Fun in the Suburbs

Even though there is a lot to do when you move to a new country you still have to make sure you are having fun!

As Jason mentioned below, we were lucky to have an immediate friend upon arrival - Damian. He unfortunately will only be in Brisbane for 10 days as he is at the end of his journey and moving back to the States. Not only has he shown us the ropes for how to get settled, he also took us on a great adventure to the beaches!! Unfortunately, the beaches aren't the easiest places to get to especially if you don't have a car. Luckily Damian rented a car for his last weekend in Brisbane and he took us to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

On Saturday we drove to the Gold Coast which took about an hour. We ended up at Surfers Paradise beach. There are 35 beaches that stretch from the north of Surfers Paradise to the Rainbow Bay, south of Coolangatta. The beaches are open 365 days a year.

The sunshine felt so good especially after moving from dark cold Chicago! We didn't spend much time in the water as there were hundreds of blue bottle jellyfish (stingies as they are called here) washed up on the beach. Jason has been stung by a jellyfish in every body of water he has swam in (Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean) so I tried to not get too close to him. The waves weren't very big but there were two groups of people learning to surf. We saw four surfers come out of the water with jelly fish on them. The surf instructors were able to get the stingies off of their students by filling their hands with sand and brushing the jelly fish off.

To stay away from the stingies we walked the board walk and the shops. The Gold Coast is known as the place where wealthy families vacation so there are lots of high end designer stores and expensive condos. We were quite surprised at the size of the skyscraper buildings that were all residential. They did provide some good shade for us though :)

On our way back from the beach Damian took us through a scenic drive of Tamborine Mountain. It was a unique experience to go from hanging out in the ocean to driving through wild kangaroo-infested country side to hauling the little Corolla up a windy mountain side road that ended at a tropical rain forest. On the way back down the mountain we kept our windows down so we could hear the foreign animal noises.

 The following day Damian took us to Mooloolaba beach on the Sunshine Coast. Yes, Mooloolaba. We love the names here they are so much fun to say - Maroochydore, Pimpama, Woombye, Mudjimba, and the list goes on. Anyway, the Sunshine Coast was our favorite by far. The people seemed more relaxed and casual, the water was warmer and there were no stingies washed up on the beach. We spent lots of time in the water and enjoyed riding the waves. When we got out of the water we saw two people who got stung by stingies. One was on a girls face! Yikes! We of course had to finish the day by getting ice cream which is really good here. We went on another but shorter scenic drive and saw pineapple fields! Who knew pineapples came from the ground?

Believe it or not, we didn't spend too much time in the sun. For those of you who don't know, there is literally a hole in the Ozone layer here so the sun is extremely harsh. The good thing is that Australians seem to be very aware of this (except for the sun tanned faces of the extreme surfers) and we haven't seen too many really tan people. The Australian government does a great job reminding people of how strong the sun is with their fear inflicting commercials on TV. They have graphic images of how melanoma can form in your body, how it spreads and how it can kill you. It makes me step in the shade when I think about it. The Australian government has some other very graphic and fear inflicting commercials as well relating to drunk driving. They also have very disturbing billboards with images of mangled innocent people after a wreckless car accident. These advertisements are in many locations and I've seen these commercials several times a week.

Well these have been some of the adventures and observations we've had since we got here a week and a half ago. Check out the video of the sunshine coast (kinda lame) and some pictures we took :)