Cairns

On our way to dive the Great Barrier Reef on a dive boat...we have 2 + 1/2 hours till we get there...

Yesterday morning we woke up at 630 am + took a cab to the airport. I was going to carry on my bag, but my bag has grown over the past month. So of course, they charged me $80 to check it...the beauty of unexpected travel expenses. I of course started to cry, because I I had to pay $160 extra for my roundtrip (that was already a really expensive flight) + I thought it was very unnecessary as it is $10 when you book your flight. I think it might just be 80 for roundtrip, but we shall see. So I tried to just store my bag but they charge by the hour + it would be ridiculous. The women (flight attendants) there were really nice + tried to make me not be sad. And then I went to pay + the lady at the counter was SO mean to me.

Anyways, so I cried through security for the next 15 minutes (because that's the mature way to deal with mean people + things that upset me), and one lady checking my liquids was really nice + told me not to cry. Then she told me she cries everyday + I was like "what? Why?". She said there was something in her life she couldn't change + it made her sad. And then I started to cry more, because that is SO sad. So we made it to our flight + I stopped crying.

Then Laura + Lindsay mention the woman didn't even put my seat with theirs, though they offered to switch with me. Whatever all I do is sleep on planes anyways.

So I read a magazine + slept for an hour + then we were in Cairns. We called our hostel + they sent a shuttle, which took at least an hour even though the place was 10 minutes away. We got there at 12:40 pm + the lady at the counter (who had already messed up our shuttle) immediately tells us "check in is NOT till 1". I was kind of sick of mean people. So we store our luggage + grab lunch at a fish place nearby (mackerel + greek salad).

We check into our hostel + it was pretty gross, but I've had worse. We have our own 4 bed room in a dorm, so at least we could lock our stuff in. Then we walked over to the lagoon (aka a very large + pretty pool off the beach). The beach is kind of gross + full of scary animals so no one goes there. But all along the grass, there were tons of young people laying out. We found a great spot with shade for me + sun for them + laid out for a while, reading + relaxing.

The gross mucky beach with crocodiles

Linds + I went to check out the pier + then we got Laura + checked out the rest of the town. On our way home, we found these really big trees covered in thousands of enormous bats. They were SO big. They loooked like rats/foxes + were so hairy.

BATS!

We got some ice cream + gelato + walked home. We showered + then used our free meal coupon at the hostel. Free meal turned out to me vegetable soup. It was funny because they barely filled this very large bowl. But I still enjoyed our appetizer. Then we went to the other place we had a free meal at (Laura + Linds had booked these packages for our 6 days up north that included all this random stuff) RhinoBar. We got red curry with veggies or chicken over steamed rice, which was so jelly-like. I wasn't a fan, but Linds + Laura were so I had to suck it up. You can pay $5 more to upgrade it, so I probably will do that if they force me to return!

We walked to a night market + I got a couple things for my family. And then we got some coffee + PB+J stuff for breakfast/snacks + went home to fall asleep by 9:30pm.

We woke up at 6:40am again + took the hotel shuttle to the pier. Our dive boat is pretty nice. Laura + Linds had no memory of what they signed up for, so I was honestly a little scared. But it ends up we have 2 dives already paid for + the boat has a morning + afternoon snack + a pretty big lunch + we get home around 5. Pretty pumped about our day...