Since the 18th of December, school has been out and we have summer holidays! To celebrate, a few friends and myself spent a good portion of the day at the beach and my friends house just having fun and hanging out. It was a good time, followed by going home to get ready for a Rotary Christmas Party, which was pretty good. The party was mostly just a Christmas themed meeting with small party aspects, but the company was great and I enjoyed it. Afterward, I went to a friend's 17th birthday party, which I think pretty much ended up being an end of the year party. It was pretty fun end to the school year.
The next day was time for camping! My host family and I went down to a mysterious bay (pun intended) to camp for the next week and a half. We got there mid afternoon, finished setting up and the day was pretty much gone by dinner. In the morning, it was an early (normal for camping) start at 0800. I went for a run to explore the camping area, came back and went to the beach with Will. Down there, I even taught him the art of Wiffle Ball before we threw ourselves into the surf. I had a try with the surf-ski, which is kinda like a kayak that you sit on top of, designed to catch waves. Its fun, yet can be pretty challenging to balance, especially with the waves pounding you, its similar to a bike in the way that the faster you go, the easier it is to balance. Back at the camp site, we collected firewood before having a family night playing Rummikub. This is pretty much how the camping went, with just some differences in what we did at the beach and what games we played. We played a lot of Rummikub and plenty of Speed Scrabble, and some trivia here and there.
Saturday, the four of us spent the better half of the morning fishing off of one of the cliffs, yet no one ended up getting anything other than a rock. ;) That afternoon, we played a good game of beach cricket, which was pretty fun, before cooling off in the great Pacific. However, for the first time in my life, as I remember, I ripped my swimmers while reaching for the ball during cricket! Of course, since it happened once, t can happen again, and come Christmas Day, while tossing the frisbee, I ripped my jeans... Sunday was a pleasant day and Will and I got to explore a cave structure near the beach which, other than the rocks hurting my feet, was pretty cool, if it wasn't so hard and dependant on the tides to get to, I wouldn't mind just hanging out in there. That night we had a fire and I introduced my family to the magic of S'MORES! They aren't the same because a) no graham crackers in Australia, and b) marshmallows are different, c) no Hershey's... Australian Cadbury is better, yet the different sized pieces make it harder to make the s'mores. Overall, they are good, but I don't think they quite hit the mark. That night, Will and I also played around with my camera and our flashlights to take some pretty cool photos which will be up soon.
Christmas Eve Eve consisted of an early morning to go to town and get ready to go fishing. The four of us rented a little tinny to go out on the lake for four hours of fishing. It was a good time and after a slow start for myself, I ended up catching 5 1/2 fish! They were all baby snappers so we had to release them but it was still good. The half of a fish was when I had a pretty big fish on the line and almost got him out of the water, but with only a couple feet left to go, he got himself off the line... Or a shark ate the other half of the fish, whatever you want to believe. ;)
Christmas Eve was a normal day of camping, and we had another fire that night before heading off to bed around 10. (Can't be up when Santa gets there!) Christmas morning was a pleasant one and a relaxing one. We woke up one by one, and once everyone was up and running, we opened up presents! I got a few things from my family, but I think the one I will cherish the most is a shirt Julie altered so say where I've been, including Moruya, Moruya Heads, and Congo on it! It was great to spend Christmas here in Australia with my host family, Julie, Pete, and Will! Afterward, we headed back to Moruya to have a Christmas lunch with Pete's family. Beforehand, though, my family was awesome and changed the plans slightly so that I could get to church for Christmas mass. As it goes with the Church, mass was pretty much the same, yet here, at this parish, they sung all of the responses, which was a bit different. But singing in praying twice, right? When we got to Pete's sister's place, we had a great lunch including, not shrimp, but prawns on the barbie! It was a good time, and it was then that while tossing the frisbee, I ripped my pants *insert Spongebob song here* for the second time that week. Eventually it came time to depart from there and head over to Will's uncle's place for Christmas dinner, which was equally as good. For dinner, we had various vegetables, next to wild boar and duck, which were both very delicious. Will and I spent the night with Will's dad before going home in the morning after a bacon and egg breakfast. This year's (or last year, now) Christmas was awesome! It was much different being that it was 80 degrees (fahrenheit, I don't think we would be alive if it was celsius), although apparently thats cold for Christmas in Australia; also because we were camping on Christmas morn. I don't know if it was that or the absence of family that it didn't really feel like Christmas at first, but I missed the cold Christmas back home... Everyone in my family and friends around me, though, held the holiday spirit and helped me feel that, making, in the end, one of the best Christmases ever! It was definitely different, but good. :D
The next day was Boxing Day! It was exciting to say "Happy Boxing Day!" haha We didn't get back down to Mystery Bay until the afternoon, but it was alright, we still got some good time at the beach before the weather turned. Of all times that it doesn't rain in Australia, it rained 3 of the 10 days there... It was still good though. :) Friday morning we spent the hours mostly at the beach and on the boogie board. It was a pretty good time and I caught a few great waves on the board. No surfing, though. :/ In the afternoon, after lunch, we went down to Merimbula to do a little shopping before Will and I went to a French exchange student's 18th birthday party! It was a pretty good party and I had a lot of fun, and pulled an all-nighter to watch the sunrise. The next morning, we had breakfast with eggs, delicious crêpes and the best bacon I've had since getting to Australia. Usually the bacon, here, isn't quite as good I think, but this bacon was great. :) We then hung around waiting to do something before getting picked up in the late morning by Pete and Julie who were generous enough to take the hour drive so Will and I could go to the party. We took the coastal route back to our camp site, stopping for lunch along the way, which was superb. When we got back, we decided to just pack up that night instead of the next day, so we packed up and headed back home to Congo. That night, I had a generous 13 hours sleep before getting up to help sort out the camping stuff, and clean/ fix the bikes. We even had some street art from the world-renowned artist, Will Scobie, after having to empty a bucket of paint and water that has been sitting for some months. (Pictures will be up soon)
This brought us to Monday, where we had a quiet day of the Hobbit! In the morning/ early afternoon, we watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey before going to the theater in the late afternoon to watch The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. They are both pretty good, but I have to say, I didn't enjoy An Unexpected Journey as much the second time watching it and in both, they got a little slow in the middle. Other than that, they are really good. :) Tuesday was finally New Year's Eve! It kinda crept up on us, and seem to be here too soon. My host family and I went mini-golfing! I was winning by one for the first 9, but come the end of the game, I was in 3rd, with everyone only 1 point apart from each other. I did, though, win in the number of hole-in-ones, with 2! :) It was a fun time! In the evening, Will and I went to a friend's place for a small get-together for New Years. We had a lot of fun that night leading up to 2014 and a pretty good start to the year in the early hours! It was kinda cool to spend New Years here, and watch the fireworks, even if just on tele, but it was great! I would put this as one of, if not the best New Years celebration in my life! After a few hours of sleep, we had pancakes for breakfast before heading down to the surf for a day at the beach. We even had tubes to float around in and ride the waves on, which was pretty close to being just as good as surfing!
We went home in the late afternoon, and had dinner. To finish off the night, we watched The Man From Snowy River, which is an Australian classic based off an Australian poem about a mountain man. Both the poem and film are really good and I enjoyed it. :) Come today, we had a relaxing morning, which I spent reading and writing the majority of this post. In the avo, we went for a canoe ride up Congo Creek which was pretty fun and very enjoyable. Will and even stopped for a little while to go for a swim, jumping off a fallen tree. I even did some back flips and two failed front flips... It was a good time followed by going out for Mexican for dinner. :) I had the fajitas after we all had chips and guac. It was pretty good, although I found the guac a bit unsatisfying and the meal insufficient, but other than that, it was a great meal and a good time. I even taught my family paper football! Afterward, we went home to get changed shortly before heading down the road to the Creek for some prawning. We spent a good hour or so down there, and had about 6 or 7 prawns to show for it, although only 1 was of good size, really. It was still a great night and really fun. :D
HAPPY NEW YEAR! GOD BLESS!
