After the road trip I only had about a week left in Australia. Marko had said while we were on the road trip that he would like to show Melody and myself Tambourine Mountain. And he did, we took a walk through the sub tropical rain forest. It was so pretty there. If I had not heard so many creepy noises there I would totally consider building a tree house and living there. Another thing on my to do list was Australian Zoo, you know, Steve Irwin’s zoo! I have some Slovene friends (Kristjan, Kristijan, Matej & Simon) who happened to be in Australia around the same time as I was and Australia Zoo is something we did together. I got a picture with them and a snake, one with me and just the snake, and one with me holding a koala. As I was holding the koala I realized it smelled funny, when I returned the koala to the keeper I noticed my hands smelled funny and then when I was telling Kristjan about how funny your hands smell after holding the koala he made me aware of the fact that your hands are nothing in comparison with the smell the koala left on your t-shirt. He was right, I smelled like a koala for quite a bit after that. The zoo was awesome! I would recommend it to anyone. The crocodile show was splendid as were the staff that walk around the zoo carrying big smiles on their faces and often an animal of some sort in their hands. You’ll walk somewhere and see a staff member with a lizard in their hand and then you, as a visitor can pet the lizard. We had planned to see the tiger show because my friend Ben, who’s a senior photographer at the zoo, had told us about it. It was scheduled to start at 2:15pm. We were getting a bit hungry around 1:15pm so my friends’ friend Sanja and I volunteered to get food for everyone while the rest sat at the tiger arena. Simon and Sanja’s mum joined us and it only took about 5 minutes to walk to the cafeteria. Ordering didn’t take too long either, but for some reason getting our order to us took about 20-30 minutes. Sanja told me to go back to the tigers so that I wouldn’t miss the tiger show, but I know what I’m Iike, I get lost in down-time Amsterdam, a place where I’ve spent considerable time growing up. I had no hope of finding my way back by myself in a place I didn’t know. So I waited, and when we finally had all our food we headed back. I was walking in front, with a steady pace hoping to speed things up a bit. Sadly though, even though I was sure I was heading in the right direction, I kept taking wrong turns and then Simon would have to call me to come to the right side again. When we finally got near the arena at 2:29pm, I heard the voice of one of the tiger handlers over the PA system ‘Well we thank you for your attention during this tiger show, we hope you’ve enjoyed it...’. Great. I missed it. All of it. I wanted to tell them to do the show again. I mean. Certainly one of the tigers would be available to do some more tricks? It’s not like the tigers had a busy schedule or anything, as I looked through the window they were just lying around. I forgot about asking them this while I was talking to one of the handlers after lunch though. Ever wondered why tiger handlers don’t get eaten by the tigers? What tiger handler Matt was able to tell me is that him and the 7 other crew have basically raised these animals since they were cubs. So it’s a respect thing. Matt also told me that he could almost guarantee me that if I were to go in there and tried to pet them like he does that I would get eaten. So no petting of tigers for me..
After coming home from the zoo, I went to the prayer meeting at church later that evening. One of my friends, Curtis, who I met on ICQ (remember those days??!) about 10 years ago was there as well. Meeting him in real life was cool, he took me to the glow worm cave (google that) and to O Reilly’s. Both of these places are very nice spots of nature. The latter one is where the picture with the bird was taken. Al these birds fly around there freely, if you have seeds in your hands they’ll eat them right out of your hand. And if you don’t have seeds they’ll still blatantly land on you. This particular bird got stuck in my hair which was a little bit painful for both of us, but all of us survived :) .
That day after O Reilly’s I had to finish packing my bag to go home, my 5 weeks were up. With sadness in my heart I finally closed my suitcase knowing I would miss Australia. It was a weird kind of sensation wearing long trousers again, especially since the sun was shining ever so bright outside. I know I complained about the lack of sun when I first got to Australia, since I had told everyone back home that I was going to Australia to find the sun, and it wasn’t there the first few weeks. But I wanted you to know that I found it. And I was fully intending to bring it home with me, but I couldn’t find it when I left Australia at 9pm. Anyhow, so I got on the plane fully dressed. There were some people wearing shorts and t-shirts, which I found particularly brave because the Australian airline companies, more than companies from any other country that I’ve flown with try to make you into icicles by the time you get to your next destination. They do this by turning the air conditioning on -2 degrees. I remember when we flew to Darwin on Christmas day that I was very cold despite the fact that I had brought, and was wearing my cardigan, scarf AND Melody’s knee socks. I tried to sleep during the flight but I just couldn’t stop thinking about how cold my feet and legs were. When I got out of that plane I was still quite cold because the airport, being in the hottest part of Australia was heavily air conditioned as well, but then when I walked through the airport doors my whole body thawed out instantly. Darwin was so hot and humid that you could almost drink the air. I’ll admit it wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world, but as I got on the flight in Melbourne going back to Europe, Qantas was still trying to freeze me over and I knew that once I would leave the airport in Amsterdam I would still be cold and not warm like in Darwin. I don’t believe in an everlasting hell where those who reject God burn forever and ever, the Bible teaches me different, God is way too loving to allow anyone to burn forever. But if God really was a tyrant who wanted people to suffer for eternity, I’m pretty sure hell would be cold. Very, very cold.
I’m home now. In The Netherlands. Hadassa picked me up from the airport, which is quite sweet because she tends to get speeding tickets anytime she takes me to the airport. After the last time in November she vowed she wasn’t going to take me ever again. Technically she didn’t take me to the airport this time, she picked me up from it. So I guess she’s not broken her promise. She made me drive home after having flown for 30 hours though so she’s not that sweet. OK she didn’t make me, she just expressed that she didn’t feel like driving :) So she is sweet, one of the best sisters in the world she is. Being back home with the sister has been really good. As much fun as I had in Australia, there’s a certain type of fun that I can only have with my sisters, and being back home I realized how much I’ve missed that. Having said that though, it’s too cold here. I really wish our radiator would be more flexible so that it would curl around me. I might feel a bit differently in spring time when it’s less cold, but right now I’m seriously thinking about looking for a job Down Under so that I can spend some more time there.
If I end up doing that you’ll hear from me :) In the mean time I wish you all the best for 2012. Enjoy it because it’s flying by. I mean, it’s January 19th today already.. before you know it it’ll be 2013!
Lot’s and lot’s of love and blessings to you all,
Zippora
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