Again, it’s been a while since my last blog. That’s because I have been gallivanting in the USA and Australia before settling back into the project in Gladstone.
So before I go into the project, let me tell you a little about my gallivanting. Starting with USA…
From Canada I flew to LA where I was staying in Santa Monica. I had originally only booked 3 nights here as I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay or move on. It turns out that I loved Santa Monica, met some awesome people and stayed in a lovely hostel which was only 1 block from the beach and shops. I ended up staying here for a week, in which i spent my time visiting the beach, pier (where the end of the Route 66 sign is), went on a Malibu stars homes tour, visited Hollywood (here i did a tour of the lesser seen tourist attractions, walked along Hollywood Boulevard and went to see the Chinese theater), I also visited the LACMA art museum and the LaBrea tar pits. It was a whirl wind week. I ate amazing food, did a little more shopping than I probably should have and the sun sets from the beach where breath-taking.
For an early birthday and Christmas treat, my parents paid for me to visit Hawaii for a week. This makes me sound very spoiled I know, and I am extremely grateful to them for this and this was most certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity. And boy what a week it was. I was staying in a hostel that was half a block from the beach, 1 block from the zoo and minutes away from the shops. So of course on the first day, I visited the zoo. It was amazing, so many animals that I didn’t expect to see there.
For a few days after I spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach, it was too hot to do much else and the sea was lovely to cool off in. Mid-week I did decide that I was doing too much relaxing so I went and hiked Diamond Head, I think I picked possibly the worst day to do this hike, it was sooo hot! But it was worth it. And the view from the top was incredible.
I spent a lot of time chilling on the beach and topping up my tan 😉
I saw some absolutely amazing sunsets from the beach….
I went to see a hula show
I had a very humbling experience visiting the Pearl Harbor memorial site (brilliant suggestion from my Dad)
And finally i was lucky enough to go swimming with Dolphins and sea turtles….
After that fun filled trip to Hawaii, I decided to stay in Santa Monica again (as you can tell I really liked it there!). This gave me chance to ‘relax’ and get ready for the move to Gladstone on December 9. On this stay I was determined to visit High Voltage tattoo studio (Kat Von D’s tattoo shop). Originally I had planned to have a tattoo here, but with news that there was a fire in the studio I thought it was highly unlikely. But I decided to go down anyway to have a look at the painting on the side of the building of all the artists that work there, and to my amazement… it was open in the next building! So I tried my luck and next thing I knew I was on the tattoo table! My tattoo artist was Dennis and he did a great job
After that I, (a suggestion from my cousin Ashe), I went and visited Whiskey a Go Go and the Rainbow bar where many of the old rock start started their careers. It was awesome to be there… even if it was in the middle of the day and nothing was open! But to see it and take some photos for my cousin was good enough for me. Then later that night, I headed back into Hollywood with a lovely girl I met at the hostel, Yana, we visited the observatory then tried out luck at the rainbow bar for dinner. And we got in, it was amazing. Memorabilia all over the walls, men with long hair and cowboy hats and women dressed in next to nothing. I didn’t know where to look.
And i saw the Hollywood sign
Before I knew it I was off on a new adventure and was on a plane on my way to Australia. First stop… Brisbane….
My Placement Year - 30 weeks of wildlife, travelling, data analysis and everything in-between 