Excuse to be as lazy as I want

I randomly woke up at 6 in the morning, and decided to cook breakfast. I know, Mom... thats a dangerous thing to do! Shane was so surprised to be greeted with bacon and pancakes. I can't guarantee they tasted good, but he ate it all with no complaints! After taking the time to sit down and eat with me, he was running late for work so off he went.

Shanes truck is being borrowed by a friend and he has the car, so I have the perfect excuse to be as lazy as I want.  Realistically, I probably would have stayed in bed all day anyways,  but now I can feel better about it!

Vacations are made for relaxing. So many people feel like if they're not out doing and seeing, that they're somehow wasting their vacation. That's definitely not my sentiment!

Shanes roommate, Craig, came home early and I mentioned being hungry. He hadn't eaten either so we ended up going to a local restaurant,  "The Whistling Kite." I ordered a weird type of burger, that tasted really different but wasn't necessarily bad. I guess it just wasn't what I was expecting. When we went to pay the bill, Craig refused to take my money. I've been spoiled by these guys this week!

Shane and I have gotten slightly addicted to playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I must say, we make a good team! I've reestablished my old skill at these shoot em up games, and I can hold my own quite well. After a while of playing, we decided we wanted ice cream. After a quick rush to the store (we thought they were closing), we had chocolate chunk and vanilla ice cream with chocolate hard shell to drizzle (or pour) over it, and some cookies that tasted EXACTLY like thin mints to top it off. I always wonder how I gain weight when I'm traveling... I guess that mystery is solved.

Craig was watching The Walking Dead, and I haven't seen any of the new episodes since I've been traveling for a month. The 3 of us sat down and watched all the new episodes that Craig had recorded while destroying our huge bowls of ice cream.

I don't know about you guys, but relaxing in front of a TV with some ice cream is the perfect vacation. I never do that at home, just like I never play video games,  so today has just been an amazingly relaxing day.

I'm loving this life.

Cans. Cairns. Cans.

This day began on a plane, which seems to be my MO on this trip! My flight from Perth to Cairns (pronounced CANS) landed at 4:15 and I immediately made my way to the hostel. It felt great being on a domestic flight... no customs to go through!

The hostel was all locked up for the night, but luckily there were some guys drinking and playing pool that were able to let me in and wake up the night manager. He gave me a spare bed, and I was actually able to sleep for a few hours! That was almost a disaster though, since my alarm was on silent... I ended up sleeping 20 minutes past what I wanted, but I made it to the marina and jumped aboard the Tusa 6 diving vessel before being left!

I learned something new about myself that I never knew before... Apparently, given the right conditions, I get sea sick. That was NOT a pleasant experience,  but at least now I know to take something before the boat takes off!

We made it out to the first stop, out on the Great Barrier Reef. The GBR is made up of a ton of smaller reefs and is the world's largest living organism. It can be seen from space! Norman's reef, our first stop,  was full of colorful anemone, fish, clams, and some people saw a shark, although my group did not. We hit the deepest point my certification allows, 18m. I actually went 18.3... oops! I was disappointed because yesterday, there was a sea turtle hanging out,  but today he wasn't anywhere to be seen. He must be out helping Marlin find Nemo!

We did two dives on Norman's reef,  and then had lunch on the boat. The ocean was ridiculously choppy, and the boat was heaving this way and that, causing people to drop things, and we were unable to really get up and walk anywhere. Finally we arrived at the second dive site, and the boat came to a halt. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, and began preparing for the next and final dive.

Fish hole, our final dive site, hosted a variety of fish and enormous clams... There was a barracuda hanging out under the boat, just relaxing. The colors of the reef were absolutely stunning... brilliant shades of purple, neon green, and yellow are only a few of the myriad of colors that littered the coral of the reef. All my dive photos are on a CD and my tablet doesn't have a disk drive, so you'll have to wait until I get home to see them all!

At this point,  I'm just thoroughly exhausted. After a "short" nap (3 hours) I headed to the local Irish pub for which I had a meal voucher. I can't believe I ever forgot how amazing Australians are at making fish and chips... Ugh I am FULL, sleepy, and ready for BED.