Adrenaline Junkie

My spring break was probably the best week I've had in Australia so far, if not one of the best weeks of my life.

Instead of going to New Zealand or the Great Barrier Reef, I took the cheap option and flew up to Brisbane and stayed with two of my friends who live there for free. Budgeting, am I right? Wrong.

I thought that I would have a cheap trip up to Brisbane. Instead, I blew half my money on passes to every single amusement park in Queensland. And it was awesome.

My two friends, Liam and Emilie, and I went to Movie World, Seaworld, Dreamworld, and Wet 'N' Wild. In the span of three days. And some of them we ended up going to multiple times. This is when I discovered that I am, in fact, an adrenaline junkie.

Growing up, I never went to Dollywood very much because both my mom and sister hate large crowds and amusement parks and letting me live out my dreams of trying to find Dolly Parton in real life (kidding...my mom loves Dolly Parton. Who doesn't?) and even though I got season passes to Dollywood this past Christmas, I didn't have enough time to go more than once or twice before coming to Sydney. So going to four whole different parks in three days was a pretty big deal for me.

I started off small, thinking I was probably a wimp. I only went on the smaller coasters and none that went upside down. Until Liam invited his friend Caitlyn to come with us to Movie World and she convinced me to go on one on the Superman ride, which is famous for going from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in less than one second or something crazy like that. And it. Was. Amazing.

After that, I rode every single ride in every single park. I'm not even kidding. Every single theme park in Queensland, Australia, I have been to. And I have ridden every single ride. Including, of course, the largest hyper coaster in the Southern Hemisphere. Multiple times. Over and over again. In a row. It's so cool and so much fun.

My "budget" spring break trip ended up not being as under budget as I thought it would be but it was 100% worth it. I've learned a lot about myself on this trip so far, like how I deal with my anxiety, how to communicate with my friends and family when I'm 9,000 miles away from home, how to adapt to completely different sets of expectations from professors and supervisors...and that I could spend literally my entire life at amusement parks riding rollercoasters and be the happiest I have ever been.

Dollywood better look out this summer. I have a season pass and a desperate need to go upside down while hurtling forward at 70 miles per hour on a contraption that sounds like it might fall apart at any second. And I have Queensland, Australia and the CCI Global Scholars to thank for that discovery.