Desert Here We Come!

Made it home from Bali! We'll miss the beautiful sunsets, monkeys, cheap prices and peanut sauce, but definitely won't miss the 100+ degree weather and being shouted at to buy things from the streets!

This post comes to you with a no longer broken back...we mailed two boxes of stuff home today so now our backpacks are way lighter. We aren't walking like grandmas anymore (no offense Grammy)! Thanks to the "security tax" from the USA, which doesn't include security against broken objects, our wallets are also lighter. So parents, be on the lookout for our boxes...they'll be there in 2-3 months! We'll probably get home before our stuff does!

We're here on the airplane now heading to Alice Springs to see the big Ayers Rock and the desert. I give up trying to understand these airlines...last time I got my tooth paste taken away, but this time was able to walk through security with a bottle of water. Go figure.

A couple more notes from Bali! At the beginning of the week we told people we were American and they would say "Obama!!! We love him!!" I guess Obama went to school here or something? I'm not sure. But everyone assumed we were Australian because we spoke English and we went with it bc we thought we'd get ripped off less if we were Australian (we did get ripped off a few times...still a sore subject that I'm not gonna discuss!) so we became Australian for the week) and also as Dad informed me when we got back, Al Qaida bombed Bali right where we were staying (the monument was down the street from us) because alot of westerners party at the clubs where we were. So I guess it was ok to be Australian for the week. Even though we were "Australian," one guy thought I was Mexican and a few vendors yelled out "heyyy Italiano" when I walked by. Also, we found some new names for Karina. I guess they don't have trouble with Alexa (shocking, some people at work still call me everything but Alexa!), but Balinese people struggled with the name Karina! Our personal favorite is "Roweena." Our tour booker friend Valentino thought that was her name and we walked by him nearly everyday on the street and he would yell "Alexa!!" "Roweena!!" how are you!! Even if we walked by 5 times (which we did do one day). Other names included Marina and Carolina. One friend we made even went so far as to question Karina when she told someone her name was Karina and not marina!

We didn't end up going to monkey forest because guess why...it rained! Of course it rained in a country where it hardly ever rains because it rains everywhere we go. It was even cold in Perth today...it's usually over 100! So I'm very sad we didn't get to see the monkeys, guess I'll have to come back!

Actually I guess those were all the additional notes from Bali that we had. We spent our last night in Perth having a family dinner with our generous hosts (gnocchi and pasta feast!) and sharing our gifts from Bali. Did some laundry, repacked our bags, and now were off to the desert! Check out Wayoutback Safari's three day tour if you're interested! We head to Cairns on Sunday!