Alice in the Territory....

Since I have moved up to Alice Springs, life has just been unbelievable. It feels too good to be true. I'm back working front desk in a hotel, but happier than I've ever been. The job is great, I have my own hotel room with a kitchen, which is basically a studio apartment. My back yard is an incredibly gorgeous pool, spa, and barbecue area with a gorgeous mountain view, where I can watch parrots hang out under the palm trees, and kangaroos hop around! The people I work with are absolutely lovely, and have been so great to me! It has been hot hot hot here! 100+ ever day! The first week or so was pretty brutal, but I think I've gotten used to it now. I keep waiting for it to rain... but I guess that doesn't happen much here ha.

The casino is directly across the street, which I have quickly learned to stay away from! The only downside is the lack of eventful things going on in this incredibly small town. This is probably a positive thing for me though, considering the money I'm going to need for my future plans. Oh, and my personal war over territory with the ants and giant mutant cockroaches. grrr....

Chad should be here later on in the year! I really can't wait to have a travel buddy. By the time he gets here I'll have been flying solo for about 7 months... it was fun and exciting at first, such a feeling of freedom... but that quickly gets old. I'm ready for some company! We're still working out the details of our future plans, but at some point we'll be traveling up to Bali, and maybe other parts of SE Asia, I'm dying to go up through Malaysia, and Thailand, to Vietnam, but we'll see how the money situation is! Going up, or down, the east coast (Australia) is also on the agenda, either before or after the Bali adventure... like I said all of this is still in the works! Hawaii is also an option for a pit stop on the way home.. maybe a couple months... and of course I need to spend some time in LA! It's looking like after this I'll be back in Burlington around December... right before Christmas. But not for long....

I'm also looking at going back to school, and moving to NYC. There's a hospitality and tourism management course at NYU that I'm especially interested in! Send positive thoughts! xoxo

Melbourne, Adelaide, Mildura, and Alice Springs!

I guess I haven't updated this in a very long time..... wow! This would probably be easier for me if i kept up on it... but here goes.....

Back in December around the time of my birthday... before christmas, I visited Adelaide and rented a cabin on the beach with my friend Abbey! The first night consisted of a bottle of tequila and shot glasses..... Citrus flavored soda substituted for lemons... and salty chips replacing salt! I have heaps of video footage of this night that needs to be edited and put together, but I'm still too scared to look at it =) The next couple days were full of beachy type activities, christmas lights, markets, and a dolphin cruise. It was definitely a memorable weekend!

Typical day/morning/afternoon/evening/night in mildura.

The job hunt in Melbourne didn't go so great, so right after New Years I packed up and went to pick fruit on the edge of the desert in Mildura. 99% of the people up there were backpackers working towards their second year visa in Australia. Being American, I am not eligible for that, American's get one year, and one year only. Sounded like a great idea at the time, we were promised work every day and an average of $100-$200/day income. HA! We were lucky if we got work at all, and the average person was making around $30-$40/day, not including the $6/day we had to pay for transportation. A lot of people used up the last of their money on transportation to get there plus the $50 deposit, and $150 weeks rent up front, just to find out that it was a big scam. I didn't even mention the fact that the hostel was taking a cut out of what we were making. Basically slave labor for pennies. I mean the work itself wasn't terribly difficult... it was just hot... very very hot.... and tedious. If I was working towards my second year I may have been able to stick it out..... but I was there for the money, not my days. It wasn't all bad though..... It was basically a 24 hour party, and I met so many amazing people from all over the world.  (and a few not so amazing ones.) I was also introduced to goon........ if you have never heard of it, let me explain. It's essentially a very inexpensive box/bag of fruity liquid, with a high alcohol content made from the scraps from wineries. (basically the crap they mop up off of the floor) It's sold in the store, but I don't think they can legally call it "wine". Enough said.

A small, rather tame sample of the irish boys at night...

A pack of us ended up bolting from the misery, and hopped on the first bus to Adelaide.....

We stayed in a hostel in the city... it was pretty run down, but oh so very cheap.......the kids (princes and princesses) that traveled with me hated it, and left as soon as they could. If you know me, you already know that I'm totally down with a divey type of atmosphere... I thought it was pretty cool... so I stayed for a week! My plan was to stay in Adelaide, find a job and save up until I could hit the road at the next destination. (Yes apparently somewhere along the line I turned into a backpacker.) Anyway, before I could even find a job in Adelaide, I was offered a position that I had applied to back in November when I first arrived... up in Alice Springs. This whole Alice gig was impossible to turn down... I know I swore off the entire hotel industry years ago, but really..... It's front office work at a resort in the middle of the outback.... including my own hotel room, free meals at the restaurant, and a pretty decent salary (with no where to spend it!). How could I say no?

On the road again....... backtracking 13 hours on a bus to Melbourne I go, to collect my stuff from Rob's house, and book a flight to Alice. One week later here I sit next to my packed belongings, ready for the new adventure!

pokies, sharks, and tequila! oh my.

City view from Essendon

Australia has been pretty unbelievable. I've been here almost 6 weeks now(?) , it's been a slow start, but things are definitely coming together nicely. The first two weeks or so were a bit of a struggle, finding my way around, meeting new friends, fighting off some homesickness, and trying to find a job.

Loz and her "special" friend =)

The job hunt has been an adventure in it's own, I've met with quite a few salon owners and managers, some that I thought I would have really loved to work at, and some I knew immediately that it would be a horrible match! I've done a few haircut models, with a really positive outcome... or so it seemed at the time, but everyone is kind of weary about work visa, and is looking for a permanent resident, so they can stick around longer. So I've pretty much given up on hairdressing... it only makes sense though, If I owned  a salon I wouldn't want to hire someone that would be building up a clientele, knowing that they were on a timed visit either. I gave up on hairdressing and started looking for kitchen work, not the greatest jobs, but they pay.... and usually cash. As soon as I started looking I lucked out, and found an ad for counter help at this vegan pizza place we go to a lot down the road... awesome! and now I have a job =)

Sinks in the Casino... minus the sink?
the water just runs back...it's weird. 

I walked into a casino for the first time ever a couple weeks ago! It was quite overwhelming, and the security was intense..... definitely not my thing. Not to mention the fact that I got kicked out of the black jack area by my Canadian friend Jimmy, because he thought I was bad luck. grrr. There's a little bar down the road though thats kind of part casino/part restaurant/part pub, where I learned alllll about "pokies" which we would call penny slots.... ha. Those little machines have definitely peaked my interest!

First experience with pokies!

My birthday is coming up next week!!! I don't know why I sound so excited.... I hate birthdays. I'm a firm believer that everyone should just have a generic birthday every year on new years.... but I'm pretty excited, because I'm heading off to Adelaide in the morning to visit Abbey! Adelaide's a smaller city, north west, about an hour flight. We've rented a cabin close to the beach for three nights! We'll be beaching and boozing mostly haha and she's taking me on a dolphin cruise!  I'm so excited! Slightly nervous about hanging out at a beach that needs to be patrolled by helicopters for sharks, but c'est la vie... I'm on a giant island in the middle of the ocean, I suppose it's to be expected! Definitely more updates to come about that next week, and lots of pictures!

Jimmy the Canadian, my new
Malaysian friends, and myself after
way too much tequila! 

I've met so many awesome people since I've been here... a lot of locals, and people from the "country" which has been a blast!! as well as a lot of people from all over the world. I've gotten involved in this site called couchsurfing.org. It sounds a bit different than what it actually is though. It's more or less an unbelievable international community of travelers. It's not about "couch hopping" it's more about meeting people and networking world wide. There are weekly meetings and plenty of events, and Melbourne is actually one of the most active cities on the site!

Travels.... and settling in.

First of all, as I said in the previous post... LA was amazing, and I can't wait to go back for a longer period of time. Below is a pic I took before I left the airport. It looks like some sort of space station... lol. Which I guess... in a way LAX kind of is... 

I traveled from LAX 13 hours to Auckland, New Zealand, which was really awesome. The flight was long, and I had an 8 hour layover there, but I met some really cool people, and the airport was really clean and nice! 

I mean.... they even tell you not to spit in the trash cans! ha. From NZ It was another 4 hour flight to Melbourne. Definitely a lot of time travel. Started out, going from VT to Chicago... back one hour, then Chicago to LA, back 2 hours... then LA to NZ which was forward......19? 21? something like that.... and then back another 2 hours. phew. From LA through to Melbourne, I flew Air New Zealand, which I, seriously, highly recommend..... seats were comfy, airline staff was friendly, and it was relatively cheap, compared to my other options, especially booking on such short notice! Oh and the food was great too.... of course I ordered the vegan option in advance, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was really decent! 

Settling in has kind of been rough, I haven't really felt the greatest, the time change is killer... but It's been nice just relaxing here. 

My hobbit hole enterance/ally way =) 

Tram stop, with the shop in the background...

oh, and seriously? I was worried about not being able to bring my purses from home..... There's a Salvation Army across the street, filled with brand new stuff! 

I know this is a bad pic... but I have to say that I was prettttttty excited when I ran across the Aussie version of Big Buck Hunter =) If you've hung out with me at all in Burlington that you would understand haha! 

So it's been a pretty awesome first few days...... minus the constant daytime headache. I set up an Australian bank account, and a phone plan! now........ mission for monday is to find a job!!! =) 

Los Angeles!

I'm kind of in love with LA. As soon as Spencer picked me up at the airport, we drove away, I looked around, and said "hmm...... this is Melbourne, except people don't talk funny, and they drive normal....oh and the palm trees are different." I've finally set foot in this city, outside of the airport. I've flown over a few times, and spent some time in LAX, but I'm now happy to say I've finally spent some time in Los Angeles, and am pretty much completely in love with the city.....definitely could see myself living here some day. The picture to the left is a view of Hollywood Boulevard from Spencer's living room, obviously looks better in person, but still pretty cool.

I got in yesterday around 10:30 am. hung out and rested all day, then had dinner and wine with a friend, who also is originally from VT, he now owns a hair salon in Beverly Hills, after traveling Europe for many years. He's a cool guy, it was definitely a good night! I kind of took over Spencer's apartment last night, while him and Kara took off to some giant rave in San Bernardino. Check out their costumes... Definitely the cutest little raver kids you'll ever meet!

Today, I wandered around the Melrose Trading Post, while Spence, and Kara sold crystals. I didn't get many pics from the flea market, I wish I did though, such a cool place!!!!!!! So many cool vintage things, I couldn't look around too much, because I wasn't allowed to buy anything, my luggage is completely maxed out for the airline weight regulations. I did get a good sized piece of Black Tourmaline, which gets rid of negative energy, and is supposed to be good for jet lag, as well as many other things like promoting creativity, and a white calcite pendant, for intuition, traveling, inner peace, cleansing, and new beginnings.  Also picked up a Blue Agate keychain, which is good for grounding, calming, and self confidence. I'm kind of hooked on crystals now... which is cool, kind of goes along perfect with other recent self discoveries. =D

In the food court section I found a little crepe booth.......... basically just like Skinny Pancake in Vermont. It was amazing! Also, there are so many great vegan restaurants around I don't even know where to start!!! I've kind of just been going for the junk food places, since there's no such thing as that in VT.  Last night I had a breakfast tofu scramble wrap with sweet potatoes, and bacon bits. Tonight I had vegan cheesy breadsticks and salad.... mmmmm....... oh gosh, now I can't wait for Lord of the Fries in Melb. 

So... I guess to sum things up. Cali is pretty awesome, this visit was planned as more of a long layover, and less of a touristy thing, which is cool, but I definitely can't wait to come back and full on explore this place! 

I head out tomorrow night for Oz......... tomorrow will be filled with Macy's, Whole Foods, rest, and relaxation before my 13 hour flight to New Zealand, 8 hour layover there, then 4 hour flight to Melbourne....... ah I wish I could just teleport places, but the traveling is half the fun. sometimes, other times only in afterthought =) 

OWS... second thoughts....

I've been thinking more about the OWS movement, and digging deeper into it. Talking with friends, we have come up with many other possible situations, as to how this whole thing came to be. I'm really loving every one's opinions on this, and am pretty impressed with some of the things that people have come up with.

The death of Tupac was brought up in conversation today... or rather the conspiracy theory revolving around it. The majority of us believe that there was a disagreement, or east coast/west coast rivalry going on between Biggie and Tupac, and that is how they both ended up dead. Some believe that the Government, or Illuminati killed him, to stop him from provoking young black men into a revolution. He knew how corrupt the world was, and was determined to change it, or at least inform as many people as he could. This is the video that set off this conversation, and goes into much more detail!

Okay, so the point is....... if you become a target when your thoughts/beliefs go against the norm... than how come no one has been targeted with the organization of OWS? Wouldn't that be grounds for conspiracy against the government or something? I would think they would have shut this whole thing down before it started (without anyone knowing a thing)... unless, it was them that started it. You could also argue, on the other hand, that they tried to ignore the movement at first with the media black out, but.... I'm pretty sure that was all part of it just to piss everyone off, only because they could! They were looking for a reaction, to build all of this into a big hype... and they got what they were looking for.

Why would they bother doing all of this? It's all a distraction. Is it pure coincidence that there are massive global Blackberry outages? And what about this blocked terrorist attempt to kill the  Saudi UN ambassador on US soil? Should we really be believing everything that's going on? Things are absolutely insane right now, who is to say that isn't more propaganda...a ploy to instill more fear into the American people. This was taken to an entirely new level by one of my friends, who thinks that this was a distraction to take attention from the OWS movement, and prepare us for the New World Order.... starting with WWIII, and a secret agenda called "Satan's lie". hmm.......woah. Taking this all even further... could this be the beginning of the end of the world? Our 2012?

The movement very well could have started out as a Democratic strategy for re election in 2012, like I mentioned in my earlier post. The seed could have been planted, and everything could have just grown (world wide) from there, and blown up in their faces. Or...... it could be something much much bigger! Either way, we are all just puppets, pawns in "their" little game. Anyway you look at it, there's nothing we can really do no matter what type of conspiracy this is...  it's just interesting to think about.

I love the IDEA of the OWS movement, as does the rest of the world apparently, or rather 99%....but there are so many things that just don't add up right.

Australia (round 1)-- recap.

Last December (2010) I went on a little surprise adventure to Australia. I really hadn't done much research in advance on Melbourne, or Australia in general, because I never really figured I would go there. It wasn't at the top of my list of places to travel to for some reason. I wasn't 100% sure what I was getting in to, but I knew who I was going to be there with, and knew I was headed for a good time. Prediction was accurate. Australia is amazing.

I left VT in a snow storm, kicked my boots off at the airport, and took off to the other side of the world. Roughly 36? 38? 40? hours later, I arrived in Melbourne... mid-summer. Shocking to say the least, considering this was my first major travel experience, and how overtired I was from the amount of hours spent traveling, not to mention the 16 hour time difference, and a day leap into the future.

Within a few hours, I was sitting at a corner bar with a group of locals (would you expect anything else from me?). Given all of the factors mentioned above, sitting there listening to they're friendly chit chat was sort of a mind trip, and almost like a puzzle trying to de-code their Aussie slang..... especially in that state of mind. Luckily I had Rob, and soon Laron to translate some things, and laugh at me of course, because that always makes things better........

New Years came up a few days later, which just happens to be my favorite holiday. How awesome was it to have a summer New Years? Sweet as! (might be a typical response over there). 2011 was brought in with mass amounts of Tequila, some other crazy Aussies, and the best display of fire works over the city (any city) that I have ever seen....

The next couple weeks were spent exploring the city, mountains and beaches with Rob and Laron. It was  pretty helpful to have a fellow American with me to show me the ropes and figure different things out. Laron, or LaRon as I liked to call her, had spent some time there the previous year visiting, and had gone back to live on a work visa..... because yes, it is that amazing!

Laron has since passed, and I can't even begin to describe what a wonderful person she was. Spending time with her changed my life in so many ways, and continues to... if you knew her, you know what I'm talking about. She was one of the few genuinely decent people in the world, there are an endless list of amazing words to describe her....and I am so fortunate to be able to call her a friend. Rest In Peace Laron <3