Back Home Part 2

Picking up from where I left off.....

After the Zorbing, the bus made it to Byron Bay. I had dinner and hung out with bus driver Squirtal, Claire, and Jenny and a few new people across the street from the hostel. The people in charge of the music at the bar/restaurant knew what they were doing. I haven't heard such a good mix of '80's music anywhere but at work, so I have to tip my hat.

The next morning, we headed out to Surf Camp and Alain and Xavier, two Swiss-French guys from earlier in the trip, hopped onto the bus. I was lucky, I had two friends to talk with for the rest of the trip. We made it to Surf Camp a little after lunch, unpacked our stuff, and got to go surfing for the rest of the day! Alain, Xavier, and I had all been surfing before so we got to skip the lesson, get shorter boards (which are harder to stand up on but more maneuverable than longer ones), and get right to surfing. It was a blast. I wore myself out paddling for the three or four hours we were out in the water and took some pretty good falls (I got to be pretty adept at standing up on my board on big, for me, waves, but even better at sticking the nose of my board into the water and getting catapulted into the air) but also learned how to turn, which I thought was pretty cool.

After surfing, we made it back to the dorm rooms, which were steel storage containers outfitted with showers, beds, and sliding glass doors. I took a shower and fell right asleep on my bed. At some point later, it was dinner time, and we made our way to where food was being served. The dinner was the best one I had at a hostel. They served us spagetti and meatballs, steak Diane, cheese and spinach casserole, salad, potatoes, and some chicken, if I remember correctly. Once dinner was over, they organized some "speed dating," where all the girls line up on one side of the table and all of the guys line up on the other and you have one minute to do word association with the person opposite from you using words they gave to the girls. It was OK. I didn't last too much longer and went to bed soon after.

The next morning, we packed up, had our usual Australian breakfast of tea or coffee, Wheatbix, toast, and because we were lucky, some fruit, and because we were really lucky, eggs and baked beans. They even had lemon, orange, lime, and red drink, not juice, but "drink." While juice has natural ingredients, some of which come from actual fruit, the most natural thing in "drink" would have to be the artificial food coloring used to give the liquid an almost Technicolor glow.

Before boarding the bus to Sydney, a seven or eight hour drive away, Alain, Xavier, an English guy, and I threw Gilbert around for a few minutes. Gilbert is Xavier's rugby ball and throwing him around had become our mandatory bus stop activity over the course of the trip.

And then came the drive.

A little side note. Each of the Oz busses was said to have a DVD player specifically for these day-long bus rides. Somehow, on the entire way down the east coast of this continent-country, Alain, Xavier, and I did not see one movie. Once, the DVD player was simply gone. Today's DVD player stopped working the day before because it had shorted out and sent a cascade of sparks down on Squirtal as he worked on fixing the air conditioning. Luckily, the A/C was fixed. My two Swiss-French friends and I enjoyed making up conspiracy theories about why we didn't get to watch any movies on our trip.

One of the stops we made on the way down was at the Uluru Cafe (I think that's what it was called) which had a few restaruants inside of a building shaped like Ayer's Rock. There were signs posted that said the building could be climbed, but that it was closed for the day. Shut down again.

One more side note. All over Australia, the pears were fantastic. I don't know why, whether it was just the right season for them or if they're just better down there, but I only had one "not fantastic" pear the entire time I was there and even then it was merely OK. No chalky, dry pears. No nasty, squishy bruises that go all the way through, either. Just ripe, juicy, tasty pears where-ever I went. MMMMMMmmm.

Finally, Sydney appeared and we made it to our hostels. A bunch of us were going to meet up later so I had enough time to walk over to Lowenbraugh, which was a German restaurant near the Sydney Opera House that I wanted to visit to get a beer glass. The food there was good (salmon, veges, and potatoes with a soft pretzel) but they couldn't sell me a glass because it was after dark and people had been taking their glasses to bars, which was causing problems.

My last night in Sydney was a fun one. I played pool, saw a cover band, and generally had a good time with some friends.

Monday, April 28th was my last day in Australia so I had to make it worthwhile. I picked up some food to take home, walked around a little bit, and made some calls home on a calling card before heading to the airport. After making it through customs, it was just a short wait to get on the plane and head out.

I'll say it again, I love Qantas. The on-demand TV screen on the back of every headrest came in really handy for me this time because I watched mine for about 12 hours and 55 minutes of my 13 hour flight. The other five minutes were spent inhaling the good dinner, snack, and breakfast they served. 3 or 4 movies, a few episodes of The Simpsons, and a few episodes of Family Guy later, and we were back in SFO. Right when we landed, one of the stewardesses started talking about how excited she was to go shopping at Costco, Ross, and Mervyn's and gladly gave local addresses for and info about sales that all of the places had. After working for 13 hours, I don't think I'd have the energy to go shopping for a few hours.

Customs were quick and I caught a shuttle to my grandma's house in no time. I showed her some pictures and told her about some of the parts of my trip before we went to the carvery for lunch, which we had planned about a month before. That was definitely a great way to come back home. Right when we got back to her house, though, not sleeping for 21 hours caught up to me and I passed out until my mom came and picked me up.

Well, that pretty much does it for my trip. I had an amazing time, saw the sights, met cool people, and took way to many pictures, which I'm trying to sort through so I can show them to people.
Hope you enjoyed the blog.