So here we go again on my second entry here in Australia. It seems like that last few weeks have been extremely long in a good way. I have just been trying to pack as much fun and sun into my last few days as much as possible. Over the last few days I have been all over the coast. One day I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which is the largest Koala Sanctuary in the world. I met Abby after her classes in the afternoon and we took the bus about a half hour to the zoo. The sanctuary was great with lots of great animals. We watched a hawk demonstration and sheep dog demonstration neither of which seemed to impress us that much because it seemed like we could have seen those same demonstrations back home at the Inter Mountain Fair. I think that I have actually seen both those demonstrations conducted by members of my family but the end results of the demonstrations were quite a bit different and with a few more explicit lyrics (I don’t think I have ever seen Lady move fast enough to become a sheep dog, more like a sheep rug ….). Then after that we went and fed the Kangaroos and that was lots of fun and there were tons of them all over the place. So towards the end the day at the Sanctuary with went by quickly and saw the: wombats, dingo’s, Tasmanian devils, Alligators and of course “heaps” of Koalas. Aussies love to use the word “heaps” instead of “a lot” of something. Before we left there were these white birds that said hello and goodbye to people passing by which we had to play with first. We stayed for awhile playing with them and go figure they sure loved their Pepsi, the Coke-cola people were so jealous because the birds wouldn’t talk to them. So all in all the sanctuary was really nice and I got to see lots of cool animals.

That weekend I wanted to head off south down the coast about an hour south of Brisbane to Surfers Paradise which is one of the main vacation get away places in all of Australia. So Abby and I took the train down on Saturday afternoon and it was a little tuff to find a room, because it was one of the last weekends before most of the schools and Universities were going back into session so it was pretty busy. We ended up finding a good deal on a room right next to the beach that ended up working out great for the night. That night we went to the Casino which was a big hit. We walked around a bit then sat down and played some blackjack. There games are a little different from the ones back in the states for a little over an hour. Unfortunately there was no Pai Gow Brody, I guess I will have to wait tell I’m inving just a little bit up so it was a successful trip in my book. The next day before we switched hotels we made it a point to go to one of the very few Mexican restaurants in Australia that afternoon. I had to get some, because it might be a long time till my next good Mexican meal. So we switched hotels and I had a good skype session with my parent’s pool side at the hotel which was nice. Then headed off to the beach again and just hung out in the sun and body surfed in the waves that where actually pretty big in some parts. That night we went to the movies and then had Indian food to top of an amazing day.

Monday we took off early so Abby could get back for her classes and I needed to start packing for my flight to Korea. Well…. when I got back I talked to my recruiter that had placed me with the school and she advised that the school had gone and just hired somebody else and so the job opening was no longer available. So, I got to learn that signed contracts in the US do not have the same meanings as signed contracts in other countries (lesson learned, haha). So all the next week I worked on posting my resume again and sorting through all of the different job offers again which wasn’t too hard to do. So by Thursday I had narrowed my job offers down to 3 and by the weekend I had a new contract with another really good school just west of Seoul in Bucheon, Korea.

So Friday I had pretty much everything rapped up for work so I joined the Queensland Med program for the day for their yearly sports day. So for the events of sports day the whole Med school program gets the day off to get wasted and do games. Seems like a Med school is a real drag right…haha. So the day starts with all the 4^th years at a bar in the city at 8am and at 9am they all run to another bar closer to Campus and pick up the 3^rdst years and drink for an hour and so on and so on, tell all the Med school kids are at one bar and race to Campus from the 1 years bar. All this is done with the students dressed in their scrubs with Sharpe written all them. At the school they had a roped off section with beer tents, jumping houses, and just games to play. Needless to say; after starting so early, having a camelback full of vodka, and it being 90 degrees outside we went back and crashed around that afternoon but only had a short one because after that we went into the city to watch my first Professional Rugby Union game. I pretty much sat and watched and distracted Abby by asking questions the whole time about the game. The weekend was just a blur of watching movies and recovering from sports day. The recovering was not really for me as much as it was for the co-captain of “Team Fun”. The following week I just got all my stuff ready for Korea because I still wasn’t sure when they were going to be flying me out and it kept changing. The final week in Australia was just more relaxing at the south bank beach catching some final rays before I headed off to Korea. My last day in Australia was raining all day when a big storm came and didn’t stop raining tell Abby and I decided to go get my last meal of….. “Indian Food”, yum! The rain let up just enough to trick us into going all the way to the restaurant and on our way back with our take-out deciding to just start pouring down rain on us on our walk back… perfect timing! So I left Monday morning to Korea at 8:30am and I am here now so I will have lots to talk about soon. Hope everyone back home is well and everybody overseas. Miss you all!