Falling out of planes and Australian sponge cake

If someone told me that exactly 6 months after entering the country of Australia I would be jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, plummeting to the earth at 150 mph, depending on a mere piece of material to open up at the right time and stop me from hitting the ground, then I would have probably said, “stop this planet now. I want off!” While, admittedly, this might have been my thoughts as the plane slowly gained the elevation that would take us to our so called “destination” of nothingness in the sky, it wasn’t my overall thought and most certainly not the summary of this experience. The best description of how I felt about my overall experience with skydiving is a bit less complex and is more like this: “ahhh ahhh Aaaaaahhhhhhhhahhahhah ah ha hah ha **** ahhhhh jfdkjfkdfj.” So in short it was amazing, terrifying, amazingly terrifying and extremely fun. However, after all these descriptions the only thing I could manage to think when I finally touched ground was “I’m glad my parachute opened”. The fact that I decided to skydive is showing me how much this whole experience of living in Australia is changing me (and hopefully for the better). The main thing that has happened during the course of this 6 month experience has been that I’m less afraid to try new things (within reason and morality of course). I’ve done a lot of things that I would have been too terrified to do before and it’s all worked out just fine. So when I decided to get my boyfriend Stephen a skydiving gift certificate for Christmas (it’s something he’s always wanted to do) I had no intention to join him by jumping out of a perfectly good plane. Yet the thought that I was going to sit on the sidelines and watch started to slowly creep in until I couldn’t take it anymore. Although the idea terrified me I wanted to go too! I couldn’t just stand around and watch while he had all the fun so I worked a few extra shifts and bought myself one too. But I have to admit that giving him the present was probably the best part. I made a “gift certificate” with a picture of us both jumping out of the plane but my little stick figure didn’t have a parachute and therefore wasn’t looking too happy. He had no idea and was like “is this for real?” “Yes Stephen but hopefully I’ll have a parachute in the real thing.” Probably the most fun I’ve ever had giving somebody a gift. Well…. I went skydiving but unfortunately didn’t go rocky mountain climbin’ or 2.7 seconds on a bull named “Phu Mon Shoe”.

Other than skydiving we were able to do many other neat things during his brief stay here. For one we got to experience Christmas Australia style. If somebody told me last Christmas that I would be spending next Christmas in Australia with my Texas boyfriend going to my South African friend’s house for lunch, then having Christmas dinner with New Zealanders, while only actually spending it with one Australian in the whole bunch then I would have laughed. But that’s what happened! Momma’s always said that life is stranger than fiction (as well as a box of chocolates. He he) and now I believe her. Life is weird.

The way Australians celebrate Christmas is a bit different than what I’m familiar to but if I were to describe it all on here then we’d be here all day. For one thing, on Christmas day in Australia, every member in the family isn’t compelled to bring 5 different dishes of food for everyone to eat just in case they run the risk of starving. As we all know Texas Christmas’s are a different story. I remember my dear great grandmother saying “do you think we need to open a can of spam” when she saw a centimeter of free space on the table. In Australia, we had some meat, a side or two, and a dessert. This is really all that you need and it most certainly keeps you from gaining 5 pounds (or kilos) during one single meal! However, the dessert we had was a bit interesting. Apparently, eating sponge cake that has been soaked in an overabundance of liquor overnight is quite a Christmas tradition in Australia. I have to admit it had quite an interesting taste but I don’t remember much after that. Just kidding :)

Other than our highly unusual but fun Christmas experience Stephen and I also had an interesting New Years experience. We went into the city to watch the big firework show. However, we ended up walking around the city in the pouring rain; cold, wet and lost. And having the best time! Absolutely nothing worked out according to plan but we were too busy laughing at the situation going from bad to kinda bad to worse that we didn’t even care. We just had fun. In a nut shell we got lost in a building and couldn’t find our way out for nearly 40 minutes amidst a crowd of crazy intoxicated people, got out and realized that it was pouring down rain, got lost outside and missed our tram stop by 100 miles, ate french fries under a tram stop in place of our planed nice dinner, missed the fireworks because the trains left right before the show, and witnessed a domestic on the streets (the man bit the women!). To make matters worse the streets were so crowded with crazy people we could hardly walk. New Years in Melbourne, Australia!

Honestly, Australia seems to be full of weird, scary people that tend to make themselves known around the holidays. Other than witnessing the domestic, Stephen and I encountered a seemingly high number of bizarre people who were a bit scary at times. This might be due to the fact that we used public transport almost everyday. However, it seemed like rarely a day went by that we didn’t witness something alarming or slightly disturbing. The biggest scare came when we decided to go hiking in the Australian mountain ranges. We got on the train to go home and noticed that aside from 2 other men, nobody else was on the train with us. We were still waiting on the train to leave the station when out of nowhere this big, scary looking man gets out and starts yelling at me and Stephen. All his attention was directed at us. He had the craziest eyes! I can’t remember everything he said but he kept telling us that we “were one person who split into 2 people”. I’m serious. Apparently he witnessed Stephen grow a beard out of nowhere. I thought he said something about us being the descendents of Cain and how God will judge us because we are evil. Oh and Jesus has come back and is sitting on Uluru rock in Australia. He just kept yelling at us until he finally walked off. Whew! Then he got back on and continued to yell at us while the other 2 men are just sitting there. He finally sat down and tried to have a nice friendly chat with one of the men on the train. It got completely silent until he looked at us and said “I don’t feel safe with these 2 evil people in here (meaning us!). I’m leaving.” Yeah it was a bit weird but I’m glad nothing happened. For the most part, Australians are nice, friendly, obliging down-to-earth folks who have welcomed me into their lives quite easily. However, you do get a few crazies here and there that have helped me decide that I’m not riding the trains at night anymore.

Many other exciting things have gone on since I’ve last written but if I tell it all then nobody would want to read this! I’ll try to update more often so I won’t have to cram it all in here. Thanks for all your support in reading this!