What I've become

After writing the last post, I went back to the comic book store. I then took a walk in the Botanical gardens and then see the Opera house and bridge again one more time. Really, there is not much to see in the City, at least not for me.

I arrived in Cairns without any problems. I was greeted with an amazing view of the mountains already on exiting the airport building. I then had to wait a while for the hostel shuttle bus to pick me up and drive me to the place where I was to sleep for the next 4 nights.

After settling in, I booked a jungle tour for the next day. The guy who was doing the booking asked me where I was from. After hearing Estonia, he went "oh, Wow, Im living with two estonians at the moment. Alice and Jegor... Mitrofanski". The latter is a classmate of mine from back in the day, by the way. Talk about small world.

Rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. Had a chat with two fellow backpackers, a guy from the Us, and an overly cute girl from Belgium. Seems that americans who travel outside the US are mostly sensible: nonreligious and anti-bush. Or maybe they just learn its better to be that way. Who knows.

Anyways, on to the next day.

I had booke something called "Uncle Brians Jungle tour". Turned out Uncle Brian had stopped running it about a year ago, but that Cousin Brad had taken over. That guy was funny. Seriously.

Trip mainly consisted of him taking us to different places in the jungle to go swimming: a pond before the rapids, a pond in the rapids (where you could waterslide down a rock - really fun), a very famous waterfall (featured in numerous shampoo commercials and a Peter Andre video) and lastly a dead volcano (how many people can say they have swum in a volcano, especially in pitch black dead of night?). Enjoyed that quite a bit. We also went platypus watching.. and I think I saw even two different speciemens.

The guy was really good at what he did. He had party games going in the bus and by the end, the whole bus sang along to whatever was blasting from the bus speakers. We arrived in front of the largest backpacker hostel in a pimpin fashion, the bus jumping up and down as it drove in. And it seemed that everyone had indeed had a terribly good time. Me included.

There was an afterparty planned at a local pub, but sadly just me and one other irish girl showed up. After a brief chat with her cousin (who she had brought along), we went on to a second pub. Which was a bit more fun, as it actually had quite a few people dancing, some even on the tables. However, I left quite early, after figuring something fairly important out for myself.

So on to the next day.

I woke up at 8.30 without any plans about what to do. Thankfully, I met a guy over breakfast who was in the same situation as me, but had a car. Turned out he was british, 2m tall, also 23 and studied CS at some point.. and just as weird as me in all other respects too (in a good way).

So we went on a daytrip together with him, his friend Daniel and a girl we met at breakfast Sara. Our initial plan was to go hanggliding. It did not quite work out that way though.

First off, we rode by a cable ski place.. basically, a pond with cables running on top of it where you can do wakebarding and water-skiing. We decided to go. Only me and Pete wanted to give it a try in the end..

We spent two hours there. First, we both tried the bodyboard.. We got the hang of that pretty quickly, he on his first and me on my second try. We both then decided to try the actual wakeboard. What followed was different for the two of us. After about 6 attempts, he could more or less get pulled up and get moving.

As for me, I mastered something else -- being pulled into water head first and at a high speed. Skill that will no doubt be useful tomorrow for whitewater rafting. I am pretty sure I could get the hang of wakeboarding itself the next time, as I just tensed up very quickly - just like when learning to ride a bike. And I got the hang of that on the second day I tried. As for the experience -- it was actually a lot of fun, despite the fact I must have hit water about 30 times.

Having wasted two hours, we then drove on towards the hanggliding thing.. only to be distracted again, this time by a Bungy jumping place. It was a bit too expensive for both me and Pete, but Daniel was keen on doing it and jumped twice. Second time in a cow costume. I also got to go up to the jumping deck. Some nice views from there.

Another two hours later, we were again driving towards Port Douglas. Sun was slowly setting and the views on the road that meandered along the ocean were just unbelievable. I am not lying when I say I had not seen anything this beautiful in nature before.

We got to Port Douglas with about half an hour to go before sunset. It was a very nice place too, with a lot of greenery all around and a very nice small wedding chapel with a view out to the sea. We walked around, saw a few guys walking tightropes in a park and then sat on the shore watching the sun set and the sea splash against the rocks. Idyllic, to say the very least.

The way back was.. contemplative. At least for me. After having heared Pete does not drink, I started thinking about my own life and the events of the past year.

To be honest, I still have no clue who I am. However, I have got a fair bit smarter on the topic of what I am not and that the "average joe" lifestyle of going out drinking with friends, getting drunk and then considering that fun.. just does not work that way for me.

I want to be taken as the goofy self that I am. Even though it carries some clear risks. Being alone for the rest of my life, for instance. I know there are people that can take me as I am and like me for it. They are rare, but, so be it. I will either eventually run into a girl that does.. or not. Intermediate choices can only be temporary.