Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Valentine's Day here in Australia. I woke up this morning and someone had left a stuffed Koala Bear for me at my hostel door. Clearly one of the young backpackers had a crush on me. Well I picked up the Koala to see if there was a note...and the thing scraped my face. Apparently it was a real Koala and he didn't want to be my valentine.

I just drove back to Cairns from Daintree Rainforest. Weirdly, after it having rained everywhere in Australia basically the whole time I've been here, it was beautiful and rain-less in Daintree. I fell sucker to the "Award Winning" Daintree Discovery Center. Basically I paid $30 to walk in a Rainforest and listen to an audiotape about what I should be seeing. Apparently there is a giant bird called a Cassowary that's a realitive to the ostrich that roams the forest. According to the audio guide they are everywhere. Also, along the road every 200 meters (yes, I'm using meters now. I'm basically Australian) there are yellow caution signs to avoid the Cassowary. Yeah, didn't see one. In fact, at the discovery center I only saw two living organisms: a spider on the climbing tower (not exactly the spider's natural habitat) and one Kingfisher bird chilling on a branch. If the bird didn't fly away as I got close I would have though it was plastic, planted by the Discovery Center.

The drive to the rainforest was gorgeous. Dare I say breathtaking. Actually, it reminded me of the Pacific Coast Highway--minus the safety guard rails. The rainforest itself was pretty boring. The beach was so serene and probably the nicest I've ever seen. However, it is "stinger season" so you can't go in the water. No swimming in a rainforest humidty = sucky.

I did enjoy my little rental car. It's fun sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road. The hardest thing to get used to is remembering to flick boogars out the window with my right hand. I can't tell you how man laned on the passenger seat the first couple of hours I was driving.

Okay, gotta go back to my dorm room. Yes, just like college, I'm staying in a dorm. Soon I'll write a whole dissertation about how I'm too old to be staying in a dorm. To quickly sum it up: my new German friend Sven called me "Dad" the other day when I told him I was 28.