Chapter 45 - A horse, of course!

In which our hero posts some things in order to be able to say she did a post in September....

Hello. No apologies, really. Got people to be and places to see. Also homework.

So. Now there's a horse living next door:

That's the horse with a white horse blanket on. I apologise that I have no zoom. And what's that in the foreground, you may ask? Why, that's a load of horse ****. Literally.

Also, here's some more pictures of the kitten. I think she's grown considerably. She's still smallish, though, and soft and slippery. That patch of hair where she was shaved when she arrived has grown in fully, but it's a bit lighter than the rest of her. This morning she was outside, and she climbed all the way up my flyscreen. (That's how they say screen in Australia.)

Blending in to the lounge. She's pretty much invisible when the house is dark, but now she wears a collar with bells so we can hear where she is.

Sleeping in the laundry hamper. Because the lounge is just not comfy enough.

Being cattish on the patio.

Spider Cat.

 Here's some other interesting things too:

Sweetened condensed milk in a tube. Don't brush your teeth with it by accident.

Some lovely flowers that live down the street.

In Toowoomba, where they built the roads around the trees.

BUSH TURKEY!! On the University of Queensland (UQ) campus.

There. Now there's a post for September. Happy?

Chapter 44 - Noosa Heads, Day 3

In which our hero meets some Londoners and learns to surf ... 

I know this is pushing it a bit, but I finally feel like I have time and head space, so I'm going to try to catch up on some of this stuff. I'm just finishing Week 3 of Semester 2. This weekend will mark six months that I've been here. I've had some good times, and some bad times, and made some friends. It's been good.

Anyway. So our third day in Noosa Heads. If you'll recall, when we left off I'd just had a fun night out with my team mates and some others that joined in. Most likely it was 1:00 a.m. by the time I got to bed, but I deliberately didn't check so as to not worry about getting enough sleep. I planned to wake up at 7:00 a.m., but Wen Ying got up at 6:30 or something to have a shower, and then her normal daily alarm went off, (the one she uses for work), so I just got up at 6:45. We had to eat, strip down our beds and take the sheets to the front desk, pack up all our stuff, and check out before our surf lesson. The first thing I did was get dressed in my swim suit, then load on the sunscreen. Then I packed all my stuff and stripped the sheets off my bed, so that after brekkie I'd be totally ready to go. I packed a bag to take to the beach, and my backpack with all my other stuff which would go in the car while we were out.

We then went to breakfast. I was a little unsure what to eat, as I didn't want to lose energy before the end of the lesson, but I didn't want to be so full that I got cramps or felt ill or something. I went with the standard peanut butter and banana sandwich, apple, and cup a' tea. As I was sitting there, two women who I'd seen around the kitchen came in and sat down. By their accents I made them to be North Americans of some sort. I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, and one said to the other "Did you go visit so-and-so for me?" To which the other replied something like, "Where does he live again?" At which point the first said, "Something something Wharncliffe and Southdale something."

WHAM! What? Can't be! What are the chances there's a Wharncliffe and Southdale in any other city? "Are you guys from London?" I asked, "Ontario?" the one said, "why yes, we are." "This is freakishly crazy!" Says I, "So am I!" So then we talked a bit about things, and tried to figure out if we knew any of the same people, but we weren't entirely sure how to go about it. Neither of them had grown up there, so things like high schools and long term connections couldn't be used. It didn't really matter though. It was awesome. Like seriously, what are the chances? It turns out one of them was studying in Sydney, and the other was her friend who was visiting. They were on a road trip up to Cairns. The one who was visiting owns a massage therapy place on Richmond near Oxford.

That was a crazily fun encounter, but alas we had to part ways because I had people to be and places to see. I headed back to our room, and encountered ...

Bush Turkey!

This reminded me of the random wildlife that would be just outside our door in St. Lucia. Cats and lizards and whatnot. I also ran into the two Londoners again, and it turned out they were staying in the room next to ours. And, funnily enough, the guy one or two rooms over in the other direction was from Windsor, which I discovered the night before. He kept saying he was from "near Toronto", but some of us pestered him enough, and told where we were from, that he realised he could be more specific. Like there was myself from London, a girl from Sarnia, a guy who'd done uni in Toronto, and a girl from Toronto. So that was cool.

Anyway. Back to the day. We put all our stuff in the car, then collected our bedsheets and room keys and headed down to reception to check out. They were very good about it, and even offered to keep our bags safe while we were out. We were also allowed to leave our food in the kitchen, and come back for showers and lunch after the surfing lesson.

So we headed down to the bottom of the driveway, where we were to meet the van to take us to the lesson. There were two other girls already waiting there. They were English. We were all a bit nervous about the surfing thing, but I was more excited than nervous. While we were waiting, guess who showed up?

BUSH TURKEY! Tee hee hee .. . (those guys are everywhere ... )

So off to the surf lesson. It turned out I didn't need most of the sunscreen, because we were given wetsuits that went down to our knees and elbows. I thought I'd be lying on a surfboard for three hours in the Australian sun, which caused me concern for my back, shoulders, and the backs of my legs. The wetsuit protected my back, upper arms, and upper legs, but my legs spent most of their time well under water anyway.

We first had a quick lesson about currents, waves, and rips, and how the best thing is not to panic but just ride it out if you get caught in a rip, because it will take you back to shore eventually. We then, on dry land, learned the correct position of lying on the board, and how to push our upper bodies up so we could essentially surf lying down. Then it was into the water to test our new skills. It went quite well, and the maybe once or twice that I caught the wave just right, it was a great feeling just going with it. I tried to do this with my prescription goggles, but they got all foggy and splattery, so I gave up on them. I couldn't have worn my glasses because they'd have been washed away. So I was doing all this slightly blurrily.

Now when you're walking your board out to the waves, the trick is to have both hands on it, with your right at the back, if you're right handed. Well, it's not the handed that matters so much as the footed. If you go 'natural footed', that means your left is in front, and your right is in back, from whence you steer. I think the other option is 'goofy footed', I seem to remember hearing once, which means right in front, left steering in back. So, if you go natural footed then that's also how your hands go with walking the board in the water. The other thing about having one hand on the back, besides your steering ability, is you can push down when the waves are coming, which causes the nose to go up, and the board to sort of ride over the wave, rather than diving through it. It's also incredibly important to keep your board perpendicular to the waves so as to create a smaller surface area. You should also turn your body sideways for the same reason. Now for whatever reason, Wen Ying, who was just ahead of me the first time we went out, had her board parallel to the waves. I saw one coming. I saw it hit her. I saw it knock her backward. I then saw the whole mess coming toward me, so I decided to let my board go, and sort of dive under so as to not be smacked in the face. We were a bit of a discombobulated mess afterward, but mostly unscathed. Well, Wen Ying cut the inside of her lip. Other than that, totally OK. That was the point at which my goggles sort of filled with water, and I just pulled them down around my neck and carried on. I should mention, too, that we were attached to our boards by ankle tethers, which are only to be worn in the water, or else you get all tangled up if you try to wear it on dry land. So when I let my board go, it couldn't really go too far, and I could just pull it back to me with the tether rope. It was like a 6' or 10' rope.

Anyway, after having a few gos at the lying down surfing, we went back onto the beach and learned how to stand up. Then we went back into the water and tried it. I think I stood up completely once, for maybe half a second, then I fell in. The best time was when I got half way up, on my knees, but I'd managed to catch a wave perfectly and I just kept riding it practically right up onto the beach. The whole time I was thinking 'OK, I'm going to fall over now,' but I didn't. It just kept going. It was great. I'd definitely do it again. I've been practicing my standing up technique, so next time it's not such a panic to coordinate paddling and watching the waves and standing up and everything. I don't even know if there will be a next time. But if there is, I'll be prepared.

Oh, also, these are other things I learned. The front of the board is called the nose, the back is the tail, the top (that you stand on) is the deck, and the edges are the rails. You need to know these things when you're a surfer, you know.

After our lesson (three hours of fighting waves is just as much tiring as it sounds) we decided to walk back to the hostel so we could dry off a bit. We then washed the sand off ourselves and changed into dry clothes, then set about making and eating lunch. We were basically using up the rest of our food, if we could. I think there were scrambled egg and cheese sandwiches, and something else probably. Here's a couple pics I took of the kitchen, just to show you folks at home.

It was nearly 1:00 p.m. by this point, so we hit the road. We drove back along David Low Way, rather than the highway we'd come in on, just because it went down through the Sunshine Coast and we could see the ocean for a lot of it. I tried to take a picture of the view through the windshield, as we came up over a hill and could see the ocean ahead/to the side. This is the best one I got.

I guess it's really not very oceany at all. Oh well. It's interesting to see foreign streets.

Just near the Sunshine Coast airport we stopped for a bathroom break, and I felt like ice cream, so I went in search of some. We'd stopped in a little shopping centre, where there was a grocery store, and some other stores. I found my ice cream at a video store. This is what I got:

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? They come in mint choc? AWESOME! (Also delicious)

 The night before we'd left I went out for dinner with my friend Rachel, and she mentioned these ice cream thingies that she said were a staple of childhood road trips. They were called Bubble O Bill, and they had gumballs as the eyes, and chocolate on the back. That reminded me of the baseball glove ones we used to have, with the baseball gumball. I think we'd been talking about TV shows, and I'd mentioned Deadwood, and then Wild Bill vs. Buffalo Bill came up, and then Bubble O Bill. Anyway, when I was on my ice cream finding mission I spotted one, so I took a picture of it.

The biggest bubblegum nose in the west. (I guess Rachel had it slightly wrong, or they've changed it a bit.)

So on we carried. Me with my ice cream. Wen Ying with her driving. Before we left, Wen Ying had told me that I wasn't allowed to fall asleep, because then she'd want to sleep. I didn't think that would be a problem. When my ice cream was finished, and we were closer to Brisbane, I said something like "I totally thought that surfing would tire me out, and I'd be struggling to stay awake, but I'm fine." Not five minutes later I noticed myself dozing off. Then Wen Ying said she needed to take a break, so we did. We found ourselves near another grocery store, and she parked in the parking lot and we both dozed off for about 15 minutes. Then we went inside in search of an energy drink or iced coffee or some such, and we went to the toilets in the library across the street so Wen Ying could wash her face. It was probably 3:30 or 4:00 by this point. When we got back on the road we were starting to be concerned that we wouldn't get home by dark, and Wen Ying doesn't feel very safe driving in the dark. It turns out we didn't quite make it. I think it was 6:00 when we pulled up at my door, and the sun set around 5:00-ish. So that was it. Adventure over. Super tired. The next few days I was quite sore all over. And quite tired. But I felt much better about things in general, and my family related stresses had gone down significantly, as had my homesickness.

Chapter 43 - " ... and there'll be dragons, I shouldn't wonder ... "

In which our hero encounters the biggest lizard she's ever seen ...

Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Christine's Australian Wildlife Adventures. In tonight's program our hero decides to get off the bus a block early, and happens across a really very quite large lizard lurking at the side of the bush. Taking her life into her hands, and with all the care free nonchalance of a foreigner ignorant of such a creature's potential poisonousness, she closes the gap between them by about a meter, and really quite daringly takes it's picture.

OK. So I was still like 3 or 4 meters away. That's not the point. The point is there was a really very quite large lizard just hanging out by the edge of the bush beside the sidewalk on which I was walking.

I circled it, because it's really quite well camouflaged. I only noticed it because it moved a bit just as I walked by.

Chapter 42 - Life, the Universe, and Everything

In which our hero shares a heap of miscellany that she's been forgetting to share for like ages and ages ... 

I thought I would do a sort of appropriately titled and themed post for the magical number 42. This one was going to be Noosa Heads: Day 3, but I changed it at the last minute. So here's some interesting things from the past few months that I've been forgetting to share.

Exciting Thing #1: I received in the mail my student membership card to Engineers Australia. It's very exciting. I've actually received two now, because the first one expired on June 30.

Yay! How cool am I? I covered up the membership number because that's how people get hacked, not that there's anything desperately important associated with it or anything, but just in case.

Exciting Thing #2: I got myself a library card for the city library. They've got like two full shelves of Doctor Who, and there's no late fees. When I signed up the local branch (Helensvale) was in a temporary location in some demountables (portables) near the community centre. As of this past Wednesday they're officially in their new building, which is big and spacious and really awesome, and has like a big performance hall and everything, and meeting rooms and whatnot.

The new Helensvale Library. ('Oooh!', 'Aaaah!') I also forgot to mention that it's about five minutes closer than the temporary one was.

Library card! They always want to be nice and official so they have to do my full name. Blurg. It just confuses things.

Exciting Thing #3: When I first got here I sent postcards to a bunch of people (Let me know if you haven't received one yet. I've kind of lost track of who I sent them to.) One of the people I sent one to was Great Aunt Joan, and in like April or something I got one back from her! It's of London (as you see), and her writing is kind of squiggly like Grandad's used to be. It was great, and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I always want to send them to G-dad, but he's not exactly there to get them anymore.

Yes! From the other London!

I've been asking everyone for postcards if I hear of them going to exciting places, and I've received seven so far. They're all Blu-Tacked to my wall. There's two from Emily of the Arctic, one from Aikido Christine when she was in Nepal, one from Auntie Joan in London, one from Beth's B.C. Adventure, one from a local friend Rachel who went down to Sydney, and one that is hopefully the first of many from Christian in Norway. I believe I've already shared the arctic ones and the Nepal one, so here's the rest:

Chesterman Beach, Tofino, B.C.

Around Sydney

Lofoten, Northern Norway. (Look Christian, your postcard is featuring on my blog.)

Exciting Thing #4 (sort of): Remember how like a month ago I said I'd been to Sea World, but I couldn't show you the pictures because they were saved to the phone memory, not the memory card, and I didn't know how to remove them? Well, I went to an electronics shop and asked for a USB cable that would fit my phone. The girl said it would be $40, so I said to forget it. Then just this week I went to a different shop, and they had one for $15, so I got it. Then yesterday I started up a blog post here saying I could finally show you the pictures, and I wrote a whole paragraph or two explaining the situation, and then I plugged in my phone, and it could only read what was on the memory card! Bah! Stupid technology! Why doesn't it behave how I want it too??? So I still can't share those pictures, but I'm working on it. The good news though is now I have a USB cable that will charge my phone, so I can leave that in my bag and there should be no reason for the phone to die if I'm out and I have access to a computer. So like, at uni, mostly, I guess.

Exciting Thing #5: We have a kitten now. She's adorable. She's mostly black with a bit of white on her chest, and random white hairs in some places. She's very invisible at night, and she frequently gets almost stepped on. She hasn't been actually stepped on yet, thank goodness. She sleeps in the bed with Munchkin #1, who's away at her dad's this weekend, so I put a hot water bottle in there for her to lie on. I don't know if she did or not, because I was asleep in my own room. With the door closed.

She also doesn't hold still long enough to take a picture, so if these are blurry I apologise.

Short dark streak of lightning.

That's a shaved spot because of her recent desexing operation.

Awwwww ... !

Exciting Thing #6: I got my exam results for Semester 1. The grades were as follows: MATLAB - 7; Electromagnetics - 7; Maths - 6; Power Electronics & Electrical Machines - 5. 'That's nice,' you might say, 'but what does it all mean?' Well, I'll explain. 7, formerly known as HD, or High Distinction, means a final mark of between 85% and 100%. 6, formerly D for Distinction, is 75% to 84%. 5, formerly C for Credit, is 65% to 74%. I'm not particularly proud of the 5, but it's better than I was expecting in that class. I was almost sure I'd failed or nearly failed the exam. I'm not especially proud of the 6 either, because that was in Maths which I thought was my best class. I had about 92% going in, and I got 71% on the exam, so I guess that's like 81% or something overall. The professor said we can come to his office on Tuesday to see our exams, so I'll be able to see what went so horribly wrong.

In other animal related news, when I got back from my three day vacay I was greeted with the news that we have a cat now. Stick with me here. I'm not repeating myself. So this cat just showed up while I was away, and the kids naturally got very attached to it. (It reminded me of how we used to adopt random pets for a few days when they showed up in our back yard. There were several cats, that rabbit, that dog we found wandering in the woods, that turtle that dad found on the road ... ) So apparently #1 had asked up and down the street, and no one was missing a cat. It seemed to be scratching a lot, and we looked at it and spotted some fleas, so we quarantined it to the garage until some flea tablets could be acquired. They were, as well as some cat food and kitty litter. Sarah took it to a vet, and they said it was about 2-3 years old, not microchipped, and not de-sexed. #1 even shelled out $8 of her own money to buy a pink collar with bells on it. So we had a cat. For just over a week. Then on Saturday morning the next door neighbour knocked on our door, and said she'd been away on holiday for a week, and her mum was watching the house or something, and had we seen her cat. So we didn't have a cat, because it was actually the neighbour's. #1 neglected to mention that when she was asking up and down the street, there'd been no answer next door.

So that afternoon #1 said so Sarah, "What can I do that will convince you to go out to the pound and buy a kitten?" Sarah said, "Mow the lawn." So she did. And now there's a kitten. See? I told you it would all work out if you stuck with me.

Also, re. the chooks. I mentioned how all but two wandered away or got eaten by puppies. Then Sarah bought three, so we were back up to five. Now the neighbour has kindly replaced the eaten ones with five more, and so now we're up to ten. The new ones are much younger and skinnier, and the red comb thingies on their heads haven't fully developed. The old ones were being quite nasty at first, but I think they're getting along better now. We still only get about two eggs per day, but that might be because the young ones don't lay yet, or they're adjusting to their new environment, or just because it's "winter" when they apparently don't lay as much anyway.

I feel like there was many more exciting things to share, but I can't remember them.

I know! All of that down-ness and annoyance with the munchkins and with things in general was washed away by my little vacation. I felt heaps better afterward, and I even spent a week babysitting and didn't lose my mind. Hopefully it doesn't come back. I'll try to keep on top of it, and pay more attention to the little signs.

And one last thing. Remember that picture of Turkish Delight ice cream bars I shared ages ago? And I said I might buy them for a post exam treat? Well, I finally did. They're delicious. And bigger than I imagined.

Chapter 41 - Noosa Heads: Day 2

In which our hero sees a koala, some dolphins, heaps of bush turkeys, and a crocodile ... also liquid nitrogen ice cream ... 

OK, friends. I'm back. All of last week I was watching the munchkins all day every day, so I couldn't get around to doing the blah blah blog. Now I'm at uni, to use the internet, because uploading so many pictures will use up my home internet. I've specifically set aside this time specifically to do this. So here I am. Prepare to be amazed. Or indifferent, or whatever.

The view from brekkie.

On Wednesday night we made a plan to get up at like 7:00 a.m. and go for a nice hike in Noosa National Park, which was only like 10 minutes walk from where we were staying. We got up at like 8:30 or 9:00, had our breakfast, and headed out. There was a general sort of tourist information place at which the lady told us that koalas were frequently spotted in the park, and the park staff usually spotted them and wrote their location down on a little blackboard so people could go see them. Here's some of the views we saw between the information place and the National Park.

As soon as we got to the park we headed for the little information stand thingy and there was the sign saying "Koala sighting -- nearest gum tree to the front door." So after asking which ones were gum trees we went and spotted it. It was just chillin'. Taking a nap. As koalas do when the sun is up.

This is the koala. It's the sort of round thing in the middle. I apologise that my phone doesn't have any kind of zoom function to allow for a closer look.

There. Inside the red circle. See?

After marveling at a real live wild koala in a tree for some time, we carried on with our hike. It was really beautiful. Lots of rocks and waves and sun sparkling off the water. Take a look:

People waiting for waves to surf on.

A path down to the beach.

More surfers.

One girl in this group had a waterproofed video camera (or possibly regular camera) to film the others surfing.

This is a view of the water through the trees, except it's to bright, so you can't see the water.

Bush turkey!

Sisters! Lets go explore the rocks!

Look Annie! Rocks!

The view of the land to the right. The left was all rocks and ocean. Just for some variety.

A path down to the edge of the cliff. I love paths with water at the end framed by trees. They're just so inviting.

Hell's Gates

Looking straight down into Hell's Gates.

Alexandria Beach. Not recommended for swimming due to submerged rocks and unpredictable currents.

These are the dolphins we saw. They're quite far, so probably you can't see them. But I promise they're there.

Alexandria Beach again.

This point where the dolphins, Hell's Gates, Alexandria Beach, etc., were, was sort of a mid-way point on the path we were following. It was actually a physical point of land, so there were some nice views, and we probably spent a good 10 minutes there taking pictures. After this the path went inland and we saw a lot a of forest.

Alexandria Beach through the trees.

In case of emergency, there's an emergency radio 200m that way.

Slightly blurry path. Sorry about that.

Trees.

Trees.

Trees.

I just love trees. Does it show?

More path. There's probably something magical beyond that bend. We should go see.

Wen Ying was getting thoroughly fed up with walking by this point, and when we came in view of the visitor's centre again she had me take a picture of her being really happy because it was over. Unfortunately it's on her camera, so I don't have it to show you. I think she was expecting it to be like an hour, and it was like 2.5-3 hours. And she hadn't brought any water. She was happy to be done, especially because the plan for the afternoon was shopping in the shops, and she loves shopping.

I was quite happy to be done too. At a certain point you're too tired to appreciate the beauty of things anyway, and my feet were getting annoyed with my shoes. So we headed back to our hostel for some lunch, and to sign up for surfing lessons the next morning. Yes, that's right. Surfing lessons. They offered a three hour group lesson for $39, and I figured I had to try it at least once while in Australia, and I convinced Wen Ying to come too.

My lunch glowing like Ingrid Bergman. It's not a particularly interesting lunch, and I took the picture just to sort of portray the vibe of the place, but I'm sharing it because it's a neat effect that happened by accident because I smudged the lens with sunscreeny fingers unknowingly.

So now off to the shops. Wen Ying was looking to buy herself a birthday present, as it was her birthday. We basically went into every shop that looked interesting on Hastings Street, which is the little touristy shopping district thing. Also only 5 mins from our hostel. Here are some of the things we saw.

The Billabong Surf Report, outside a Billabong shop.

Just looking down the street.

Bush turkey!

Tee hee hee hooters.

A shop called Lamington that sold all sorts of interesting handcrafted things like tea towels with bush turkeys on them.

Wooden watches.

Look Annie! Fossils in steps!

A decorated surfer hippy's van.

Same van, from the other side.

Bush turkey!

We had various things that we needed to do. Important things, like buy stamps for overseas postcards, and get ice cream. So we did those things. There was a shop that we'd spotted the day before on our night time walk that did liquid nitrogen ice cream, so the plan was to go there after we got our stamps. We got in line, and waited, and picked our flavours, and were just about ready to order when we noticed the sign that said "Minimum $20 for EFTPOS" (Electronic Funds Transfer Point Of Sale). Cards basically. I didn't have any cash left, and nor did I have my debit card with which to withdraw cash. So we went along, and spotted an ANZ ATM (Australia/New Zealand Bank), and Wen Ying went to use it but it said it was temporarily out of service. Then we remembered we'd seen another one up by the shops up the hill where we did our grocery shop the night before, and conveniently there was a bus just arriving, so we went and hopped on it. Then I remembered I didn't have my debit card, so we hopped off again, and went back to the hostel for dinner. After dinner we headed up the hill on the bus and used the ATM. I needed cash for both the ice cream and the surfing lesson. While we were waiting for the bus back down we went into the IGA to get some chips, because there was a plan for some beer later in the evening, and chips and beer go together like hot fudge and sundaes. As we exited the IGA we passed by a bakery that had all its wares packed away except for a crocodile made of bread.

Ah ha ha! Fooled you! I bet at the beginning you thought I'd seen a real crocodile!

So then we headed back down the hill to the ice cream shop. It was great, and there was no lineup this time. Just watching it be made was awesome, but then it tasted great too. Really smooth.

There's the great big tank of liquid nitrogen.

There's the Thermos they use to pour it, and the jar of ice cream mix.

Woohoo! Ice cream and a fog show! You can't get more awesome than that!

Wen Ying with her ice cream. It was super tasty. Mine I mean, not hers. Well, hers probably was too, but I didn't try hers.

So the next part of the plan was to drink some beer as part of the birthday celebration. We both needed to charge our phones, and there's no power points (outlets) in the rooms, so we decided to go down to the bar/restaurant and buy a jug of something and share it while the phones charged. We were sitting there happily with our chips and beer when one of the staff members announced that "Minute to Win It" was starting soon, and gather around if we wanted to play so he could explain it. So I went, and he asked if I was playing, and I said sure, why not, at which point I got a high five from the slightly tipsy French fellow standing beside me.

The basic idea was there were teams of about six people, and six little challenges, and one person from each team had one minute to complete the task. The winner was the one who did it correctly fastest. My team was myself, clearly, Alexis (the slightly tipsy French fellow), another French guy named Cedric, and a Swiss German girl named Julia ("Yulia"), not to be confused with Julia ("Julia"), who was on a different team. Or maybe it was the other way around.

I was up first, and my challenge was to blow a stack of cards off of the top of a beer bottle, but leave one on at the end. I didn't manage it, but neither did anyone else. We won that round because we were the only team with any cards on the bottle when the clock ran out. The other things were to have an Oreo on your forehead and move it to your mouth without using your hands; have a pencil dangling behind you from a string around your waist and try to squat down and get it into a beer bottle; flip a beer mat (coaster) up from the edge of the table and have it stay on top of a glass; bounce a ping pong ball between two people while moving sideways for like two metres until you could drop it in a bucket, no double hits, if you use your hands or it touches the ground you start again; and lastly have a Kleenex box with the top cut out tied to your waist, with six ping pong balls in it, and bounce around like a fool until they all come out, and again no using your hands.

We won the cards one, the beer mat one, the pencil on the string one, the ping pong/bucket one, and did very well on the Kleenex box, so our team won the whole thing. What we won was two pitchers of beer, or two bottles of wine, or one of each, so we got one of each, and went and sat down and shared them. Some friends came and joined too, so it was a happy little party. At like 10:00 the bar closed, but we didn't want to stop the fun, so the rest of the gang convinced me it was a good idea to go for a wander in search of some more beverages. We accumulated more people who were just about to head out themselves, and we all went for a walk. The one chap, Steve, who was from New Jersey but had done uni in Toronto and now was being a teacher here somewhere, seemed to know his way around, so we followed him. There was a girl from Toronto too, and later we encountered a guy from Windsor. And there was an American girl who said she was kind of half Canadian, and mentioned something about Sarnia. We ended up at the Surf Club, which, as I understand it, is a sort of fund raising front for the Surf Lifesavers, which are volunteer beach life guards. Like how you can go to the Legion Hall and get a drink, that sort of thing. I guess. Anyway, there was karaoke going on, so some people participated in that. Not me though. I wasn't that far gone.

That place closed at 11:30, and I knew I should head back and go to bed because my surf lesson was at 9:00 a.m., but I didn't. We went to another place, and I went to use the toilet, and discovered afterward that there was no soap. So I walked back to the hostel to wash my hands and just stayed there, showered, and went to bed. I don't know what time it was. I deliberately didn't check so as to not be all worried about how much sleep I was getting. I'm sure it was after 1:00 a.m. by the time I got into bed.

It was seriously really fun. I enjoyed myself, and felt really relaxed, and it was fun making random friends that I'd never see again, and just having a good time. Now if you're all worried and like "Oh, no! What's happened! That's not her style at all!", just relax. There was no full-on drunkenness, no falling over, no dangerous situations, no drugs. Just good fun. No vomiting afterward either, which is great. Used to be just one beer would make me nauseous. Not anymore. Now I'm one of the natives who drinks beer and eats Vegemite. I think it helped to not drink anything at all for like two years as well.

That's it. Now I'm going to watch The Wolverine.