Spring Break!

I got back last night from spring break in Brisbane! It was so much fun and had some of the most absolutely magical moments of my life!

The first day we got up at 4am to catch our flight out to Brisbane, which was ridiculously hard to do seeing as I couldn't fall asleep until maybe 2 or so, and even then I just drifted in and out of this crazy world where I had no idea if I was dreaming or not or what was reality. Anyway! We get to Brisbane and realize that we have to walk about a mile into the CBD to where our hotel is with our baggage. Only problem was we've gotten so used to the flat city of Melbourne, and Brisbane is about the hilliest place I've EVER SEEN so it was a mile on practically a 45 degree incline up, so by the time we got to the hotel we were pretty much dead. After that adventure, we decided to spend the extra cash to take the train to the XXXX brewery, where we had a tour! It was actually pretty boring, but it was something our friend wanted to do extremely badly so we went anyway. Afterwards we got changed into fancier clothes and had an amazing dinner right on the river front to celebrate my friend's birthday! It was absolutely gorgeous with the backlighting of the city and the lit up bridges over the water. The place was crazy expensive, but our friend treated us so my bank account didn't take quite the hit that it would've (thankfully..).

The next day we were supposed to go skydiving, but the weather was cloudy and rainy so we had to postpone it. So instead we walked around the city and went to Queen St, the main shopping plaza in Brisbane. All of us wanted to save our money for actual activities, so we just bought some silly souvenirs and headed over to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary! This was what I originally decided to go to Brisbane for, and it was ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT. We each got our picture taken holding a koala (mine was named Crumbles and she was absolutely adorable) and hand-fed kangaroos and wallabies and emus, and saw other Australian wildlife like Dingos, Echidnas, Wombats, and so many types of birds/eagles. It was by far my favourite part of the entire trip! It was also cool because so many celebrities have been there (LIKE T SWIFT!)!
Afterwards we went to South Bank beach and found the bench that the Renovators made for a challenge on the show. Me and Alyssa were absolutely freaking out because we absolutely LOVE the renovators so it was like seeing a celebrity...except a bench. But ya know, I was excited! We finished off the second night by wandering around the city looking desperately for a restaurant that was open (very difficult for a Thursday night, who would've thought) and ended up at this place called JoJo's. I had no idea at the time, but my Australia book even recommended this place – it was crazy good! They had basically any type of food you could ever want from stirfrys to steaks to mexican to pastas so all three of us got exactly what we wanted, and there were so many pretty lights everywhere. Gorgeous!

The third day we actually went skydiving!!! The company we went with was called Jump the Beach and was wicked fantastic. I would recommend them to anyone! We were supposed to jump from 11,000 ft because we just wanted a cheaper option than the tallest, 14,000 ft, but once we got in the air there was apparently a cold front at 11,000 ft so we all had to jump from the highest point. That gave us 60 seconds of free fall, and I was absolutely terrified but it was SO worth it! There was only a few seconds where I felt my stomach drop and then it just felt like I was floating on air. The only bad part was that it was so incredibly cold, apparently -6 degrees, so my arms were numb most of the day down. But it was definitely worth it and I'd recommend it to anyone, just wear long sleeves!! We landed right on Bells Beach and got beautiful views of the water and the coast. Absolutely amazinggg! We celebrated being alive that night by going out to China Town and actually just stumbled upon this hole in the wall Thai restaurant where I had the best pad thai of my entire life! No joke, I think I could probably eat that every day of my life and never get sick of it, it was SO GOOD. Afterwards we went to a cocktail bar just to go dancing and had so much fun! The age ranges were really interesting since people from our age to clear 40 year olds were there, and multiple people with wrinkles offered to buy me a drink – which was just plain creepy and I ended up running away to the bathroom multiple times in the night – but they played music like the Time Warp and music from Grease so we had so much fun dancing!

The last day we didn't have our flight until about 10pm so we decided to take a train down to the Gold Coast. Our friend really wanted to go to Surfer's Paradise since he's really into touristy type beaches, which honestly I think was a mistake since there were so many people you could barely move. All the souvenirs and food were also so expensive because it was such a touristy area, but it was nice to lay in the sun for awhile! Unfortunately I was pretty miserable the whole time to be honest because my friend had given me her cold, so I'm still kind of feeling like my head is going to explode at any moment, but as activities go, there are much worse things to do when you're sick! Plus I was at the Gold Coast, I couldn't really complain!

Now I'm happy to be home and ready to not spend money for awhile! Vacations here really do drain your pocket money more than anything.