St Mary's, Washington DC and Baltimore

Blog post 2.0 is finally online! Took me a little longer then planned to get this up but better late then never! So since my last post I've spent a week at st Mary's in Maryland, a day in Washington DC and 2 nights in Baltimore. Was a very eventful trip with lots of drinking related shenanigans in the nights and chilling through the days. 

I flew into Baltimore on Monday and JJ picked me up and gave me a short 2 hour ride to st Mary's. Thanks JJ!!! From there went to a sweet little bar for cocktails then back to the campus for more beers and drinking games. Had my first experience at the door, which is a tiny little bar near campus with crazy cheap drinks. $7 for a pitcher of beer and a giant pizza. Seems good!!! Got pretty messy that night ending it off with the first of many skinny dipping sessions in the river, shredding my feet open on oyster shells. Ouch town!!!

Ended up crashing on the couch in Molly Malarky's room for a few nights and Kristina Borst's room for the last couple of nights. Thanks so much to both of you for putting me up! Much appreciated!!!

Throughout the days I spent a lot of time down at the docks with a couple of different groups. A couple of Molly's roomies earlier on the first day, then met up with Kristina, Kelly, Bradley and Danielle and then Eric 'train wreck' Lee and a bunch of the ultimate guys later on in the day. 

The docks are amazingly beautiful! While there you can hire sailing boats, kayaks and paddle boards for free throughout the day. I only went kayaking but it was an amazing experience. Very relaxing spending a couple of hours lazily paddling around and chilling. 

Other then time at the docks I spent my time playing smash bros with the ultimate guys, disc golf on one of the first lefty friendly courses I have ever played at, beer die and a whole heap of chill time. 

Nights on the other hand were insane... On the Tuesday night went for round 2 at the door. Another loose night meeting some new friends and eventually walking back to campus from the door. 

Wednesday night was Beer Olympics.... Holy shit! Haha that was an insane night. Cheering on everyone drinking and partying, while drinking approx 3/4s of a handle of rum made for an exciting night. From what I have heard my legs didn't work too well that night :)

Thursday night was gala for the seniors, so I spent the night hanging out with Victoria and a couple of her friends. Haha thanks to Laura for giving me a much needed haircut and doing quite well! 

Friday night was the last night I had at St Mary's. They have a tradition where most of the people there walk around the campus drinking and reminiscing at each of the 7 wonders of the school. I got to hang out with Will that night and had an absolute ball! The night ended with a bit of insanity. Two of the ultimate guys, Skip and Z-man, decided that it would be a good idea for me and Skip to breath fire down near the water. I couldn't say no so I had to get a mouthful of rubbing alcohol and make a big ass fireball. Crazy... See the pic below!!!

So that ended my trip to St Mary's for seniors week. Fantastic week and had a blast!!! Thanks to Sean for giving me a ride back to DC from the school and giving me a place to crash! 

We went to play ultimate the next day with Couper. Was great to get out and have a run! Took a while but I worked the cobwebs out! Hung out with Couper for the rest of that day then jumped on a train to Baltimore later that night to go and see Echo!

Baltimore was sweet! Unfortunately Echo had assignments and work so we didn't get to hang out much but luckily one of the gals from St Mary's, Kaylie, was around to hang out with me for the next day :) 

We spent the day exploring the harbour area. First stop for the day was the aquarium. It was gigantic! Very cool place to spend a good 3 or 4 hours. They even had an Australian display, although it wasn't really all that Australian! After that we went to get a feed from one of the local seafood restaurants. I got to try blue crab, which was super tasty! Also quite fun to relearn how to break down a crab to get at all the meat! A couple of beers later waiting for the happy hour specials to start. $1 oysters!!! Over the rest of the afternoon and night Kaylie and I knocked back 2 dozen oysters between us. Quite delicious! Spent the rest of the night wandering around looking at the boats and watching the sunset. All in all quite a good day!

After that went back and crashed so I could be up early for my flight to Wilmington in North Carolina to catch up with Jaimster and Alex Fisher! 

This week and a half I spent in Maryland was fantastic! My only regret was that I didn't get to do anything touristy while I was in Washington DC. Hopefully trying to find a weekend where I can go back there to see the White House and the Smithsonian at least! Fingers crossed!!!

A chunk of the ex JCU students!

Beautiful view of the docks at St Mary's from a kayak in the water.

So much is happening here... Home haircut, tea too hot, rum... Happy days!

Blowing fireballs with Zach and Skip

Baltimore aquarium. Amazing!

Dolphins at Baltimore aquarium. 

Security guard photo bomb in front of the Constellation in Baltimore with Kaylie

LA, San Diego and Minneapolis!

So i figured that since I'm travelling for a while it would be good for me to start to write a bit of a blog while I'm travelling. Hopefully will make a new post for each place that I go to, or just as often as I possibly can. Guess we will see how well I do with that! 

Anyways, I first set foot in America on Saturday the 19th of April in Los Angeles. After sitting on a plane for 14 hours and not being able to fall asleep for a second of it I was exhausted. I walked along Venice Beach for about an hour before heading back to the hostel to pass out for the next 12 hours. I spent the Sunday wandering around Venice Beach with some Italian backpackers. It seems the 20th of April, or 420 as it known in American is a special day for Americans. Venice beach seemed to be one of the best places to celebrate this exciting day! Unfortunately for me and my new friends we were unaware of the festivities.

The next day I checked out Hollywood with Seth Larson, I watched him almost get into a fight with an aspiring artist for interesting reasons then went back to San Diego to stay with him for the next 2 weeks. 

San Diego is a beautiful place! So many fantastic places to go and things to do. Not to mention the amazing company I got to keep whole I was there. Seeing a whole group of past JCU exchange students while I was there really blew my mind as well.

I started off my time there with a trip to Laguna Beach with Kelly Eldridge. I was reintroduced to the American culture of having wayyyyy too many shots very quickly. Seems like Fireball Whiskey can really mess you up quickly! Had my first experience of In and Out and finished the night off with some quality toilet hugging time :) seemed like the perfect way to start out my trip!

Some of the things I did with different people while I was there included

Exploring the farmers markets at Pacific Beach (might have been a different beach) with Megan 'Sneaky' Stransky.

Seeing heaps of amazing beaches with Seth, Elisha and Xena. Skim boarding, throwing the disc and lots of layout practice as per the beach norm. 

Pick up at Xena's uni. It seems when you don't play ultimate for a little while your throws and catches get a little worse. Guess I'm gunna have to train a lot more for the rest of this trip! 

Cinco de mayo with Seth and Elisha as well as many other Mexican nights. Mexican food in California is kind of amazing. 

Three days of crazy good times with Alex Fisher. Was just like old times!!!

Paint balling with Seth and all of his buddies. 

Crazy night out with Quint and Alex at a house party at his college. 

All in all it was a fantastic couple of weeks in California and I had an absolute blast!!! Thanks again to everyone who I got to hang out with and made my time there so much more enjoyable! Huge shout outs to Seth and Elisha who put up with my shit for over 2 weeks. Hugely appreciated and you can expect an Australian flag to be coming your way through the mail soon!! 

After a great couple of weeks in San Diego I made the trip from there to Minneapolis in Minnesota, where I stayed with Christina Miller. The main purpose of the trip there was to play in a Magic the Gathering tournament with some friends that I had met in San Diego. But that was for later in the week!

Christina took me to the Mall of America, which is supposedly the biggest mall in all of America. It was gigantic... It even had an amusement park inside. Very cool!

Later that night Christina and I went and tried out swing dancing. Haha that sure was an interesting experience!!! Still is something fun that I recommend everyone to try out at least once!

For my magic buddies reading this I didn't do too well. Scrubbed out in grinders then went 2-3 in the 1700 player main event then dropped. As the Townsville boys would know normally that means it's time to get wasted. Unfortunately I made a rookie mistake and signed on for another event that went on til well after midnight. But all in all it was a great day and I had an absolute blast!

Thanks Christina for letting me stay with you!

Guess a quick mind blown point to finish this off. Alcohol... It just doesn't seem right how cheap it is here compared to Australia. I feel like I am going to turn into a massive alcoholic while I am here. Handles of rum for less the $15 and 700ml bottles of American Honey for $10. It's just plain dangerous. So hopefully I don't die from alcohol poisoning while I am here!!!

I'm writing this while I'm at St Mary's in Maryland. So much fun! Stories for this part will come later! I'm off to cheer / heckle the beer Olympics! (Delayed post)

Couple of photos from my adventures so far! Enjoy!

View of Venice beach from the Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles

Panoramic shot of Venice beach and the Santa Monica pier

Does this really need an explanation?

Elisha and Seth! Awesome San Diego roomies!!!

Skim boarding like a champ at Ocean beach in San Diego

Paint balling with Seth and his mates in San Diego 

Swing dancing with Christina with Minneapolis 

Game of thrones D&M with Christina!