The Awesome/Awful Place We're Living

We finally did something semi-responsible and found a place to live!

Everything about it is pretty terrible except for the fact that it's directly across from the beach!!!! That's the one and only reason I agreed to live there. We have our own room so that's good, but everything else is shared...and if it's shared, that means it's dirty. The bathroom is dirty and the teeny tiny kitchen is dirty. And the hallway smells SO bad. The bad smell actually changes into different kinds of bad smells as you walk down the hall. And I don't think I'll ever get used to it. There are about 20 something people that live there total...all about our age. Most of them are European...a lot of Irish, some Swedish and there are also a couple Canadians (I know, Canada isn't in Europe). All really nice. Oh also, we have a sink in our room and when we moved in, it was running. And it doesn't turn off. We talked to the house manager about it and he said it usually takes at least three weeks for things to get fixed around there but he would call the plumber. Perfect. Just in time for us to move out.

The only other good part (besides rent being super cheap) is that there's an open roof area where you can look out over the beach. It's AWESOME, so pretty. The kitchen is also on the roof and this morning one of the girls told us to make sure we close the kitchen door so birds don't fly in. She said she's opened the door in the morning and had a bird fly out in her face. Perfect again.

I guess it's not SO bad but hopefully it's the last place I'll live in that's so dirty like that. Shudder.

Today Katy and I went for a run on the path next to the beach. From our place up to this look-out point by the next beach down is about 1.5 miles. Even though running sucks, you can't really complain when you're running next to that scenery.

That's about it for now. No idea what I'm doing for the next 3 weeks. Job prospects are few and far between so we'll see. Not too worried about it though. I'm on vacation, right?

Sydney Pictures...FINALLY

Here they are....don't hurt me.

Opera House

Harbour Bridge

Surf Camp!

My instructor, Jackson

We've been at surf camp all week without a computer so that's why this is so delayed.

Anyway...

The bus for surf camp picked us up from our hostel around 7:30 on Monday morning. The camp is about 2 hrs southwest of Sydney at a quiet beach called Seven Mile Beach. They have a permanent section of a holiday park with a few cabins and big sheltered area in the middle. When we got there, they gave us a short orientation, divided us into rooms, handed out wetsuits and sent us off to the beach. These wetsuits were A LOT nicer than the ones we had for the cave rafting in New Zealand. Those were awful!

It was a short walk to the beach, and they didn't distribute surf boards until we got down there so we wouldn't have to carry them so far. We used huge foam beginner boards so we could learn easier and so we wouldn't hurt ourselves or each other. We were divided up into 4 groups. There were about 30 people total and one instructor per group, so groups of around 8. There was also one floater instructor that kind of rotated around to all the groups for extra help.

For our first lesson, we learned the basic steps on the beach first and practiced them on the sand. Then the first time we went out in the water, we just practiced catching a wave and pushing halfway up. Easy so far. Then we started trying to stand all the way up. Katy and I both got it after a couple tries. The first day went pretty well, I only got pounded by the waves a few times. It's just SO much work walking back out there with your board to try to catch another. Most of the time I felt like I was walking on a treadmill...I would get out a little further and then just get pushed back to where I was by a wave. Frustrating...but also really fun. Everyone was SO sore the next day.

Our sessions were 2 hours in the morning, lunch, and then 2 hours in the afternoon. The times varied day to day depending on the tides. Sometimes we didn't have to be out there in the morning until around 10 but a couple days we had to be in our wetsuits by 6:30 or 7. Waking up that early is terrible enough without having to put on a cold, wet wetsuit as soon as you get up. Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned yet that the weather was AWFUL. The first couple days it was overcast with off and on rain. The third day it cleared up a little bit and the sun came out briefly...the last day was sunny and nice, finally! But even the rainy days were fine because the water was very warm, the warmest that it gets all year, so it actually felt better to be in the water than on the beach. And it was also good that it was overcast because we didn't get sunburned.

After the first couple days of practicing getting up on the board, we learned how to shuffle, turn and paddle out to catch green waves. I only went out for a couple green waves because it was too much work getting out there. It was more fun for me to stay in the white ones and be able to actually surf more rather than spend all my time and energy walking out or paddling out. Also there was this one German girl in my group who always seemed to be in my way. No matter how hard I tried not to be next to her, somehow I always was. One time I was so annoyed with her that I pushed her board away from me when I was trying to paddle for a wave. She was oblivious.

Katy and I both got a little bit hurt this week. I got hit in the back of the head with my board when a wave smashed me and Katy got hit the face. I guess that's why they give us foam boards. And the tops of my feet and a few places on my hands are completely rubbed off from the rough boards.

As for the other people there, they were all about our age but we were the only Americans. There were a couple Canadians but the rest were European...German, French, English, Dutch. The instructors were all about our age too...a couple might have even been younger. And they couldn't have looked more "surfer-ish" if they had tried. They were all really nice and helpful.

It was a really fun week and hopefully I learned to surf well enough to be able to do it in other places while we're here.

We're back in Sydney now for the next 3 weeks until Katy's family comes. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up some odd jobs or something and make a little bit of money...we're running out pretty fast.

First Few Days in Sydney

Sorry, no pictures yet. They're on Katy's camera and we haven't had a chance to download them, blah blah blah. Coming soon.

We had the orientation for our work group on Friday morning. It was pretty informative. They gave us basic Australia info and tips about finding a job and somewhere to live. There was also a presentation about surf camp. Sooooo first thing Monday morning (tomorrow), instead of diligently looking for a job and somewhere to live, we'll be at a 4 day, 3 night camp learning how to surf! Convincing presentation obviously...

They provide all of your equipment, transportation, meals, cabins on the beach and two 2 hr lessons per day. They also promise that you'll be more than decent at surfing when you leave. Our thinking was that we should take our lessons now so we can enjoy surfing for the rest of the time we're in Australia...that's why surfing took priority over boring responsibility stuff. That and it's more fun.

Friday night we went out in Darling Harbour and got some drinks with a friend of a friend who was in town. That's a cool area but a little on the expensive side. Then on Saturday we went to the Toronga Zoo which is on the other side of the harbour and overlooks the city...really awesome views.

Today we got breakfast at a cafe I read about in Kings Cross neighborhood. AWESOME pancakes. Then we just walked around the botanical gardens, down by the Opera House and in Circular Quay. It rained on and off today and was raining at the time, so we passed a movie theater and saw The Reader.

Tonight is just catching up on laundry and packing for surf camp! Stories about how much I sucked at it will come later next week.

And pictures too!