Christmas Day

So it's been ages since an update - and boy is there a lot to update you on! Since Christmas Eve until today, I have basically been on holiday. The week I returned from WA, Jenny (one of my best friends from back home) arrived for 2 weeks (thankfully to help extend my holiday for that much longer).

I promised though to first paint the picture of my holidays from day one - and will bring you up to speed through to today where I not only quit my job (to start my new job in less than a month!), and finally received the go-ahead from the Doctor to walk without my boot, but am now back to the grind (minus the public holiday, Australia Day, aka "Australia's 4th of July" this Thursday.)

But first, Rewind to Christmas Day:
Woke up early at Emily's (Bec's friend from work back in Toronto) house to sneak downstairs and finding stockings filled with presents underneath our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. In good fashion, we waited for everyone to wake up, cooked brunch, then around the brunch table, all opened our stockings at once. We enjoyed soaking up some morning rays on the back patio as the sun climbed higher in the sky to reach about 95 degrees.

After admiring an assortment of presents including: socks, a mini champagne bottle, chocolate and chewing gum - we all changed into our swim suits and Santa hats to head down to the beach for a little Christmas Day R&R (notice the lack of cast/boot!)

After some quick showers and a Mario Kart Championship match on the Wii, we headed to our friend Adam's house for Christmas dinner. When we arrived (after maneuvering the black spray painted truck sitting in the front yard and admiring the 3 more "in progress" cars in backyard), we were given the task to bring the house up to proper Christmas decor standards and this was the result from the materials we were provided:

I must admit, I was not too sure I could give up Southern fried okra and mashed potatoes with gravy for a "Christmas BBQ" - but since I no longer eat meat, the array of grilled veg and salads was more than efficient in satisfying my Christmas dinner cravings.

The night ended with the opening of more presents (one being a picture of the cat who belongs to Adam's housemate Dave. This cat is all black named "Whitie" and creepier than any other cat I have ever seen -which is exactly why Dave took a picture of him and framed it for Emily to keep forever.) We had chocolate trifle for dessert and wrapped up the evening with a round of flip cup and a punching bag show-off between the two "local" girls at the dinner. (Yes, one of them was showing off her kick boxing skills while wearing a red maxi dress). Blaming this end-of-the-night behavior on the fact that we were in the middle of "bogan" (Australian for "redneck") country  - I justified this abnormality of a Christmas Day as to why it was ok to not be with my family. I did Skype with the fam when we got home on their Christmas Day to help satisfy some of the homesick pains.

I must say - celebrating Christmas with a complete group of strangers, in a polar opposite atmosphere and climate, really helps you appreciate your home traditions, though I would not take this Christmas Day back for the world. I am so happy I was able to experience how an entirely different part of the world celebrates this special holiday and now just have a story to tell for years to come. The Christmas Day where I looked to Bec and asked "where the h*ll are we?!"

Summertime Bliss in WA

First, Merry (Happy as they say down under) Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bec and I sporting our must-have festive hats on Christmas morning

I am now home after almost 2 weeks of exploring the west coast of Australia. I cannot wait to see what this year holds for me and for new and exciting adventures. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family back home supporting me as well as a great group of friends here as well.

Now to be able to paint the most perfect picture of this first-time-away-from-home-at-Christmastime-experience, I will break up my stories into parts based on the different little adventures we had throughout the Holiday, so stay tuned!

Western Australia (WA), in comparison to all the pictures I have been sharing of Melbourne, is HOT, dry, sticky and very much just a large desert. (Literally, I did not feel clean the entire 2 weeks - mostly sweaty, sandy and a bit smelly, I was just happy to call Melbourne home for that very reason).

Because of the rough terrain, you will be hard to find anything but a 4x4 camper van here in WA

The draw to even venture out to WA you ask? The beaches are AMAZING. Turquoise blue waters that are so clear you can see the coral reefs from the shore that you can then snorkel out to in order to see fish and fauna of every color of the rainbow.

Off the coast of Rottnest Island (more details on this later)

The Departure:

Christmas Eve, Bec and I took the Sky Bus from Southern Cross train station to Melbourne Airport where we boarded a 3 hour flight (I had an entire row to myself!) and headed to the largest city in WA: Perth. We were invited to stay with an old friend of Bec's, Emily and her British roommate, Kim because their third housemate was away in "The States" for her holiday. 

(Side note: almost every single person I have talked to so far has only been to what I now like to call "the standards" of places to visit when they travel in the states. I bet everyone can guess: #1 NYC, #2 LA, #3 Vegas, #4 San Fran - I am still on my campaign of why they should head South next time they head over).

Interestingly enough, Bec (because she was a sweetheart and let me keep that entire row to myself, sitting on a full row across the aisle from me), started talking with the gentleman next to her who happened to have visited Marietta, GA back in 1984 and it was, in his words, "the couuuntry, with confederate flags a blowin." I assured him, if he had the chance to return to Marietta, this is not at all what he would find.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful, but because of the 3 hour time difference from the east coast, we were tired, yet starving when we arrived. Heading down the escalators toward passenger pick-up, we were greeted by Emily, complete with a Santa hat  of course, wildly jumping up and down. This welcome pretty much set the tone for the entire rest of the trip.

We had some pizza, put out our stockings and headed straight to bed in hopes that St. Nick would soon be there...

Our Charlie Brown tree