Today, on my walk over to the Australian National Botanic Gardens, I noticed another obvious tourist who was examining a map. I commented that she look like me over the last few days - and from there we struck up a conversation.
Turns out, I had just met Nicole from Switzerland. She was on a 3 month (yes, month) backpacking trip around Australia. She had no official plans that day, so we made our way over to the Botanic Gardens together.
To steal an Aussie phrase, this all turned out to be heaps (or, if you prefer stacks) of fun. I got to see odd plants and trees and learn about how Americans are workaholics compared to the easy going Swiss.
It was neat hearing about how she planned and executed a solo trip around a country which isn't her native language. It took a year of planning and 1 month in Melbourne at a language school to get prepared. Then she ventured all through Australia, mostly on the cheap.
Here are some snapshots from the gardens. Including one of Nicole (see, I'm not making her up...) next to some particularly rare specimen:
Uh oh... pictures of other women showing up on the blog... Good thing I am done with work and we are going home tomorrow.
ReplyDelete