be disappointed.

after kicking tigers ass in pool we moved into the piano lounge. this really was just a restaurant part of the bar with a piano in it. the piano was occupied by a "bird" in a wig lookin thing that was more scary than endearing. she was playing for an american with dyed red hair who was deeply moved by the mediocre showtunes tinkling away on the piano, and a strange aussie man who reminded me of the cowardly lion, probably because he and angus harmonized on "somewhere over the rainbow." not to be outdone i gave my best when she started playing "piano man." unfortunately i couldnt compete with two grown men on the verge of tears (they were deeply moved as well). after asking angus not to hug her any more, the piano player excused herself for the night, as did kit and i. we bid adieu to our friends and headed back to our subzero lair for a long winters nap. the next morning we hightailed it out of there as fast as we could, but not before kit had the opportunity to speak to angus. he said "good morning, did we go to the pub last night?" apparently angus is a raging alcoholic and a highly functioning black out drunk. good on ya mate.

yesterday we returned to sydney and now we are gearing up for surf camp. last night we made normal friends at the pub next to our nice, clean, warm hostel and they even offered us a place to stay in bondi beach or to hook us up in new zealand. what swell folks. also at the pub, i reaffirmed by place in hell. after seeing a woman playing pool in a wheelchair i started pondering the logistics of drinking in a wheelchair. when you drink alot sitting down and then stand up, usually you are more intoxicated that you originally thought, but what happens when you cant stand up? i am actually curious about how this changes the logistics of inebriation. my world has been rocked.

tim tam titty tat tit tut

tim tams are the oreo's way cooler australian cousin. if oreos were waaay more delicious and then the center was filled with chocolate and then the whole shebang was then dipped in chocolate, then it would be a tim tam. i love them. the only issue is that i may or may not be allergic to them. i kinda got itchy scratchy after eating them, but they were so delicious that i ate more. hmm. well im not dead so i might as well keep enjoying, right?

at the moment i am in the uber chic Katoomba Mountain Lodge- by uber chic i mean kinda gross, dont want to touch the blankets and apparently there is no central heating. not to worry though- i have a sleeping sac and anti-freeze like vodka! i'll never be too cold now!

katoomba is in the blue mountains about two hours by train outside of sydney, and its amazing her. at first i wasnt sold because when we got off of the train wearing shorts and a tshirt, appropriate for sydney, i was bitch slapped with some frigid air and rain. not my cup of tea. oh well. after braving the streets of katoomba we settled on our current accomodation, mostly becuase it was cheap and close to the main road and i was a human popsicle. today, however, is much warmer and sunny and this place is AMAZING!!! i would instert a pic but this computer is a POS and not conducive to multiple windows being open. the town is up on a cliff, and then off of the cliff is about 1000 feet until a valley floor and tons of trees and other cliffs for miles and miles around. its pretty epic. we hiked down into the valley this morning and then back up the cliffs and i loved every minute of it. i cant wait to post pics, but i might not be able to for a looong time. like 6.5 weeks when i get home for turkey day. yum.

getting up to katoomba was an adventure. yesterday morning we woke up at our irish pub hotel, bolted our brekkie and booked it to the bus station so that we could go up to Hunter Valley wine country and get googily at wine tastings all day. after freaking out and finally finding the bus terminal, all the while shlepping our crap everywhere, we learned that the bus that we had just missed didnt even exist. in fact, there is no bus service to hunter valley anymore. FOL (thats f OUR lives for the slower students). there is a train but it will take you four hours and poop you out two towns away from wher you need to be. hokay. not so good. so kit and i go into zombie mode. if anyone has ever seen me try to make decisions under stress then you know that i am not so good. i sit, i stare, and i sulk. unfortunately, so does kit. we attempted to rent a car- fail, we attempted to find another bus tour- fail, we brainstormed other locations to go to- initial fail but that eventually led us to katoomba. also in our many fails we encountered an aussie woman who kept saying "okie kokie" like it was a perfectly natural thing to espouse in casual conversation. shits weird.

also, while in sydney, we booked more activities. our planning skills were not working out well despite kit and i both attending prestigious universities. after going to europe we figured hopping around australia would be a breeze, theres not even a language barrier. wrong. im not sure if you are aware, but this shits big. its like a whole continent. roughly the size of the US. and most of it is the bush. it doenst really embrace a quick hop on a train or bus. sydney to cairns on a bus is like 2 days straight. who knew. i thought it would be like ten hours- and thats only the east coast. we arent even venturing inland probably. after realizing that this continent is indeed huge we turned to our trusty travel agent friend, joshua, for help. now we are booked on a five day travelling surf trip from sydney to byron bay (just south of brisbane on the gold coast) and a five day scuba certification course including 2 days living aboard a boat on the great barrier reef!!!!!!!!!!! YESS YES YES YES. i am so excited. epic adventures hellooooo!!!! now all i have to do is see a kangaroo and i will be set.

alright folks, tonight we are hitting the town in katoomba, possibly with our roomie whose name we dont know even though we kicked it and had drinks with him for a good two hours last night. it was our first time getting moderately intoxicated and also our first time staying up later than 10. jetlag's a bitch.

$6 Jugs

G'day from sydney australia. after a 14 hour flight complete with in seat movies, three meals and exploding salad dressing, i arrived in sydney less than bright eyed and bushy tailed. kit and i schlepped our carry on rolly bags with matching backpacks and duty free booze off the plane, through customs and onto a free shuttle that seemed like it may abduct us into the outback instead of drop us off at our seedy hostel. i say seedy and i mean it sincerely. it was kinda dingy and gross, but we made friends with an irish guy this morning at 8 am. he was drinking red bull mixed with boxed wine. mmmm mmm good. he also told me i looked like a brad. oh well. i prefer my name anyways and we bailed on that hostel about three minutes later. now we are staying over a pub with our own room and bathroom. much more my style- you can buy cheap pitchers aka jugs of beer and then just toddle on up to the room for a nap. HOLLA

ok that last paragraph was kinda jumpin around and like wow. i need a second to collect my thoughts so that i can properly impart the wonders that i have beheld since in sydney.'



ok thoughts collected.

yesterday after checking into the hostel we grabbed a free map and started wandering the streets. we found a really cool old catholic church and strolled through a park. we took pictures in front of the opera house and even went inside for minute. very cool stuff- its really cavernous and a little intimidating. very opera-y. we just explored the streets for a few hours and got a feel for the city before returning back to our hostel for nap time and showers. we then went to watch the national rugby league grand final at the bar that we are now staying over. it was packed with aussies and they meant business. old men were drinking jugs by themselves and all sorts of other dudes were there just yelling for the most part. kit and i, being the avid rugby fans that we are, had no idea what the hell was going on. it was sortof like football but at the pace of soccer and way more fun than either one to watch. the players would wail on each other and then get up like it was nothing, all the while without pads. they make american football players look like the wimply little kid who lived down the block from you whose mom made him wear all the pads to go rollerblading, including wrist guards (ok that was me). rugby players are bad ass. end of story. we managed to befriend a drunk aussie with bad teeth and awkwardly long jorts who sortof told us what was going on mostly by yelling "FUCK FUCK FUCKIN FUCK" whenever anything happened. suffice it to say his team didnt win.

after this enlightening experience we returned to our hotel, made some cheap pasta and then passed the F out at 9 o clock, only to be awakened by our 2 asian roommies who we never actually interacted with.

this morning after our breakfast with the drunk irish guy we went to the royal botanical gardens where we saw wild cocatoos and fruit bats everywhere. those bastards were hanging in every tree they could. apparently they dont live in caves here, just in city parks. waaay cool. we also went to the australian maritime museum and the sydney fish market. the fish market was giant, smelly and overwhelming, but made me want some sushi reaaaal bad. dinner perhaps? we shall see. for now we are hoppin on some free internet and planning our next adventure- beach time, national parks and wine tasting. HELLLL YEAH