Sydney

I don’t remember much about the flight. Don’t get me wrong, morning departures have great advantages, but you can’t expect me to actually be awake for them. I zombie-walked out of bed and through the airport on our way to Australia, stopping by Starbucks on the way. Usually I dismiss those who consider their morning Starbucks about even with oxygen on their list of needs as lazy and wasteful -why spend all that money when you can just make a mocha yourself?- but at 5 am there really is nothing better than not knowing the amount of sugar in your drink.

A sugar rush, security line, sugar crash, and 9-hour-flight-with-no-food-or-water later, we finally touched down in Australia. As soon as we’d gotten our rental car, we careened into the neighborhood our AirBnB was in, in desperate need of food. When we found a family owned small Italian restaurant, we almost passed out from pure joy. We were shouting our orders in the general direction of the waiters before we’d even fully entered the restaurant. The waitresses sprinted out of the room so fast they were nearly blurs. Even though we hadn’t been waiting as long as some of the other guests there, we were the first to be served. The food was gone so fast my parents didn’t even notice it had been there until they looked down at the empty plate. Thankfully we had more coming.

In less than an hour, we went from starving to ready to burst. We drove slowly through the neighborhood, utterly content with all the world. We found our apartment in Sydney quickly and easily, and were pleasantly surprised to find a fully stocked and sparkling clean space. It turned out the couple who had rented it out to us actually lived there along with their baby daughter, so it had all the acutraments of an actual house (pans that weren’t scratched beyond recognition, enough utensils for everyone, an actual oven, even a dishwasher!). We didn’t take much time to explore though, having been reminded of our exhaustion by the comfy beds in each room. I was asleep before my head even came into the vicinity of the pillow.

The first day in Sydney was spectacularly uneventful. Being early risers, we awoke at a reasonable hour – 1pm or so in the afternoon – we had jet lag! We accomplished absolutely nothing except a short trip to the grocery store. By the time we went to bed the next day, the cupboards, counters and table were all overflowing with our dinners for a mere five days. My dad always complains about how small the refrigerators are at the places we stay. Apparently most families don’t eat so much that they need two fridges and an extra freezer in their homes. Who knew?

Our week in Sydney passed in a blur of beaches (we never actually went in the water, for fear of sharks), good food (nothing like being offered raw octopus at night markets in Asia to make you appreciate eggplant), and a whole lot of sleep (I think it was, like, a 1 to 2 ratio. Two thirds of the day sleeping, one third waking up, and then back to sleep.). We counted down the days until New Year’s finally arrived. On New Year’s Eve, we were forced to get up at a shocking 8 am, which meant we got out of the house by 11 and arrived at the Sydney opera house, where we wanted to watch the fireworks from, at noon. That meant we had a total of 12 hours to wait until the actual fireworks. An entire day. There’s no way the Opera House area is already full, right? Apparently not. It was packed to the brim. So were the botanical gardens and all our other fall back spots. The only place that was open was a park across the river from the opera house. It still had a great view and hopefully some room. There was a huge line to get in, and Z and I spent about ten minutes in it before we were bored and our parents were besties with the people in front of us. My sister and I spent the whole 2 hours it took us to get in playing cards, tag, and taking bursts of each other doing handstands so we could freeze the picture when we were totally vertical and pretend we didn’t collapse into a heap immediately after. Quality time.

When we finally emerged into the packed park, we almost cried. Hours in line, and for what? There was hardly an inch to spare in between the patchwork quilt of hundreds of bright blankets, completely obscuring the grass beneath. We dutifully accepted the trash bags that the guards at the end of the line handed us to clean up our rubbish into, and started our search for a decent spot. Our parents seemed totally unfazed by the crowd, continuing on past the spots farthest from the fireworks to the “prime seating” area, where the kids of the friends they made in line waited with an already prepared blanket and a tiny bit of space. Thank God we have extreme extroverts for parents! Where would we have found our excuse to lay our blanket practically on top of the blanket of complete strangers otherwise?

We soon came to appreciate our mom and dad even more. Not only had they made friends, but those friends were SUPER friendly, knew lots of new card games, and never, ever ran out of excuses to keep us kids from doing homework for the entire 10 hours we had to go till midnight and the new year. My kind of people. At about 5 pm, it started to drizzle, but nobody noticed much. If anything we were grateful for something to lessen the intensity of the Australian sun. It let up after about half an hour, and everybody forgot about it. It rains like, once a year in Sydney, right? There was no way we were going to be unlucky enough to be caught outside with no rain clothes and nowhere to go on that day. Right? Apparently not. At 7pm, just as we were getting our the sweatshirts to ward off the increasingly chilly temperatures, it started to pour. We pulled our trash bags over our heads and sat like that, cradling our phones until the towels beaneath us got soaked, which soaked our pants, which soaked our shirts, which were already soaked from the hole we’d poked in the front of the bag so we wouldn’t suffocate. Everyone went through the “I don’t care, I’m one with the rain, I’m just gonna get wet” stage, which quickly devolved into the “wow I don’t have any dry clothes, it’s cold, and it’s still raining” stage, which paved the way for the “why did I come here in the first place, I’m miserable stage”, which we were stuck in two hours later when the rain finally let up in time for the family firworks at 9 pm for those reasonable parents who wanted to get their kids to bed before 2 am. We fell into that category, so after the short show we headed home for a good nights sleep!

JK. We stuck it out in the mud, wet, and cold for another 3 hours, discussing books (Our parents’ friends’ youngest kid was as nerdy as I am!) and doing the hokey pokey with our German friends in pure desperation to move around in order to warm up. By the time 11 pm rolled around, I was more than ready to go home. But unfortunately I was forced to stay in one spot for yet another hour, awaiting the light show. Eventually, the cold started to lose its edge -whether it was overwhelmed by body heat or we simply became too numb to feel it is yet to be determined- and we began to crowd even closer to the front of the park in order to get a better look at the bridge. 11:30, 11:45, 11:50, the time crawled by as more people joined the crowd jostling for a view. Finally, New Year’s arrived, the people around us screaming out the countdown a few milliseconds before lights on the bridge actually exploded into the shape of the numbers.

FIVE!! FOUR!! THREE!! TWO!! ONE!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [pause] [bridge fireworks catch up, and “HAPPY NEW YEAR” explodes into the air]

Zeus would have been humbled by the sound that followed. The mixture of the bright carriages of beautiful gunpowder exploding above us, combined with the frenzied shouts of not-quite-sober twenty years olds made a sound like no other. Shouts of “Happy New Year” in hundreads of languages rocked the city, from those gathered around us at the park, those crowded together in the botanical gardens, those squeezed into the ground of the Sydney Opera House, those rocking their boats side to side jumping up and down on boats in the river below the bridge, and those watching from houses and apartments all across the sparkiling city. The very sky decided to put on a show for us, making up for the downpour it had put everyone through before. Every color imaginable danced to the tune of a fresh start with the brilliance of a thousand stars. Rainbows flickered and died in against the backdrop of a clear night sky, only to turn into showers of gold to cascade through the air, reaching for the river that reflected the heavenly display far above. As we squelched home in our soaked shoes twirling muddy towels in the air above us to the melody of teens singing HI! HO! I WANNA KNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW WILL YOU BE MY GIRL?!!!!! (Don’t ask me I’d never heard the song before either) I had to admit the wait had been worth it. At least freezing to death then screaming your voice out certainly makes for a good night’s sleep.

The day after New Year’s Day, we were roused at 9 am to “get an early start on the day”.  A whole lot of grumbling and a half an hour car ride later, we discovered the unspecific “early start to the day” was actually a full-day pass to the Featherdale Wildlife preserve. Zosia and I were so excited we forgot we were tired. A full week in Australia, and we hadn’t even seen a kangaroo! It was about time we got oriented with the culture.

We walked/ran into the reserve, searching for koalas. We didn’t find them right away, but we did discover an abandoned cup of kangaroo food and an enclosed area where you could literally walk into a kangaroo pen. The gentle creatures hopped right up and took the food directly out of our hands. They allowed us to pet them, and a few were even tolerant enough to pose for a selfie. There were so many of them all around, napping in the sun, chasing each other across the enclosure. There were even a few mothers with little joeys in their pouches. The first time we saw a joey in a pouch, we were slightly disturbed, thinking the kangaroo was horribly deformed and had an extra pair of legs sticking out from its stomach. When the joey flopped out we were surprised and a bit relieved. The kangaroo care taker explained to us that many joeys’ favorite position is upside down in their mother’s pouch. Personally I prefer to be upright, but then again I’m not a kangaroo so my opinion on the matter isn’t relevant.

The next stop was the crocodile. There was one massive one, sunning itself on a rock halfway out of the water. It’s cat-like eyes slowly took in the crowd around the exhibit, as it blinked first with its clear inner eyelid and then with its scaly outer eyelid. Creepy. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately), we’d just missed the feeding, which meant the croc was back to silently stalking the people gathered around without moving much. Boring and possibly hazardous. We headed to the dingo pen.

Dingos (dog-like, tan colored animals that enjoyed having their belly scratched and eating raw meat, usually not at the same time), Tasmanian devils (apparently they’re not malicious at all, and actually resemble an adorable badger-ish thing), Emus, parrots, owls, penguins (tiny ones – so cute), fruit bats (they’re huge!),  lorikeets, koalas (which we got to pet!), and many more. The reserve never seemed to end. It was so amazing to be among wildlife only found across the world, and I found myself envying Australians to whom this was as normal as the zoo. We’d had such an amazing time throughout all of Sydney, and I already had high hopes for Melbourne where we would get to meet up with my uncle and cousin for the Australian open. Australia was definitely making its way to the top of my favorite places so far. And I had a feeling it wasn’t done yet.

Melbourne

After leaving our first Australian AirBnB, we embarked on the 10 hour drive in our rental car that the tourist office promised us if we were to drive all the way from Sydney to Melbourne. That did little to dissuade my parents, who set off at the early hour of noon with vigor and lots of coffee. Perhaps vigor because of lots of coffee. Whichever it was, they didn’t slow down to stop until about halfway through the long drive, at which time I was enjoying a splendid ballet/hip-hop fusion dance by my sister called “have to pee”. Zosia torpedoed out of the car and into the gas station’s convenience store before we even stopped moving. I emerged at a slightly more relaxed rate, only to collapse back into the car. It was so hot I could barely breath. Going south in Australia is apparently the same as going south in the US after all – it gets a heck of a lot hotter. When we asked Siri what the temperature was, she replied with a cool 108 degrees (Fahrenheit). Once the car had been refilled, we all clambered back into the car, wondering how it was going to be possible to spend two whole weeks in heat this extreme. Thank God for airconditioning.

By the time we finally reached our new AirBnB in Melbourne, all of us were in need of a brush and a horizontal bed. It definitely wasn’t our best look. Despite that, Uncle Paul (my mom’s older brother) refrained from commenting on our state when he made his last night visit and instead gave us offerings of vegan butter and some really good bread. We were starved and took the food gratefully. When we were satisfied enough to be social, my mom began catching up with Paul. We had only been talking for about five minutes when he mentioned the sacred words: I brought some presents! Zosia and I got sweatshirts, all of us (except my dad) got beautiful necklaces, and my dad got an epic Capitals sweater hat with a pom-pom on top. Perfect. The new balance sweatshirts were warm (the temperature had dropped from scalding to frigid in a matter of minutes once the sun had gone down) and comfortable and amazing in every way. When Paul left for the night, we didn’t bother taking them off, but rather slept in them after a hot shower.

We slept in late the following days, exploring the city with Uncle Paul in the afternoons via rental city bikes. We met up with Nicole for breakfast once, but she was often busy getting ready to play the qualifiers of the Australian Open. It wasn’t exactly a small task. While she trained and practiced, we waited for the gates of the AO complex to open for the first day of the qualifiers. Three days into our stay in Melbourne, it finally did.

We went to the qualifiers for the first day but didn’t stay long because Nicole wasn’t playing that day. We mostly walked around and got autographs, because why not, right? It wasn’t until the second day that we began to go for real. Nicole’s first match was amazing, and she creamed the other girl in straight sets. One down, two to go until she made it in to the main draw! She appeared to take the second match with ease as well, not even dropping a single set. The balls whizzed over the net with such speed I found myself ducking every time one headed my direction. My 14-and-under tournaments seemed truly pathetic compared to this level of play. It was really amazing not just to watch the technique used by the players, but also how well they took the stress of the pro tour. I saw a men’s match where one of the players didn’t utter a single sound the entire match, despite the fact that he was loosing badly. That takes serious sportsmanship and control. Then again, there were those matches where neither player was exactly quiet. When we were watching Cristina Mchale there was a Spanish player behind us who kept going AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH!! You’re not allowed to use bad language unless you want a point penalty, so there weren’t words to his rant – just yelling.  It was actually pretty funny. Probably not for him though.

Before Nicole’s third match, the time we rented our AirBnB for ran out, and we packed up to move into the home exchange my parents had set up. We were so, so excited to get an ENTIRE HOUSE to ourselves for two amazing weeks! When we walked in, we could hardly believe our eyes. It was one level but even bigger than our house in Virginia, with exquisite flowers lining the spacious driveway and perfectly trimmed bushes marching up the path to the door. It had two TVs, three bedrooms (so Z and I got our own), a massive, new, and fully stocked kitchen, and a huge and grassy backyard, complete with cricket wickets. The couple who owned the house were so, so nice, and they gave us a tour of all of the cupboards, offering everything they had to us. As soon as we unpacked, we dragged Uncle Paul out of the city and made him play badminton, throw a football, and compete against us in a game of cricket. Turns out the father of a pro tennis player has some wicked badminton moves. It figures.

Nicole’s third and final match was another epic battle, but she unfortunately ended up losing to a Swiss player with a wicked one-handed backhand. At the end of the day though, she found out that she was in the number one spot for the lucky loser draw – if anyone in the entire tournament dropped out for any reason, she’d be in the main draw! Almost every tennis tournament ever, from the ones I play all the way up to the grand slams has at least one person drop out. The chances that she wouldn’t get in were very low. Somehow though, out of all 128 women’s players in the draw, not one of them was injured. We were devastated to have to say goodbye to Nicole and Paul so soon, but they inevitably packed and left, amidst sad farewells.

Despite the fact that Nicole and Uncle Paul had left, we decided to keep attending the AO through the first week of the main draw, at the end of which some friends of my mom’s had promised to visit us. We got great seats to watch Andy Murray’s final match, which was an amazing 5 set

battle. Murray was down two sets already at the beginning, and it looked like he was going to go down in straight sets, but he fought it back to an even four-all. The stands were totally packed, right up to the nosebleeds, and I think out of all those people there were about three fans actually pulling against Murray. The crowd was insane. Aussie fans are the best. It was like, “Murray holds serve!”… AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!! “Murray takes a coaching break!”…AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!!!” “AUSSIE FANS IN THE STANDS IF YOU HEAR ME CLAP YOUR HANDS…AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSIE – OI OI OI!!” The match lasted a shocking four hours, which kept us in Melbourne arena until midnight. The number of people never went down the entire time. Talk about loyal. That was the first time we realized how truly lame DC fans are…sorry DC.

Even the crazy Aussies couldn’t compete with the Greeks though. We watched Marcos Bagdadas (Greek) play Darien King in the qualifiers, and we could hear them shouting from across the park. “MARCOS BAGDADAS, (SOMETHING IN GREEK THAT RHYMES WITH THAT)” “(GREEK NATIONAL ANTHEM)” “(SOME OTHER SONG IN GREEK)”!!!! They were so loud the ref was nearly in tears by the end of the match, which Darien King somehow won. I don’t think the shouting actually helped Bagdadas in the end, who seemed to feel so bad for King he was almost crying along with the ref. We though that he specifically was just really famous but discovered later in the week that they were at every Greek person’s match we went to. It was hilarious to see the different ref’s expressions when they walked on the court. Hope as they were combing out, then resigned despair when they saw the solid block of blue and white in the stands. It must have been such a pain to have to keep the players calm with a crowd like that, but we found it a great source of entertainment.

Tennis wasn’t the only sporting event we attended, although we did spend most of our time at the AO. It was nearly impossible to avoid the lure of the massive cricket field, the MCG, right next to the AO facility, even for us Americans. As the players were getting ready for The Big Bash, my dad explained the rules. There was a short expanse of dirt that was about three meters long and a meter wide, which had wickets at either end. The wickets were basically vertical sticks a foot wide and three feet tall that fell down when a ball hit it. There was a pitcher on one end of the huge circular field that the expanse of dirt was in the middle of, and the batter stood at the end of the dirt opposite the pitcher (who’s called a bowler) and in front of the wicket on that side. The bowler throws the ball at the wicket, which the batter is not allowed to guard by standing in front of. The batter hits the ball as hard as he can, and runs across the expanse of dirt, past the wicket on the other side. There is another batter standing at the wicket opposite the batter who’s actually batting, and that batter runs too. Every time they pass the wicket across from them, that’s a point. They keep running back and forth until they think the catchers in the fields are close enough to either hit them with the ball, or hit the wicket across from them that they’re running to before they reach it. Both of these actions get the batter out. If the ball the batter hits goes past the line at the edge of the field without bouncing, that’s an automatic six points. If the ball bounces and goes past the line or hits the line that’s an automatic four points. Other than getting tagged or a catcher hitting the wicket before you pass it, there are three more ways the batter can get out. First, if one of the catchers catches it before it bounces, like in baseball. This is very difficult, because catchers don’t get gloves like outfielders do in baseball. The second is if the bowler hits the wicket with his pitch. The third is if the ref says the batter is standing in front of the wicket, so the pitcher has no chance of getting it. The game would continue until all the players on one team had batted and then gotten out, at which point they would switch roles and the other team would bat. That meant it could take a really long time, especially with good batters. The game we were watching was limited overs though, which meant they would only go 20 overs until they switched (an over is six pitches), unless the team got all their batters out before that’s time (which was highly, highly unlikely) in which case they would switch then. Simple, right?

It was hilarious to watch the bowler “bowl”, because the ones called speed bowlers backed up really really really far, then ran, like, a mile to the line they had to bowl from. Their actually bowl was the funniest part. They jumped really high, then did a sort of spasm in the air like they’d been electrocuted in the middle of doing a backflip, then did a sort of awkward windmilling motion with their hands so they didn’t fall when they landed. Zosia and I tried to duplicate the motion after, but couldn’t even get close. Perhaps even funnier than the bowlers though was the cheers that blasted through the overhead speakers when the Melbourne Stars, the home team, scored a run or got a batter on the Sydney Scorchers out. The actual cheers weren’t that far from your average baseball game chants, but the accent with which they said them had us all in stitches. It was like “LETS GO STAAS, LETS GO!!!!” STAAS being stars, of course. On the way to our seats my dad asked a person in the crowd if it was the Melbourne Stars playing the Sydney Scorchers to make sure he was in the right stadium. The person looked at him like he was totally stupid. “No, it’s the Melbune staas playin the Sydney scochas.”  He turned away like “duh. Americans.” We were all crying laughing. It wasn’t the lack of rs that really got us, it was their o. There’s no way I can explain it in text – you have to hear it to know what I’m talking about.

We enjoyed very tasty, very low quality hamburgers and hotdogs (or, as my grandfather calls them, pig lips and butt holes) as we watched the jets of fire around the fields edge, and fireworks that went off every time the Stars got a four or a six. The Sydney Scorchers won in the end, but none the less there was a short firework show in honor of the Stars at the end of the game. It was surprisingly fun, not at all like the endless British sport I had heard about.

After a few more days at the AO, (one of which we spent almost an hour waiting for Roger Federer to come out and practice, which ended in disappointment when he never showed up and chose to practice inside instead) we were packing our bags and preparing to move out of our incredible, amazing, totally awesome, super big, really cool house, and into another home exchange on the Gold Coast. We hoped for the best but didn’t know for sure whether or not it would be as great as this one. Melbourne was my favorite place so far, even beating Sydney. I loved the bright and unique buildings, the street art, and the wide, clean streets lined with performers on every block. It was a bit like New York, except cleaner. The Gold Coast promised crocodiles and sharks galore, but despite those enticing prospects, this was a place I really didn’t want to leave.

Gold Coast

We stayed in the Gold Coast for a total of one week -a fairly long time, compared to most of our stays outside of Australia-, but in that week we did surprisingly little. The main reason for that was the quality of our accommodation. It was SO amazing, we just couldn’t seem to leave. We got picked up from the airport by our homexchange host, and given a short tour of the surrounding area before being driven to our new temporary home. The first thing we noticed was the car in the driveway – a sparkling clean white BMW. We took one look at it and asked my mom whether or not we could rent a crappy car instead. We were so stressed about ruining it, we took our shoes off every time we went in it for the next week, and shouted precautions at my dad whenever he turned a corner at a normal speed. Yeah – we’re not used to expensive cars.

The actual house was even more surprising than the car though. It was huge with two levels, including an upstairs dedicated entirely to Zosia and my two separate bedrooms, plus two others, making it a five bedroom villa. The kitchen was spacious and massive, and held everything we could possibly want cutlinary-wise. My parents’ room was also enourmous, with an en suite bathroom, including a jacuzzi. The living room had a big TV (promising many nights wasted away in front of the Australian Open finals matches) and comfy couches. In the backyard was a pool with heating equipment designed for the cooler nights. Perhaps the best part, though, was the enormous canal that the backyard ended in. The calm, deep blue river separated neighbors that would have otherwise backed up against each other, winding through the idilic community. Our hosts had several kayaks (which we made good use of) and a nice motor boat (although it wasn’t in working order during our visit). We probably would have swam in the canal as well, except for the bull sharks that our hosts warned us lurked under the surface. They said there was a gate of sorts at the mouth of the canal to deter them from entering, and they normally stayed away from people, but still – if you fell out of the kayak, you wanted to get back in ASAP. We didn’t take any chances.

We enjoyed the luxury of the villa through long hours in the pool looking over the canal, kayaking down the canal, and walking through the lively town that was about 15 minutes away by car. We were very close to some of the best surfing beaches in the world, but we kept to the scenic paths along them rather than entering the waters. None of us were surfers, although Zosia and I wanted to try, and the great whites that found their home in the same waters were an excellent deterrent from cooling off in the waves. So far, we’d spent two full weeks (including the week in Sydney) right next to beautiful oceans, and yet hadn’t entered the water once. Blame Australian animals. We did find ourselves playing another sport, though, when we uncovered the location of a nearby mini-golf complex. We battled through three rounds of it, all of which ended in tears, shouting matches, or both. We’re not competitive at all!

On the second to last day, we decided to visit one of the most popular attractions of our spot in the Gold Coast – a wildlife preserve, like the one we visited in Sydney. It was much like the first one, except a bit more interactive – less focused on preservation, and a bit more focused on tourism. In this park, you got to hold the koalas, but we decided against lining up to do it, since we already had photos touching some in Sydney. It couldn’t have been good for the little bears. They looked pretty chill though, and I doubt it was that bad for them. The downfalls of having a conscience! We didn’t have a problem holding baby alegators though (at least after we made sure it’s muzzle was secure), or watching crocodiles perform amazing feats in exchange for food. The crocs lifted themselves straight out of the water by the force of their tails to snap at raw chicken just out of their range. The ranger told us some facts about the beasts, as he waved treats in front of them from a precarious vantage point right on the bank of their pond. As great as it sounds to work at an Aussie zoo with kangaroos and koalas, this was a part I would not want to be assigned. As he tempted the terrifying animals, he told us that their scales were arranged in such a way that when the croc swam, it left no ripples on the surface. It could also seal off its throat and nose, so that it had no trouble staying under water for long periods of time. This meant it could sneak up on its prey with absolutely no sign it was there. We saw this in action, as the 3-meter croc christened “Boss Hog” slipped beneath the surface without a trace, and then popped up at the other side of the pool. The only sign of his movement was a very slightly lighter green color that slid smoothly across the small lake. If you hadn’t seen Boss Hog disappear and therefore know approximately where he was, it would be impossible to find him. Scary.

In that same park (although not in the same area as the croc) there were also a pair of Emus who ran wild with the kangaroos, alongside over a hundred different types of exotic birds. We watched a few “shows” on the different animals, including one about birds where I learned the bird closest to a dinasaur DNA-wise was actually the chicken. My favorite part though, was the lorikeet feeding at the end of the day just before the park closed. We all gathered around the trees where the lorikeets traveled, and were supplied with circular metal dishes that curved up on the side to hold the liquid lorikeet food that was poured into them. The ranger instructed us to hold them over our heads, – the higher the better – which resulted in a few lorikeet-food showers among the audience. It was worth it though, when the bright birds descended in flocks upon the milky substance, landing on our hands, shoulders, and heads to get a better angle at it. Zosia had the grand total of nine birds at once. They were adorable, with rainbow feathers and dark, intelligent eyes. We all came away marked with lorikeet scratches, but being right up close with the very image of Australian wildlife was worth it by far.

Only too soon, we were collecting our belongings from around the house and preparing to Uber to the airport. We left the BMW and massive villa behind before we were really ready to leave it, sad to say goodbye to such a great house. Although we hadn’t really done too much except enjoy the relaxed feel of the beach town, we marked it as one of the best places we’d been so far.

Cairns

We arrived in Cairns via domestic flight, which was relitively average as far as flights go. We went through the familiar process of renting a car (which was suitably low-quaility and stress-free), discussing the tourist attractions with the man who drove us to the rental company’s complex. Within the first half-hour of being in Cairns, in which we talked to all of three people, I think we were corrected on our pronunciation of the city about thirty times. According to the native Australians it was supposed to be kens, not cairns, and they were very adamant we say it right. Zosia, my mom, and I all got it relitively easily but my dad just couldn’t say it. When we get back, I challenge all who read this to ask him what the name of the last place we visited in Australia is, or where we went SCUBA diving in Australia. I guarantee he will not say it right.

After a quick dinner at a local Indian restaurant we drove to the area our new home exchange was in. We located it without much effort, and although it wasn’t as luxurious as our last one, we found it comfortable and spacious. It had a large and well-equipped kitchen, twin beds for Z and me upstairs, and access to Netflix (it was a rare priveledge to be able to have so many movie options, and of such quality!). The Netflix proved to be essential, as it rained the entire time we were there. The locals who saw us sprinting from awning to awning in order to get to the grocery store laughed at us. Apparently it was more than common for tourists to think the Great Barrier Reef would be great to visit in the Australian summer, while forgetting that summer was their monsoon season. We managed around the showers though, running across the street to the conveniently located tennis courts for some excercise whenever the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. We found some exellent hitting partners in the seniors who frequented the courtsvand spent two Saturdays playing doubles with the men’s group. We walked on cocky, and came off cowering. Don’t be fooled by appearances – those slices are truly wicked, and the sweet-looking players are downright merciless. We were effectively humbled and promised to come back to Australia soon to face off again when the two week had past.

Unfortunately, the dry moments during those two weeks were few and far between, which resulted in several very wet beach walks and a drizzly rainforest visit between he hours inside. There was a playground near our house that Zosia and I might have been tempted to play on, had it not been halfway submerged by muddy water. We turned to other sources of entertainment that took place indoors, one of which happened to be a nearby bowling alley. After another display of HG competitiveness, we decided one visit was enough with my dad beating us all mercilessly- but it was fun anyway.

Despite being located right on the water, and enjoying more than a few ocean-side walks, we never touched the actual ocean until we went SCUBA diving toward the end of our stay. We arrived in the stinger season when fatal jellyfish floated in the waves, and on top of that we were more than aware of the “beware of crocodiles” signs. We’d entered croc territory, and after seeing what they could do at the park in the Gold Coast we weren’t desperate to test the accuracy of the signs. There were underwater nets of sorts, anchored to the beach, that were supposed to make a stinger/croc free area to swim in, but none of us trusted the flimsy netting. As far out as the Great Barrier Reef there were no crocodiles and stingers could be avoided with stinger suits the boats provided. We were all excited to finally enter the waters of the infamous Barrier Reef when the date set for SCUBA diving finally arrived.

We were supposed to board our boat on Monday, but because of the weather we ended up going on Thursday. The sun had decided to make an appearance for the first time in what seemed like forever, and the effect was truly dazzling. The wet sidewalks glittered like they were embedded with precious gems. When we arrived at the dock, the ocean was so breathtaking in the early morning light, we all had to take a moment to enjoy the unearthly view. We were forced into the dimly-lit interior of a massive building in order to check in with our company that was opposed to take us out to sea. The line was short, and we soon emerged back into the sunshine as we made our way to the boat with our company written on the side – Down Under. We entered into the large, sparkling clean cruise ship and secured snorkels, suits, flippers, and BCD vests in the right sizes. As our guide for the day named Shakira went over some basic safety rules to make sure we understood them, a few workers came around with anti-nausea pills. We would have turned them down, but Shakira warned us adamantly that we wanted to take them. We were soon very glad we did, as the boat shot across what felt like 5 meter swells at the speed we were going, bouncing up and down with great splashes. We wanted to take a walk on the deck, but when we opened the door there were so many people bent over barf bags we turned around and headed back into the safety of the cabin. When we arrived at the reef, my parents immediately geared up and jumped into the waves. We stayed on board for a bit longer, having decided not to do the first dive and took our time putting on wetsuits and stinger suits. Mostly we wanted to be rid of the sickly environment – pale green had taken over the glow of the Aussie tan as the prominent skin color on board – but were shocked at what we found when we stepped into the water. Even just snorkeling, gorgeous fish came up to our fingertips to poke at us inquisitively. There were so many beautiful bright colors, especially here at the surface where the sunlight could enhance the shades of coral. We were excited for the dive with Shakira, and boarded early so we could gear up faster. We swam down to 12 meters – Zosia’s limit, due to her age – and investigated the waters of the fabled Great Barrier Reef. It wasn’t quite as incredible as the Red Sea was, but that wasn’t surprising with the recent decline in sea life due to climate change. It was still unquestionably beautiful, though. The deep green-blue of the ocean tinted everything turquoise, making the underwater world seem like an alien planet. Long tendrils of bright anemone waved gracefully in the current, like impossibly flexible dancers putting on a performance. The sea itself seemed to be doing just that – every stunning coral putting on a show for us. The parrot fish did acrobatics, flying through the ocean so fast the water seemed thinner than air. Even the grouchy pufferfish peeked out to give us a look at his boxy, un-inflated shape. We were sad to surface, although we’d started to shiver a bit at the 40-minute point and probably shouldn’t have stayed down any longer. Unfortunately, instead of heading out on a third dive, we were informed that we weren’t allowed to go under again. The ship’s limit for the distance divers were allowed to go down was 18 meters, although all of us except Zosia were allowed to go down that far or more than that. The rudimentary computers we had only recorded how far we’d gone down, not how long we’d stayed at that depth, so the nitrogen buildup was accounted for as if we’d been at our deepest depth the whole time, and 18 meters and below were over the no-stop limit, which the company didn’t want to cross. My mom had dropped to 18 for less than a second, but because of that she was banned from diving anymore. Shakira had made sure we never dropped below 12, so we were technically allowed to renter, but we decided against it, and snorkeled again instead.

After our second snorkel, we boarded again and dried off onboard. We didn’t need sea sickness pills on the way back, which was much calmer. We dragged ourselves through a shower once we got back to the house, barely having enough time to brush our teeth before we collapsed into bed.

The second SCUBA day was much like the first, as we checked in and made our way to another boat, Reef Magic. The ride out wasn’t as rough, although we still bought more pills as a precaution, and we got to the Reef in good time. Despite the slightly calmer ride though, the waves were much bigger than the day before, and the current was merciless. When we lowered into the water (now under the guidance of an Italian man), we found the visibility was extremely poor because of the churned-up bottom. We could barely see five meters in front of us. When we finally managed to circle back to the boat, exhausted from our battle with the current, we saw the name of the conditions we were facing written on a whiteboard by the front desk. “Washing machine”. Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.

The highlight of the day was when we saw a baby reef shark, tucked under a huge reef of coral. That was apparently really rare, because usually the currents weren’t strong enough to circulate the oxygen well for their weak gills in this part of the ocean. We were glad we went down but also happy to get into some dry clothes and come back on shore once the journey back was over.

A few days after the consecutive SCUBA dives, we were walking – or rather tripping our way into the glass doors of the Cairns airport, once again under the staggering weight of our bags. We boarded the flight to New Zealand with plenty of time to spare. When we lifted from the ground, though, I had to look away from the window to stop the surge of sadness that rose up at the though of leaving Australia for good. It had definitely been a highlight of the trip.