February 15th
We woke up early again for Brecky (I've seen it as Brekky too, but Brecky is closer to my name so I'll just keep it like that) and it was pouring.
"This is surf camp, not sun camp"
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| From Surf Camp |
We got our nasty wetties (wetsuits) on and (most of us) went back into the water for some more high quality surf time. I stood up some more, but honestly, it is epically easier to do when the instructor gives you a push. Maybe it was just the quality of the waves, but that push really made a difference. I stood up some more and all was good. We stopped again for lunch, which was also delicious. Seriously, after being beaten down by waves for two straight hours, food tastes so incredible. They could have been feeding me asparagus and I would have thought it was gourmet. Anyway, the Belgian cooks prepared some delectable food regardless and I ate it all up. This was the first time I was introduced to Sweet Chili Sauce, which is possibly the most delicious condiment I've ever tasted. It's all over Australia and I love it. It's sometimes spelled "chilli" or labeled as Sweet Thai Chilli sauce.
The next two hour session was fairly eventful. Toward the end of it I was stung by a Portuguese Man o' War (also known as a bluebottle). Several of my new friends were stung earlier and I felt really bad for them, but I wasn't quite as empathetic until I got stung myself. Sean, the photographer and also Chaplin's fill-in for the last session, assured me that it would feel like my leg was going to fall off, but only for 30 minutes. He told me a very nice story about someone he knew who got stung by one. The guy was convinced he was going to die and demanded to be taken to the hospital. After he arrived, the very tricky person in charge told him it would be about a 20 minute wait knowing that the pain would be gone by then. This was incredibly reassuring as I sat on the beach wincing the minutes away.
This is what they look like:
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| From Surf Camp |
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| From Surf Camp |
A shot of my incredibly sore feet:
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| From Surf Camp |
I had already gotten in most of my surfing for that session, so in theory it came at the right time, with the actual right time being never. Right after that session we got changed back into regular clothes, packed up and headed out. We stopped outside Gerroa in a town called Gerringong where we had the option of getting meat pies at a local bakery or ice cream at a local ice cream shop. Both sounded great, but I went for the meat pies after having them highly recommended by my friend Karl back at UMD. I led the pack to the meat pie bakery and when I got there, the cashier gave me six free cupcakes because she was going to throw them away. I gladly took them off her hands. :)
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| From Surf Camp |
The meat pie was similar to a chicken pot pie, except that instead of being filled with chicken and vegetables, it was filled with a ground beef meat and meat gravy. It was quite tasty, but if I were to eat them on a regular basis I would probably gain 100 pounds (45.359237 kilograms, I really gotta get with this metric thing). More people from the bus joined us in the bakery like Rosa from England and Heather from Canada, who I also roomed with. When we got back on the bus, I purchased some pictures of the group and after we started rolling back to the Sydney area (which was quite a trip, about 3 hours) we watched Point Break. This movie is epically ridiculous. To start it off, the leads are Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, with a nice supporting cast of Gary Busey. Oh and John C. Reilly (Dr. Cox from Scrubs) is in there too, but I find it impossible to hate him. If that doesn't make you not watch the movie, try Patrick Swayze leading a gang of surfers who rob banks and having Keanu Reeves be a cop who learns to surf so he can catch him. Regardless, the movie was a favorite among the surf instructors and it was at the very least entertaining.
We got back to uni (the university) and I headed back to my apartment. Somewhere between being dropped off and nightfall, I ran into my roommates on the sidewalk. Andy, Sean and Bethany are really cool. The guys are from San Diego and Bethany goes to school in Hartford. It has been a blast living with all of them. All three of them came to Australia through the Australearn program, and I'm friends with so many of them that someone I never met from the Australearn team friended me on Facebook.
A few seconds after I got back to the apartment, I was whisked away to Macquarie University Village (our apartment complex) orientation, which was really lame. We all got back to the apartment and Sean, another AustraLearner Mary, and I all went to Woolworth's (the grocery store). I was in pretty desperate need of conditioner because surf camp ate my hair. The store was not very close to where we lived, but we were pretty convinced it was the only one open on a Sunday night. I got what I needed, and while we were making the trek back to the University Village, it started downpouring. The skies opened up and just dumped water on us. I can't remember if it was Sean or Mary who started it, but by the time we got back to our apartment we were belting CCR's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" at the top of our lungs. Mary and I both were in choir and like harmonies which is fun. After we got back, we took an awkward "we're really wet" photo and then I think I went to bed. Fun day.
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