My Birthday!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEEE!

Holy cow. It's my birthday.. and I'm in AUSTRALIA! shoot me now and call me Oscar. Today was the fastest I have ever woken up. Partly because I woke up and auto thought 'YAY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY' and also because my phone rang.. it's mummy dear! Bless her. She wanted to ring before she went to bed (time difference). She wasn't able to send the present/card in time though 😞 However I already have 4 cards.. from zoe, marc, one from my auntie which arrived yesterday and another from Adele which she had placed in the travelbook she made for me. YAY! They are displayed next to my bed.. unfortunately it's also a reminder that I am now 23 and rapidly getting OLD. I mean it's kind of depressing how near to 25 i am.. I'm past the halfway point of early 20s and going into the oldies, bad times. However nothing could put me in a bad mood.. because today I went to PALM BEACH! For those of you who aren't aware, Palm beach is also known as 'Summer Bay'. Maybe this is more familiar to you.. summer bay = home and away. I WENT TO HOME AND AWAY BEACH. AAAAAAAAAH! I was a super-duper fan of home and away back home and whenever they used to show the beach I'd be like oh my days I wish I was there right now.. and today I WAS!!!!!! omg it was so fabulous. Unfortunately I had been told the day before that I had that charity job that I had gone for and training was starting today at 10am.. yeah I didn't go. Birthday > training. Plus I didn't neccesarily have the job yet, training was just round 2.. and I wasn't willing to give up summer bay for a 'mightget' job. NO WAY. I even forgot to ring them to tell them I wouldn't be showing up, oops. My grandma rang! Bit of a surprise but a very nice one. She always rings me on my birthday but I really wasn't expecting it out here.. so I really was genuinally pleased! Haven't heard from her in ages and it was good to hear her voice 😊.

So it was all a bit stress stress shit shit fuck fuck in the morning because we weren't aware of what time or where to get the bus. We really should have done more research but I guess we thought it would be easier. Eventually after Marc's google skills we discovered we needed to leave in 10 mins and catch a bus to the city then another from the queen victoria building. Holy mother.. packed up quickly, luckily had a ready-made packed lunch I made the night before, scooted out the door and made it to town. With the help of some ticket guy we found our stop for the Palm Beach bus.. it takes 1 hr 30 mins! That's like the same journey I used to make from Manc to Notts! England is SO small. Palm beach is still classed as Sydney as well! There was a bus leaving in 15 mins so Zoebird went to get coffee, unfortunately just as she had paid the bus arrived 10 mins early and she had to leave without it, bless her. So the journey is pretty damn nice.. we were all on a high after super-stress 2009 and now we could just relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Unfortunately when we were nearing to our destination some guy jumps on and tells us that they had put the wrong sign on the bus by accident and that the bus we were on doesn't actually go to palm beach so we need to get off and get the next one that arrives, wtf! Luckily we didn't have to pay again and it only took another 10 mins until we reached our destination.

So we arrived.. first thing I think is 'hmmm this doesn't look like home and away' I mean obviously a beach is a beach but in home and away they have like little fences and grassy bits above and this didn't have that. Plus I couldn't see the famous surf shop! Then I looked further down the beach and I saw it..!!!!!! I spotted the little blue surf club and all the fencing and adrenalin kicked in and I got sososososo excited. We planted our stuff to rest for a bit and do some sunbathing. Unfortunately it wasn't SCORCHING but it was still nice enough. Went in the sea with zoe, it was lovelyyyyyy, then we decided to go for a walk to dry off. We walked all the way down the beach and I saved a fish! A tinyyyyy fish was lying on the sand and I thought it was dead but then it moved it's mouth so I quickly picked it up and threw it back in the sea, that's my good deed for the day! Eventually we reached the main home and away location. I acted like such a little kid the way I ran up to the surf club with excitement, it even has 'Club Official: Alf Stewart' written on it.. aaaaaaah! HOW DAMN AMAZING. it looks EXACTLY like it does on T.V. I mean okay obviously it does, but it's still incredible to see it in person. So we walk back and Marc greets us with 'thanks for that'.. I was like huh? He was super angry! To be fair I guess he did have reason to be, we kind of left for a walk without telling him and he thought we had drowned and I think he would have liked to have walked with us.. but we didn't think! We just thought lets walk and dry off but I guess we should have thought first, sorry marcy x! He soon got over it and eventually we were all happy gumdrops again and doing cartwheels and handstands in the sand, or at least Marc was.. I did one, failed and then gave up. So then we decided to pack up our shit and go for a wander on some rocks. Along the way there was a free public swimming pool at the side that was right next to the ocean. Technically it's a sea-pool as it's filled with sea water. It comes through a pipe and anyone can use it.. amazing! So we have a quick dip and then continue our journey. These rocks are amaaaaazing, Marc and Zoebird went all the way to the top but I was too scared of slipping through and breaking my neck, but I did make it quite high up! Plus Zoebird had trainers on with better grip and I had flip-flops.. no way! However I did get some nice pictures and apparently they saw some huge crabs. On the way back I get a phonecall, from Melissa from 'cotton on'. wow! So out of the blue and I wasn't prepared in the slightest but she gives me a mini interview on the phone which went completely awful because Marc was making me laugh and I had a complete mind blank but amazingly she offered me to come in for a face interview tomorrow at 3pm, score!

Next stop - the lighthouse. Also a famous landmark in Home and Away. It's at the other end of the beach right up high on a mountain but has a walkway to the top. So palm beach is awesome right.. on one side you have the beach, then a 5 minute walk to the left and you come to a whole other stretch of sand. It's a bay! Absolutely stunning calm water stretching the whole length of palm beach. So really it's just a thin strip of land with a beach on each side, except one has waves and the other doesn't. It's so beautiful! So eventually we find the opening for the pathway to the lighthouse. There's 2 routes.. the steep route or the easy route, so we choose the easy route. Yeah it was NOT easy, omg my legs were actually dying the entire way up. The view is sensational! At one point it opens out onto a little rock and you have the entire view of the beach, so beautiful! We reached the top of the light house! When you look out, it's amazing how many beaches there actually are in Australia. There are so many that probably no-one even goes on. The coastline is honestly hugeeeeeee. So we had a lovely chill-out sesh at the top and then made our way down. Marc chooses the steep route down.. it wasn't as bad as I thought! However I definitely couldn't have gone up. It's SO thin and steep, literally just endless rocks making a stairway the entire way down, so easy to slip. We saw loads of huge lizards which at first gave me the shock of my life, but they're actually harmless and amazing to look at. Luckily I saw no spiders.. Also have I mentioned how huge bats are here? They're GINORMOUS. Loads of them fly around Britanic gardens in the evening, terrifying. We actually have one in the tree outside our house, every time we walk past it jumps out, scaryyyyy. So eventually after a lot of scrambling and sore legs we make it to the bottom and collapse on the bay. Literally sit there on a bench for a good half hour.

Originally we were going to have a bbq on the beach tonight, but turns out palm beach isn't as commercial as I thought and there really isn't anywhere to buy one.. so instead we decide on having a meal back home. I haven't had a chinese yet since leaving Manchester so I decided we should go to china town! So we slump back to the bus stop and it's only then we realise how burnt we were. To be fair I wasn't as bad as the other 2... they were raw red! That's the dangerous thing about Australia, you think it's cloudy and you won't catch anything but motherfuck it's deceiving. We hadn't put any suncream on and their faces were literally tangoed, it will look awesome once it goes brown though. The bus journey back was tiring, I literally was passing out the entire way.. we were all completely drained by the time we got back and at one point I thought we were all just gonna get home and crash. However we motivated ourselves and jumped in the shower to freshen up. So once I'm ready I go downstairs and into the kitchen. I'm greeted by Dave (our housemate who I've only known 3 days) and he's holding a huge chocolate cake! He made it for me!!!! how bloody sweet is that :D. I jokingly had said the day before to him that I want them to make a huge chocolate spongecake with lots of sprinkles on, and he had made exactly that! It was COVERED in chocolate sprinkles and he had slaved away in the kitchen since getting back from work to make it for me. Honestly I was completely touched. I have never witnessed such lovely behaviour from any man in all my life. I was completely speechless! Zoebird had bought candles too :D so they popped them in and lit them. I had the traditional pictures taken of me blowing out, cutting cake etc.. it was SO lovely, perfect in fact! Thank you dave you sweetheart x. He was too tired from cooking to come to the meal so we said goodnight and then headed out.

We reached china town and then looked for the busiest restaurant packed with chinese people (you know it's good if the chinese are eating there). Weirdly enough no restaurants here are posh, they all look like cafe's.. but the food was good! I had chicken satay skewers to start which were unbelievably delicious and then sweet and sour chicken and fried rice for main. Unfortunately I didn't like the s+s chicken, it tasted completely just of batter which i do notttt like, but the rest was yum! We're walking down the street and zoe and marc offer to buy me a desert from somewhere, aw, but I was so stuffed I couldn't actually fit anything else in.. so instead they buy me a corona from side bar! I had been craving one all day, literally. All I kept saying is 'I want a corona'.. I'm not entirely sure why because I don't even drink it that much but I just had one of those CRAVINGS. It was delicioussssss! Side bar was boring and quiet so we just decide to head back. We all have to be up for job-type-stuff tomorrow so the best idea was to go back and have a nice chill out time. No point killing an awesome day by trying to do too much. I wasn't totally in the mood for getting wasted anyway.. I must be getting old! So got the bus back and collapsed into bed. Watched another episode of Summer Heights High, which is a comedy programme here in Oz which is hilarious! Marc has been showing us an episode each night.. some funny ass characters on there! By then we were more than ready for bed... good night everyone. Thank you zoe and marc and everyone else for an incredible birthday, couldn't have been any better. Here's to getting old..

Toodles xxx

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