Today was a glorious day. It began at 5:55am when woke up, got ready, and headed out with James and Filippo to catch the 6:46 ferry to the train station. It’s a 15/20 minutes walk to the ferry, and then from the ferry to the train it’s another 10/15 minute walk. We caught our train which goes down the coast to about the same latitude as Surfers Paradise, but still west of the coast. It should have been as simple as getting off the train and onto a bus that takes us right to the beach, but of course, nothing can go that smoothly when it comes to public transportation here when I’m involved! It ends up the train that we were on did not continue all the way to the stop we needed to get to, so we had to get off and take a bus to catch the other bus. We were about 20 seconds from missing that second bus because, as you can imagine, the train goes much faster than a bus does! I was quite stressed because if we were to have missed that bus, we would end up arriving at the surf school about 5 minutes before our lesson was to start! SO I was very relieved to catch the bus. We would’ve had no idea at which bus stop to get off in order to get to the surf school, but luckily, being travel savvy me, I had google-mapped the area and printed it out. So we got off about 2 blocks from the school.
The three of us paid for our lesson. I found out that I can pay for the lessons in the package whenever I want—in other words, I didn’t need to decide if I want to take 1, 3, or 5 lessons before I took my lesson today. You simply pay for your one lesson, and then if you come back you just get the discount on the next 2 (so the same goes for lessons 4 and 5).
Ok so basically we were over a half hour early so we met the others in the lesson and they were all really nice and from all over. There were 2 girls our age from Germany on holiday from Uni who were very friendly, a couple from Ireland, a little girl and her brother who were Russian (but live in Israel!), and then of course us—the American, Italian, and Australian. We started off by getting our boards and lugging the giant things down the beach. You use bigger foam boards when learning because bigger=easier to balance and foam is less likely to injure you or someone else! The downside is they’re heavy. Anyway, we only did about 10 minutes on land before we got in and essentially practices body boarding. We came out and learning how to steer, practiced that in the water, and then we were on to learning how to stand! The was another quick, not even 10 minutes land lesson, and then we went out to try. On my first try I only got to my knees and then fell off when trying to stand, but by the second wave I caught I stood! I didn’t last all that long but it still felt awesome. About an hour or so later when we came out, I had caught many waves and was able to stay on much longer because of helpful tips from the coaches.
Overall, it was AWESOME. I was not happy when we had to get out of the water. Okay, I was happy because I was loving it, but I really could’ve done it for hours more. I mean, I probably would’ve passed out from exhaustion, but I would want to do all day. After we put away the boards, the coaches gave us awards. I had ending up making friends with everyone in the class somehow, especially the little girl who was absolutely adorable. She had done so well—I think she probably caught more waves than most of the class. I told her that if the coaches had given a special award, I think she would have gotten it. She then told me that she thought I was really good and that maybe everyone should get a special award because everyone is special in their own way. It was probably the cutest speech I’ve ever heard from an 8 year-old in my whole life. So the boys and I said our goodbyes and then headed to get lunch since food was the only thing either of them could think about—typical. We went to this little diner-type place and I got a chicken caesar wrap that was quite tasty. The boys were able to get big burgers and chips so they were satisfied. We then walked down the beach a bit so that there were less people, but it really wasn’t crowded. The beach is as big as places like
Anyway, we laid out on the beach for the afternoon and went for a swim. The waves are so strong so I could only stay in the water for a short time before feeling exhausted and even a bit nervous. The problem with just chilling in the ocean there is that you’re standing on a sand bar where the water is somewhere from mid-thigh to waist high, so when a huge, strong wave comes, i.e. the first in a set, there is no way to avoid it hitting you hard. I mean, I love my big waves, but I was really missing deeper water for strong waves like that! So after some lazing in the surprisingly cloudy weather and being tumbled around in the waves meant for surfing, we decided to head home. We caught the 4:05 bus and were able to take it to the train and then take the ferry. We got to the ferry station on campus at 6:47 and dinner closes at 7:00 on Sundays so, despite being exhausted, the three of us ran/speed-walked all the way home. We thankfully got to dinner just before it closed.
I just showered and unpacked my bag. I could not be more exhausted. This is my favorite kind of exhaustion. Because that’s normal, having a favorite type of fatigue! Well surprise I’m not normal.
It was an amazing day and I cannot wait until Thursday…oh yea, on Thursday I plan on skipping my 1 lecture of the day, waking up probably around 5:45am and going to surfers again for my second and third lesson. ;) 4 hours of surf amazingness, after which I'll probably be good enough to go pro. Mwhahaha. But seriously, what a way to start mid-semester break!
No comments:
Post a Comment