Hello from the land down under:

I am on my week break and I went up to Cairns for the part...which is where I am now. I left on Weds. and made it up to Cairns late on Weds. night. We were met with some really warm weather and moon light:)

We got a taxi and went to our hostil called the Koala Beach Resort. We were kind of excited because of the name but found out that it wasn't on the beach at all and that is was kind of old but it was a bed and it has aircoditioning so that is all we needed. We went to bed and then got up early the next day to do a rainforest tour. It was in the Daintree Rainforest and it is where "the forest meets the reef." It was really cool to see a real rainforest. It was so lush and greenand I had never seen anything like it before. It was a 12 hour tour and we got to ride in a mountian buggy so that was different but it was fun to see the forest and we even got to see a Cassowary which is a rare bird only found in this region of the world. We got back that night and got together with some other people from the college and had dinner by the ocean that night. I had some amazing cherry icecream for dessert and then went to bed after a long day.

The next day I decided to last minute to go on a hot air balloon ride which was really cool. We had to get up at 3:45 in the morning which was fun;) and then rode around and got to our balloon. They put us in the balloon at about 7:00 in the morning and it was cool to see the countryside at such a fresh time in the morning. After the balloon ride, I just had a lazy afternoon and went to see the movie 300. It was good and different but I was cool to see a movie in Australia. After that, we had some dinner and just stayed around the hostil for the night.

The next day was a day on the Great Barrier Reef. I was a little nervous about going on the reef that day because we were warned about the rough conditions on the ocean. But I took some pills and didn't get sick!! We arrived at our first snorkling sight in about 1 hour, I got briefed on scuba diving and then tried a little snorking in the reef. After a little while, it was my turn to try scuba diving. It was fun but my air tank kept staying lopsided which was a pain. But I got to see a turtle and even touch the reef. I enjoyed my time scuba diving. After that I got ready to go to our second reef place. In the second reef, I just snorkled but I was alot of fun. The reef was so close at times that I would touch it if I wanted to!! Some of the fish's colors were unreal and the reef was very interesting. Then after the snorkle, I went on a helicopter ride over the reef and back into Cairns. It was really cheap because they wanted to fill the seats and it was worth every penny. I got to see some rays and turtles from the air, and I rode in shot gun.......the best spot!!! When I got back to Cairns, I just had a leisurely night around town. I had a stuffed chicken for dinner and the some more cherry ice cream. I went to bed early because I was very exhausted from all of the activities that I have been doing;)

The next day was Easter Sunday. I went to church which was different than what i'm used to and then had a leisurely day. I went to all the little shops and got some souveneurs and then took a nap in the later afternoon. We made dinner that night and we had some pasta. It was very good but we made alot of extra. After that we decided to go to the night markets. Basically a bunch of tourist stores in one location....it was fun to see. After that I went to bed. It was kind of a different Easter this year but still a good day.

On Monday, we just kind of lounged around all day. We tried to still out by the pool but it was way to cloudy and rainy to stay there for very long.