Finished surf camp, but haven’t finished telling about Byron yet. The day after the dive I went on a day trip to Nimbin. Nimbin is like a hippy town that held some Woodstock-type festival years back. Stoners and hippy stuff everywhere and where people go to get pot. The town was really really small; one street maybe 2 street blocks in length, not that great. The graffiti everywhere was cool and the museum was trippy and kind of cool looking, but it was mostly shops of incense and hippy gear. I went with some girls that were in my room at the hostel and we all went in on some pot cookies. We got four cookies for $20. I took it at like 4pm and didn’t feel it until like 8pm after the girls checked out and I was alone in my room. Pretty sure that was my first time actually being high and I didn’t like it. I think I took too much and maybe that’s why. You’re meant to take only a half of a cookie, but after the first hour when I felt nothing I took another quarter. Thinking that may of tipped me over the edge. The next day was the horse riding. That whole thing sounded really romantic, but because I hadn’t been on a horse in years the guide put my horse on a leash and he kept running into her horse so I was focusing the entire time on keeping them apart instead of how pretty the beach was. We also got to take the horses into the water, which was pretty cool. Being bareback on a horse in the water is a little slippery and off balance. It was really cool though. “Horse Surfing” is what they call it. Horses were clearly miserable, but I pet Stryder heaps and thanked him for being so nice to me haha.
Alright, for the surf camp… this is going to be hard to write. So much happened and have so many fun stories that I don’t know how to condense it to anything readable. I’ll give it a go... They asked if I wanted to come in a night earlier because I was the only person booked onto my trip. I was meant to be going from Byron Bay to Sydney (south) on a bus, stopping at a few places along the way and checking out different beaches. Turns out that they were going to take me straight to the base camp in Pacific Palms and I was going to just hang there for 5 days. Totally not a problem, but I didn’t know that because no one told me so, when I get to the bus at 6pm on Friday night (instead of Sat morning like it was meant to be), we had to drive 7hrs to get to camp. There were 3 workers and 4 guys on the bus. We got there at like 2am and it’s a proper summer camp set up. There’s a main building with bar, lounge, tables, DJ booth, and a pool. Then there are a couple cabins around the property (which is a farm with horses and stuff) with bunks. The next morning my trip started and I had to tag along with a bus full of some grade school footy team. Me and like fifteen 14-year olds all day learning to surf... awesome. They were only in for the weekend though. First lesson went alright. The instructor for the whole week Ecko, and his helper for the weekend was Shane. Both wicked cool guys. Both are really chill and laid back. Eck is a typical surfer guy: a fun 26-year old drunk, super cool. Shane is chill, I think a littler older and was super awesome with me. Since I was the only person of a decent age and the only girl, he sort of kept me company all weekend. The camp has a million beaches within a 30min drive, at least 5 that I saw so each day we went to a different one. Day one was Boomerang beach. The kids are all so tiny and light that they stood up instantly and have no fear so they were leaping into big waves without any hesitation. I, on the other hand, was terrified of every wave and it took me all day of falling to stand up on a wave. By the end of the first day Shane had me standing and I actually semi-rode one wave to shore. By “wave” I mean that super small broken wave at shore. My knees and elbows were torn up from falling in the sand on shore, but I was so happy to have stood up that I didn’t care. That night one of the helpers that was sleeping in my room got sick and threw up all over the floor next to his bed. Instead of getting up and going to the bathroom, he just continued to throw up for like 1.5hrs all over. I had to sleep with a blanket over my face to avoid the smell. The next morning he was so embarrassed and the rest of the staff thought it was hysterical. We kind of joked about it the rest of the week. The next morning, Sunday, we went to Seals Rocks but the surf there pretty much sucked. The weather was a bit cloudy and overcast but the waves were nonexistent so we played a few games in the water and then wandered the beach for a bit finding big rocks to jump off. Eck was super energetic with the kids so they were running around playing while Shane and I stayed back and slowly walked and chatted. We saw heaps of dolphins and 2-3 humpback whales in the distance. They were pretty far out there so I couldn’t really tell that they were whales until he pointed out the blow hole. The weather didn’t really improve, so we had lunch and went back to camp because the kids needed to leave camp by 2. That was it for surfing for me that day. The entire camp was gone so it was just myself and the staff at camp. I felt so bad because they kept insisting on cooking for me and always felt obligated to get me things and check that I was okay. I told them if they gave me two pieces of bread I’d make PB&J for dinner. It was still pretty rainy so we all just sat around all afternoon watching Friends. We got out blankets and snacks and just sat around from like 2 to 10 watching 2.5 discs of Friends. Kind of a perfect afternoon actually. Eck kept talking about that all week and how awesome that was. At the end of the trip he said he'd never forget our Friends Bender. How adorable. The next morning they insisted on making me eggs. Awesome eggs, but still unnecessary. I had a private lesson at Bulls Paddock with Eck. He and I and a few other staff went out for the morning. He gave me some tips on shore and went out in the water and helped me out a bit there. I felt bad that he couldn’t surf because he had to help this one person, so I went back to shore to practice standing and let him play around. I couldn’t seem to get my footing right to stand, so that was frustrating me. I felt that I was doing a lot better though. I went back out, almost stood up a few times and we went back to camp for lunch. A new group got in for the afternoon lesson. This was their first day, 10ish people that were my age, so we went back to the same beach and I got to basically start over with my lesson. Shane was done after the weekend, so a new instructor, Mark, was going to be with us for the rest of the trip. He was super cool too; younger and semi new to the camp. Weather was awesome so we played around all afternoon in the water and attempting to surf. I gave up kind of on trying really hard because it wasn’t really working out for me and I was getting frustrated, which made it less fun. That night at dinner Entourage was somehow brought up with Mark and he got so excited that I had season 7 so he insisted that we watch it straight away. Watched half the season that night. Next day (day 4) we went to Lighthouse beach, which was incredible! Beautiful blue water and a really cool bush walk. The waves in the AM were kind of huge so I opted out of fighting with those considering I couldn’t even stand in small waves. Tanned with the girls all morning. In the afternoon when the waves calmed down Mark, Kirsty, and I went on the bush walk before surfing. The walk was kind of crazy. Some of it was along a little cliff. It was really narrow and I had to hold onto plants to climb up. Eventually when we got to flat land we wandered out to the point. It was a big chunk of land that separated two beaches so we got to see another beach on the other side and the lighthouse from our beach. The water was incredible and there were some cliffs and beautifulness. Played in the water for a bit more, attempted to surf a bit more, then went back to the camp to get wasted haha. All afternoon Eck was saying that we needed to get super drunk! We played a few games of flippy cup, one round involving costumes, so the party turned into a crazy drunken costume party. Boys started getting naked and everyone started dancing around everywhere. Such a great time. I drunkenly wandered back to my room to go to sleep but found Mark drunkenly watching Entourage (without me!!) so we watched the rest of the season and went to bed. Next day was my last day for surfing. I was meant to leave that evening for Sydney, but they asked if I could stay an extra night and leave in the morning. Again, I’m the only person that needs to get to Syd because these 10 people are all heading north, not south. I was just going to Syd (for the third time) to hang at Jackie’s so I didn’t mind hanging out for another night. That meant another night hanging with the new awesome people I've met! So the fifth day of surfing was back at Boomerang beach and was pretty chill. Little bit of surfing, little bit of tanning, some volleyball, and photos. Went back for my last night of getting drunk with the clan. Everyone knows I’m not usually a huge fan of drinking, but I was so stoked to drink with these people. They were all so much fun and everyone was so open to making fools of themselves dancing and wearing costumes that it was a guaranteed good night. So, we play an intense game of scavenger-hunt musical chairs in which I came in second place. We had to undress people, go find condoms, and my last mission was to “properly” put on a wetsuit. I had to run out to the shed, strip, get on a wetsuit, and run back. I slipped on the floor and fell on the way out there, an the other girl didn’t get undressed when she put on her wetsuit. I say that she didn’t “properly” put it on, so she lost in my eyes, but whatever. My body so bad hurt from that fall and I have heaps of bruises from that… and even more from being smacked by a board all week. I really wanted to go cow tipping, but we learned it was impossible, so Mark, Kirsty, Sam and I opted for a creepy walk in the middle of nowhere. We were drunk and creeped out but had such a fun walk. The boys got naked and started running around the field. We got scared of posts we could vaguely see in the distance thinking they were animals or people coming to kill us. Got back, danced a bit more, and went to bed. Next morning everyone got all packed up and left. I was so sad to see them go. I’m terribly jealous that they all get to spend another 2 nights together and I had to leave. Eck said he wished I could have stayed longer with them and that I became part of their little family. I loved hearing that. I was trying to find a way to stay… brainstorming jobs for me so I could stay and get paid. Couldn’t come up with anything. I’d kill to manage that place because it wasn’t really run that great, but don’t see that happening haha. Probably the best week in Oz. Eck played the same song over and over again on the bus, so I’ve been listening to it, and I’ll always remember surf camp if I hear it. It’s Split Enz – 6 Months on a Leaky Boat. I loved having Eck as our alarm clock every morning waking up a room full of hung over people. He was always so energetic even after a crazy drunken night. He’d get just as smashed as everyone else and still manage to be up early with a huge smile on his face. He’s great at his job! I just love love love seeing pictures of the beaches we were at knowing that I was taught how to surf at these incredible beaches. I am quite lucky. Couldn’t have asked for a better week… well, maybe I’d ask that I could actually ride a few waves haha! That’s long enough. I have more stories from the week, but I guess these are the highlights for ya.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
October 20, 2010
This one will be shorter. Day isn't over yet, but I have low hopes for the rest of the day. Weather turned to shit a little this morning. I woke up to an overcast day, such a bummer. Diving was at 1230, so I headed out around noon. Got to the center and all dressed to find out that it was only me and one other girl, Andrea diving with a guide, Simon. The dive site is Julian Rocks. According to the guy I booked with, there is supposed to be heaps of wildlife out there. Sharks, sting rays, turtles, octopus, eels, and some other stuff. The reef was incredible, but my last dive I didn't really see much. It was beautiful; coral and fish, but no sharks or anything too exciting. This was a cheap dive, so I figured why not? Anyway, we get out to the island, like 10min off the coast and we're freaking cold. The water was a bit choppy and the visibility wasn't that great, but as soon as we got to the bottom we saw a HUGE sea turtle. The thing was easily 4ft in diameter. Almost the same size as the guide. Other than him, we didn't end up seeing much else. We saw another turtle, some "sharks", if you can call them that... they looked more like big cat fish. There was a small eel thing hiding in rocks. There was a cool fish; long and skinny and looked like a big rod, with a little pokey tail. The water was freezing. It was a cool dive though, worth the money, but not as beautiful as the reef. Got back to the hostel and now I'm just doing some laundry and putting pics online. I've been friendly with the roommates, but not friendly enough to hang out with them. Cool guys and girls from Germany (clearly... everyone is from Germany). Got a call from the surf camp. Looks like they want to leave a day early. Not sure specifics, she's meant to email me, but it shouldn't interfere with anything. Tomorrow is Nimbin. Fingers crossed for better weather. It can be overcast, just no rain. And it needs to be sunny on Friday.
October 19, 2010
So my goal for writing was to do it at the end of every city but I’m doing a few cool things here so I wanted to get all the details in writing asap. So there may be a few Byron entries. Yesterday I didn’t do much. When I got picked up from the bus stop the driver suggested that I go straight to the beach. Took his advice. There’s a bit of a path from the hostel to the beach, through some trees, over a train track, through more trees, up a hill, BEACH! Sounds longer than it is. Anyway, hung at the beach all afternoon and there’s not much to see. There weren’t too many people at the beach and it was a bit further from town so chill. After a few hours there I wandered town for a bit. When I got back I went to the beach again until it got cooler, then went back to sit at the hostel. Met two Aussies from Melbourne. They had just gotten back from Nimbin and were quite stoned. We went out to eat and had a few drinks and wandered back to the beach where they smoked a little more and then came back and went to bed. Cool girls. Today I decided to go for a walk. I wanted to see the lighthouse and the eastern most point of Australia. Kind of a long walk, uphill. There were a bunch of cute lookouts and the water was perfect, the temp was perfect, the breeze was perfect, just a great day for a walk. There was this cute little stand for cameras at the easternly point sign, so I got to use that, which I thought was so clever. Before I saw it I was waiting around for someone to walk by so I could have them take my pic, but then, BAM, here was this cute little stand. Anyway, got to the top of the hill, few pics of the lighthouse and then kept walking. Some guy came up and tried to sell me a hang gliding ride. I was so tempted but didn’t have money so told him I couldn’t even if I wanted. When he said that was fine and that I could pay later, I said that I’d think about it and maybe come back tomorrow. I was honest and was really going to think about it but as I kept walking I didn’t think I’d have time and I passed the actual hang gliders and turned around and decided to suck it up and do it. So I got all strapped up and the guy, Pete I think, was telling me how to take off. There’s a ramp that we stand on, all strapped in, and we had to RUN off of it!! Oh my gosh! I didn’t know if I’d panic and eff up the whole take off. Once we got strapped in I could feel the air lifting up the kite-thing. Us leaping off was more like the wind taking us up. So, off the ramp was basically a steep hill/cliff down to the beach, so possible death below. The take off was pretty graceful, and there we were, off and in the air. We got higher than 500ft I think and just cruised around for like a half hour. He sort of tried to persuade me to take lessons saying that it’s not hard to learn and not many women do it and could be cool. Honestly thought about it. If anything, it could be a cool pastime. Doubt I’ll do it, but maybe! Anyway, there were a few dips that were scary and we did a few tight turns that freaked me out a little, but overall, the whole thing was so relaxing and thrilling at the same time. It was just a really great time. Got dropped off, paid them, and went to the beach some more. Went to town and booked my great ocean road trip, booked scuba diving for tomorrow, a trip for Nimbin (big stoner city in Oz) for the day after that, and horseback riding for Friday. Should be a busy few days.
October 18, 2010
Heading to Byron Bay now. Spent 3 nights in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. There wasn’t a tour or anything planned, just a few days chilling on an awesome surf beach. Some huge Billabong surf comp is held on this beach every year. The surf wasn’t that great from what I could tell, but it may have just been a down time. The comp is held in Feb, so still a few months away for better swells. Anyway, Adam and Deb that I worked with up north for a bit work out here now, so I stayed at Adams hostel, Sands Hostel. Great place. Definitely a step up from Mission Beach. MB is a small town, small hostel. This is big city, fancy hostel. Really cool for them. First off, the bus stop was in a different time zone from the hostel. So weird! Like 5 min down the road, but a different time zone. I wouldn’t think that people would plan cities so close to each other on a time zone line, but what do I know. Adam says its cool around new years because you can celebrate in one zone, drunkenly stumble a few min down the road and do it again in another hour… kinda cool. I’m a huge fan of time zones, so I’d kill to do that. Maybe I have a goal for my new years. Anyway, I’m standing at the check in desk chatting with Adam and a girl that was on my bus comes in a few minutes later. Adam put us in the same room because we were both from the US. Well, first he put me in a room with some of his staff and figured I’d get on pretty good with them. I did, but after my shower he said he was moving me in with Leah. Cool, whatever. She and I got along really well. She’s from Colorado and is some bad ass boarder. Redbull sponsors her and she was in the US Open or something. She knows heaps of huge names from the boarding world. Means nothing to me, but pretty cool for her. She’s traveled the world in a big way and just got over a huge break up so is taking some time off. She’s thinking about starting a new chapter in life in the warm and on the ocean. She’s going to take up surfing and wanted to find a place to stay nearby. Pretty cool chick. The first night we hung in the room talking all night. I stopped in on Adam and Deb for a bit and caught up with them until they went out. Next day Leah and I went to McDonalds in the AM for internet, beach all day, then went to check out an apartment. The beach was nice and quiet. Pretty windy, so we had to find a spot along a rock wall to block the wind. Before the apartment we watched the sunset on the beach. The sun set over the town in the distance but the whole sky lit up. She loved the apartment and the roommate, Nick, was super cool. He was a surfer and had spent a few seasons at ski resorts in the US and Japan, so they had that in common. The guy that moved out was from the US and worked in Lake Tahoe. Leah saw that as a huge sign, so she was already persuaded. We talked to him for a bit, such a cool guy, and she said she’d stop by the next day to give him the deposit. On the way back we saw a really nice sushi place. All of the sushi places I’ve seen have mostly been sushi trains so pretty much all the same rolls, nothing fancy. This was a legit sit down sushi bar. We went back to the hostel to get appropriate attire and went back. SO amazing! We got three rolls and seaweed salad. I haven’t had proper sushi since I’ve been here. I had sushi train each time I was in Sydney and Cairns, but that doesn’t really count. This will hold me over until I get home I think. Now I have to find a place as good as Sushi-o near Howell. We each got a cocktail to celebrate her new apartment, and went back to the hostel. After the nice sunset we decided to get up early to see the sunrise because neither of us had done that since we’d been in Australia. Sunrise was 5:05am. We ACTUALLY got up to do it and walk out to the cold beach and find that the sun is going to rise off behind a building around some little peninsula in the distance. Awesome. Again, the sky over the water was beautiful, but not quite what we were looking for. We went back to bed and spent the next day at the beach again. This time we went down the coast a bit to the actual beach of the surf comp and watched some surfers there. I’m a little nervous to surf. Clearly I won’t be riding any waves like that, but it should be quite an experience. We didn’t do anything in the evening, just traded some music and movies and this morning chatted with Adam a bit before he took me to the bus stop and Leah to her new apartment. Could have missed my bus because I didn’t even think about the time difference at the bus stop so thankfully I made it. Lost an hour though. Weird! Headed to Byron now. I’ve heard great things about it so I’m fairly excited. No ones’ really given me much detail about why it’s so great so I don’t know what to expect, only greatness. A few days here and then start surf camp on Saturday.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
October 14, 2010
Just got back from Fraser. Probably the worst trip I’ve had in Oz so far. Not in any way a bad trip, but not that good. Basically we drove around in an SUV for 2.5 days looking at lakes. Basically the trip is taking a 4WD car full of people all around Fraser Island, which is the biggest sand island in the world. So you drive through insane sand along the coast and camp at night. I’d heard so many great stories about it, but from my experience, it wasn’t that different from anything I could have done back home. Clearly there was an ocean and better/more trees, but other than that, nothing too special. SUVs, trees, lakes, sand. Our car had 8 people plus the guide. These are called “self-drive” tours, but some new rule says that you’re not aloud to do this kind of a trip without a guide so one of our 4 cars had a guide and our car was the one. I really liked the group when I first met them. 2 were from England, 1 from Canada, 2 Austria and 2 France. The Austrian and French were fairly quiet in the beginning but I really got on well with the English speakers. It kinda went downhill after the first day somehow though. When we first got there the weather was pretty shit and waves were insane so we couldn’t drive on the beach. We had to take inland trails instead. We managed to make the full 3 days without any rain, but day one was pretty cloudy. Since we couldn’t do any of the beachy stuff we just drove around the island looking at lakes. The island is pretty big, so it took a long time to get from one place to another. We got on the island at 9am, got to the campsite at 5pm and saw like 4 lakes and nothing else all day. I’d seen some pics of the lakes and they were awesome, but because of the clouds they weren’t very blue and the clarity wasn’t as extreme. The sand was the same beautiful white as Whitsundays, but the clouds ruined that too. That was day one. That night at the campsite we saw a dingo straight away trying to get into a tent. It was like rule number one to not have food in tents and to avoid dingos at all possible costs because they can be dangerous. I thought it was adorable. I wanted to play fetch with it and let it lick my face, but whatever. So, yay for checking another native animal off my list. Anyway, dinner was just easy pasta, nothing special, and then everyone sat around the fire. My biggest excitement for this trip was campfires and tents. Well, I’ve always been a huge fan of smaller gatherings and I figured with a self-drive tour you’d hang with your car and only your car, so I figured 8 people chillin around a fire. Nope. 4 cars, so 32 people chillin around a fire; car stereo blaring, drinking games galore… not my idea of a campfire. I did have roasted marshmallows, but their marshmallows are pretty shit here, so it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Tent wasn’t bad. I shared a tent with Rachel and Ben and we were given little pads to sleep on, but no pillows so my neck was uncomfortable all night. The temp was perfect for camping though so we woke up a little warm, but not sticky and hot and I only had a blanket but wasn’t woken up too cold. Next day was much warmer so we went to the west side of the island where the current wasn’t as bad so we laid out in the sun until after lunch and that was perfect. Then we decided we’d do more siteseeing so Brad (driver) took us inland again to more lakes. Crap. We managed to stop at Eli River, which was really refreshing, clear, and cool. Walked up that and went to the Mahara shipwreck. Basically a ship broke down or became useless so as they were towing it, it broke from the tow-boat and crashed onto shore on this island… not that cool and no one died, but now there’s this huge rusty boat on shore and it’s like the main attraction of the island. I’d think if it had a cooler history it’d be way cool, but it’s not. It was really cool and made for some cool pics. Back to camp, where I was bored with everyone sort of ignoring me. I’m not conceded, but I usually get along really well with strangers and I’m usually really comfortable with them for at least a few weeks before I start thinking they all hate me but for some reason I felt that way mid way through the first day. So strange. So that evening I sort of kept to myself. We had burgers and sausages for dinner (classic camp style BBQ), and I just sat at the fire then went to bed pretty early. Fairly certain I woke up at like 2am to Ben and Rachel fooling around, but if I did, they were just finishing. I heard a lot of rustling, breathing for a few seconds, then what I thought was elastic (as in getting clothes back on), then silence so I think I caught the climax and end. Awkward. And you know once you THINK you hear it, everything afterward is definitely something dirty. A deep breath becomes moaning. Someone pursing their lips becomes much worse.. it messes with sleep. Next morning we had to wake up at 6am to head out. It was meant to be a 3 day trip and yet I’m leaving bright and early on the third day, strange, right? Yeah, I thought so too. What BS! Don’t sell me a 3 day trip but day three is over by noon after we spend like 1.5hrs driving from camp to the ferry, then an hour getting from the ferry to the hostel and all cleaned up. SOOOO uncool, especially after the boring 2 previous day. Well, lucky for me, one of the cars got stuck in a creek we drove through, so we spent like 2.5hrs trying to get it out. Everyone was pretty stressed, but the way I saw it, there were like 20 people trying to help (way too many), so I got to lay out on the beach while the men tried to fix it. They broke the cage off the front of the car, and then had to call in help. I took some vids and paparazzi-stalked the super perfect male specimen from the other car. So day three turned into a mini beach visit and home. Not that cool. Weather was great on day 2 and 3, super sunny and breezy, and the guide Brad was super cool and informative, but basically, I could have skipped out and not been too devastated. Got nothing to do for the rest of the day, maybe some internet and beach. Leave early in the AM to head down the coast to Coolangatta. No plans for there, just see Adam and Deb and hang for a few days.
Monday, October 11, 2010
October 10, 2010
First, an Emily thing… it's 10/10/10. I love this more because here they do DD/MM instead of MM/DD and it's the same both ways! Anyway, just got on the bus to Rainbow Beach. It's 530pm now and I won't get to Rainbow Beach until 740am tomorrow. Should be a long night. Hanging out in Rainbow beach for the day and Fraser Island the day after.
So, quick rundown of Syd, then I'll review Sailing. I had a great time in Sydney until the last day; details of that in the last post. Last day: I ran late to donate blood, which ended up being fine and displayed my love for Australia more. Almost passed out when I decided to go for a walk across the harbor bridge. Scariest moment at that point in Australia. That walk was my goal for the day, so when I couldn't do that I was sort of stranded in the city until dinnertime. My phone died so I had to go buy a charger. I was wicked sunburned too so I couldn't really sit in the park and tan because I was already sizzling. Needless to say it was fairly boring. Then I sat on a train for 20min to hang with Michael for dinner. That wasn't too bad, short, but civil. 40min back to Jackie's where we had to vent about our crap days, then early start for airport to Airlie. I'm good at airports. I get in a zone of chill-ness. So a few hours later I was arriving in the amazingly sunny Airlie Beach. Such a small airport. Two gates, one runway, tiny. The baggage area was not only outside, it had no roundy thing so the little cart just drove straight from the plane to this covered car space and you grab your stuff. Seemed sorta cheap, but it was cool. Shuttle to town, checked into the hostel and took a walk to check in for the sailing trip. When I got back to the hostel my lone roommate was in and bored out of her mind so we went for a walk. I thought it'd be nice to see where I had to go the next morning so I wouldn't get lost early in the AM so we wandered to the marina, which was lovely. Walked up and down the things checking out the nice yachts and boats. Walked back to the hostel and watched a movie. I was dead tired so I went to sleep at like 930 or 10. I've been sleeping earlier and earlier lately.. I wonder if that means anything.
Wake up, head to the marina, and only like one person was there. We were all given bags at check in the day earlier so it was easy to spot us. After the majority of the people were checked in the cute scuba instructor, Ryan, took our booking conformations and we waited for everyone else… 12 passengers in total. Got on the boat; first rule: no shoes. Love this already. Weather was good, but expected to get worse, so we just sat on the deck enjoying the sun while the skipper, Brent, gave us our little shpeal. 12 passengers, all fairly young, and 3 crew, so 15 of us in total. So since the weather was expected to get much worse in the next few days we went to the reef straight away instead of the islands. Basically from land you sail out a few hours to one of the 70 islands, chill out there, then sail another 4-5hrs out to the outer reef. A lot of sailboats don't go out to the outer reef because it's so far, which is why I chose this boat. So, we just went straight to the reef (minus the sail because the wind wasn't in our favor I guess). Pretty bumpy getting out there so some people felt sick but mostly we all just sort of sat tight and read or laid out to tan. I got a bit dizzy a time or two, but nothing too bad. Got out there at like 2ish and did our first dive. I was a little nervous cause it's been awhile since I'd done a dive, but it was pretty stellar. There were 6 certified divers plus Ryan. Of the 3 total dives, I never saw anything super awesome. I saw one little shark but no turtles or sting rays or anything like that. Mostly INCREDIBLE coral and heaps of fish. From what I remember this was so much better than Mission Beach. This reef was just incredible, all of it. I didn't get any pics here cause my camera only goes down 10ft and we went 16m so, 48ft, right? So, we finished that dive, hung out on the boat for the rest of the night. It was the coolest thing ever. Clouds started coming in toward the evening but it was so empty. We could vaguely see the islands in the distance but there wasn't a single other boat out there so we had the ocean to ourselves, it was insane. Dinner of roasted lamb and vegetables was awesome. We just chill out on the deck in the dark and chat and chill all night. Bonus of this boat was that everyone wanted to dive and they suggest not drinking before diving, so no one really drank, just sorta hung out and chatted. Everyone was from everywhere, South Africa, Switzerland, England, France, Belgium, and a bunch of other places. Such fun to chat with everyone. I kind of attached to the couple from south africa and their friend who's now living in Brisbane. Also, Matthew, from England. We played a bit of UNO (with regular cards cause we didn't have any UNO cards) and chatted on the deck for a bit. I went to bed pretty early cause I wasn't sure how sleeping on a rocking boat was going to be, but it ended up being fairly good. The reef blocks most of the waves, but because the weather was getting a bit worse, the wind did pick up and there were more waves, nothing too bad. There was just the tiny port hole and little fan so it got sort of stuffy in the beds, but other than that, the rocking never bothered me. The bed itself was the top bunk and super close to the ceiling. Not too easy to climb up cause you had to almost crawl into it. Wasn't too uncomfortable.
Next day was a morning diving. Weather seemed to be pretty awesome. Some clouds but definitely sun and tanning. First dive took the place of the scariest moment in Australia. The current was insane! Ryan said later that he'd never dove in water like that before and he's been diving for ages and was in the marines diving and was an instructor in Mexico for a year, so he's got some dives under his belt. There was a little trench we were meant to dive through and he warned us ahead of tme that the current there would be a bit rough, but once we got through it it'd be fine. Swimming through that was nearly impossible. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere. Actually, I know I wasn't going anywhere because I saw the same piece of coral on the wall beside me the whole time. I was doing okay keeping up with everyone else doing just as bad. Finally Ryan turned around and when he did that the current caught be and started pulling me up. When I couldn't get back down to everyone and I saw them swimming away I started to panic and lose my breath (scuba diving 101, don't do that). I started hyperventilating, which is terrifying when you only have a regulator in your mouth for air. I inhaled a bit of water, started choking, kept breathing through the regulator until I got to the surface. Another scuba diving 101 is to stay with your buddy and let them know if you go up, which I couldn't do because I couldn't get to anyone before I started freaking out. So, here I am at the surface having the skipper take his little boat out to me and I tell him no one knew I was up there. Eventually everyone comes up to find me, I feel terrible, we go back down. Current is still crazy, but we're managing okay and I'm doing fine. It was okay for a bit, we were cruising around following the current, which sort of sucked cause you basically have no control and are just going with the flow (literally). Then, we get to a corner. Ryan and a few people go one way and the current rips me the other way. I grab onto coral to try and pull myself back toward them, but that's not happening. I start panicking again (in retrospect I'm hugely disappointed in myself), grab the girl that's next to me doing the same and tell her I'm going up. My fingernails on 3 fingers were ripped off pretty good and my fingers were torn up pretty good as well from grabbing that coral. Hope I didn't ruin it! We must have been really deep or the current kept pushing me because I didn't think I was going to make it to the surface. It was insane. Finally got to the surface and Brent races out to me again. I tell him that I won't go back. Eventually everyone gets up and says that they don't want to keep going either. Nothing from that dive was good. I didn't get to enjoy any of the reef and while being pulled along WITH the current was a little thrill, getting whipped past everyone and freaking out was not cool. We got back to the boat and they took out the beginner divers to a different spot and they had a good time. We did lunch and went out again. This time to a different spot and during a different tide so we were assured that there wouldn't be any current. Everyone was pretty keen on having a chill dive and not wanting ANYTHING like the last one. They took us to a spot called "The Cathedral". Basically you swim through a little hole, down and up into a big cave sort of thing. Big circle, no top, one way in and out… that tunnel we just came in. Sounds terrifying after I thought I was going to die before. So going down I told Grant (my buddy) that I might hold onto him for a bit at first. Everyone was checking I was okay for the first 5 min or so, but it was perfect. The perfect dive. The cathedral was wicked. I was nervous to dive through a tunnel, but once through, we had this awesome little dome thing to play in. We swam around in there for a min or two with cool coral, no fish that I can remember, and then out. I don't remember the name of the part of the reef we went along after that but it was incredible. Huge walls of coral and insane fish. I like the walls of coral cause it's basically open ocean to one side of you and a wall on the other so your focus is completely at the wall. We could swim back and check out the WHOLE wall, then get closer and get a close up. We'd swim back and make motions like, "check out this incredible sight"… like the whole thing was spectacular. I wish I could take pics. I have a few mental ones, so if the technology gets here, take a look. Mobs of schools of fish everywhere, so many different kinds of coral, just incredible. I think that dive lasted 30min or so and we came up with Grant ran out of air. I had plenty so once we got back to the boat I kinda hung around the boat checking out the school of fish and the big huge fish (Arthur I think they named him) that was under the boat. Pretty cool. Later we could do another dive, which was so tempting after that awesome dive, or snorkeling. I wanted to get some pics so I did a snorkel. I couldn't see if the pics were turning out so I just clicked non stop for like an hour in the water. So amazing. We got to see heaps of fish here too, and much closer to the surface. Once I got out of the water the camera stopped working. Apparently water gets into the battery after you get out of the water (awesome), so I can't turn the camera on, so I don't know how the pics turned out. Fingers crossed because that'd save me from trying to describe it. Speechless. After that snorkel we cruised back toward the islands. Long trip back and the rocking was putting me to sleep, plus I think I was still sort of exhausted from my near death morning so I went down and napped. Everyone was fairly shocked because the boat was rocking pretty good. Winds were definitely picking up and the sun went away, so there wasn't much to do except sit and look at the waves. If you sat at the bow you could get splashed, but I already had my 2 min shower. Bathrooms real quick… tiny in general, but toilets had tiny tubes… don't even think about poop going down these things, and made a loud noise. Boat only holds so much water so we had to take 2min showers. That meant turn on (hot or cold cause you didn't have time to adjust) rinsing off. Turning off. Lathering whole body. Turn on and rinse off. Hope to not soak entire bathroom in the process while rocking in the waves. Interesting. Anyway, nap, then up for spaghetti dinner, hang out for a few. Stop for the night at an island away from the big islands. Brent said he doesn't get in too close to the main islands because he likes us being the only ones around. We liked it too. Way cool to only be around the same 14 people for 2 days without seeing another soul. Brent gave us a little star teaching (without us actually looking at stars cause it was so cloudy), Ryan showed us a slideshow he made of the pics he had taken so far (which we got to buy on DVDs later), and then I went to bed again at like 930.
Early morning at the islands. I was hoping to get up in time to see the sunrise but it was too cloudy. Breakfast in the harbor at the main Whitsunday Island. Other boats around now and turtles. After brekky we had to wait for the tide to rise a bit before we could get to shore. We took our little boat to the island and Ryan took us on a walk to a lookout that overlooks Whitehaven Beach, which is top 10 of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The white sand was so incredible all in itself. The shit weather made it sort of a downer, but the water was still a beautiful teal color and the sand was still crazy white. It was kinda cool just to be on land again anyway. Seriously, the fact that in the clouds this was an insanely gorgeous beach, I couldn't imagine it with the sun out. Well, I've seen pictures and it's spectacular, but what can you do? So we went to the lookout then down to the beach. This sand was so white and so soft and fine, it was incredible. I guess it's silica or something. They say it's great to exfoliate and clean jewelry so everyone was rubbing it around. Grant's bald so they were exfoliating his head. You're not supposed to swim in the water without a stinger suit so we just wandered along the shore, but it was still incredible. We got heaps of pics. Tried to get some fun ones of leaps and cartwheels. Way cool. Matthew and I wandered through some rocks and found a private little beachy area. Our footprints looked like the first footprints to ever touch it, which is obviously not true, but so cool. Hung out there for an hour or 2 then back to the boat. Lunch while cruising around between two of the big islands, then we got to bring the sails up and finally sail for a bit. I got to use some wench thing, which wasn't as exciting as it sounded at the time. Once the sails were up we just held on for dear life while the boat was tipping to the side. The one side was like dipping in the water. Brent was so cute and you could tell he loved it so much. He's been the skipper of that boat for 8yrs and sailing for like 17. He lives for this stuff! Such a friendly guy. He loved answering questions and loved teaching us. You'd ask him a question and he'd go into detail about that and a few other related topics. Really sweet. I hung onto the side of the boat for a bit, then slowly made my way to the front where you had a great view at how tilted the boat was. It was incredible! You'd think the thing was going to capsize. So awesome. I'm just hangin out thinking I could probably stand on the railing on the other side of the boat it was tipped so much. Still crazy cloudy but we managed the whole day without any real rain. A few drizzles here and there, but mostly just splashes while we were sailing along. Got back to dock at 4ish and everyone was off. Hugs to the crew, goodbyes to the other passengers. We exchanged emails with some of us to FB and share pics, so hopefully that'll work out, but it's sad meeting cool people and knowing you'll never see them again.
Well, battery just got eaten pretty good and I'm already used to the bus smell, so that's WAAYY long enough for now. Big props to anyone that actually read that whole thing. I'll try and give good details for each adventure.
So, quick rundown of Syd, then I'll review Sailing. I had a great time in Sydney until the last day; details of that in the last post. Last day: I ran late to donate blood, which ended up being fine and displayed my love for Australia more. Almost passed out when I decided to go for a walk across the harbor bridge. Scariest moment at that point in Australia. That walk was my goal for the day, so when I couldn't do that I was sort of stranded in the city until dinnertime. My phone died so I had to go buy a charger. I was wicked sunburned too so I couldn't really sit in the park and tan because I was already sizzling. Needless to say it was fairly boring. Then I sat on a train for 20min to hang with Michael for dinner. That wasn't too bad, short, but civil. 40min back to Jackie's where we had to vent about our crap days, then early start for airport to Airlie. I'm good at airports. I get in a zone of chill-ness. So a few hours later I was arriving in the amazingly sunny Airlie Beach. Such a small airport. Two gates, one runway, tiny. The baggage area was not only outside, it had no roundy thing so the little cart just drove straight from the plane to this covered car space and you grab your stuff. Seemed sorta cheap, but it was cool. Shuttle to town, checked into the hostel and took a walk to check in for the sailing trip. When I got back to the hostel my lone roommate was in and bored out of her mind so we went for a walk. I thought it'd be nice to see where I had to go the next morning so I wouldn't get lost early in the AM so we wandered to the marina, which was lovely. Walked up and down the things checking out the nice yachts and boats. Walked back to the hostel and watched a movie. I was dead tired so I went to sleep at like 930 or 10. I've been sleeping earlier and earlier lately.. I wonder if that means anything.
Wake up, head to the marina, and only like one person was there. We were all given bags at check in the day earlier so it was easy to spot us. After the majority of the people were checked in the cute scuba instructor, Ryan, took our booking conformations and we waited for everyone else… 12 passengers in total. Got on the boat; first rule: no shoes. Love this already. Weather was good, but expected to get worse, so we just sat on the deck enjoying the sun while the skipper, Brent, gave us our little shpeal. 12 passengers, all fairly young, and 3 crew, so 15 of us in total. So since the weather was expected to get much worse in the next few days we went to the reef straight away instead of the islands. Basically from land you sail out a few hours to one of the 70 islands, chill out there, then sail another 4-5hrs out to the outer reef. A lot of sailboats don't go out to the outer reef because it's so far, which is why I chose this boat. So, we just went straight to the reef (minus the sail because the wind wasn't in our favor I guess). Pretty bumpy getting out there so some people felt sick but mostly we all just sort of sat tight and read or laid out to tan. I got a bit dizzy a time or two, but nothing too bad. Got out there at like 2ish and did our first dive. I was a little nervous cause it's been awhile since I'd done a dive, but it was pretty stellar. There were 6 certified divers plus Ryan. Of the 3 total dives, I never saw anything super awesome. I saw one little shark but no turtles or sting rays or anything like that. Mostly INCREDIBLE coral and heaps of fish. From what I remember this was so much better than Mission Beach. This reef was just incredible, all of it. I didn't get any pics here cause my camera only goes down 10ft and we went 16m so, 48ft, right? So, we finished that dive, hung out on the boat for the rest of the night. It was the coolest thing ever. Clouds started coming in toward the evening but it was so empty. We could vaguely see the islands in the distance but there wasn't a single other boat out there so we had the ocean to ourselves, it was insane. Dinner of roasted lamb and vegetables was awesome. We just chill out on the deck in the dark and chat and chill all night. Bonus of this boat was that everyone wanted to dive and they suggest not drinking before diving, so no one really drank, just sorta hung out and chatted. Everyone was from everywhere, South Africa, Switzerland, England, France, Belgium, and a bunch of other places. Such fun to chat with everyone. I kind of attached to the couple from south africa and their friend who's now living in Brisbane. Also, Matthew, from England. We played a bit of UNO (with regular cards cause we didn't have any UNO cards) and chatted on the deck for a bit. I went to bed pretty early cause I wasn't sure how sleeping on a rocking boat was going to be, but it ended up being fairly good. The reef blocks most of the waves, but because the weather was getting a bit worse, the wind did pick up and there were more waves, nothing too bad. There was just the tiny port hole and little fan so it got sort of stuffy in the beds, but other than that, the rocking never bothered me. The bed itself was the top bunk and super close to the ceiling. Not too easy to climb up cause you had to almost crawl into it. Wasn't too uncomfortable.
Next day was a morning diving. Weather seemed to be pretty awesome. Some clouds but definitely sun and tanning. First dive took the place of the scariest moment in Australia. The current was insane! Ryan said later that he'd never dove in water like that before and he's been diving for ages and was in the marines diving and was an instructor in Mexico for a year, so he's got some dives under his belt. There was a little trench we were meant to dive through and he warned us ahead of tme that the current there would be a bit rough, but once we got through it it'd be fine. Swimming through that was nearly impossible. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere. Actually, I know I wasn't going anywhere because I saw the same piece of coral on the wall beside me the whole time. I was doing okay keeping up with everyone else doing just as bad. Finally Ryan turned around and when he did that the current caught be and started pulling me up. When I couldn't get back down to everyone and I saw them swimming away I started to panic and lose my breath (scuba diving 101, don't do that). I started hyperventilating, which is terrifying when you only have a regulator in your mouth for air. I inhaled a bit of water, started choking, kept breathing through the regulator until I got to the surface. Another scuba diving 101 is to stay with your buddy and let them know if you go up, which I couldn't do because I couldn't get to anyone before I started freaking out. So, here I am at the surface having the skipper take his little boat out to me and I tell him no one knew I was up there. Eventually everyone comes up to find me, I feel terrible, we go back down. Current is still crazy, but we're managing okay and I'm doing fine. It was okay for a bit, we were cruising around following the current, which sort of sucked cause you basically have no control and are just going with the flow (literally). Then, we get to a corner. Ryan and a few people go one way and the current rips me the other way. I grab onto coral to try and pull myself back toward them, but that's not happening. I start panicking again (in retrospect I'm hugely disappointed in myself), grab the girl that's next to me doing the same and tell her I'm going up. My fingernails on 3 fingers were ripped off pretty good and my fingers were torn up pretty good as well from grabbing that coral. Hope I didn't ruin it! We must have been really deep or the current kept pushing me because I didn't think I was going to make it to the surface. It was insane. Finally got to the surface and Brent races out to me again. I tell him that I won't go back. Eventually everyone gets up and says that they don't want to keep going either. Nothing from that dive was good. I didn't get to enjoy any of the reef and while being pulled along WITH the current was a little thrill, getting whipped past everyone and freaking out was not cool. We got back to the boat and they took out the beginner divers to a different spot and they had a good time. We did lunch and went out again. This time to a different spot and during a different tide so we were assured that there wouldn't be any current. Everyone was pretty keen on having a chill dive and not wanting ANYTHING like the last one. They took us to a spot called "The Cathedral". Basically you swim through a little hole, down and up into a big cave sort of thing. Big circle, no top, one way in and out… that tunnel we just came in. Sounds terrifying after I thought I was going to die before. So going down I told Grant (my buddy) that I might hold onto him for a bit at first. Everyone was checking I was okay for the first 5 min or so, but it was perfect. The perfect dive. The cathedral was wicked. I was nervous to dive through a tunnel, but once through, we had this awesome little dome thing to play in. We swam around in there for a min or two with cool coral, no fish that I can remember, and then out. I don't remember the name of the part of the reef we went along after that but it was incredible. Huge walls of coral and insane fish. I like the walls of coral cause it's basically open ocean to one side of you and a wall on the other so your focus is completely at the wall. We could swim back and check out the WHOLE wall, then get closer and get a close up. We'd swim back and make motions like, "check out this incredible sight"… like the whole thing was spectacular. I wish I could take pics. I have a few mental ones, so if the technology gets here, take a look. Mobs of schools of fish everywhere, so many different kinds of coral, just incredible. I think that dive lasted 30min or so and we came up with Grant ran out of air. I had plenty so once we got back to the boat I kinda hung around the boat checking out the school of fish and the big huge fish (Arthur I think they named him) that was under the boat. Pretty cool. Later we could do another dive, which was so tempting after that awesome dive, or snorkeling. I wanted to get some pics so I did a snorkel. I couldn't see if the pics were turning out so I just clicked non stop for like an hour in the water. So amazing. We got to see heaps of fish here too, and much closer to the surface. Once I got out of the water the camera stopped working. Apparently water gets into the battery after you get out of the water (awesome), so I can't turn the camera on, so I don't know how the pics turned out. Fingers crossed because that'd save me from trying to describe it. Speechless. After that snorkel we cruised back toward the islands. Long trip back and the rocking was putting me to sleep, plus I think I was still sort of exhausted from my near death morning so I went down and napped. Everyone was fairly shocked because the boat was rocking pretty good. Winds were definitely picking up and the sun went away, so there wasn't much to do except sit and look at the waves. If you sat at the bow you could get splashed, but I already had my 2 min shower. Bathrooms real quick… tiny in general, but toilets had tiny tubes… don't even think about poop going down these things, and made a loud noise. Boat only holds so much water so we had to take 2min showers. That meant turn on (hot or cold cause you didn't have time to adjust) rinsing off. Turning off. Lathering whole body. Turn on and rinse off. Hope to not soak entire bathroom in the process while rocking in the waves. Interesting. Anyway, nap, then up for spaghetti dinner, hang out for a few. Stop for the night at an island away from the big islands. Brent said he doesn't get in too close to the main islands because he likes us being the only ones around. We liked it too. Way cool to only be around the same 14 people for 2 days without seeing another soul. Brent gave us a little star teaching (without us actually looking at stars cause it was so cloudy), Ryan showed us a slideshow he made of the pics he had taken so far (which we got to buy on DVDs later), and then I went to bed again at like 930.
Early morning at the islands. I was hoping to get up in time to see the sunrise but it was too cloudy. Breakfast in the harbor at the main Whitsunday Island. Other boats around now and turtles. After brekky we had to wait for the tide to rise a bit before we could get to shore. We took our little boat to the island and Ryan took us on a walk to a lookout that overlooks Whitehaven Beach, which is top 10 of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The white sand was so incredible all in itself. The shit weather made it sort of a downer, but the water was still a beautiful teal color and the sand was still crazy white. It was kinda cool just to be on land again anyway. Seriously, the fact that in the clouds this was an insanely gorgeous beach, I couldn't imagine it with the sun out. Well, I've seen pictures and it's spectacular, but what can you do? So we went to the lookout then down to the beach. This sand was so white and so soft and fine, it was incredible. I guess it's silica or something. They say it's great to exfoliate and clean jewelry so everyone was rubbing it around. Grant's bald so they were exfoliating his head. You're not supposed to swim in the water without a stinger suit so we just wandered along the shore, but it was still incredible. We got heaps of pics. Tried to get some fun ones of leaps and cartwheels. Way cool. Matthew and I wandered through some rocks and found a private little beachy area. Our footprints looked like the first footprints to ever touch it, which is obviously not true, but so cool. Hung out there for an hour or 2 then back to the boat. Lunch while cruising around between two of the big islands, then we got to bring the sails up and finally sail for a bit. I got to use some wench thing, which wasn't as exciting as it sounded at the time. Once the sails were up we just held on for dear life while the boat was tipping to the side. The one side was like dipping in the water. Brent was so cute and you could tell he loved it so much. He's been the skipper of that boat for 8yrs and sailing for like 17. He lives for this stuff! Such a friendly guy. He loved answering questions and loved teaching us. You'd ask him a question and he'd go into detail about that and a few other related topics. Really sweet. I hung onto the side of the boat for a bit, then slowly made my way to the front where you had a great view at how tilted the boat was. It was incredible! You'd think the thing was going to capsize. So awesome. I'm just hangin out thinking I could probably stand on the railing on the other side of the boat it was tipped so much. Still crazy cloudy but we managed the whole day without any real rain. A few drizzles here and there, but mostly just splashes while we were sailing along. Got back to dock at 4ish and everyone was off. Hugs to the crew, goodbyes to the other passengers. We exchanged emails with some of us to FB and share pics, so hopefully that'll work out, but it's sad meeting cool people and knowing you'll never see them again.
Well, battery just got eaten pretty good and I'm already used to the bus smell, so that's WAAYY long enough for now. Big props to anyone that actually read that whole thing. I'll try and give good details for each adventure.
Monday, October 4, 2010
October 4, 2010
First, yesterday was daylight savings and I didn't know. I have no life right now so it didn't effect me, but some girls did ask if the time was the same in Brisbane and Sydney and I told them that it was. I may have made them miss their bus the next day. How was I supposed to know that daylight savings was the next day! Kind of ironic timing.
Left Thredbo last Thursday, Sept30. Pretty killer considering I wasn't planning on leaving until today. Scot said I could go early if I wanted so I booked a bus to leave the same time as Angel. I made a booking to get my computer looked at at the Apple store. It had been crashing when it wasn't charging, so they gave me a new battery and charger. YAY! I got to meet up with May (she's the girl that took my job in MB when I left) on Saturday too. We planned for lunch only but neither of us had any plans so we spent the whole afternoon together. Nothing too special but wandering around town shopping. I didn't need much so I just sort of window shopped. Sunday Carla (friend from Contiki) was having a housewarming party out at Bondi. I was a little nervous because I wasn't going to know anyone but Carla was already a little drunk when I got there so she was cool about introducing me to people and I ended up making friends with the first set of girls I found. I didn't know if they were just being friendly and talking to me or if they really liked me but eventually after a few drinks they started talking about how much they liked me. YAY! The party ended up being pretty awesome in general. It wasn't too huge so everyone was mingling with everyone and I got to chat up a lot of strangers. I pretty much stuck to the three sisters, Natalie, Liana and Lorelle, but got to meet some other awesomes. Carlas roommates were super cool so when I come back to Syd at the end of the month I might stay with them. Carla said it'd be awesome if I did, so I'm hoping that works out. Just 4 nights, maybe 5 if I can change it. As of now I'm leaving on Halloween, but Carla is planning a Halloween party so I'd love to stay for that. I left that party at around 230 and shared a cab with the girls home. This morning I had to check out of the hostel so I was just planned on wandering town until Jackie was able to pick me up at 4ish. Well, Natalie called and they were around and wanted to do lunch (its labour day, so everyone had the day off). Met up with them and ate at the Opera Bar, which is the bar at the opera house. Such good food. Such cool girls. I'm hoping to hang with them again when I get back to town. Gonna certainly try. Natalie already FB stalked me and I stalked her siss from there so I'm pumped for that.
Other than that, I've just been hanging out. It's a huge change to be in a hostel again. I've been spoiled the last 4months having my own room. First night some lady came in at like 1am and started rummaging around in her luggage, which seemed to be full of plastic bags. Then, again at 8am she was doing the same thing, only for like 20minutes! So obnoxious. People were checking in late and checking out early so that was a terrible sleep. I'm already adjusting to it though, so that's good. I bought a new wallet, which I'm loving. It's a silly thing to write about but I do love it so I had to share. I loved my old one but it was just getting warn out so I went to St Paddys Markets and wandered until i found a stand with the exact same wallet, just a different material. YAY! Got a new pair of jeans. Expensive, but comfortable. Mine were getting stained and warn. AND, the coolest thing, I bought tickets to a concert while I'm in LA. Something Corporate will be doing a 1-city show in LA to benefit the lead singers charity and it just happens to be while I'm there. They just got back together while I was here so I couldn't make it to the small tour they did then, so on a super quick impulse I got tickets. Probably overpriced but I'm pretty pumped I get to make it! And in LA, which is pretty cool.
Well, Jackie should be picking me up any minute so I'm gonna grab my stuff and wait for her. Jackies for the next few nights, drinks with Michael Wednesday, maybe hang with Engin some day, and off to Airlie on Thursday AM. Hoping the weather cooperates. Its finally sunny here after 3 days of rain and clouds. Hoping up the coast it's better. It's like 2hrs away by plane so I'm guessign theres a good chance for different weather, but it is spring, so there is a good chance for rain.
Left Thredbo last Thursday, Sept30. Pretty killer considering I wasn't planning on leaving until today. Scot said I could go early if I wanted so I booked a bus to leave the same time as Angel. I made a booking to get my computer looked at at the Apple store. It had been crashing when it wasn't charging, so they gave me a new battery and charger. YAY! I got to meet up with May (she's the girl that took my job in MB when I left) on Saturday too. We planned for lunch only but neither of us had any plans so we spent the whole afternoon together. Nothing too special but wandering around town shopping. I didn't need much so I just sort of window shopped. Sunday Carla (friend from Contiki) was having a housewarming party out at Bondi. I was a little nervous because I wasn't going to know anyone but Carla was already a little drunk when I got there so she was cool about introducing me to people and I ended up making friends with the first set of girls I found. I didn't know if they were just being friendly and talking to me or if they really liked me but eventually after a few drinks they started talking about how much they liked me. YAY! The party ended up being pretty awesome in general. It wasn't too huge so everyone was mingling with everyone and I got to chat up a lot of strangers. I pretty much stuck to the three sisters, Natalie, Liana and Lorelle, but got to meet some other awesomes. Carlas roommates were super cool so when I come back to Syd at the end of the month I might stay with them. Carla said it'd be awesome if I did, so I'm hoping that works out. Just 4 nights, maybe 5 if I can change it. As of now I'm leaving on Halloween, but Carla is planning a Halloween party so I'd love to stay for that. I left that party at around 230 and shared a cab with the girls home. This morning I had to check out of the hostel so I was just planned on wandering town until Jackie was able to pick me up at 4ish. Well, Natalie called and they were around and wanted to do lunch (its labour day, so everyone had the day off). Met up with them and ate at the Opera Bar, which is the bar at the opera house. Such good food. Such cool girls. I'm hoping to hang with them again when I get back to town. Gonna certainly try. Natalie already FB stalked me and I stalked her siss from there so I'm pumped for that.
Other than that, I've just been hanging out. It's a huge change to be in a hostel again. I've been spoiled the last 4months having my own room. First night some lady came in at like 1am and started rummaging around in her luggage, which seemed to be full of plastic bags. Then, again at 8am she was doing the same thing, only for like 20minutes! So obnoxious. People were checking in late and checking out early so that was a terrible sleep. I'm already adjusting to it though, so that's good. I bought a new wallet, which I'm loving. It's a silly thing to write about but I do love it so I had to share. I loved my old one but it was just getting warn out so I went to St Paddys Markets and wandered until i found a stand with the exact same wallet, just a different material. YAY! Got a new pair of jeans. Expensive, but comfortable. Mine were getting stained and warn. AND, the coolest thing, I bought tickets to a concert while I'm in LA. Something Corporate will be doing a 1-city show in LA to benefit the lead singers charity and it just happens to be while I'm there. They just got back together while I was here so I couldn't make it to the small tour they did then, so on a super quick impulse I got tickets. Probably overpriced but I'm pretty pumped I get to make it! And in LA, which is pretty cool.
Well, Jackie should be picking me up any minute so I'm gonna grab my stuff and wait for her. Jackies for the next few nights, drinks with Michael Wednesday, maybe hang with Engin some day, and off to Airlie on Thursday AM. Hoping the weather cooperates. Its finally sunny here after 3 days of rain and clouds. Hoping up the coast it's better. It's like 2hrs away by plane so I'm guessign theres a good chance for different weather, but it is spring, so there is a good chance for rain.
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