Spring Break

This is Matt Schmalzel's interpretation of how I would describe my spring break: "Beer, beer,beer,beer, tits, dancing, THE GREAT BARRIER REEF WAS FUCKING AWESOME, beer, beer, tits, beer"

In all actuality, that is pretty accurate. Spring break was a lot of fun. I will start with where I left off from Sydney...

     So we stayed the night at the Maccas and blah blah blah it was boring. We eventually got to the plane and boarded and I will be the first to tell you...Jetstar is many times more uncomfortable than Air New Zealand. That is beside the point. I didn't sleep at all (nor the night before in Maccas) and actually talked to the woman next to me. She was under the impression that America is a very dangerous place and that chances are you will eventually get shot because everyone has a gun, because that's what the movies show. I was a little shocked she believed the movies, but she is also afraid of flying and made it worse by watching airplane investigations of crashes that have happened. All in all I enjoyed talking to her. Made my trip interesting. So we get to Cairns and it is very rainy and that isn't fun at all.

     OH before I forget, while in Maccas and going to Gilligane (our AWESOME hostel) we met this German kid. He was pretty cool and ended up hanging out with us the entire trip and became pretty good friends with. So ended up hanging out with him while we waited to check into our hostel....we arrived at 8am and we can't check in until 2pm. It was greaaaat. I was exhausted but we found things to do. Eventually we settled down in a skydiving place and watched jackass for about 3 hours I would say and they were cool with it. Checked in, took a nap, talked, hung out, got dinner and then we went down to the club for a beer.

     Low and behold to our surprise it was JELLO WRESTLING NIGHT. We were stoked but didn't plan on staying for it. Before the store continues: My plan was to be back in the room at 10-1030pm and have one beer, what really happened: I went to bed at 1am and had 6-7 beers. How? You ask? Could my plans go so astray? Let me tell you. We get down there and everyone is having fun talking and the club is a lot more fun than we thought, loud, good music and eventually two woman come over and ask the girls with us if they want to participate in the jello wrestling. And you better believe we were making sure the girls we were with did it. After about 20 minutes of persuasion two of them (I won't give names) finally signed up!! We were so excited, bought beer, and prepared for an exciting night! We waited, drank and waited a bit more for it to start and eventually the spectacle of night was upon us! we made sure we were right in front to cheer them on. There were I think 6 girls total in the match. One from Sweden, Britain, another from America and then our girls. We cheered loudly for our two Americans. Unfortunately one of the girls lost her first round but the other girl MADE IT TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP. You better believe we were excited as hell. She actually ended up winning the entire thing! It was a great night. In the end they had everyone in the jello looking for a bar of soap to win a prize, here is the catch, they said the girls could do it topless if they wanted, thank you girl from the UK, mind you this was my birthday (real one) and so that means it was the 2nd time celebrating.

      After a great night we pack up and head to out to make 11 dives on the Great Barrier Reef for 3 days and 2 nights. We were picked up at 745am and we made it out to our transport boat where we did two dives. I was pretty nervous, just didn't know what to expect, I have never dove without an instructor with me so my buddy and I were totally free to do whatever we like. We actually use wetsuits that only go down to just above the knees, so I expected the water will be very warm, and warm it was. The first two dives were great, didn't see anything spectacular, other than the insane amount of colourful fish, the corals, just the experience was absolutely awesome. I will give a quick description of what happened over the 3 days. Things I saw - TONS of fish, colourful, weird, all sorts of stuff. Nemo, a barracuda, 3 turtles (pet one), cleaner shirmp (gave me a manicure), very small crustaceans (on night dive), porcupine fish, unicornfish, cowfish, triggerfish, sea cucumber. I don't think I will see anything more beautiful. Can't believe it is over now but it was absolutely spectacular. The night dives were a lot of fun and sorta creepy. If you turned out the lights and it was pitch black (the feeling of pitch black underwater is like nothing else) and wave your hand in the water then bioluminescent plankton show up, so a very cool but brief light show. One more little story, during our 2nd night dive I cut my ankle on some coral and was bleeding, and sure enough a white tipped reef shark came a little closer than usual to check me out, I like to say that I was almost shark food, that is pretty exciting. I can elaborate more but ask in person, don't want to make this post too long.

     Eventually our dives on the Great Barrier Reef were over :( it was a very sad day. It was go go go the entire time so we were always doing something, or though it seemed. It was sad leaving the reef, we all got a lot better at diving after it was all done, definitely addicted. We are back on land, I am getting land sickness for SURE and you know what that means? Time to go to the club and get drunk and we sure as hell did. For a third time we celebrated my birthday. At one point in the night I had a beer in one hand and three full ones lined up to be drank, not to mention the many others that were bought for me that night and a rum and coke. It was a good as night. The club was a lot of fun, good ass music, lots of dancing and everyone was pretty friendly. Meta kid that was on the boat diving with us and hung out with him for a bit and was all around a great time.

     Saturday was AWESOME. Eight of us decided to rent a vehicle and travel into the country a bit and see the waterfalls. After a very delayed start we finally got on the road in the most bad ass SUV I have been in. It was some Toyota, a big Toyota, a fucking diesel Toyota and it was so much freaking fun to drive. Yep, I drove on the opposite side of the road and it was SWEEEEET. The water falls were amazing. The second one we swan around behind it and swam underneath it. Its incredible to be behind a waterfall and looking up, and swimming under one. Oh but the water was probably the coldest water I have ever swam in but I certainly don't regret it.

    Saturday was St. Pattys day so you know we went out and drank once again. Australia has taught me to LOVE beer, I don't think I will drink hard liquor very often when I get back to the states, and totally okay with that. Saturday night was just like any other. Great music, dancing, meeting people and making friends. I am going to miss Cairns, Gilligans, and the Great Barrier Reef. It was definitely a spring break that will be unmatched. I had the time of my life, with some of the best people I have ever met.