Overview of My Next Few Months

Birthday Breakfast

Sparklers on a birthday cake? Not so safe Australia.

Birthday Breakfast. Mmmm

Frenchie, Bapt tearing it up

A little hidden beach we found :)

And so I am finally leaving Byron Bay. After 3 ½ months of what might have been the most inspiring, freeing, beautiful and creative time of my life- I am headed far South to Tasmania. I’ll be cycling ~1000 miles all the way around the island state, seeing some of the last untouched beauty in the world. Tara is going to be riding by my side (or eating my dust!) for the 5 week journey through the wild. When we land in the Hobart airport, we are literally assembling our bikes, loading them up and riding out the door of the airport. It’s going to be so nice to finally have cool weather again, too. It will range from about 30-90 degrees while we are there. The cold artic winds blow North East all year, cooling the island, but it is still Australia, mate. HOT.

My Birthday was awesome! Huge brunch, movies during the rainy jungle day, then a nice dinner out at my favorite hippie/veg/local/organic place with 15 people, theennn we went dancing for 4 hours. Very nice. It’s a good feeling to know that even when traveling, the people around you care for you.

So here is the next few months the best I can predict for now:

Jan 31-Feb 4 : Melbourne to hang out with Tara and see the city
Feb 4-March 12 : Cycling Tasmania
March 14-March 22 : Maria is in Byron! WOO!
April 9-13 : Working the Byron Blues and Roots Festival
May : Jessie comes to Australia! Awww yeah.
June – July : Thailand with Tori (for some of that time)
July - ??? : New Zealand

Hot-stralia

There is sweat slowly crawling from under my watch's wrist band and beading up on my laptop. My boofy hair is going to have to go. Socks are for old people and athletes. You have to be crazy to drink anything hot, and Asian food is only hot if you are Asian here. No one else can take the heat. For 2 days the pool has been closed because of algae and the ocean has been overtaken by painful blue bottle jelly fish. [see attached picture] Apparently it happens every year, and it's only for about one week. Let's hope so. It's like some sort of painful joke by the temperature gods.

I've been really sick for the past 3 days with a nasty sinus infection that was made horrible because of the heat. Yesterday, I went to go see Benjamin Buttons because it was the longest movie at the movie theater. Yup, I went there just for the air conditioning. I got there 20 mintues early, and watched almost all of the credits at the end. I was going to soak in every second of the 3 hours and 5 minutes running time of that epic movie. Pretty good movie too.

I like to go to work because we have ice, and a cool room. My breaks are spent almost exclusivly sitting on a milk crate drinking OJ in the cool room. Other suckers have to go out back in the sun to smoke their cigs. Boo ya. Thats all the anti-smoking adverts need to say over here, none of this lung cancer stuff. Just say "you gotta sit in the sun on your work break."

Jerks.

Super windy day at the Tea Tree Lakes

Oh, is this not how you spent your xmas?

Christmas Was Really Hot.

This picture goes out to Brandon S. Shore, for his love of homeless people and the funny things they do. In case the picture is not clear, it reads "warning: remove staples before attempting to use as a blanket." That is from the Byron Bay "Echo"-- the local paper. That is on the front cover, every week. Haha! Enjoy your studying Bro bro. I am sitting on the beach watching the sun set -- stealing wireless from the mystery internet donor: "Lynksys." Suckers.


Very slowly, I am learning to surf.
Left to right: Dan, Ben, Amber, Grant
jammin on Sugoi Street.



Christmas was wonderful, and new years was strange. No real count down, and no explosions at midnight. Everyone just started shouting around 11:55 and it ended around 12:05. New Years was somewhere in there. It is so very "byron" to have it be "about new years". There is one clock in town. And it is broken. I only have 2 minutes of battery left, so that will have to do for everyone. Sorry! Haha.