Surfs up! Hang 10 Dudes!

Up and at ‘em bright and frickin early. We had to be at breakfast by 630 this morning and be on the bus at 7am. I think I stuffed myself on breakfast but whatever. Everyone was pretty awake considering that some of us had a late night. We had to head out on the road for our ultimate desination of surfers paradise. Apparently, the high school kids just got out of school and after graduation all the 17 and 18 year old “schoolies” invade surfers paradies on their version of spring break. Just fantastic. A bunch of drunk young’ins running all over. Woo hoo.

Once we got on the bus I ended up falling asleep for at least an hour on the bus. I woke up in time to pull into cape byron which is australia’s most easterly point. They took us up to see the light house on the top of the cliffs which was very pretty. I also got my morning german lesson from the boys/ “guten morgen” and was told that I would have a refresher lesson on what I was taught the night before.

They took us down to drop us off at byron bay to walk around and have lunch. Too bad it was pouring down rain and we couldn’t go to the beach. We basically had to walk around in the rain and I called home to say happy thanksgiving which was really strange because its Friday morning here. Im still not getting used to the day differences still.

Next stop off from byron bay was the wild life sanctuary. We originally missed the turn into the part so Scotty had to go down to an empty parking lot and turn around. The Canadian guy mike is a skater and during his iintroduction he was talking about the tricks he does and one of them was a 700 turn. We get to the parking lot and Scotty was like “ok mike this one is for you! A 700!” And he drove the bus in circles around the parking lot. It was absolutely hilarious.

The sanctuary itself was amazing. I got to hold a koala bear for a picture. They are so cute by the smell icky. I want to be a koala. All they do is sleep 20 hours a day and eat the other four. And they are super cute. Love them. We also got to run around and see all kinds of aussie wildlife – dingoes, Tasmanian devils (not cute) and kangaroos. The kangaroos were so cool. They were just hopping around out in the open and would come right up to you so you could pet them it was amazing to experience. We didn’t have much time there too just laze around so we had to sort of just see things and then leave because we needed to get to surfers paradise for our surfing lesson.

The surfing bit was so much fun. Im terrible at it and I probably looked hilarious but I still had the best time. I think 27 of us took the lesson so you had people falling all over the place and running into one another and stuff but we all had the best time. I can catch waves pretty good but I cant stand up. Im not quick enough to do that quite yet. But I have all the technique down so if I ever make it to cali I can make a fool of myself there too. Good times. Im totally sore right now too form all the muscle use and from being bashed around by the surf boards. The surf was pretty rough too so I was getting tossed around. And I had the problem of swallowing a ton of salt water too.

After surfing we had some time to get ready and they took us down to the main strip and we had to find out own dinner. A large group of us ended up going to a place alled th beach house which was a bar and grill type place but a little nicer. They even had a live band we ended up dancing a bit too.

After that dinner we all met up at a pub called gilhoulleys for a few more drinks and they took us to a night club called melbas. I forgot how much I miss clubbing. Just dancing and having so much fun. Plus we got our drinks free (some of them) and then people were buying us drinks too all night so there were a lot of drunk contiki kids running around. It was the best time though. Just like the European discoteques. Even the incredibly crappy techno music. I think I might have been on eo fhte first to leave. I cant handle the staying out til the clubs close at 4 am. Its ridiculous. Me, Antonio, brian (the Canadian) and mike (the german) caught a cab back and I went to bed. Suddenly im awoke by a pounding on the door and I stumble out to see chris (the german), Elizabeth and niles (the Irishman from Dublin). They were bringing Elizabeth back home. I didn’t realize I even fell asleep but it was light when I woke up so I thought I over slept. I was only 445 and it was light as day already. I accidentally said “guten morgen” when I opened the door and they laughed at me because I was confused. Oh well. It was one crazy crazy night. But it was super fun as well.