Big blog post

I’m finally in Alice Springs after an adventurous and amazing week. I’ve seen and done so much cool things. Some things I’ve never done before and some things on my must-do-list here in Australia. I went on a tour from Adelaide to Alice Springs together with about 15 other people. Most of us were from Europe, but some were from Australia too. We went through South Australia and Northern Territory and saw much of the Australian outback. Never been travelling so much by bus in my entire life. I took about 500 pictures and have lots to tell you, so be prepared for a long post!

Our first stop on the trip was a pub in the country side where we were going to do wine tasting. There were grape fields everywhere around. I don’t usually like wine, but the wines we tasted were good. On the first evening we stayed in a village with a population of 7 people, a big difference when you’re used to living in places like Sydney and Melbourne. But it was nice to get to a more calm and quiet place. We had emu burger, camel sausage and kangaroo for dinner. It tasted good, not strange or anything. The camel sausage tasted pretty much like a usual sausage. The kangaroo meat was almost everyone’s favorite.

I like the Australian outback, the people, the pubs and the atmosphere are nice. There is always a pub, no matter how small the village is. The only thing that isn’t nice is the flies. So many flies everywhere, and they try to fly into your eyes, nose and mouth all the time. After this week I can say that there aren’t as many spiders here as you might expect. Of course there are spiders, but I only saw two quite big ones during the week.

We went to Flinders Rangers the second day to do some hiking. We walked several kilometers and the mountain was 900 meters high. It was the hardest walk we did during the week and everyone was exhausted after we had done that. The view was really stunning though. I hiked in my converse because I didn’t have any other shoes. You can do anything in converse, I’ve proved that. We saw many wild animals that day, kangaroos, emus and an unusual lizard our guide had never seen before. We also went to a cave with aboriginal rock art and to some old ruins.

The third day was one of the best ones. First we went to a salt lake (not a real lake anymore, just salt) where we took funny pictures. The area was really flat and you could easily take pictures where you pretended to lift people in your hands or to stamp on them. On our way to Coober Pedy we found the Australian Abbey Road and took one of our many group pictures. When we arrived that afternoon we went to a kangaroo orphanage where they took care of hurt or ill kangaroos. It was the best thing during the whole trip if you ask me. The kangaroos were so cute and funny and we even got to feed them! There was a baby kangaroo which was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Wish I could have brought him/her with me! In the evening we went to an underground bar. Everything is underground in Coober Pedy, people even live underground.

Coober Pedy is a mine village where they have found lots of opals. On the fourth day we visited the old mine and learned more about opals. We even went out to look for opals, but I did only find usual stones. Then we continued our trip and at the end of the day we crossed the border to Northern Territory. We saw a wild dingo (an Australian wild dog). This night was the first night we slept under the stars. We sat by a fire and grilled marshmallows, the only thing that was missing was a guitar. The night sky was the most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen, so many stars! We slept in swags. The word swag probably has a completely different meaning to you, but in Australia it’s something you put your sleeping bag into to keep yourself warm.

We went to Kings Canyon the fifth day. The walk in the mountains felt like nothing compared to the one we did in Flinders Rangers. Amazing landscape and views, everything is big in Australia. No wonder why Australian people have told me that they like big things in Australia.

On the sixth day we finally got to Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it also is called. The big rock. It feels like you have to go and visit it when you’re in Australia. It was cool to see it in real life. We also visited an Aboriginal museum where we learned more about Aboriginals and their culture. It’s strange that they are a minority in their own country.

On the last day we had to go up at 4.30 am to watch the sunrise over Uluru. Totally worth it though, it was one of the best moments on the trip. It was incredibly beautiful to slowly see the sun rise over the rock. I think I like sunrises more than sunsets, because you don’t get to see them often. Afterwards we walked around Kata Tjuta and saw even more rock formations. Then we went on the final trip to Alice Springs and the tour was finished. 

Bye Bye Melbourne

I've been in Melbourne for a month now and feel it's time to move on. I've tried my best to get a job here, but it has been very difficult so I'll go and try somewhere else. Melbourne has brought me many memories, experiences and even a tattoo, but the adventure continues.

Tomorrow I'm going to Adelaide to stay there for one night, then I'm going on a tour from Adelaide to Alice Springs. We're going to see Ayers rock and several other things, so it's going to be exciting. Feels nice to get out into the Australian outback and see more of this country. I don't think I'll be able to use internet while I'm on the tour, so maybe you have to wait a week for the next blog post.

When I'm done with the tour I'll probably go to Cairns and try to find work there or somewhere else on the East Coast. Then I'll travel the rest of the East Coast. Cairns is a must for me though, I know a few thrilling things I wanna do there. I must say I feel scared when I think about one of them, but I'll rather do something scary than regret that I didn't do it.

Yesterday I met Rebecka and Maria in the city, we drank Somersby in the sun and looked in some shops. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures, but we had a nice afternoon. Today I went up in the Eureka tower to get a last view over Melbourne.

First tattoo

I got my first tattoo yesterday! People thought it was a joke because it was the first of April, but no, this is no joke. For those of you who didn't understand the clues in the last post: The Green Day album intended it was going to be something with Green Day, the cupcake that it was going to be pink and the plants shaped like hearts that it was going to be a heart grenade.

"You don't need a rocket scientist to figure out that it's going to be a heart grenade". That's what my boyfriend said when I asked if he could guess what I was going to tattoo. And well, I guess it's pretty obvious as I've been a crazy Green Day fan for many, many years now. They have been in my life since I was 13 and now I'm 21. I've always known that I wanna do something Green Day related when I get a tattoo. The difficult thing has been to figure out what. First I was thinking about tattooing lyrics from one of the songs, but I could never decide which song to choose. There are so many parts of their songs that make me feel like I was the one who wrote them. So I chose a heart grenade instead.

I did it in pink because I love the color and wanted it to be more unique. I've never seen a picture of a heart grenade tattoo in pink before. I love strong colors and contrasts, so that's why I wanted the lines in black to be quite thick. I did it on my upper arm because I like tattoos on arms and I thought it was a good place to begin with. The tattoo guy said to me: "It's not a small tattoo to do as a first tattoo" and my answer to that was: "I'm not the kind of person who does small things."

The heart grenade is a symbol that means many things to me. It obviously symbolizes Green Day and my love to Green Day. The American Idiot album was the first album I bought by them and also my absolute favorite album ever. It was the album who brought me into music and if it wouldn't be for Green Day I wouldn't have started playing guitar. Maybe I would not even listen to the music I do today, dress the way I do and be the way I am if it wouldn't be for them.

Green Day is not just a band to me, it's much deeper than that. They have helped me through many tough times and they have helped me believe in myself when nobody else did. When I discovered Green Day I got more courage to be the person I am, because they showed me that it's okay to be different. To be the minority. I know that lots of people don't understand my love for Green Day and that's fine. Sometimes I barely understand it myself. You know, sometimes when you really love someone or something it's hard to explain why.

The tattooing took about 2 hours. You might wonder if it hurt, and yes, of course it hurt a bit. You can't expect to get 1000 needles through your skin without feeling anything. But it wasn't that bad, you got used to it after a while. The feeling is hard to describe though.

To get a tattoo was a challenge for me. Not because I'm afraid of needles or sensitive to pain, but because I'm a perfectionist. For several years I've been thinking about what would be the "perfect tattoo", but I've never been able to come up with one that's good enough to me. I was afraid that I would get one and then feel like I should have done something else or different, because I'm rarely satisfied with anything. Now I realize that there are no perfect tattoos, so I just did one. Of course you should consider carefully what tattoo you want and where, but thinking too much is never a good thing. It just makes you end up doing nothing.

Here you have some pictures!