Happy Thanksgiving!

Every year as summer in Seattle comes to an end, and fall starts up, the inevitable approach of the Christmas season can't be missed. The weather turns. Its cold, and even more rainy. The days get noticeably shorter, and did I mention the cold? And the rain?

Tallows Beach - Our favorite surf spot!

However October and November here in Australia are, as can be imagined on the other side of the world, quite different. October came and went, Halloween with it, without even so much as a single piece of candy being consumed by either Krissy or I. (Hard to believe, I know.) Somehow, November itself seems to have completely run away without even so much as a goodbye either. The days are getting only longer here, and the weather is becoming quite hot. Its been about 35 degrees Celsius the last two days here, something like 90-95 Farenheit.

Despite the lack of a run-up, and with November flying past, I did manage to enjoy Thanksgiving in the classic American way, surrounded by friends, more food than could possibly be consumed, and an overwhelming sense of contentedness.

Sadly Krissy had to work on Thanksgiving night, however we were able to take a moment in the middle of the day, and enjoy a wonderfully large and delicious piece of carrot cake, the closest thing to a Thanksgiving treat we could find.

With her away making us some much appreciated income, in the spirit of the holiday I invited a couple of roomates to enjoy a home(hostel?)-cooked feast! There are a handful of other Americans in the hostel we have been staying in, and it seems we managed to round up every other one in Byron Bay to come join our feast, along with the handful of other friends we brought along, in my case a wonderful friend from Sydney, and another from Italy.

Without breaking too far from the backpackers mentality of spending as little as humanly possible on food, so as to preserve the little funds we all have for travel and adventures, I got to work.

We had a lovely meal consisting of Roasted Chicken (not much Turkey here...) with gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, rolls, and topped it off with sweet-potatos praline! We even splurged on a few Tassie (Tasmanian) beers! My roommates were quite impressed that I was able to manage 5-6 pans on the stove at once, and in the span of 15 minutes whip together quite a feast!!

Our Italian roommate Luig... errr Nick. :-)

It was great to have a big table full of food, and everyone filling themselves like they have never seen food. Some at least, I am sure, had forgotten what food that's not Raman noodles looks like! There were a lot of smiles around that table, and I we finished the night with a bit of chocolate. It was really nice to share the tradition of thanksgiving with people who had no idea what it was about, to explain the story, the traditional foods we grew up eating, and share a pretty darn good feast! By the end of the night I had the classic post thanksgiving look... slumped back in my chair, a hand resting on my over-full belly, and huge smile on my face!

It may not have FELT like Thanksgiving leading up to that evening, as we missed the run-up, the excitement, the planning, and all of that. It was however a really nice night, and it was great to take-part in something that reminded me so much of home, in a time and place that is so different!


So, I guess its officially the Christmas season. I'm sweating profusely, and spent the morning at the beach swimming in the crystal clear waters of Byron Bay. They don't have pine trees here, and I am quite confident Christmas will be at least as strange as Thanksgiving. Will they decorate a palm tree with lights? I have already seen a big display on a house with Santa on a surfboard being pulled by dolphins... the tradition of Christmas that I grew up with is extremely out of place here, however if Christmas night comes, and I feel half as good as I did at the end of Thanksgiving, I am still looking forward to it immensely.

I miss everyone back home, especially at this time of year.This will be my first Christmas away from the family, and I am sure that Christmas morning will have a lot of mixed emotions. That said, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world!

Tending The Bar

Byron is beautiful, fun, and the friendliest place I’ve ever been. It’s a small town you can walk in 15 minutes, but in that time you’re bumping into at least three people you know. I’ve never been part of a small town before and I have to say I’m really enjoying it. Working at the local watering hole I serve beers to many of the locals. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned my job in the blog yet, but yes! I have a job bartending – a little career change for the time being. I am picking it up and learning how to mix cocktails, turn down service to riley patrons, and close up shop at night (or morning, really).

It’s a huge bar/hotel with a front bar as well as a back bar where shows are held a few times a week. The back bar can fit 500 people and it’s the venue where the big names play when they come to Byron – or so I’m told. Most of the staff are Aussies or New Zealanders, but there are two sisters from Los Angeles! It’s rare to find Americans in Australia, and I am working with two! I’m hoping we can throw together a mediocre Thanksgiving later in the week.

My favorite part of the job has got to be all the live music. Almost every night there’s either a great local acoustic performance or a touring band playing in the back bar. I get the great honor of serving them beers when they’re done and it’s so fun learning about how they got their start, where they’ve been and what they’ll do next. A few weekends ago there was a salsa dancing class, followed by a live salsa band playing all night long. There were sweaty couples dancing all night and they were amazing to watch. Now I want to go to Buenos Aires.

I am now a master beer dispenser and can mix well drinks with the best of them. Cocktails still take me a minute, and with Schoolies coming up I’ll have to get faster. Tonight marks the start of Schoolies and two weeks of adolescent nightmare for most people over the age of 25. Schoolies refers to a two-week period at the end of high school when the graduated seniors all go on vacation and get trashed by the beach (the American equivalent is “Spring Break, woo-hoo!”). The bars and nightclubs will be flooded with 18-19 year-olds for the next few days and it will be barely tolerable. Bad tippers, they are.

It’s not only impossible to have a conversation in a bar, but with drunk people and then you throw accents into the mix and I’m completely lost. Here’s the typical conversation between myself and a bar patron:

“What would you like?”

“A pot of Coopers. What’s that accent, girl – you Canadian?”

“American.”

“From California?”

“No, Seattle actually.”

“Seattle, no way! Grunge music! Yeah, I love grunge…Nirvana, Pearl Jam…”

“Yeah, the 90’s were pretty great. Cheers!”

Ten minutes later I usually hear a bellowing from the end of the bar:

“Hey Seattle, do you like grunge music?!” And so on.

I actually like this for many reasons. One: people are grand admirers of my city and its grunge music. Two: Seattle is cool, let’s face it, and I don’t mind being referred to as a city. Although some poor souls have asked if Seattle is north of New York on the east coast, oh dear.

I also love the "No Bullshit" approach to customer service in Australia. A few samples for your enjoyment: 

Problem One: A patron asks for the air conditioning to be turned on in the back.

Solution: "Tell them to f$%# off. Yeah, I'll turn it on in a minute."

Problem Two: I give incorrect change to a woman who ordered a Wild Turkey. I apologize and correct the change, but she continues to stand there, wallet open, loudly accusing me of stiffing her again. The whole end of the bar is now involved. 

Solution: Grab Security (if only I could do this every time I have a life problem), who informs me next time this happens, give her money back, grab the Wild Turkey and pour it out in front of her face, urging her to select another bar to bother. Awesome.

Picnic at Clarkes Beach

Our beautiful jungle patio

It’s impossible to tell where one day ends and another begins. Two lifestyle factors contribute to this: one, being a bartender makes you a vampire where you work at night and sleep during the day and two, there is essentially no routine at all. Every day is a mixture of work, surfing, socializing, eating and sleeping and it all happens at different times every day. Thus, while the past few weeks have been a blur, they have also been eternity and I feel for once like there’s endless time stretching before me. This is quite a refreshing feeling and one I never got working a 9-5 job full of stress and deadlines and other commitments that measure the days/weeks/months to the point you physically feel the passing of time.

Life here is simple, delightfully small and social. Evidenced by the fact that everyone here takes the time to roll their own cigarettes. And there are grills in most of the public parks where people have picnics every day! We’re talking about nice, built-in stainless steel electric grills, not a hunk of metal that requires charcoal and hours of heating. Everything about Australia urges you to hang with your mates, chillax and enjoy your life. 

Things I Miss

Aside form the obvious - family, friends, kitties:

My closet! 

Not just the shoes I had to leave behind, but the simple joy in having an organized place to keep your belongings wrinkle-free.

Good Cheese 

They categorize cheese here in three ways: Tasty, Extra Tasty, and Mild.

Project Runway 

This is one year without tv, what will life be like when I get back? We’ve been watching Fuel TV at breakfast (a real “man channel” or, dare I say, “mannel”), which I actually love, despite the ladies in bikini’s that frequently appear in the lower right hand corner to highlight the channel logo. It regularly features surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding and wakeboarding from competitions to reality shows involving the sport. Inspires us to get out and shred wave. And sometimes when I get home from work at 3-4 in the morning, the Today show is on!

Baking cookies 

No ovens in the hostels - boo!

Being able to afford chocolate (and coffee!)

Although, surprisingly, I don't miss Starbucks. The Aussies take their coffee and pastry seriously, and even at your crappy corner handimarket there's artisan baked goods and stellar cappuccino.

Snowboarding – can’t have everything I guess

Decent music at the clubs 

80’s night is every night. If I hear Billy Jean one more time…

Driving, and my car!

Having two pillows 

While we’re on the subject I miss my entire bed, satin sheets and all 60” of it’s glory

Not having to worry about poisonous snakes and bugs. Not to mention sharks and jellies.

Take this sign, for example. It's saying "We are aware that there are life-threatening snakes on these rocks, where countless tourists and children walk past and sunbathe every day, but rather than relocate the reptile, we'll just make you aware of its presence. Oh, and they're multiplying and over-protective as well so watch out."

Our fabulous Seattle microbrews. 

No offense Aussies, but your beer is weak. Chris especially misses the Jolly Roger (and every day he pines for their Lil' Royals)

Danger Mt Warning

The weekends here are a blur of work, play, sun, and sleep. I can no longer distinguish when one day ends and another begins. This can probably be blamed on the fact that I work all night and have to spend a good part of the day sleeping. Since I don’t want to miss beach time or surfing, I usually get home from work around 4am, sleep until 9:30am, then go surfing or for a lay on the beach, eat lunch, nap for three hours, have dinner and then drink and hang out with friends. Not too shabby. But it’s hardly a routine and I end up tired most days as a result. Monday-Wednesday is for sleeping.

This weekend was no different. The best weekend ever. Friday night was the monthly Full Moon party (oh, Byron), and I happened to have work off. Having worked Thursday night, I was a bit tired, so I powered through a three hour nap before dinner. There’s an awesome girl staying in our room from Hamburg, absolutely adore her. We got dressed in our “UV appropriate” clothes and headed out to the club. All the girls get painted at these parties because they have black lights everywhere. It’s a vision. LCD screens with the full moon projected on them. Anyone ever think about having this party outside on the beach? I’m constantly frustrated that there are no beach parties. 

Our sweet ride

I had my alarm set for 1:30am when I needed to head back to the hostel. A few friends and myself had rented a car that night for a sunrise hike up Mt Warning, near Brisbane. A local Aussie we met at a barbie the previous week told us about this treasured activity. As it’s a one-hour drive, followed by a two hour hike, we had to leave Aquarius at 2am to catch the sunrise at 5:45am. Poor Chris is still recovering from an accident the other week when a riley Irishman thought he’d have a piggy-back ride from Chris. Chris, having not expected this, collapsed under his weight and turned his ankle. The Irishman didn’t come out unscathed by any means, but Chris has been out of surfing, out of hiking, out of commission for a few weeks because of it.

At 2am I was changed and ready to hike. The decision to stay up all night seems like a good one, as the kids who elected to sleep for two hours look totally wiped. Amazingly, I have energy and excitement. The only car left in Byron for rental at the last minute on the weekend was a landscaping truck. So, all five of us hoped in and were on our way to Mt Warning. Thirty seconds later, we got pulled over by the cops at the second roundabout. It’s just occurring to us now that the bars are letting out and the cops are out in full force performing random breathalyzer tests. We all shut up and let Austria deal with the officer. After a clean breath test, we’re released and Austria gets to keep the device as a souvenir.

Halfway to Brisbane, it starts pouring buckets of rain. Half of us have packed raincoats, the other half will clearly be getting very wet. But having paid the equivalent of half a week’s worth of groceries to rent this vehicle, we’re committed to our hike. We take a scenic tour to Brisbane, turn around and take a country bumpkin one-lane winding road over creek beds and past snakes, frogs and some kind of wombat with a bushy tail until we finally reach the trailhead for Mt. Warning. It’s clear by now that we are in the rainforest, which I hadn’t expected. An awesome surprise, but equally frightening. Bugs, snakes and spiders, oh my.

It’s pitch black and pouring rain. We open the car door and are hit by a wall of humidity and the screeching of a thousand insects. I strap on my headlight and find a spot to pee before our hike. I am already terrified on seeing night-crawly snakes and things. I am serenaded by what I think must be goats behind me. But once we start our hike, there are more goats and we conclude that it’s actually some sort of bug that sounds like a goat. We can only see the person in front of us and maybe three feet of light stretches ahead. Nothing in our peripheral, but that’s probably for the best. The one time I swung my light out to the side to get some kind of bearing as to where we were, there was a cool rainforest tree, the kind with the huge roots and a strangler fig working it’s way up, but then, a masterfully huge and most likely poisonous spider with eyes gleaming in my headlamp. Won’t be doing that again, I would rather not know what’s out there.

Everyone has their eyes on the ground so we won’t step on any poisonous snakes. There are bugs jumping in every direction, and a few times we come across a crazy unidentifiable critter the size of a dollar bill with wings, which we dub the “frogroach.” Eeeew. Steam is rising everywhere from the rain and heat. It’s about a quarter way up the trail, just after we spot the first Emergency Helicopter Landing Pad and just before we encounter the foot-long zebra worm that I start to think maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go for a night hike up a mountain in a foreign country where none of us have been hiking before. Oh well, too late now. Fear propels us up the trail in silence for most of the way.

First light to hit Australia

After Emergency Helicopter Landing Pad Number Four, we have only 0.4km to go. The sky is just starting to lighten, so we know we must be very close. The next part of the trail is someone’s idea of a sick joke. We are literally rock climbing with hands and feet both up a steep craggy mountain with only the support of a rust chain drilled into the rock face. Still in the dark. I expect the way back down will be worse, because there’s probably a mile long drop to one side of us. This goes on for quite a ways. Finally, by a thousand miracles we reach the top, where there is already a group of ambitious people waiting to see Australia’s first light. This is the reason we came. Here, at the Eastern-most part of Australia, at the top of Mt Warning, sunrise is the first light to hit all of Australia.

The rain has finally stopped. And there is just enough clear sky to see the sun come up. Most of the clouds are low-laying so you feel like you’re in a cloud yourself. Once the clouds clear out you can see gorgeous valleys, great expanses of green, and sharp, steep little hills affectionately called “mountains.” You can see the ocean, the lighthouse at Cape Byron, Tweed River and all the valleys in between.

Several people in multiple groups have bleeding knees and ankles which, upon inquiry, turn out to be leech bites. We’re all surprised our group made it out of that situation unscathed until we check our ankles and I did, in fact, have a leech bite. Fortunately the bugger was gone or I would have screamed bloody hell. The way back down we’re watching not for snakes (we only saw one on the way up) but for leeches and work on avoiding the puddles. The hike down takes almost as long as the hike up because it’s so steep and it’s an entirely different view. We can see walls of green, hanging vines, massive trees with larger roots, and all the bugs have disappeared. This is a nice hike. The rainforest seemed more alive at night than during the day, oddly enough.

 

Arrived back at the hostel at 9am and promptly went to bed. Woke up a few hours later, made some tacos, went to work from 10pm-4am. Not sure what day it is. But loving life.

Surf Stoke

My dreams of being a surfer girl are finally happening! Since I was 13 and saw Blue Crush, I've been obsessed with learning to surf. Sad, I know, but also kind of awesome. I grew up playing all sorts of sports and I've always had a passion for board sports, ten years of snowboarding and wakeboarding will do that to you. Given this extensive experience, I expected to take to surfing like a duck to water. My first experience was a year ago in Hawaii, where Chris and I and our good friends took a private lesson in the famed Hanalei Bay of Kauai's North Shore. I suited up in my Blue Crush Billabong rashie and excitedly paddled out for my first surf experience. Much to my dismay I didn't stand up on my first wave. However I got the hang of it by the end of the lesson. Until I spent 15 minutes bobbing around waiting for the next set of waves and seasickness hit me like a wall. I literally had to go lay on the beach and try not to vomit. This was very distressing to me and I vowed my next surf trip would be accompanied by copious amounts of Dramamine.

One year later, in Byron Bay Australia, the surf dream is officially real. But I'm jumping ahead. In September, three weeks before our departure for a Year of Awesomeness - and surfing! - in Australia we attended our favorite local show, the amazing Dave Matthews Band live at the Gorge. We hit the winery, and then I hit a pothole right inside the entrance to the Gorge and broke my ankle. Oopsie. So my dream was sadly postponed for our first few weeks in Australia, through countless hostels with free surf board hire, until we hit Byron Bay and I felt like my ankle could finally handle some action. Of course our hostel here does not offer free surf hire. After many, many words of caution from relatives and friends (we won't rat you out) regarding sharks, rip tides, jellies and the like, I decided it would be smart to invest in a surf lesson. Chris and I both did great, like riding a bike. We stood, we balanced, we surfed.

Chris goes surfing - this is the rental

Surfing with our buddies

A few days later, we went across the street and rented a few boards for five days. The plan: surf every day and have the time of our lives. I got a 7'9" board, seven inches shorter than the board I rode at my lesson, but I'm trying to work my way to short board so I can ride with the cool kids. I know this takes time, but I have no patience. Over the course of our first week of surfing, we got steadily better, swallowed a few gallons of ocean, and became five shades darker (yes, Mom, we were wearing sunscreen). We had surf stoke. Giving our boards back at the end of the week was sad, but equally awesome because we'd decided we loved surfing so much we wanted to buy our own boards. It's expensive to rent, roughly $10-18 per day depending on where you go and how many days you book the board for. Since we plan on surfing every day, it's just smarter to buy a secondhand board. Most of the local shops have buy-back programs where you get half your money back when you sell your board to them before leaving town (given it's in good shape). Awesome.

That tiny, tiny dot is me surfing!

We shopped around for a few days, educated ourselves, and came to the sad realization that finding a used long board is really difficult. There are hundreds of used short boards - but that's just not a good place to start surfing. The short boards move faster, but you have to paddle harder to catch a wave, and they're difficult to balance on if you're new to the sport. We expected a surf board to cost about the same as a snowboard, and sadly they're much more expensive. A good used longboard will run you $380-700 depending on size and make. Many of the local surf shops have starter packages for around $500 that includes your board, bag, leash and fins. But do your research and make sure you're not getting a board made in China by guys who've never seen the ocean. We were warned of this at every shop.

My first surfboard!

We heard about this magical place called Industrial Estate, just outside of Byron, where there are lots of local board shapers. So took to the street and walked 35 minutes in the heat of the day to find surf boards. We shopped a few places and settled on Munro Surfboards. Brett Munro himself came out of his shop covered in sawdust and wearing his surgical mask. He shook our hands and told us about his business, shaping custom boards for 35 years (fact: it takes two-three weeks to shape a board). He had a good selection of "loved" boards and I was immediately drawn to this 7'2" cutie pie, all blue with a flower on the front. It's a local Kempo board, hand shaped in the Gold Coast of Australia. This was my board. I happily carried it all the way home, skipping like I just got my first car. It will, in fact, be my first ride :)

Chris was super jealous and we hit the streets again the next day to find him a board. He needed something a little longer than what I got and it's impossible to find - so we got one of the new board package deals. While his board is pretty short for him (at 7'6"), it's got a lot of volume (almost 3" thick) and is very wide, which is forgiving in the water and helps you stay afloat.

We've been riding our boards for almost a week now and love them. It took two-three days to adjust to the shorter size and get our balance back, but now we're looking toward bigger waves and having fun because we can surf instead of just balance. Suh-weet!

If you haven't figured out yet, surf stoke is the feeling you get when you know you're about to shred waves, & the feeling you get when you get home and know you shredded. Or when you have dreams about surfing before or after a day out on the water, and when you go to bed at night after a day of surfing and you still feel like you're riding your board. So yes, I have surf stoke. And I hope it never wanes.