By the time I hit Sydney, Australia (on September 11th), I was ready to CHILL OUT for awhile. Not only was I “travel-exhausted” in general from the past seven months, but the week prior I had been staying at hostels on my own and had quite a few late nights out with hostel friends (you […]

Posted in Australia, RTW Trip, Travel
Tags: Adelaide, Alex, Bernie, Bondi beach, Botanical Gardens, Contemporary art, Darling harbor, docklands, drag queen, federation square, ferry, Fitzroy gardens, Imperial Hotel, Justine, Luna park, Manly beach, Marley, McLaren Vale, Megs, Melbourne, Middleton, Mo, museum, National gallery, Peri, Shabbat, Shaini, Shira, show, Spit bridge, St. Kilda, Sydney, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House, vineyards, whales, Wine tasting, wineries 2 Comments »

You might think Australia is much like the US, and in some ways it IS. However, the more research I did about the country (and finding out about their minimum FOUR weeks of vacation per year!), and the more time I spent in everyday life with friends in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, the more I […]

Posted in Australia, RTW Trip, Statistics, Travel
Tags: aboriginal, Australia, capital, climate, compassionate leave, conomy, continent, currency, drinking, Driving, education, facts, foods, GDP, gun control, gun laws, happiest, hours, island, Koala, language, life expectancy, literacy rate, long service leave, Melbourne, paid vacation, population, religion, sick leave, smoking, snakes, statistics, time off, unemployment rate, vacation time, work day, work environment 3 Comments »

So, let me catch you up to speed with our current travels…  I realize it may be slightly confusing, as I’m always about one month behind in my blog posts, but here it goes: James and I flew from Thailand to Australia on August 23rd, and then spent a couple weeks along the east coast […]

Posted in Africa, Australia, RTW Trip, Travel
Tags: Australia, Cape town, Capetown, career, editing, editor, James, job, Johannesburg, Kenya, Melbourne, opportunity, South Africa, Sydney, TV, TV show Comment on this post »

We were up SUPER EARLY on Saturday morning (August 7) to meet up with a tour bus that would be taking us on a 2 1/2 day drive from Melbourne along “The Great Ocean Road” to Adelaide.  The Great Ocean Road is a stretch of land and ocean just southwest of Melbourne, starting from a […]

Posted in Australia, Travel
Tags: Adelaide, Australia, Grampians National Park, Great Ocean Road, Julie, Koala, Melbourne, mini bus, rainforests, The Twelve Apostles, tour 1 Comment »

We arrived in Melbourne at 5:30am on Thursday—EARLY! Took a couple buses to our hostel, and when we got there they were kind enough to offer us free breakfast and allowed us to use the public showers to clean up. Believe me, after a 15 hour flight, a shower is glorious! We bummed around town […]

Posted in Australia, Travel
Tags: Australia, Australian Football, footy game, Julie, meat pie, Melbourne, modern architecture, pub crawl Comment on this post »