Surfers Paradise Hit List #4: Our 2 Favourite Pastimes

From now on, if anyone ever asks us what our interests are, our answer is going to be "Surfing.... and brunch."

Surfing time

So on our last weekend in Surfers, like many weekends before, we did just that. Actually, we hadn't done much surfing in the past few months, thanks to winter rolling around and it getting a whole lot colder, and thanks to not owning surfboards or wetsuits. Luckily, we'd just learned of some cheap early-Saturday-morning surf lessons ($15!) for locals that were happening at the surf school just down the block from us.

We almost chickened out when we saw the weather forecast for the day -- 41 km/hour winds! Eek! -- and saw the giant waves crashing on the beach. But then again, what better time to learn? So we showed up at Cheyne Horan Surf School at 7:45am that Saturday morning and just tried our best not to look at the waves on the way there.

When we arrived, it appeared it would be just us and four giggly high school girls, who were all competing for the attention of Mark, our surf instructor. He seemed slightly relieved not to be alone with them, and gave us a few really good pointers once we got down to the beach. This time, we were practicing on spongey foam boards, so there was less of a chance of getting smashed up by our surfboards (yay!) despite the wind and the waves. And the big water was actually a good thing -- with more waves to catch, there wasn't much waiting, and plenty of room to practice. And though our lesson was only a little more than an hour long, we were totally exhausted by the end! And starving... surfing kinda works up an appetite.

Heaven.

So then it was onto the next order of business: having our very favourite breakfast in town once again -- the very awesome $10 all-you-can-eat feast at the Surfers Paradise RSL (the local veteran's club, which once inside looks less like a Canadian legion hall and more like a combination of casino, pub, and Holiday Inn restaurant, complete with patrons in Hawaiian shirts, informal dining and gaudy carpet). But ever since hearing about it, we've been hooked. And we're surprised the place isn't packed every day, because it's delicious! Your ten bucks gets you not only a cooked breakfast of eggs & meat, or various omelettes, or a beautiful French toast topped with sauteed mushrooms, herbs, and sundried tomatoes.... plus unlimited brewed coffee (Adrian's favourite), orange juice, croissants, pastries and fruit (and toast and cereal, if you're still hungry)

The only problem we can see is that it's all over by 10:30am... but we do usually manage to get a good half hour of eating in before it shuts down. It's got to be the best-kept secret in Surfers! We're thinking maybe they're keeping it hush-hush from all the students, or else there would be no room for the elderley folk and tradies (aka construction workers) who are always in there. But if you ever find yourself in Surfers, it's the best deal in town! Wow, we're getting super hungry just remembering our last meal there.

Surfers Paradise Hit List #3: Our Favourite Watering Hole

The Q1 (left) and The Peninsula (2nd from right)

If there's one thing Surfers Paradise is known for, it's the nightlife. Pub crawl tours, nightclubs, pubs, gentleman's establishments... Surfers is choc full of them. Now, most of what we've encountered isn't really our style (maybe it would have been when we were 19?), so naturally, we were surprised to find our favourite nightlife spot right under our noses. It's not much of a walk from home, but it's a bit of an elevator journey -- 77 storeys up atop the world's third tallest residential building.

Embarassingly enough, we actually lived across the street from the Q1 (at the fairly tall Peninsula building) for about four months before finally getting fancied up and venturing to the Skypoint lounge at the top for a cocktail (thanks to couple of free passes in order to avoid the hefty cover charge). And boy, were we ever glad we didn't miss out on this one!

Espresso martini and mojito, yum

The Q1 has one of those super-fast elevators, with a somewhat creepy video ceiling that shows you exactly what barrelling up the elevator shaft looks like, as your ears pop and you wait for the recorded voice to tell you you've reached floor 77. And then you step out and it's all windows... floor-to-ceiling windows looking over the glittery lights up and down the Gold Coast. Ahhhh.

We've been to Skypoint twice now, and both times we couldn't help but doing the 360-degree wander around the building to admire the coast at night. Even our building, the Peninsula, at 50-odd floors, looked really small.

And then there's the drink list! It's not the most expansive menu, but there's more than a few yummy drinks on it: the bar's signature cocktail, the Mile-High martini was my favourite, with Alize Gold, passionfruit juice and mandarin vodka. Besides that, there's all the standard cocktails and plenty more delicious martinis (espresso!) and a very awesome mojito.

It seems not too many people know about Skypoint yet (or perhaps it's the cover charge keeping the riff-raff out), but there was always lots of lounge seating to swill our cocktails and enjoy the skyline from. There's something so fun about pretending to be fat cats and sipping martinis way up high in the sky. And then walking home... across the road.

The Mile High and a classic martini

The Peninsula & the Q1, best of friends.

Surfers Paradise Hit List #2: Our Favourite Form of Exercise

It's hard to call a 45-minute walk on one of the most gorgeous beaches ever exercise, but doesn't that just make it even more rewarding?

Giant jellyfish!

From the day we first set foot in Surfers, we've been trying to make sure we never take the beach for granted. At any time of day, there's many more people like us doing the exact same thing; in fact, one of the local papers even publishes the exact best times to walk on the beach (according to when the tides expose that lovely flat, packed, walkable sand) with the daily weather report. So one of the things we have been doing the most since deciding to move to Brisbane is taking long strolls along the beach.

Living by the beach and seeing it every day, you realize how the landscape is constantly changing: after a windy couple of days, the dunes are bigger, smaller, or even in other places. After a bout of big waves, sometimes the sand has been carved into small cliffs, even along the water. And the sandbars in the water build themselves up, flatten themselves down, and move along as well. It's always cool to see what the waves have washed up, too: some days it's seashells, some days purplish jellyfish, and one day we came across a jellyfish the size of a truck tire. It was pretty crazy.

Bird lesson in Kurrawa Park

One sunny morning, we thought we'd walk down to Broadbeach, the next suburb south, and grab a coffee for the walk back. It's about a 45-minute stroll and was lovely. On our way into the cafe strip, I was taking photos of some of the flowers around the seaside park in Broadbeach when we met Brian, a retired guy with a soft spot for birds. He was an interesting fellow, and on his daily walk to the library, he always carries a bag of mince (ground meat) in his pocket -- and his friends the Butcherbirds know it. We learned a lot about the Butcherbird from Brian as they landed on his shoulders and arms, and swooped in as soon as they spotted a little meat in his fingers. Adrian even fed a few of them too. They're pretty cute but great hunters-- in fact, they eat insects, lizards, and even other birds. He also told us about all the other species of birds --and snakes! -- that live along the coastline, even amongst the urban sprawl.  It was a bit of a lesson in appreciating the smaller, simpler things in our environment, and it's good to know there are people out there that don't let all the amazing things in our neighbourhoods go unnoticed.

Brian tells us all about the amazingly intelligent Butcherbirds

Inquisitive little devil!

Surfers Paradise Hit List #1: Our Favourite Cafe

We've been itching to tell everyone all about our very favourite coffee joint in Surfers ever since we first visited it in May -- it's a real gem of a place and totally unlike anything else in Surfers Paradise. Hidden away on the second floor of an open-air arcade (a type of mall), by a language school, a Japanese restaurant (Yamasakura, which by the way, is also awesome!), a few real estate agencies, and an internet cafe, is a great little spot called Black Coffee Lyrics.

It's fairly new and just off the main strip, and we might not have ever just stumbled across it on our own, had someone in a local shop not told us about it. It's just the sort of cafe we would dream of creating ourselves: with exposed brick walls and full of antique couches, vintage wallpaper, rustic wooden shelves, mismatched old chairs, and old books and board games galore! Not to mention, they play all of our favourite bands on the stereo and make a killer chai latte. It's all about the details: even the outside is done up with wooden shuttered windows, and each hot drink comes with one of those adorable tourist-souvenir spoons from a far-off place to stir your sugar in with. So from our very first latte date on the couches next to an antique birdcage (with some sort of mangy fake bird inside), we were in love.

Sure, Black Coffee Lyrics is more than a tad hipster, and it's definitely the kind of place you'd find on Ossington in Toronto, or tucked away in a tiny laneway in Melbourne. It is even run by a team of 20-something hipster dudes in skinny jeans, who must know we're real suckers for old furniture and good coffee and tunes. We can't help but love the place -- and just want to bring everyone we know there too!

We've been happy to see it get busier and busier as the weeks go by -- in fact, on one cold night we stopped in for a coffee, it so was packed full of hipsters in giant glasses and scarves swilling whisky we couldn't get a seat. We're just happy that such a cool place is enjoying so much popularity in a town where overpriced, ordinary seafood restaurants and cafe chains are the norm. Love!

Even the outside is cute.

Fancy some Scrabble?

 

Canada Day in Surfers Paradise

The national uniform?

Plaid, plaid, and more plaid. That's what we saw when we went to the Griffith University Canadian Students Association's (yes, there are a lot of Canadian students here) Canada Day celebration at Melba's in Surfers. There were quite a few hockey jerseys, and lots of those ear-flap hats, too. We spent the night trying to figure out if the crowd was a lot of Canadians simply stereotyping Canadians, or if it's just true that we all do wear a ton of plaid?

As the party had started at 3pm (yikes!) and we arrived around 9pm, the advertised Alexander Keith's, caesars, and poutine were long gone. We did have an amusing conversation with a Vancouverite who explained how, in desperation for a caesar (as there's no Clamato juice to be found in Oz), she and her flatmates have done everything from import Clamato at a staggering fee from the American Food Store in Melbourne, to buying lots of canned clams and draining the juice out of them. We can at least say Canucks are very determined, if nothing else.

Plaid, and more plaid.

We must have forgotten out own ear-flap hats back in Ontario.

We ran into Felix, from Germany, in camouflage as a Canuck.

Heaps of red.

We left before it all got too messy.

In Love With: Beach Concerts

Dayle has just started a job helping out run the Surfers Paradise Festival, a huge three-week-long arts & culture fest that's run by a city-council-funding marketing team, designed to inject a little fun into the city in wintertime, draw in some crowds, and really just to show off how much great talent there is in Gold Coast (something we've been feeling a real void of... but it is indeed out there!).

The festival kicked off this week with a huge free beach concert - such a lovely way to watch live music. We weren't too familiar with a lot of the acts prior to the event, but apparently the headliner, Pete Murray, is kind of a big thing here in Oz, and lots of the other Aussie indie bands are gaining in popularity fast-- like Clare Bowditch, Busby Marou, and the John Steel Singers. It ran all day in the sand, and though it got a bit chilly at night, everyone bundled together under blankets, sat under the coloured lights and finally the fireworks... which were shot into the sky under a very creepy red moon. A wonderful time! Here are a few photos from the beach concert....

Under the shadows in the afternoon (the white building in the centre is our apartment)

Clare Bowditch

Pete Murray

Creepy red moon

 

 

After-show fireworks

Flexing Those Acting Muscles: Part II

And oh yes, there is more. We're not sure why our acting skills are in such high demand (although our asking price is pretty low...).

This time, the organization Dayle was working for in Surfers was filming a TV ad for an upcoming event, and the colleague organizing the PR was desperately in need of extras on short notice. All we had to do was show up at Benihana, the Japanese restaurant in the Marriott Hotel, for about 45 minutes on a Thursday morning and look amazed by a teppanyaki chef working his cooking magic. Sure, why not?

Since we were both free that day, we arrived at the very fancy lobby of the Marriott that rainy morning in our snazzy clothes (having been asked to dress as though we were "going 5-star dining"). We had pictured a full restaurant of people, but the setting was a little more intimate than that: it was actually just us and five others, seated around a wide table with a hot grill in the middle of it, huddled around a chef.

Our little nook was gorgeous, we must note, and looked out onto a Japanese garden quite reminiscent of that final dramatic scene from Kill Bill. We only hoped that some samurais would get out there and do a little battle in the rain for us. Or better yet, Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu! And yes, and the restaurant itself was pretty impressive, too.

Unlike us extras, the chef seemed quite comfortable in front of the camera, being used to putting on a show for restaurant patrons every evening with his big teppanyaki blades and forks. He made a steaming volcano out of onion rings, he flipped prawns into his hat, drummed complicated rhythms with his spice canisters, and lit things on fire as we oohed and aahhed and clapped (no acting skills needed there). Then he tossed food at us — and seeing as we hadn't thought to practice catching rice and prawns with our mouths, most of us ended up with foodstuffs all over our fancy clothing. *Le sigh.* In no time at all, the cameraman had tons of footage and told our chef it was cool to stop cooking — but he was intent on making us a full dinner at 10:30am! Finally, we convinced him that he'd done a great job and he could leave his grill behind, and what else could we do? We all pigged out on delicious Japanese grilled dinner and wine (a prop that definitely could not go to waste) not two hours after we'd eaten breakfast. Ah well, the life of an extra!

Even though Adrian was much more keen to be on camera (and got covered with a lot more flying food) Dayle ended up with a foreground spot in the commercial... which was a little hilarious to see on our television, playing in a commercial break during Law and Order. So apparently Dayle's stint on Romper Room wasn't the last of her TV career....

The Death of Surfers?

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a bit of work for an organization in Surfers Paradise that works with city council to organize events and marketing for the suburb. It's been one of the most interesting jobs I've had, mostly because what I've learned in this short time about our town is astounding.

Surfers Paradise is a beautiful place on the beach, built on tourism and living perpetually in holiday mode. It's full of restaurants, hotels, shopping, and attractions like mini golf and wax museums, and the weather is pretty great year-round. For decades, it's been the place Aussies would holiday to with their families, it's the place where high school kids celebrate the end of their school years (Schoolies Week) and it's where international backpackers come to party, enroll in English courses, and soak up the sun. People come to have fun here, and then they come back again because it's such a great place to be. This has been going on for years and years, and so construction companies just kept building, and people keep opening more businesses up here. But realistically, this kind of success couldn't really go on forever.

These days Surfers is full of "For Lease" signs on storefronts and "Vacancy" broadcasted from hotel signs. It seems more and more shops are disappearing all the time, and the sidewalks are sometimes empty enough to envision a tumbleweed blowing through. There's even a totally vacant shopping mall on the main street, hidden behind a few shops that are still open (for now at least). We've been noticing this more and more the longer we stay, but what truly hammered in this point was taking on a work assignment where I ended up chatting up local business owners and managers about the state of Surfers.

Contest at Sin City nightclub

No one is entirely sure of the real reason why Surfers has lost so many visitors, but the consensus is, business began getting slower in the last three years or so and is now at an all-time low. And something's gotta give! Is it the global economy keeping international visitors away? Is the high Aussie dollar simply making it a better deal for Australians to holiday in Bali instead? Or has Surfers simply lost its former lustre/sense of fun/wholesomeness? Some say that Surfers has become too much of a party town, gotten a really bad reputation, and now families are staying away or heading to other suburbs on the Gold Coast (well, with a bar strip full of drunken hooligans roaming the street nearly every night, and some nightclubs offering a contest to win a boob job, it's no wonder). Others say that town planners and restaurants are trying to get too fancy/expensive and it's forcing families to eat at KFC when they holiday — we'd have to agree with this argument too, as we've been unable to rationalize spending a small fortune ($20 a plate AT LEAST) on a Thai or an Italian dinner. Some are saying that we need to encourage locals from other suburbs to visit, but the city keeps raising the cost of street parking ($2 an hour now I'm told) in Surfers but not in other suburbs, which is working against promoting local business as well. And it's not just Surfers that is suffering: newspapers are reporting Gold Coast with the highest unemployment rate in Australia (government reports are saying it's around 7%, though some are saying it's probably closer to 13% unemployment — some timing for our arrival!), thanks to both the lull in tourism and the collapse of some of the biggest construction companies/investors.

It's not happy days for Surfers Paradise, but underneath all of that, what I encountered most in longtime locals was a real nostalgia for what the place once was (it was the most exciting place in Australia to spend a week, or simply a laid-back beach town, etc.) and a strong belief that it'll make a comeback, with some careful resuscitation. Some people think some twinkly lights along the streets might liven up the atmosphere. Some say we need a better arts culture (me included) and perhaps some quality entertainment, beyond buskers (ugh)— like a music festival to get people coming back. Agreed! I've actually just signed on to work with the same organization for the next few months (I start my new job this week!), to help run the upcoming Surfers Paradise Festival in June/July and a bunch more events following that, so I'm extra excited now to find out what will happen to this place. And I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I think somewhere along the way, perhaps while I was meeting so many lovely locals, and discovering all the hidden gems of this weird and wonderful place, I think I'm starting to lose a little piece of my heart in this town, too. -D.

Third Time's a Charm?

Today began in the best way imaginable — with a little surfing! While Adrian headed off to school, flatmate Julie and I decided to brave the waves before getting to our daily business. And even though our flatmates both own surfboards, I was happy to learn that we're all at around the same level in surfing- extreme beginner!

Adrian and I have hit the waves twice now since we arrived in Gold Coast, with varying degrees of success. On our first day surfing, we tried desperately to remember those little tidbits of surfer wisdom from our lessons in Coffs Harbour back in 2008. The waves here are a lot bigger than in Coffs and have a strong sweep sideways, meaning it's a battle to stay anywhere close to your original spot on the beach. That day, neither of us managed to stand, but we had fun flopping onto the board, beached-whale-style and riding the waves in on our bellies. Aside from mildly sore ribcages from all that flopping, we were ready to try it again. (Note: this is absolutely not one of us in the photo below)

We took a day to rest our aching muscles (we forgot that surfing is hard work!) and headed out again the day after that. We returned to the same spot, as it had a nice shallow sandbar that was pretty easy to paddle out to the first day. However, I'm not sure if the waves were bigger or how the conditions had changed, but it seemed so much more difficult that day. And while Adrian made it past the sandbar and even managed to stand up on his board (yay!), I found myself stuck in that horrible spot right by the shore where the waves crashed, unable to get past them and, to make things worse, kept getting whacked by my surfboard! A couple puffy knees (see left), a big purple fin-mark on my thigh, and a bump on the head later (lucky me!), we decided to give the surfing thing a bit of a break....

But nearly two weeks since that memorable day, my knees are back to their usual selves, so when Julie was pondering a morning surf, it seemed like about time to give it another go. I don't want to be developing some kind of ocean phobia when I'm only a month into our stint in Gold Coast, after all!

It was cloudy and a bit windy this morning, and we got to the beach and realized neither of us had any idea how to pick a good (ie. easy) spot. Finally, we just picked a place to jump in and were soon back on the beach in defeat, as the waves were huge! Not ready to give up though, we tried another plan- ask a lifeguard! We figured if anyone would know the waves, the guys who watch the beach would. It was a little hard explaining that we just wanted a spot with "very small waves", as most people here head straight for the giant tube waves that seem miles from shore. The lifeguard guy looked around and said it all looked "pretty ordinary" (eek, really?!) but after I repeated the words "beginner" and "easy" enough times, he got it, and pointed us toward a flatter spot down the beach where the waves were crashing further from the shore and some lady was riding a boogie board. Aha!

Turns out asking a lifeguard is the way to go, as neither Julie nor I got beaten up by our surfboards or swallowed gallons of water. It was a lot of fun! And even though we are still too terrible to jump up and stand on our boards (plus, swimming against the crazy sweep is really tiring!), we had a good time and at least rode few waves in on our stomachs. We agree it's definitely a way more fun type of exercise than going for a run, however, I'm reminded once again of having weakling arms - which are all wobbly now, and yet don't even have the power to push me into a standing position on my surfboard. Bah! But we'll see how Attempt #4 goes...

Living in Holidayville

It's been a whole week now since the plane dropped me off at one of the country's best beaches (and that's two weeks on the coast now for Adrian, after a week in Brisbane) and I have to say, the Gold Coast so far is pretty awesome.

Where? Well, the Gold Coast is in fact a decent-sized city (or at least a collection of smaller suburbs strung along the coast) located about an hour south of Brisbane, at the very southernmost end of Queensland, Australia. We're a good few hours' drive north of Sydney and we're nowhere near the tropical Far North, where we once lived (in Port Douglas). But the climate is subtropical and beautiful year-round, and is one of Australia's most popular holiday destinations. Where we live, in Surfers Paradise, is at the epicentre of the Gold Coast's hotels, clubs, souvenir shops, and Vegas-esque glitter.

It's actually a little unreal, living in a place that's perpetually on holidays. I mean, there are definitely others like us, who go to work or school, and still live a few steps from the beach, but there aren't many gloomy faces around, as most of the town's population is on vacation.

Living in a tourist destination also has its drawbacks, of course, like really overpriced restaurants, tacky bars, and getting harassed daily by sales agents on the street to go on a "Nightclub Tour". But my plan is to soak up the holiday spirit and chill out for at least my first week or two in Oz, so it works fine for me.

Most days on the Gold Coast - at least from what I've seen - start out sunny and warm. The weather seems to change throughout the day between sunny and cloudy, and sometimes we get a bit of rain (though usually if you get caught in it, it feels quite nice!). The temperature seems to stay between 25 and 28 degrees, and the ocean temperature is pretty nice too. Which means, as a holidaymaker, you've got a big decision ahead of you: ocean or pool?

Since the sun really starts revving up by around 10am or so, in my opinion, it's best to get your beach time in in the morning (OK, I can see why I'm way paler than everyone else here), and save the errands and business stuff for the afternoon. But just don't forget that banks close at 4pm and everything else seems to shut shortly after that. It's Queensland after all! For that reason, I am happy to be in a tourist town, since tourists love to continue shopping until after dark, and luckily we've got a multi-storey outdoor mall at the centre of Surfers.

And somewhere in between the swimming, shopping, and suntanning, one must make time for a little surfing! It's next on our to-do list, although we remember the waves being a little intimidating on the Gold Coast. We've also managed to squeeze a few delicious barbeques in (there are a number of barbequing areas in the nicely landscaped grounds to our building) and to have some excellent people-watching sessions (more about that to come).

But I guess the best thing so far about living in the Gold Coast is the attitude- lots of smiles, and friendly people in shops, in the elevator, and on the beach. It's just refreshing, after living in much-more-reserved Toronto, to be in a place like this, where people have no qualms about striking up a chat with a total stranger. But of course, when you're pumped so full of the sunshine vitamin all the time, who wouldn't be all smiles and chattiness?

And Around We Go!

As I was wandering up the beach today in the early morning sunshine, snapping photos of little purplish jellyfish washing up in the surf and following seagull tracks in the freshly groomed sand, four words popped into my head and blinked at me like a neon sign: This is your life.

It wasn't even 8:30 yet, and I was already at the beach. After an early-morning payphone call home to Canada, it was hard to resist taking the beach route back to my apartment. And while normally my first and biggest concern at this hour is getting some breakfast into my belly, pronto, when there's a stunning beach literally at your doorstep, the eggs and toast tend to drop in the priority list.

Yes it's true, folks: we're now official residents of Gold Coast, Australia (well, Surfers' Paradise, to be exact)! It's not a place Adrian and I ever would have pictured ourselves living, but, well, it's happening. For those of you who know us well, you probably know that Australia still holds a special place in our hearts. After spending two eventful years in Oz, it really began to feel like home. And after a good jaunt around Southeast Asia in 2009, we did give returning to Toronto a fair go. But after nearly a year and a half, it became apparent that our old city just wasn't working for us. So despite the fact there were many things we loved about being back in Toronto - like our great little apartment tucked in between Little Italy and Little Portugal, beautiful Trinity-Bellwoods Park down the block, Chinatown just a short walk away, family in nearby towns and lots of great friends in the city - we couldn't help but dig around for ideas for our next adventure. If you had asked us a year ago where we were planning to be in March 2011, we would have told you "Somewhere in the UK", as we were well on our way to getting the paperwork together to take a working holiday in jolly old England at that time. In fact, Adrian got his visa and COULD fly into London right now and be legal to work - that is, if there were jobs. A little detail that scared us off that plan...

So last summer, we began pondering some other options. That was when one of our friends, who knows Australia well, and our desire to return too, asked us: "well, how about going to university there?" Since we'd already used up our two years of Aussie working holiday visas, we'd kind of assumed a return to Oz was out of the question. But we were intrigued. We soon learned Adrian's diploma program at Seneca College had a joint agreement with several universities to upgrade his Digital Media Arts diploma into a degree - at places including York University in Toronto, Athabasca (Alberta), some place in Buffalo, and Griffith University in Australia. What luck! And getting a bachelor's might not be a bad idea careerwise... but after some more research and digging around, it began to look like a crazy plan (financially at least), so we tucked that idea away for the time being...

But crazy as the idea seemed, the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to make it happen. Griffith was located in the Gold Coast after all, a great place to surf, with fantastic year-round weather, and close to Brisbane, a city we've been hearing lots of good things about. So we thought, why not? And we began the application process: apply to school, apply for scholarships, apply for visas... and finally, at the very end of January, when we had already given our landlord move-out notice and had sold most of our furniture (yet still waiting for the Aussie gov't to say we were allowed back!), the news came: we got our visas! We jumped up and down a lot, and started making those last preparations. Though our plans had been in the works for quite a while, with just over two weeks left until Adrian's final enrollment deadline at Griffith, it sure was cutting it close!

But in the end, we made it. We both spent some good family/friend time before heading off, and even managed to score some decent deals on flights (note: if you're looking for a last-minute flight to Oz, definitely try Expedia, or check Air New Zealand or Virgin's websites!). Adrian landed in Australia on February 18, and I landed yesterday morning. For me, it's still pretty unreal- for one, we're living in holiday land! The Gold Coast is very flashy and touristy, full of high-rises, and makes me think a lot of Hawaii 5-0. And secondly, we're living in a gorgeous apartment that's a half block from the ocean. Our balcony wraps around our entire living room, giving us views of the mountains inland, and the sparkling blue ocean on the other side. We've got until August 2012 to live in Oz, and this morning I promised myself I would not begin to take that for granted! And so our newest adventure begins...
xoxo, D.