Things To Do Before Leaving Australia

One month left and SO many things left to do!

1. Rent a puppy

2. Ride a jetski

3. See a sunrise on the beach

4. Go to the lookout at Q1

5. Try vegemite

6. Roomie date <3

7. Go to Wet n' Wild

8. See a waterfall

9. Visit the Currumbin Rock Pools

10. Drive down Great Ocean Road

11. See Paranormal Activity 3

Room Wars

     We're at the point in the semester where courses are winding down and people have a bit too much time on their hands, or at least the point where they should be spending their time studying but are avoiding it at all costs.  This has led to some creativity in terms of amusement, to say the least.  The other night while all of 9101 was out, someone snuck into our apartment (and by sneak I mean they walked in through our slider which is always open) and moved all of our furniture to the opposite side of the room.  Harmless prank, but boy did it start something.  Come to find out, these pranksters were Maddy and Justin.  Maddy had the right idea by joining in to gang up on Justin, who did not get off so easy. 
     While Justin was out in Surfer's that night, Maddy, Meadbh, Abby, and I all went into his apartment and moved all of his furniture around.  We lifted his mattress and put it on top of his dresser (about 8 feet in the air), slid his desk over his bed frame, and then had a photoshoot on his camera in all of his clothes and our own personal favorites of his accessories.  At this point, he still hasn't discovered the photoshoot evidence, so we'll see if he reads the blog and figures it out. Unlikely. 
    Unfortunately, this was not the end of the pranks.  We should have known we had it coming to us when all 5 members of 9101 left last night to go to the movies, leaving the sliding door unlocked.  This may not have been a problem had Nigel, Cameron, and Kalvin not been sitting outside on their deck watching us leave.  We knew we were in for it when Kelly checked her facebook at the movies and had a tagged photo of the boys standing in our apartment.  This was not going to be good.

THE BEFORE

     When we got home, we drove past the apartment noticing that the shades had been drawn.  We ran out of the car and inside to find every single thing in the kitchen and living room upside down...and I mean everything.  Even the fruit from the kitchen table was turned upside-down, sitting on an upside-down dish, on the underside of the kitchen table.  Luckily, this was the extent of it, ad our bedrooms were untouched.  Can't guarentee that those guys will be so lucky ;)  We quickly retaliated by attacking their cars with dry-erase markers but now it's payback time! Justin's room was only a warm-up :)

THE AFTER

Rent-A-Puppy!

    Rumor started going around the village that there was a pet store in Surfer's Paradise that rented out puppies every night so that the dog's wouldn’t have to sleep alone in the store.  As soon as this was confirmed to be true, 9101 knew that we had to participate.  The first day we were all home from Spring Break, we started planning for our puppy!  On Friday morning, Meadbh and I went to Wildside Dogs and asked about the puppy rental procedure.  Come to find out, there was no procedure.  You walk in, you pick a puppy, you come back at 5:30 and take it home.  We picked out two puppies: one fluffy dog that resembled a golden retriever and a jack russell terrier. 

     Then we took the bus to Pacific Fair to shop until it was time to take the puppies home.  At K-Mart we got a bit too excited about our temporary puppy custody and ended up purchasing a dog bed, some tennis balls, and a dog dish.  The people at the check-out probably assumed we were dog owners...go figure.  At 5:30, we met Kelly, Tanya, and Erin back at the pet store to pick-up the dogs.  We found out that the jack russell had been sold earlier in the day so we wouldn't be able to take him home, but we still got the retriever!  She was SO sweet and rode on my lap the whole way home :)

     After debating many potential names for our puppy, we finally settled on Teddy, even thought Meadbh and I were still quite partial to Tassy.  When we got her home, Teddy loved the apartment.  She was very good for us, besides the fact that she was not yet potty trained.  That definitely took a bit of the fun out of the experience, but she was so cute that it was almost worth it.  Throughout the night, Teddy had many visitors (probably more people than any of us can get to come over in a week) and she was nominated as the cutest puppy rental thus far.

     At night, Teddy slept in my room, a position which you can probably imagine was not exactly fought over.  She didn’t sleep for very long at a time and was up for good around 5:00 am.  Luckily, Meadbh and I had to be up and ready for kayaking at 6:00, so there wasn’t too much of a difference.  Let’s just say that it did make for an awfully long day in a boat though.  Kelly, Tanya, and Erin drove Teddy back home to the pet store after we had left and said that she cried the whole way.  Clearly, teddy enjoyed her stay in 9101 and we were very happy to have her =]

Moreton Island

     Meadbh AND Kelly here!  We’re really trying to get this blog up and running again!  A few days before my parents left Australia, Meadbh’s mom, Regina, arrived.  After she and Meadbh traveled to Kangaroo Island while I was in New Zealand, they needed a new adventure for the following weekend (Meadbh’s 21^st Birthday Weekend!!).  They had a hard time deciding where to go, so Meadbh consulted me for help.  Seeing as my only travel reference was the Australia travel book I had in my room, we had fairly limited resources.  After thumbing through the book for literally ten minutes, I suggested a random island off the coast of Brisbane.  Having few other options and seeing evidence of dolphins and shipwrecks, we both decided it looked perfect!  Moreton Island, here we come!

     So, early that Thursday, we woke up and were on our way.  We were the first to arrive at the ferry dock and waited anxiously, along with our new friend Al, for the Tangalooma Express to arrive.  When the weather fell dreary, Al assured us that, “It never rains on Moreton Island!  It’s just liquid sunshine!”  Yeah, real funny Al.  We sure saw an awful lot of liquid sunshine that weekend.   After about an hour on the ferry, we finally got to Moreton Island.  We were greeted as we disembarked the ferry and were quickly shown to our room, via golf cart! After unpacking, we looked around to see what the island had to offer, settling on a quad tour as our first day’s entertainment.  Somehow, the men running the quad tour decided that we looked like pretty capable ‘quaders’ and instead of putting us in the group of riders who didn’t know the gas from the break, we were thrown in with the next contestants for the BMX races.  Our group was quickly down-sized when the mother of the family, who we decided was reconciling a divorce, fell off her bike and hurt her wrist.  When that family left, we were ready to go with them, scared to conquer the same hill that had just tipped mom’s quad right over.  Little did we know, this was hardly the worst of the trail.  We continued, following the experts through twists, turns, and figure eights, our hands getting sore from holding on so tight, until it was finally over.  We had a great time and quite the adventure, but we were all thankful to be alive and in better shape than the divorcee (who we decided could quite possibly also be terminally ill and have had her child out of wed-lock? Not that it’s any of our business…). 

     That night, we went down to the pier to participate in our “complementary” dolphin-feeding experience.  Rumor has it on Moreton Island, that ever since they put lights on the pier, wild dolphins have been coming in each night to be fed.  We waded into the water, with fish in hand, to feed the dolphins and get a picture.  Meadbh, Regina, and I seemed to be the only few toughing it out without waiters, even though we were going to be in the water for less than 5 minutes.  We all fed Tangle, who was Tinkerbell’s baby.  It was awesome to be that close to a dolphin and definitely a highlight of my weekend in Tangalooma!

     The next morning, we woke up and it was Meadbh’s Birthday!  We started the 21-shot challenge right away…just kidding J  We decided to walk along the beach and get closer to the shipwreck which was just off the coast.  Along the way, there were hundreds of starfish, bigger than any that I’ve ever seen before.   When approaching the shipwreck, we were amazed that a ship could sink and get stuck 50 feet off the shore, especially with nothing to crash into.  Why did they not just pull it out of the water one may wonder?  Oh, that’s right, that’s because they staged it (like every other ‘shipwreck’ in Australia, we soon found out!).  Major disappointment, but nonetheless, very cool to look at.  Next, we decided to hire a dingy in order to get up close to the wreck…which at this point, we still thought was real.  Unfortunately, ten minutes of dingy school didn’t teach us much and we were a bit helpless when it came to operating the boat.  No worries, we would deal with turning the motor back on when the time came; right now, it was time to fish!  It didn’t take long for us to give up on the fishing and to become seemingly stranded in the middle of the ocean.  Dad would have been very proud of me at this point because I was able to get the motor up and running successfully!  However, getting the dingy back to shore was a whole other issue.  We killed the motor a bit too early and ended up breaking out the paddles to get us back.  When this was even more unsuccessful, Meadbh fought the motor back into the water and we were off, not caring about scraping the motor in the sand this time. 

     Still having time with our fishing equipment, we decided to try a new location: the pier.  I went first and caught a fish on the first cast!  Too bad none of us knew how to take it off the line.  Fortunately, we had a cooperative fish and he did the deed himself, how convenient.  Next, it was Meadbh’s turn and sure enough, after a few casts, she also caught a fish!  Following the previously adopted rule that a person’s turn lasts until they catch a fish, Regina took her turn for the rest of our stay on Moreton Island.  She clearly wanted a fish more than anyone, but the fish were un-cooperative.  She did, however, come very close to hooking a penguin-like bird who was swimming below the pier. 

     Every night on Morteton Island, there was an event at night in the lounge.  Since it was Meadbh’s Birthday, we decided to go down and see what was going on.  When we arrived, we were thrilled to find out that the Tangalooma Races were in town!  They consisted of six wooden horses, being moved around on a life-size game board by children (including wed-lock boy).  For awhile, we just watched, but then we decided to get in on the bets.  When they auctioned off the horses at the end, we came out of nowhere and splurged on 2 horses!  I bet Meadbh never imagined getting a pony for her birthday.  Once we owned the horses (mine was a complete bargain-$5, Meadbh’s was a pure bred- $20), we got to name them and pick a jockey.  Birthday Bash was jockeyed by Meadbh, and Just For Jack was supposed to be jockeyed by me.  Luckily, wed-lock stepped up and did it for me.  Unfortunately, neither of our horses pulled though in the end, and we didn’t even get to take them home.  After noticing that the same girl who had greeted us at the pier when we first arrived at Tangalooma was also the one running the horse races, we soon felt like we were part of a scary movie where there are hardly any people on the deserted island which is run by the same five people carrying out every single job.  We decided to pull Christie aside and ask her what was going on with this island anyway…is there anything here besides Tangalooma Resort?  And the answer: no.  While we had Christie’s attention, we decided to hit her with about 10 more questions, until she was too overwhelmed and had to call in reinforcement.  This is when our dreams of seeing a “real” shipwreck were crushed.  However, we were all very relieved to find out that the dolphins we had fed were, in fact, wild and were not caged underneath the pier. 

     The highlight of the weekend happened after our chat with Christie when we went back out to the pier after the dolphin feeding for the night had ended.  We hoped that we might be able to see the dolphins before they headed back out to sea and, sure enough, we did.  That night we saw nine dolphins swimming under and around the pier.  We watched them for about an hour, running from one side of the pier to the other, trying to keep a running count of how many there were.  Seeing those dolphins swimming so close to us, bobbing up and down beneath the water, was probably one of my favorite memories of Australia.  I have never been so close to a dolphin before. 

     Our trip to Moreton Island was definitely one for the books.  It was a strange place filled with a whole cast of characters, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.  We had a lot of laughs and a great few days away.  Thank you again, Regina and Meadbh, for an awesome weekend as a Kennedy =)

Prayers and Parachutes

     After Meadbh wrote such a popular blog entry regarding the first day of the Middleton Plus Two vacation and I took care of documenting day two, it seemed only fair to force the third day of the vacation saga blog posts on the other member of the ‘Plus Two’.  Justin and I have been friends since our freshman year at Stonehill College and he is also here with me in Australia.  He was pretty keen about being a guest blogger so let’s hope that he can entertain you with his wit and charm.  Without further introduction, I give you…JustIncredible =)

     So once again, this is not Kelly here.  I’m not sure if it’s because she is a slacker, or because I’m an awesome guest blogger, definitely the first option but nonetheless I get to talk about Day 3 of the ‘Middleton Plus Two’ vacation. I arose to a phone call from Meadbh saying that it was time to go, a bit earlier than we had planned (apparently the weather was not going to be good at our scheduled time so they asked us to jump earlier). I, myself, was not a happy camper because I was in the middle of cooking what I thought may very well be ‘my last breakfast’.   That was cut short and within 15 minutes or so the rest of the crew arrived at the village.  We all piled into the van once again, filled with mixed emotions of enthusiasm and nervousness already anticipating jumping out of a plane at 9,000 ft, or so we thought…

     For the most part, we were all excited and ready to go for it, except for Meadbh, who still needed a bit of convincing.  Meadbh had decided to come along, not necessarily to jump, but a combination of the fact that skydiving sounded more exciting than a day in Asia class and because she didn’t want to miss out on any of the Middleton Family vacation.  Deep down we all knew she wanted to jump, but on the outside she was still indecisive.  It was debatable whether she was the smart one not jumping, for the sake that she could collect on all of our wills, or whether she would be missing out.  However, the negotiation talks with Meadbh came to an instant halt because of a bigger emergency which arose in the car. Mr. Middleton realized that his heart rate monitor had stopped working!  This was pretty poor timing seeing that he was t-minus 2 hours from jumping out of an airplane. No worries though.  It all turned out okay when yours truly saved the day by supplying a little water for the skin contacts.  Before we knew it, the heart monitor was back up and running and Mr. Middleton was finally able to get a reading he was satisfied with. Close call, but we were all in the clear, until we reached the ‘airport’ that is. Let me paint a picture for you: a narrow, mile long, dirt road with a run-down building at the end and a plane sitting in the middle of a corn field out front.  Yes, as hard as it was to believe, this was the place we were trusting with our lives. Dad quote: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Scary thought.

     At this point, I think we all began to question our decision to actually go through with this. Although, after talking with a few skydiving survivors inside, and watching their awesome videos, I think the deal was sealed; we were doing it. However, now the real question emerged: how high should we go?!  It was a little costly to go all the way up to 14,000 feet, but that was no problem because Mr. Middleton brought his negotiating shoes. He managed to put together a little package deal which included the jump, a video, pictures, and the selling point: a “free” t-shirt.  We were sold, but was Meadbh??  Luckily, Kevin wasn’t about to give her much of a choice.  When the man at the counter asked how many of us were jumping, Kev delivered the answer without hesitation: 5. No time for objection; Meadbh was in!  There you have it, we were all jumping: myself, Kelly, Barry, and Kev from 14,000 ft and Meadbh from 9,000 feet.  We all got to wear some fancy, official skydiving pants and a long sleeve t-shirt, quite the fashionable get-up but Mr. Middleton took the trophy for skydiving apparel. He managed to swipe a nice little fleece hat that tied under the chin.  I was jealous, I must admit.  It really topped off the whole look. You literally could not have paid me to wear that thing.

     After successfully completing skydive school, we were packed into a single engine plane flying high above Byron Bay.  The view was amazing and absolutely breathe taking, almost allowing us to temporarily forget that we were about to free fall for 60 seconds over the Pacific Ocean. Before we knew it, the pilot had given the okay and our tandem divers were doing their final checks.  Next, the sliding door opened and it was go time. First out was our small Asian friend, who didn’t speak English.  He was yelling a lot of gibberish that I’m pretty sure no one understood; safety hazard?  Next up was Meadbh. She and her partner inched their way to the door as we waved good bye. Then, after blessing herself as her feet hung off the side of the plane, she was gone.  Next thing we knew, Kev was at the door. I think, at this point, we were all a little confused because Meadbh was supposed to jump out at a lower altitude, but before anyone had any chance to really think about it, Kev was soaring through the clouds.  Kelly and her photographer were up next.  He chilled on the side of the plane hanging on like Spider Man for a couple of seconds, waiting for her to be ready, before they both disappeared**.  That meant that it was my turn. You know that feeling of “What in the world was I thinking?” Well yeah, didn’t take long for that to kick in. Sitting with your feet dangling out of a plane at 14,000 feet, there isn’t much else that is running through your head. But my buddy didn’t give me too much time to think about it because before I knew it, I was flying, literally flying. The feeling is indescribable; there are literally no words capable of describing the feeling of free fall. Meanwhile, after giving his pre-jump speech to the camera, Mr. Middleton was the final one out of the plane. Once all five parachutes successfully deployed, we were all gliding fearlessly through the Australian sky.

      Within a few minutes we were all safely on the ground, in one piece. We did it!  We all just completed the highest skydive that Australia has to offer. Wait a minute! That reminds me, why did Meadbh jump out with us?  Oh yes; come to find out there were commercial airliners at 9,000 feet so they thought they would just surprise her and take her up to 14,000 feet with the rest of us. As her jumping partner said after they landed, “Surprise! I decided to give you an extra bang for your buck.” I guess if you consider getting pushed out of a plane at 14,000 feet without being told a bang for your buck; you could call it a nice surprise…

     After getting our free t-shirts (thank you Barry!) and watching all of our DVDs, we were off to recover from the adrenalin rush.  What better place to do that than Byron Bay? We decided to walk along the coastline to a lookout tower at the southern point of the bay.  This lookout was right on the beach, with stairs leading up to a viewing platform.  It had a great view of the open ocean and a huge group of surfers, who are always fun to watch.  When the Middleton’s went to take a family photo, we soon realized that Mr. Middleton had never actually made it up to the lookout and was still down below on the beach. He seemed to be yelling up to us, but no one had a clue what he was saying. So Kelly and Kev just continued on with their photo shoots, uninterrupted, per usual.  Next thing we knew, Mr. Middleton had made his way up the stairs, and asked why we weren’t looking at the whales. Wait, what whales was he talking about? Oh, those whales! Yes, Mr. Middleton had spotted whales from the beach, while the five of us up on the lookout had seen absolutely nothing.

     On the walk back down the beach, we ran into a group affectionately nicknamed ‘Barry’s Asian Fan Club’.  Yes, you read that right, he has a following.  Barry and Kev decided it would be nice to help a number of young Asian girls to take a group jumping picture.  They didn’t understand Kev’s directing skills nor the concept of all jumping at once, but they were still very grateful of their new friend’s efforts, especially Mr. Middleton. I’m pretty sure they thought he was a celebrity or something, pretty crazy.  After hugs and high fives and a quick bow, we were off. We finished off the afternoon with some tacos and nachos from Wahoo’s Fish Taco and, of course, Kelly couldn’t leave without first doing some shopping. You know me too well.

     We concluded the day back at the Middleton’s hotel. Kev and I went across the street to get some pizza, all the while brewing up a plan to go back to the casino, which was sadly shot down.  But after some pizza, a couple of our friends headed over for a swim.  Emily and Maddy met up with us and we all took a dip in the hotel’s hot tub. To top off the day’s festivities we thought it would be best to conclude with some ice cream from Cold Rock, truly embrace life as a Middleton. It certainly wasn’t Cold Stone, or Friendly’s! but it was delicious to say the least.

     There you have it, day 3 of the adventures of the Middleton’s Plus Two. It was an epic couple of days that I got to spend as a Middleton. It was definitely one of the best weekends I have had in Australia. So I think the question at this point is: Where is next year’s destination for the Middleton Plus Two family vacation? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out!          

                

**Dear Kelly,

You have provided this addendum to the story so that in 20 years, you don't forget what it felt like to sit with your heels dangling over the edge of an airplane at 14,000 feet.  What are you, crazy!? 

Will the Real Justin Giddings Please Stand Up?

     Today marked day 2 of the Middleton Family’s stay on the Gold Coast.  The plan for the day included: the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the Mt. Coot-Tha lookout, dinner at the pier, and a soak in the hot tub back at the hotel.  Given this list, we were highly successful, despite trading the hot tub for an unexpected  trip to the casino. 

     As predicted, Minnie pulled up fashionably late once again, because dad and Kev had, of course, hit up both the beach and Pie Face before deciding it was time to come get us.  Justin, Meadbh, and I piled in the car, only imagining what the day had in store.  The drive to Brisbane was rather uneventful, despite getting lost in Wolf Creek (an Aussie horror film) type territory and a search for civilization in order to have lunch.  When the options became slim, we pulled over at a grocery store complex for more car snacks to hold us over….Mars Bar cookies, yumm!! Kev and Justin bonded over a Mate’s Meal from the Macca’s (McDonald’s) drive-through…a major step in the friendship.  Meadbh and I were generously offered a couple of fries. 

     We spent a good part of the day at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane.  It was very similar to a zoo, except that you were allowed to enter some of the exhibits and get very close to the animals.  There were bats (Meadbh’s favorite), dingos, kangaroos, wallabys, and hundreds of koalas.  We admired the koalas in the Koala Kindergarten (the babies!), the bachelor pad (the single males), and the retirement complex (the oldies but goodies) before we got in line to hold one.  Since the sanctuary is located in Queensland, you are actually allowed to hold a koala bear and have you picture taken!  The Lone Pine Sanctuary is well-known for this attraction and even Taylor Swift visited while on tour in Australia.  Everyone, except for  Dad, took a turn holding the koala, who was much heavier and far less cuddly than anticipated.  *Note the long, sharp claws* The koala was really cute and relatively willingly to let us all hold him, until he saw Justin.  That took some major convincing from the zoo keeper, along with more than one food bribe.  I mean, can you blame him? Kidding J

     After the koalas, we went into the kangaroo and wallaby exhibit.  All of the animals were loose, hopping around and laying in the sun.  We were all a bit nervous at first, wondering if it was safe to even touch them, until Kev sat down right next to a kangaroo and started petting it.  That pretty much sealed the deal.  We pet them; we chased them; we took pictures with them, and I even kissed one (strictly for the sake of winning my ongoing bet with Madde!)  Kevin was affectionately nick-named “the kangaroo whisperer” due to his strange fetish with and knack for wrangling the kangaroo species.  But the highlight of time spent with the kangas definitely came when every kangaroo in the pen took off hopping all the way across the exhibit.  Meadbh and I practically screamed with excitement.  The reason that I came to this country, personified.  If only they were wild!

       After leaving the sanctuary, we drove up to the Mt. Coot-Tha lookout.  This lookout tower was located at the top of the mountain (a good warm-up for dad’s impending New Zealand driving) and provided a view of the whole city of Brisbane.  Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative and the view was pretty hazy, but it was still neat to see.  Later, we had dinner at the pier, also not so glamorous in the rain, but our shakes and iced milks made up for it.  After dinner, we headed home, the day seemingly over, until Kevin was enlightened to the fact that the gambling age is 18, not 21, in Australia.

     For those of you who know my brother, you can appreciate the fact that once he gets something in his head, he’s not going to give up on it, until he actually accomplishes it.  Some people may see this as an admirable quality, but trust me; it gets him into more trouble than anything.  Today, that something that he was bound and determined to accomplish was sneaking into the local casino.  My brother, being only 16, does not have a license, does not have a fake i.d. and, most certainly, does not have an 18+ card (the form of i.d. that international students use here in Aussie).  So how does he even stand a chance you wonder?  Here’s your answer.  Justin has both an 18+ card and a Connecticut license.  Let’s do a quick comparison: Justin- blonde, Kevin- brunette; Justin- green eyes, Kevin- brown eyes; Justin- 5’9’’, Kevin- 6’2’’; Justin- buzz cut, Kevin- serious shaggy, greasy flow goin on.  And the list goes on….  But, being on vacation, dad decided, what’s the worst that can happen? And after Kevin changed into Justin’s shirt (as if that was going to help the cause), off we went to Jupiter’s casino with Justin #1 and Justin #2.  Kevin spent the entire car ride memorizing Justin’s license and probably knows more about Justin than he knows about me.  We thought we were doomed for a minute when he couldn’t even pronounce his last name, but surprisingly he pulled through in the end, even nailing the zip code.  Mom was literally shocked, wondering why Kev spent his whole summer vacation in summer school for his inability to memorize Spanish when he could clearly memorize pointless information on the spot.   When we got to the parking garage, Kevin had the genius idea to pretend that he and I were dating so that we could walk in together.  We held hands for a solid ten seconds and made a major scene; it was rather precious.  I think mom almost cried, seeing as that probably hasn’t happened since we were 3.  Then it got creepy, I let go and “Justin D. Giddings” was on his own. 

     Inside, Meadbh and the real Justin split up from the Middleton family to go in through another entrance, just so that the 2 Justin’s weren’t walking in one after the other (we really thought things through).  Mom and I went in first and then stood of to the side and waited.  We watched as the man took Kevin/Justin’s i.d. and surveyed him.  He said something to Kev, which we couldn’t hear , causing us to instantly assume that the gig was up and that he wasn’t getting in.  Then, sure enough, Kev walked through the gate with a huge smile on his face and quite the swagger of confidence.  The guard apparently asked him to take off his hat and then decided he was legit.  Hmm.  The most ironic part of the story comes with the fact that the real Justin D. Giddings got questioned at his door by the guard, being told that his i.d. “looked fake”.   So after all that, the 20 year old was almost denied, and the 16 year old floated through with no questions asked.  We spent a good part of the night at the casino, with both Justin’s doing most of the winning.  Kev claims that his night at the casino was the highlight of his trip and will probably be reported trying to sneak into Mohegan Sun in the near future.

Meadbh In Australia!

     For those of you who don't know, I came to Australia with one of my best friend's from Stonehill (and my roommate from last year) the one and only, Meadbh Kennedy...also affectionately known as Maze, May, Maeve, Meadbhe, etc.  Due to my lack of blogging motivation, Meadbh has generously offered to be a guest blogger to document the first day of the Middleton's stay in the Gold Coast.  Considering it is still my blog and I don't trust her with complete blogging freedom, my interjections throughout the post  will appear in light italics.  Now, without further a dew, her debut post; take it away Meadbh!

     Well since Kelly is a slacker, this blog is now called “Meadbh in Australia!” Luckily for me, before Kelly became a complete slacker, she wrote down some key notes on The Middleton’s family vacation in Australia and New Zealand. So, I will be attempting to use her little notes and trying to figure out what she is talking about with each of these bullets. Oh please, where would you be without the bullet notes? First bullet is “mini pulls up.” Okay let me think… Oh yeah, so Kelly, Justin and I waited and waited for the Middleton’s to arrive and after what seemed like forever, we saw a HUGE mini van drive right by us once and then twice and finally on the third try the mini came our way. We knew it had to be Kelly’s family with all the beeping and commotion on the street. The Middleton's have arrived!  Without any second thoughts, Justin and I hopped into Minnie with trust that Barry Middleton would get us to our destination safely! Don’t worry, we did get everywhere “safely” but it was definitely an adventure when having to regularly shout out “stay to the left, left, left!!!” Anyways, don’t want to get in trouble for saying anything bad my first day on the job so let me get back to the bullets. It didn’t take long before we made our first stop which is when I decided I could get use to traveling with the Middleton’s. Less than a mile down the road, we stopped at the local 7-11 to stalk up on some drinks and chips for the car ride!!!

     We ended up going to Tamborine rainforest for the day, with hopes to see a waterfall. Going to Tamborine ended up meaning driving around in Minnie through the town trying to find a waterfall so that Kelly would stop complaining about wanting to see one. But really, how cool would that have been?  We finally got out of the car and walked around one of the many rainforest paths. I expected the rainforest to look like something out of Tarzan with many animals, tall trees and vines to swing on. Well… once again I learned not to base Australia off of Disney movies or even all of those crocodile Dundee movies. The first animal we saw in the rainforest was a wild turkey!!! REALLY?? I flew all the way to Australia to see the wild life and the first thing I see in the wild is a turkey? Why did I even leave Massachusetts? Anyways, we saw the fattest and tallest trees ever. This is when I realized how alike Kelly and Kevin are. While Justin and I were taking in the scenes, both Kelly and Kevin are screaming at mom and dad to take MANY pictures of each of them in all these different poses. One on the tree, one under the tree, one climbing the tree and, if we were lucky, one of them together. Lies, I tell you!  It's sentances like these that make the italics necessary!

     We couldn’t find a waterfall, so Kelly decided a sunset would make up for it. Well with our luck, we didn’t see the sunset either. Well, mom and dad (who did not venture down into the rainforest) did, so we at least got to see some photo evidence.  Kelly, Kevin, Justin and I ran down some crazy rainforest path with hopes to get a closer and better look at the sun, but ended up losing sight of the sun and pretty much got lost in this creepy rainforest. Then, we lost Justin, but we made a group decision to keep on going without him because the three of us agreed that looking for him was not as important as seeing the sunset. Luckily, Justin found us and we all made it out alive. Next on the adventure was finding our way home with no GPS, only directions on how to get to Tamborine. As we began to follow the directions backwards, we finally saw our first two wallabies. They were as surprised to see us Americans as we were to see them. We were all screaming in excitement to finally see a wallaby, so good old Barry Middleton decided to pull a fast u-turn so we could see the wallabies once again. Sadly, by the time Minnie was turned around, the wallabies were gone.

    

     The final stop of the night was a trip to the steakhouse for dinner. If you ever go to Australia, an important thing to remember would be: never wait for the waitress to come and take your order because if you do, you will be waiting all night. After waiting for approxamitely 30 minutes for the waitress to ask us what we wanted, she finally decided to tell us that we had to go up to the counter and tell them our order! If that wasn't bad enough, at the end of the meal they told us you cannot take home your leftovers. If I had only know that they weren't trying to be mean, but that the reason behind it was actually a safely precaution, I wouldn't have stolen one of their plates to bring my ribs home.  This brings our stolen restaurant property to one steak knife and one plate.  Next on the list should definately be more forks!  And to think this was only day 1 of the Middleton family adventure plus 2! I had the best time ever being a Middleton for a couple of days and hope I will be invited back on the next family vacation. (Hopefully Mr. and Mrs. Middleton will read this!)

     And a shout out to Grammy, who I also hope will read this! :)