Surfest, Stitches, 21st, and more...

This post is long overdue and encompasses multiple little happenings over the past month.

Beginning with Surfest, a major surf contest held just a few blocks from my house. The contest began the week after I returned from visiting the Gold Coast. There were AMAZING waves at the beginning for the Pro Junior event, especially Thursday March 8th. I took a few pictures, but you can also see more on the official website if you are interested.

When I was jogging up to the beach to go surf (jogging because walking wouldn't get me there quick enough... too excited) as soon as I could see the waves, I was distracted and not watching my steps. I accidentally kicked a curb and tore a quarter-sized portion of skin off the tip of my left big toe (my pivot foot for frisbee). Just about the worst place for a cut making both surfing and playing frisbee painful and difficult.

Speaking of frisbee....That weekend, March 10th - 11th, down near Sydney, just a day or 2 after cutting my toe, was Regionals (the qualifying tournament for Australian Nationals). I Beam didn't do as well as we had hoped, but we qualified for Nationals! Next week, April 22nd - 25th, I will be competing in my first National tournament here in Newcastle.

My I Beam teammates awaiting the start of another point on our way to qualification

So when I returned, I spent the rest of the week at the beach watching the main event at Surfest. I got a bunch of autographs, pictures, and got to meet a bunch of the pros that I admired in my surf movies growing up, like this guy:

Damien Hobgood. He is from Florida. A few years ago on a surf trip down to FL I met his twin brother (also a pro surfer). I have great respect for him because he is a man of faith, a family man, a great surfer, and a cool guy who isn't bothered by annoying fans bugging him for a picture and autograph --> me...

and this guy:

Gabe Kling. Another surfer from FL. He made it all the way to the semi finals.

I got a bunch of the pros to sign a hat. For those of you who know pro surfers these are the names on my hat: Taj Burrow, Joel Parkinson, Adriano de Souza, Jay "Bottle" Thompson, Tom Whitaker, Luke Egan, Gabe Kling, Kai Otton, Damien Hobgood. I also got Corey Lopez to sign of poster of himself that is now on my wall above my bed.

There wasn't much of a crowd until the finals rolled around:

Heaps of people to watch the finals of Surfest

Well, that's enough about Surfest.
What's next? Oh yea...stitches. So once my toe was nice and healed and another big swell came thumping on the shore, I injured myself again. I pulled into a barrel, didn't make it out, got thrown out in front of the wave, and instead of staying underwater for an extra moment as I always warn people when I teach them to surf, I pulled my head out of the water only to have my board crash into the back of my head giving it a nice 1/2 inch long cut. The lifeguard (Brett, a surfer, too) cleaned it up a bit, and I decided it didn't need stitches, and I didn't want them either because I wanted to be able to surf the next day.

Then the following week when the cut in the back of my head was healed, I rode my bike to uni one night for frisbee practice. I had made a turn to the wrong fields, so I pulled a U turn. I couldn't see the loose gravel on the edge of the other side of the road, and my wheels slid out from underneath me. The crash left me with a some scrapes on my palm, leg, finger, and a piece of gravel lodged in a 2 inch long cut on my forearm. The cut was about the width and depth of a pencil. I walked my bike up the hill and road it down to the gym, where I found someone to help me clean it up a bit. I'm a bit squeamish, but the guy handing me first aid supplies and I both shivered a little when the pebble responsible for the wound in my arm fell into the sink. I called Davies, who was already at frisbee, and he took me to the hospital to get 3 stitches.

Easter morning Dani and I took the stitches out ourselves because I was expecting to leave the next day on a road trip, and didn't want to deal with going to a doctor.

No we weren't dying Easter Eggs, just removing some stitches haha 

Thankfully none of these injuries were serious. Don't worry, I AM being careful!


Last but not least: my 21st birthday celebrations :)
It was a Wednesday night and I invited my mates over to cook some food on the barbie, play some ping pong and beer pong, and then go into town. After a great time hanging out at my place, we ended up walking about 30 minutes into town, which was longer than I had anticipated. One of my friends knew a guy working at a Kebab shop, so we split a free kebab (a wrap basically). We got a drink, then the bar we were in was closing, so we took a cab back to my place, which was perfect because I was super tired and was getting up early to go surf before I had to go take a test.

This picture cracks me up! A few had already left since it was a Wednesday night, and 5 of made the trek into town. Thanks, mates, for celebrating with me!

Actually the 3 pictures of the waves at the end of my last post were taken the day after my birthday just before I paddled out and unwrapped the Tasman Sea's birthday present to me.

My mate, Lefty, and I went out to surf Redhead the Friday after my bday. This big rock, here, is why it's called Redhead. 

...and the waves out at Redhead we're bad either

I hope you enjoyed the post. Next up will be a post about my road trip up the New South Wales coast with George and Keegan in search of waves. Have a great day!

The Merry House in Merewether

This house has been the base camp of all my merriment since I returned from the Gold Coast. I have a key to place and worked out a great deal on rent. The guy actually on the lease works 10 days on and 3 days off (or something like that) and the company pays for his accommodation. Apparently, me paying anything for rent is helping him out, but from my perspective living here is just a luxury that I was prepared to do without.

The negotiations were brutal before we settled on a price for rent. I budgeted $130 a week and knew that I could not afford to pay full price to live here. So this is how the negotiations went:

Tats: So how does $100 a week sound
Me: [huge smile on my face] Yea! That would be great!

haha so we figured how long I would be here, and I will pay the lump sum. Oh, and I don't have to pay utilities!
Sweet deal, right?
How would YOU know?! You haven't seen the place. It could be a rundown bug infested hole in the ground for all you know. I mean I am paying $100 a week which is cheaper than crappy housing near campus.
Well then take a look and see what a steal I'm getting:

So I have taken this desk over. I spend a lot of time here: checking swells, doing school work, skyping, etc. I am actually sitting here right now writing this blog post

To the left is the glass wall enclosing my desk area,
again to the left and up the stairs leads to the kitchen and living room,
just beyond the stairs at the entrance to the hall and on the right is my room,
down the hall and around the corner is the laundry room and back door,
straight down the hall is Gavin's room (for his privacy the tour will not go in there),
down the hall and to the left is the bathroom he & I share,
and there on the left is the spare bed where Tat's sleeps when he comes home

This is our "front yard" I guess you could call it. The street is on the other side of the wall. I leave moldy bread on top of the wall and on the ground trying to attract cool Aussie birds. 

The view out the window from my desk. 

"now if you look to the right you might catch a sighting of the American student."

"As you can see, we have tried to mimic his natural habitat to make him feel more at home."

"but he does not spend much time in here, making sightings in this area rare. We wonder why, because you can see he has hung a poster he had signed by a pro surfer, evidence that he has claimed his territory.
The most popular theory says that the enclosure is too small for anything more than sleeping and praying, even changing clothes can be tough. As you can see the door will not open all the way without hitting the bed.
Others say he is just too preoccupied with surfing and enjoying Australia to lie around in bed, but that's not particularly true because he is often seen lying on the couches upstairs watching tv or napping. Who knows"

Bathroom that Gavin & I share. Many a hot shower has been had after a surf session right here. 

If you look closely, you will notice something hiding in this picture.
That's right, there are 2 buttons on top of the toilet! good eye. 1/2 flush and full flush for #1's and #'2's. How conservative of Aussies!
and if the toilet did have a spinning flush, it would spin the other way, but it just sucks straight down....Lame

Pounds are still on top of Kilograms. 'Merica!

Laundry and back door

Door's open, come on in. I'll take you outside in a minute...

First let's check out the upstairs. It's the coolest part in my opinion.

Leather couches, prime time napping spot

This is what the couches are looking at... and for good reason.
(you can also see the porch through the glass doors)

TV, playstation loaded up with a bunch of shows and movies, xbox, and surround sound. We ain't messing around

The view out the front porch. Nice park right across the street.

The other half of the upstairs: Dining room table, on the left is another bathroom, Tim's room, straight ahead, would be the master bedroom I guess, and the kitchen on the right

Dinner table

That box in the corner is where we toss the bottle caps. It's a challenge to get it in there. I wonder how long they have been working on it, because the box is almost full!

Kitchen

You can see our bowls of fruit and veggies up on the counter. I have been working on my cooking skills, and I can now safely say that I can feed myself quite well and healthily.

Cupboard is stoked. My only complaint for the whole place would be that the fridge is too small... 

The upstairs bathroom

So now we're going out the back door. Palm trees, rubbish bins, and garage.

Surfboards, ping pong table, drumming equipment, now that's what should be in a garage! 

Me on my way to Easter mass. Oh I forgot to take a pic of the barbie (grill, not doll) but it's just off the screen to the right.

Back yard. I leave rotten fruit and more bread on the bottom of the slide, again, to attract birds.

Kookaburra in the neighbor's tree watching me hang my laundry.

Hanging our clothes to dry out here behind the garage in the back yard. You can kind of see the grill on the left. That's the grilling area under there anyways.

Back door's open

side of the house... Idk why I took this one. not too special. that's the bathroom window there: don't be peeping in on anyone!

That's our house on the left, as can see it's pretty close to our neighbors

I suppose this is our front door. Inside here is the front yard area, which you've already seen.

The best part: THE LOCATION!
a few blocks away is a Coles and some other shops, a Catholic church, and of course just a short 3 block walk and this what I get:

Dixon Park

Waves on a good day