Rainforestation Dayyyyy.

Mmkay day two in Cairns was the greatest day ever. I actually slept really well and woke up on time and wasn’t too tired or anything. We had breakfast at 745 and then had our second “session”, which basically involves Todd and Jay, our program leader guys, telling us about things like culture shock, drinking responsibly, not taking on driving in Australia because they drive on the left side, how Australians view Americans, Australian slang, etc. Then we all hopped on a little bus and headed into the rainforest to go to Rainforestation. It was so cooooool. It’s like a tiny wildlife park, emphasis on tiny. There are seriously kangaroos and wallabies just walking around in this little patch of grass. We got to walk around and pet them and feed them!! They were super chill. They just sat there and let you pet them and ate out of your hands. It was so amazing! They are really soft and adorable. So after that this cute ish boy with crazy hair and pierced ears took us over to the crocodiles and said that they would normally feed them in front of us, but they had just fed him like an hour before and when they feed them they hold the food out in the air and the croc jumps really high out of the water to get it! I saw a picture of it and it looked really cool. Anyway the crocodile we saw was massive! His name is Jack, as in the Ripper. Ha. Hair & piercings boy told us why that’s his name. Before Jack came to Rainforestation, he was at a breeding place and they put a female in with him like every week or month or something and he killed every single one of them instead of mating with them. Haha. So after visiting with Jack, we went into a koala room and looked at cute koalas. Aww. There was also a little cage next to the koala place with a HUUUGE spider in it. Seriously, it makes me a lot more terrified of spiders knowing that big guys like that are crawling around. I got to hold a big water python after that! It was so pretty. Piercing boy would put it around our necks and one of the girls started freaking out right after he set the snake down on her. She was screeching and wiggling around and was probably going to cry. Piercing boy said it was the second worst freak out he has seen.

I’m taking a break from this story to mention that I currently have ten mosquito bites. My second day in Australia and I already have ten bites. I’m pretty itchy..

So after the snake we left the animal portion of the park. Oh, and there were dingoes there! So cute! Okay, anyway, we went to this little room where they had little canvases set out for each of us and paint! Each canvas had an animal on it already. I got stuck with a weird eel looking thing, but it was way fun getting to paint. They only gave us colors that Aboriginals use I guess. Like red, yellow, and white because they can be made from natural stuff. I love doing crafty things like that, makes me feel like a kid. Then we went to this little theater and some guys did a bunch of Aboriginal dances and played the digiridoo (I have no idea how to spell that..). It was really cool. They were all shirtless and painted and stuff. It was pretty cool. Sometimes the music sounded a little techno ish. Not like computery, but like the beat sounded like it was a techno song. Maybe you would have to have been there.. Ha. At the end they picked three volunteers to come up, a girl from my group of interns and two asian people, but when those three got up there, there was some how like eight tiny asian kids that appeared on stage. Hah. They taught them a dance and made them all do it by themselves. It was SO funny. After they sent everyone off the stage, some little asian boy refused to go and so he stayed up there, center stage, while the dancers did one last dance. He bowed at the end too. It was sooo funny. We left the theater then and went to a different area where one of the painted shirtless guys showed up digiridoos and how they are made and how to play them. He let us all try. I failed miserably. Fortunately for me, so did everyone else except for like one boy. There was a big field near us, so after the digiridoo failures they showed us some spears and what the use to throw them. It was super rad. He showed us how far he could throw it without the weird spear throwing helper, and it was pretty dang far actually. Then he used the spear helper thing and oh my goodness that spear went so dang far! He also impressed everyone by hitting some pretty far off targets. It was crazy. Next we learned how to throw boomerangs! Haha. The painted guy showed us all how to do it and we each got a turn to throw one. I had a really good throw actually. It got like halfway to me! The last girl that went actually had it come all the way back to her feet. The two boys threw them into trees and a bunch of other girls threw them like three feet in front of them on the ground. We had a really tasty all you can eat buffet after that, and I sat next to some girl who was asking me about what school I went to and stuff. When I told her that I go to BYU she was like “Ohhhhh are you like Mormon??” and I obviously said yes, and she responded with “That’s cool. I took a world religion class once and we talked about Mormons. Ohh and like that uhmmmm John guy!” Haha. Anyway, after lunch we went on an Army Duck! There like big tank ish things except they are open on top and they can drive on land and in water! It was crazy. We drove through the rainforest. Super gorgeous. We saw little water dragons and some small snapping turtles, too. The last thing we did was hold koala bears. No big. :D No but seriously, it was the cutest thing ever. He was really soft and adorable and had big claws! Sadly, we had to leave after that. It was really fun! I love getting to do all these things that I would never have been able to if I stayed in school this semester!