I'm going North

(Written last night, posted Tues. 6:25 AM 2/5)

Out of respect for Steve Irwin, I wrestled a giant crocodile at his Australia Zoo, and unfortunately, it's a lot harder than it looks on the Animal Planet. Crikey! Don't worry--my left hand still works really well, and I'm sure I'll get used to only having three toes.

Kidding! Only about the wrestling crocs part, I did get to go to Australia Zoo with Chloe and Robyn and it was about 3.4 trillion times cooler than any zoo I've ever been to. I pet a kangaroo (it was really lazy and lying down as if it was over the whole petting thing), pet a koala (though Aussies only use "pet" as a noun, not a verb...I refuse to give in), watched the elephants get washed down, watched a bird/croc/snake/elephant show in the Croceseum (that's right, you read it correctly), watched sea otters playing, saw wallabies, wombats, emus, camels, giant tortoises, the ten most poisonous snakes in Australia, watched tasmanian devils romping around, and watched a koala jump around from tree to tree and kick another koala out, and tons more. It was incredible! I am officially in love with koalas and have every intention of sneaking one in on my carry-on luggage. After looking at them for a while, though, they're kind of funny-looking, they kind of look like old men. It's hilarious. Driving everywhere in Brisbane is really cool too, because there's murals on the freeways of native Australia flora and animals, and they're gorgeous to look at. The murals, that is. Though the animals are too.

I've had the best time here in Brisbane, a major shout-out going to Julia and Robyn and Chloe and Hannah for letting me crash in their house and take over their weekend! They've been a huge help in orienting me in Australia both before and during my trip, and have been very generously integrating me into their family like another daughter. It's so comforting to know that I have friends on this huge continent as I go off to travel around other areas.

Tomorrow I head out to Cairns, which should be fun since I feel like I'll like the tropics. Hopefully I can avoid any embarrassing frizzy hair debacles (pshaw--yeah right--like my hair will avoid any opportunity to frizz itself) and make it through without turning into a sticky sweaty mess. I had my first encounter with a cockroach last night, and it scared the hell out of me--it was on the floor and hopped out totally harmlessly, and I still sweated under the covers instead of sleeping on top of them out of fear that they would somehow manage to hop onto my bed. I also had to do some acrobatic moves to avoid stepping on the floor for a couple hours, and this morning I spent an embarrassing amount of time making sure it was safe to step around. Long story short, if there's any cockroaches in Cairns, I'm probably going to have a heart attack and will end up awkwardly hiding in my sleeping bag or something. Here's to no cockroaches in Cairns!