Bought a guitar and had my first surf experience!

Hi!

It's been a while since my last post, hope you weren't getting impatient. A lot happened in the past week so there was hardly a moment to sit down and write a story about it. But here I go.

My last post was on monday afternoon. That same monday I had the best nights in Australia so far. I tried Goon. First I walked through Sydney with Anko and we saw the Sydney opera house by night. It's beautifully illuminated after nightfall. Next we went back to the hostel but made a little stop at the local Bottle Shop (you cannot buy alcohol at regular supermarkets in Australia). You can buy a 4Liter pack of Goon for just 10dollars here. Its cheap-ass wine but quite drinkable, and it is the only affordable kind of alcohol you will find in Australia. But the little addertje onder het gras (pitfall?) is that it contains about 11% alcohol, while you drink it like it's beer. Anyway, let's not go into bragging stories about how much I drank, but i'll stick to how cool that night was. We started out having fun in the hostel, but after 10pm we got kicked out of the garden because the neighbours had to sleep or something. So we went partying on in front of the hostel, probably pissing off some other neighbours. When someone started throwing bricks at our group we figured we may indeed be a little noisy, so we went down the street where we could stand underneath a sort of bridge, and the only people that we were bothering there were some homeless guys. After half an hour or so one of them came over to ask if we could calm down a little. He wasnt really angry though and when we offered him a drink he was glad to stick around for a bit. One of the guys from our group asked him why he chose to live on the street in a country like australia, where it shouldn't be necessary. He told us his mom got a new boyfriend a few years back, with whom he couldnt get along. One day the boyfriend (his stepfather) said to her: "i cant stand him anymore, you have choose: you need to kick him out of the house or i will leave you." And she kicked out her son. It was quite an intense story.
Afterwards we went back to the hostel and Anko, who was a little drunk, knocked on the door of a belgian girl whom he thought was pretty (at 2am). She was still awake and in her room were as well some english guys and an irish couple playing some drinking game. We had a lot of fun with them, and after a while i brought out the guitar of one of my roommates, and we have been playing and singing until 5am. It was great! (And afterwards i was sure i had to get my own guitar here in Oz :P)

Next day Anko and I went to Bondi beach. You know the program on TV about the beach lifeguards? That's filmed on Bondi. We didnt do much else on tuesday actually. After dinner I was devastated, as well as some other people of my group. So we chilled at the hostel for one night and watched a movie (during which i fell asleep).

On wednesday (last day in Sydney) we went to the Aquarium, to see all the marine wildlife of australia. Especially the big aquarium you can walk underneath through a tunnel is spectacular! Like I already had decided I bought a guitar. It's a steel string Takamine guitar. The fact that it's made in china is probably why it was very affordable, because the sound it produces is actually really good. Anyone interested in a steel string guitar for 200euro in about 3 months? I might sell it here but i would prefer to sell it to a friend.
After dark we went to the other side of the famous Harbour Bridge from where you have an awesome view on the skyline of Sydney and the Opera House. This was one of those moments I would really like to have a better camera.
But i'll get some pictures from one of the other guys in my group.

Next day Anko and I had to take the bus at 6am to go to a place called Spot X: Mojosurf! It's called spot X because it is actually in the middle of nowhere, without even a supermarket.
The bus trip was long, and not a lot of fun. After 2 hours the engine was overheated, because there was a leak in the cooling liquid tank. We had to wait 2hours for a mechanic to arrive, and an extra hour for him to repair the leak. Turned out the be a piece of tubing which was not applied correct... Anyway, we arrived only just in time for dinner at Spot X. That evening we sat around the campfire and i played some songs again on the guitar. There were a lot of nice people there, the atmosphere was great!

Next morning Anko and I had our first surfing lesson from a guy named Fletcher. Classical surfer dude, long bleached blond hair, sunglasses, tan, relaxed way of acting and talking. He taught us the basics of surfing and both of us managed to stand on the board at least once. We went into the water again that afternoon, but the waves were falling apart much faster so it was way harder to surf.
That night a big bus with students from Brisbane arrived. They were an international group of people all studying for half a year in Brisbane. There were quite a few americans, but also canadian, swedish, german etc.
We did a little drinking game called flip the cup, and most people were drunk within notime (including me).

The next morning (saturday) it was hard to wake up, but we wanted to go surfing again. Both Anko and me really noticed improvement, so we are definitely going to surf more later on!

In the afternoon we went on the bus again, travelling on to an awesome place called Byron Bay. Our bus driver was a really funny guy, who had a hands-free microphone through which he told us a lot about the scenery and the town we came through. He accompanied everything he told us by some of his own enthusiasm, with phrases like 'great stufff' and 'i cant get enough of it, love it, whoeew!'. The three hour drive went by really fast.
Byron bay is the most easterly point of the Australian continent. It's quite a touristic place, but it's really nice. There is a bar called cheeky monkeys, where we had dinner and spent our saturday night. There were a few games which were quite hilarious. First game was a whipped cream licking contest, and I got picked by one of the girls on the stage. Unfortunately, we didn't win, so the rest of the evening, i walked around with a pretty sticky chest... There was a male stripping contest as well, and a how-many-sex-positions-can-you-pose-in-20-seconds? Which was won by two guys, of which one of the two was a 120kg. They did 9 positions in 20 seconds, which i must say was equally impressive and gross. Anyway, it was a kind of bar you wont find a lot of in the Netherlands.

On Sunday we went to Nimbin with two dutch girls we met the night before. We could join them in their rented van. The fun thing was it was painted on the outside with graffiti, and on one side there is a guy smoking a huge joint. Which is a real coincidence, because Nimbin is THE hippie town of the country. There is just one street there, and not that much to see, but still it was quite special. A lot of hippie phrases are painted on the outside of buildings, like 'make love, not war'. Most hippies there were rather old of age, i guess the new generation doesnt really take over their example.

At our hostel we ran into some German people we had already met at spot X. But the nice thing around here is that you just have to join a table at your hostel and chat up to the people that are there, and you will have a fun evening guaranteed! Just to give an impression: last night ended with most people jumping in the pool :-p

Today we'll get some bikes at our hostel and go to Cape Byron, the most easterly point of Australia. We'll stay in Byron for 2 more nights, and then go on to surfer's paradise!

That's where im gonna leave you for now, folks (better this time, little brother?)!

Kusjes en dikke knuffel,

Jelle