Yoyoyo

Friends! What's up? I'm chillen in the back seat of the greyhound (Australia's version) on my way out of Byron bay and towards surfer's paradise. It's been quite a while since we've last been in touch and to be honest the thought of spending the next half hour writing this is unbearable but I know some of you have just been sitting on the edge of your seats in anticipation for another edition of this, so here goes nothing.

Last we left off we were in Sydney. We ended up staying there for about a week and I will say that I wish it could've been for longer. After our old roommates left we ended up partying with sam, the famous lost boy (refer to previous blogs), annie, laura and Seren. We ended our time there at Annie's beach house... That's right, beach house. She's quite the high roller. Her house is massive and backs on to a harbour where he basically has her own private beach with no one else in sight. The walk down to the beach is basically through a jungle, which obviously is the boys' worst nightmare since there must be millions of spiders just lurking in there... I did see a few lizards and spiders and josh had quite the ordeal as well during his workout. The girls made us a lovely dinner and we watched Drive which may be the weirdest movie ever, but also pretty great.

After that we headed to coffs harbour, where their claim to fame is a giant (maybe even the world's biggest) banana. To get there we had to take a 9 hour overnight greyhound which was atrocious. We got into coffs at 4am and somehow got into our hostel room 10 hours before check in, which was pretty much the highlight of our stint there. We also went to the beach but it was average at best and raining. Didn't even see the banana.

Thankfully we got out of coffs at 6am the next morning and this time boarded a bus that was only 5 hours. Our next destination: Byron bay. Byron is a touristy beach town filled with surfers and stoners. I think it will probably go down as one of the best stops on this 3 month escapade . The beach was really nice, the waves were huge and the sun was shining. We ended up staying for 3 nights and definitely could've stayed for more. Almost right after getting there we ran into Marie and Will, two friends that we met in New Zealand. This trip has shown me many times that the world is a very small place. We all got on a bus the next day to go to Nimbin. Nimbin is a very small hippy village outside of Byron where you get bombarded with offers for any kind of drug you could want. It was pretty crazy to see it all happening so publicly and it made me feel like I was being punked. Super cool and super jokes overall. On the bus we also met Sarah & Charlie, two girls from the Uk, and Derek, our first american friend.


Anyways a few days have gone by since what I wrote above and I'm now in rainbow beach.. Got a little sidetracked by fun!

Byron bay continued to be awesome until we left, including another trip out with the gang and another beach day with the sweeds, Marie, William and Simon. We also got to catch up with Annie, Laura and Seren on the last night which is always a treat. We went to this one legendary bar called cheeky monkeys where the dance floor is entirely made up of tables and basically everyone just acts ridiculously and has a wonderful time.

The next morning, derek, the boys, Charlie, Sarah and I got back on the greyhound and headed for surfer's paradise, which is a pretty cool city north of byron. We got on the shuttle to our hostel and realized it was way out of town, which was unfortunate, but it had a great pool, big rooms and a theater room so it wasn't all bad. Charlie and Sarah found a bar crawl for us... For 13$ we got entry to 4 bars, a BBQ, pizza, free transport and an hour of bowling. Its always quite the rush to find a deal like that as a traveller and it made the night even better knowing how cheap it was. We had a great time tearing up the dance floor and the alley. It was also Charlie's birthday so not a bad way to celebrate I think.

The next day the 6 of us headed into the city to shop and check out the beach, both of which were great but would have been better if it weren't raining. We watched 3 old people getting surf lessons on the beach and absolutely sucking at it and I got a waffle cone fudge ice cream at McDonald's (amazing. Did you know that was a thing?).

That night we ended up just watching some movies... American beauty (so messed up) and Happy Gilmore, and went to bed. The next day I tragically misplaced my camera in my room, which was unlocatable despite scouring the entire hostel. I have developed a few conspiracy theories regarding the Swedish girls doing the laundry and somehow washing my camera then throwing it out, crazy I know but I'm SO convinced. I had to buy a new one which basically killed my soul as does any time I have to spend more than 20$. Not to mention how much my soul was damaged by the loss of a month's worth of photos... Thank god for fb and tagging.

Once again we all boarded the greyhound, this time to Brisbane. Brisbane might be my favorite city ever. Its so pretty, has so much cool architecture going on and is full of stuff to do surrounded by young people. There's also an awesome man made lagoon on the south side (pictures below) where we ended up spending the majority of our first day. After that we wandered everywhere from the art gallery to the botanical gardens and had a lovely afternoon.

That night Derek took us to a gay bar (a first for all 3 of us) and I was very impressed by the boys' ability to maintain confidence with their straight boy dance moves making them stick out like sore thumbs. To be honest I think they provided quite a bit of entertainment for everyone around. We walked home with one stop to comfort a lost bride who had been ditched by her bridesmaids at her bachelorette. Probably the most hostile person I've ever met but I supposed times were tough...

The next day was st pattys, which is funny since yours is just wrapping up at home. As all of you know, we take this holiday very seriously at home, so it was a little disheartening to realize that all our international friends didn't, but we made the most of it. We began the day with Derek, Annie, Laura, Marie and Seren who caught up to us in Brisbane, found Sarah and charlie and headed to the lagoon to start the festivities. A few hours and a Chinese feast later we were in fine form and ready for early bed, but we rallied. There was a huge party on the roof of our hostel, and after that we headed to a few bars. The coolest stop was this Irish club that was all lit up and had a band of old men playing some jigs. The crowd was going nuts and the dancing was wild. I had my first Guinness which tasted like newspaper. We strolled home with a few snack stops and fell fast asleep after a hard day's work.

Today josh and I got up at the crack of dawn to get to rainbow beach, and mike will catch us tomorrow. Saying goodbye to Derek sucked because he was such a calm presence in such an aggressive group, but he's off to some amazing times in New Zealand. We'll see everyone else sometime before we're done here... Which is in 2 weeks! Time goes so fast and I really wish I could make it stop, but definitely looking forward to mtg up with Wong and Lindsey in Thailand!

That's it for now! Sorry for this absurdly long post, that's what happens when you procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate! Love you all and will try to be in touch again soon!