Happy Birthday to Me Part 2

Sorry I haven't been writing...I just haven't been in the mood. All sorts of life plans are coming to fruition and we've been concentrating on getting our San Francisco remodel going (in our heads mostly, but the renters are moving out soon, so it's about to ACTUALLY start happening as well) and our Oregon home which we finally get to see again! Very exciting since we bought the house after having only been in it for all of 15 minutes 3 months ago! So weird that our time here in Oz is already almost halfway over and we have to now start looking forward toward real life back in the States!

Anyway, I'm going to properly recap our weekend up north now...since it was officially 2 weekends ago and that's just sheer laziness on my part!

First things first, the whole weekend was a surprise (except obviously I had stated my views on where we were going and like a good husband Dom listened =) so we made it all the way to the airport, through security and were having a snack at the airport before Dom would spill the beans about what the weekend would entail.

Sidenote regarding domestic flights in Oz...it's like being transported back 10 years ago to Pre 9/11 days when you can prance through security with your shoes firmly on your feet and liquids in your bag and nary a ticket OR IDENTIFICATION in sight. In fact, you know movies where people get off planes and go running into the arms of a waiting loved one, the reunion that much to the chagrin of movie directors everywhere, doesn't happen at the gate anymore, but 15 minutes later in baggage claim, yeah well you can still meet loved ones at the gate in Oz. IT'S WEIRD.

Moving on.

Plan was:

Fly to Cairns (said CANS, no 'r'...and that's cans with an American accent, like a soda can)

Stay the night in Cairns, get up next morning, my birthday (yay for Friday the 13th) and drive the hour north to Port Douglas in our uber cool convertible that we rented.

Stay 3 night just outside Port Douglas in a cute little B&B in the rainforest.

Snorkel the reef.

And that was it, that was as much as we had planned going into the weekend.

The flight to Cairns was uneventful as was the drive north.

Sidenote, (there are lots of sidenotes in this story, this is how I would tell it in real life) unbeknownst to me on the morning of my birthday, some of my friends back home in NYC got together and secretly with Dom arranged to have a video Skype chat with us! Unfortunately the internet connection was quite shoddy but I did get to "see" my peeps back home for a few minutes before the internet threw a wrench in their well laid plans. But thanks for that Jess & Dom! I must say I got a little teary eyed when the whole thing went sour as it would have been lovely to sit and chat for a little while =( But luckily I think I will see everyone in September, so that's 2 months earlier than we had originally planned! Yay!

Back to the story.

Once we reached Port Douglas before finding our hotel we took a little drive through town (which took all of 5 minutes, Port Douglas in not very big) and we found the apparently famous 4-mile beach that Port Douglas in known for (I think it's famous because it's one of the FEW beaches in Queensland that is free of all manner of deadly, venomous, man killing creatures).

So, we posed for some piccies

And I discovered just how far away New York is in km, which is equal to about 9,500 miles if anyone was curious, which again made me sad...this is the first birthday I've had no friends around to celebrate and as good as Dom did with the weekend plans it was just sad to be all by our lonesome =(

And then we decided to have a beer.

Another sidenote. This bar that we decided to stop and have a beer at is where they filmed some of the scenes in Fool's Gold. We discovered later that the whole movie was filmed there in Port Douglas. It was a terrible movie if you haven't seen it and I wouldn't recommend watching it, but now I think I need to see it again just because I've been there.

Moving on again.

After our quick tour of Port Douglas we decided to stop one more time before heading to the hotel, so we drove north again and stopped off at Crystal Cascades, which in all honesty wasn't that exciting. Who knew you could be a jaded Oregonian?! But apparently I am because this sort of place exists all over Oregon and I guess it's a novelty here, so yay Oregon! I can understand the appeal when the oceans are swarming with jellyfish and you need somewhere to cool off, but it seems a little overkill to have a handicap accessible path to what is essentially a swimming hole. Swimming holes are way more fun when you are one of few who know they exist and that means you gotta go off the beaten path a little bit to get there! They took out all the fun. Anyway, it wasn't quite hot enough to warrant a swim anyway, so we just wandered up to the top (on the concrete path) to the falls and back down. Keeping in mind that this is Australia and death is lying around every corner this is probably the real reason for the concrete path.

That's right people, they have evil stinging venomous trees! Know what else they have up here in northern Australia, 5 kinds of deadly snakes! So, again, that's why they have the well maintained concrete path that runs right along the water to the "swimming holes" so you don't cross paths with a deadly snake...or tree.

Please excuse the fat arm, beware of the wide angle lens, it is not your friend if you end up on the outer edges of a picture...it IS your friend if you are in the middle, then you look like you have amazingly long legs, like this:

Haha, I love this picture, they look like they're 7 feet tall.

Photography Lesson Over.

And Part 2 also over...I'm tired of writing. Back later with the rest.