Day 12: Tuesday, March 25th

we wake up at 5:30 am. we call in to hot air balloon company to check the weather report and status of flight... and WHAT?!?! IT'S CANCELLED? oh yes my friends. sure, australia's in the middle of a drought. sure it hasn't rained in canberra for the past 2 weeks. but today, today when we want to fly amongst the clouds... it is a rainy forecast.
so we went back to sleep. until 9.

we woke up, showered, and called the zoo asking if you were allowed to hold a koala. the one australian animal my sister has yet to see. apparently there is a law that in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) (the state within Canberra lies) one cannot hold a koala. even Beyonce once got refused. so instead we thought we'd spend the rainy day patronizing all the museums.
we first took a taxi to the National Museum of Australia. i had been there once before. in my first week in Australia back in Feb of 2007 with my mother, but I figured i could stand it once more.

the museum sure is confusing, with it's layout. first of all, it has some sort of skateboarding loop-d-loop art sculpture at the entrance. it's tacky, and big, and red. the museum itself is ok. they have a stuffed platypus. and a huge nugget of gold. and i'm sure there was lots more.

so after we saw what there was to see, and browsed the gift shop, we took the bus to the City Civic Centre. and mind you... it is pooooouring.

we hit up 2 souvenir stores. oh yes parents, you have something very nice coming your way. then we ate at a little italian restaurant i've walked by many times but never stopped in at before. it wasn't too bad. i found out later one of my pretty good friends worked there all last year. i don't pay attention much to other people's lives.

next we sorta figured out the bus schedule and hopped on one to take us to the museum/old parliament district.

i made us get off the bus one stop too early, but this then gave us time to walk 4 blocks in the downpour. my sister loved it, i'm sure.

we arrived at the Canberra Art Gallery and even though we explored it for what seemed like 2 hours, we discovered we only saw half of it. this place was huge. but by this time our legs were aching, we were soaking, and thought it was time to head home.

we grabbed our coats and bags from the bag-check man... who stuffed them in a cubby and hung our coats on top of each other... so thank goodness there was no drying of the items was possible.

we exited the building... and were both very confused on where the closest bus stop was. we found an abandoned one. and stood for a few seconds wondering what direction we should go in... when we saw a bus pulling up to a stop around the corner. so we ran. ran fast. in the ran. we rain ran.

AND THEN when we tried to purchase our bus ticket from the bus driver he offered us the bargain student price, which every other bus driver had failed to mention! we could have saved about 5 bucks!!

so we returned home, showered, and hung out for a bit. and that's when the clouds disappeared and the weather was beautiful.

we went out with my friend J for dinner at Wagamama. it made my sister very happy. she even got to buy an Australian Wagamama shirt!

and i've found it tradition here in canberra, that when a guest comes to visit, they must be taken to Mount Ainsley. i've been there a few times now. and i guess it's nice. you get a view over the entire city... and its suburbs. i guess the way the War Memorial and Parliament are lit at night, it is very nice to see. but really folks, that's all there is to see of canberra from atop a mount. anyway, we went at J's behest and my sister got to see canberra lit up at night.
then we returned back to my dorm and it was movie nite! all of my friends and plenty of others had gathered in the common room to watch 'cool runnings'. my friends D and I came over to talk to us in the back, and something funny was said so my sister and i laughed our very infamous quiet laughs, when we got unanimously shushed.. and my sister replied rather loudly with "what? this movie's really funny!!" which made me bust out a guffaw and i angered the crowd even more. while my friends wanted to take my sister out for a drink, we had plans of packing and sleeping. which we followed through on.

we did have to wake up at 6am for her early flight, so we knew sleep was the best choice.

i do have a few pics from today's entry, but i'm on my office computer and not my laptop, so i'll have to upload those pictures later. and one is of my sister singing at the bus stop. she did it more than once.

Day 11: Monday, March 24th

(i posted twice tonite because i've been way behind and we didn't do much on Day 10)

we woke up, rested, packed, and "explored Airlie Beach again!". which really meant we got our bagels and cream cheese, read, and sat out by the lagoon waiting for our bus to take us to the airport. a very expensive bus. i finished my book "The last Juror" and returned it for 4 bucks to the book trading store. niiice.
we caught our bus, along with a couple other backpackers, and a barefoot homeless man who "snuck" on. the bus eventually dropped him off a few stops later because he didn't have a ticket.
we got to the tiny tiny 2-gate airport which has departing guests sit outside. we found some shaded seats and read some more.

we arrived in Brisbane for our layover on the way to Canberra and found more pizza to eat. seriously, all they know how to make vegetarian is cheese. my sister tried a chocolate bar called 'cherry ripe' and thought it was gross. we realized we're going to get in late to Canberra (and anytime after 5pm mostly everything is closed) so i'm frantically texting friends trying to find someone to go get us wagamama so we can have it for dinner (for the 3rd time).

we arrived in Canberra at about 9:30 i believe, got our bags, and our taxi, and got to my dorm room. i wrote down that we laughed, but i don't know why.
Since it was a holiday weekend Wagamama 'ran out of food' so my friend R couldn't fulfill our dreams, but he did buy us pasta, pasta sauce, and vegetables, so that was our dinner. and it was yums.
as we walked to my room, my friend J had been hiding and she jumped out and i screamed like a girl. a loud adult girl.
my sister and i had our dinner, watched 'the west wing', checked e-mail, and passed out.

another exciting non-stop day for us girls! we like our cheese and our sleep.

we have to wake up tomorrow at 5:30am for hot air ballooning! so no late-nite partying for us!

Day 10: Sunday, March 23rd

we woke up at a reasonable hour and checked out and had our bags hang out in the luggage area while we enjoyed our morning on the beach. we started off by signing up for tube rides. we only had to wait an hour or so, so we read on the beach in the meantime. then it was time to get tubed. we were stupid and didn't have the person in the boat watching us to make sure we didn't die take pictures of us... but we won't forget it! we sat in blow-up tubes and were attached by rope to a back of a speed boat. then we were taken on a crazy ride around the harbor area for about 15 minutes. our butts vibrated a lot. but we didn't fall out! and we laughed and screamed a lot and bumped into each other that made each other go flying across the jet boat waves. it was totally awesome. then we kayaked a bit and had lunch. a veggie burger with fries. mmm.

we got on the ferry that was to take us back to Airlie Beach. we made it back to mainland just in time before it started to pour. we got our bus from shute harbor to airlie beach where the crazy old bus driver said we couldn't board, but apparently he was just being old and gross and flirting. i never find those jokes funny. like i'm supposed to know you are kidding, arse.

we got dropped right off in front of our hostel, our check in went fine, and we were pointed in the direction of our room. it was definitely at least a 5 minutes walk across the hostel grounds.

the room was nice with a tv, a rather large kitchen area, and a fairly big bathroom (with a BRIGHT YELLOW toilet).

we placed our stuff out to dry on our balcony, but it was raining, so that didn't really work. we eventually trekked off in said rain and of course found a pizza place and had more cheese. we were surrounded by dozens of backpackers drinking pitchers of beer, but my sister and i had our pizza and pasta and water. on our way back to the hostel we stopped in a few souvenir stores but didn't find anything too exciting. we then spent the rest of our nite in our hostel watching kitchen nightmares and reading.

and that was pretty much our day. we are still burnt.

Day 9: Saturday, March 22nd

Today was our day of leisure! we started off the morning by applying new layers of aloe followed by sunscreen. at about 9am we went to go read in the shade. laying in hammocks and under thatched umbrellas. we wanted to enjoy the beach, but our skin couldn't handle more sun exposure :(

BUT a baby wallaby came out to join us! he was just hopping around, munching on leaves, right in the middle of the action, and was adorable. my sister was afraid if she got too close he'd jump away, but he hung out long enough for us to take probably 300 pictures of him. and the ugly bush turkeys. and those crazy long-legged birds.

we went to the cafe for lunch, and every vegetarian item maily consisted of cheese. we settled for nachos, and felt way gross afterwards. even tho they were slightly better than those of the tex mex restaurant in Airlie Beach, they were still odd.

we then played some ping-pong and then it was time for the daily 4:45 bird feeding!

we went over to find a small group of people smearing some sort of oatmeal substance on their hands and dozens of rainbow-colored birds (i don't do well with identification of birds) chomping away. my sister got right in the middle of it and soon she had her own bird posse clamping on her arms and nibbling of her hands... and resting on her head. one lady got bird poop on her shoulder. it was funny. then we saw an adult wallaby!

the island, Long Island, boasts of multiple nature walks, so we thought we should do something active (other than ping-pong) and we chose the path named Humpy Point. we saw it was getting darker, but it was only a 600 meter walk, so we thought we'd be ok. we were both wearing sandals and some areas of the "track" was muddy, but we made it through. and we saw another wallaby! we got to the end... and it was just... a dead end. no amazing view, no photo op, just a dead end of a wall of some rocks... and if you tried hard you could look through the trees to see a neighboring island... but that was about it. we turned back and then the sun started to go down. and it got dark. very very dark. and we were in some fairly thick "bush". but we finally got back and no scary bush animal attacked us! hooray!

so now it was dinner time, and we returned to the cafe to order some of the pizza they have on their menu... but they don't do pizza for dinner! say whaaa?? so we had more nachos. barfola.

and we sat next to a group of middle-aged women out on the patio area who thought it was funny to feed those long legged birds. even though those birds were annoying, and loud, and fairly aggressive, these stupid women kept feeding them until the cafe worker came out and tried to shoo the birds away. those women were stupid. and loud. and tacky.

then we went to bed early and didn't move while we let the aloe vera work its magic.

Look, a hiatus!

Hey guys, sorry for not writing in about 3 days, but you know how the weekend goes. and then how mondays go! i've been up since 3:30am. 3:30 on a monday! and now it's 11:30 and i'm falling asleep as i write this. i just wanted you to know i'm alive and i'll start to finish up the trip details tomorrow night!! i'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats. i hope your desk chairs don't have wheels, or else you're gonna fall right off.

Day 8: Friday, March 21st

can you believe it? we are more than halfway through our trip. it's gone by pretty quickly. but here we are in Airlie Beach ready for our day at sea.

we woke up at 5:50am. we had to get up early, and the garbage men in the alley helped us with that.

so we woke up, packed, and checked out of our hostel and walked to the bus stop about a block down the main road. our bus was due at 7:10. right now it was about 6:50. there was a cafe down the street, perhaps a 1.5 minute walk, that was to open at 7am and they were serving BAGELS AND CREAM CHEESE on the menu! i don't think you understand how excited i was. i haven't had a bagel EVER in australia. they just don't eat them. and since we found out this cafe had them, it's all i could think about. so i send my sister down to the cafe to buy our bagels and she comes back at 6:57. the worker at Harry's Corner Cafe said they wouldn't be ready for another 10 minutes. so at 7:01 i decided to go back. we were gonna get our bagels, dangit.

they happily took my order at 7:03. but apparently it takes 9 minutes to toast a bagel and spread cream cheese on it. when the bus came at 7:10 my sister was a bit worried because i wasn't back. at 7:12 i appeared down the road and my sister waved at me frantically signing i should hurry. at first i thought she was just waving, as if i forgot where she was or something. then i realized what was happening. i sprint down the street (and frighten the bejeezus out of a girl turning the corner because she was greeted by me running at her).

so i make it to the bus, which ends up sitting there for another good 4 minutes. and as my sister and i take our first bite out of the heavenly bagels, the bus driver turns around and says no food allowed. oh man. what a tease!

anyway, the bus finally takes off (and by bus, i totally mean short bus) and it was probably a ride that lasted a minute and 40 seconds around a corner. but we checked in there with the yacht sailing people and we had a few minutes to hang out until the boat was to set sail. so we got to eat our bagels. and they were amazing. we also bought an underwater camera. more on that later.

so... i guess i didn't mention: but the plan for today was sail around on a huge catamaran (called The Camira) (supposedly a $4 million boat) and then end up at Long Island, where we would be staying for the next 2 nites. it was going to take us around 3 or 4 islands, all on top of the great barrier reef.

so we boarded our boat, along with 40 other people? i'm not good at estimating. and sat next to 2 british girls. who were pretty dumb and annoying. back on mainland they smoked right in front of this sign that said "no smoking". anyway, one girl had huge boobs. like, they looked painfully big. they were pulling at her skin. but she was proud of them. and anyway, the girls were pretty rude also. but the big boobed girl, as we set out, we were all laying around begining our journey and all of a sudden a HUGE wave popped up and she got completely soaked. we all laughed pretty heartily.

so off we were. we put on sun screen, started to relax, and then it was time to suit up for snorkeling! hooray! snorkeling to see the great barrier reef!

we got our awesome sting ray suits on, got our snorkel masks and snorkel (kid sized mind you) (we apparently have kid size faces) and got on the dinghy that took us close to an island, jumped out of the boat, and there we were. snorkeling. in cloudy water. (due to the recent amount of rain, the water was very cloudy) we coulnd't see anything. and by that i mean, i could hardly see my sister underwater when she was about a foot in front of me. so that was lame, but since we had our underwater camera, we had fun trying to take pictures of eachother. something my sister is not apparently good at. she almost drowned a few times trying to multitask in the water, so i can't wait to see what those pictures look like.

anyway, after that our next stop was the Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. a beautiful white-sanded beach with beautiful blue water.

our first move: play in the waves. which we did for a good 15 minutes, acting like 8 year old girls, but it was fun. then we played a little volleyball and then we built sand castles. beautiful sand castles, moat and all.

we all boarded the catamaran again and it was lunch time! and they had vegetarian patties for us! they also had rolls and cheese. mmm.. cheese roll sandwich.

as it turns out... even tho we re-applied our sun tan lotion about 2 or 3 times, we got FRIED on Whitehaven Beach. but we wouldn't realize the severity of it until later.

so after lunch we spent the next few hours sailing around.

then we came across this place. do you see what it looks like??

a monkey! but now i think they refer to it as homer simpson island.

they dropped us off at Daydream Island where we caught a ferry that was to take us to Long Island. first we went to the other side of Day Dream Island (which had bowling lanes, a billiard bar, and a huge outdoor movie screen!) (Day Dream Island looked awesome) (awesomely fun).

then we had to stop by South Molle Island, then back to damn Day Dream Island then finally got dropped off at Long Island.

as soon as we got there a staff member was feeding fishes off the dock and they were beautiful and huge. batfishes i think?

anyways, we checked in, and we were directed to the back of the island... where the poor backpackers are kept. anyway, we got to our room, dropped off our stuff and went to the main resort area for dinner. it was a buffet and it was good. we had corn on the cob, steamed vegetables, pasta, and dessert!

then we returned to our room and that's when we realized our tender our skin was. my sister ended up with an awesome burn on the tops of her feet and hands, and my shoulders were so red, they were almost purple. we were in so much pain. we poured aloe vera on ourselves and just laid in our beds not moving. my sister then picked up my newly bought book (The Last Juror... because i finished my other book) and she read the first chapter out loud while i laid there trying not think about my burning skin. my sister's feat were actually radiating heat.

anyway, tomorrow is our first day where we have no set agenda, and we are excited. i think we might even sleep in until 8am!! and our plan is to lay on the beach, and read, and sleep and eat. hopefully our skin will feel better tomorrow. damn you whitehaven beach!

Day 7: Thursday, March 20th

today's was one of my sister's entries and i don't remember all the details she left out, ahem, but we'll see how it goes...

this morning we woke up at 7 due to loud noises from the hallway. we showered, in gross showers, and my sister didn't have a lockable door in the shared bathroom. she had a curtain. she was afraid of being found. but she wasn't.

so we checked out, left our bags in storage, and went off to spend a few morning hours in the city of Brisbane before we had to catch the train to the airport.

we started off by walking to the river and walking across the bridge to the other side. the other side was pretty empty of inviting civilization. we were both hungry, and thought it'd be easy to find a cafe, we were afterall in the 'museum district'. after walking many blocks, we found a nice, fairly posh cafe. our waitress began acting like she was happy to serve us. then after giving us our menus, she didn't talk to us, or even look at us for at least 20 minutes. she would walk by us and keep on going. then we finally yelled out 'we are ready to eat' and she took our order, then went to the bathroom.
the people at the table next to us were having wine with their breakfast. it was about 9:30.

we got our pancakes and waffles, both of which came with ice cream and it was a bit weird, but delish. then we went back across the river to city hall, where my sister read about a free exhibit about the history of mental institutions in the area. it was fine. it filled our time.

we got our train and got to the airport, this time almost 2 hours before our flight was set to depart. once we landed in Proserpine (an airport with 2 gates) we didn't know what to do. we finally asked a man with a badge how to get to the main road in Airlie beach and he said we could hop on a limo for 15 bucks each. so we said yes. and we rode in a limo with 2 other boys... who did not want to be our friends.

we checked in with the travel agent there who had all our vouchers for our Whitsunday Island trip for the next 4 days then found our hostel across the street (which used to be a motel).

this town is very much a young surfer scene. hundreds of backpackers and dozens of hostels all attached to the "Most Happenin' Bar" in town. many of which had live bands, girls nite, and wet t-shirt contests.

we settled in to our nice and fairly large private room with private bath and headed out into the city... the "city" which is mainly a mile long on one road. we walked it and now we are sitting on some grass in between a lagoon and the ocean reading waiting for time to pass so we can go eat dinner! TEX-MEX!

yes, we found a tex-mex restaurant and thought we had to try it. now, of course we knew it was going to be bad, but this was a bit silly. my sister says it was horrible. i say it was edible... but the service ruined the evening for me.

we waited over 50 minutes for our dinner after we ordered while we saw 2 other tables being served before us... 2 tables that arrived after us. 2 tables of huge parties. my sister and i ordered nachos and quesadillas. that's pretty much melted cheese. how could they not melt cheese on 2 plates but they could make 5 orders of fajitas and 7 other orders for those other tables??

we asked our waiter where our food was. he asked what we ordered. he said it was coming right out. it was another 10ish minutes. they must have lost our order and made it right then and there. in the meantime the drink server girl was on the ball. we had a jug full of strawberry margaritas and they tasted like dirty water.

after we got our food, we wrote a very detailed review on their feedback slip. my sister drew a picture of what Good Nachos look like and what Bad Nachos (their nachos) look like.

Good Nachos: Cheese, beans, chips. (in that order)
Bad Airlie Beach Tex-Mex Nachos: Corn, cheese, chips, beans. (yes, in that order)

corn on corn chips? my sister's reply: can i get some popcorn with that? and some corn syrup? thanks.

at least when we returned to our hostel, Kitchen Nightmares was on again. so good.

while we have music and noise coming from both the front and back of our hostel (due to neighboring backpacker bars) we will eventually get to sleep.

by the way: some anecdotes i have forgotten:

from our outback tour group.. the belgium father (who was funny and nice) was telling a story about having to keep their luggage at a hostel in the "locket" room. awww.

one nite in the outback my sister was sitting around with the 2 swiss girls and that awesome american girl. the swiss girls were asking what "awful" means since "awe" means good. allison the american replied "awful means bad unless you mean like you have an awful lot of something". my sister, being the intellectual that she is, chimed in with "actually, an interesting fact is that when the word "awful" was first invented, it meant 'good', but overtime it took on the definition of the opposite meaning.'
this was met with silence and blank stares. my sister realized that she is so used to talking to brilliant people all day, she might not always know how to contribute to conversations with an average person. or with the swiss.

Day 6: Wednesday, March 19th

today has definitely been our day of the biggest let downs so far.

we did get to sleep in until 8, even though i woke up at 5am anyway and had trouble getting back to bed. we woke up, i watched morning kids' cartoons, my sister showered, we got to repack and completely reorganize and then we checked out successfully.
since we had a few hours to kill before our flight out we put our luggage in the hostel luggage room (an orange shed) and walked out to the town.
Allison, our american tour group friend, had claimed she went to the kangaroo rescue center in Alice Springs just 5 days earlier and got to feed milk to a baby kangaroo. one of the tour guides also mentioned this rescue center and said we should go. my sister asked a front desk last night where it was and she claimed it had closed, but when i asked a different front desk girl this morning she said it was just 10 mins down the road. so off we went to hold baby 'roos.

we followed the front desk lady's directions (turn right at the KFC) and we found no such 'roo center. we walked down the main road, saw a YWCA, a hospital, and the "Hospital Lawns". i asked a passer-by and her response was "oh, i know it's somewhere, but i don't know where".
this town is literally 7 streets wide.
so we kept looking and found a reptile center. come and pet a snake! i asked the guy at the desk and he said it had closed down. what on earth.

so we headed back to our hostel. as we entered the front parking lot we saw Jane and her tour guide friend. she asked what happened to us last nite! we asked what happened to her last nite! she said she came by our room around 8:30. but we were already walking down sketch road to get our greasy pizza :( if only we had stayed 3 more minutes. oh well. but at least we weren't left behind on purpose!

so anyway, my sister and i waited in the lobby until our airport shuttle came. we read, checked e-mail and realized the bus was 10 minutes late. it was to arrive at 11:15 (our flight was at 12:25). (we were told we'd have plenty of time and not to worry about cutting it close). the bus arrived at 11:28.
we got to the airport at 11:40 and was greeting by a long line at the Qantas desk.
at 11:43 we hadn't moved an inch (or a centimeter). there were at least 15 people in front of us. my sister walked up to one of the 3 Qantas employees and expressed concern about not making our 12:25 flight to Sydney, and he rudely explained that everyone in line was in the same position and to get back in the line. (how would he know what flight everyone was getting on?)
there was a shorter "business class" line next to us, so i hobbled over there (remember, this whole time my sister and i are wearing huge backpacks, at least 25 lbs each. the bags were bigger than us) and stood behind 3 "business" men. when i got up to the desk at 11:58 the man gladly helped me. my sister came over and we got our boarding tickets at 12:07. boarding had started 2 minutes ago.
now, this might not sound as nerve racking to anyone else, but growing up with my family, if you aren't at the airport at least 2 hours early with boarding tickets in hand, and at the gate at least an hour early, then your whole body should be overcome with fear and palms should be sweating. it's what we do.
so we now have 18 minutes until the plane literally takes off.
we go through security, and one of our bags gets flagged. the lady took it off the machine and just placed it next to her. she didn't signal to us or to another worker. she just left it on the floor. my sister and I impatiently looked on until i said 'i'm sorry, that's my bag, is something wrong?' and she replied 'i need it to be checked'. they had 1 bag checker on duty and she was having problems with a bag belonging to an elderly couple. she brought the elderly couple bag over to be re-x-rayed, and the x-ray lady still said there was a problem. we watched the woman take the elderly bag over, research it, then replace it back on the machine. still not satisfactory. i was about to scream that we needed our bag until some other lady walked over to take charge of our backpack. finally.
meanwhile my sister walked to our gate to check the status and said there was a long line of people boarding so we should have some time. the lady checked our bag saying the x-ray lady spotted a knife.
a knife?! a knife. why on earth would we have a knife.
know what is was? our danged butter knife we bought in alice springs to cut our cheese for our picnic. the lady extracted the knife from the bag like it was a sharp meat knife murder weapon. we gave our apologies and grabbed our bag and sprinted away. our flight was going to be 3 hours so i stopped to grab some chippies. my sister is freaking out saying 'we have to go! no one's at the gate!" and while paying for the chips i said "just go tell them!". pretty helpful answer.
we got our snacks, got to the gate, and found our seats. it was 12:21. amazing.
however, we had a middle and a window seat and the aisle seat was already filled by a woman. we walked over and said 'oh, we're in here!" and she looked at me, then looked back at her book. we stood there a bit confused and i said 'oh.. well.. no? oh... so should i just... oh ... ok' then i proceeded to climb over here. my butt right in her book. my sister followed, and we just bust out laughing. from relief, from awkwardness, and from the stupid australians that are over -cocky with their 'no worries, no worries' WHY YES! we had worries! you made us board at 12:21 for our 12:25 flight! we were damn worried. because if we had missed it, it would have been another 24 hours in pov Alice Springs. no thank you, mate.

so here we are in brisbane! we made our connection in Sydney just fine.
BY THE WAY, there is a 1 hour time difference between Brisbane and Sydney (and looking at map one would wonder why) but there is an hour and A HALF time difference between Sydney and The Outback. A HALF HOUR TIME DIFFERENCE?

anyway, we got our bags, our $24 train tickets to central station and found our New Orleans inspired hostel. after dealing with the dumb blonde girl at the front counter (are you staying for 1 night? you already paid for 1 night, so are you just staying 1 night? so are you departing tomorrow? you are only staying for 1 night?) (that was no exaggeration.) we finally got our room key.
after tying to use the self-service elevator that refused to open for my sister we took the stairs to the 4th floor, backpacks and all. after dropping off our stuff, we head out for dinner and explored brisbane at 7:30pm.

we found a busy outdoor mall. my sister remarked it looked like japan. ?.
then she actually shrieked and grabbed my arm when she saw a sign for Wagamama. one of her most beloved restaurants that she can't eat at in the states.
we first walked the length of the shopping area, stopped in a couple tourist stores then returned to Wagamama and had a great dinner.

we then spent over an hour trying to figure out the bus time table to the Koala Sanctuary we heard about. yes, it was open, and yes we were going to be able to hold koalas!! but then we found out we didn't have enough time before our flight tomorrow. :( no baby 'roos and no baby koalas. horrible day.

so off to our room where my sister decided what we would do in the morning. looking at the Brisbane city map my sister saw there was a museum district across the river and said we should go sightsee and see the clock tower and a museum in city hall. sounds like plenty will be filling our morning!

it's now 11:14pm. my sister has passed out and i'm turning off the lights. drunk people are milling in the hallway.

by the way, another time my sister made me go the wrong way: finding the baggage claim in the Brisbane airport. i read the sign that said "baggage claim ahead". she saw some escalators and decided that was where we should go. we went down, and nope, nothing. so we u-turned and went right back up again. followed the actual signs and found the baggage claim that way. the right way. my way.

sorry there weren't any pictures posted here... but we had nothing to photograph that day, except us tired in the train station and pissed off in the airport. it was a lame and nerve-(w)racking day. but the beds in our hostel were fairly comfortable so that was good enough for us.