Continuing on...

Sooo... I guess its a good thing that I posted that last post when I did rather then waiting since its been another 2 weeks!

Well, since I finished my last post in relation to surfing, I might as well continue telling of some surfing adventures here in the great Broulee! Come Australia Day this year, 26 Jan (more on that later), a local surf school set out to break the world record for the most people surfing on a single wave! And I participated! The current record is 110 held by people in South Africa, but on this day we got 281 people participating to break that record. The rules specify that everyone has to be riding the wave for the same 5 seconds, that is, time doesn't start until everyone being counted is standing, and it finishes once one person who is being counted falls. That 5 sec is the difficult part--its a long time to ride a wave, especially if there isn't a good swell, such as on Aus Day. However, at the end of the event, preliminary views say that we there were 3 or 4 waves where we may have been very close if not actually beating the record. Due to the magnitude of the area and amount of people, it will take a couple months to review. [Recent reports say that the helicopter that was recording may have been too far away to clearly get everyone in one frame, which may disqualify our attempt, but it was still worth it and fun! And there is still not official word yet, anyway.]

While on the topic, I might as well tell my tale of this past weekend at the Surf Camp with the other exchange students! From Wednesday afternoon, we went up to where we should be to just hang out for the night and have some fun before an early morning of surfing from 830-1030 with world-renowned surfer Pam Burridge! The swell wasn't the best, but it was good for beginners and it was a blast! It's great to surf, and then throw in some fantastic exchange students, and it becomes the best thing in the world! :) The afternoon was spent roaming the town with a nice dinner at the golf club, before coming back to our accommodation to hang out some more and continue the fun! Friday, we continued the fun on the water in the early morning before heading up to Nowra in the afternoon for dinner and to get with our host families for the weekend. For Friday and Saturday nights, we were split up and divided among Rotarians in the area. Philipp from Germany and myself stayed with a Rebounder, Will, who went to Germany last year. It was a good time, and I enjoyed my stay with them, although I failed America at Madden... Philipp annihilated me without even understanding the game!

Saturday was met with a trip around Jervis Bay to explore and spend the avo with a barbecue at the beach! We even saw dolphins about 50m offshore, so Sondre, from Norway, and myself attempted to swim out to them and got about 10m from them! Sadly, though, a whale watching boat drove by and the dolphins followed before we could get there... The day was completed by going back to our host families homes for the night and I attempted to stay up to watch the Olympics. I wanted to watch the Bronze Medal hockey game between the USA and Finland at 2am and made it to the end of the first period, fell asleep till halfway through the 2nd, watched the end of the 2nd period, then fell asleep til my alarm went off at 730. Its probably best that I fell asleep, though, because although the beginning proved to be a great match, after the 2nd period, the US team collapsed and allowed Finland to win 5-0. Sunday came to be great fun! We got down to the river about 830 for a fun day of watersports including water skiing! I just started with an inflatable mat type thing that I would say was the most fun, but it took a lot from your shoulders to stay on. Afterward, I made my attempt at water skiing, and after practice run on a pull bar, I got towed from behind the boat and got up on my first go! That was really fun, and I was even able to jump a little! Near the end of our time, I tried some knee-boarding and got it on my 2nd try from the shore and my 2nd try in the water, although, when getting up in the water, I find it hard to really secure yourself, so I couldn't maneuver too much on it. We ended with a barbecue lunch before getting on the bus to come home. I went to bed shortly after dinner before 8, as a great end to the fun weekend! Today at school, I couldn't concentrate though as my head was still water skiing!

This awesome weekend was to come a month before Safari and 10 days after the Rebounders weekend! (rebounders are those who went on exchange and have now come back from it). For that weekend, all the rebounds who went on exchange in 2013, and all the current inbounds met up in Tuross so the rebounds could tell their stories and we inbounds got to hang out together. We didn't do too much, other than hang out at the beach and listen to some of the rebounds stories, and when we went to the beach, I couldn't do much due to my recovery from appendicitis, but it was a fun weekend!

Another 2 weeks before that, was AUSTRALIA DAY! Yes, thats a real thing! The holiday was first designed to celebrate the first landing of a British fleet in Australia, but has since evolved to just be a celebration of Australian national pride, and an excuse to party. It is very similar, in a way, to the 4th of July for Americans. Earlier I mentioned the world record attempt that morning, and then that afternoon, I went to my brother, Will's place for a small party with some great friends! We had a great time that I will never forget and I began a new tradition for 26 January! I'll have to stream Triple J's Hottest 100, which is an annual radio program that counts down the hottest 100 songs in Australia for the past year, from noon til 8pm.

Even earlier that week, to give a good end to the summer holidays, several friends and I went up to Nowra for an ice skating rink they set up in the local entertainment center. By US standards, it was a very poor rink, but for Australia it was good, and for a few friends, it was their first time skating! We had about 1 1/2 hours on the ice and had a great time! It was really fun, followed by lunch and the laser tag. We played two games and the first one, my team was beast! Out of the four people on our team, we had the top three players...however come the second game...when the teams changed, I was on the worst and I was the second worst player. O.o I'll blame the laser gun ;)

The weekend before this, I got the chance to go to Nowra to visit an Alpaca farm! There was a West Point graduate with an Ambassadorial scholarship from Rotary who just got a degree from ANU and was visiting the local club, so Rotary thought it'd be a good idea for me to come up since we were both American and had military interests. We met up at an alpaca farm in the area which was pretty cool, and amazing. This guy had 1700 alpacas on 3 farms, all of which get weighed once a month and shaved once a year! After leaving it was about time for dinner, so we went down to a local restaurant to enjoy some great alpaca burgers! They were delicious. :) For those wondering what alpaca is like, I can't say for sure because a burger is all ground up with different seasoning, but it was described to me as a midpoint between lamb and venison. (If you haven't tried venison, well, idk...) The next morning, we met up again at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, which is a museum showcasing the Australian Navy's air history. That was a cool thing to see and took up a good 2-3 hours. I found it funny that the museum is currently renting a plane from the US Navy for display, but since the museum is about Australia, they repainted it... That night I went to the Rotary meeting and got to hear a bit more about the West Point graduate. The next morning, I visited a small museum about the local history of the land before catching a bus back down the coast.

Other than these several adventures, most of my holidays was spent at the beach. I would often go down to the beach for a few hours to just read and relax, soaking in the vitamin D. I continued running with the Broulee Running Club on Wednesdays and found things to occupy my time, such as going to parties here and there. I now have 3 family members with their birthday on 10 Feb: my brother, host brother, and host mom. I was loving it over the holidays and wish it didn't have to end, but it did. Now I've been back at school for about a month, other than the week off from my trip to the hospital and from the surf camp last week. I can't get enough of Australia and now that I'm approaching the 7 month mark (17,811,420 seconds now), I only have another 4 months left and don't want it to end!