Santa wear your shorts

So things have been pretty normal here at Surfers Paradise. Had some visits from old friends. And busy planning for Cairns. At this point we've booked our tickets and are looking into what the Rainforest & Great Barrier Reef has to offer. So far sharks and jellyfish... that kill you. Fun. We had our last skype talk before meeting everyone in person. Turns out Jackie (Fay's mother) is a woman after my own heart, very nostalgic. She's bring a Christmas tree all the way from London England. Gotta hand it to her the lady has good taste ;)

Australia is by far the worst place to visit if your looking for a traditional North American Christmas, the music is way off track with tunes like ''Santa wear your shorts tonight'' and other songs that takes to disco mixes which we hear from our balcony every and I mean literally every single night. One night we thought we'd see this concert in person just to see why it was the same routine night after night. Much to our surprise, there's santa on stage in a fake boat with not rain-deer that aren't so much rain-deer but oh say more of Kangaroos with neo tape on their noses. And I'm guessing that their white because it makes them more mystical?

only santa knows these days. The singing is coming from two woman dressed as fairies... yes folks fairies. We've also noticed that the fireworks on the beach have become a nightly reoccurrence. It's nice to see, like a private show for us. Well folks two more nights and we'll be in Cairns. Celebrating Christmas, and I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and for those of you out there that don't celebrate Christmas Happy Hoildays. Be safe, be thankful and be kind to each other.

All the best 

Lily & Fay. 

Home Sweet Home

After our night out, we hunkered down with the morning papers and a coffee. We sat on the beach job hunting. After a few applications and phone calls we took a walk to every real estate rep. in the city, we did this routine everyday until we finally got a apartment showing, 24hrs later we had not only a apartment and were moved in, but a job starting this Saturday.

 Things were settling nicely. We love the apartment and were saving loads. However we bonded with the Sweden girls Emma and Ellie, and we'll really miss them, and their roomie humor. But at the same time we were dying to have home cooked meals without the threat of food poisoning.


The first thing we did when we moved in was  bake muffins and have
 a huge chicken dinner, and holy cow it was over due.
And as a sidenote... Kangaroo burgers taste great!

Our apartment was just what the doc ordered this way we're across from the surf.  We hear the street singers on our balcony, on sunny days you can see fighter jets directly over the beach. Their bigger than I imagined. You can see the waves at night and the surfers in the morning.  And we have a free gym & sauna, even a pool.  It was the right place for us. But if you see Fay to the right the kitchen tap is manic and can't seem to
control the pressure. In this photo she's literally
yelling LILY! ...we're still managing it.

Our new job is... not what we expected,  its cleaning which I have 2 years experience.  It's cleaning holiday apartments and there huge here! four bed rooms, dishes, living rooms, five times the size of our place. And a million times the mess.  But the money is nice, and it's a free gym. Plus Fay and I get the afternoons off and work together. Only a walk away from our resort door. We're always looking for a second job just for more play money, so we're still on the look out but we're pretty laid back about live right now. All I can say is that I'm loving the fact that we're here together and starting our live life together. Immigration we're starting the paper work for sponsorship when we come home. But living in the now is pretty great.

Every now and then my birthday sneaks up on me and Fay somehow makes each one just a little more memorable than the last. Last year it was a surprise party, and made a theatre screening of It's A Wonderful Life. ( which is the best movie ever ) This year was more low key because we were working all day ( Aka Fay locked in a bleach filled shower thanks to our nazi boss '' give me mop'' '' Where are you TELL ME'' ''PIGZ they are PIGZ. What kind of pigs live this way?'' )

It was still a nice gesture waking to the noise of breakfast being made. After work she took me out for my favorite dish at our restaurant, and walked home on the beach. She has some other surprises booked before christmas, but her lips are sealed!

Earlier this week we woke to an ambulance on the beach 20 stories below trying to resuscitate a young girl that later we found out had overdosed on drugs. We said a quick prayer and hope she's be ok, she lived. We heard about it on the news that same night.  The next night we're doing dishes and right next to us on the beach there's a huge fireworks show not 48hrs ago was there a girl getting resuscitated on that same spot. funny how things go.

Schoolz out for summer

Schoolies by definition:

Just graduated, still under age, little to no clothes boys and girls alike. Rude, overly tanned, loud and obnoxious. And everywhere, but the hostel, thank you lord. This time we booked a room with a bigger dorm so we could meet more people. Which is sort of a toss up. Sometimes their not the best roomies because every night is a bar night. This time we lucked out and had two Swedish girls Emma and Ellie, one girl from Melbourne, and two others from Holland. We all got along and the Aussie among us even went to the same school as Poshia De Rossie which is kinda fun. All the girls spoke perfect english and have spoken it since being 8. We kinda bonded and came out to them, they later told us that we changed their idea of a gay person, which made us feel good. On our second night we contacted the guys from Sunshine coast, James girlfriend was turning 21 and a bunch of them were headed to Broadbeach for a night out. The bars there were like clubs out of the movies, we went to a classy one that was dark with red walls and carpet until you walked downstairs threw the doors. Past the doors there all the eye could see was a mosh pit of strobe lighting. Every girl was given foam strobe glow stick. The music was great and everyone was dancing. This was to be my favorite club of the night. We then headed to an asian themed bar with buddha heads covering behind the bar backed by red walls. This bar was good to start with but the lay out was not ideal, until we got access to the upper levels out back. Up a grand stair case into the dark until at the top a wall of lite tubes that were filled with bubbles let you know you had reached the vibration of the music. Buddha statues lined the walls holding cigarettes with their sighs of peace. Everything a gold and red, dancers on raised podiums with smoky eye make up. There was a bar on the balcony over looking the dancers below, we dove in to the front row with James and Adam. I loved the music and Fay danced!!!    

To be continued .... 

Cotten Tree and Ocean views

 

The Sunshine coast has great hostels to visit. the groups are click-ish but we've met some really awesome guys, they where in the room next to us and when we'd come home we'd swap stories about our work days, James told us about his incounters with yellow bellie black snake which he thought was fake until it slithered under a car, their quite poisionous. Which brings to mind another story from a Irish friend Michelle that found herself having her first encounter with a Kangarro.  After being dared to get into picture next to this creature as tall as her in all it's magestic aw it swiftly had it's hands tightly round her neck. Michelle paralized with fear... she never did tell me how she got out of that one. Oh well. 

The second hostel has wall paintings of travelers upstairs. All the rooms reminded me of a book series my sister collected in junior high called The Baby Sitters Club, I think it was the layout or the colour not entirely sure but it was very odd. The doors on the second floor where left open all night, as if the house were alive and the sea breeze it's inhale & exhale. It also made for some loud bird calls in the morning which ensures an early wake up call at 5 am. EVERY single morning. Fay didn't approve of this. She has trouble getting back to sleep once the birds wake her.

We cooked Curry dishes and had some really great meals in this kitchen. Which we're missing here in the Gold Coast. Oh well there'll always be noodles. I can feel my Nutrition-Nazi ( I still love you mom ) of a mother shaking her head from here and yes I try to eat greens with it.  We had found a job and started getting some play money, our next goal was to view apartments. Which we did until we started to feel that his job wasn't really a good fit for us.

 We moved to a different hostel that was directly on the beach. It was more of a free spirited place. It had three dogs that lived there, which I found made it feel more like home. The beach skyline was filled with windsurfers as you can see. We went down to enjoy a sunset and a little puppy came out of the water and made himself at home, directly in Fay's arms. At that moment I knew Fay was just as hooked on getting a puppy as I was...  once we could ;)

Our job was taking a moral toll on both of us and we were making good money for it but in the end it was just not worth going against who we are as people. They were asking us to lie to elderly people and we both just put our foot down and said thanks but no thanks. We reported the men as being unprofessional, with discrimination ( both of us not out at work ) we had to bite our lip, but when they were kicking our chairs and interfering with being professional...



We both felt a sigh of relieve once leaving our last day. Our favourite callers were the odd balls.
For Fay it was an old woman that sounded like
Curmit the frog that sounded like he smoke four packs a day.And a man that sounded like the Mortal Combat narrator ( Fight! )Fay fought the urge to say Sub Zero to him.

I had got a man on the toilet. Who I asked if he had time for our sales pitch, and once he told me he was on the toilet, I stated he wasn't going anywhere and had time... I however still hung up, it
just felt intrusive.

The best excuse was that one man had just gotten three needles in his back and had to lie down. After all the lies and yelling, and re-reading. It was life experience. And I discovered I can sell. For a moment I thought my grand father would be proud, because he was a sales man all his life. Three to four sales everyday even on my first day, and I never lied to any of the customers despite pressure to.

On our last day on in the Sunshine Coast we walked the entire beach and found a coral formation that I wanted to hike up to. The coral cliff had waves crushing into it and making one wall of a wave, I asked Fay to hold the camera so I could see just how tall the wave was. This curiosity ended with me drenched, and Fay laughing at me. What's new. Fay always laughs at me, Thats ok I like seeing her smile.

The Ground Sizzles

We spent our last day on the coast soaking up the rays and swimming. When we were swimming Fay come over to me and we both felt like something was in the water with us, once we returned to Cheers our roommate told us that poisonous jelly fish were washing up on the beach we just left. Which kinda creeped us out, that we felt that something wasn't quite right in the waters. We had heard from other travelers that if we wanted to fruit pick we'd best head north to Bundaberg via train. Of course when in Australia there is a good chance in backtracking with the trains. I'm starting to recognize the gap between England's rails and here. We ended up going to Brisbane and visiting the Blue house because of the layover in trains. The train to Bundaberg was quite spacious. And not to mention air conditioned ...
what a delicacy.

The trip was just under 5 hours, when we departed from the station we found the town to be dead at 9pm a real ghost town. We found the Cell Block hostel with little to no issues. The owner was drunk and took his time in getting us a key for our rooms even though we booked it two days in advance. Once we unloaded our  backs we met our three irish roommates. Jen, and Dermoit, and lovely Fin. We couldn't have asked for better roommates.

We were able to be ourselves with these people, but once outside we were not safe in these areas. Fin notified us that this was Queensland's rape capital. This was a sign of what type of locals we were dealing with. Dermoit being the gentleman that he is offered to walk with the women of the hostel whenever it was late and they  needed a buddy.


Fastward two days time Fay and I are working the tomato fields and the pesticides are giving us a rash and noise bleeds. We tried to stay covered, at this wage we'd be earning over a grand a week. And we really wanted to just get

the three months for the second year out of the way, but there are other ways. After trying to give her notice to the drunken owner and was met by a creepy back rub. With that we said farewell to this dusty town and headed for the Sunshine Coast, Mooloolaba. We still earned just under a half a grand for four days work which doesn't hurt. After another train ride to Brisbane we then took a mix of train and buses for Mooloolaba. On the way to the Coast we had to pass the Glass mountains which we saw as far as the eye could see.

I didn't get a chance to take a picture so I thought this one from google would help give you an idea.  Locals told us about the bush fires  that tend to be around this time of year. We also drove past the Australia Zoo, where Steve Irwin's family still work on conservation projects. They have a new addition called Africa. We're hoping we can go there while our stay by the coast. I want to do the mountains but Fay's knees don't really agree with the incline. Theres also a Underwater  world that I have plans for. If I get another job before my birthday I'm looking at diving with the sharks with Fay.

 Once we got settled in our room, we headed for the beach, even though it's too dark to swim we checked out the cafes.  The first day we met Sherry at a cafe and just started talking for 3hrs. She's a 44yr old that is a swimmer, white water rafting instructor and comes from Hawaii. Which works out great because after this two year trip we're looking to stop over there before settling in Western Canada.  She's really interesting.


The hostel here is the best so far, with free rentals,  and we found a job just today, we're working together in an air conditioned office getting the same pay that we'd be getting in the fields. We're payed up for another two nights, and then we're looking for a place close to the coast and near the office.  We're really excited to have a clean kitchen to ourselves where we can cook dinner's and try out new recipes :) Fay wants to learn and I want to bake muffins and breads. You know all the good stuff.  Today was quite nice we're settling in nicely, I treated Fay and I to a dinner next to the sea side. She got us amazing icecream which we had on the beach while the sun died the clouds in purple. We collected some shells for people back home.  And here we are in Mooloolaba. Tomorrows another adventure, see you there.

Surfers Paradise

Our time at the sleeping inn was about four days. We heard about this hostel from Fay's sister Amy. When she was in Australia with Andy. Andy worked there during their stay at the inn. Mel at the desk said that the owners has changed but her friend was tattooed by Andy. We got situated and met our roommates, two were from Finland, two from England. Every night  the entire hostel goes out and gets drunk and comes home loud and sick this was fine because we had ear phones. But the pot smokers smoke would blow into our windows and screen door that was unfavorable. This only was a nuance from 11pm-3am. The hostel was covered in the more beautiful graffiti street inspired but with a hippie and indian twist. My favorite parts about the hostel where the small things that are colour and texture based, the railing on the spiral stair case, the morning sun died with the magenta window currants while in the shower covered in graffiti. The music. Swimming under that stars in the pool while the nightly movie plays over head on a projector. The people where better here than the last hostel. I could feel a sense of nostalgia, even tho I've never been here before.

While our stay we did the beach every day and got better at charging the waves and body surfing. Fay invested in a small board. When she offered it to me I thought yeah if I can ride the wave without one why not?! it nearly broke my nose... lesson learned. 

We sat on the beach near the flag pole and sorta had a touching moment of reflection until a rouge wave flipped me and dragged fay around the flag pole.  

After the beach had warn us down we'd get some ice cream, or plan our next destination that normally had a beach near by. I'm enjoying the fact that I got two summers in a row and have great hopes for traveling when back home theres snow and ice. Family yes, skiing yes, but this is hard to beat. 

After the Sleeping inn we found a hostel closer to the beach at Surfers Paradise called Cheers. It's mainly sketchy men, but it's less and we got to move with the same roommates from the sleeping inn. That night we had Indian but it wasn't like our friends in Brisbane. We bought and mats and headed to the beach at night to sit and meditate under the stars next to the crush. When to our surprise there was a huge market, when we were told that there were no markets in Surfers. It had everything you could imagine, card readings, snakes, snake handlers, everything. A market at night, huh. We walked it and then headed down to the beach settled down and meditated. Once meditation had ended we made a map on the sand to show where we're going and how long. Where we want to settle down and how we can visit both families when we have kids. Fay and I argued over the proportion on north america to Brazil and Asia to Russia. But I think my map was fairly correct. She still insists that I'm in the wrong... I'm right tho! Who knows!? The night ended at a small cafe called Pie Face until we called it a night.

Hallow Queen

The day started by getting on a bus to Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast. The waves reminded me of P.E.I. only warmer and without jellyfish. These waves were bigger than the ones in Canada. Amanda was the first to dip into the waves. We couldn't get enough of the crush! After an afternoon in the sun we had a party to get to.


Halloween rolls around, the blue house invited us to 'HallowQueen' at the old theatre on the other side of town. Both Fay and I had no costumes to dress up as. Lucky for us Patrick has a type of tickle trunk not unlike Mr. Dress-up. I went as a postman and wrapped a box and labeled it from Canada to you then drew on a stamp of the queen. To top it off Patrick had the perfect hat. Fay went as the 90's coming back to haunt you! boo!

The blue house was full of rockie horror show look a likes, and a pirate. Patrick was the pirate. We found Ben in the car hole decorating his bike with cobwebs and a wind up radio. After the rockie horror bikers took flight to the night, Amanda going as the most divine snow white called a cab and we left for the theatre.

The theatre was alive with ghouls, We went in to the entrance and walked threw the cobwebs up the stairs to the film room. One large screen playing Nosferatu the first vampire. Below the screen on the stage was a big band inspired band playing great music. At the foot of the stage was a bunch of ghouls and one marry and baby Jesus dancing to the tunes. After dancing Fay and I sat in the middle of the red seats near the front row. Balloons were passing from person to person and the people seated gently taped them to pass them on to those dancing. I remember looking at Fay and whispering in her ear to say this feels like the end credits to the perfect movie, or some sort

of wonderful dream. Everyone was so enjoyable. Our host was a very queer micky mouse that was really funny. After the other film which was another personal favorite, we went outside to cool down and saw the most fantastic lighting storm over our heads. I've never seen lighting light up the sky so beautifully. The sky dreamed in purple the rain refreshed us and we danced until the striptease from Patrick's Girlfriend which was adorable because it was a laundry inspired skit that was very tasteful. She also won the best costume for being Marry with the doll of baby Jesus :) Patrick was very proud, Amanda later after the party was asked what her opinion was to which she answered, '' one word....  rigged! '' We had a good laugh and headed to bed.

The next day we were to pack up and leave for Surfers Paradise.
When Fay and I went to leave Patrick took pictures of our luggage and Ben gave a touching farewell gift for each of us both handmade. We gave great big hugs to the two of them and for the first time here I felt a sadness, because I really loved these people and who they are. But! our journey has just begun.