So Deadly!

Later these mauled Danielle. So so cute!

Everything in australia is big and deadly

This flower is actually eating danielle's hand. Interesting Sidenote her nickname with our new flatmates is now stumpy!

Ugh

Everything in Australia is deadly.

oh Marsupials

not the best picture kracker has ever taken. Oh Kangaroos, cute cute marsupials.

and yet more pics

I don't really get this at all. it either says SEXTDEATH or SEX + DEATH which seems to be the more obvious case. If that is infact the case, Jeff do you happen to know the answer to that equation?

More Pics

Never in my life have I fit in better than I do in Australia. Nothing says Australian like a leather hat with crocodile teeth and a good ole' hammer and sickle

Some pictures from our first week!

This was Danielle's first piece of Vegemite toast. that bite taken our of it was the only bite she ended up taking out of it. I was told if you put butter on first then a thin layer of vegemite it tastes better. Seriously who would eat that?!?

yeah, michigan's ecomony just sucks

ok so the day we finally get a mobile (a cell phone for all you americans :-P) i get a text for an interview and when i finally get a chance to call one of the recruitment companies i get another interview. so i've been running around syndey finding these places. i guess my resume pretty much garuntees me a receptionist job, which is nice and makes me feel better about going to college. Im not sure which job to take though. One is for the rental company we are getting our apartment from. its like 40-45 hours a week, i'd have to work everyother saturday, but its $20 an hour and about 4 miles from where we live. It seems like a madhouse and the guy interviewing me was like, this is a pretty calm time of the year, you're lucky! now the other job seems a little more interesting. its not a stable and im gonna talk to kent and see what he thinks. Its right on the circular quay (very pretty) and its for two months vs the four. ok kent is here and we have to go take back something. TTYL

~D

New Flat mates

Danielle and I moved into our new flat yesterday and we met our new flatmates. We have 6 people in a little 4 bedroom apartment. Its expensive for what it is, but our flatmates are 2 englishmen, 1 german, and an Irishman. We made everyone dinner last night to help introduce ourselves, I made crappy steaks and danielle made awesome potatoes. I feel asleep around 830.Carmello Koalas are cadbury chocolate with carmel in the middle, they are AWESOME! I've got to go shower now so I've got to stop, will try to write more later.

-KMO

this really is hard

ok so i wasted 15 minutes trying to figure out how the hell to post. these japanese directions just arent cutting it for me. Today is our last morning in the hostel. in approx. 2 hours kent and i will be dragging all our crap about 4 miles through sydney to our new apartment. the place is great and the price is pretty good as well. we are sharing the place with a nice british couple and a german guy. we havent met the german guy yet, but he is a long standing renter with the company we are going through so he has to be pretty decent. the pool is amazing and the balcony is great, im excited to have a BBQ out there. the view sucks, i guess on the other side of the complex, the view is amazing, but we get to look at an airport and a scrap yard of some sort. oh well. i will trade in a good view for a nice place and reliable roommates. plus bondi is near by as well as manly.

We went out with a bunch of people last night. we met this girl named steph the first day, shes from scotland (jackie, she was impressed i knew she wasnt english, i was like, umm, my sister and i are a little obsessed with scotish people), she went out with us, then there was an aussie, a candian, a posh english guy, ealier in the evening there was an irish guy too. anywho, it was a blast and a little odd being with all these people from around the world. the aussie and the posh englishman argued about footie a lot. i think its footie...maybe thats soccer...whatever football is rugby, thats what they were arguing about. it was fun. we drank beer (yes i did and it wasnt all that bad either), laughed a lot and watched a crab race...i didnt get it either. i was like, so we are watching crabs race??? and they were like YEAH! ISNT IT GREAT!!?? ok my minutes are almost up, i gotta go, i will post more later!

~D

For those of you who didn't understand

Its the Funnell spider and it's vemon is only deadly to people, that's what my comment was didn't include the name sorry.

Ugh

We just got an apartment, and I just got turned down by a recruiter at the same time. YEAH Bills but no income. Danielle is currently doing what all women should do, Cooking! I really miss Gummy worms they have them here but they're to damn expensive to buy, it has only been 3 days and I already miss gummy worms. Hopefully we'll be able to piggy back off of someone else's wireless at the apartment complex. Someone had to of been stupid enough to pay for internet these days, if not then we have to split the bill with Matthias our fine german roommate.

Since i've been here i've meet and Irish man named toni, and English girl named Helen, and German named tobias (not the same german we're sharing an apartment with) A canadian named John, another Canadian named Owen, A Irish woman named somethign or other I actually don't know she was working at the place we got our apartment from, and 2 englishmen named david and paul respectively. Don't think i've actually met any australians, which is interesting.

Products I don't want to try include, the Ice cream called Gaytime Gala or something like that. Another Ice Cream bar called Magnum, I would on the other hand like to eat at Crocodile Senior Thai, I'm not sure if they serve Thai, Croc Or mexican.

I've been really tired you'd think i'd get over this jet lag, but it ain't happening. I should probably help danielle with cooking or something.

Finally!

Ok, well I finally get to post. Kent keeps hogging the 30 minute cards and won't let me use more. We are at the IEP office where we get free Internet so i can be on here for a while. Right now we are applying to jobs and looking for apartments. We might end up finding an apartment before a job, only because we need to find a place to stay asap. While the hostel is nice, im ready to get out of a bunk bed. Most jobs seems to be in the CBD and that pretty much accessible from anywhere. Hopefully we will get a place somewhere here as well. So far we've gotten to see the Opera House, the Royal Botanical Gardens and Sydney Wildlife World. Eventually we will post some pictures, but seeing as how this Internet sucks and it took 40 minutes to send out e-mails, i'm thinking pictures will have to wait.

The Gardens were awesome. I think we wondered around ther for a couple hours. It's so beautiful. There was a sign encouraging you to sit on the grass, explore, yada yada, and we did. It was clean and no one was throwing trash on the ground. Wonderful. Kent and I went off on this smaller path through the "rainforest" section, I'm not gonna lie, every time a something moved we both screamed like little girls and ran. ok and spiders are as big as your hand. i have a couple pictures, but it just doesnt show how FREAKING huge they are. AND THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! and while i seem to be complaining im not. it was a blast. I was giddy the entire time. As soon as we walked through the entrance, we saw this flock of Cockatoos (spelling ?), just chilling. Awesome. they are super loud though. Their screech is terrifying. The harbour is also awesome. the water is so clear, and its right in a city!

The Opera House is pretty cool, but the pictures we have all seen pretty much tell the story. The funniest thing we noticed is that alcohol is sold EVERYWHERE. those little vending guys that sell hot dogs....yeah they also have a good selection of beers. The souvenir shop at Wildlife world...yeah, basically a full bar. seriously, you could probably just pick a random store, and its pretty much guaranteed to sell alcohol.

another observation, cross walks are more of a suggestion. infact at one, you can cross diagonal. its insane.

ok thats all i can think of now. plus the internet is screwy and i dont want to loose what ive typed so far!

~D

Everything on this website is in Japanese for some reason

I really hope ti doesn't post in Japanese it's pretty crazy though.

So day 2;

I got to see Kangaroos and Wallabies and a lot of really gross disgusting snakes and spiders. Interesting side note, the deadliest spider in the world, it's vemon is only deadly to people.

we really haven't made it off of George st. But EVERYTHINg is on george St.

We've Walked so much I think my feet are going to fall off.

Everyone LOVES chocolate, there is like a chocolate shop on every corner, also most of the women are really really attractive. Problem when you're a sex/chocoholic.

We've seen the Opera house, the botanical gardens, and a bunch of wildlife (all caged) inluding the deadliest, Spider, snake and Bird. Life is apparently really rough here. In a little bit you'll have some pictures but right now I've got to go. hope everyone is having a good day.

Airports pretty much suck

SO we've done a lot of waiting so far, and while I should know better, it turns out that the internet is not free at airports. Metro wasn't so bad, it was just that we got there super early, which wouldn't have been so early had we been at the northwest terminal, but because we rode the ghetto plane, there was no line at security. So we sat for about two hours waiting for the plane, and once we boarded, the plane had to wait on the runway because there was a delay at the Chicago airport so we couldn't take off. We got to O'hare and ran to our gate, just making it, they had started to board the standby passengers. Nothing like cutting it close! LAX isn't bad, from what i saw in Chicago as I ran by, I liked it the best. We are just sitting here waiting for the flight to arrive to take us to Sydney. You'd think airports would invest in some couches or something...

WELL, all my complaining aside, its been great so far! The flights have been easy. The company is great (so far :-D ). My butt is a little sore. Looking forward to getting Sydney... Thanks everyone for the texts and e-mails!!!

~D

Can I Bring Home a Pet Dingo?

Well right now I'm at LAX trying to get the music from my Ipod to my laptop, I forgot to do that before I left and oddly enough it's driving me crazy that 12 tracks on my Ipod have the wrong title.
Here are my thoughts on the day;

Kracker, my dog, didn't say goodbye to me because I had a bone in my hand and she was more interested in that. Gizmo on the other hand, forgot to say goodbye to me, because I was holding a bone. Dogs! can't live with em, and I guess you could live without them but what the hell would be the point, lot less cuteness going around then.

Kelli wrote me a Really nice note, and while I didn't read it til I got on the plane it is where I came up for the title of this blog entry. Its what this new chapter in my life is called. Also Giz would love a pet dingo! Kracker might not?

Airline coffee is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me, from now on if someone says "Hey this was pretty bad" I can be like
" Ehhh I've had Airline coffee"
and they'd be like " WOW" So I now know I can live through ANYTHING because I've had coffee on an airliner.

On a more positive note than Crappy coffee and my dogs hating me. The airplane we got to ride on was really really nice. Danielle says they just get bigger from here on out, but by far the one from Chicago to LA was the largest. The one from detroit to Chicago was definately the SMALLEST plane i've been on. So I'm covering my bases here.

Regardless i guess it's time to let danielle write her entry.

LAX

Oddly enough this is a different picture. I still have facial hair so we're not in OZ yet. I aligned it differently because it looks EXACTLY the same. Reardless LAX is way nice than Metro, didn't get to see O'hare as we ran through it in exactly 11.5 seconds.

Last Stop in Michigan

This is Detroit Metro, also we're apparently in this picture!

Danielle thought this would be interesting

And I like to pretend that nothing is ever my Idea. So if you're bored by this blame danielle.

First off; I'm not really anything right now. I'm so fricking busy that I haven't had to time to worry. It still doesn't feel like I'm going. So that's my first off lets do my second off now.

Second off; If one more person in my family asks me if I'll make it longer than my Older sister made it in Texas I will hurt them(that's one week by the way.) I can do a week in Australia standing on my head. Its not forever, so I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it.

Thirdly; I'm really gonna miss a lot of people. It's weird, I'm going to go six months not seeing some people who I have seen almost everyday since I graduated. You all know who you are and are probably reading this.

Fourthly; Our going away party was a blast if you missed it you suck, I'm pretty sure I was naked the whole time.

Fifthly? I can't figure out why I'm not more excited, nervous, etc. Any emotion right now would be a positive thing, I'm more just tired and still don't believe i'm going.

Ok so five little thoughts. Hope you enjoyed.

Before we leave

So I thought it would be interesting to write how I felt before I left. What my expectations are, what I'm afraid of, what I'm excited about, and then compare them with what happens throughout the trip. So, here I go!

First thing (haha that's a joke, first thing that is slightly clearer than the rest of the jumbled thoughts I've been having for the last 6 months), is a fear that I won't get everything done that I need to. Like my room, it's disgusting. I cannot leave it like that, but with all the stuff that we are doing for the next four days, I'm worried that I won't even scratch the surface. I know, it should be the last thing I'm worried about, but the fact that I'm leaving for 6 months hasn't quite set in yet. I'm also worried that I won't get a job quick enough and that the research that I've been doing on apartments isn't accurate. Both things I know are concerns that will only get bigger the closer we get to the 23rd, but will soon go away once we are in Sydney.

Those are fears that are real and now, the most unrealistic thing to worry about ... EVERYTHING IS THE DEADLIEST IN AUSTRALIA!!! If a butterfly lands on me I will probably die a horrible death! These are fears that are a little more manageable than the realistic ones, but I do think it will handicap me when it comes to doing things like scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Water has never been my friend, but sticking me in water with sharks and box jellyfish...yeah, I'm trying to not have a panic attack now. Hopefully, when I get there I will see how absolutely beautiful its is an realize its a once in a lifetime chance and just do it :-)

I'm so excited to see things I can hardly control it. I was lucky enough to work with a couple people who had visited Australia, and they brought in their photo albums and gave me advice about places to go. Every time I looked at those pictures it just reminded me how lucky I am. There will never be a time in my life better for an adventure like this. I get to go with Kent for six months on a journey where everything is uncertain, and while I have some fears, I know I will create fantastic memories. I have such great family and friends supporting me that my worries seem so small.

~D

I LOVE DINGOS

we're still not there I'm just playing.

First post

less than two weeks til this is up and running