scrubs on the beach.

friday was sports day. remember sports day?
well this year we decided that we could do without it. sure all that running, alcohol & UV rays were fun the first time around. but we're a year older now. we're more mature & more capable of having a good time without alcohol & jumping castles. more importantly, a year older means it's tougher to recover from those major hangovers! haha.

so we decided instead to take advantage of the day off and head to the beach. but there was a catch. we didn't want to forget about the spirit of sports day all together. so... we went to the beach in scrubs!

susan.


matt-always the poser.


yes. my scrub is a one piece. as a matter of fact, it's a one-piece dress! haha.
the rest of our beach crew didn't wear scrubs. hence, they were not picture worthy.
unfortunately the weather wasn't terribly cooperative and we had to pack things up a little early. i did manage to get a couple of good pictures in tough.


rescue helicopter in mid-flight.


chick surfing.

fifth day (june 25th)

another short sail and we were at tongue bay (6).


there we had cheeseburgers for lunch...


and then headed up to a peak overlooking whitehaven beach to burn off the excess calories.


after the peak, we went down to the beach to explore the wildlife...


soldier crabs...


stingrays...

we then took some silly pictures...



and drank beers on the beach.


what more can you ask for right?

shower count since leaving brisbane: still 1.

day 3.

i met up with some friends (remember my german friends victoria and sarah?), jumped on the ferry and headed for manly beach.
the ferry gave us some great views.




when we got to manly,


we bought some food and had a picnic on the beach.
the girls had their salads.


and i had my foccacia calabrese. you KNOW i don't eat no salad!


we spent the rest of the day on the beach.


the beach was pretty cool. but it definitely wasn't as good as the ones on the coast. what can i say? i'm spoiled that way.


when the sun went down, we grabbed some dinner and then headed back to the city. but not before dessert of course!


the pictures didn't quite come out as nicely as i would've liked them to, but the bridge and the opera house sure were pretty under the stars.



this is at about 6:30pm on a friday night.

think all those people are still working? probably forgot to turn the lights off, that's my guess!

surf and sun...

Just got home from my surfing weekend.
I had a WICKED time.
We went down to this place called coolangatta. it is on border of queensland and new south wales on the eastern coast. The beach was so gorgeous.



For $130 we got two 2-hour lessons, full equipment rental, 2 nights of accommodation and 2 continental breakfasts. Not too shabby… not too shabby at all.



Unfortunately I don’t have any action shots. But this is the all of us at the end of our second lesson.


l→r: kim, laura, tricia, susan, craig, victoria, sarah, Miguel (our instructor) and me!

who are all these people? Tricia and susan are my classmates. Laura is a friend from Toronto studying law at UQ. Kim is her roommate. Craig is kim’s boyfriend. Victoria is kim’s cousin from germany. She is here on exchange for a semester. Sarah is victoria’s friend. Also from germany.

in the mornings when the moon was still up,


we got up to catch the sunrise. It was quite nice.


We even had an aussie-style bbq. What’s so special about an aussie bbq? Well you know how back home we have bbq grills in parks where you can bring your own coal and have a bbq? Well here in oz, there are little stations with electrical barbies (bbqs). Just push a button and voila! you’ve got a huge frying pan!



And of course, we had the obligatory sausage sizzles.



Unfortunately the weather was not terribly cooperative.
But it did give us a beautiful rainbow.



As mentioned, coolangatta sits on the border of queensland and new south wales.


QUEENSLAND!


NEW SOUTH WALES!

How was the surfing itself?
It was great. It was a lot easier than I expected. I stood up on several occasions and caught some good waves.
The tricky thing is timing. Standing up isn’t so tough. It’s the paddling and knowing when to stand.
I’ve even got some battle wounds to show for my 2 days of hard surfing.


You normally wear a rash guard (when your skins rubs against the surf board it can easily get irritated). But the rash guards they had for us were short sleeves.

That’s a wrap!
I’ll try and post again before I fly off to Sydney on Wednesday morning.

Day well spent.

So Friday was a day-off for us. Don’t ask why. It just was. After our arduous but highly refreshing journey out to surfers’ last week, we decided that we needed to take another trip out to the coast. But this time we’d do it right. So we rented a car…

A pearly white Nissan Tida.



And yes. The steering wheel was indeed on the right side!



And guess who drove… none other than yours truly! It was a little awkward at first but I got the hang of it quite quickly. sure I turned the windshield wipers on a few times instead of the signal and was extra cautious of losing my side-view mirrors, but I think I did alright. By the end of the day, the Toronto driver in me was out in full strength and honking at other drivers that couldn’t stay in their lane. Darn tourists!



We had a fantastic little time. the sun was shining and the water was so incredibly warm.
The beach we went to was called Mooloolaba (pronounced: moo-lu-lu-ba). Apparently it’s derived from the Aboriginal word ‘mulu’ which means snapper fish. We were also told that this particular beach has the highest rate of spinal injuries in all of queensland (? or was it all of australia?). And I could see why. The waves are so strong and the water is not terribly deep. Just perfect for the waves to pick you up and then slam you into the ground!

all along the beach there are these little wholes in the sand with balls of sand all over the place. anyone want to venture a guess as to what they are?



they're crab holes!



For lunch we had ice cream and timtams. Ah, the diet of champions.


(matt stuffing his face with timtams).

As the sun went down, we decided to take some pictures…



Back to work!

A lesson in how NOT to go to the gold coast.

So with a fairly light week behind us and a lighter week ahead of us, we decided to head to the beach.

We decided that we’d take public transit out to surfers’ as it should only take us about 1.5 hours. Boy, were we ever wrong.

We started boarding the bus from uni at 9am. As the bus made its way to the city it picked up all of our friends along the way. Well, at least it was SUPPOSED to pick everyone up. The bus was so packed by the time it got to the bus stop where 2 of our friends were waiting, it just kept driving. So we continued into the city and decided we’d meet the other 2 at the train station. When everyone finally got to the train station it was just after 10am. We had missed the express train to the gold coast. it left at 9:57am. The next one was at 10:27.

So we get on the 10:27 train. We’re about ¼ of the way there when the speakers over our heads crackle and come to life: “due to track work between station X and station Y, this train will be out of service at the next stop. Please board buses are outside of station X to connect to station Y. thank you.”

“What?!?!?”



So we get off the train, and board the bus.
We then get off the bus and back on the train.

The rest of the journey went along quite smoothly. We took the train into the gold coast and then took one last bus ride into surfers. We finally got there just before 1pm. What was supposed to be a 1.5 hour ride turned into one just under 4 hours!

But we were all in good spirits. The sun was out, the sand was soft and the surf was roaring.

After about 4 hours of roasting in the sun mixed in with some swimming and some surfing… That’s right! SURFING! ...



We decided to grab a bite to eat and then head home. We knew we had a long way to go. So we go back to where we got off the bus thinking that we’d just cross the street and catch the bus in the opposite direction to get back to the station. *shakes head* you didn’t think it’d be THAT easy did you???

After lots of walking and some seriously confused faces we found the bus that took us back to the train. Little did we know that this bus would be the longest bus ride EVER! I think we made about 12 right turns and about 47 left turns. lets just say that, it was not the express/direct bus to the station!

We get to the station and we jump on the train.



We get off the train at station Y and jump on the bus.
We take the bus from station Y to station X.
Jump off the bus and get back on the train at station X.
But wait, the bus driver drove too slow! So we missed the train from station X into the city and had to wait until the NEXT train.
We finally get into the city just after 9pm and catch the bus home. I finally got home just before 10pm. What was supposed to be a quick day at the beach turned out into a 13 hour affair. Whew!

But it wasn’t all bad though.
We had a great time at the beach, learned a few things and made some good friends...
1. next time, rent a car. It’s only about $39 to rent a car here in oz. split that 5 ways and you get $8/person. Round trip on public transit cost us $7.40. I think it’s definitely worth the extra 60 cents!
2. surfing is definitely not as easy as it seems.
3. despite the long unexpected delays and the frustration, at the end of the day, everyone had a smile on their faces and took it all in stride. Surprise, surprise… they were all Canadians!

let it begin!

so classes finally started today.
well sort of... it was just orientation babble. i think this whole week will be pretty easy going.

before i get shoved into nose-high plies of work, let me put up one more pictorial journal.

so last saturday, some newly-made friends and i took a day trip (that's right a DAY TRIP! that's how close it is!) to the gold coast.
it's unbelievably close. i think it took less than an hour to get there.



here we go!



so we went to surfers paradise. it is quite famous for it's huge waves and its popularity with surfers. it actually reminded me a lot of south beach in miami.... except less crowded.



the water was so unbelievably salty and the waves were so strong! i was thrown around a couple of times. it was crazy!



now THIS is a condo. future home perhaps???



this is bryan. he is a kiwi (a new zealander). he is undecided as to whether he prefers to be a domestic or interntational student. he considers himself a domestic student when he has to pay his tuition. but considers himself to be an international when the school gives us free bbq's.



this is jon. we call him aj. don't ask. it's a long story. he's a canuck. a west-coaster though. man thought he was immune to sun burns. silly vancourites!



this is joey. (no, not the one in the skimpy red little swimsuit!) he's from darwin (northern australia). he was our chauffeur for the day. for some reason, he reminds me of joel madden.