7-06-2007

I surfed in the South Pacific today. ‘Nuff said.

So yeah, Faithful Reader, if you get the chance to travel to Australia, for the love of God and all that is holy, don’t go to Surfers Paradise. At least, not if you want a genuinely Australian experience. I found Surfers Paradise to be a near facsimile of Miami, which, in plain English, means that it is
1) hectic
2) heavily commercialized, and
3) full of both
a) loud Americans and
b) electronic-laden Asians who
i) walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk and
ii) insist on
(1) stopping frequently and abruptly when they’re walking directly in front of you and
(2) buying jumpers that say “Australia” across the front.

Yeah, Australians (unlike Americans) typically don’t advertise their own country WHEN THEY’RE STILL IN IT, so it’s fairly easy to spot a foreign tourist here.

Otherwise, the weather was great and the ocean is bee-ee-ay-yutiful. Oh! Hahaha!!! I nearly forgot! So, I was the only person that I could see who wasn’t wearing a wetsuit to surf in. In water that was at least 70 degrees. In fact, there was even one bloke wearing (seriously!) a neoprene hood with his full wetsuit. And booties. I, on the other hand, wore board shorts. And a watch. Suffice to say, the crowd of people who had gathered on the beach certainly weren’t gawking at me for my surfing abilities. I’m sure that they thought either that I was completely crazy or that I was some form of deity descended from heaven itself. I’m going to go with the latter…

So that’s the story with Surfers Paradise. I’m going to get up tomorrow at 6:00 to catch the tide, so I’ll sign off for tonight. Cheers!