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!

6 MONTHS!!!!

I really need to start doing this more regularly... It just builds up since I haven't posted in a month and is now a bit overwhelming, so I may try to just breeze through it. If I end up not putting as much detail as you would like or something, well, umm... too bad. Get over it, haha.

I also don't think I'm going to go in chronological order this time. Its too easy.

Since I ended my last post in relation to prawns, or shrimp, I feel I'll begin this one in relation to those very same organisms. (I find it interesting how we kinda pronounce "sms" as "zims"... Just a little tangent, back to the prawns.) Since the last time I went prawning with my now previous host family (I'll get to that later) we did not get a very good result, we decided to go again on the next new moon, which happened to be this last Friday. This time we had a much better result! We tried at one place and it didn't look too promising so we went further down the coast to another spot where we spent 2 hours! By the end of the night we had over a 1 kilo (about 2lbs) of prawns! There weren't really too many big ones, but most were just big enough to eat, and they were delicious! It was a fantastic night!

Now to moving in with my next host family... It doesn't seem like a month has gone by! When moving day came I spent the last of it with my host family, at the beach in the morning and just hanging out in the avo, and they didn't want to let me go. <3 They had to, eventually, and I got to my next family in the early evening. We were introduced and since my host brother loves surfing, he had me out on a board before dinner! It was really fun and I got up a few times on a not too stable board! :) Surfing is a pretty d@#* awesome sport and I really enjoy it. I waited a couple days for a board more suited to me was usable, and then was out on the water again! I got up a few times again, but it only took one fall to end my day. One of these time, I lost my balance and ended up putting me knee into the board, damaging the fiberglass. Soooo... since then, until this past weekend, I have been without a board while it was getting repaired. Though now that its finally back, I can't wait to get back on it!

But..... I'm going to have a couple weeks. :/ For those who haven't heard, this past weekend I contracted appendicitis and had to get my appendix removed. That became an interesting little adventure to Moruya Hospital. Although I got to experience the Australian medical system and its better it happened here then in the US, I bet its probably 10x cheaper! haha Anyway, I had key-hole surgery so only 3 little scars, and I was out of the hospital the next morning. Now, that its Friday, (even though its its 1230am) I'm feeling a lot better and think I'll be back to normal before I know it! Not quite sure how I'm going to feel about this whole "no sports for 2 weeks" thing... I'll get trough it. :) I'll save you from the picture of my appendix. If you are that much interested, I can send you a copy, just ask! haha

Speaking of being about midnight, I think I should hit the sack, so I'll send this one off for you to see it and make another installment after I get some shut eye.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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!