I like long walks on the beach

Today was beach day in Surfer's Paradise! Finally, we can feel like we're on vacation. We went to Surfer's Paradise beach first thing and splashed around in the waves. Then, breakfast at the Surf Life Saving Club. it was alright, not even good, really, but it did. We then walked south about four beaches (about 4k away) to check out a mall. It wasn't worth the walk, but the walk was worth the walk. It was SO nice to walk along the edge of the water and let the waves splash against our feet. Counting waves and walking in each others' footsteps.. it was really beautiful. We heard on the news that the great weather brought out the biggest crowds all summer to Gold Coast!

To be fair, there weren't ever more than about 150 people on each beach at a time, and Surfer's Paradise was definitely the most populated. The other, smaller beaches further south only had maybe 80 or so people. Still, it was PERFECT. wonderful weather, cool breeze, sweet sweet waves. We were exhausted after the return walk, so I revived by going shopping in the mall at Cavill street. We went to the Australian Shooting Academy to check out the range prices, but they were a little steep for tethered shooting. Even bowling, something that The Boy and I have done in odd cities, was really expensive. We skipped the arcade and went to get a cold drink (i had a coke spider, just a coke float), free internet, and then wandered back to the beach to get a works burger (onions, fried egg, beet, pineapple) on a chicken breast, barramundi and chips (tastes like catfish), and a couple of Bundaberg brewed drinks! Bundaberg is a busy little town - they do rum too, presumably from the billions of sugar cane fields on the coast.

At the end of the day, we went to the pool. The beach was just too far, and too sandy. We were too tired, but I know that nobody is sympathetic fo this, so i'll end it here. :) Tomorrow - Brisbane!

On the road again

Have I mentioned lately how great The Boy is? He still puts on the windshield wipers when wanting to change lanes and turn, but he has acclimatized magically to driving on the wrong side of the road. I'm still too scared to give it a go. After grabbing breakfast at a Hungry Jack's (the Australian equivalent of a Burger King, logo and all), we purposely took an offshoot to find Maclean, a little teeny Scottish Australian town where the telephone poles each have a tartan painted on the bottom. The nice man explained little histories of the town, told us about the sugar cane harvester at the roundabout, and we walked down to the river and hung out. We picked up some Australian fruit (the green apples taste like fuji, the lychee were incredibly fresh and juicy!) and a pack of dark chocolate Tim Tams. Then we visited a sugar refinery and took pics of the sugar cane fields. I don't even know why we turned off because there were sugar cane fields lining the Pacific Highway for AGES.

In Ballina we hit some serious traffic (The Boy says he's going to be a pro at these two-lane traffic circles by the time we get home) and saw the Big Prawn, this scary looking mad-eyed fiberglass shrimp on top of a souvenir store. We finally made it to Cape Byron in Byron Bay, got some ice cream (mango macadamia for me, and Mars bar for him) and hung out at Little Watego. We hiked around and saw a whole school of dolphins playing at the surface and a few little lizards. We saw some hanggliders and, on a whim, we decided to go down and see if there was any space. Wouldn't you know, there were two spaces right then and there? Without the time to even realize we were going to run off a platform atop a rainforest, Neil (my guide) and I were up 1060 feet in the air. What. The Boy and his guide, Ashley, weren't far behind.

Man, it was beautiful. Peaceful and not scary at all (although my left hand got a little tired from gripping onto Neil's harness so tightly) and I even got to steer! And halfway through the flight I realized "hmm. we didn't eat lunch. I'm .. STARVING." ....lol, this entire trip we have been hungry! After we landed, we made our way into the CBD and realized that Byron Bay is DBC (Douche Bag Central). Holy swagger! I'm so glad we weren't able to find private accomodation there! We ate at Bollywood, a little Indian resto that Neil recommended, and then got outta town. we went to Murwillumbah through the most beautiful tourist offshoot yet... lots of windy hills and beautiful rainforest and even a rainbow! It's been raining off and on lately, just teeny little showers, but the northern tip has been experiencing crazy floods. We hadn't seen any evidence of that, but did see that one roat was closed due to flooding, and the route we were on had just a little bit of water spillage.

Then onto the Gold Coast Highway (which The Boy likened to Carling Avenue) and to our little apartment in Surfer's Paradise, just a block from the mall, and another block to the beach. Surfer's Paradise reminds us both of Waikiki.. I know I said this when I went to Hawaii, but i REALLY want to have big splashy waves. Oh wait. I have been to the Pacific before. hmm. well. anyway, I went in again! We went for a walk on the beach to go the night market, open only wednesdays and fridays. Nothing good to buy there, but we did make out really well at the souvenir shop across the street. YAY!

And the beat goes on and on and on and on and on

The Boy is such a good man. I'm not kidding, he's amazing. we drove for HOURS today. not two or three or four or five, but close to 10 hours on the road. According to the Lonely Planet, you can just take the Pacific (misnomer) Highway all the way to Brisbane. So we set out, and the Pacific Hwy is really more like the 7 than the 417. It winds through little towns. The signage is a little spottier too, and we had meant to take some of the brown tourist sign offshoots but missed the first few because we were only given a few hundred meters to make decisions. We even missed Port Stephens where I really wanted to stop because of the year-round dolphins.. by the time we realized it, we were maybe 60 k past. Oh well. We stopped for lunch at a Driver Reviver station (Stop Every Two Hours - this campagin is ALL over the highway. they even give free coffee! I guess road tripping is huge here). Later, we made it a point to go off on the tourist drives and FINALLY found the Pacific Ocean! We (I) played Moo and Neigh Aussie-style (Meu and Nigh) but didn't know what to say when we saw a few camels on the side of the road. We stopped in Port MacQuarie for a walk down one of the beaches and saw some kids flying kites. Flying a kite - that's one of my thirty things. I dipped my finger into the Pacific! It was warm, but really, I wasn't wearing the right shoes, so I only got the tidey bits. I'm not sure I'd ever touched the Pacific before.. I mean, I've been to the west coast of Canada and the states, but I'm just not sure. no wait. Maybe I have. Still. This time, I'm sure. We also went on a short hike and I got bitten by "mozzies"... I took an allergy pill pretty quick but I'm sure we'll need to pick up some bug spray soon. In Coff's Harbour we stopped quickly to take a pic of the Big Banana (they're huge on growing bananas in this area) and finally settled at the Espana Motel in Grafton for the night (aka the only place on the side of the highway that had a vacancy). They had surprisingly amazing food (fish and chips and salad for The Boy and garlic prawns on rice and salad) and we weren't sure if it was the quality of the ingredients that made it so amazing, the fact that we were truly starving, or if the food was just really that good. Tomorrow: more driving.

Flora, Fauna, and Number 8: Visit Australia

OMG OMG OMG OM GOM GOM we're in Sydney. Actually, I remember LJ telling me a few years ago that Seattle was very Sydney-esque. I get it - all the freaking hills (it's good for my quads, I keep telling myself), the monorail. In any case.. .WE'RE IN SYDNEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it! After our sketchy sketchy shuttle bus deriver dropped us off at the hotel (and I use this word loosely) in Kings Cross, we checked in and proceeded to find FOOD! Mr. Grumpy Pants (aka The Boy) has this tendency to get picky when he's ravenous so we walked past a billion sandwich shops and sushi joints before he was like "ok, let's just eat." You kidding me? I had a sweet potato pizza that was amazing. Then we went electronics shopping to find a GPS for our road trip. Mayers has it all! New australian fabourite. Then we said hi to the Sydney Lululemon girls, walked to Darling Harbour for a couple of beer (for him), adn then through the Royal Botanical Gardens where we were (I was) terrified by the BILLIONS of bats that were waking up and swirling around aove our heads. I got a picture of one and it looks just like the batman symbol. I may or may not have screamed when a branch dropped just THREE FEET AWAY FROM ME. The Boy laughed. Jerk. Said, "that's why we came to Australia, isn't it?" I guess Fauna isn't my thing. It was creepy in there, but lots of fun Flora :) I had no idea Plumeria were so huge.

Up in the air

Currently sitting on the flight to Sydney and I'm dying a little. I'm so tired... didn't get that much sleep on Christmas Eve due to last minute stuff and buying music on iTunes. On this flight I have watched The Social Network, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Town, How to Train Your Dragon... and I slept through Wall Street 2, Life as we know it, and either She's out of your league or Going the Distance. Either way, I didn't actually watch it. For such a long flight, The Boy splurged on the bulkhead seats so he could actually get some decent legroom. Turns out these seats are totally for people with long legs (not me) and long torsos (again, not me) -- i can't put up my legs comfortably, although I can extend them.. but when I do, my body is too short to actually see the screen in front of me, so the movies I've "watched" have been mostly black shadows. still. The Boy seems happy (relatively, for being on a flight). My bro gave us some Air Canada lounge passes that we used in Toronto and we enjoyed some full fat cream of tomato soup and crudites (and he enjoyed a few glasses of guiness and port). We also got some fun free magazines. I wish I got to use the lounge more regularly. The lounge in Hong Kong had dim sum and black sesame ice cream. magic!

Anyway, we had to stop in at Vancouver and decided not to use the rest of the passes, but to save them for when we come back. SK suggested that we take showers in Vancouver but i figured, oh, 16 hours isn't that bad. but really, it really really really is. I look forward to the chance to shower mid-travel because i feel SO dirty right now. blech. instead, we hung out for an hour waiting for the plane to refuel. Having signed up for the Holiday Yoga Challenge, I did some airport yoga (half sun salutations and a bunch of standing strength poses) while The Boy got harassed (piercings and his new lowhawk perhaps?) by security wondering if he had any drugs with him. lol poor Boy.

only another 2 hours to go. Despite my exhaustion, I am incredibly excited to finally get to Australia! I think i'll take a nap -- I want to be completely ready to tour around when we get to Sydney!!!!!!!!!!!!

Number 7: Buy a place to live

Wow. Even when I was 25 I knew that paying rent was crap. If I'd just bought a place sooner, I'd have saved tens of thousands on rent. Of course, I'd also be living in the burbs and I'd have missed out on a lot of my formative years (formative years being the end of university and the beginning of my life following that!) and all the fun that ensued. Still, I always wanted a place of my own.

About six months into our relationship, The Boy and I went to the spa and, in conversation, set some relationship parameters. I would not move to the burbs to live in his house. He would not move into my tiny apartment. After a very brief but very logical conversation we decided to move out of our separate places and buy a place together. We high-fived on it, that's the sort of people we are.

And so the apartment hunt began. I didn't want to outwardly skew our joint decision to find a place to live, but I'd been in love with a particular unit in a particular new building. My friend TL said "why don't we walk by it on our way to the grocery store? I can say something about how beautiful it is." and so we did. We walked by. She nonchalantly said, "I wonder what's going up there." I said, "It's a new condo. it's gorgeous. i have the floor plans at home." we got home, she asked to see the floor plans, I pointed out my favourite one, The Boy said "hmm. i could live with that." and we bought it.

Sure, it flooded a year later and we had the worst neighbour after that, but it's our home and I love it! No more rent! :) Scratch one off the list.

Number 6: Sing Karaoke

Remember, this list was borne when I was 25. I'm a different person now. Have I gone to Karaoke? heck yeah. I have I been back since? hell yeah! Do I sing in front of my class twice a week? You bet your bippy. Am I a good singer? don't bet on it. but i still do it :)

fun fact: my favourite spinning song does not include any words with which I can sing along.

Number 5: Subscribe to a Marketing Journal

There was a time in my life where I lost my sh*t and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I THOUGHT I wanted to leave Ottawa, use my degree, and leave the government to go forth and convince people to part with their money. So "Subscribe to a Marketing Journal" got onto my list. Well, I did. I didn't love it, it wasn't worth it to me, and I've since figured out what i want to do with my life (for now). I've found my calling - the perfect balance between HR and Marketing, mixed in with the government. In the venn diagram of my life, I'm settled in Internal Commnunications. I love it.

I paid my dues, but I found my grown up job where I'm finally not in exams and interviews every few weeks. Yeeks. I became a grownup before I turned 30.