2/10/2008

Wahooo!!!

Jenelle and I won the tourney this weekend in Port Macquarie!! It was such an amazing feeling! We played so well and had a great 3 game final match! The girls we played have some good experience under their belt. One of them was a top 10 finisher in the Athens Olympics in 2004. And it showed in the way she played! But we played better and won!!! We got a gold medal and everything! The Aussie's know how to congratulate for sure! ha!

It was such a great feeling to finally take it all the way to the end and win a tourney. Great way to go home as we are both leaving soon! :( But now leaving with a medal and our trip basically paid for from our overall earnings, sure made it worthwhile!! Im so excited, can you tell?? haha.

well, just wanted to pass on the good news. Not much else to update. We have pretty much been in Sydney for the past 2 weeks after the last tournament. And unfortunately its been raining nonstop since we got here up until a few days ago. So not much beach time, but we have enjoyed the small town of Manly Beach we stayed in and taking the ferry over to the city of Sydney to see the Opera House and other fun touristy stuff. Rain or not, we were going to see some of the main sights and have fun! :)

Prior to Sydney, we spent a few days in Brisbane right after the last tourney with some guys we know through volleyball (one american guy from LA, Ivan Mercer) and we visited Steve Irwin's zoo and fed kangaroos. And when I say fed, I mean... walked into this huge gated park area where the kangaroos just bounce and lie around and you walk right up to them and touch them and feed them, take pics. It's crazy. No way could you do that at home, there would be soo many rules and liabilities and lawsuits. The joke of the day (since the 3 of us that went were americans) was that in the states some idiot would probably annoy the kangaroo causing it to stand up (when they stand, they are as big as me) and punch "said idiot" in the face, which then would result in the idiot suing the zoo or milions for gettin hit in the face by a kangaroo. Little extreme but it's just the point of how laid back the aussie culture is in comparison. It made for a great zoo experience because there is so much interaction with the animals!

Anyways, the zoo visit has been one of my favorites of Australia, of course right next to winning the tourney this weekend!! :) :)

This will probably be the last of my trip updates. Hope you have enjoyed them! I probably should have given this option before, but if you are not interested in receiving email (or blog) updates in the future, please email me back and let me know and I can take ya off the list!! Otherwise, it's been great to hear back from some of yall throughout my adventures and hope everyone has a great spring coming up!!

I will continue to post pics on my web gallery from this trip and future excursions. To check it out, save this address and you can always see updated pics here!

Cheers,

Paige :)