And the semester begins.... after surf camp that is! March 18th - 25th

Orientation is over and it is time to get cooking on some Australian academia! But first, surf camp! the beach is about 40 min away from where i'm staying in Lismore, and the town that occupies that beach is none other than Byron Bay! Byron Bay is a small kinda sorta hippy town, like the place you live when you're really rich and want to seem super hip and down to earth but you're actually really full of it, type of hippy town. I guess Thor lives there... I also saw Matt Damon there too. it is actually are really rad place with great live music. Surf camp was a blast. We first went on this 2 mile hike to a light house on the eastern most point on the Australian continent. I thought i'd be cool and do it all bare foot like the aussies, bad idea. my feet bled horrible and I walked down the trail at snail pace till I got to the beach and soaked my feet. so cool haha. Surf camp was 3.5 days and 2 nights out in Byron. first night was playing around town and having our first Aussie night life experience. Saw kick ass live music that first night. They were this 8 piece folk band and it was amazing, still have a beat to their finale in my head. The next morning we hit the surf boards where we had some teachers from the hostel we were staying at show us the grooves. the boards we used were like 11 feet long and Styrofoam. I didn't do too bad and got to stand up several times (the waves were super mild mind you). that day we also went paddle boarding in this estuarian lake. I used to think I had pretty good balance, but holy crap I was a spaz on those things and couldn't stay standing for the life of me. That night again was filled with live music and just getting to know people. We shot gunned a bunch of beers in an alley, by far the most American thing I did since being there. Got about 4 hours of sleep and did some sea kayaking at 6am. People were hurling the weather was so bad. but my god it was so cool. we had to paddle past the wave break, and it being such rough weather, made it feel like we were laying siege to Poseidon's palace. My kayak buddy Orion flew up and out of his seat when we hit that break haha. for the rest of the day it was volleyball and free time surfing where I tried to get the hang of it a bit more. And then, like that, the weekend was over, and the school work began.

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