last of the spaceship

here are some of the last pictures from the van ride adventures! We returned the van in Brisbane on the 9th of October. Overall, there we a lot of beaches, spiders, mosquito bites, fuzzy radios stations, noisemachine cds, mush dinners, and not a lot of showers. we went through two tents, two vans, 4 giant bags of oatmeal, countless cans of beans, a few bottles of wine, two australian states and covered 1,145 miles (or should we say 1,842 km).
The Danish girls were an absolute riot, we had so many laughs and learned all the words we shouldn't in Danish.. They have continued their trip down the Australian coast and surprisingly to Keli and I and our families we decided to come home!!
We flew out of Brisbane and did the 14hour flight to Vancouver where we went our separate ways to Portland and Seattle and gave our families a shock.
Although this adventure is done we've been planning more.. check in for the canada to mexico bike ride next summer ;)

this is life right now

Cairns and North into the Daintree Rainforest... lots of untoched beaches.. lots of van time.. lots of trees and bugs and saltwater..

UPDATE!

So Keli and I have been on opposite sides of Australia for the past three weeks.. We decided to meet back up in Cairns to do some genuine Australian things.. We have been here about a week now and have swam in the Great Barrier reef, seen some parrots and kangaroos, and Keli is currently in the process of getting her dive certificate. It has been abnormally rainy and windy since we've arrived, but it's given us time to plan our next month.. We met a couple Dutch girl at our hostel and we all decided to rent a van and drive south along the coast together! This adventure will start on the 10th! More to come...
Below are pictures of Green island... a super tiny island on the fringe of the reef where we all got really sunburned, snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef, spotted sharks and turtles, and finally swam in the salt water.

the great ocean road

there is a road south of Melbourne home to some of the best surf spots and beautiful beaches in Australia. The bus ride was a bit touristy, but well worth it.

winter in australia...

So, it's actually winter in Australia right now. A bit colder than expected..

It's still awesome though! Meeting sweet people and staying with our childhood friends! (Kenzie and Jill) kinda weird that both of our best friends from back in the day are in Australia right now.

We will be heading up to Northern Australia soon so catch some sun and swim this really big reef ......

sorry its been so long!

How about a quick catch-up..
NORWAY
was unbelievable.. beautiful landscape. We stayed with a good friend, Line, who was an awesome host. Line showed us all around her town of Stavanger, a great place right on the coast. We traveled to her cabins and went hiking and water skiing and layed in the sun. Definitely lucked out on the weather, its usually raining in Norway, but we landed on the best week they'd had all year.. nice and sunny!!

(the view from Line's family cabin)
(we had to take underwater tunnels to get there)

(Keli water skiing like a pro at the cabin)

(views from our roadtrippin)

(hiking to the crazy rock!)

Norway was great but we had to get out of there!! it was crazy expensive haha.
So we headed back to Germany and did a random flight out of Berlin that landed us in Austria once again! Vienna this time, we had a great time roaming the city.. Saw some sweet art and met some fun people in the hostel.
After Vienna we decided to up and leave to AUSTRALIA!!!!!
We flew out of Berlin so we got to see the Berlin wall and see the city a bit before we left.
So now we are in Australia!!!!

there was no photoshop manipulation of these photographs

I repeat. NO MANIPULATION.
So we met up with Johanna again and had a few days with her in Austria and Germany. We went out of Salzburg into the Alps and stayed at her families cabin for a night.. We went up to this big dam built around a huge alpine lake.. surrounded by glaciers, meadows and huge rocks.

The lakes were a super light blue and reflected the mountain perfectly. It was so great to get out of the city and up into some fresh mountain air!

Ullrika is a saint

We got to see our friend, and Keli's old roommate, Ulli for three whole days. Ulli let us stay at her apartment in Nuremburg.. SO RELAXING.
We were really tired after sleeping on the floor for a few days and having a comfortable gaint couch to sleep on was so great. We spent the entire first day on the couch while Ulli was at work.. it was awesome.
That night we got to go to the local village festival. There we tried a lot of different kinds of beer with Ulli's family. The craziest one being coke, black beer, and cherry schnapps... mmmmm.
The next day we went to see the town of Nuremburg and spun the good luck ring on the super old fountain and explored a couple reallllly old amazing churches. And we had our favorite lunch so far, trisverst (maybe??) three little Nuremburg sausages on a delicious bun.
Ullis was jsut great. between making more Käsespätzel (the world greatest macaroni and cheese), seeing  more castles, learning about german history, sleeping on the couch, having delicious breakfasts, swimming at her parents house, and drinking some beers we couldn't have asked for a better few days.
THANK YOU ULLI AND GABOR
on to Austria!!!!!!

Munich: RECAP

this is all you need to know.

joking. yesterday was packed full of Munich sight seeing and activities. Johanna came to meet us for the day and had a full one planned! We started at this huge castle/palace (Keli and I had stumbled upon it the day before, but had no idea what we were looking at.... just saying, oh thats pretty, wonder what this big building is all about? .. We had been looking for the English garden, thought we had found it but it was really just the palace park- big ass park.) So after we toured the re-discovered castle/palace we took a trip to the actual English Garden.. amazing! So big, with lots of young people and naked old men laying by the river and just hanging out, allll out. Craziest part were the surfers, yeah, surfers in a landlocked German park.. apparently there is a part in the canal that swells over like a wave and guys take turns "surfing it" one-by-one....

Then we went to the English garden's beer garden... delicious.. we've been trying all kinds of authentic German food and loving allll of it..

(that's for you Phipps: ex-track athletes at their finest)

Thennnn we went to a sweet museum, lots of classics and a few impressionists, some really huge ones, lots of variety, we all enjoyed it.

and thennnn we got to walk through the BMW museum, Keli's favorite. rode some motorcyles and checked out cars

and thennnnnnn (still walking EVERYWHERE) we went to see the Munich Olympic stadium, which jsut hosted the summer x-games and is now a central workout location for tons of people... more pictures to come. 

and thennnnnnn (STILL WALKING) we went to this festival that had tons of food and little shops from all over the world. WE had some indian food and italian food and discovered an amazing band (three brothers and sisters who play every instrument possible) they were seriously amazing. 

after getting home at 1oclock we were soo ready to sleep... on the floor of the tent hostel. more pictures to come on the hostel.. it was a super unique place, essentially a campground with three big tents, one with 100 bunk beds and two with sleeping room for andother 100 people. It was a great atmosphere, lots of young people from all over the world, everyone hangs out and has a fire every night. We met a lot of people from all over and got lots of suggestions on where to go next! 

Munich was an awesome city but we bused out this morning and landed in Nurmburg with our friend, and Keli's old roomate, Ulli. It is so relaxing here and we were both ready for it. 

Oh the adventure

Well it has taken us a few days to get our feet under us and get over the jet lag but we seem to have overcome that.  We have had the greatest last couple of days which include stops in Stuttgart, Calw, Ulm, and Konstanz.  We have done so much already in this short amount of time it is hard to believe!

We got to meet up with Clarissa in Stuttgart. What an awesome friend! She showed us all around Stuttgart and we had our first experience with authentic German food!! LOVED IT!! She then invited us to visit her in Konstanz for the weekend.  But Before we went down to Konstanz we stopped in Anna's families old stomping ground, Calw which is in the centre of the Northern part of the Black Forest.

From there we went up to the German national track meet which was amazing! Some amazing throwers over here! Got to see Uli which was great! We toured around Ulm before heading down to Konstanz for the weekend with Clarissa!! 

We get to Konstanz and instantly fall in love. Clarissa and her friends were such great tour guides and hosts! We got to spend some time sun bathing by the lake which was much needed for both of us. We were sad to leave Konstanz and our new friends but we are excited for the next adventure! 

Munic here we come! 

Trains

Anna and I get all excited for our first long train ride! All the amazing things we are going to see along the way! Ha we can't stay awake to save our lives.  It's the most relaxing thing.

jet-lagged thunderstorm

So at 2:50am we're wide awake
There's a thunderstorm so we thought we'd go take pictures but just got soaked instead.

Not going to try to go back to bed yet, so we're just going to chill in the lobby for a while, there are people up all the time hanging out and talking, good atmosphere.

Above is the view from earlier this evening- jet lagged, people watching for about 2hours.