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Published: January 11th 2007
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I can't believe how hammered 4 people can get off $12 of alchohol
a friend named Brian (pronounced Breeeean) from Ireland that we met at our hostel in Byron Bay
I realize that I have either been travelling too long or drinking too much since I have run out of original and insightful quotes and have begun to quote people that I meet, however, this is definetly an appropriate one for this holidays festivities. While its no secret that the East coast of Oz is a big party place, one must wonder how all these poor backpackers can afford to constantly be partying and not working...well, the answer is found in a 5 Litre box of wine that is sold in stores in the $12-$14 dollar range. While there are obviously numerous different brands, the generic term for it is GOON. While Australian wines are internationally celebrated and consumed, such as a fine Yellow Tail Shiraz (which sells here for only $8) GOON is essentially the run off liquid that doesnt meet the health and sanitation standards to be bottled and exported to foreign countries, so inevitably it is consumed by backpacking tourists. They don't try to hide this either, infact right on the box it says, and I quote "There may
be traces of fish and eggs in wine".....yummy! After arriving in Byron Bay, Sarah & Dayna (along with all our other friends at the hostel) got me on the "GOON" train in a hurry.
As I said in my previous post, most days are spent on the beach (and therefore not spending money or consuming energy), so everyone is always well rested and ready to spend money and party hard at night....especially at Christmas time.
While this was my 1st Christmas away from home, I was not home sick at all. I think I may have been had I been alone and in a different place, but being with a family member in Oz, made all the difference. Christmas Eve was inevitably a huge party and a good friend that I met from Switzerland named "Sacha" and I hung up stockings in our rooms, hoping Santa would swing by down under. We awoke on Christmas morning (seeing double) and I was pleasantly surprised to actually have my stocking filled with 3 juggling balls that Sarah & Dayna bought me along with 15 Ferraro Rochers. We then whipped up a massssive breakfast consisting of, pancakes, strawberries, mangos and ofcourse 2
Santas Helpers
Thats not gingerale in their hands. bottles of Champagne (I'm thinking this could be the beginning of a beautiful family tradition). We then made our way down to the beach for some great surfing and quality time playing frisbee, etc....
At night, we splurged and went out for a wonderful dinner and all got nice big striploin steaks. Alot of places here are bring your own wine, so we stronly considered bringing a box of goon into this restaurant, but being Christmas and all, we spent the extra few dollars and got classy shiraz. We didnt end up finishing our meal until after 10 pm and returned to the hostel to see a huge party taking place. We joined in on the festivities and the rest is a blur.
The rest of the week was business as usual. Sarah, Dayna would usually have pancakes with peanut butter, syrup and whip cream for breakfast and head to the beach. We would then return at night and make huge meals again. Cooking for 3 has been the perfect combination for meals. We would usually indulge in Spaghetti Bolognese, Tacos, Chicken Salad (which Sarah & Dayna introduced to me and is now a personal favorite of mine) and
Surfing in Byron Bay
What will tomorrow's sea bring? steak stirfry with lots of vegetables.
For New Years our hostel, we played lots of Beer Pong at our hostel and then got ready for the countdown. Byron Bay is like a casino, in the sense that time is not really important and therefore there are no clocks to be found anywhere. I think it was well past 12pm before anyone realized it, and we were at the bar doing a few Jager Bombs, when someone just started a countdown....after made our way down to the beach. There we all danced around a guy with a guitar singing classic Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chilli Peppers songs. The next thing I knew, I woke up and it was 2007. I went down to make pancakes and then woke the girls up. I had the table all set (or so I thought, when they came down the stairs). In each of their hands they had a big bottle of CHampagne....I guess I just assumed they were empty from the night before....no no. They both popped them open, like it was 2006 and next thing I knew, there were 20 of us on the beach playing drinking games all day. It
was the next morning that I said to myself....(or perhaps it was my liver doing the talking) I need to get out of this place. And that was Byron Bay in a nut shell.
After that we continued to head up the East Coast into the state of Queenstown. Here, they dont believe in daylights saving time but didnt let us in on the secret. We waited at our bus stop for 45 minutes on day, (playing an intense game of 20 questions) when we finally decided that the bus wasn't coming for us. It wasn't a big deal, as we just took a city bus to Surfers Paradise for 2 nights. Surfers Paradise is the most commercialized place in Oz and brought nothing to the table.
We then continued up to Brisbane (pronounced "BRIZZY" to anyone here in Oz. We went to a 1 Billion dollar manmade Lagoon for the day which was really cool. The next day we went to the Steve Irwin Australian Zoo and I got my first glimpse of some Crocs and Kangaroos. (Crikey!) Steve Irwin's 9 year old daughter "Bindie" put on a big dance show which all the kids seemed to
know the routine for. She is already a huge celebrity over here and I predict that in 10 years she will be the equivalent of the Olsen twins....minus a twin sister ofcourse...and copious amounts of Cocaine I hope.
I have now left the girls behind in Brisbane after they found a quaint little apartment where they hope to find jobs. It was awesome hanging out with them and even though we spent about 20 hours a day together, we never had one problem.....and had HEAPS (inside joke)of fun and memories together.
It was awesome to travel with my cousin for 3 weeks as I would always spend most of my time with Sarah's brothers during the holiday time, but now that I know how wonderful of a person she is, I wont be making that mistake again.
Other highlight included seeing a huuuuge diamond back python in the trees above us during one of our walks up the beach.
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Heather
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GOON!
Jer! You found the goon...oh gosh do I ever miss that stuff. After reading your blog I think you can now understand how weird it was for me to make the transition from Oz to Kiwi land. I do have one question though...did you have a glass of goon in your hand while writing this blog? Because if I'm not mistaken QueensTOWN is here in New Zealand and QueensLAND is the state you you are in now. Haha. I'm so happy that you are living it up Aussie style, it sounds like you are having an amazing time. I'm flying to Malaysia in 4 days...gearing up for the biggest transition of them all! Keep in touch. Heather