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After 3 months, 8 countries, 9 flights, 400+ km of walking, 1000s of km by bus and train, 4 ferries we are HOME. Our new home in Melbourne, Australia.

We had an epic time.

Highlights included:

  1. Meeting up with so many friends and family, especially the ones we hadn’t seen in years. (Kazue, Chris, Jono, Kirsten, Annukka, Shaun, Karen, Archie, Mirjam, Kees, Frank, Eveline, Rhiannon, Johan, Bonnie Mae, Lieven, Kai, King Ling, Isabel, Sarah, Daniel)
  2. Getting our ticket into heaven. More about this later.
  3. Wine. So much cheap Spanish and French wine. Until Scott got sick, then wine consumption plummeted.
  4. Cheese. So delicious.
  5. AirBnb. Most of them were just lovely, and so much better and cheaper than staying in hostels.
  6. FlixBus. Such a cheap way to get around Europe.
  7. Daily massages in Thailand. So good.
  • Things we lost: one pair of socks each, my (already quite broken) phone, one water bottle, skin, weight (Scott).
  • Coolest new food: goose barnacles
  • Best cocktail: Belt Buckle (passionfruit nectar + champagne)
  • Best museum exhibit: Picasso sketches of buttholes and naked ladies

Anyway right now we are staying with Scott’s parents. Scott has been applying for jobs like crazy, and I was looking for apartments. We just found out yesterday that our application for a place in St Kilda was accepted so I guess we are moving out soon! It’s just a 6 month lease so we can move closer to our future jobs if we need to.

I can’t do nuclear medicine for a while though. The committee decided I have to write the exam, at the end of October. I haven’t decided yet what I will do until then, possibly some temp office work or volunteering at a hospital, or something else part time while I study. Or 24/7 crafts?

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Well, blogging while traveling was a complete fail. ?

But we’ll be home on Friday and I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while. So… new posts coming very very soon.

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Ever since I saw a massive group of friends celebrating a 30th birthday in Fiji I’ve wanted to do the same. I managed to convince 12 people (me, Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren, Natasha, Helenka, Marjorie, Lateef, Lani, Ilyssia, Leslie and Kyla) to rent a beautiful Airbnb place in the Riviera Maya. It wasn’t the easiest thing to coordinate people coming from 4 different cities, but it ended up being SO SO awesome.

Highlights included:

1. The house/pool. The house was perfect. It had everything we needed, enough beds and rooms for everyone, tons of space. I loved going in the pool every morning and evening. Plus we saw iguanas, lizards, coati, and cool birds all right in the backyard! Airbnb win!

2. Snorkelling in Akumal with turtles, barracuda, squids, and more.

3. Empanadas and bioluminescence/stargazing in Puerto Morelos.

4. Collectivo adventures. So happy that we had Marjorie to negotiate on our behalf.

5. Cenotes @ Kantun Chi. I still can’t believe that it was not overrun with tourists. Besides us and Louis CK (seriously) there was almost no one else there! The water was so clear and deep and refreshing. I absolutely loved it.

6. “Exploring” the Tulum ruins. Not really. It was too hot.

7. Cooling down in the ocean. Thanks Lauren! ? Swimming was so so good.

8. Tulum beach was amazing. Brad and Marita met us there. Brad’s wedding ring fell off but after 20 minutes of diving Natasha actually found it! It was amazing.

9. Just general horsing around with friends. This picture was immediately after trying to take a multi-person water jumping picture. You may have seen some of them on Facebook already.

10. El Fogon x2 because it was so tasty. We ordered a giant platter for everyone to share. Thank you Scott for going out to pick it up both nights!!! Tacos, meats, cheese, nom nom nom.

11. Rose and Lauren’s new nicknames: El Baño and Señor Baño. Also Dukoral. It definitely seemed to help prevent ‘gastrointestinal distress’ in those of us who took it.

12. Helenka’s jesus lizard impression. It is accurate!

13. The group. ? I had so much fun with everyone. Thanks guys.

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Last last Christmas I signed up for Reddit Secret Santa. I sent my person in Taiwan a bunch of Canadian snacks and someone sent me a box of Wisconsin cheese. Everyone was happy.

Last Christmas I signed up again. I sent my person some (I thought) cool stuff from Sara M Lyons. They apparently hated it, which I knew because they actually posted that on the thank you page. Yeesh. Why didn’t they just not say anything? And then the person who got me didn’t send me anything. So that was a bummer.

BUT THEN. If you get shafted, you can apply to be re-matched, and I was lucky enough to get re-matched. My new secret santa first donated to the Special Olympics in my honour (they saw from my blog that I do skeleton), and then got me a gift certificate for a tandem paragliding trip in Permberton!!! I was SHOCKED. So so so amazing.

Photos by Ricardo Coral @ Sea to Sky Paragliding

This is the DEFINITION of PERMA-GRIN.

So last Sunday we drove up to Pemberton to do it. It was so cool. Scott got a ride up in the truck too so he could enjoy the view and watch from above.

My shoe nearly fell off during the launch. My heel popped out of my shoe and I didn’t know if I should just let it fall off and keep running or try to jam it back on. I managed to cram it back on, and we still managed to get up in the air, but I doubt it was a very graceful launch, haha.

It really did feel like flying. And it was so comfortable!! I thought it was going to be in an uncomfy harness but instead you sit in a padded chair. The views of the valley were amazing, and it was fun swooping around over the trees. And our landing was super smooth.

THANK YOU REMATCH SECRET SANTA!!!!! YOU RULE!! It was a truly special day.

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I thought I might blog while travelling, but I didn’t do it all on the roadtrip, sooooo probably the best way to follow our travels in real-time is through my Instagram, and my Twitter.

But anyway, we are back from our epic road trip! And it was SO COOL!!! We went to 9 states, drove 9300 km, visited 7 National Parks in just under 4 weeks. Here are some (21!!) highlights:

1. ATVing in Oregon. We were very bad at it. It was 50% really fun and 50% really stressful.

2. Seeing really really big redwoods in California. We even drove through one.

3. Touring around San Francisco. Visiting with Kim, and touring the Tesla factory.

4. Driving the California coast on Highway 1.

5. Camping and having fires all the time. Burning our dinner plates.

6. Winning big in Vegas. I don’t know if you can see it, but I was up $0.20 so I cashed out.

7. Hiking the rim of the Grand Canyon.

8. Antelope Canyon. So neat. Glad there wasn’t a flash flood while we were there.

9. Horseshoe Bend. So neat, so dangerous. I can’t believe they haven’t had to add railings yet!

10. A random State Park with miles and miles of coral pink sand dunes.

11. Horseback riding in Zion National Park, Utah.

12. Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. The elevation made me feel so lazy.

13. Hiking in Arches National Park with some Mormon boy scouts. They gave us chocolate milk.

14. The perfect nap cubby.

15. A nice dinner at one of the only places in Utah that serves full strength beer.

16. An impromptu stop at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

17. Going on a wildlife hunt at dusk, and finding 4 moose.

18. Waiting for buffalo to cross the road.

19. Randomly arriving at Old Faithful 5 minutes before it erupted.

20. Spotting a grizzly.

21. And a wolf!

A+. Would roadtrip again.