After arriving back in Australia, I spent a few days in Melbourne. I caught up with my family and my previous diving coach Ian Nichols, who was unwell in hospital. It was lovely to catch up with everyone and show them my silver medal. I also got a tattoo, I went with my sister Sian to get the Olympic Rings tattooed on my left shoulder blade - it hurt a little but I'm really happy with it!
Then it was back to Brisbane for 26 hours, to unpack and re-pack before heading off to America for a holiday. I landed in LA and the next day started a two week Contiki tour. We went to San Diego, Phoenix, Sedona, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite, San Fransisco and back to LA. We jammed packed so much into 2 weeks, I went on a hot air balloon in the desert of Phoenix, a helicopter at the Grand Canyon, we drove up Route 66, Alcatraz in San Fran was amazing and a bit scary, we did a Beverly Hills tour and went to Muscle beach at Venice beach. It was great fun and the tour group was awesome.
I even got married to Steve in Las Vegas by Elvis - not real of course, but lots of fun!
Then I was off to New York City, where I spent five days. I walked many many kilometers and saw so many things. I saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, watched the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium, went on a Sex and the City tour - had a Cosmo at Scout, went up the Empire State building, saw the Statue of Liberty, walked up Wall St, Times Square and all around Central Park. New York was as amazing as I expected, so many places seemed familiar as you always see them on TV or in the movies.
I had the best holiday, met so many lovely people, but it was time to go home and back to reality.
The day after arriving home dad called me with the very sad news that Ian passed away. So that day I was organising flights down to Melbourne to go to the funeral and say a last goodbye.
Before Melbourne I was off to Canberra for the last of the Olympic Athlete Parades, it was lots of fun. Then down to Melbourne for a not so fun week, I also said goodbye to my nanna who was gravely ill and has since passed.
Then it was back to Brisbane and straight back into 10 sessions a week. At the start my body felt out of shape and uncoordinated, luckily it started getting back into the rhythm pretty quickly.
There isn't much to report on the diving front, its been lots of basic dives and lead-ups, not doing anything tricky yet. My next big diving competition is National Championship which are in late February, up here in Brisbane.
Here is a link to the Podcast from radio show I got to do with Hamish and Andy at the Olympics.
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