Australia

So the day I've been talking about since before I got to Australia finally came... We made our way up the Australia Zoo (Better known as the Steve Irwin Zoo).
We booked two seats on the Croc Express, which is a bus ride that leaves from Brisbane and takes you up to the zoo.
Two of our friends Wannie and Grunter decdided to go with us. They offered to give us a ride but we had already signed up and paid for the bus. So we met them up there.
The zoo was a pretty cool experience. We made are way around the park for a little while until the shows started.
The first show was about snakes. they brought out a snake that must have been about 20 feet long. It took 3 people to carry it out and it was over 200 pounds. It was insane. There are pictures on my yahoo photos.
After the snakes they brought out birds. They had mostly parrots, but also eagles and cockatoos. It was pretty cool watching the birds fly around like crazy.
Next they brought out the crocodile. The crocodile show is not as exciting as you would think it is going to be but it's still fun to watch. They only bring out one crocodile and they just feed him meet. you get to watch him jump up and get the meet but that is about the extent of it. The crocdile we saw was named Graham annd he was about 12 feet long.
After we walked out we saw a corner where people were taking pictures with snakes and Meribeth said we should do that. I said haha right. Then we watched a little more and I said okay I'll try. So we got in line. I was so nervous. the snake was about 10 feet long. It wrapped around me and meribeth. There are pictures in my yahoo. so that was a crazy experience I never saw myself doing!
After that we roamed around and saw more crocodiles, wombats, kangaroos, koalas, dingos, tasmanian devils, gigantice tortoises.
Before we left we stopped in and saw the memorial. It was pretty sad. There were tons of shirts that were written on everywhere and signs. It was cool to see. I took some video of it as well.
We saw a baby wombat walk around with her mom. That was soo cute. We have lots of pictures and video of the place.
So it was time to leave and we decided to get a ride back with our friends instead of taking the bus back.
So we stopped at the gas station and I decided to try one of the new cookie dough kit kats. It tasted absolutely nothing like cookie dough. But wow was it good! There was caramel in it and soemthing else and all the regular stuff inside a kit kat! It was amazing! haha. so I'm pretty excited to try the other candy bars that they have that we don't!
So that was pretty much our day at the zoo. The animals are cool and it was weird being in the place where they held the memorial for steve irwin. Looks a lot different in person.

So Saturday we had another game and we lost again. We're not doing so good. Finally we got everyone to come to training. Saturday night I went to work and then we went over to our friends Brewster and Louies house and drank with a bunch of friends. We had a great time but Meribeth had too great of a time because she passed out in the bathroom and they had to pick the lock to get her out and carry her to a bed. Haha it was hilarious! Don't worry mom it wasn't me! Sunday I worked and then Monday we had practice.
So we were planning a trip to Moreton bay but it didn't work out because we waited to long to book it. So we decided to go for a surfing lesson. The deal was you pay $70 and the guy picks you up and drives you to the beach then gives you lessons for 2.5 hours, feeds you lunch and then you get anouther 2.5 hours of surfing in. We couldn't wait!
So we walk to the location that he was going to pick us up at 8:30 this morning. He was right on time. So we pick up the other 3 girls and head out. There was one girl from South Australia called Adelaide and two were visiting from North West Australia at a place called Darwin. They were all nice.
So we take off for an hour drive north to a beach, god knows what the name of it was because all the names are crazy here. Anyhow, we get there and he gives us a lesson on the beach on how to get on the board and how to catch a wave and all that good important stuff! sounds great. So we jump in ready to ride the waves. We started with waves that already broke so the ones that are white. It was frustrating at first but then I started to stand up and it got more and more exciting. I crashed really hard a few times. One time I stopped rolled under the surf board and when I came back up the board smacked me in the head. Man did that hurt!
It was time to break for lunch. he supplied us with lunch we had sandwhiches and fruit and a these cheesie chips that were just like cheetos. We hung out for a little bit and headed back out to the water.
I couldn't wait to get back out there and try some more waves. I was planning on when I was going to buy a surfboard and trying to figure out when I can fit some more practice in. things were going great.
So he thought that it was time to try unbroken waves or green waves. That would require us to paddle out pass the waves so we can catch them before they break. Apparently, he thought we were ready for that and boy was he wrong!!!
I pass the first few waves and that was it. it was sooo hard. I kept getting knocked off this monstrous board that was about 9 feet long. when the waves got big we were supposed to hold on to our board and roll underneath it. Well the first time I did it, the board hit me smack in the face. so I thought wow is this stupid, then when you try and roll back on top of it you can't get back on. so I try to get out there for about 20 minutes, trying to paddle, roll, and just get through the waves. He finally comes over and helps me and I get out to where I need to be. At this point there is no way in hell, I'm going to try and surf a wave just to end up right where I started! So I sit there for a minute why anyone thinks this is fun, when a gigantic wave knocked me off my board! Then another one came and I just ended up getting drug back in. So i was exhausted and beat up so I tried a few small waves and then took a break on the beach.
I decided to go out a few more times, but the waves had traumatized me and I was exhausted from constantly getting hit and beat from the waves. Meanwhile while we're all out there trying to do this, our instructor decided he did his job and he went out and surfed. So the first time I sat on the beach this little girl about 4 said are you all finished? I said no I'm just taking a break. She talked to me for a few minutes and then walked away. I went back for a while and then came out for another rest. The little girl came back again and said are you having another sit down? I said yes surfing is hard. So she decided I was her new friend and we had a great ol' time pouring water on my head and buring our feet.
I told the little girl I had to go and she was pretty sad about that. She said okay I live at 16 woodburrow street you can visit me there. I told the little girl it was not a very good idea to tell people where you live.

It's been a while since I wrote. Not much has been happening that has been horribly exciting...
Last night I got called into work. Usually Tuesdays are pretty slow so we only had two waitresses a cook and a drink maker. Well apparently, there was a U2 concert that night as well and I think all 45,000 people going to the concert decided to eat in our little courtyard of restaraunts. We have about 40 tables in our place and every table was taken. And we only had 2 waitresses! Luckily the owner of the store came back in but she still only could just run the cash register. So between the 2 of us we handled all the tables. Holy crap, what an experience. Luckily people were nice and understanding. It's a good thing we don't work off tips here. If we were over there, we would have had some angry people. WE made more in two hours than we make all day long on any day. It was absolutely ridiculous. Merbieth's restaraunt does it al ittle different, they have a chef cook all the food for the day and then put in in the refridgerator and it just gets heated up. yuck! Well anyways, they comompletely ran out of food. haha. Oh man what a night...
Other than that we have pretty much been working a lot and hanging around Brisbane. I'm going to go to Southbank which is the man made beach in the middle of brisbane. It's my day off. Next week I think we'll go for a trip somewhere. That will be fun.
It poured down rain here on Saturday. Like I've never seen before. It's unbelievable, it's like a waterfall. you're soaked in about 20 seconds. so the rest of the games got cancelled. Then we had practice on Monday and it decided to rain just as we finished so we walked home in the pouring down rain. haha it was funny though, we laughed the whole way home.
We went to dreamworld last week. I got to hold a koala bear. He was so soft and gentle, just sat tehre and looked at the camera. It was really cute. There were koalas everywhere. I pet the kangaroos and all that too. It was fun. There amusement parks don't compare in the slightest to ours though. they had one good ride, teh rest sucked and they hurt. Their roller coasters and stuff here jerk the hell out of you. We were soar the next day from it.
we moved into our new house on Friday. It's nice. We still have our own rooms, we have full time internet, t.v. a dvd player. So it's nice. it's all fully furnished too. We live with a German guy and Korean guy but they pretty much don't ever come out of their rooms. I've seen one guy twice and the other guy comes out every once in a while and talks. so it kind of feels like it's our own house. The location is so much better, we can catch buses anytime, there's a beach nearby, just a better place, so we're very happy with that.
softball isn't going that well but it's okay. It's fun, but we go to practice and the team never shows up. We're not very good so we lose our games. teh people are great and we have a good time with them. Just a lot of drama and stuff too.
It's getting pretty hot here. It's pretty humid too. I've basically decided that no where in the world can compare with California weather.
There are bugs everywhere here too. Cockroaches crawl around like ants in some places. It's disgusting. We had to jump over like 6 yesterday walking down the street. some of them fly too!!! Man it's definitely making me face my fears, haha. We have to go downstairs under the house to use the wash. Oh it's disgusting, I feel like I'm just going to put my face into a spider web with a huge spider.
Outside our house we have a tree that attracts bats, so tehre are tons of bats flying around outside, I feel like I'm going to a haunted house that you see on t.v. They're ugly little suckers too and tehy really do hang upside down on the trees. The worst part is hearing them fly, you can actually hear their wings flap. Oh it's gross.
no cute animals around. haha.
well I guess that's it for now. I'll write more later when I can think so some more stuff. I'll keep you posted about our next big adventure too. We've recruited two more people to go skydiving with us too!
Time for the beach, Love you all!

So for my birthday we all went out, then Monday night I had practice, then Tuesday night our neighbors made us dinner. We hung out with our neighbors pretty much all night and they bought me card and some flowers for my birthday. so that was really nice. They're a little crazy but they're good people.
Saturday we had our first game, we lost 2-1. the team was not very good, so this should be interesting. We only have 8 players rostered and 2 can't be there this weekend, so I'm not sure how this is going to work out. But hey if it doesn't work out than it is just more time to travel. So we'll see. I'm not sure how it's going to go. We offered to help coach the A3 team which is older ladies that our still good and we're going to hit them grounders and coach the bases for them and stuff. This weekend I coach the A3 team at 12 have a game at 4 and then I rush to work by 6:15, so this should be interesting. I already screwed up my availability before I even started working. oh well!
Meribeth got a job. She is going to be working at a cafe called Spoons which is across the courtyard from my cafe. So that will be fun. There are a few bars in between our cafe's so we'll probably meet up for drinks when we work friday and saturday nights.
We tried going out last night but the buses never came, I guess there isn't much to do around here on Wednesday nights anyways. Part of me stops and thinks why did I leave my car, my friends, and tons of stuff to do every night to come over here. Haha but it's an experience and I'm having a good time.
Meribeth and I went hiking the other day. Oh it was awful. The bus ride took forever, and we went up to hike and apparently all the hikes worth doing were at a different location but we were too far to go to those ones. So we went anyways on one of the other hikes. It was pretty for about 2 minutes and then it was just boring. We turned around and walked back because it was all the same stuff. All we really saw was a wild turkey. Haha we laughed about it though. It was funny.
hmm what else? I held a baby wallaby at the softball fields. This lady takes in all types of animals that are hurt and can't take care of themselves. Well she found an orphaned wallaby (which is a kangaroo but smaller and with a smaller head), and she brought it to the field in a backpack, she said it's like a pouch to him so he didn't mind. She took it out and we all got to hold it. So that was fun.
this week we're going to go over to a house with little kids in it and we're going to carve pumpkins with them. So that should be fun. They've never done it before. Hope we can find pumpkins easily.
Well not much going on in the next couple of days as far as excitement. We have games saturday and sunday and I work all weekend. i'm pretty excited to start working, I think we'll meet some people too so that will be fun.
I am going to have like 3 hours were I have to wait for a friend to get off work tomorrow so I'll try and find internet somewhere over there.

Well I started a job today. i'm officially a waitress. Who needs experience? Haha. So I go in today for a "work trial." The owner tells some guy to show me around the place. He is Canadian and studying here. So he shows me where you get the food and the drinks and bring it to the tables. You don't have your own tables you just go get the food when the chef rings the bell. After about 10 minutes of being shown around the cafe and 2 minutes of reading over the menu, they give me a writing pad and an apron and send me on my way! I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Guess I faked it pretty well though because I got hired. I dropped a few forks and mis wrote a few orders, but no orders got screwed up and they just asked me what I meant. Things went pretty well I guess. So now I'm a waitress. Funny...
Anyways, so today we went down the coast to some beaches. THey are soooo beautiful over here. Water is crystal clear. We saw giant lizards by the beach. Got hit on by some old man that wanted to go to lunch with us. haha. We had some ice cream. I bought a really cute sweatshirt that says Australia and has the cities written on it. Brewster took us, she is great. Does so much for us.
More funny sayings mom...Stuffed up means made a mistake. They call a car trunk a boot. hmm I had a few more but I can never remember. I'll remember. Brewster the lady that helps us so much had a python in her yard last night. 5ft long. I said wow, so that's not just Australians trying to scare Americans. There have been a few giant bugs in the house. That is taking some time to get used to. Luckily Meribeth is brave enough to kill them.
Oh ya we went to a chocolate factory today, but it was actually just a little stop over here that you can buy things. I was a little disappointed...oh well. White Chocolate is pretty popular over here so that's exciting. We took a picture with a whole rugby team today. We made their day. haha, they were so excited to take a picture, more came running up behind them to be in the picture. So funny. We're having a great time here. once we got over the fact that we are going to have a real life here and there isn't always going to be something great and exciting, adn we have to get jobs, we are doing better. The softball people are just great and we love going to play. Can't wait for the game tomorrow!
Sunday Meribeth and I are going hiking. We found Brisbane forest park with lots of trails, so that will be fun. I'm going to wear my new Byron Bay hat! Can't wait. Should be some exciting trails. Then Monday is my birthday, so we'll probably go to dinner or something, not sure. Anyways, we're doing great. Julie is keeping me posted with all the sad depressing things going on...Thanks Julie! SO if anyone has some good things to write about feel free. Hope everyone gets better or stays healthy. I hope grandpa is doing well. Let him know how things are going and tell him I love him!! I'm goiong to jump in the shower because I smell like food. Internet has been acting up so I might not be on for a few days. I'm also coaching for their U16 team so that should be fun. Okay lov eyou all. Goodbye!
Tomorrow our game is at 10 am. I'm pitching, so this should be interesting.