Cairns or bust.

I am here! phew.  I landed in Cairns on Sat at about 11:30 am.  The Hostel has a shuttle that picked me up from the airport and brought me straight here.  This is above and beyond the nicest hostel I have ever stayed in.  The people working are amazing, there is a sick pool, a bar, a restaurant, clean rooms, and a kitchen to use.  What more could you ask for?

So let me catch you all up on the last 5 days of my journey.

I left Los Angeles on Thurs night after thanksgiving with my brother.  (Side note, this was the first thanksgiving I have had with him in about 6-7 years!! WHOA).  I got to the airport and had a couple hours to kill...aka-go to the bar.  As I was standing in line to be seated at the bar, a gentleman approached me, and in his Aussie accent said something along the lines of "shit this place needs more bars eh?"  Two hours later and and few rounds of drinks later, I know his while life story... best of all he was born and raised in ...drum roll please... CAIRNS.  what luck!! Weirdest part of all is his name... YUP, you got it... GEORGE.  Thanks Steve, you totally jinxed my trip.   Unfortunately, this George is middle-aged with two teenage boys, and not a hot twenty something surfer.  

anyhow, there are 5 other girls in my room, all sweet, all from Europe.  In fact I hadn't met a single American until today.  The music in the hostel is all american music... dave matthews, jack johnson, and so on, maybe they will play some country sometime soon...doubtful.

Yesterday I just walked around town for a bit... tried to get over my jetlag.  And today i went scuba diving at the great barrier reef.  It was an incredible, awesome, amazing, phenomenal, once in a lifetime, experience.  Can you tell i enjoyed myself??  I went down the first time- scared as shit I might add.  It was really hard to get used to breathing out of the oxygen tank.  Once I got used to it, things went swimmingly (literally).  However my second and third dives were not as great.  I couldn't get my ears to equalize, so I was only able to go down about 3 meters... bummer.  no worries though- still fantastic in every-way.  I saw tons of Nemos, coral, and lots of other fishies... no sharks though, maybe a good thing in retrospect, but I really would have liked to have seen one... Im sure I will in due time. 

Tomorrow I am headed to the rain-forest, and going croc spotting... just call me Sarah Erwin the croc hunter!!  :)