Beach and a Barbie

Annette, Faith, Me, Nicky, and Gavin

I woke up today and got ready to go to the beach with Alyssa from the film festival and a few of her friends. She told me to meet at her place around 9:30 am. I arrived at 9:35 and they had already left. I was very bummed that they didn't wait. But, it was my fault, I should have been on time. Anyways so I turned around and made the 15 minute walk back to my place. One of my roommates, Nicky, was awake so I invited her to go with me to the beach. Her boyfriend Gavin is a local Aussie who has a car!! This means I didn't have to try and figure out the terrible bus schedule. Two more girls joined us, Annette and Faith. The beach was nice with white sand and crystal blue water. Unfortunately, it was also very windy. I brought cards but we could not play them because the wind was so bad. They water was VERY choppy and decently warm, which was fantastic to play in. No sharks and no jelly fish encounters! The most dangerous thing were the random rocks that me foot kept landing on. When we got out of the water the wind had picked up to the point where it was stinging. My entire body was getting sand blasted. All I felt was non-stop stinging. So we left. We were only at the beach for 1 hour. Apparently, I missed my nose and my chest when I put on sunscreen. They are both very red!! So red that my roommate Suzie was singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to me this evening.

After the beach we came home and showered to get the sand out of my ears and off of the rest of my body. We all chilled out for a few hours and then half of my roommates showed up for a house barbie. That is Australian for BBQ. The grill they use is more like a griddle. They clean the grill with salt and oil. Then they cover it in oil and cook their meats. Suzy, Carmela, Crystal, Nicky, and I were they only ones who showed up for our house Barbie. We made it BOYM (Bring Your Own Meat) and a type of salad to share. I brought pasta salad. It was good and we all had a great time.

There are also some more vocabulary words that I learned today:

A 'boot' is the trunk of the car

A 'jumper' is a sweatshirt

'rockmelon' is cantaloupe

'sultans' are raisins

That is all for now. I have orientation meetings that start tomorrow.