Just a "normal" day in Australia!!!!

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I just spent one of my most amazing spring breaks in the remote rainforest of Australia. What is Kristin Melody's idea of an amazing spring break, you ask? No it is not a drunken crawl through Cancun or catching up on the TV show "Teen Mom"; it was surrounded by natural beauty, zip lining through the Daintree rainforest canopy, being surrounded by toxic plants and animals, lovely hippies, lovely hippie parties and live music, having no cell reception or internet, beer, laying on the pristine beaches of Australia, seeing my best friend, and experiencing the overwhelming beauty of the great barrier reef.

Australia is big, as in virtually the size of the contiguous United States. If all you think of when you think of Australia is Sydney and the Outback, than you are sorely missing some highlights. That would be like only knowing the states for Los Angeles and The Rockies. This spring break gave me an opportunity to go explore some other parts of Australia besides Melbourne because my best friend is coincidentally here and working in Australia at the same time.

Where 2% of Australia's population lives: map by e8odie on Reddit

I headed up to the northeastern state of Queensland, towards the northern most tip of Australia (Cape York). After arriving to Cairns, which is a very popular vacation destination for Aussies, and having the best fish n' chips I've ever had (below) and watching an amazing sunset... I met up with Julie, my best friend since the 4th grade.

Let my vacation within my vacation begin

Friends reunited...in another country...again.

After cruising around Cairns, we began our road trip up to Cape Tribulation. On the way we were graced with absolutely gorgeous views of the coastline, friendly faces, and stops of absolutely beautiful beaches (like Palm Cove and Coconut Beach). It felt amazing to have the sun beating down on me, and perfect 75 degree weather after nearly two months in chilly and windy Melbourne. On the trip, you must cross the fairy to get to Cape Tribulation, and once you do it becomes another world because it is the Daintree National Rainforest. Cape Tribulation is a very small secluded town in the middle of this rainforest (the 2006 census showed a population of 101); this is where Julie lives and works at Jungle Surfing canopy tours and Ocean Safari reef trips.

Where I got to stay for 10 days.... living THE LIFE!

Looks horrible, right? Gosh it was rough.

We stayed at this closed down house/cafe/restaurant/art gallery that we were watching for a friend. The rainforest is all around you, the sounds of it are louder than you think but soothing all the same. With those sounds comes all sorts of critters and insects (yes, all of you that asked me about spiders, this is where they are). In my time in Cape Trib, I saw: large creepy spiders (!), black snake (about half of black snakes are poisonous), pythons, kangaroos, tree kangaroo (only about 300 left in the world), goana lizard (lace monitor), the famous cassowary (an emu like creature, about 1,200 left in the world), countless smaller lizards, cockatoos, cane toad (a slight poisonous and invasive toad), sea eagle (not that is not a joke...and no I do not mean seagull), countless other birds, and probably many more things that I didn't even realize I was seeing.

Just a normal day in Queensland, Australia
 

This spider was larger in length than my entire hand

That is a mould killer bottle....nothing is safe up here!

The invasive, destructive, and highly reproductive cane toad

That is a bug....not a stick....so yes it is a stick bug

This was the kangaroo that had an affection for scratching his balls

So yes, Australia is full of these kinds of things, but you just kind of get used to it after awhile....after awhile you don't even continue to worry about it because if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. I was lucky enough to come in this "winter" month (read: dry, non-muggy month) and have spectacular weather with clear skies and hot weather. I was also fortunate enough to miss the marine dangers that are usually present. At this time of year, there are no deadly box jellyfish in the water, the crocodiles are keeping themselves, and the sting rays aren't too bad, and lucky enough, the beach here is absolutely beautiful. So I laid on the beach every day for either 20 minutes or 2 hours. I had to be careful though because, you know, I'm white, and you know I burn, and Australia has a damaged ozone so the sun is much much stronger here.

This was only part of my trip there in Cape Tribulation. My next blog will be a detailed description of my zip lining, canopy experience, and the great barrier reef..... until next time, CHEERS!

If anybody can guess what kind of burger this is, I will send them a postcard.

BEFORE

After

I'm in love with...

~John Green, Paper Towns

Some of you may of heard of life cycles, that’s to say repetitive cyclical events reoccurring throughout your life. Some people talk about them in religious or spiritual contexts; like the 7 year cycle of Chakras and human development. Or, some people talk about them in the context of relationships; a great friend once talked about a 7 year cycle of relationships – if you can make it 7 years, you can make it for life!

Well it has recently occurred to me that I have a traveling cycle, and not until I booked my trip a couple of weeks ago, did I realize that I have a 2 year max before my feet get too itchy to handle. So let’s take it back to the first trip – Honduras Summer 2006 ( I caught the international bug and it STUCK) – South America trip 2008 – 2009 (found my home away from home) – Southeast Asia 2011 (tried something new and different) – and now 2 years later, I’ve booked my trip to Australia !! Now keep in mind this isn’t a conscious decision, something just bubbles up in me and that little voice in my head (which I highly recommend listening to) says “it has been too long…. Let’s get moving…”

So, Australia you say!? Some of you may be totally excited, some of you may be surprised, some of you may thinking you’d like to visit me, some of you may be disappointed it isn’t Croatia or something obscure. Well as “normal” (I use that hesitantly) and “familiar” as Australia may sounds, let’s take a closer look at this country I’m headed to….. see below…. Hold your laughs/screams. 

You see that extremely gorgeous amazing face in the south? Your eyes do not deceive you, that is not Marilyn Monroe, it’s ME!  While you may see danger in that I’m surrounded by sharks, mosquitoes  stingrays and Tasmanian devils…. I see opportunity. Now while I don’t always wrestle Tasmanian devils… out swim sharks…. And remove DNA from a mosquito and petrify it in tree sap in order to bring it back millions of years later…but when I do, I drink Dos X’s . (Wow there were so many pop culture references in that, I amazed myself! )  Anyways, I bring that up because I want to emphasize that hopefully I’ll be weekend warrioring.  

[Now after that intermission, I return back to reality]

I will be living in the city of Melbourne, going to school there for a semester (trimester). I’ll be in school, in classes, studying global studies subjects, getting ‘er done like a boss. I leave June 25 (and will be back before the end of the year). I’m very excited for this opportunity to be an exchange student, I think this trip will be very memorable. While being a backpacker is fantastic and I love that lifestyle, I’m excited to try a different way of traveling. This will mean that I’ll have a home base (don’t know where yet), and I hope to get involved with some kind of work or volunteer opportunity to get even more involved in the culture.

I want to encourage people to come visit me, if they’re interested. It would be a fantastic opportunity. And if you are a student (or under 26) , you can get some pretty decent discounts on tickets.

So what do you say, let’s throw another shrimp on da barbi!!!

Cheers

Min Ma Haw

Min Ma Haw, post-10 school for Burmese refugees. My school.

The homework question was...

"If you had a cap of invisibility (like the one from Perseus and Medusa greek mythology), what would you do and why?"

Well, I imagine if you were to ask any class of teenagers in the US or other countries what they would do, you'd receive answers like, sneek into the girls locker room to the showers. Or sneek out every night to party with my friends. Or break in to a bank and get rich.

Well if you had a cap of invisibility, what would you do?
I didn't have an answer, but was pretty stunned by the answers my students presented. My students who are 16-22...

When my Min Ma Haw students read their individual answers aloud to class this morning, the answers seemed to range in a similar style, but definitely differed.
Their answers included

- "Return to Burma and sneek into prison and free all the political prisoners"
   Recent counts on the amount of political prisoners range very high, and most are imprisoned for no reason at all. Others for being pro-democracy. Others for simply standing against the Junta. I believe this website is based here in Mae Sot, an association to help the thousands of political prisoners (http://www.fbppn.net/). I met a man last night who wrote a book I have, he was imprisoned for 17 years, many of those years spent in solitary confinement, and the others in torturous conditions.

- " I would return to Burma to see my girlfriend, even though she is in love with another man, I will go back because she is the love of my life and to steal her back and be with her"

- A handful of the young students said "They would sneak into the government/parliament and kill the head general of Burma and the members" in order to do the bad things to them that they've done to us.

- "I would sneak into a bank and rob it, and give the money to all the poor families"

- "I would travel around the world" These Burmese students have very few options of where they can go. They can't legally move around Mae Sot, a small city. If they are caught, even here in Mae Sot, they are sent back to Burma. The LAST PLACE in theworld they want to be. They can be in dangerous Burma, under risk of death, slavery, rape, beating, and fleeing, or they can stay here in Mae Sot. It is very unlikely these kids will see past Mae Sot in their life, unless Burma's regime ends.

- "I would go to the beach to see the sunset"  A novel concept, to someone who has never seen the beach.

There were other just as meaningul answers that kinda left me jaw-dropped. I couldn't believe that these kids, so young could have such a passion to change things, to do such good. I have a lot of respect for these kids,and hope that someday they can get their hands on such an 'invisibility cap' and do all the great things they want to...the world would be a better place.

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Many of the issues are very hush hush in Mae Sot. Also, it is known that there are Burmese spies here looking for certain key individuals that have fleed and are attempting to start an uprising from Thailand. Don't worry people at home, foreigners are not in danger (including me- don't worry!) Everyday I meet somebody doing something interesting. A lot of NGO workers, or journalists, or aid workers are here. Yesterday I talked to a guy from Spain, a journalist staying here for 2 years. He is focusing on Burmese migrant workers and the horrible conditions they are put under because they are illegal.

I'm keeping my heart, ears, and eyes open still. I'm only sharing partsof everything that comes up, i know there is so much more but I can't rememberit all to write it down. I want to learn more. The situation is complicated and intricate, and what I learn here only seems to be a piece of the puzzle.

One of the most prominent helpers in Mae Sot- The Best Friend Library ( http://www.thebestfriend.org/ )