Financial aid?

God is good! He must be looking after our financial affairs. In so many instances things have happened that helped us save money on this Australia trip thus far. Most occurred while we were in Brisbane.

Here are just a list of things that happened (not in any particular order):

- We had a couple of dinners where our friends treated us

- We got a free taxi ride to the Brisbane airport from our motel. What happened was that we called for a taxi and this man who was also staying at the motel asked if he could ride with us to the airport since he needed to get there too. So of course we said ok since we had room and all. We found out that he's from LA. Anyways, when we got to the airport, he paid for the taxi ride. We tried to pay him back but he wouldn't take it. So nice of him!

- We were picked up from the airport by Becks' friends in Brisbane and in Perth when we arrived. That saved us transportation money to get to our accommodations.

- At the beginning of our trip in Brisbane, a friend of Becks' lent us the usage of his car. That really helped us move our luggages around.

- Because of our booking mix up at Hotel Watermark in Brisbane, we got our first night stay there for free (albeit it was in a conference room). With all the hassle, the hotel offered us free breakfasts for our 3 nights of stay. So that saved us $180 AUD since it costs $20 AUD per person for each breakfast (tho I don't think it's worth that much). That free one night stay saved us $120

- On the windshield of the car we rented in Sydney, there was a cracked that must have happened while we were driving it. But they never charged us to fix it when we returned it

- We wanted to rent a car in Brisbane from Saturday morning to Wednesday evening. That would have been considered as 5 days. Unfortunately all car rental places were booked up except for one place where a car wasn't available until Saturday afternoon. Because of that, we were only charged for 4 days instead of 5. And since B is under 25, we have to pay an underage surcharge. Their underage surcharge costs only $8 per day compared to other companies that charged $20ish per day. The only thing with this company was that underaged drivers cannot pay extra per day to decrease their liability (for accidents and such)...so if anything should happen, we would be liable for up to $2750. But God protected us and nothing happened to the car...phewf!

- At Byron Bay, we had cheap pizza for lunch! A large deluxe pizza for just $4.95!! It sure filled us up...only costs us less than $2 per person!

- Becks' friend lent us his maps of Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast so that we wouldn't have to go out and buy them. And those maps were quite useful!!! Also, someone left a map book inside the rental car so that was a bonus for us as that map had more details on small streets for the Coast

- What would we do without the internet? Good thing we were able to locate a public library in Brisbane that allowed free 20 min of internet usage. We did not have to go to an internet cafe to buy minutes! Thank goodness, since it took us a while to plan our coastal trip...in finding places to go and where to rent a car. And of course to check our emails and chat on msn ;)

- Becks' car broke down in Perth and had to get it towed and fixed. They took it to this mechanic close to her place. The timing belt had to be replaced. So it was going to cost quite a bit. This afternoon as I was eating lunch, I noticed a coupon on the coffee table...it was a $25 off coupon for that same place she's getting her car fixed!

That's just a summary of how God has been looking out after us. For more adventures and stories, please read Becks and Mich blogs...they should have stories soon or at least pics...we're all writing different stories since there's so much to say and it would take forever for just one person to write it all out.