Days 499-506! And just like that, the first leg of traveling (500 freaking days) is complete! The traveling is far from over, but I’m excited for so much needed family and friends time in the US. I had some fun final Austrslia adventures in the Sunshine Coast before heading back to Brisbane and having a very long travel day back home. Onto the US section of this travel adventure!

After a very rainy week, I woke up on Thursday, May 15th, to the sun shining in Noosa! Unfortunately I had already made plans to head back to Mooloolaba today, so no surfing or beach in the morning. I packed up my bags and put them in the hostels luggage room. And then I ate breakfast with my friends Iz and Lia!

We spent the morning chatting away like we had the past few days. They were such a joy to hang out with and I’m glad our paths crossed! They were moving on further north, so we said our see you laters and I set out for the bus stop around 11:30am. Hopefully, I’ll be able to visit them in Mexico someday!

I don’t think it’ll ever stop being so fun and cool making connections from all across the world. And genuinely meeting people I want to see again!

I cut it close, but got to the bus stop just in time to catch the bus back to Maroochydore.

After about an hour, I hopped onto another bus that took me the rest of the way to Abode Hostel! The hostel I stayed at previously. A short ride later and I was checked in and sitting by the pool table again, eating lunch and playing away!

Pretty much everyone I was hanging out with originally was still around! They were equally as happy to see me as I was to see them! It was a beautiful, sunny day, so a group of us went to the beach to swim around. After an hour or two, we headed back to the hostel and played more pool. And around sunset, we headed back out to the beach for a sunset swim!

Unfortunately, I jammed one of my fingers fairly hard while swimming this time… but the sunset was gorgeous! We went back to the hostel to shower and have dinner, which tonight was a free sausage sizzle! And then, after a few more games of pool, a large group of us headed to Taps Bar for karaoke night.

I of course had to sing a song and ended up singing Airplanes by B.O.B with a random guy at the bar. I was asked if I wanted to go for a morning surf the following day, so I called it an early night to prepare for that!

My alarm went off at 7am on Friday, May 16th and it was time to brave the chilly morning for a surf session! I thought my surfing was done for now, but I was excited to have one last hurrah.

I met my friend Tom, from Germany, in the lobby along with 4 other travelers from the hostel. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough surfboards (the hostel had free ones to take out), so we also brought a bodyboard along as well.

Just an aside, a bodyboard is essentially the same thing as a boogie board. It’s just a more robust version, and the name of the sport.

Because everyone else was still very early on in learning to surf AND because the waves ended up not looking very fun to surf on, I decided to just use the bodyboard the entire time.

I had a blast trying to catch very big and dumpy waves (waves curling very quickly). I was able to get inside a couple of the barrels as well but then I was immediately smacked by the waves and sent tumbling around. Bodyboarders usually wear fins/flippers to help give them speed to catch waves easier, but I didn’t have any.

However, a guy out surfing in the morning, named Pete, offered to go grab his from his car. I politely declined but he ended up switching over to bodyboarding from surfing and offered me one of his fins. I used it on one wave but unfortunately it was too wide so I gave it back. What a kind man though! Lots of nice people out in the surf lineups in Australia.

After a little over an hour, I was exhausted from swimming around and getting flung about by waves. We headed to a nearby cafe that was on the beach and enjoyed some sunlight while we sat and chatted. It was supposed to be a rainy day, but in the end it was actually quite a nice day! While at the coffee shop, I saw a sign advertising “underwater hockey!” A sport I never knew existed and it sounds very hard!

We got back to the hostel around 10:40am. I showered, ate breakfast, and continued my wonderful morning with some pool playing. I also threw in a load of laundry, my last one in Australia (for now).

As my clothes were drying, I walked to Cole’s for some groceries for the day. I needed food for lunch and dinner so I got tuna, chicken, and rice.

Now when lunchtime rolled around… I realized I made a grave mistake. The tuna can I bought needed a can opener. The hostel had one, but it seemed to be broken. Turns out it wasn’t and it was just a very difficult can opener to use. I didn’t realize it could be opened in a specific way, and that you had to attach it after opening up the can opener. Myself and some other hostel mates were confused and couldn’t figure it out. So the hostel manager came to my rescue.

This can opener didn’t leave any sharp edges and essentially just ripped off the top of the lid. Which I guess makes sense for safety reasons in a hostel… but it was super tricky to figure out! Thankfully, I was able to have lunch without walking back to the grocery store.

After lunch, I played more pool until it was around sunset again! A group of us set out to the beach for the most beautiful sunset in Mooloolaba so far!

We swam for a while and there were some very fun bodysurfing waves! We also kicked a soccer ball around for a bit on the sand. It was a very very wholesome way to spend my last night in Mooloolaba.

We walked back home and I cooked myself dinner. After I finished, my friends were watching Spirit in the tv area. So I joined them for the remainder of the movie. It had been a LONG a time since I had seen this movie. It was a really beautiful film!

I finished off the night playing pool with my friend Sam and chatting with my friend Tom and a few others. Throughout the entire day, my friend Tom was giving me some German words and phrases to start using, which was fun!

I’m sad to be leaving my new friends again, but that’s the way of the road! I’m looking forward to visiting them in the future and I’m ALSO looking forward to seeing my family and friends in just a few days!!

I woke up on the early side on Saturday, May 17th. It was time for my travel day back to Brisbane. But before I set out, some of my friends wanted to make crepes for breakfast. Mona, Amelie, Devin, and I piled into Amelie’s car and drove in the drizzly day to the grocery store. We got all the items we needed and then headed back to the hostel to cook up our breakfast.

This was such a nice and wholesome way to finish off my little vacation to the Sunshine Coast! Amelie, being from Quebec, was an expert at mixing up the ingredients. They were super tasty and reminded me of my days in Hoi An, Vietnam. The hostel I stayed at there had free pancakes every morning.

Cooking and eating cut it close to when I wanted to catch the bus back to Brisbane. So after we finished eating, we quickly cleaned up, I said my “see you laters” and I was off to catch my bus!

The first leg of my travel day was the bus to Landsborough. Here, I caught a train all the way to Brisbane which was full of gorgeous views.

I’m not sure when a hill becomes a mountain, but this mound of rocks and dirt was one of the many the train passed by on the ride. As we were passing by, I checked all trails and pretty much all of them had summit hikes! Maybe next time I can summit a couple of them!

I got to Brisbane and hopped on one final bus which took me all the way to my friend Sam’s house. When I arrived, I had a quick turn around because we were heading to one of his friend’s houses for their birthday!

But before we left, I had to quickly order uber eats… which ended up being the most expensive burrito I’ve ever purchased. But I was hungry and needed food, so it had to be done.

We hopped in an uber and headed to Sam’s friend’s house… on the way, we went around a blind turn and out of nowhere there was a car heading HEAD ON to us. It honestly happened so fast my brain didn’t process it fully, but the other car swerved out of our lane at the very last moment and avoided the head on collision. It was pretty terrifying!

We arrived in one piece to the house party and I was thrown into a house full of Aussies I didn’t know. My extroverted nature and the past year and a half of meeting new people prepared me for this moment and I had a nice time chatting with these mutual friends for a couple hours. I ended up leaving the party early though, because I had a friend of my own to meet up with!

I called an uber and made my way into the city to meet up with my friend Q. Who I haven’t seen since Melbourne!!

There was a BIG embrace and even bigger smiles when we were reunited. Q (Quorum) is from England and we met back at The Mansion in Melbourne in September! I haven’t seen him since early October and I really didn’t think our paths would cross again so soon!

We ended up going to a pub nearby his hostel, called Pineapple Hotel, which had cheap pints. We caught up on the past 7 months, which there was lots to catch up on. The biggest news was that Q finally landed a full time finance job and there’s a solid chance the company will try and sponsor him!

We had dinner at the pub and continued on chatting the night away. Eventually my friend Sam came and joined us as well and by this point we were many many pints deep and I was starting to get tired. A couple hours later, Sam and I headed back to his house and I said “see you later” to Q, again. It was so great getting to see him and I can’t wait for when our paths cross again!

Not only did I go to bed late… but I also was woken up a lot earlier than expected on Sunday, May 18th. My alarm was set for 6am… but I woke up at 2:30am to Sam’s roommates coming home. But what really woke me up was one of his roommates girlfriends not realizing I was on the couch… she plopped down right on top of me before anyone was able to warn her I was there. I had met her last week so when she realized what had just happened I said, “nice to see you again!”

It’s fair to say, they had a fun night out as well.

I was able to go back to sleep and got up to my alarm. I showered, had a quick bite to eat, and then packed up the rest of my things. Sam came downstairs around 7am and we were out the door by 7:15am!

I was more than happy to take public transportation to the airport, but Sam said he’d drive me, so I didn’t say no to that! It was nice to have one little final hurrah with an Australian friend as we headed to the airport.

We gave each other a big hug and I set off into the airport to start my journey back home!!

I was at the airport with plenty of time and had to wait about an hour before I could check in. I decided to actually check my big backpack in as well and not risk running into any troubles down the road. On one of my later flights I might try and sneak it on, we’ll see.

Checking in and security was a breeze. I was traveling on Fiji Airways and sat around the gate for a couple hours until it was time for boarding. I was feeling fairly hungover this morning which wasn’t boding well with how the travel day was going to go… but it was only 35 hours in total… nothing crazy!!!

The first leg of the journey was around a 3-4 hour flight from Brisbane to Fiji.

The flight was packed full but I enjoyed my aisle seat and an alright lunch provided by the airlines. I napped for the beginning of the flight and then decided to stay up and watch a movie (SpyxFamily: Code White, an animated movie) to try and get ahead of the jet lag (I doubt I’ll be able to combat it but we’ll see).

Before I knew it, we were landing on a beautiful island in the middle of the pacific. What’s kind of fun, once I’m in the US I’ll have completed a lap of the entire world since I flew to London, then SE Asia, then Australia, and then the US.

I had to go through another security check to get into the gates at the Fiji Airport and then I had a 5 hour layover with shoddy wifi and not much to do. So, I worked on my blog, people watched, and watched some TV on my phone.

I also caved and bought an overpriced Burger King meal. But I thought it was smart to treat myself and fuel up for the next 30 hours living in airplanes and airports. I did get to enjoy Fiji branded water while in Fiji, so that’s kind of fun!

I finally boarded my flight to San Fransisco and over the next 10+ hours I slept and watched V for Vendetta. I haven’t watched this movie in a long time and it held up great!

I was also sitting next to another American who had been living in Australia. Ellen was doing a study abroad in Sydney and we got to chatting. She’s from DC and turns out, buckle in… this is some wild small world stuff, her extended family was from Peoria (where I’m from). If that’s not wild enough, if you notice I said “was,” they moved to Milwaukee (where my extended family is from). And to add an even crazier element, they’re from my extended families area of Milwaukee! Like what?!

The food on this flight was pretty mediocre, so I’m glad I ate before hand as well. Also perks of making friends with the person next to me, Ellen didn’t want her meal so I got two! Thanks Ellen!

Now the timeline for the week gets a little wonky… I landed in San Francisco the afternoon of Sunday, May 18th. Let’s do the day all over again!

(I guess we’ll have 8 days in this weeks edition!)

I’m a big fan of San Francisco, so I had half a thought about leaving the airport during this 10 hour layover. But, I decided against it because I didn’t want to carry my bags around the city. But speaking of bags, I went through boarder control, it was a breeze thankfully, and got my big backpack from baggage claim.

Since I checked in online for my next flight, I thought I’d take a chance and try to bring both bags onto the flight. And… it worked! No questions asked! I probably could’ve done this on my Fiji flight as well, but I had a free checked bag anyways, so there was no worries there.

I had a lot of time to kill while at the airport. So I sat near my gate and occupied myself. Over the last year and a half, I’ve realized I really want to learn a second language (maybe even more if I can manage it). I don’t want to be “that guy” who needs everyone to speak English around him at all times. So I found a free Spanish course to start learning from!

I’m going to try my best to keep up with it but this might influence where my next stop in the world is! We’ll see!

I also spent a lot of my time watching the TV show Naruto. The San Francisco airport’s WiFi was MUCH better than in Fiji, which made the layover nice and easy. The only downside was the airport was frigid and I was getting a little nervous I’d catch a cold from sitting around for so long.

I went on a walk to warm up and find dinner and found an overpriced and mediocre Mediterranean restaurant.

It was nice to have something other than a burger in the airport, but it is frustrating how expensive airport food is! I understand it’s the only accessible thing, rent in the airport is probably high, and market demand, yadda yadda yadda… but come on! Help the people out!

On the positive side, getting to enjoy two full Sundays meant I got to see another beautiful sunset! Two sunsets, in two countries, on the same day, pretty cool if you ask me!

Just after 10pm, I was able to board my flight home! This flight was around 4.5 hours long and changing timezones again so I wasn’t going to get much sleep on it, but I was going to try my best!

I was exhausted by this point and ready to pass out. It seemed like I was going to have my little two seater row to myself! But at the last minute another passenger boarded and took the seat, dratz! And for some reason this window seat was angled weirdly so I couldn’t rest my head on the wall. So, it was going to be another tough sleep.

I was able to sleep for a few hours and just rested my eyes for the rest of the flight. And while I landed in Chicago, I was met with a beautiful sunrise on Monday, May 19th!

We landed a bit early but thankfully my wonderful parents were already in the city waiting for me! I hopped off the flight and stumbled my way to the exit to meet them.

It was a joyous reunion! We chatted the entire way home from Chicago to Peoria and had the entire day ahead of us. I also got to finally share with them all the completed songs on my EP!

I’m not going to lie, my body was so confused as to what time it was and what day it was. So I took multiple naps throughout the rest of the day. But it was great to be home with my parents! We played multiple card games and my mom and I of course got right back into our heated games of Casino.

We also ran some errands, I played guitar (which I’ve been missing over the past couple weeks), and spent a lot of time lounging about, which is a perfect activity for being back home. To round out the very long day, we had a home cooked meal and called it a night. Somehow I was able to stay up till late and I was hoping that would help with getting back on the right sleep schedule… butttt my body had different plans.

I woke up Tuesday, May 20th and I swore it’d be around 8 or 9am because I hadn’t heard my alarm yet. I had also woken up a couple times throughout the early part of the night… so I felt confident I knew the time. But, to my surprise, it was NOON! I had slept around 14 hours! I’m not really sure what happened to my alarm but I guess I needed the sleep!

I did wake up to an exciting package being delivered. My new pair of Ombraz!

I made and ate breakfast and played a couple games of casino with my mother before setting out on one of my to-do’s for the day. But just as I stepped outside, a torrential downpour occurred… I can’t escape the rain no matter the country I’m in!

It’s safe to say, I was soaked. So I felt kind of bad when I entered the barber shop. I did warn them I was about to get their chair very wet but they were still more than happy to give me a haircut.

I guess we can add this one to the list of international haircuts! Now, it isn’t my go to barber in Kansas City, but it’ll have to do for now. My barber was super nice and we chatted the entire haircut, which was definitely a bonus of a haircut in an English speaking country. But for $25 plus a tip, here’s how it turned out!

I mainly wanted to get the sides freshened up again and I did get around a half an inch taken off the rest to de-frizzify it. Im happy with how it turned out! I felt like it’d be a good idea to freshen up a little bit before my cousins wedding!

I played some guitar and serenaded my parents while they did various things throughout the house. And I spent the evening doing more Spanish practice and more lounging. But, before the night was over, my eldest sibling came home! We’ll be meeting my middle sibling at the wedding, so we’ll be all together then, but it was very exciting to give them a hug in person!! It’s been far too long!

After watching some TV late into the night, it was time for bed. Well, at least it was the time in Illinois… I still wasn’t sure what time it was.

I woke up Wednesday, May 21st around 9am! Much better than noon, but I could’ve probably kept sleeping if I had let myself. Timezones are weird. I got up, showered, made breakfast, and then… it was time for some more lounging!

I spent the day hanging out with my parents and sibling, playing guitar, playing games, some TV watching as well! And for dinner, we had our homemade Alfredo, which is to die for!

Definitely nothing as crazy going on as over seas, but it’s good to have some time to sit back, relax, and spend time with family! This coming week will be full of more family time, celebrating my cousins wedding, and a little bit of traveling around the Midwest!

It’s pretty wild being home and I look forward to more abroad travels. But for now, I’m excited to see what the US summer has in store!

– Elie