It's Christmas eve and it's mine and Loz's 7 month travel-anniversary! I can't believe we've been away and out of England for 7 months, I also can't believe it's December 24th, it's still May isn't it? Doesn't time stop still when you go travelling??
A lot has happened in the last week, 2 have become 4 with Michelle (my mate from the uk) and Damien (Loz's mate from Paris) joining us in the Sydney flat and 4 will soon become 6 when Damo (Loz's brother) and his girlfriend Jess arrive on the 29th.
Something at the forefront of our minds has been preparing for Christmas in our own special way, we've been trying to work out what we want to eat, when we want to eat it and where all this eating will take place!
The original plan had always been to head down to Bondi Beach on Christmas Day and drink away with the other Brits sunning themselves on the sand until the weatherman put a stop to that and predicted glorious temperatures of 22 degrees and rain. RAIN!
For the relatively long 25 years that has made up my life there has not been one white Christmas and then the one bloody year I up and leave to travel a world renound hot country...it rains.
Anyway, life goes on and change forces adaptation so we've decided to do the Bondi thing today as it's hot and dry. Michelle, Loz, Damien and I have bought and prepared an extravagant picnic to lug down to the coast and delve into, and tonight, for the first and probably last time ever I am going out to the clubs on Christmas Eve. Normally I would be laying the presents under the tree in Brighton with Nicola, watching festive films round a real log fire and strolling up to midnight mass but tonight we're hitting the Sydney nightlife.
The past week we've been really busy exploring Sydney to the max and have walked some insane distances without quite meaning to. Last Tuesday Michelle arrived into Australia and it was my duty to head down to the airport at 6am and collect her. I was slightly unnerved by how quiet the families were in the arrivals area when greeting their loved ones, a gentle hug here, a tear of joy there...the tension in me mounting as flight BA15 emptied its passengers into the luggage lounge.
Finally I saw her walking towards me and let out an involuntarily high pitched half-scream in the word 'TINAAAAA!'.
After some coffees and a catch up at a little local place in Surry Hills we spent the day walking around the CBD and getting acquainted with the city in more detail, we actually ended walking 7 miles and needed a big cup of tea and multiple tim tams when we got back!
Tuesday we headed down to Coogee beach which looked very different in the summer sun, the last time I was there was in the Winter months when Loz and I first arrived into Sydney and although the skies were crisp and blue back then the beaches were empty of sun worshippers and only the brave adorned their wetsuits to catch a wave.
Tuesday however was very different, the sand looked like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt of bikinis and the sun's rays heated the sand up like hot coals.
Wednesday was another epic day of walking with the route beginning at the flat in Surry Hills, going down Oxford Street (a fashionable road lined with high end boutiques and vintage shops), moving through Kings Cross (backpacker and hostel central), around Wooloomooroo (the only suburb with 8 o's), round the Botanic Gardens, pass the Sydney Opera House and over the Harbour Bridge! This time our 8 mile walk landed us a little lost in a North Sydney suburb and we were forced to take the train back to our starting point.
On the Thursday the heavens opened and we had our first significant downpour since being here, it was a good thing really as there were a number of large scary bushfires raging in South Sydney and the fire fighters needed all the help they could get.
Tina (Michelle's nickname) and I utilised the grotty weather by going to Max Brenner for their INFAMOUS chocolate brownie with vanilla ice-cream and then walked up to King's Cross to buy some of the tours we'll be doing on this trip.
3 hours later...we walked out of 'Wicked Travel' having spent over $2,300 dollars on a number of very exciting and hopefully fun experiences! Some of the things we've booked onto include the Kiwi Experience tour bus for our time in New Zealand, a 3 day Melbourne to Adelaide coach trip along the Great Ocean Road, a 3 day/3 night camping trip in the middle of the desert to see sunrise and sunset at Aires Rock, 3 days hiring a 4x4 to drive around Fraser Island and 2 days/2 nights on a trimaran sailing boat cruising around the Whitsundays! We're also going to do a sky dive further up the coast but nothing's booked for that just yet :/!
I think we finished the day with some fajitas and a couple of beers, what could be better.
The weekend was fairly chilled with Saturday spent perusing around Paddington Market, a very artsy crafty type of place. I think I ate the best cupcake of my entire life on that day, it was banana, pecan and butter icing and was simply AMAZING. Infact, I would go back to that market just to find that stall and eat it all over again.
On Sunday I donned the old running trainers and attempted a little jog around a local park. However when I got there I realised that most of the park was sealed off by construction fencing for building work so I ended up running up and down the same path and then round and round in a circle 6 times.
I had aimed to do it 10 times and then jog home but a tramp appeared on his little bicycle and set up camp right by the path on lap 6 which really put me off and I headed back early.
I was also aware that the passing pedestrians had no idea I was running round and round in a circle as they were coming and going all the time but the tramp...well he would soon discover my little secret.
I also looked particularly orange compared to the other city dwellers that day...
That afternoon Tina and I hired the movie 'Into the Wild'. If you haven't seen it, see it. It's truly one of the best films
i've seen, defo in my top 3. You'll really appreciate it if you're either a deep thinker, like travelling, appreciate there's more to life than work, the concept of breaking free from society etc. etc.
So that brings me to Monday when Damien (who arrived on Sunday), Michelle, Loz and I trekked down to Bondi Beach for the day. Bondi is a nice beach, a crescent shape with houses built into the rocks around it and a line of shops backing onto the promenade. When the clouds started to move over in the afternoon we packed up and began the 5km walk from Bondi to Coogee over the cliff path which I would highly recommend. It was very scenic and reminded me of the drive up route 1 from LA to San Francisco.
We were knackered by the time we got back to the apartment but missioned it round the supermarket and bought all our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day food.
Tuesday was one of those unexpected lovely days, Mary (my relative in Sydney) drove into the city with her sons Hugo and James to meet the 4 of us for lunch. We ended up piling in the car and going over to Darling Harbour to a gorgeous restaurant called Yots where we sat round a large wooden bench type table with a Christmassy centrepiece and white floaty drapes to protecting us from the sun's heat. I sipped chilled white wine and ate a barramundi and mango salad while watching powerboats cruise past a replica of Captain Cooks Endeavour ship and was very, very happy.
After lunch we all played about in the water fountains, pretty much drying instantly afterwards, and then after Mary left began walking up to The Rocks by the Harbour Bridge to scope out the perfect viewing spot for NYE.
So that brings me up to date with yesterday! We ended up going down to Coogee again for some sun bathing, I got to meet Michelle's friend from the UK and some others girls and then in the afternoon we caught a bus up to the Botanic Gardens to try and get our faces on GMTV! They had asked Brits abroad to come down and send messages to their families etc and I had hoped to get on but there were too many people and in typical British fashion when the camera started rolling the crowds started heaving towards the lens crushing everyone.
I took to taking off my sequinned santa hat and swinging it manically above my head while yelling 'Brightonnnn' to get their attention!!!
Apparently you can see me very briefly, job done. :)
Right, so better go, we've got to put this picnic together...I can't believe it's Christmas Eve!
xxx
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Sunday 13 December 2009
Going...going...gone?
Well it's now Sunday December 13th, we've moved on from Surfers, tied up the loose ends, shifted routines and moved into the new once again. It's meant saying goodbye to friends, jobs, the Gold Coast and all familarity while embarking on a new adventure in a new city.
I really had that itchy feet feeling where there's a million things to think about but you're not sure what to sort out first,
I find it hard to believe that we'd been in Surfers Paradise the same amount of time as LA and Maui combined but it just goes to show that when you stay in one place and routines start forming, time speeds up.
What i'm noticing and really love about Australia is the constant joy people get from being out in their natural environment. They're so so lucky, the locals here have grown up with dramatic cliff drops at Mount Tambourine, forests in the Hinterland, Waterfalls at Springbrook, neverending waves up and down the coast and over 300 days of sun every single year.
Jealous? Me? YES. And that's just in a small area of Queensland.
For someone who thrives on exercise, nature, sports, sun and generally feeling happy and productive I'm very aware that England just can't compete with Australia, America or pretty much any country with a good climate and a passion for the outdoors, and it's bloody depressing. I'll tell you what's brought this on, I was watching an Aussie show called 'Getaway' in which a selection of presenters travel to different areas of Oz and review towns, campsites, things to do, hidden gems etc and it really is unfair. There are white sands, coral coves, red deserts, lush jungles and the Great Barrier Reef on the doorstep for gods sake!!! The attitude is different here, kayaking, climbing, skydiving, surfing and hiking the norm. I don't really know what i'm getting at, do I want to move countries, emigrate? Well yes, maybe I do. I've always felt instantly home in the heat and the positivity it brings to the population.
So a couple of weeks back Jules, Martin and I hired a car for the day and drove over to Nimbin, known only for one thing (it's green and you smoke it!) but still on all the sight-seeing tour circuits and an interesting place. It's pretty much just a high street with a few shops and cafes which can be 'seen and done' in 10 minutes but I guess the charm begins to flow when you allow yourself to sit in a cafe for a while and watch the 'unique' locals stumble by. So just to sum it up, Nimbin is a real time warp town with the majority of people in it being dreadlocked, long wavy haired, weed smoking, pipe puffing wrinky weirdos.
After some exploration inland we drove to the most Easterly point on the east coast and spent the late Afternoon sipping a strawberry ice-cream smoothie in the beautiful Byron Bay. We only had a couple of hours to soak it in before having to head back north to Surfers but I very quickly felt that if i'd discovered Byron before Surfers I would never have left it.
On one Sunday night Jules and I had another really nice chilled night at Swinging Safari, the random place I mentioned in the last post. We had some wine and listened to a Bob Marley tribute band play reggae while the crickets hissed and palms swayed in the warm breeze, it really took me back to my holidays in Antigua. It's a real shame we didn't get to hang out there more but i'm sure there will be plenty more little gems dotted around the coast to discover.
The following Monday Amanda, Loz and I went for trip number 4 to Max brenner which was to be my last up on the Gold Coast :(! I had the most incredible, obscenely amazing, indescribely delicious chocolate brownie though, the best i've EVER tasted and will be 100% going back for another in Sydney.
Unfortunately the last couple of weeks did not provide much in the way of work, the dreaded 'schoolies' kept away
tourists and the shifts at Bear were slashed. This meant our last couple of weeks wasn't as fruitful as hoped and
after leaving both Bear and the Club last weekend it's back to outgoings only, argh!
Something else Jules, Martin and I did to end things was visit Perle one last time...though to our shock horror the $6 tapas menu and $9 cocktail menu had been removed! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. After much deliberation we decided to buy a drink there anyway and soak in the vibe, I asked for an Amaretto coffee (my usual treat) and the waitress came back with the most unusual version of one i've ever seen. Basically a shot of espresso, shot of Amaretto and brandy glass full of vanilla ice-cream. I guess it was more of a dessert than a drink but still pretty good.
Our last night out was in Broadbeach for the Bear Christmas work party and it was a great way to end our time on the Gold Coast. The crew decended upon Aztec's Mexican Restaurant like a pack of drunken Hyena's and didn't leave until we'd drunk the magarita reserves dry 3 hours later. The secret santa presents went down well and I didn't have to sit next to the douchbag of the group (we all know who that is!) so all in all a great night.
So eventually the day came to pick up our hire car and begin road trip 3, Surfers Paradise down to Sydney. At 8am sharp we walked over to Hertz and were presented with our little red Yaris beast, opened the map (thanks Amanda) and popped on our John Farhnam mix cd (thanks Zach). We knew it was gonna be a tight squeeze to do this trip in 2 days so set off towards the half way point in Port Macquarie straight away.
Our first stop was Byron Bay where I managed to blag the best bargain EVER! A perfect dress for NYE reduced from $170 to $34..amazinggggg! We walked around the town and ate some boiled eggs on the beach, as you do, before setting off again towards the tarmac.
A few hours later we passed through Coffs Harbour which to be honest we wern't all that impressed with, we didn't even see the big banana which I was looking out for. The weather had taken a turn for the worst, all grey and cloudy and the sea looked dark and a bit menacing, definetely not ideal for a swim. We drove to the jetty and stretched our legs before I took over the wheel to take us down to Port Macquarie.
As this point Loz fell asleep for over an hour and left me alone to sing my heart out to some Backstreet Boys and N' Sync until he convieniently woke up as we approached the stop over.
The tiredness must have been starting to kick in as we both used up 2 more of our 9 lives that night. I must have been so keen to get to the campsite that I unintentionally drove staright through a stop sign intersection and missed a full on collision by maybe 3 or 4 seconds. When I realised what had happened the shock sent me into a trance and I grabbed onto Loz's shoulder for a full 60 seconds before loosening the claw like grip and letting go. Later on that night it was Loz's turn to tempt fate as he started driving THE WRONG WAY down a dual carrageway towards an oncoming car. There was quite a bit of yelling and more gripping of body parts before we decided enough is enough, our brain's are fried and need to switch off!
Day 2 wasn't supposed to be as hardcore because we'd covered more than halfway on day 1 but we ended up taking some slow roads in the hope that they were more scenic..but they weren't. We kicked ourselves into gear with coffees and a cinnimon pastry and then hit the road again stopping off at a nice beach at Pacific Palms for a quick swim.
It was 7pm by the time we found ourselves driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and heading towards our new apartment in Surry Hills and when we stepped out of the car both felt the strangest sensation of being plonked in the middle of cosmopolitan city vibe without being ready for it. There we were in flip flops, swim wear and beachy caps while young professionals power walked past in their trendy suits staring in disbelief at the colour of my skin.
A few days has passed now and we've had the chance to adjust to the new climate and explore the area, and we LOVE it. Surry Hills really reminds me of Islington in London, endless boutique shops, quirky cafes and quaint restaurants. Everywhere you look there's a nook or cranny with some tiny secret thing hidden away for you to find and multi-coloured terraced houses brighten up what should be an average road. The city is so clean and fresh, new
modern architechture blends in with the older historical sights and the bright blue skies make everything look great. The other thing i've noticed is the amount of greenery around, every road, pavement, park and garden is bursting with vegetation and makes the city feel so summery and natural!
On Friday Loz and I took the bus down to Coogee Beach which was bursting with people, slightly worrying considering it was a week day. Apparently there's normally around 50,000 people down on Bondi on an average summer Saturday, god knows how many will be there for Christmas day! We're hoping it'll have the July 4th Independance Day vibe to it, not sure that day can be beaten though.
...and on Saturday morning we took the city rail train to Turramurra to visit my relatives the Dobree's! We stayed with them for our first week in Australia and it was so good to return to that family atmosphere and be welcomed into the fold like one of their own. Mary produces the most amazing meals and we've been treated to some of the best food i've had all year in the last two days. Fresh prawns, oysters, sundried tomato and cheese breads, amazing salads full of red and yellow peppers, avocado, celery, cucumber, carrots, rocket, onion and juicy tomatoes. Then there's the mangoes, cherries, apricots, peaches, feta and spinach dips, hommus and cous cous. We've even been treated to date scones with double cream and raspberry jam with cups of tea by the pool. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
We thought we'd only be here for a day but we've been asked to join the family to a Christmas carol concert and fireworks display tonight and can't wait, maybe it'll get those Christmas feelings flowing a bit more!
Tomorrow (being Monday) we're heading over to Bondi for the day, Loz is checking out a possible new apartment for once i've left Sydney and then it's more beach time for the two of us.
Bring. It. On.
I really had that itchy feet feeling where there's a million things to think about but you're not sure what to sort out first,
I find it hard to believe that we'd been in Surfers Paradise the same amount of time as LA and Maui combined but it just goes to show that when you stay in one place and routines start forming, time speeds up.
What i'm noticing and really love about Australia is the constant joy people get from being out in their natural environment. They're so so lucky, the locals here have grown up with dramatic cliff drops at Mount Tambourine, forests in the Hinterland, Waterfalls at Springbrook, neverending waves up and down the coast and over 300 days of sun every single year.
Jealous? Me? YES. And that's just in a small area of Queensland.
For someone who thrives on exercise, nature, sports, sun and generally feeling happy and productive I'm very aware that England just can't compete with Australia, America or pretty much any country with a good climate and a passion for the outdoors, and it's bloody depressing. I'll tell you what's brought this on, I was watching an Aussie show called 'Getaway' in which a selection of presenters travel to different areas of Oz and review towns, campsites, things to do, hidden gems etc and it really is unfair. There are white sands, coral coves, red deserts, lush jungles and the Great Barrier Reef on the doorstep for gods sake!!! The attitude is different here, kayaking, climbing, skydiving, surfing and hiking the norm. I don't really know what i'm getting at, do I want to move countries, emigrate? Well yes, maybe I do. I've always felt instantly home in the heat and the positivity it brings to the population.
So a couple of weeks back Jules, Martin and I hired a car for the day and drove over to Nimbin, known only for one thing (it's green and you smoke it!) but still on all the sight-seeing tour circuits and an interesting place. It's pretty much just a high street with a few shops and cafes which can be 'seen and done' in 10 minutes but I guess the charm begins to flow when you allow yourself to sit in a cafe for a while and watch the 'unique' locals stumble by. So just to sum it up, Nimbin is a real time warp town with the majority of people in it being dreadlocked, long wavy haired, weed smoking, pipe puffing wrinky weirdos.
After some exploration inland we drove to the most Easterly point on the east coast and spent the late Afternoon sipping a strawberry ice-cream smoothie in the beautiful Byron Bay. We only had a couple of hours to soak it in before having to head back north to Surfers but I very quickly felt that if i'd discovered Byron before Surfers I would never have left it.
On one Sunday night Jules and I had another really nice chilled night at Swinging Safari, the random place I mentioned in the last post. We had some wine and listened to a Bob Marley tribute band play reggae while the crickets hissed and palms swayed in the warm breeze, it really took me back to my holidays in Antigua. It's a real shame we didn't get to hang out there more but i'm sure there will be plenty more little gems dotted around the coast to discover.
The following Monday Amanda, Loz and I went for trip number 4 to Max brenner which was to be my last up on the Gold Coast :(! I had the most incredible, obscenely amazing, indescribely delicious chocolate brownie though, the best i've EVER tasted and will be 100% going back for another in Sydney.
Unfortunately the last couple of weeks did not provide much in the way of work, the dreaded 'schoolies' kept away
tourists and the shifts at Bear were slashed. This meant our last couple of weeks wasn't as fruitful as hoped and
after leaving both Bear and the Club last weekend it's back to outgoings only, argh!
Something else Jules, Martin and I did to end things was visit Perle one last time...though to our shock horror the $6 tapas menu and $9 cocktail menu had been removed! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. After much deliberation we decided to buy a drink there anyway and soak in the vibe, I asked for an Amaretto coffee (my usual treat) and the waitress came back with the most unusual version of one i've ever seen. Basically a shot of espresso, shot of Amaretto and brandy glass full of vanilla ice-cream. I guess it was more of a dessert than a drink but still pretty good.
Our last night out was in Broadbeach for the Bear Christmas work party and it was a great way to end our time on the Gold Coast. The crew decended upon Aztec's Mexican Restaurant like a pack of drunken Hyena's and didn't leave until we'd drunk the magarita reserves dry 3 hours later. The secret santa presents went down well and I didn't have to sit next to the douchbag of the group (we all know who that is!) so all in all a great night.
So eventually the day came to pick up our hire car and begin road trip 3, Surfers Paradise down to Sydney. At 8am sharp we walked over to Hertz and were presented with our little red Yaris beast, opened the map (thanks Amanda) and popped on our John Farhnam mix cd (thanks Zach). We knew it was gonna be a tight squeeze to do this trip in 2 days so set off towards the half way point in Port Macquarie straight away.
Our first stop was Byron Bay where I managed to blag the best bargain EVER! A perfect dress for NYE reduced from $170 to $34..amazinggggg! We walked around the town and ate some boiled eggs on the beach, as you do, before setting off again towards the tarmac.
A few hours later we passed through Coffs Harbour which to be honest we wern't all that impressed with, we didn't even see the big banana which I was looking out for. The weather had taken a turn for the worst, all grey and cloudy and the sea looked dark and a bit menacing, definetely not ideal for a swim. We drove to the jetty and stretched our legs before I took over the wheel to take us down to Port Macquarie.
As this point Loz fell asleep for over an hour and left me alone to sing my heart out to some Backstreet Boys and N' Sync until he convieniently woke up as we approached the stop over.
The tiredness must have been starting to kick in as we both used up 2 more of our 9 lives that night. I must have been so keen to get to the campsite that I unintentionally drove staright through a stop sign intersection and missed a full on collision by maybe 3 or 4 seconds. When I realised what had happened the shock sent me into a trance and I grabbed onto Loz's shoulder for a full 60 seconds before loosening the claw like grip and letting go. Later on that night it was Loz's turn to tempt fate as he started driving THE WRONG WAY down a dual carrageway towards an oncoming car. There was quite a bit of yelling and more gripping of body parts before we decided enough is enough, our brain's are fried and need to switch off!
Day 2 wasn't supposed to be as hardcore because we'd covered more than halfway on day 1 but we ended up taking some slow roads in the hope that they were more scenic..but they weren't. We kicked ourselves into gear with coffees and a cinnimon pastry and then hit the road again stopping off at a nice beach at Pacific Palms for a quick swim.
It was 7pm by the time we found ourselves driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and heading towards our new apartment in Surry Hills and when we stepped out of the car both felt the strangest sensation of being plonked in the middle of cosmopolitan city vibe without being ready for it. There we were in flip flops, swim wear and beachy caps while young professionals power walked past in their trendy suits staring in disbelief at the colour of my skin.
A few days has passed now and we've had the chance to adjust to the new climate and explore the area, and we LOVE it. Surry Hills really reminds me of Islington in London, endless boutique shops, quirky cafes and quaint restaurants. Everywhere you look there's a nook or cranny with some tiny secret thing hidden away for you to find and multi-coloured terraced houses brighten up what should be an average road. The city is so clean and fresh, new
modern architechture blends in with the older historical sights and the bright blue skies make everything look great. The other thing i've noticed is the amount of greenery around, every road, pavement, park and garden is bursting with vegetation and makes the city feel so summery and natural!
On Friday Loz and I took the bus down to Coogee Beach which was bursting with people, slightly worrying considering it was a week day. Apparently there's normally around 50,000 people down on Bondi on an average summer Saturday, god knows how many will be there for Christmas day! We're hoping it'll have the July 4th Independance Day vibe to it, not sure that day can be beaten though.
...and on Saturday morning we took the city rail train to Turramurra to visit my relatives the Dobree's! We stayed with them for our first week in Australia and it was so good to return to that family atmosphere and be welcomed into the fold like one of their own. Mary produces the most amazing meals and we've been treated to some of the best food i've had all year in the last two days. Fresh prawns, oysters, sundried tomato and cheese breads, amazing salads full of red and yellow peppers, avocado, celery, cucumber, carrots, rocket, onion and juicy tomatoes. Then there's the mangoes, cherries, apricots, peaches, feta and spinach dips, hommus and cous cous. We've even been treated to date scones with double cream and raspberry jam with cups of tea by the pool. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
We thought we'd only be here for a day but we've been asked to join the family to a Christmas carol concert and fireworks display tonight and can't wait, maybe it'll get those Christmas feelings flowing a bit more!
Tomorrow (being Monday) we're heading over to Bondi for the day, Loz is checking out a possible new apartment for once i've left Sydney and then it's more beach time for the two of us.
Bring. It. On.
Thursday 26 November 2009
Summer's Approaching
So wow it's been ages since I last posted, just when I think i'm on top of the blog I realise just how quickly the weeks are flying by and how much more i've done. Infact, im sure time is speeding up...it's definately faster than when I was at school, definately.
How can this be possible? The best solution I could come up with was that the earth, sun, moon, the whole solar system is moving perpetually faster and so we're not feeling it. If everything's speeding up at the same time then it'd be easy not to notice losing an hour here and there right??
Anyway, i'm rambling so what's been going on over here in Oz? Back at the end of October the amazing Amanda (who was gutted at not being given a blog entry sooner lol!) took Loz and I on a whirlwind drive down along the local coastline ending in a tasty finale watching the Michael Jackson cinema documentary 'This is it' and dipping marshmmallows, strawberries and banana bread into the most incredible chocolate fondue at Max Brenner. Max.B is an insanely gorgeous chocolate restaurant and since that day has become a delicious addition to the diary, you can't go wrong and i'm very pleased there are more branches in Sydney!
A couple of Tuesdays ago we were lounging in Perle with some Mojitos and randomly decided to go out to the classily named 'Sin City' nightclub. I still remember Loz and I walking down Orchid Avenue (The strip) on our first night in Surfers and seeing Sin City and its very dubious clientell waiting in line outside and from that moment it became a sort of joke that we had go in at least once.
The persuading factor was it being Ladies Night which meant free entry and free drinks all night so within half an hour we'd gone from the maturity of cocktail smoozing to plastic champagne flutes and lycra mini skirts. Highlight of the night was having photos with the two guys from 'Man Power', their rippling abs were a nice shade of mahogany.
I've managed to do some more kitesurfing which is cool, it's now obvious that when we arrived here it really was still
winter for Australia and with that, non-existent winter winds. But now it's a different story, as summer has subtley crept in the days have got gradually lighter for longer, the heat hangs about later and the sea breezes are getting stronger daily. It's a shame that once we get to Sydney i'll be putting the kiting to bed untill i'm back in the uk but i'm not really progressing up here anyway because of the waves so not tooooo much is lost. The problem is the man made sand bars that have been put in place to create artificial waves. It means the sea becomes a turbulent vast mass of scary dark water, riding and falling in huge chunky mountains and to be honest, makes me so uncomfortable i'm not able to try any tricks or jumps for fear of landing badly and being crushed by a wave! Oh well, hopefully i'll rip it up back in england (surfer talk for get better)...
What else...well, work at the club is going ok but i'll be more than glad to say my goodbyes! 6 weeks of night work and having to chat to wasted idiots is kinda doing my head in. There are a few regulars who come back week after week and obviously recognise me, even approcaching like olds friends but I just have no idea who they are! I just smile and use the old line 'Ah how you going? Back again eh?' while thinking...."Who the hell are you?". It's alright money though and tops up the funds for Sydney and NZ so can't complain.
On Monday the 9th of Nov Amanda and I took Jules to sample some more Max Brenner at Marina Mirage, home to the world's first and only fashion hotel by Versace (I also just found out this is the hotel they take the celebs too before and after the jungle on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!) We also had a little browse around some stores including a trendy furniture shop and picked out what we would buy if we were rich. I chose a cow hide and chrome chair for $3,500, nice.
The next day Jules, Martin and I jumped on the bus down the coast to visit Sam at Nobby's Beach. Sam works next door to the bear shop and kindly sald we could borrow his surf boards for the day and teach us the basics. We started early and after a couple of hours had built up enough of an appetite to indulge in some local fish and chips, it's been ages since i'd had such a uk dish!
My fish burger was made with a type of fish called Dori which made me think I was eating Dori from Finding Nemo with every bite.
Between working and organising our trip I found myself down amongst the sand dunes one late afternoon. It was one of those days where you find yourself somewhere, not really sure how but are just glad you did. I spent a couple of hours watching the wind blow the sand into a constantly changing landscape of mini mountains and crevices while listening to the calming but contradictory tones of my Winter Chill album. I guess I just had one of those deep moments which I love to dwell in as the afternoon sun set behind the buildings and the shadows crept further and further up the beach.
Last Wednesday Jules, Martin and I spent the evening at an awesomeeeee little bar (actually a converted old house) called Swinging Safari. It was the kind of place i'd love to set up and own myself, nothing in there the same, everything random, a kind of delapidated Alice in Wonderland film set. We sipped our drinks while listening to the echoey tones of French music and a life drawing class drew burlesque dancers behind us.
Then it was time for the long awaited trip to Wet n' Wild and I wore my most robust bikini in preparation for any waterslide wedgies coming my way! Loz and I managed to get in for a discount by pretending to be Jules and Martin which was good but truth be told it was a bit overrated, smaller than we thought and quite kiddy. There was one very steep one which I overcame my fear of and managed to do but it just feels so wrong to launch yourself down a near vertical piece of plastic so many meters up. It definietely gave me a chance to stretch those vocal chords by screaming at all the drops.
That evening I caught up with Michelle on Skype as there's lots of planning to be done as December approaches, I can't believe i'll be meeting her at the airport in under 3 weeks, it's pretty exciting! It really feels like a transitional stage is about to begin and then the backpacking part of the trip begins in the new year.
That weekend I worked as usual but Loz and I found time to grab a drink at The Secret Garden. It's a tiny inconspicious alleyway that leads from the pavement into an overgrown jungle like garden patio which has been converted into a mini restaurant/cafe, such a cute idea! If it was in LA i'm sure all the celebs would go there to remain all hidden away...infact there probably are these types of places in LA. The couple that run it even have a big wild iguana living there called Dan who sat by our table and posed for a photo.
On the Sunday afternoon I went for a quick kitesurf to stretch the legs and watched the Australian Idol final...sorry this is getting really boring i'll move on!...
...So that brings us to Monday just gone where Amanda, Loz and I went to Max Brenner yet again(!) and to see the new Twilight movie at the cinema which was awesome...and then yesterday when Jules, Martin and I all hired a car for a little road trip to Nimbin and Byron Bay. Nimbin was home to the 1972 Aquarius Festival and not much has changed since, it's home to almost 100% long haired, wrinkly hippies smoking joints and seriously chilling out. The buildings are painted multi-coloured and emblazoned with murals of peace, love and harmony, defo an interesting place to visit!
As Nimbin only consists of one road we were ready to move on pretty quickly so we drove on to the beautiful Byron Bay for the late afternoon. It's a lovely little surfer town with a great vibe so i'll be very keen on staying in it longer when Michelle and I pass back through on the way up through Queensland next year.
So there's lots coming up...tomorrow i'm going to be filmed making a bear for a travel program! They're trying to show that the Gold Coast can be family friendly as well as a party town so that'll be fun. On Sunday i'm heading back to Swinging Safari with Jules and Martin for another abstract drink, next Tues we're doing our final tapas and cocktail evening, Saturday i've got the Build-a-Bear Christmas/leaving do party and next Sunday is the Stereosonic music festival in Brisbane ...so much to look forward to.
As my time in Surfers Paradise comes to an end it's easy to start planning the next sections of this adventure...Sydney for Christmas and New Year, camper vans around New Zealand in January, then March onwards...Adelaide, the Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Noosa, Fraser Island, The Whitsundays, Cairns, Cape Tribulation and maybe Perth..,
...wow, it's exhausting even thinking about it!
P&H (peace and hugs.....yes, we have a peace and hugs bear in the shop) xxx
How can this be possible? The best solution I could come up with was that the earth, sun, moon, the whole solar system is moving perpetually faster and so we're not feeling it. If everything's speeding up at the same time then it'd be easy not to notice losing an hour here and there right??
Anyway, i'm rambling so what's been going on over here in Oz? Back at the end of October the amazing Amanda (who was gutted at not being given a blog entry sooner lol!) took Loz and I on a whirlwind drive down along the local coastline ending in a tasty finale watching the Michael Jackson cinema documentary 'This is it' and dipping marshmmallows, strawberries and banana bread into the most incredible chocolate fondue at Max Brenner. Max.B is an insanely gorgeous chocolate restaurant and since that day has become a delicious addition to the diary, you can't go wrong and i'm very pleased there are more branches in Sydney!
A couple of Tuesdays ago we were lounging in Perle with some Mojitos and randomly decided to go out to the classily named 'Sin City' nightclub. I still remember Loz and I walking down Orchid Avenue (The strip) on our first night in Surfers and seeing Sin City and its very dubious clientell waiting in line outside and from that moment it became a sort of joke that we had go in at least once.
The persuading factor was it being Ladies Night which meant free entry and free drinks all night so within half an hour we'd gone from the maturity of cocktail smoozing to plastic champagne flutes and lycra mini skirts. Highlight of the night was having photos with the two guys from 'Man Power', their rippling abs were a nice shade of mahogany.
I've managed to do some more kitesurfing which is cool, it's now obvious that when we arrived here it really was still
winter for Australia and with that, non-existent winter winds. But now it's a different story, as summer has subtley crept in the days have got gradually lighter for longer, the heat hangs about later and the sea breezes are getting stronger daily. It's a shame that once we get to Sydney i'll be putting the kiting to bed untill i'm back in the uk but i'm not really progressing up here anyway because of the waves so not tooooo much is lost. The problem is the man made sand bars that have been put in place to create artificial waves. It means the sea becomes a turbulent vast mass of scary dark water, riding and falling in huge chunky mountains and to be honest, makes me so uncomfortable i'm not able to try any tricks or jumps for fear of landing badly and being crushed by a wave! Oh well, hopefully i'll rip it up back in england (surfer talk for get better)...
What else...well, work at the club is going ok but i'll be more than glad to say my goodbyes! 6 weeks of night work and having to chat to wasted idiots is kinda doing my head in. There are a few regulars who come back week after week and obviously recognise me, even approcaching like olds friends but I just have no idea who they are! I just smile and use the old line 'Ah how you going? Back again eh?' while thinking...."Who the hell are you?". It's alright money though and tops up the funds for Sydney and NZ so can't complain.
On Monday the 9th of Nov Amanda and I took Jules to sample some more Max Brenner at Marina Mirage, home to the world's first and only fashion hotel by Versace (I also just found out this is the hotel they take the celebs too before and after the jungle on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!) We also had a little browse around some stores including a trendy furniture shop and picked out what we would buy if we were rich. I chose a cow hide and chrome chair for $3,500, nice.
The next day Jules, Martin and I jumped on the bus down the coast to visit Sam at Nobby's Beach. Sam works next door to the bear shop and kindly sald we could borrow his surf boards for the day and teach us the basics. We started early and after a couple of hours had built up enough of an appetite to indulge in some local fish and chips, it's been ages since i'd had such a uk dish!
My fish burger was made with a type of fish called Dori which made me think I was eating Dori from Finding Nemo with every bite.
Between working and organising our trip I found myself down amongst the sand dunes one late afternoon. It was one of those days where you find yourself somewhere, not really sure how but are just glad you did. I spent a couple of hours watching the wind blow the sand into a constantly changing landscape of mini mountains and crevices while listening to the calming but contradictory tones of my Winter Chill album. I guess I just had one of those deep moments which I love to dwell in as the afternoon sun set behind the buildings and the shadows crept further and further up the beach.
Last Wednesday Jules, Martin and I spent the evening at an awesomeeeee little bar (actually a converted old house) called Swinging Safari. It was the kind of place i'd love to set up and own myself, nothing in there the same, everything random, a kind of delapidated Alice in Wonderland film set. We sipped our drinks while listening to the echoey tones of French music and a life drawing class drew burlesque dancers behind us.
Then it was time for the long awaited trip to Wet n' Wild and I wore my most robust bikini in preparation for any waterslide wedgies coming my way! Loz and I managed to get in for a discount by pretending to be Jules and Martin which was good but truth be told it was a bit overrated, smaller than we thought and quite kiddy. There was one very steep one which I overcame my fear of and managed to do but it just feels so wrong to launch yourself down a near vertical piece of plastic so many meters up. It definietely gave me a chance to stretch those vocal chords by screaming at all the drops.
That evening I caught up with Michelle on Skype as there's lots of planning to be done as December approaches, I can't believe i'll be meeting her at the airport in under 3 weeks, it's pretty exciting! It really feels like a transitional stage is about to begin and then the backpacking part of the trip begins in the new year.
That weekend I worked as usual but Loz and I found time to grab a drink at The Secret Garden. It's a tiny inconspicious alleyway that leads from the pavement into an overgrown jungle like garden patio which has been converted into a mini restaurant/cafe, such a cute idea! If it was in LA i'm sure all the celebs would go there to remain all hidden away...infact there probably are these types of places in LA. The couple that run it even have a big wild iguana living there called Dan who sat by our table and posed for a photo.
On the Sunday afternoon I went for a quick kitesurf to stretch the legs and watched the Australian Idol final...sorry this is getting really boring i'll move on!...
...So that brings us to Monday just gone where Amanda, Loz and I went to Max Brenner yet again(!) and to see the new Twilight movie at the cinema which was awesome...and then yesterday when Jules, Martin and I all hired a car for a little road trip to Nimbin and Byron Bay. Nimbin was home to the 1972 Aquarius Festival and not much has changed since, it's home to almost 100% long haired, wrinkly hippies smoking joints and seriously chilling out. The buildings are painted multi-coloured and emblazoned with murals of peace, love and harmony, defo an interesting place to visit!
As Nimbin only consists of one road we were ready to move on pretty quickly so we drove on to the beautiful Byron Bay for the late afternoon. It's a lovely little surfer town with a great vibe so i'll be very keen on staying in it longer when Michelle and I pass back through on the way up through Queensland next year.
So there's lots coming up...tomorrow i'm going to be filmed making a bear for a travel program! They're trying to show that the Gold Coast can be family friendly as well as a party town so that'll be fun. On Sunday i'm heading back to Swinging Safari with Jules and Martin for another abstract drink, next Tues we're doing our final tapas and cocktail evening, Saturday i've got the Build-a-Bear Christmas/leaving do party and next Sunday is the Stereosonic music festival in Brisbane ...so much to look forward to.
As my time in Surfers Paradise comes to an end it's easy to start planning the next sections of this adventure...Sydney for Christmas and New Year, camper vans around New Zealand in January, then March onwards...Adelaide, the Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Noosa, Fraser Island, The Whitsundays, Cairns, Cape Tribulation and maybe Perth..,
...wow, it's exhausting even thinking about it!
P&H (peace and hugs.....yes, we have a peace and hugs bear in the shop) xxx
Wednesday 28 October 2009
8 Weeks in on the Gold Coast
Hey, hey, hey...
Things are really on a roll now and the Surfers Paradise calendar is gradually filling up. This week has seen me check out a house music fashion show, Tapas Tuesday, lots of free drinks, losing spectacularly at bowls and enjoying the simple things in life like beers on the balcony with Jules in the afternoon sun.
The 2009 Gold Coast GP has got to be the biggest anti-climax of the moment with town feeling very empty during the day and bizarrely the night also. We'd been warned for weeks about how it was going to morph the area into a battle ground (which it normally is on a Saturday night anyway) but the only real change was an influx of promo girls in chequered hot pants and exposed bum cheeks.
A highlight of the last 7 days was discovering that the Aussies have Iced Magic, the hard topped chocolate sauce for ice cream. I've got an unhealthy but enjoyable routine going on of buying 4 litre vanilla ice cream tubs and devouring the lot with sugar strands and the special sauce within a worryingly short amount of time.
*Being on a budget i’ve had to downgrade to the supermarket's own brand ice cream and hard topped sauce but it's still great*
So last Sunday I managed to blag myself, Jules, Martin, Loz and a new guy called Richard who we nicknamed 'Tasmania' because that's where he was from into the trendy Elsewhere club for free, bonus! We wanted to check out a fashion show that was supposed to be happening so just chilled in a booth waiting for that to materialise (no pun intended).
After a couple of hours listening to some very enjoyable deep house, the fashion part of the night was still a mystery to us and it all turned into a bit of a joke as there were only another 20 people in the club including the bar staff and dj!
Finally at half midnight the show began...and oh my god, it was the worst thing i've ever seen, pretty much primary school standard clothing and models pulled in from the street. Still, it made us all laugh and Tasmania bought me some drinks which went down well.
On Tuesday evening Jules, Martin and I went to Pearl for Tapas night which is a real find here in Surfers. My $9 mojito wasn't made to perfection like last week (new bartender) but it was still tasty and the tapas were absolutely delicious, only $6 a plate too. I asked to doggy bag a lonely unfinished meatball but was met with a look of puzzlement and warned about possible food poisoning if left out of refrigeration...I guess i'm still used to the American way of dining out!?
Weds and Thurs were great as I had no work and managed to get some kite surfing in. The wind forecast is good this week and as long as the swell remains small I can keep kiting out on the sea. After some beach front lunch on Thursday J, M and I headed back to the Azzura to top up the tan by the pool. As the heat eased off, the sunbathing session quickly turned into a white wine and spritzer session and then into a cocktail and shots session. All this for free though as we've become friendly with the bar staff at the hotel and they seem to like treating us :).
At work on Friday I realised how all the kids coming into the bear shop were born in the 2000's and I got a strange feeling of age creeping through my bones, suddenly the 80's seems a very long time ago.
Also every week we have a competition where the person who puts the biggest sale through the till wins a bar of chocolate and now I try and guess who the rich are as they walk through the door. It's never who you think it's going to be though and it's beyond me how people can spend over $600 on bear clothing!
The period of time between 4pm and 7pm I call dead time as the sun has set and there's nothing to do but on Friday Mike, his mate James and I filled it by playing lawn bowls. To be honest I was concentrating more on the conversation than the game and that's my excuse for losing...the conversation and the beers.
Last night Jules and I went out to a great little club called Ruby Tramp, randomly I actually managed to come home with a job starting on the door there next weekend, how does this stuff happen??...probably because I hunted down the manager and asked him for a job so there we go. It'll be a couple of shifts a week which is cool as Loz is out working then anyway too.
We also had some unexpected guests join us out last night including the owner of one of the hotels here in Surfers and we were very spoilt the whole night. Anything to drink for free all night, doesn't get much better than that!
Today was supposed to be a relaxed affair but Jules and I were invited out with the same guys from last night who insisted on buying platters of seafood and antipasti for us so we weren’t complaining there either.
I think next week's going to be a busy one with 5 shifts at Build a Bear, new work at the club and our now infamous Sweet Chilli Blue Thursdays. Sweet Chilli Blue is the name given to a recipe Loz created in LA out of all the leftovers in Chris's fridge, and it's possibly the best dish i've ever had. J, M, L and I get together at the flat, cook it up and devour it fast.
...Reading back over this post for spelling errors is really surreal...is this life i'm writing about mine? It's so completely random and different from anything I was doing 5 months ago. I guess that's why people travel and what they hope to experience when away from the norm. I mentally pinch myself regularly as a reminder of where I am on the globe and how far from home I am and I never take the hot sun and clear blue skies for granted. I have to admit I miss home, family and friends more and more each day but it's likely i'll never get this much continual sun ever again so am trying to appreciate and take advantage of it!
xxx
Things are really on a roll now and the Surfers Paradise calendar is gradually filling up. This week has seen me check out a house music fashion show, Tapas Tuesday, lots of free drinks, losing spectacularly at bowls and enjoying the simple things in life like beers on the balcony with Jules in the afternoon sun.
The 2009 Gold Coast GP has got to be the biggest anti-climax of the moment with town feeling very empty during the day and bizarrely the night also. We'd been warned for weeks about how it was going to morph the area into a battle ground (which it normally is on a Saturday night anyway) but the only real change was an influx of promo girls in chequered hot pants and exposed bum cheeks.
A highlight of the last 7 days was discovering that the Aussies have Iced Magic, the hard topped chocolate sauce for ice cream. I've got an unhealthy but enjoyable routine going on of buying 4 litre vanilla ice cream tubs and devouring the lot with sugar strands and the special sauce within a worryingly short amount of time.
*Being on a budget i’ve had to downgrade to the supermarket's own brand ice cream and hard topped sauce but it's still great*
So last Sunday I managed to blag myself, Jules, Martin, Loz and a new guy called Richard who we nicknamed 'Tasmania' because that's where he was from into the trendy Elsewhere club for free, bonus! We wanted to check out a fashion show that was supposed to be happening so just chilled in a booth waiting for that to materialise (no pun intended).
After a couple of hours listening to some very enjoyable deep house, the fashion part of the night was still a mystery to us and it all turned into a bit of a joke as there were only another 20 people in the club including the bar staff and dj!
Finally at half midnight the show began...and oh my god, it was the worst thing i've ever seen, pretty much primary school standard clothing and models pulled in from the street. Still, it made us all laugh and Tasmania bought me some drinks which went down well.
On Tuesday evening Jules, Martin and I went to Pearl for Tapas night which is a real find here in Surfers. My $9 mojito wasn't made to perfection like last week (new bartender) but it was still tasty and the tapas were absolutely delicious, only $6 a plate too. I asked to doggy bag a lonely unfinished meatball but was met with a look of puzzlement and warned about possible food poisoning if left out of refrigeration...I guess i'm still used to the American way of dining out!?
Weds and Thurs were great as I had no work and managed to get some kite surfing in. The wind forecast is good this week and as long as the swell remains small I can keep kiting out on the sea. After some beach front lunch on Thursday J, M and I headed back to the Azzura to top up the tan by the pool. As the heat eased off, the sunbathing session quickly turned into a white wine and spritzer session and then into a cocktail and shots session. All this for free though as we've become friendly with the bar staff at the hotel and they seem to like treating us :).
At work on Friday I realised how all the kids coming into the bear shop were born in the 2000's and I got a strange feeling of age creeping through my bones, suddenly the 80's seems a very long time ago.
Also every week we have a competition where the person who puts the biggest sale through the till wins a bar of chocolate and now I try and guess who the rich are as they walk through the door. It's never who you think it's going to be though and it's beyond me how people can spend over $600 on bear clothing!
The period of time between 4pm and 7pm I call dead time as the sun has set and there's nothing to do but on Friday Mike, his mate James and I filled it by playing lawn bowls. To be honest I was concentrating more on the conversation than the game and that's my excuse for losing...the conversation and the beers.
Last night Jules and I went out to a great little club called Ruby Tramp, randomly I actually managed to come home with a job starting on the door there next weekend, how does this stuff happen??...probably because I hunted down the manager and asked him for a job so there we go. It'll be a couple of shifts a week which is cool as Loz is out working then anyway too.
We also had some unexpected guests join us out last night including the owner of one of the hotels here in Surfers and we were very spoilt the whole night. Anything to drink for free all night, doesn't get much better than that!
Today was supposed to be a relaxed affair but Jules and I were invited out with the same guys from last night who insisted on buying platters of seafood and antipasti for us so we weren’t complaining there either.
I think next week's going to be a busy one with 5 shifts at Build a Bear, new work at the club and our now infamous Sweet Chilli Blue Thursdays. Sweet Chilli Blue is the name given to a recipe Loz created in LA out of all the leftovers in Chris's fridge, and it's possibly the best dish i've ever had. J, M, L and I get together at the flat, cook it up and devour it fast.
...Reading back over this post for spelling errors is really surreal...is this life i'm writing about mine? It's so completely random and different from anything I was doing 5 months ago. I guess that's why people travel and what they hope to experience when away from the norm. I mentally pinch myself regularly as a reminder of where I am on the globe and how far from home I am and I never take the hot sun and clear blue skies for granted. I have to admit I miss home, family and friends more and more each day but it's likely i'll never get this much continual sun ever again so am trying to appreciate and take advantage of it!
xxx
Sunday 18 October 2009
Back in the Loop
6 weeks on and finally some kind of routine has formed...granted it consists of bbq's, monday night tv sessions and work at the bear shop which is hardly crazzzzyyyy behaviour but it's nice to have some consistency for a few months before things get shaken up again in December.
We've come a fair way since that first week of work at the holiday company...actually it was only three days before we got as far away from that fraudulent group of people as possible. Only one good thing came of our brief stint there and that was meeting Jules and Martin, a cool couple from the Midlands who i've latched myself onto! We're totally on the same wavelength and have begun planning lots of exciting plans and things to look forward to so thats cool. They also have an awesome jacuzzi and grill area in their building which is great to chill in after a day stuffing bears.
At first I only had 3 shifts a week at Build-a-bear and it really wasn't enough but we've had some scandalous things going on recently and 2 people have just resigned so I was the first to stick my hand up for more work which is cool.
So what else has been going on here on the Gold Coast? Well Jules, Martin and I go out clubbing every couple of weeks just to mix it up, the majority of people and clubs here are 100% chav havens but i've done some digging and found a few hidden gold mines which are worth going to. I'm not sure how i do it but i've also managed to get friendly with the girls running the doors too and that means free entry for everyone which is always good :)
Last Tuesday Jules, Martin and I went to a classy establishment called Pearl for the cocktail deal they were doing and honestly, it was the best classic mojito I have EVER had. Really, really good. We're soooo going back next Tues to take full advantage of the tapas as well. I guess that's the good thing about earning some money while we're here, I don't feel too bad treating myself to a drink or ice-cream here or there....well, quite freqently actually lol.
The four of us have also taken to holding little dinner parties for each other... how middle aged of us haha! Loz and I have just got back from The Azzura (J+M's building) where they'd made homemade sangria and got some awesome dips on the go, they've really stepped up their game this week lol.
This Wednesday just gone J, M and I went whale watching which was an amazing experience, Martin works for the local tour company and managed to get a good discount for the three of us which was a benefit. We got to cruise round the canals looking at the Aussie homes of the rich and famous and then out into the open sea to look for the humpback whales making their migratory cruise south back to Antartica. We saw quite a few in the 2 hours we were out and one even jumped right out of the water which was a very 'Free Willy' moment.
My building is attatched to the local grass bowls club which is quite amusing and yesterday J, M and I had a quick game or two after work. It was funny to see Martin get so competitive over the sedate game but the true master won (me obviously) and now i'm really going to focus on that 'kneel and roll' technique, you never know when it'll come in use.
The other highlight of the week is our Monday tv night - 'Flash Forward' followed by 'The Apprentice' (Australian version) and then a pretty bad American reality tv show called 'Momma's Boys', all washed down with a bowl of ice-cream, chocolate sauce and sugar strands of course.
It's the Motor GP car racing event next week which completely takes over the Gold Coast and will no doubt bring in big crowds so we'll have to see how that goes. Other things in the pipeline are a trip to Wet n' Wild in November (a waterpark) which'll be so fun with Loz's underwater camera and the Stereosonic festival in Brisbane which i'm going to just before returning to Sydney.
The one thing that's really thrown me and I have to admit really don't like is how the sun is weak by 3pm and sets around 5pm....WAY too early! It makes the evenings feel so dark and long and the days too short...and after the 9pm sunsets of Maui it is not cool.
Aside from the above we're regulars in the jacuzzi, try to chill with beers on the beach and cook alot of meat on the bbq. I can't get enough of the avocado and helumi burgers we've been making, defo more of them to come. Delicious...xxx
We've come a fair way since that first week of work at the holiday company...actually it was only three days before we got as far away from that fraudulent group of people as possible. Only one good thing came of our brief stint there and that was meeting Jules and Martin, a cool couple from the Midlands who i've latched myself onto! We're totally on the same wavelength and have begun planning lots of exciting plans and things to look forward to so thats cool. They also have an awesome jacuzzi and grill area in their building which is great to chill in after a day stuffing bears.
At first I only had 3 shifts a week at Build-a-bear and it really wasn't enough but we've had some scandalous things going on recently and 2 people have just resigned so I was the first to stick my hand up for more work which is cool.
So what else has been going on here on the Gold Coast? Well Jules, Martin and I go out clubbing every couple of weeks just to mix it up, the majority of people and clubs here are 100% chav havens but i've done some digging and found a few hidden gold mines which are worth going to. I'm not sure how i do it but i've also managed to get friendly with the girls running the doors too and that means free entry for everyone which is always good :)
Last Tuesday Jules, Martin and I went to a classy establishment called Pearl for the cocktail deal they were doing and honestly, it was the best classic mojito I have EVER had. Really, really good. We're soooo going back next Tues to take full advantage of the tapas as well. I guess that's the good thing about earning some money while we're here, I don't feel too bad treating myself to a drink or ice-cream here or there....well, quite freqently actually lol.
The four of us have also taken to holding little dinner parties for each other... how middle aged of us haha! Loz and I have just got back from The Azzura (J+M's building) where they'd made homemade sangria and got some awesome dips on the go, they've really stepped up their game this week lol.
This Wednesday just gone J, M and I went whale watching which was an amazing experience, Martin works for the local tour company and managed to get a good discount for the three of us which was a benefit. We got to cruise round the canals looking at the Aussie homes of the rich and famous and then out into the open sea to look for the humpback whales making their migratory cruise south back to Antartica. We saw quite a few in the 2 hours we were out and one even jumped right out of the water which was a very 'Free Willy' moment.
My building is attatched to the local grass bowls club which is quite amusing and yesterday J, M and I had a quick game or two after work. It was funny to see Martin get so competitive over the sedate game but the true master won (me obviously) and now i'm really going to focus on that 'kneel and roll' technique, you never know when it'll come in use.
The other highlight of the week is our Monday tv night - 'Flash Forward' followed by 'The Apprentice' (Australian version) and then a pretty bad American reality tv show called 'Momma's Boys', all washed down with a bowl of ice-cream, chocolate sauce and sugar strands of course.
It's the Motor GP car racing event next week which completely takes over the Gold Coast and will no doubt bring in big crowds so we'll have to see how that goes. Other things in the pipeline are a trip to Wet n' Wild in November (a waterpark) which'll be so fun with Loz's underwater camera and the Stereosonic festival in Brisbane which i'm going to just before returning to Sydney.
The one thing that's really thrown me and I have to admit really don't like is how the sun is weak by 3pm and sets around 5pm....WAY too early! It makes the evenings feel so dark and long and the days too short...and after the 9pm sunsets of Maui it is not cool.
Aside from the above we're regulars in the jacuzzi, try to chill with beers on the beach and cook alot of meat on the bbq. I can't get enough of the avocado and helumi burgers we've been making, defo more of them to come. Delicious...xxx
Monday 14 September 2009
Ticking the Boxes
Sooooooo,
Loz and I arrived at Coolengatta airport last Saturday night and have had a hectic time
trying to settle down and sort everything out asap. We're pretty much there with everything
now though and for the first time have found ourselves with too much free and time and not
much to fill it with!
We'd planned to catch a local bus to Surfers once we landed but didn't know where or when
to catch it from and I was more concerned about how I was going to carry my 80lbs of baggage.
It's fair to say we're NOT travelling light and everytime we're about to move is accompanied
by a feeling of dread at the pain i'm about to put myself through. In the end We did manage
to find a trolly on the loose and we gladly piled the bags onto it.
After wheeling ourselves around for a while we found the coach depot and a jolly aussie
told us the next bus was in about 11 hours at 7.30am, really helpful! I'm pretty sure he
was wrong but the stop was a 10 minute walk away and I couldn't really be bothered to find
out as he offered to drop us at the hostel for $21...with the weight of the bags on my mind
it was an easy sell for him!
So then we arrived in Surfers and at our hostel, The Sleeping Inn. It wasn't much like a
hostel as we had a privte room but the vibe was cool and i'm looking forward to staying in
them and being more social with the other travellers when i'm backpacking with Michelle.
Our first morning we went straight to the local accommodation place and luckily they had a
suitable flat on the books, we arranged a viewing, liked it and accepted the 3 month lease
from Herman, our new landlord! It's a nice big clean apartment with everything we need and
works out cheaper than the hostel so that's all good. There's even a sauna and jacuzzi to
chill out in :)
Next up was the job hunt, seeing as we're going to be chilling here till December it makes
sense to get some cash and keep busy. We're both starting shifts in a sales job on Sunday
which i'm not reallllly looking forward to but will hopefully bring in good money. To
make things a bit cooler we're also both going to interviews for a surf shop next Thursday,
it'll be good to top up the bank account again, i'm aiming to get it back to what it was
when I left.
Ummm, yeah so that's it really...there's not much going on at the mo! Will write more when
there's more fun things to write about....
Loz and I arrived at Coolengatta airport last Saturday night and have had a hectic time
trying to settle down and sort everything out asap. We're pretty much there with everything
now though and for the first time have found ourselves with too much free and time and not
much to fill it with!
We'd planned to catch a local bus to Surfers once we landed but didn't know where or when
to catch it from and I was more concerned about how I was going to carry my 80lbs of baggage.
It's fair to say we're NOT travelling light and everytime we're about to move is accompanied
by a feeling of dread at the pain i'm about to put myself through. In the end We did manage
to find a trolly on the loose and we gladly piled the bags onto it.
After wheeling ourselves around for a while we found the coach depot and a jolly aussie
told us the next bus was in about 11 hours at 7.30am, really helpful! I'm pretty sure he
was wrong but the stop was a 10 minute walk away and I couldn't really be bothered to find
out as he offered to drop us at the hostel for $21...with the weight of the bags on my mind
it was an easy sell for him!
So then we arrived in Surfers and at our hostel, The Sleeping Inn. It wasn't much like a
hostel as we had a privte room but the vibe was cool and i'm looking forward to staying in
them and being more social with the other travellers when i'm backpacking with Michelle.
Our first morning we went straight to the local accommodation place and luckily they had a
suitable flat on the books, we arranged a viewing, liked it and accepted the 3 month lease
from Herman, our new landlord! It's a nice big clean apartment with everything we need and
works out cheaper than the hostel so that's all good. There's even a sauna and jacuzzi to
chill out in :)
Next up was the job hunt, seeing as we're going to be chilling here till December it makes
sense to get some cash and keep busy. We're both starting shifts in a sales job on Sunday
which i'm not reallllly looking forward to but will hopefully bring in good money. To
make things a bit cooler we're also both going to interviews for a surf shop next Thursday,
it'll be good to top up the bank account again, i'm aiming to get it back to what it was
when I left.
Ummm, yeah so that's it really...there's not much going on at the mo! Will write more when
there's more fun things to write about....
Wednesday 2 September 2009
Into the Unknown
Yo,
Plans are slowly and surely progressing during the time we've spent here in the suburbs of Sydney, our flight to the Gold Coast is today, Saturday September 5th (we'll try not to miss this one!) and we're ready to embrace the exctingly named Surfers Paradise for 3 months and all it has to offer.
We're booked into a hostel for the first couple of nights as we won't have any long term accomodation but hope to find somewhere cool quickly and then the jobs and routine will follow. I'm also planning to buy a trusty bicycle to carry me and my kitesurfng gear down to the beach whenever I feel like a sesh, that'll be everyday then! Apparently the distances are manageable there and not like the sprawling mass of cityscape that was LA.
So for now it's all about doing some sight-seeing with the Dobrees. Yesterday Mary took Loz and I up to the famous Blue Mountains which are situated a couple of hours drive out of Sydney and are home to The Three Sisters (a rock formation on the edge of the gauge). They're called the Blue Mountains because of all the eucalyptus gum trees in the gauge that give off a blue glow in the light, at least I think that's what Mary said!
Right, time to pack the bag...
Plans are slowly and surely progressing during the time we've spent here in the suburbs of Sydney, our flight to the Gold Coast is today, Saturday September 5th (we'll try not to miss this one!) and we're ready to embrace the exctingly named Surfers Paradise for 3 months and all it has to offer.
We're booked into a hostel for the first couple of nights as we won't have any long term accomodation but hope to find somewhere cool quickly and then the jobs and routine will follow. I'm also planning to buy a trusty bicycle to carry me and my kitesurfng gear down to the beach whenever I feel like a sesh, that'll be everyday then! Apparently the distances are manageable there and not like the sprawling mass of cityscape that was LA.
So for now it's all about doing some sight-seeing with the Dobrees. Yesterday Mary took Loz and I up to the famous Blue Mountains which are situated a couple of hours drive out of Sydney and are home to The Three Sisters (a rock formation on the edge of the gauge). They're called the Blue Mountains because of all the eucalyptus gum trees in the gauge that give off a blue glow in the light, at least I think that's what Mary said!
Right, time to pack the bag...
Sunday 23 August 2009
Cabin Number 2
Hello there...
So this was going to be my second Hawaiian post before moving on to Oz but once again things have gotten in the way, times moved on and it's now going to be classified as my first post in Australia! Another month has passed and Maui has been and gone, but not without a fight. It seemed the island did not want us to leave and in a strike of unfortunateness we went and missed our flight to Sydney. Not by a minute, not by an hour....but by a whole day.
I have no idea how we got things so drastically wrong but I do know that it meant we were in America illegally for 3 days and have now lost our UK visa rights (not cool) but that I used the extra days to practice back rolls (cool).
I'm really happy with the amount I managed to get done whilst on the island, the last month had been an interesting and varied one with a dollop of beach, a spoonful of kite surfing, and a pinch of soul searching. By the end I'd seen loads of the island, pretty much all of it actually and I feel like I really know it inside out which was the grand plan.
So since my last post we've done a few more larger road trips and I finally got round to doing the Waihee Ridge Trail hike which nearly killed me (a VERY strenious 2 hour, 2,600ft uphill climb into the clouds to the mountain summit).
Our first road trip was a few weeks back and I call it the West Maui Loop as we did a loop of, well, West Maui. The drive is a circle and takes you along the top of the north cliffs, round to the touristy west coastal beaches of Lahaina town and south along the base of the mountain back to the starting point in Kahului.
It's a testing drive especiallly for Buck the truck who is almost wider than the actual road at some points but we made it round the windy corners without hitting another car or falling off the cliffs which is good, because we didn't have any insurance, oops.
Along the way we stopped at all the right places according to my guidebook and even managed to find Julie's stall which is quoted as having 'the best banana bread in the world', and yes it was really, really goooooood.
Our first stop were the Olvine Pools which are natural formation rockpools formed from sea erosion on the black lava. They were only discovered in recent years and now although a bit of a tourist trap were very pretty and worth seeing. There are about 5 different pools of different depths and colours (a coloured gem in the rock make them shimmer green in the sun) and with the pacific crashing dramatically against their edges it was a cool experience.
Next along the coast was the Nakalele Blowhole which is again formed from sea erosion and pumps a water spout high into the air when the sea pumping right. We were doing this trip a few days after a tropical depression had passed by the islands so luckily the sea was quite ferocious and it was exploding 30ft in the air!
By now it was mid afternoon and we hadn't even got to Lahaina yet but I wanted to squeeze in one more thing, locally called the Dragon's Teeth at Makalua-Puna Point. Hundreds of years of salt spray had whitened and eroded the lava into sharp points which kinda look like teeth, it was pretty cool except I didnt charge my camera the day before and annoyingly couldn't take any photos!
Then we got round to Lahaina, sat on a beach for Sunset and had a nice (but expensive) dinner. After that, it was highway all the way home and straight to bed.
On our last weekend in Maui I had arranged a 2 day camping trip around the island which actually worked out really well. The plan was to camp over night in Wai'ananapnapa State Park (that's the real name I promise!) just outside of Hana, the most eastern point of the island. We picked up our permits, packed the cooler with food and drink and got going on a bright sunny Saturday morning.
Again the trusty guidebook was used to get us to the extra special hideaways along the way and although the boys wern't too keen on stopping much we managed to see and do a lot the first day. My favourite things were a bamboo forest hike and eating/swimming at secret little waterfalls off the beaten track.
That evening we pulled into Wai'ananapanapa just before night fall and checked out the local black sand beach and caves which were quite scary in the dark. We had booked a cabin to sleep in and initially the plan was to live up to the stereotype of marshmallows and camp songs around the firepit but as darkness fell we felt more and more like we were in a 1950's horror film where the house gets surrounded by bugs and creepy crawlies are swarming all over the windows. Infact, there were so many flies, mosquitoes, lizards, spiders and cockroaches on the other side of those huge glass panes that I wouldn't sit near one let alone go outside and be eaten alive. Plus I also got paranoid that some serial killler was watching us from the woods and couldn't sleep so it fair to say it was a restless night.
So this was going to be my second Hawaiian post before moving on to Oz but once again things have gotten in the way, times moved on and it's now going to be classified as my first post in Australia! Another month has passed and Maui has been and gone, but not without a fight. It seemed the island did not want us to leave and in a strike of unfortunateness we went and missed our flight to Sydney. Not by a minute, not by an hour....but by a whole day.
I have no idea how we got things so drastically wrong but I do know that it meant we were in America illegally for 3 days and have now lost our UK visa rights (not cool) but that I used the extra days to practice back rolls (cool).
I'm really happy with the amount I managed to get done whilst on the island, the last month had been an interesting and varied one with a dollop of beach, a spoonful of kite surfing, and a pinch of soul searching. By the end I'd seen loads of the island, pretty much all of it actually and I feel like I really know it inside out which was the grand plan.
So since my last post we've done a few more larger road trips and I finally got round to doing the Waihee Ridge Trail hike which nearly killed me (a VERY strenious 2 hour, 2,600ft uphill climb into the clouds to the mountain summit).
Our first road trip was a few weeks back and I call it the West Maui Loop as we did a loop of, well, West Maui. The drive is a circle and takes you along the top of the north cliffs, round to the touristy west coastal beaches of Lahaina town and south along the base of the mountain back to the starting point in Kahului.
It's a testing drive especiallly for Buck the truck who is almost wider than the actual road at some points but we made it round the windy corners without hitting another car or falling off the cliffs which is good, because we didn't have any insurance, oops.
Along the way we stopped at all the right places according to my guidebook and even managed to find Julie's stall which is quoted as having 'the best banana bread in the world', and yes it was really, really goooooood.
Our first stop were the Olvine Pools which are natural formation rockpools formed from sea erosion on the black lava. They were only discovered in recent years and now although a bit of a tourist trap were very pretty and worth seeing. There are about 5 different pools of different depths and colours (a coloured gem in the rock make them shimmer green in the sun) and with the pacific crashing dramatically against their edges it was a cool experience.
Next along the coast was the Nakalele Blowhole which is again formed from sea erosion and pumps a water spout high into the air when the sea pumping right. We were doing this trip a few days after a tropical depression had passed by the islands so luckily the sea was quite ferocious and it was exploding 30ft in the air!
By now it was mid afternoon and we hadn't even got to Lahaina yet but I wanted to squeeze in one more thing, locally called the Dragon's Teeth at Makalua-Puna Point. Hundreds of years of salt spray had whitened and eroded the lava into sharp points which kinda look like teeth, it was pretty cool except I didnt charge my camera the day before and annoyingly couldn't take any photos!
Then we got round to Lahaina, sat on a beach for Sunset and had a nice (but expensive) dinner. After that, it was highway all the way home and straight to bed.
On our last weekend in Maui I had arranged a 2 day camping trip around the island which actually worked out really well. The plan was to camp over night in Wai'ananapnapa State Park (that's the real name I promise!) just outside of Hana, the most eastern point of the island. We picked up our permits, packed the cooler with food and drink and got going on a bright sunny Saturday morning.
Again the trusty guidebook was used to get us to the extra special hideaways along the way and although the boys wern't too keen on stopping much we managed to see and do a lot the first day. My favourite things were a bamboo forest hike and eating/swimming at secret little waterfalls off the beaten track.
That evening we pulled into Wai'ananapanapa just before night fall and checked out the local black sand beach and caves which were quite scary in the dark. We had booked a cabin to sleep in and initially the plan was to live up to the stereotype of marshmallows and camp songs around the firepit but as darkness fell we felt more and more like we were in a 1950's horror film where the house gets surrounded by bugs and creepy crawlies are swarming all over the windows. Infact, there were so many flies, mosquitoes, lizards, spiders and cockroaches on the other side of those huge glass panes that I wouldn't sit near one let alone go outside and be eaten alive. Plus I also got paranoid that some serial killler was watching us from the woods and couldn't sleep so it fair to say it was a restless night.
The next day we got going earlyish and started the drive around the south of Maui and towards more of Maui's natural attractions. We stopped at Hamoa Bay where there were some big waves to play in and then continued round to the Venus Pool, a freshwater and saltwater mix pool where the locals go to hang out and jump off the rocks.
As the afternoon wore on it was important for us to get through the baron sections of road and up to the volcano before sunset. Buck took some brutal batterings on the unpaved roads and to be honest i'm very suprised the rust didn't give way and everything fall through.but somehow he managed the 10,000ft climb and we thought our luck was in....but it wasn't. On the way back down our brakes stopped working for the SECOND time which is not what you need on a 20 mile steep downhill stretch...on the side of a volcano...in the dark. After pulling into a scenic view area in a panic and assessing the danger levels and risk of death we decided to carry on at 3mph with Loz pumping the emergency break and 3 hours later we somehow, and I have no idea how, got home safely. All fun and games when driving Buck!
After the Hana trip we had a few days to round things up before our flight to Oz. I kited everyday and Loz managed to flog the broken truck to a garage for $350, to be honest I didn't expect to get anything for it so that was a bonus! Then we suceeded in missing our flight by getting the wrong day and spent a night on the phone to Qantas, Hawaiian Airlines, STA Travel and American Immigration and paying the price for our stupid mistake. The next flight Qantas could put us on was in 5 days and I used those by kiting everyday and battering my body to the point of exhaustion.
When Tuesday 25th rolled around we had to be up at 4am, in a taxi at 4.30am, on a flight to Ohau at 6.00am and ready for boarding to Australia at 9.15am, all pretty crazy but second time round it went well and without a hitch.
Arriving in Sydney was a weird feeling. I don't know, I guess being thrown back into civilization was a shock to the system and not only that we were going from an all-year summer location to an Australian winter. We're now 9 hours ahead of the UK rather than behind and to top it all we lost a day and a half on a 10 hour flight. Our bodies are confused because the sun starts to fade at 4pm, the shadows get longer and there's a freshness in the air but still I have to say, even their winter days and better than a UK summer day, I think I may have to move here at some point.
So now we've been here 3 days and it's the morning of the 4th, our first few days were all about settling in and checking out the city which I really love and yesterday we got to explore a bit of northern Sydney and the national park area which was beautiful. Today I believe it's time to get down to research as our plans have changed and we will no longer be staying and working in Sydney for Sept, Oct and Nov but rather at Surfers Paradise in Queensland (This is Lauries fault from Maui as she recommended it!). We will come back to Sydney for the month of December and for Christmas and New Year though. Thinking ahead of that scares me so we'll leave it at that for now!
Ok, so that's it for now! Time to look into booking flights to the Gold Coast...
Sunday 9 August 2009
Boot Camp Paradise
Helloooooooo people!
I thought it was about time for a Hawaii update and as the pace of life is nice and slow here so I can't be blaimed for leaving it till now!
I've had lots of time to learn about the island in the last 2 weeks and our 'Maui Revealed' guidebook has hardly left my side whenever I leave the studio.
The island is actually pretty tiny and i've written up a mini list of things I want to achieve while here (no surprise there then).
My routine mainly consists of 2 things, beaching and kitesurfing. Not a bad routine!
Seeing as it's the best place in the world to do it I'm kiting often and doing the mingle thing with the locals. Kahana Beach doesn't seem to have the same localism issues that Kite Beach does and i'm really enjoying the freedom that taking to the sea alone gives me. In fact i'm full blown obsessed with it and the thought of not being able to kite 5 times a week makes me break into a sweat.
Maui is very varied and beautiful and there are many things to do when you have a car and the desire to explore. The boys don't seem so keen about the hikes as i do though so I'm getting out there and back to nature with myself for company.
Since my last post Buck has 'sort of' behaved himself with no more random scary incidents occurring whilst on the road. Until yesterday that is, when he ran out of gas halfway up the mountain while I was on a rare drive alone. Cheers Buck.
There I am trying to be all independent when I get left in the extremely undesirable situation of knocking on random residential doors trying to blag a lift back to my house for the forgotten gas tank. Did i mention our fuel gauge doesn't work!?
There are a few places that have become our regular day visits, these are Paia, Ho'opika, Baldwin Beach and Big Beach.
Paia is a very quaint little town with a surfer type population and oozes Maui charm. The buildings are wooden and painted all sorts of bright oolours, palms line the roads and little (pricey) boutiques suck peoples bank accounts dry. There's a great little coffee shop called Anthonys where we've become VERY familiar faces and i'm able to walk in and say 'the usual please' which is novel.
Ho'opika is a stretch of coastline with a small beach on the North shore that is widely known as the best windsurfing spot in the world. A pretty impressive claim for a little piece of island! It's fun to watch them zooming up and down like ants on a water motorway but no kiters are allowed so I can't join in there.
Baldwin Beach is beautiful, a golden strip of sand with artistic looking driftwood poking out of the sand at all angles. It's a great place to chill and i've taken to drinking a beer and listening to music as the sun goes down here.
Big Beach is Loz's favourite as there is a dangerous shorebreak present most of the time, perfect for bodyboarding. This wave is known for for its injury count and it's not unusual for people to break their necks and backs from being thrown over the lip and down onto the sand. Therefore I'm very careful when I go in the sea there and never turn my back to the ocean!
So last Monday we ventured to Twin Falls, a set of fairly touristy waterfalls buried in the jungle along the North Shore. Aside from giving the jurassic sized mosquitoes a tasty lunch it was a fun day trip and I got an extra buzz by wondering off the beaten track and discovering a much prettier and secluded waterfall away from anyone else. Playing under the falls was like something straight from a movie scene and I loved it. There are many more to be found but they will come during our road trip to Hana (more on that later).
On Tuesday we snuck down to Baldwin after dark and attempted a BBQ on the beach. Previous travellers had left a surprisingly well built fire pit made of reef stone accompanied by driftwood logs to sit on and although we had our fair share of problems (like Loz forgetting the grill for the meat!) we made some mean burgers and you know what they say...it's more about the experience than the food. Well, it was with us anyway!
Last Thursday I was itching to take the car and get some time in the mountain so I tried one of the small hikes mentioned in the guide book called the 'Waihe'e Valley Trail'. I was one of very few people on the trail and it was amazing to be walking around in the lush vegetation. However, as the sun began to set and the wind started its evening whisper in the trees above me the jungle definitely begun to take on an eerie atmosphere and I was glad to get to the end. I had to cross two swinging rope bridges and boulder hop some streams which added to the mini adventure but is probably as close to being Indiana Jones as i'll ever get.
I've been busy organising a few trips for us in the upcoming days but hurricane Felicia which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm is set to hit us tomorrow and is likely to keep us housebound for a day or two. Later this week i'm hoping to do a loop drive of west Maui and visit some of the sights in that part of the island, apparently there's an ocean blowhole formed from lava erosion which is worth a look.
Also, i'm dragging the boys on a 2 day road trip around the island which involves staying overnight in a remote little cabin in Hana on the eastern point. I'm really excited about it and know it'll be a feast for the eyes :)
It's just started raining, I can hear the drops on the wooden roof above me which is weird as it's the first rain i've had for almost 3 months. Had almost forgotten what it was like...bet you hate me for saying that?!
Anyway, time to watch some Dexter on the ipod and dream about kitesurfing (I wish i'd been born in a tropical location with wind as I know i'd be a professional by now!)
Ciao for now.
I thought it was about time for a Hawaii update and as the pace of life is nice and slow here so I can't be blaimed for leaving it till now!
I've had lots of time to learn about the island in the last 2 weeks and our 'Maui Revealed' guidebook has hardly left my side whenever I leave the studio.
The island is actually pretty tiny and i've written up a mini list of things I want to achieve while here (no surprise there then).
My routine mainly consists of 2 things, beaching and kitesurfing. Not a bad routine!
Seeing as it's the best place in the world to do it I'm kiting often and doing the mingle thing with the locals. Kahana Beach doesn't seem to have the same localism issues that Kite Beach does and i'm really enjoying the freedom that taking to the sea alone gives me. In fact i'm full blown obsessed with it and the thought of not being able to kite 5 times a week makes me break into a sweat.
Maui is very varied and beautiful and there are many things to do when you have a car and the desire to explore. The boys don't seem so keen about the hikes as i do though so I'm getting out there and back to nature with myself for company.
Since my last post Buck has 'sort of' behaved himself with no more random scary incidents occurring whilst on the road. Until yesterday that is, when he ran out of gas halfway up the mountain while I was on a rare drive alone. Cheers Buck.
There I am trying to be all independent when I get left in the extremely undesirable situation of knocking on random residential doors trying to blag a lift back to my house for the forgotten gas tank. Did i mention our fuel gauge doesn't work!?
There are a few places that have become our regular day visits, these are Paia, Ho'opika, Baldwin Beach and Big Beach.
Paia is a very quaint little town with a surfer type population and oozes Maui charm. The buildings are wooden and painted all sorts of bright oolours, palms line the roads and little (pricey) boutiques suck peoples bank accounts dry. There's a great little coffee shop called Anthonys where we've become VERY familiar faces and i'm able to walk in and say 'the usual please' which is novel.
Ho'opika is a stretch of coastline with a small beach on the North shore that is widely known as the best windsurfing spot in the world. A pretty impressive claim for a little piece of island! It's fun to watch them zooming up and down like ants on a water motorway but no kiters are allowed so I can't join in there.
Baldwin Beach is beautiful, a golden strip of sand with artistic looking driftwood poking out of the sand at all angles. It's a great place to chill and i've taken to drinking a beer and listening to music as the sun goes down here.
Big Beach is Loz's favourite as there is a dangerous shorebreak present most of the time, perfect for bodyboarding. This wave is known for for its injury count and it's not unusual for people to break their necks and backs from being thrown over the lip and down onto the sand. Therefore I'm very careful when I go in the sea there and never turn my back to the ocean!
So last Monday we ventured to Twin Falls, a set of fairly touristy waterfalls buried in the jungle along the North Shore. Aside from giving the jurassic sized mosquitoes a tasty lunch it was a fun day trip and I got an extra buzz by wondering off the beaten track and discovering a much prettier and secluded waterfall away from anyone else. Playing under the falls was like something straight from a movie scene and I loved it. There are many more to be found but they will come during our road trip to Hana (more on that later).
On Tuesday we snuck down to Baldwin after dark and attempted a BBQ on the beach. Previous travellers had left a surprisingly well built fire pit made of reef stone accompanied by driftwood logs to sit on and although we had our fair share of problems (like Loz forgetting the grill for the meat!) we made some mean burgers and you know what they say...it's more about the experience than the food. Well, it was with us anyway!
Last Thursday I was itching to take the car and get some time in the mountain so I tried one of the small hikes mentioned in the guide book called the 'Waihe'e Valley Trail'. I was one of very few people on the trail and it was amazing to be walking around in the lush vegetation. However, as the sun began to set and the wind started its evening whisper in the trees above me the jungle definitely begun to take on an eerie atmosphere and I was glad to get to the end. I had to cross two swinging rope bridges and boulder hop some streams which added to the mini adventure but is probably as close to being Indiana Jones as i'll ever get.
I've been busy organising a few trips for us in the upcoming days but hurricane Felicia which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm is set to hit us tomorrow and is likely to keep us housebound for a day or two. Later this week i'm hoping to do a loop drive of west Maui and visit some of the sights in that part of the island, apparently there's an ocean blowhole formed from lava erosion which is worth a look.
Also, i'm dragging the boys on a 2 day road trip around the island which involves staying overnight in a remote little cabin in Hana on the eastern point. I'm really excited about it and know it'll be a feast for the eyes :)
It's just started raining, I can hear the drops on the wooden roof above me which is weird as it's the first rain i've had for almost 3 months. Had almost forgotten what it was like...bet you hate me for saying that?!
Anyway, time to watch some Dexter on the ipod and dream about kitesurfing (I wish i'd been born in a tropical location with wind as I know i'd be a professional by now!)
Ciao for now.
Monday 27 July 2009
The smell of fear
The title of this entry says it all. Our first two days in Maui have been, shall we say, testing.
We very quickly realised that we needed a car, and fast. Not only does everyone have one but it is essential because most of the best places are not done by bus. Also highly important was access to Kite Beach for me and a good wave for Loz so on our first morning we got onto Craigslist and started looking.
4 hours later and after trekking to the other side of the island we were the proud owners of a 1986 Ford Bronco, complete with leaking transmission, leaking tire, broken fuel gauge and the most retro interior you’ve ever seen. But Buck (after a bucking bronco) as he’s been christened was ours for $650, a pure bargain.
However, this is where the fun begins. Loz and I decided to take the north road back to Kahului (where we live) instead of the south road, the way we’d come on the bus. We didn’t know this at the time but this was like saying I’m going to swim to France instead of take the Euro tunnel. What we also didn’t know was that Rob, our not so reliable vendor had sold us the truck with a near empty fuel tank and as the gauge doesn’t work, this was NOT cool.
So off we set of in high spirits and began the journey north around the coast stopping at a local vista spot in the middle of nowhere to take some pics. It was only when the engine wouldn’t start up again that we looked over at each other, panic replacing the jolly smiles of seconds before. We tried again…nothing. Turning over but not firing up. My stress levels were heightened by the 100ft cliff drop meters behind our dead truck.
Thanks to the guardian angels some randoms on vacation came down to the vista point not long after and drove Loz back to a gas station complete with our portable gas tank (which I’d luckily negotiated from Rob) to get fuel. It turned out that was the problem and nothing mechanical but it was still an unnecessarily grim situation to be in.
The portable gas tank only gave us 2 gallons worth of fuel and seeing as Buck is a real gas guzzler we were playing with fire the whole way home, especially on the 8 mile stretch of steep uphill single lane death trap roads we had to negotiate. The journey consisted of Loz swearing and me screaming.
Unfortunately Buck failed on us once again 3 miles from home and I had to do the demeaning hitchhike thumbs up pose to get more gas with complete randoms.
It was safe to say that when I got back to the studio that night I was emotionally shot to pieces.
And finally…that brings me to today. Today we’d planned to have a nice relaxing beach day. We wanted to drive to Paia and relaxxxx. But Buck wasn’t through with us….just as I’m cruising down the highway we started to smell something, something similar to burning rubber on steel. Oh hang on, that’s exactly what it was.
We arrived in Paia and suddenly the brakes didn’t work, they just didn’t work! It was like pushing my foot into a sponge. There was some more screaming and I managed to stop the car with the emergency stop break. We got out and the truck was smoking, an intensely rank smell filling the air. More looks of horror from Loz and I followed by quickened heartbeats.
I think the guardian angels have had to hire out extra help to look after us because this next bit is weird. I’m feeling utterly miserable at this point and we go to the local gas station to see if they know a mechanic that might be available on a Sunday. In our heads all we can think about are the $$$.
Then as I’m telling the cashier our brakes are $*#!ed a slightly eccentric but nice local guy standing behind me says he does brakes and will come take and look and do them for us there and then. I couldn’t believe it and still can’t.
This guy, replaced all our front brake pads which it turned out were NON-EXISTENT for $50. I still don’t know what we would have done without him…probably be sitting back in Paia crying.
Anyway, we got home and are praying Buck behaves himself from this day on. We’re going to attempt the Paia beach day again tomorrow and erase today from our minds.
I don’t think Maui is what Loz what expecting at first, it’s quite shanty townish in areas and pretty isolated. There’s a strong feeling of localism in some of the towns but having been to Antigua I’m finding it quite similar to my experiences there and really like it. There’s definitely going to be lots to explore over the days.
Right now it’s 2.30am and I’m off to nurse these blistered fingertips in some ice so I’ll be able to write the next entry in much better time than this one! Night night zzzzzzz.
We very quickly realised that we needed a car, and fast. Not only does everyone have one but it is essential because most of the best places are not done by bus. Also highly important was access to Kite Beach for me and a good wave for Loz so on our first morning we got onto Craigslist and started looking.
4 hours later and after trekking to the other side of the island we were the proud owners of a 1986 Ford Bronco, complete with leaking transmission, leaking tire, broken fuel gauge and the most retro interior you’ve ever seen. But Buck (after a bucking bronco) as he’s been christened was ours for $650, a pure bargain.
However, this is where the fun begins. Loz and I decided to take the north road back to Kahului (where we live) instead of the south road, the way we’d come on the bus. We didn’t know this at the time but this was like saying I’m going to swim to France instead of take the Euro tunnel. What we also didn’t know was that Rob, our not so reliable vendor had sold us the truck with a near empty fuel tank and as the gauge doesn’t work, this was NOT cool.
So off we set of in high spirits and began the journey north around the coast stopping at a local vista spot in the middle of nowhere to take some pics. It was only when the engine wouldn’t start up again that we looked over at each other, panic replacing the jolly smiles of seconds before. We tried again…nothing. Turning over but not firing up. My stress levels were heightened by the 100ft cliff drop meters behind our dead truck.
Thanks to the guardian angels some randoms on vacation came down to the vista point not long after and drove Loz back to a gas station complete with our portable gas tank (which I’d luckily negotiated from Rob) to get fuel. It turned out that was the problem and nothing mechanical but it was still an unnecessarily grim situation to be in.
The portable gas tank only gave us 2 gallons worth of fuel and seeing as Buck is a real gas guzzler we were playing with fire the whole way home, especially on the 8 mile stretch of steep uphill single lane death trap roads we had to negotiate. The journey consisted of Loz swearing and me screaming.
Unfortunately Buck failed on us once again 3 miles from home and I had to do the demeaning hitchhike thumbs up pose to get more gas with complete randoms.
It was safe to say that when I got back to the studio that night I was emotionally shot to pieces.
And finally…that brings me to today. Today we’d planned to have a nice relaxing beach day. We wanted to drive to Paia and relaxxxx. But Buck wasn’t through with us….just as I’m cruising down the highway we started to smell something, something similar to burning rubber on steel. Oh hang on, that’s exactly what it was.
We arrived in Paia and suddenly the brakes didn’t work, they just didn’t work! It was like pushing my foot into a sponge. There was some more screaming and I managed to stop the car with the emergency stop break. We got out and the truck was smoking, an intensely rank smell filling the air. More looks of horror from Loz and I followed by quickened heartbeats.
I think the guardian angels have had to hire out extra help to look after us because this next bit is weird. I’m feeling utterly miserable at this point and we go to the local gas station to see if they know a mechanic that might be available on a Sunday. In our heads all we can think about are the $$$.
Then as I’m telling the cashier our brakes are $*#!ed a slightly eccentric but nice local guy standing behind me says he does brakes and will come take and look and do them for us there and then. I couldn’t believe it and still can’t.
This guy, replaced all our front brake pads which it turned out were NON-EXISTENT for $50. I still don’t know what we would have done without him…probably be sitting back in Paia crying.
Anyway, we got home and are praying Buck behaves himself from this day on. We’re going to attempt the Paia beach day again tomorrow and erase today from our minds.
I don’t think Maui is what Loz what expecting at first, it’s quite shanty townish in areas and pretty isolated. There’s a strong feeling of localism in some of the towns but having been to Antigua I’m finding it quite similar to my experiences there and really like it. There’s definitely going to be lots to explore over the days.
Right now it’s 2.30am and I’m off to nurse these blistered fingertips in some ice so I’ll be able to write the next entry in much better time than this one! Night night zzzzzzz.
Route 1 and beyond
At 8.00am on Sunday 21st Chris drove us to Long Beach airport and we picked up the trusty convertible that was to take us up the coast. I’d specially ordered a Mustang so was pissed off to say the least when the Avis rep said “I’m afraid we’ve only got a Chrysler here for you”…incompetent fool.
Anyway, life is too short to stress so we took the alternative convertible and with the wind in our hair left LA with Chris and Kerin in tow for our first stop Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara was very pretty and the 4 of us spent the afternoon eating Mexican and chatting before the sun began to set and we were forced to say our goodbyes. I think doing it there was easier than if we’d been in LA because it was new territory and mutual ground without memories attached. It was a sad moment and as soon as we drove away Loz and I both admitted we felt a weird sense of loneliness once again. Something we hadn‘t had since day 1.
Our first over night stop was Pismo Beach, about 2 hours drive further north so with map in hand we set off back onto route 1. We managed to get lost a couple of times, nothing serious and once ending up at a really eerie dead end on the coast complete with a deserted rail station shrouded in mist. We made it to Pismo in the dark though and all worked out ok.
I was excited about our second day (Monday 22nd) as we were going to drive the most famous and beautiful stretch of route 1 through Big Sur state park. We started the day with a traditional freshly baked cinnamon roll, filled up the tank and set off into the sun. On numerous occasions we pulled the car over to admire the gorgeous views and it really put the cherry on the Chrysler shaped cake.
That evening the weather took a turn for the English so we made our visit to Carmel Beach a quick one and checked into the Travelodge in Monterey Bay as the clouds rolled in.
Our final leg of the drive was from Monterey to San Francisco so I got behind the wheel and did the last hundred miles. It was kinda cold and cloudy and really highlighted the difference between north, central and south California. The coastline becomes rugged, rocky, grassy and windswept as opposed to one of hot, sandy and palmed lined oceans.
We cruised into San Fran around 3pm and rocked up to the address we were staying at which was an unbelievably nice flat in a great location, score! (We managed to save $60 by staying with the friend of a friend). After unpacking we had a tight 45 mins to tick off the Golden Gate bridge box before having to return the car so zoomed towards the coast, crossed the bridge, took photos and then zoomed back.
Wednesday and Thursday Loz and I spent exploring the city and seeing the tourist hotspots. Just like our first few weeks in LA we’d brought bad weather with us and it was down in 15 degrees, not cool, so I felt more like watching tv in the flat then exploring the local parks. Highlights of SF were the all you can eat curry buffet for $10 and Loz splashing out on an underwater camera for Maui (excuse the pun).
And then it was Friday, travel day. I’ll cut out the boring bits so basically we were picked up at 6.00am from the apartment in San Fran and 9 hours and 34 minutes later we touched down in Maui yay! (with a secret frappuchino squeezed in there somewhere)
As we walked off the plane I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a fully dressed up authentic Hawaiian lady holding a placard with our names on. ‘Us??’ I said as she draped a lay of beautiful fresh flowers over our necks! It turned out Kerin (who’ll be visiting us in our 3rd week) had secretly arranged for a flower company to greet us in the traditional way as his little surprise treat. It was very touching and made us smile from ear to ear.
*Trivial fact* - Last week Kerin won the grand final of Wipeout (the ridiculous water game show) and is the new owner of $50,000. We watched it on tv in San Fran with our mouths wide open as we had no idea. He hadn’t been allowed to tell us and had been hiding the news for weeks!)
Unfortunately things went a bit pear shaped when the baggage conveyor belt stopped and Loz’s body boards hadn’t appeared yet. Turns they were still back in Honolulu, oops. He has them back now though.
That evening we made ourselves at home in our little beach house studio, introduced ourselves to Brad and Hannah (who we’re renting from) and made a trip to the local grocery store for some painfully overpriced essentials.
Keep reading for part 3!…
Anyway, life is too short to stress so we took the alternative convertible and with the wind in our hair left LA with Chris and Kerin in tow for our first stop Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara was very pretty and the 4 of us spent the afternoon eating Mexican and chatting before the sun began to set and we were forced to say our goodbyes. I think doing it there was easier than if we’d been in LA because it was new territory and mutual ground without memories attached. It was a sad moment and as soon as we drove away Loz and I both admitted we felt a weird sense of loneliness once again. Something we hadn‘t had since day 1.
Our first over night stop was Pismo Beach, about 2 hours drive further north so with map in hand we set off back onto route 1. We managed to get lost a couple of times, nothing serious and once ending up at a really eerie dead end on the coast complete with a deserted rail station shrouded in mist. We made it to Pismo in the dark though and all worked out ok.
I was excited about our second day (Monday 22nd) as we were going to drive the most famous and beautiful stretch of route 1 through Big Sur state park. We started the day with a traditional freshly baked cinnamon roll, filled up the tank and set off into the sun. On numerous occasions we pulled the car over to admire the gorgeous views and it really put the cherry on the Chrysler shaped cake.
That evening the weather took a turn for the English so we made our visit to Carmel Beach a quick one and checked into the Travelodge in Monterey Bay as the clouds rolled in.
Our final leg of the drive was from Monterey to San Francisco so I got behind the wheel and did the last hundred miles. It was kinda cold and cloudy and really highlighted the difference between north, central and south California. The coastline becomes rugged, rocky, grassy and windswept as opposed to one of hot, sandy and palmed lined oceans.
We cruised into San Fran around 3pm and rocked up to the address we were staying at which was an unbelievably nice flat in a great location, score! (We managed to save $60 by staying with the friend of a friend). After unpacking we had a tight 45 mins to tick off the Golden Gate bridge box before having to return the car so zoomed towards the coast, crossed the bridge, took photos and then zoomed back.
Wednesday and Thursday Loz and I spent exploring the city and seeing the tourist hotspots. Just like our first few weeks in LA we’d brought bad weather with us and it was down in 15 degrees, not cool, so I felt more like watching tv in the flat then exploring the local parks. Highlights of SF were the all you can eat curry buffet for $10 and Loz splashing out on an underwater camera for Maui (excuse the pun).
And then it was Friday, travel day. I’ll cut out the boring bits so basically we were picked up at 6.00am from the apartment in San Fran and 9 hours and 34 minutes later we touched down in Maui yay! (with a secret frappuchino squeezed in there somewhere)
As we walked off the plane I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a fully dressed up authentic Hawaiian lady holding a placard with our names on. ‘Us??’ I said as she draped a lay of beautiful fresh flowers over our necks! It turned out Kerin (who’ll be visiting us in our 3rd week) had secretly arranged for a flower company to greet us in the traditional way as his little surprise treat. It was very touching and made us smile from ear to ear.
*Trivial fact* - Last week Kerin won the grand final of Wipeout (the ridiculous water game show) and is the new owner of $50,000. We watched it on tv in San Fran with our mouths wide open as we had no idea. He hadn’t been allowed to tell us and had been hiding the news for weeks!)
Unfortunately things went a bit pear shaped when the baggage conveyor belt stopped and Loz’s body boards hadn’t appeared yet. Turns they were still back in Honolulu, oops. He has them back now though.
That evening we made ourselves at home in our little beach house studio, introduced ourselves to Brad and Hannah (who we’re renting from) and made a trip to the local grocery store for some painfully overpriced essentials.
Keep reading for part 3!…
The end of an era
Hello hello it’s been a while, ridiculously too long and so much has been going on…
Loz and I have made it to Maui and I can’t believe our California leg is over! Time really did fly those 8 weeks and we both feel pretty down about leaving. We’d fallen into the best house in the best area with amazing friends and loved the way of life…maybe a second Long Beach visit will be added next summer. Maui should be what we need though, a detox from the fairly unhealthy way on life we’d been living, too many burgers and far too much boozing!
On that note, a couple of Friday’s ago we decided to go for a more local night out, i.e something not in Hollywood that would cost a fortune so ended up at Long Beaches finest the Shore Ultra Lounge. It was a messy but very fun night with Chris, Kerin, Roman, Diana and Loz. A couple of the kite guys from the beach came along too and seemed happy to buy us drinks so that was all good!
Photographic evidence the next day told us a better story than our memories did and apparently we’d been playing with Chris’s selection of drunk paraphernalia at 4am, things like a trombone, accordion, recorder and the infamous turkey hat.
On the Saturday morning I felt less than ok but got a phone call at 8.30am ordering me to get up and ready to go to Malibu with the Naish crew! Better to do that than sit wallowing in a hangover so in an extreme amount of effort I got ready.
I’d been told that Malibu would test me with much stronger wind, narrower beaches and kelp beds in the water which you have to avoid running into. But going there that day was the best decision ever and I broke through a barrier which has got me up to speed for Maui’s conditions. (I did get stuck in the kelp once and it felt like I was in a scene from Harry Potter, being pulled under by fat watery tentacles.)
Sunday was our leaving do brunch at Spagatinis, a posh jazz club with an unlimited 5 star buffet and drinks. Unfortunately neither Loz or I had truly recovered from Friday and couldn’t really take advantage of the free champagne. There were 7 of us and we had a great day eating in the sun and listening to the music.
I can’t believe I haven’t even written about Magic Mountain and Disneyland! Ok sooooo…..last Monday Chris and I went to MM together. It was exactly what I’d been looking for, hardcore steel structures and twisted metal rising from the ground ready to throw me around. We spent the entire day there from 11am till 10pm and cheated the corporate money grabbing system by taking our own packed lunch which we ate in the 105 degree heat. It was absolutely boiling during the day as MM is inland and doesn’t receive the coastal breezes so was actually more pleasant around 5pm when the park emptied out and sun went down. That was my first time riding coasters in the dark and it was awesome, UK parks should do it, not just once a year on Halloween but everyday.
I remember seeing a program on a weird channel 5 or 6 years ago called ‘Extreme Rides’ and have always longed to ride the acid green loops of ‘Riddlers Revenge’ and there I was standing underneath it! It’s a stand up coaster so you’re actually standing in your harness while doing huge loops, twists and inversions, very cool.
Other favourites were Superman where you’re propelled forwards and vertically up into the air way above the desert, Tatsu where you’re literally flying and X2, their newest ride. X2 is the closest you’ll feel to being completely out of control and facing near certain death….love it!
The next day (last Tues) I went down to Belmont to kite and bumped into Nudge who was doing a lesson with somebody. The pressure was on as this was the first time he’d seen me kite and luckily my trip to Malibu meant I impressed him woohoo! That evening Loz and I popped into our neighbours apartment to see their 2 day old baby. When we met them Sarah was 8 months pregnant so it was crazy to actually see the baby.
On Weds I went kiting again and at the end of the day went to the local greek restaurant for some drinks with Hank and Brittney which was really nice. I’d really enjoyed chilling at the beach with them and was sad to be at our ‘last supper’ together. And later that evening Brian had invited us round for his last supper and prepared a gorgeous pie (his own secret recipe). We got a tour of the Watson crib, drank wine and chatted into the night.
Then it was Thursday which was Disney time…There must be something infectious about the excitement of Disneyland because although I like the films I’ve never particularly longed to visit the park. However, the night before going I found it hard to get to sleep and then I woke up on the hour at 6am, 7am and 8am!
Kerin picked us up at 9am and we took a mini detour to the coffee house (I’ve developed a fairly serious addiction to frappuchinos out here) before heading out to the land of happiness and magic.
It was another scorching day and the park was more crowded than I’d have liked even though it was a weekday however I’m told that Disneyland is ALWAYS crowded. I found myself having to seriously adjust my theme park radar because it’s about as far from the Magic Mountain fear levels as you can get but it was very fun and I can see how it’d be a dream come true for kids.
Part of me wishes adults could once again achieve that truly lost in the moment, all consuming wonder and magic that only a child’s undeveloped brain can access…but I was more concerned with how much a cheese and ham sandwich had just cost me.
We met some of the characters, rode most of the rides (ran out of time at the end even though we stayed till midnight) and watched the extremely extravagant fireworks and water show which put London’s New Year ones to shame (and Disneys happen every single night!).
…But I do have to admit, as Micky waved his wand and Goofy, Buzz Lightyear and the seven dwarfs floated by on a big white boat singing about the power of imagination I felt pretty damn good.
The next day was to be my last down at the beach kiting and I made the most of it by staying in the water for hours. Todd even gave me a cd with the pictures he’d taken of me kiting back in Malibu which I was very grateful for. That evening we threw a going away party and had around 25 people come over and cause much mayhem. The night ended at 5am with the karaoke machine out and me wailing ‘Let it Be’ into the microphone.
So that brings us to last Saturday. We’d booked Harry Potter tickets for the IMAX 3D experience and were all pretty excited about going, the only problem was that it turned out only the first 5 minutes were in 3D!!! WHAT A CON! I hate false advertising.
Yeah the film was good but we’d paid $17 to see HP in 3D and it wasn’t! Simpson was fuming.
Luckily there was a women giving out feedback forms about the film outside the exit and you can be sure I vented my opinions onto it, oh yes I did.
Loz and I spent the rest of the day putting together a little present for Chris. We’d had 4 photos from different points in our trip developed (Grand Canyon, Vegas, Hollywood) and put them in a frame for him. It was a nice way to end the day and the trip.
I’m going to split this gigantic update into three entries so part 2 about the road trip coming up…
Loz and I have made it to Maui and I can’t believe our California leg is over! Time really did fly those 8 weeks and we both feel pretty down about leaving. We’d fallen into the best house in the best area with amazing friends and loved the way of life…maybe a second Long Beach visit will be added next summer. Maui should be what we need though, a detox from the fairly unhealthy way on life we’d been living, too many burgers and far too much boozing!
On that note, a couple of Friday’s ago we decided to go for a more local night out, i.e something not in Hollywood that would cost a fortune so ended up at Long Beaches finest the Shore Ultra Lounge. It was a messy but very fun night with Chris, Kerin, Roman, Diana and Loz. A couple of the kite guys from the beach came along too and seemed happy to buy us drinks so that was all good!
Photographic evidence the next day told us a better story than our memories did and apparently we’d been playing with Chris’s selection of drunk paraphernalia at 4am, things like a trombone, accordion, recorder and the infamous turkey hat.
On the Saturday morning I felt less than ok but got a phone call at 8.30am ordering me to get up and ready to go to Malibu with the Naish crew! Better to do that than sit wallowing in a hangover so in an extreme amount of effort I got ready.
I’d been told that Malibu would test me with much stronger wind, narrower beaches and kelp beds in the water which you have to avoid running into. But going there that day was the best decision ever and I broke through a barrier which has got me up to speed for Maui’s conditions. (I did get stuck in the kelp once and it felt like I was in a scene from Harry Potter, being pulled under by fat watery tentacles.)
Sunday was our leaving do brunch at Spagatinis, a posh jazz club with an unlimited 5 star buffet and drinks. Unfortunately neither Loz or I had truly recovered from Friday and couldn’t really take advantage of the free champagne. There were 7 of us and we had a great day eating in the sun and listening to the music.
I can’t believe I haven’t even written about Magic Mountain and Disneyland! Ok sooooo…..last Monday Chris and I went to MM together. It was exactly what I’d been looking for, hardcore steel structures and twisted metal rising from the ground ready to throw me around. We spent the entire day there from 11am till 10pm and cheated the corporate money grabbing system by taking our own packed lunch which we ate in the 105 degree heat. It was absolutely boiling during the day as MM is inland and doesn’t receive the coastal breezes so was actually more pleasant around 5pm when the park emptied out and sun went down. That was my first time riding coasters in the dark and it was awesome, UK parks should do it, not just once a year on Halloween but everyday.
I remember seeing a program on a weird channel 5 or 6 years ago called ‘Extreme Rides’ and have always longed to ride the acid green loops of ‘Riddlers Revenge’ and there I was standing underneath it! It’s a stand up coaster so you’re actually standing in your harness while doing huge loops, twists and inversions, very cool.
Other favourites were Superman where you’re propelled forwards and vertically up into the air way above the desert, Tatsu where you’re literally flying and X2, their newest ride. X2 is the closest you’ll feel to being completely out of control and facing near certain death….love it!
The next day (last Tues) I went down to Belmont to kite and bumped into Nudge who was doing a lesson with somebody. The pressure was on as this was the first time he’d seen me kite and luckily my trip to Malibu meant I impressed him woohoo! That evening Loz and I popped into our neighbours apartment to see their 2 day old baby. When we met them Sarah was 8 months pregnant so it was crazy to actually see the baby.
On Weds I went kiting again and at the end of the day went to the local greek restaurant for some drinks with Hank and Brittney which was really nice. I’d really enjoyed chilling at the beach with them and was sad to be at our ‘last supper’ together. And later that evening Brian had invited us round for his last supper and prepared a gorgeous pie (his own secret recipe). We got a tour of the Watson crib, drank wine and chatted into the night.
Then it was Thursday which was Disney time…There must be something infectious about the excitement of Disneyland because although I like the films I’ve never particularly longed to visit the park. However, the night before going I found it hard to get to sleep and then I woke up on the hour at 6am, 7am and 8am!
Kerin picked us up at 9am and we took a mini detour to the coffee house (I’ve developed a fairly serious addiction to frappuchinos out here) before heading out to the land of happiness and magic.
It was another scorching day and the park was more crowded than I’d have liked even though it was a weekday however I’m told that Disneyland is ALWAYS crowded. I found myself having to seriously adjust my theme park radar because it’s about as far from the Magic Mountain fear levels as you can get but it was very fun and I can see how it’d be a dream come true for kids.
Part of me wishes adults could once again achieve that truly lost in the moment, all consuming wonder and magic that only a child’s undeveloped brain can access…but I was more concerned with how much a cheese and ham sandwich had just cost me.
We met some of the characters, rode most of the rides (ran out of time at the end even though we stayed till midnight) and watched the extremely extravagant fireworks and water show which put London’s New Year ones to shame (and Disneys happen every single night!).
…But I do have to admit, as Micky waved his wand and Goofy, Buzz Lightyear and the seven dwarfs floated by on a big white boat singing about the power of imagination I felt pretty damn good.
The next day was to be my last down at the beach kiting and I made the most of it by staying in the water for hours. Todd even gave me a cd with the pictures he’d taken of me kiting back in Malibu which I was very grateful for. That evening we threw a going away party and had around 25 people come over and cause much mayhem. The night ended at 5am with the karaoke machine out and me wailing ‘Let it Be’ into the microphone.
So that brings us to last Saturday. We’d booked Harry Potter tickets for the IMAX 3D experience and were all pretty excited about going, the only problem was that it turned out only the first 5 minutes were in 3D!!! WHAT A CON! I hate false advertising.
Yeah the film was good but we’d paid $17 to see HP in 3D and it wasn’t! Simpson was fuming.
Luckily there was a women giving out feedback forms about the film outside the exit and you can be sure I vented my opinions onto it, oh yes I did.
Loz and I spent the rest of the day putting together a little present for Chris. We’d had 4 photos from different points in our trip developed (Grand Canyon, Vegas, Hollywood) and put them in a frame for him. It was a nice way to end the day and the trip.
I’m going to split this gigantic update into three entries so part 2 about the road trip coming up…
Friday 10 July 2009
Emergency Update...
Arghhhhhhhhhhh Kerin has just revealed that he's managed to get Loz and I FREE tickets to Disneyland!!!!
This is completely unexpected, so with Magic Mountain on Monday and now Disneyland on Thursday I am toooooooo excited!
This is completely unexpected, so with Magic Mountain on Monday and now Disneyland on Thursday I am toooooooo excited!
Wednesday 8 July 2009
Time Flies!
I can't believe it's 10 days since I posted....well, actually I can because i've been feeling guilty about not writing one for the last 4...
The days are whizzing past, how are we nearly coming to the end of our LA experience?! Extending our time here to 2 months was 100% the right decision and i'm so glad we did it. I feel that when the 19th swings around (our leaving date) i'll have done everything I wanted to achieve by this point and maxed out Long Beach's resources.
It's been a fun filled, jam packed 6 weeks and when I think back to everything we've done I can't believe how amazing it's been and I couldn't have asked for a better start to the trip.
Vegas, camping, Grand Canyon, Loz's birthday, Hollywood nights out, day trips up and down the coast, July 4th and i'm especially pleased with the scary times i've been through to get to where I am now with the kiting. It seems like a very long time ago I was cycling down to Huntington Beach in search of my Aussie instructor and now I've had all my lessons, bought the kit (i'm about to get a second kite too oops!) and am up and riding.
Last week was an intensive water week and I spent Monday to Friday day times down on Belmont hanging out with the crew. I'm pretty settled in there now and the banter's flowing between us so all is good...it's sad i'm leaving! It was a good week for kiting with nice wind and I managed to travel upwind a bit.
Last Monday evening Kerin was up for going to see Transformers 2 which Loz and Chris were also keen to see. I on the other hand had vague memories of attempting to sit through Transformers 1 during my ski trip last year and thinking it was a pile of crap so wasn't so excited at the prospect. I'm not one to judge on a past experience so thought I'd go along for the ride and give it a 2nd shot.....and 3 hours later wished I hadn't. What a waste of my life that was. *note to self - ALWAYS trust your instincts and never give anything a 2nd attempt*
After kiting on Wednesday Hank and the crew took me and Loz to Racals, a restaurant that specialises in dishes with teriyake sauce. It was cool to try something new even if the burgers were a little weird! There were so many obese people in there though, realllly American.
On Thursday Loz and I rediscovered our love for Yoghurt Land. Such a good concept, self serve flavoured yoghurts followed by a multitude of amazing toppings, sauces, fruits, sweets, whatever you want! It's pretty cheap too for the amount you get. So now our daily routine includes taking the beach cruisers for a spin down 2nd street and serving up the creamy goodness.
Friday we did the same, some post kiting Yoghurt Land followed by a spontanious meal out with Chris down 2nd Street. We went to Magic Lamp which is all Moroccan inspired deco and food complete with a crazy waiter with multiple personalities. He kept serving us wine to taste in the hope we would buy a glass but with the thought of our limited funds in the back of our heads we just led him on and didn't haha. It was a nice, relatively healthy evening to prepare us for the completely unhealthy day to follow.
So then it was Saturday July 4th, Indepedence Day. Celebration of all things American. We live in a picturesque little part of Long Beach where everyone smiles and happiness fills the air so the vibe was buzzing, the sun shining and people began drinking as soon as they rose in the morning.
There's a little patch of beach just next to the marina dubbed 'Horny Corner' as it's where all the 18-25 yr olds hang out and is apparently the place to be on July 4th so we set up base camp with some tiki torches and blankets on the sand for the day.
The next 15 hours are a bit of a blur but involved meeting many new people all over the place, blagging endless free food and drink and laughing a lot!
One highlight was Ryan's BBQ (Loz's gym buddy) where there was a MASSIVE tray of cookies and just generally loads of yummy things to eat. We met a really funny random girl there called Libby who just couldn't get enough of our accent and the way we said stuff. She just wanted me to speak at her the whole time, and because we were both tipsy in the hot Cali sun we both found this ridiculously hirlarious.
In the evening after a few more random house parties we made our way down to another address we'd been invited to earlier at Horny Corner. We'd been told there was a big apartment complex party going on but didn't know what to expect so rocked up with open minds.
When we arrived there wasn't anyone about but there was a table of alcohol which Loz spotted immediately and began storing away! However within minutes a Dj plastered with American flags appeared and started spinning some tunes. There wern't loads of people, maybe 15 or so but we had fun and sat round the big firepit by the jacuzzi smoking shisha pipe which reminded me of my holiday in Egypt.
We also met Roman and Diana, a couple who lived in one of the apartments and asked us to come up to their place for more beers once everyone had left. Seeing as there were 4 of us we felt safe to go and joined them for some 1am-4am random chatting and socialising. That's what i'm loving about the combination of travelling and Americans, the kindness and openess of the people combined with the spontaniaty of my situation.
Nothing much happened on Sunday apart from more Yoghurt Land and spag bol in the evening :)
So that brings us to this week which i'm disturbed to say hasn't involved any kiting as yet. The deathly winds and evil coral reefs of Maui approach and I need as much practice as I can get.
Monday morning I had my weekly chiropractor appointment with Bob which is keeping me out of any kind of pain and running well for now. I spent the day on the beach waiting for wind but it never came so ended up playing beach vollyball with Roman, Diana, Loz and a few other randoms.
Tuesday Loz and I ventured down to Huntington on the bus, it'd been over 2 weeks since i'd last gone so was nice to have a change of scenery. We roasted away in the sun and I even made it into the sea for a decent swim.
That evening we rented the 5th Harry Potter film out to remind ourselves of the storyline as Chris, Kerin, Loz and I are going to see the new one the day it comes out (July 15th) in IMAX 3D!
Yesterday Roman and Diana had kindly offered to drive us to places that we hadn't yet seen around LA (due to the shockingly awful public transport) so we crossed lots of boxes all at once.
We started at the Staples Center, home of the LA Lakers basketball team. We'd gone there to see the Michael Jackson memorial wall, write a message, be part of history etc but it'd been taken down, grim! There were still press there and it was crazy to think only 24hrs before his body and all those famous faces were standing right where we were.
From there we moved onto the Disney Concert Hall which is designed by architect Frank Gehry and is an impressive building. It's funny because I completely guessed it was designed by Mr Gehry just because it looks so similar to my ring which he also designed.
In the afternoon Roman cruised up to Santa Monica and we took a stroll down the pier while sipping (actually more like downing) my frappuchino. Santa Monica is kept spic and span with every palm being trimmed to perfection. It feels very, very 'california' and i'm glad we got to see it.
After that we drove down through Manhattan Beach and on to Redondo. We drove up the cliff and took in the awe-inspiring view of the pacific from above. Apparently some days you can see the whales in the seas below but we didn't spot anything except a curtain of seaweed.
Our last stop was back up the coast to Venice where we ate burritos and drank margaritas in a local bar. They had baseball on the screens and a nice fire pit flaming away too which all added to the good vibes that day.
We've got some exciting things lined up before we depart, this Sunday is our leaving brunch at Spagatini, a plush jazz bar that does an all you can eat and drink 5 star buffet. We've got around 15 people coming so should be fun.
Also, on Monday i'm heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park with Chris...Loz isn't a fan of the coasters so is going to take a 'rain check' on this outing. This park looks like the scariest experience i'm ever going to subject myself to and i'm a cross between excited/nervous/really bloody scared.
Will update next week to let you know i'm still in the land of the living!
The days are whizzing past, how are we nearly coming to the end of our LA experience?! Extending our time here to 2 months was 100% the right decision and i'm so glad we did it. I feel that when the 19th swings around (our leaving date) i'll have done everything I wanted to achieve by this point and maxed out Long Beach's resources.
It's been a fun filled, jam packed 6 weeks and when I think back to everything we've done I can't believe how amazing it's been and I couldn't have asked for a better start to the trip.
Vegas, camping, Grand Canyon, Loz's birthday, Hollywood nights out, day trips up and down the coast, July 4th and i'm especially pleased with the scary times i've been through to get to where I am now with the kiting. It seems like a very long time ago I was cycling down to Huntington Beach in search of my Aussie instructor and now I've had all my lessons, bought the kit (i'm about to get a second kite too oops!) and am up and riding.
Last week was an intensive water week and I spent Monday to Friday day times down on Belmont hanging out with the crew. I'm pretty settled in there now and the banter's flowing between us so all is good...it's sad i'm leaving! It was a good week for kiting with nice wind and I managed to travel upwind a bit.
Last Monday evening Kerin was up for going to see Transformers 2 which Loz and Chris were also keen to see. I on the other hand had vague memories of attempting to sit through Transformers 1 during my ski trip last year and thinking it was a pile of crap so wasn't so excited at the prospect. I'm not one to judge on a past experience so thought I'd go along for the ride and give it a 2nd shot.....and 3 hours later wished I hadn't. What a waste of my life that was. *note to self - ALWAYS trust your instincts and never give anything a 2nd attempt*
After kiting on Wednesday Hank and the crew took me and Loz to Racals, a restaurant that specialises in dishes with teriyake sauce. It was cool to try something new even if the burgers were a little weird! There were so many obese people in there though, realllly American.
On Thursday Loz and I rediscovered our love for Yoghurt Land. Such a good concept, self serve flavoured yoghurts followed by a multitude of amazing toppings, sauces, fruits, sweets, whatever you want! It's pretty cheap too for the amount you get. So now our daily routine includes taking the beach cruisers for a spin down 2nd street and serving up the creamy goodness.
Friday we did the same, some post kiting Yoghurt Land followed by a spontanious meal out with Chris down 2nd Street. We went to Magic Lamp which is all Moroccan inspired deco and food complete with a crazy waiter with multiple personalities. He kept serving us wine to taste in the hope we would buy a glass but with the thought of our limited funds in the back of our heads we just led him on and didn't haha. It was a nice, relatively healthy evening to prepare us for the completely unhealthy day to follow.
So then it was Saturday July 4th, Indepedence Day. Celebration of all things American. We live in a picturesque little part of Long Beach where everyone smiles and happiness fills the air so the vibe was buzzing, the sun shining and people began drinking as soon as they rose in the morning.
There's a little patch of beach just next to the marina dubbed 'Horny Corner' as it's where all the 18-25 yr olds hang out and is apparently the place to be on July 4th so we set up base camp with some tiki torches and blankets on the sand for the day.
The next 15 hours are a bit of a blur but involved meeting many new people all over the place, blagging endless free food and drink and laughing a lot!
One highlight was Ryan's BBQ (Loz's gym buddy) where there was a MASSIVE tray of cookies and just generally loads of yummy things to eat. We met a really funny random girl there called Libby who just couldn't get enough of our accent and the way we said stuff. She just wanted me to speak at her the whole time, and because we were both tipsy in the hot Cali sun we both found this ridiculously hirlarious.
In the evening after a few more random house parties we made our way down to another address we'd been invited to earlier at Horny Corner. We'd been told there was a big apartment complex party going on but didn't know what to expect so rocked up with open minds.
When we arrived there wasn't anyone about but there was a table of alcohol which Loz spotted immediately and began storing away! However within minutes a Dj plastered with American flags appeared and started spinning some tunes. There wern't loads of people, maybe 15 or so but we had fun and sat round the big firepit by the jacuzzi smoking shisha pipe which reminded me of my holiday in Egypt.
We also met Roman and Diana, a couple who lived in one of the apartments and asked us to come up to their place for more beers once everyone had left. Seeing as there were 4 of us we felt safe to go and joined them for some 1am-4am random chatting and socialising. That's what i'm loving about the combination of travelling and Americans, the kindness and openess of the people combined with the spontaniaty of my situation.
Nothing much happened on Sunday apart from more Yoghurt Land and spag bol in the evening :)
So that brings us to this week which i'm disturbed to say hasn't involved any kiting as yet. The deathly winds and evil coral reefs of Maui approach and I need as much practice as I can get.
Monday morning I had my weekly chiropractor appointment with Bob which is keeping me out of any kind of pain and running well for now. I spent the day on the beach waiting for wind but it never came so ended up playing beach vollyball with Roman, Diana, Loz and a few other randoms.
Tuesday Loz and I ventured down to Huntington on the bus, it'd been over 2 weeks since i'd last gone so was nice to have a change of scenery. We roasted away in the sun and I even made it into the sea for a decent swim.
That evening we rented the 5th Harry Potter film out to remind ourselves of the storyline as Chris, Kerin, Loz and I are going to see the new one the day it comes out (July 15th) in IMAX 3D!
Yesterday Roman and Diana had kindly offered to drive us to places that we hadn't yet seen around LA (due to the shockingly awful public transport) so we crossed lots of boxes all at once.
We started at the Staples Center, home of the LA Lakers basketball team. We'd gone there to see the Michael Jackson memorial wall, write a message, be part of history etc but it'd been taken down, grim! There were still press there and it was crazy to think only 24hrs before his body and all those famous faces were standing right where we were.
From there we moved onto the Disney Concert Hall which is designed by architect Frank Gehry and is an impressive building. It's funny because I completely guessed it was designed by Mr Gehry just because it looks so similar to my ring which he also designed.
In the afternoon Roman cruised up to Santa Monica and we took a stroll down the pier while sipping (actually more like downing) my frappuchino. Santa Monica is kept spic and span with every palm being trimmed to perfection. It feels very, very 'california' and i'm glad we got to see it.
After that we drove down through Manhattan Beach and on to Redondo. We drove up the cliff and took in the awe-inspiring view of the pacific from above. Apparently some days you can see the whales in the seas below but we didn't spot anything except a curtain of seaweed.
Our last stop was back up the coast to Venice where we ate burritos and drank margaritas in a local bar. They had baseball on the screens and a nice fire pit flaming away too which all added to the good vibes that day.
We've got some exciting things lined up before we depart, this Sunday is our leaving brunch at Spagatini, a plush jazz bar that does an all you can eat and drink 5 star buffet. We've got around 15 people coming so should be fun.
Also, on Monday i'm heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park with Chris...Loz isn't a fan of the coasters so is going to take a 'rain check' on this outing. This park looks like the scariest experience i'm ever going to subject myself to and i'm a cross between excited/nervous/really bloody scared.
Will update next week to let you know i'm still in the land of the living!
Monday 29 June 2009
Loz's 25th
Yesterday was Loz's 25th birthday and we had such a random, full day that it definetely deserves its own special post...
I started it at Gary's box aerobics class in order to balance out the badness I knew I'd be doing to my body later on, the music playlist was dedicated to Michael Jackson (of course!) and 9 minutes of skipping to Billie Jean was hardcore but fun.
After the class Chris, Loz and I picked up some crisps and wine and set off for Lizzie and Albert's pool party in Newport. It's really heating up here in Cali so the idea of lounging around on lilos all day was very appealing and we had an awesome day messing around in the water and munching BBQ food. A highlight was the amazing bomb I did in the deep end, really tucked myself in!
At around 6pm we brought out some mini frosted cupcakes, sung happy birthday to Loz and watched the ridiculously drunk (Lizzle and Albert) try to break their necks doing handstands on the diving board. At this point the rest of us were all sober so i've no idea how they got into that state...probably had something to do with Jack Daniels on the rocks.
By 9pm it had already felt like a really full day and we all had that post sun drenched tiredness about us. There was no room for sleep though and we drove down onto the peninsular where all the bars are. We were supposed to be staying at this guy Jim's house so dumped all the bedding there and started walking to the action.
We had been warned not to go to 'Sharkees' but were rejected from the first bar we walked into for not having a passport with us (ridiculous!) so went to...Sharkees. It was pretty bad, filled with arrogant teenage clones and smelled of sick.
After drinking a glass of almost pure vodka, we ran to the nearest emergency exit and found our way to a much better venue called The District. With more Michael Jackson drowning out the American accents around me I got the second round in and we started taking the obligatory 'night out' photos, good banter!
There seems to be a bit of a blank space in the memory now but I know it involves Loz buying me drinks I didn't need and lots of shouting and meeting new faces.
The next thing I know it's 2am and me and my new American buddies are being ushered out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. Everyone was feeling in need of some grease and we took the last 15 pieces of pizza off the guy selling them out of a hole in the wall, haggled 15 slices for $10!
Some more stuff happened like talking to an arrogant guy about his oversized truck and running into a coffee shop to blag a free quadruple espresso and just when I thought the night had ended it got really weird.
I was walking back along the ocean boardwalk, the guys 200 meters behind me, when I noticed some kind of party happening in a big house right there on the beach. The next thing I know the owner (Doug, 50ish, overweight, greying) comes running out and invites me in to his house...everyone else had suddenly dissappeared and the situation screamed 'DODGY'!
I waited for the other two, much to Dougs disappointment, and being spontanious we went in to check his pad out.
Oh....my......god. This guy was loaded. He had a 60 gallon fish tank above the fireplace in the lounge, I think there may have been some kind of baby shark in there and the mercedes SL 600 in the garage was very shiny. Then he cracked open a 2002 $160 bottle of wine and gave us a grand tour, It turned out he'd designed and built the 4 storey place himself as well.
When we got to the roof we found a steaming hot jacuzzi waiting and music blaring away, the opportunity was too good for Chris and Loz and they stripped down to boxers and jumped right in! Being accutely aware of Dougs probable intentions and creepy stares I stayed in full clubbing clothing and just got soaked. Chris, loz and I chatted for a while about how the hell we'd ended up in a complete random's hot tub on a roof in Newport and then....the piece de resistance........Doug appears on the roof top, framed and backlit in the doorway by his designer lighting.........completely NUDE.
I am NOT even joking. He seemed to think we were all going to strip off but oh no, he was definetely the only one.
He climbed in next to Loz and Chris (thank god) and I spent the next 2 hours avoiding his wondering wrinkly toes. EUGH.
As the sun began to rise we hot footed it away from Doug and ran straight across the sand and into the sea. It was one of those still, calm mornings and as I stared out into the cloudy horizon it felt like it was just us and nature right there and then. (If you think my writing's taken on a cheesy undertone it's because i'm watching Independence Day)
There's nothing worse than going to bed when the sun's come up so we went to Jims, got the bedding and drove straight back to our flat in Long Beach to recover. Today I feel as if I have half the brain cells I did yesterday :/ Oh well, what's life if it isn't random!?
I started it at Gary's box aerobics class in order to balance out the badness I knew I'd be doing to my body later on, the music playlist was dedicated to Michael Jackson (of course!) and 9 minutes of skipping to Billie Jean was hardcore but fun.
After the class Chris, Loz and I picked up some crisps and wine and set off for Lizzie and Albert's pool party in Newport. It's really heating up here in Cali so the idea of lounging around on lilos all day was very appealing and we had an awesome day messing around in the water and munching BBQ food. A highlight was the amazing bomb I did in the deep end, really tucked myself in!
At around 6pm we brought out some mini frosted cupcakes, sung happy birthday to Loz and watched the ridiculously drunk (Lizzle and Albert) try to break their necks doing handstands on the diving board. At this point the rest of us were all sober so i've no idea how they got into that state...probably had something to do with Jack Daniels on the rocks.
By 9pm it had already felt like a really full day and we all had that post sun drenched tiredness about us. There was no room for sleep though and we drove down onto the peninsular where all the bars are. We were supposed to be staying at this guy Jim's house so dumped all the bedding there and started walking to the action.
We had been warned not to go to 'Sharkees' but were rejected from the first bar we walked into for not having a passport with us (ridiculous!) so went to...Sharkees. It was pretty bad, filled with arrogant teenage clones and smelled of sick.
After drinking a glass of almost pure vodka, we ran to the nearest emergency exit and found our way to a much better venue called The District. With more Michael Jackson drowning out the American accents around me I got the second round in and we started taking the obligatory 'night out' photos, good banter!
There seems to be a bit of a blank space in the memory now but I know it involves Loz buying me drinks I didn't need and lots of shouting and meeting new faces.
The next thing I know it's 2am and me and my new American buddies are being ushered out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. Everyone was feeling in need of some grease and we took the last 15 pieces of pizza off the guy selling them out of a hole in the wall, haggled 15 slices for $10!
Some more stuff happened like talking to an arrogant guy about his oversized truck and running into a coffee shop to blag a free quadruple espresso and just when I thought the night had ended it got really weird.
I was walking back along the ocean boardwalk, the guys 200 meters behind me, when I noticed some kind of party happening in a big house right there on the beach. The next thing I know the owner (Doug, 50ish, overweight, greying) comes running out and invites me in to his house...everyone else had suddenly dissappeared and the situation screamed 'DODGY'!
I waited for the other two, much to Dougs disappointment, and being spontanious we went in to check his pad out.
Oh....my......god. This guy was loaded. He had a 60 gallon fish tank above the fireplace in the lounge, I think there may have been some kind of baby shark in there and the mercedes SL 600 in the garage was very shiny. Then he cracked open a 2002 $160 bottle of wine and gave us a grand tour, It turned out he'd designed and built the 4 storey place himself as well.
When we got to the roof we found a steaming hot jacuzzi waiting and music blaring away, the opportunity was too good for Chris and Loz and they stripped down to boxers and jumped right in! Being accutely aware of Dougs probable intentions and creepy stares I stayed in full clubbing clothing and just got soaked. Chris, loz and I chatted for a while about how the hell we'd ended up in a complete random's hot tub on a roof in Newport and then....the piece de resistance........Doug appears on the roof top, framed and backlit in the doorway by his designer lighting.........completely NUDE.
I am NOT even joking. He seemed to think we were all going to strip off but oh no, he was definetely the only one.
He climbed in next to Loz and Chris (thank god) and I spent the next 2 hours avoiding his wondering wrinkly toes. EUGH.
As the sun began to rise we hot footed it away from Doug and ran straight across the sand and into the sea. It was one of those still, calm mornings and as I stared out into the cloudy horizon it felt like it was just us and nature right there and then. (If you think my writing's taken on a cheesy undertone it's because i'm watching Independence Day)
There's nothing worse than going to bed when the sun's come up so we went to Jims, got the bedding and drove straight back to our flat in Long Beach to recover. Today I feel as if I have half the brain cells I did yesterday :/ Oh well, what's life if it isn't random!?
Friday 26 June 2009
Sunsets, Palms and Kiting
I've got it! The bug is caught!
Today was my third day in a row in the sea with my kite and i'm up and riding the board :D....sort of! I've had a face full of American water a number of times but i'm getting the hang and totally buzzing from it! There's a strange vibe down at Belmont Beach, it's very cliquey (like all sports) but I seem to have found myself in amongst the right locals. Hank (who sold me my kit) has been watching over me and giving guidance and generally all is very exciting and well. Woohoo, bring on the 30ft jumps....not!
We've had a really great week, we were both in need of some serious snooze time after our recent mayhem and its been nice lying in till 10am most days. Last Friday when Spence and Christina were still here I finally managed to pick up my board from Nudge down at Huntington and spent the day admiring and stroking it. It wasn't the nicest of days so after mooching around a little crafts market in the area we began the long and tedious wait for the number 1 bus home.
Less that 10 minutes later a mini cooper convertible comes zooming up next to us and it's Ashley (who lives in our building) offering us a lift, score! Thank god the journey was only 20 minutes because we squeezed 5 people, 6 bags, one bodyboard and one kite kit into that mini and were completely overflowing and very illegal at the same time.
Not much happened in the evening but thought I should mention that we indulged in a bit of Kevin Bacon in The River Wild. What a classic.
On Saturday Ashley took me to her extremely fancy and expensive gym in Newport for a pretty tough yoga class. Apparently this is where all the celebs go but I'm yet to be treated to a star sweating it out on the cross trainer. Equinox is 100% the nicest gym i've been to and if I lived here i'd probably end up with a membership too. Everything was just sooo plush, even the changing rooms had a spa feel to them with hand laid mosaic tiles, spotless glass and polished chrome everywhere.
After our morning sesh Chris, Loz, Spence, Christina and I packed our bags and headed out the door to Hollywood for our one big night out. Being on a budget we decided we'd only do this once so we checked into Le Parc, a boutique hotel on the edge of Beverly Hills (just about affordable between 5 :/) and got into the white fluffy robes provided to make us feel more expensive than we are.
The hotel had tennis courts, a pool and jacuzzi on the roof which was pretty bling but we arrived fairly late in the day so just a mini dip as the sun went down before getting ready for the night ahead. We'd brought half of Chris's liquor cabinet with us to save on buying booze out which was a good thing as the drinks on Sunset Strip were not cheap, trust me!
We'd decided to make Chateau Marmont and The Villa our destinations for the night and all was good. We even met Kimberley Walsh (Girls Allowed) who was friendly although I felt I had more in common with her boyfriend as we got deep in discussion about 24.
The next day we hit Venice beach which was a cross between Brighton and Soho on speed. Loads of weirdos, loads of artists, loads of stalls and shops, very cool. We found a fashionable juice/panini retro type of bar on the beach and sipped sangria while people watching and topping up the tan. On the way back past the freak shows and muscle beach workout pit I even found a wig stall and saw what i'd look like with jet black hair and a fringe. Answer = not great.
Everyone was knackered by the time we got back to Belmont but we happened to drive past a random hippy festival going on on the beach and what's life without spontaneity so took a detour to check it out.
There were a few different open air tents (gazebos with floaty coloured muslin attatched) playing different types of music. Some had small stages with bands on and others Dj's playing to the dreadlocked barefooted type.
That night as Chris, Kerin (his boyfriend) and I sat on a rug on the sand watching the sun setting and silhouettes of palm trees getting darker I thought how can life get much better!
Today was my third day in a row in the sea with my kite and i'm up and riding the board :D....sort of! I've had a face full of American water a number of times but i'm getting the hang and totally buzzing from it! There's a strange vibe down at Belmont Beach, it's very cliquey (like all sports) but I seem to have found myself in amongst the right locals. Hank (who sold me my kit) has been watching over me and giving guidance and generally all is very exciting and well. Woohoo, bring on the 30ft jumps....not!
We've had a really great week, we were both in need of some serious snooze time after our recent mayhem and its been nice lying in till 10am most days. Last Friday when Spence and Christina were still here I finally managed to pick up my board from Nudge down at Huntington and spent the day admiring and stroking it. It wasn't the nicest of days so after mooching around a little crafts market in the area we began the long and tedious wait for the number 1 bus home.
Less that 10 minutes later a mini cooper convertible comes zooming up next to us and it's Ashley (who lives in our building) offering us a lift, score! Thank god the journey was only 20 minutes because we squeezed 5 people, 6 bags, one bodyboard and one kite kit into that mini and were completely overflowing and very illegal at the same time.
Not much happened in the evening but thought I should mention that we indulged in a bit of Kevin Bacon in The River Wild. What a classic.
On Saturday Ashley took me to her extremely fancy and expensive gym in Newport for a pretty tough yoga class. Apparently this is where all the celebs go but I'm yet to be treated to a star sweating it out on the cross trainer. Equinox is 100% the nicest gym i've been to and if I lived here i'd probably end up with a membership too. Everything was just sooo plush, even the changing rooms had a spa feel to them with hand laid mosaic tiles, spotless glass and polished chrome everywhere.
After our morning sesh Chris, Loz, Spence, Christina and I packed our bags and headed out the door to Hollywood for our one big night out. Being on a budget we decided we'd only do this once so we checked into Le Parc, a boutique hotel on the edge of Beverly Hills (just about affordable between 5 :/) and got into the white fluffy robes provided to make us feel more expensive than we are.
The hotel had tennis courts, a pool and jacuzzi on the roof which was pretty bling but we arrived fairly late in the day so just a mini dip as the sun went down before getting ready for the night ahead. We'd brought half of Chris's liquor cabinet with us to save on buying booze out which was a good thing as the drinks on Sunset Strip were not cheap, trust me!
We'd decided to make Chateau Marmont and The Villa our destinations for the night and all was good. We even met Kimberley Walsh (Girls Allowed) who was friendly although I felt I had more in common with her boyfriend as we got deep in discussion about 24.
The next day we hit Venice beach which was a cross between Brighton and Soho on speed. Loads of weirdos, loads of artists, loads of stalls and shops, very cool. We found a fashionable juice/panini retro type of bar on the beach and sipped sangria while people watching and topping up the tan. On the way back past the freak shows and muscle beach workout pit I even found a wig stall and saw what i'd look like with jet black hair and a fringe. Answer = not great.
Everyone was knackered by the time we got back to Belmont but we happened to drive past a random hippy festival going on on the beach and what's life without spontaneity so took a detour to check it out.
There were a few different open air tents (gazebos with floaty coloured muslin attatched) playing different types of music. Some had small stages with bands on and others Dj's playing to the dreadlocked barefooted type.
That night as Chris, Kerin (his boyfriend) and I sat on a rug on the sand watching the sun setting and silhouettes of palm trees getting darker I thought how can life get much better!
Monday was a chill day and Loz and I went to Best Buy to look at getting this damn computer fixed. They said they could....for $200. No way, see you later Best Buy. That afternoon we sunbathed on Belmont and bought some 'all american' burgers from our local take out, they're good value and fairly healthy!
Tues, Weds and Thurs I have been kitesurfing everyday. The wind has been fairly strong and I'm getting over my fear of looking like an idiot infront of the other 40 kiters on the water. It's a bit like being in spaghetti junction on the water, with no control over your vehicle. I try to stay in the slow lane but I'm all over the place!
That's about it for this week, It's Loz's birthday on Saturday so I think we're going down to Chris's friends house in Newport for a pool/bbq party in the day and then out in Newport that night. Sunday we're going to rent some kayaks and potter about in the marina.
I hear the UK weather will be getting hot in the next week so have a lovely time out in the sun :D
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