Weekend Getaways..

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.

Stay Classy San Diego...

Well hello there! It's now about halfway through November, and all too soon my lil' American adventure will be at an end. But I'm going to end it in true style!

On November 9, I caught a 10am Greyhound bus from Arcata to San Francisco (After a weekend, and a fair few weeknights, full of insane, insane - but really nice - freshmen visitors. House full of 18 year old boys, alcohol flowing like water and the drugs were out and kicking. Lets just say any inkling I may have every had in a dark a disturbed part of my subconscious to try drugs got viciously killed.) So! Back to the story! The seven and a half hour bus ride down to San Fran was not too shabby - not the horror story I had been expecting. There was a bloke who chugged his way through a six-pack of  beer and started smoking on the bus, and there were some hippies playing guitar and singing some bluesy music, but hey, it added character to the trip right?

I got into San Fran at about 6pm, and because daylight savings has ended over here, it was bloody dark! So I then attempted to navigate my way from the Greyhound station to the airport, but Google Maps being Google Maps, sent me in a complete roundabout way. Good ol' Google Maps. Thankfully, Claire being amazing as she is, managed to direct me via text to the Bart train, which would take me to the airport. On another note, public transport in San Fran, is so not tourist friendly! But, I eventually got to the airport, checked in and found a spot to have some dinner and then skype mum and dad. My flight was delayed - surprise surprise - so I had to wait about four hours in the airport, but I eventually got onto my plant at about 11:30pm (plus side here...my ticket had gotten upgraded, woo for more leg room!). The flight was fine, and I arrived in San Diego at about 1:10am. Found a taxi, and he promptly took me to my hostel with no fuss. These guys know their city! Checked in and promptly fell asleep.

Now, the whole reason I went down to San Diego was to attend the American Cetacean Society Conference for my Marine Mammals class. I had bought a ticket for the Saturday sessions, so up I got at 6:45am that morning to get to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where the conference was being held (talk about swanky!). The speakers were absolutely fantastic and I could talk on and on and on about them all, but I wont put you all through that. Safe to say, it was inspiring to hear these amazing people. And the food they fed us was to die for!

View from the Conference 

Conference Poster

After the conference finished, I had the night to myself. The hostel I was staying at had organised a bar crawl for the night, and they were all really excited for me to come...until I told them I was 19. Le sigh. They gave me hugs to make up for my lack of access to alcohol. So I had to make my own, non-drinking involved plans. I went wandering around San Diego; Little Italy, where everything smelled like pasta and pizza; the Gaslamp Quarter, which was so beyond cool, I actually wanted to stab myself, funky bars and clubs everywhere with live music...and I couldn't go in. Stupid drinking age. After that I pretty much managed to walk the entire city. I found the Maritime Museum, which is all these really cool boats tied up at the dock....and a couple of submarines too!   San Diego is a really beautiful city, and not once while I was walking around, by myself, in the middle of the night, did I get harassed.

Maritime Museum

Maritime Museum

Local Church

The next day, I was up early again, ate some waffles (the hostel cooked breakfast and dinner for us...it was amazing!) then off I trotted to the San Diego Zoo! This place is absolutely amazing! And all of you who know me well, know that I'm not a massive fan of animals in captivity, but this place is world-class! I wandered around for half the day, seeing jaguars, mountain lions, elephants, polar bears, pandas and a whole crap load of others. They even had a SkyTram, the place is THAT big...and uphill! Safe to say I loved it! After I was done there, I took a bus and tram and another bus (public transport here is AMAZING, and so pretty...catch up Melbourne!) over to SeaWorld. Now, I have never liked marine parks, but I decided I should actually see something before I judged it. So I went. On the whole, SeaWorld is actually pretty cool; the rides are fun, the place is well laid out most of the enclosures are pretty good. But, I went to the dolphin shows, where they had Bottlenose and Spinner dolphins doing all their trick, even Pilot Whales were included. I also went to the One Ocean show at the end of the day. This show is the Killer Whales. After seeing it all, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth; safe to say, I stand by my judgement, these animals are not meant for captivity. The dolphins were in tanks that I would have said were only at best, 7m deep. The killers were in about the same. These tanks are way too small. There were Beluga whales on display as well, and these whales are like the canaries of the ocean; they do not shut up! But the ones at SeaWorld were silent, it was unnerving. It is not a place I would visit again. But all in all, I had an amazing, if crazy busy day. I went back to the hostel, ate some dinner then watched a movie and went to bed.

San Diego Zoo

San Diego Zoo - Two Headed Snake!

SeaWorld - Blue Horizons Show

One Ocean Show.

The next day, I was leaving, back up to Arcata, and the cold and rain. Sadface. I almost missed my flight, as the bus to the San Diego airport was late, so I got on the plane, 20mins before the plane was scheduled to leave....Oops. Got back into San Fran, and got a text from Claire asking if I wanted a lift back to Arcata, even though I did have a ticket back on the Greyhound. Claire's finally bought a car, wooooooooo! So we drove back together, after getting the car fixed up in San Rafael, losing Claire's phone (which we, a week later got returned), reversed into a pole at Maccas in Willits and obnoxiously sang songs all the way home. It was a good trip, and it was nice to sleep in my own bed!

All in all, I had an absolutely fantastic time in San Diego, I love the city and the weather, and the people; I would definitely go back! And back to the International Traveller's House (the hostel I stayed at); they were all so nice and the place itself was really funky!

But that was my weekend in San Diego!

Odds and Ends...

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.

Bits and Bobs...

So, a catch up update! Halloween has been and gone and we are now in November!

Halloween night itself wasn't massive for me, unfortunately. In a cruel twist of fate, (melodrama here...) my Marine Mammals graduate class had its mid semester exam the day after Halloween; so I couldn't really go out and party...which sucked. I did get all dressed up in my old school Sailor outfit and hang out with the internationals for a couple of hours; we took photos, goofed off and chilled. After that, lil' ol' Courtney had to go home and study. I definitely want to come back to America after I'm 21 and do Halloween properly...where I can actually go out, party, drink and have a good time. It was pretty cute though to see all the little kids all over Arcata running around in their Spiderman, Princess and Pirate costumes with their lolly bags. 

Got my exam done (I think I did pretty good....) and then finished the school week. The Friday night after Halloween, our whole apartment went out together for the first time; it was pretty awesome, however, Courtney was THAT girl this night. I didn't remember to take into account the fact that I haven't been drinking over here, so I merrily went on my way to consuming a large amount of my handle of vodka. I was absolutely amazing....until we got to the party (after navigating a crazy redneck with a giant stick trying to hit all of us kids). Then the vodka hit me. I got sent home in a taxi to be a very sick little girl. As always, I am all class. The next day was recovery. Lorea's friends from the Bay area were still here (five 18 year old guys came up for the weekend...) and one of them is a proffessional skateboarder. So we watched him skate our Hill of Death for a while, which was pretty cool.

After that, I went down into Arcata to watch a Rail Jam; Pacific Outfitters, the local outdoors store, had organised to dump a whole bunch of snow, and hold a boarding competition. It was pretty sweet watching all the guys go at it.

Other than that, there has been very little going on! Classes are getting intense as we get closer to finals, which are coming up quick!

But that's my little update for now!

I really am slack at this.....

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.

A Months Worth of Happenings...

Sorry guys, I know I really should actually update this more often, but I forget or decide it's nap time before I write a post. I will try to be better for the next two months!

So where am I up to! It's been a month since I last updated, and not a whole scary lot has gone down. Classes are getting that little bit more hectic. I passed really well on the 3 mid semester exams I have done so far, not so well on one lab exam...but I did expect that. I'll just have to make up some extra credit points!! Haven't really been partying...the under 21 thing here actually does kinda suck.

It was Claire's birthday on the 28th of September, so we all decided to be a tad sneaky and organize her a birthday pressie from all of us in out lil' international group. We ended up buying her Photopoly, which is this sweet version of Monopoly and a mug that looks like a SLR lens. We also all went out for dinner and drinks at a Mexican joint down in Arcata...all in Opp Shop clothing. Great night full of mucho, mucho margaritas!! Claire's best friend Mercedes came up from San Fran for the weekend as well, which was a treat for Claire. She's a really nice gal, and has an even more bogan accent than I do!! But it was a good weekend.

I've also seriously gotten into my weight loss attempts. I try to go to the gym every day and do an hour of cardio, and then some strength exercises, because I am *ahem* rather weak! Of course, my current exception to this lil health kick are the TimTams mum sent me with a little card with a water-colour of Loch Sport on it! It was an amazing touch of home, and I will be glad to see Aussie soil again (get ready Australia Day 2013!!)

I have also planned out my holidays. Canada is completely organized (Kaity and Hayden , start the count down!!); flights are booked, accommodation paid for and scheduled all laid out! So, considering we have planned to spend two days at Whistler, I decided I wanted some snow goggles and mittens. And they are adorable if I do say so myself!

I have also now officially booked some other getaways as well! I am heading down to San Diego to go to the American Cetacean Society Conference, which will be amazing. While I'm there, I am also going to the San Diego Zoo and to SeaWorld, the later I will decide whether I like or not after seeing it in person. The hostel I am staying at is really sweet; free breakfast and dinner every night...and they have a Ron Burgundy Lounge...keep it classy San Diego! The week after I get back from San Diego is Thanksgiving, and so we get a week off of classes, and I wasn't originally going to do anything, but I decided (with a fair bit of prodding from the o' wise miss Claire) that I really shouldn't let money stop me, because I'm only going to be here and 19 once in my life, so why the hell not! So i am travelling via bus down to San Fran, then catching a flight down to Las Vegas where I will check out Sin City that night then crash at a hostel. The next day, I am booked on to a day tour of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and we get to go through the National Park and visit the Hoover Dam along with a whole bunch of other places. We will get back to Vegas that night, so I get to explore a bit more, then the next day, I'm on a bus up to Los Angeles! That night and the next day I plan on wandering through Hollywood, seeing the Walk of Fame, the sign of course, Venice Beach and hopefully get me some LA Ink!! Day after that I'm meeting up with Claire and Fei and driving back up to San Fran with them, were we're staying the night. The last day we drive back up to Humboldt.

It's going to be beautifully and amazingly hectic!

Speaking of tattoos, I have booked to get another one done, up here in Arcata. The artist is absolutely amazing and an awesome bloke in general. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now. You'll have to wait to see what it's going to be!

Halloween is next week over here! I have my costume all sorted and apparently this Plaza in town goes absolutely mad. It is going to be so sweet! And I carved my first pumpkin the other day! It looks like Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas! But it is a lot harder than it looks!! But it's still fun...and messy!

We be pumpkin heads!!

Another messy activity is henna! We had a henna afternoon for the internationals, which was a bit of fun. The rest of the last few weekends I have been shopping around for some winter clothing to take to Canada...and to wear around here in the next few weeks, it's starting to get cold and it's raining a lot more often. I have my eye on a really nice ski jacket, and some good normal jackets and layer-able tops and pants!

I also went to my first football game. ... it's not for me. AFL, soccer and rugby kick American Football's arse! Haha, but I guess I'm in American, I had to go to one game. HSU Jacks slaughtered by the way!

And back to classes! The work load has gone up, but so have the experiences. We went on a beach walk for Marine Mammals and were poking around a carcass of a Steller Sea Lion. I know that will sound waayy more appealing to me than you guys! We also went out to do field observations of Gray Whales, which was lovely. In Mammal Management, we went observing elk, and I saw my first! We also found a whole heap of carcasses and feet...and a head in the river...but apparently it was a hunting area. We also chemically restrained a deer (darted one) and had teams go in an weigh it and all that wonderful stuff  It was really interesting, even though it was 8 am in the morning and raining! In Marine Biology we have been going on beach walks, tide-pooling! My group got really lost so we didn't find the class before they left sooo we did our own beach walk, and had the best time doing it! We have also been out on the Coral Sea, which is the uni's 90 ft long research boat. We did a trawl and benthic grab, and sorted through all the animals we found! We even caught a shark...a small-ish one though! We are going out again tomorrow morning...at 6:30am. And apparently there is supposed to be decent swells...so, definitely chowing down on sea sickness tablets!

The Coral Sea

Dang, Georgia can make rain-gear sexy!

Elk!

Tide-pooling

Moonstone Beach in Trinidad

And I believe, that is the interesting things that have happened in the last month that I can think of right now! But I can't believe I'm almost done the term here! Just November left, then off I fly to Canada! And then home! It's gone super fast! And I know that now I've done it, I'm going to get home and want to go somewhere new asap! Of well, gotta finish here first!

'Till next time!

Love xx

It Cannot Be Found, Cept By Those Who Know Where Tis...

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.

 

Welcome To The Lost Coast.

 

One thing I've always wanted to do was to backpack. Not just jump from dodgy hostel to dodgy hostel all over the world, but to actually strap a pack and a tent to my back and hike. Sounds fabulous in theory right? Well I got my first shot at it, backpacking the Lost Coast of California.

 

One thing I learnt from the weekend on the trail was that holy hell do I need to get into shape! I'm getting there, I would never have been able to do the hike back at home, but I've still got a way to go. But the pain, tiredness and the pain was worth it!

 

We left Friday night, the weekend after I got back from San Fran. I had rented all my gear from uni, and it turned out being really cheap! Myself, Marlis and Isabel packed all our gear into the van our trail leaders had organised for us, and along with about nine others, drove off to our campsite for the night, and our entry point to the Lost Coast Trail. First lesson; a "four man tent" is not a four man tent. It is a three smallish females tent with, if you squish together, enough room to stack our packs on top of each other at our feet. Safe to say, we did not get cold!

 

 

 

We broke down camp at around 9am on Saturday, placed all our food into bear canisters (apparently people have had their tents/packs chewed through before, so now its a legal requirement to have the canisters...) and started hiking. We were really lucky with the weather; it was stunning.

 

The hike itself was not what I had expected. I had expected a cruisey beach walk. Ahhhh no.

1. Walking on sand? Really hard/annoying
2. High tide...you lose beach to walk on.
3. We walked on the trails up on the hillside....there was vertical climbing involved....with 15kg packs on our backs...
4. River crossings
5. When walking, we discovered that it wasn't particularly safe to stare at the landscape for too long when on hillsides...you had a tendency to almost plunge to your death a lot.

 

But really? I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe the really strong headwind we walked the whole way home in on the Sunday; that sucked really bad. The scenery was absolutely spectacular; the Pacific Ocean as far as you could see, rocky cliffs and hills that dropped straight down to the sea, Harbour Seals popping in and out to say hello and the sunset on Saturday night really put on a show for us. Even though I got no sleep, it was one of the best weekends of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But next time? I think I'll be a bit fitter before I go at it again!
Oh, and on a side note...getting icecream on the way home...best idea ever. Walking into my appartment to Claire making chicken in breadcrumbs? One of the happiest moments of my life! ;)

Peace <3

If You're Going To San Francisco....

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.



If You're Going To San Francisco....

I know this is much, much overdue (so I apologise), but life is keeping me busy!

A few weeks back now myself and ten others from the International group rented some cars and roadtripped down to San Fran. It's about a 5 and a half hour drive, so obviously obnoxciously singing disney songs down the highway was required. One car left the thursday night, and my car left the friday afternoon. Considering we had a Dodge Minivan, poor Claire who was driving looked like a soccer mum of a very interesting family!

On the drive down, Claire and Jordan brought up the idea of picking up a hitchhiker. Now, dont get me wrong, im sure all y'all hitchhiking folk are lovely...but every thought about mass murding psychopaths mqy or may not have crossed my mind. But, it's was on some peoples bucket's list, so pick up a hitchhiker we did! Her name was Kasey, she had awesome tatts, awesome hair and an adorable little puppy! Actually a really nice girl, I chatted with her until we dropped her off.

So on we drove! We crossed over the Golden Gate at night, siging at the top of our lungs of course, then took a detour down Lombards St; the most twisty street in the world! We then, while trying to find our way to our hostel, managed to drive down a one way street.....the wrong way. Whoops.

We finally got to the hostel at around 9pm friday. Now, i've never stayed at a hostel before in my life, and boy was this place a one star introduction to hostels!! The place was rather sketch, down a creepy alley, complete with a red light massage parlour on the corner! But even though there was no real security, doors and gates that didn’t lock, mismatching and *ahem* stained sheets, showers and toilets that didn’t work perfectly and hand rails up narrow stairwells that were falling out of the wall, the people were pretty cool, so that made up for it. Once we got settled, we got dolled up, threw on our heels and got our drink on baby! I thought i'd lost my camera and had a massive stress out fit, but Jord and Vicente found it for me...apparently I have really bad blonde moments sometimes...
Once we were suffuciently buzzed, off we walked to an 18+ club called City Nights! Once we got there, one of the promo people called Claire over cause apparently she looked interesting. They then noticed the rest of us/we crashed, and we got interviewed for a promo for the club! Win for being international! We then wandered inside, and holy crap what an inside! For all of yous reading from Melbourne, specially from Knox, think of a giant cross between the cages and pole of Dakkas and Cheers and the awesome of Roxannes. This place was nuts! Main room had a giant dancefloor, stage and then two storys of balcony complete with cages and pole.....aaannndddd gogo dancers! Half naked guys and girls paid to dance for us all...drunk Courtney was happy. After the place closed, Kelly, Vicente and I realised we had lost the others, and decided to walk back to the hostel....through the dodgy end of town. We apparently made friends with a pimp and his 'women', which will make an interesting story to tell any future granbabies!
But, we did get home alive...after gettting very lost!

The next day (Saturday), I thank god did not have a hangover! We ended up wandering around Union Square, got lunch, then took a 'cable car' (which I swear is actually a really old tram..) to the Old Ferry Building and perused the markets there. Which was rather lovely and the sun was out and amazing. I bought a shirt and a bracelet made out of a fork, which makes me happy for some random reason. And Melboure, you really do have some catching up to do on decorating! There was a giant water feature that you could walk under, over, up, down and through! I had far too much fun with that thing. We then watched a mass group of bmx'ers pull some tricks, whick was sweet. We then got on another cart out to Pier 39.

 

 

Pier 39 is a sweet, sweet tourist trap, but I loved it anyway. There was hella people, but we all had a great afternoon touristing, looking at California Sea Lions, getting a glimpse of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate, miraculisly without fog. We all met up and chilled on the ground listening to music and taking photos with a superman on stilts! We then got on a bus off to China Town! We had a wander, bought touristy things, and in general, acted like the annoying tourists we love to hate at home. It was fun. Had a late lunch/dinner which almost turned into a food fight as Claire flinged a prawn tail at Jord, who ducked, and it almost hit the people behind us. Our bad. Full we then headed home. I was exhausted and pretty much just fell asleep, but not before we made friends with our two new dorm mates Igor and Roy, who are on exchange in Santa Barbra. We all pretty much decided to adopt them, and offered to take them with us the next day, which, well, duh, they did!

 

On Sunday, our last day in San Fran, we got up early, checked out of the hostel and headed out to Cal Academy of Science. As it was one of only 4 free entry days for Cal Academy in the year, we knew it was going to be busy, but boy was that the understatement of the year! By the time we got there, the linne was above 2000 people. But thankfully, we only had to wait about an hour; some people apparently waited five... It was so worth it though! I had the biggest geek fest in there! Aquariums, rainforests, a 75st domed projector screen; everything! It was like mixing ScienceWorks, the Melbourne Museum and the Melbourne Aquarium into one and it was still better! I thoroughly enjoyed myself! On another note, on the way there and trying to find a park, we also learnt that Tunisians can park like bosses. Well done Nidham!

After that we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, and you guessed it, acted like complete and utter airheaded tourisits. And we loved it. I bought some more souveniers (which are now all tucked away in my wardrobe) and we jumped back into our cars, had dinner then got on the road home.

But wait! There's more!

We were driving home, trying to stay awake, looking for a petrol station and kinda wanting to stop and take photos of the sunset. Sooo, the driving was pretty all over the place! For example, pulling off the highway just after an exit, and then pulling back out again. So safe to say we weren't too surprised to look in the rear view mirror and see Highway Patrol behind. And yes, they did pull us over. One of the cops came up to the passengers window and asked for license and registration yada yada. Copper number two says, “I’ve pulled you over because you swerved off the road and then tried to exit the free way.” I'm pretty sure that when we all opened our mouths and told them we were kinda lost and looking for a gas station, all he was thinking was "Bloody toursits!" The first cop comes over as well and now asks:

“Ok, Where you lot headed tonight?”
“Arcata.”
*sus tone of voice* “What are you going there for?”
“We got to uni at Humboldt.”
“Ah. Do you have any large sums of cash on you?”
“No, we're uni students.”
“Any marijuana in your possesion?”
“No, we’re not those kinds of kids.”
*cop number two, laughing* “Give it a few months and you will be.”
*cop number one* "Ha, yeah you'd probably be picking up your stash on the way through!"

. . . . .
#humboldt

Safe to say, it was a good weekend, and it wouldn't have been the same without our little International Family. <3