Living it up in Bondi

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Well well well....look who it is

For those of you whom I haven’t wished a happy new years/merry Christmas to, here it goes " happy Christmas/new years!"

If memory serves me right, the last time we talked I was just starting to party it up with Michael...if that is the case then I have a lot to talk about today.

Michael and I are both not very good at just 'sitting around'. So within days of hanging out we starting to burn through the last of my savings from Canada, which turned out to be good bang for my buck. After talking it up to an awesome crew of backpackers in Noosa, we had decided that Fraser island would be our first adventure together. Fraser island is in fact the worlds largest sand island, and could only be properly investigated behind the wheel of a fully equipped four wheel drive. After a little further study we found a 3 day package with a company called Dingo's which covered all our bases, from food to booze...oh and a truck. We would be traveling with 8 other backpackers in our range rover. So when we finally met them we were relieved to find that they didn’t suck. Now having heard horror stories from this trip including flipped trucks, and the use of helicopters to save those unlucky enough to be on board, I was a little relieved that Michael was going to be one of the drivers. Though I wasn’t too relieved as Michael had been the driver on a previous road trip and to call him an erratic driver would be like calling an alcoholic, just a social drinker (good thing mike will be in South East Asia when he reads this HAHA!). Though I was originally worried I had built this little adventure up a little too much, it actually met my expectations. This place was beautiful and not something I was expecting to see in Australia......though the countless jellyfish washed up on shore did bring me back to the Australian reality. On our first night we were fortunate enough to meet the local fauna...but the fact that they didnt have babies hanging from their jaws did make me a little sad..... oh i love a good dingo joke once in a while. These guys actually weren’t even close to as menacing as i would have expect... more like malnourished dogs who refrained from barking, despite me chasing them from our camp on several occasions. My favourite part about this place had to be the lakes which dotted the island. These little oasis’s were usually full of backpackers, but frankly we didn’t care as each day usually found itself in the low 30s. These also served as our showers, as sand slowly found its way into every square inch of my body, which as you could well understand, was not cool. Our nights usually found us around a table playing cards, or rocking out to the sound system we had set up in the car. This probably kept most other backpackers at bay, as our music was the cheesiest of the cheese....just the way i like it. Our last day turned out to be hilarious as we found ourselves at our final lake, which was adjacent to a huge sand dune. Now several days of drinking had obviously had an effect on the 30 or so backpackers who had made there way here. For to my surprise people started running down the dune full speed and ending their run by flying headfirst into the lake. I could not stop laughing as I watched person after person trip and flip down the side of the dune, or better yet belly flop into the lake. Before I knew it, it was our turn. Now sadly I didn’t get to see it with my own eyes, but pictures don’t lie. It seems that as I flew into the water mike tried to do the same but jumped just a little too early and landed face first into the sand only inches from the water.... once i came out of the water I could not stop laughing.

Dec 5...I think

After that little adventure mike and I moved down to Sydney, namely Bondi beach...because word on the street was that this was the place to be..and you know my feelings on places to be...I am for them. Now coogee, just up the road, was originally the place we wanted to see but it was fully booked...which was a complete mystery once i actually checked the place out... its like a retirement community with a beach out front. But bondi...oh bondi... I immediately fell in love with. Though many backpackers have largely knocked this place for various reasons, I in fact found it to be similar to Queenstown in New Zealand...which was exactly what i was looking for as a new place to live. Though it is quite busy, this place was a far cry from Sydney which lay only 20 minutes away. Life it seems, judging by the bodies of most people who lived there, revolved around the water. Instead of brief cases and cell phones most people carried surf boards and.... well cell phones... people gotta talk don’t they? So Michael and I decided to jump on the bandwagon and become born again water babies....but sadly we lacked the money...ok, i lacked the money to buy a surf board... so i got a body board instead. Now body boarding isnt really held in high regard compared to its cousin, surfing...but once I bought fins (for your feet) and a proper leash for my board I actually found i was catching more waves then most of the surfers out in the water.... therefore, through extrapolation of this logic, body boarding is better then surfing and I, in turn am better then all surfers…everywhere.

Dec 24/ 25 th... I think...but i am a little more sure with this one.

Now I wasn’t feeling too christmassy these days, namely due to the weather which was anything but cold...well Canada cold. But I worked hard to make sure I would feel the Christmas spirit... and in fact it work quite well. First off i got a Christmas calendar...which was sweet, next I bought a Santa outfit...and finally I was invited to a Christmas dinner with some great backpackers who were looking to do Christmas right. Christmas eve actually caught me completely off guard. Tina, who i had met only hours before, had invited me to a little picnic with her friends up on the bondi bluffs. Now this was very sweet of her and it turned out to be a great little meal... though i doubt some puritans would call cold hotdogs and bags of chips a proper Christmas meal... but in the end, its the thought that counts. The following day turned out to be even better, as I was again invited to another Christmas meal with a few friends of mine. For those of you put off by my Christmas eve dinner, you would have come running to this one. Everything was there, from perfectly cooked ham to mashed potatoes, stuffed tomatoes and cranberries, and even cookies and Malibu jello shooters...just as the founding fathers of Australia would have wanted it. After our incredible meal, we then had a date with an all day concert called the Sun Burnt festival. Which was awesome as we danced the night away to DJs and a singer or two.

New Years day...which i believe is the 7th of January...wait..no its the first...yeah the first

Now I had just come from an interview at a job agency... the sky was blue..the waves looked awesome and everything seemed to be perfect for my new years eve day.... of course i should have know life would throw me a curve ball. With my body board in hand and my fins on my feet I made my way into the surf. Though the waves did look a little larger then normal, I had failed to notice online that a large low pressure system and a cyclone down the coast, had actually made the waves ferocious. Though it was relatively easy for me to make my way out I started to realize that the waves were about 3 to 4 times bigger then i was used to. Though there were other surfers out there...they seemed to all be the most fit and strongest surfers I had come up against....which was a bad sign. My eyes grew huge as the newest set of waves made there way into the beach and I scrambled towards them, trying to go over them before they had time to break. Now going over a 2 foot wave on your board feels far different from going over 9 to 11 foot waves...namely because you fall 4 or 5 feet off the back when you go over them. But I felt that I could take them on..well the smaller ones at least. I was sadly mistakened, namely because there were no small ones. After an hour of racing towards waves and narrowly missing them before they crested...luck finally ran out. I was 9/10s up the face of a 9 foot wave when i saw the white wash coming off the top. This just hit my board hard enough to flip me backwards and i tumbled down the wave. Once I had made it to the bottom, the wave fell on my back and drove me to the sea floor. I have never in my life been hit so hard, as it caused me to toss and turn deep under water. Luckily the leash on my board held firm around my wrist and I was able to pull myself to the surface. Once I came up I was completely winded and one of my fins was gone, while my left calf was severely charley horsed. Now this was a problem, as I was several hundred meters out, and only seconds away from having another wave hit me. But I stayed as calm as possible and slowly swam to shore. The second wave was just as bad as the first but luckily had broke before it reached me, so I wasn't under for any more then a couple of seconds. By the time I got to shore I was completely exhausted and I lay on the sand for 30 minutes, trying to catch my breath. Suffice it to say I will never go out in waves like that again.... well... not for a while.

Other then that, there not much to tell. I am now working back at PricewaterhouseCoopers...but this time in Sydney. The job is pretty sweet, and the pay is great. This is helpful when you are broke, which sadly I am...thank god for parents eh?

well that’s all for now... I will catch ya on the flip side
- Ryan

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Photos

I caught mike trying to drink and drive....
If mike's parents are looking at this....please ground him, for he is a bad boy.