As I mentioned in my last post...a good 2 months ago...my family is headed to Australia and New Zealand for 6 weeks after school is over and I'm pretty darn excited. I've always wanted to swim in the Great Barrier Reef and I'm hoping to get my PADI diving certificate while I'm over there and maybe scale the Sydney Harbour Bridge while I'm at it. So far we just have our flights and hotel booked for the first couple nights and the rest will be an adventure of discovery!
You can tell I'm slightly crazy over travel considering my cousin asked me in October 2010 (while I was still in France) if I wanted to go with her to AFRICA in the summer of 2011 and I said, YES! Thats how far in advance I start planning trips...when I have yet to even be done with the last one. The plans for Africa were put on hold until I settled in with school and my Canadian lifestyle once again. And yes, after all the frustrations I mentioned in my last blog post, I have been able to make peace with Edmonton (at least for the time being).
During my last Reading Week I opted for the cheap idea and decided to fly to Vancouver on AirMiles to visit my cousin Jen and plan our trip to Africa. Jen is technically my cousin but basically we're like sisters. Our mom's were twin sisters and so we always found genetic rationale to prove that we were legitimate half-sisters. If you think about it, our mom's had identical DNA and we each have half our mom's DNA which means we share half of the same DNA, thus, half-sisters. Either way, I love it. And now, we've decided to embarq on this rediculously amazing journey to Africa together. How much better can it get?The trip idea started since her late-husband was from Africa and his ashes are to be spread in Cape Town and Kreuger National Park (both in South Africa), but look to Jen and I to take a simple trip and take it as BIG as it can go....on a student's budget. Seems a little counter intuitive, I know. We decided to go for the cheapest flight possible (still too expensive) which has a 44 hour travel time to get us to Cape Town, South Africa AND we have a 12 hour layover in Doha, Qatar (where?!?). Needless to say it should be interesting. We're going to spend a couple weeks in South Africa, travelling from Cape Town to Johannesburg and then we plan to fly up to the United Republic of Tanzania for the last few weeks. In Tanzania we are going to relax on the beaches of Zanzibar (voted the most mythical place in the world) but before that, the crazy part...
We have put our deposits down with TK to hike up MOUNT KILIMANJARO (the highest free-standing mountain in the world) which summits at 5800m. Woohoo!! I am so incredibly excited for that but I have to say it's pretty difficult to start training when its still -20 Celcius outside.
I'm super pumped for such an incredible summer (even though it will be Winter on both continents) where I will be able to check so many things off my "Bucket List" and experience so many breathtaking moments and sights. It really is making it that much harder to get through the last 2 months of school but at the same time its pretty much the greatest reward for being a 2011 Bachelor of Commerce graduate! :D