There's Always Money in the Banana Stand

Coffs Harbour is a bigger place than Byron Bay, with a population of about 60,000. However, there are fewer backpackers here, and it seems like a quieter place. It's located about 200 km south from Byron Bay, still on the Pacific Coast. The mountains come close to the coast here, and the city is nestled in between the peaks and the waves.

They grow a lot of bananas here, and have been for a long time. Coffs is home to another one of the iconic Australian "Big Things." In this case, it's the Big Banana.

I spend three nights and two days in Coffs. The hostel I stayed at, the Aussitel Backpackers had the friendliest staff of any hostel I've ever visited. Except for an isolated incident, I really enjoyed my stay here.

Since Coffs is a fairly quiet town (especially compared to Byron), the hostel organized nightly activities to entertain its guests. The night I got there was Punch Night -- AU$6 for all you can drink punch and goone. After the punch was drained, we went to pub at Coffs Hotel to continue the revelry.

My bed was in an eight-person all-male dorm. These beds were occupied my first night in the hostel. One of the guys had way too much to drink. Apparently, he had also gotten his hands on some weed cookies from Nimbin (the hippie town located near Byron Bay -- I didn't go there because I'm not into that kind of stuff). So, the guy was messed up in several ways. Unlike this guy, I'm well aware of where my limits are when drinking, and didn't even really get drunk that night. Why am I telling you this? Soon you will see.

About four o'clock in the morning, while sleeping, I started to feel a little tinkling of liquid near my feet. I tried to figure out what was going on... was it raining? No, I was indoors. Sweat? No that's not it. Very strange. I groggily opened my eyes and saw a shadowy figure standing unsteadily at the end of my bed. He was swaying back and forth slightly. He was the source of the liquid. HE WAS PEEING ON ME.

I got out of bed. Even though six other people in the room were still sleeping, I raised my voice and ordered, "DUDE, GO TO THE TOILET." No response. I tried again. This guy was totally unresponsive. One of the guy's buddies heard me though. He said, "Sebastian!" and tried to wake the guy up in Danish. He started slapping the guy's face. The guy eventually stopped peeing, opened his eyes a bit, and proceeded to lay down in my bed... specifically in the little puddle he had created for himself. I'm not kidding. Could I be making this crazy stuff up? No way.

Eventually, his buddies got this guy into the bathroom and cleaned up a bit. The guy was wasted... so messed up he didn't know what he was doing. I got the sheets off my bed and threw them into the hallway. The mattress had to go to. I discovered that the bag of food I was keeping under my mattress was soaked through. That had to get chucked, too.

I washed off my feet. One of the guy's buddies apologized and offered me his own bed. The wasted guy passed out again. Soon the paramedics came to check him out. They didn't pump his stomach, but did manage to wake everyone up in the room again.

It was hard for me to go back to sleep. It was all just so weird.

In the morning, the urinator apologized to me. He said that he didn't remember anything from going to the pub to getting up in the morning. His buddies had to reconstruct his night for him. In fact, in the morning, the guy was still drunk. He gave me some money (AU$50) to replace the food he had soiled, the checked out of the hotel and I never saw him again thankfully. Apparently, he had to pay to replace the mattress, too -- AU$300 -- ouch.

People asked me why I didn't deck the guy who was peeing on me. I don't think it would have helped the situation. The guy didn't know what he was doing. I doubt he was even awake when doing it. I'm not a violent person, and don't want to go decking people just for making stupid mistakes. They fact that the guy had to pay AU$350 because of the stupid crap he did was satisfying enough for me.

The next day, people were asking me if I was the guy who got peed on. "Yes, it was me." The hostel was small, and rumours spread quickly. I was a bit of a celebrity.

The rest of my time in Coffs was pretty uneventful. I had spent a lot of money in Byron Bay and just wanted to lay low for a while. I rented a bike (AU$5 for a full day) and pedaled around for about two hours. Most of the ride was off road, and I enjoyed myself. I treated myself to Thai food the night after the incident to help me feel better. I bought some fancy beers. I canoed for a couple hours. I walked around the Botanical Gardens. I swam in the ocean.

One highlight of Coffs was the Big Banana of course. I cycled up there. I was excited to get frozen chocolate covered bananas. It reminded me of the show Arrested Development. They were very tasty! I can see how the Bluths used the Banana Stand to build up their business empire!

After all, there's always money in the Banana Stand.

New Photos Posted: Coffs Harbour

Yo yo yo people. I've posted new photos about my time in Coffs Harbour.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Port Macquarie, Australia

Hair Algebra

Sorry to disappoint, but it's true, I cut off most of my rockstar hair. I left it on the floor of a hair dresser's in Noosa. I had been thinking about doing it for a while. I know that the poll indicated that I should keep my rockstar hair, but it was time for it go. Let's call that poll a "non-binding referendum," mmm-kay?

I cut my hair for a few reasons:

1. Heat: Australia is really hot. Soon, I'll be in Southeast Asia, where it'll be even hotter! The hair was definitely causing me to overheat.

2. Humidity: It's rather humid here, too. My hair was frizzing up like no one's frizzness, er, business.

3. Practicality: Having short hair means that I don't need to carry a bottle of conditioner around. That's less stuff for me to keep in my backpack.

4. Looks: The new hair is dead sexy. 'nuff said.

I've put together some before and after pictures for you. It's an equation! Lemme lay down some mad algebra for you:


After I got my hair cut, I've been having fun going up to people saying, "Say, would you believe that just a few days ago I had long curly shoulder length hair?" Everyone, of course, says, "No way!" Then I show them my driver's license picture and they start to laugh. It's great.

My first time at Cheeky Monkey's in Byron I had to show them my ID. As I handed it to the bouncer, I warned him and said, "I've had a hair cut." He looked at my driver's license, looked at me, then doubled over laughing. He passed the ID to another bouncer and said, "Check this out." The other guy laughed, too.

The next time, I returned to Cheekie's and encountered the same bouncer. I didn't know it was the same guy, at first, and presented my ID again. He said, "I remember you!" Then, he passed my ID to another guy, again, and said, "Look at this guy's hair."

Good times.

The Big Day

First, I want to thank everyone who emailed me birthday wishes. Thanks so much! Hearing from so many people made me feel really happy and appreciated. Yippee!

Okay, now let's talk about the big day itself, Tuesday February 19 -- the day I turned 30 years old!

I started the day by listening to some of my favourite tunes on my iPod while sitting in a hammock at the hostel. I love listening to good music, and it was a really good activity to start the day with. I spent some time sitting by the pool (yes, my hostel had a pretty sweet pool) chatting with some of the people I had rounded up to go out to party that night. I had to make sure they knew what they were celebrating ;)

Soon, it was time to try the thing I was really excited for: SURFING! I had booked myself in for three surf lessons. The cost was AU$115 for the three lessons. There would be one lesson per day. The first lesson was on the big day! It made the day that much better. I had been excited about trying surfing for a long time.

Surfing, it turns out, is actually very hard! I guess the hardest thing for beginners to master is just standing up on the board to ride the wave. You have to start laying down on your front, then:

1. Raise yourself up on your hands.
2. Jump up on your knees (with your hands still down on the board).
3. Bring your leading foot up and around between your hands (which are still down). The foot needs to land on the centreline of the board and be facing perpendicular to the rails of the board. I had a lot of trouble doing this. By itself, it's an awkward position to be in. Doing it in a sequence with other positions is even trickier!
4. Bring your trailing foot up and also put it on the centreline of the board and perpendicular to the rails. Getting both feet in position was really tricky.
5. Push up with your hands into the surfer stance -- knees and waist bent with arms not too high up. I had trouble with this, too. It's so unnatural to push up with my hands instead of using my legs to push myself up. However, using the legs is bad because you can make you lose your balance.

You don't have a lot of time to stand up, so you have to do all the movements quickly and smoothly.

As a result, on the first day, of the maybe fifteen times I tried to ride a wave, I managed to successfully get up only three times. Even those times, though, I only managed to stay standing for like three seconds at a time before losing my balance. Bummer.

I was surfing with five other students (Paul and Pip from Melbourne, and Rob, Tibo, and Sarah from Germany) and one instructor, Jock, that day. Jock was super cool. He'd been surfing professionally for like twelve years. He was SO GOOD. Seeing him on the waves just put me in awe, especially after the hard time I was having. At the end of the lesson, though, he reassured us that we all (including me) made really good progress that day and were now really surfers! We had accomplished something! Yay!

Sadly, near the end of the lesson I got a cramp in my right calf and was dead in the water. Jock had to tow me to shore so I could recover. I sat on the shore for about twenty minutes before I paddled back out to try catching some more waves. There was only time for one more try though. I was disappointed, but decided I would not give up. I still had two more lessons and knew that I would do better next time.


Back at the hostel, I got ready quickly before heading out to dinner with my posse. I first went to dinner at the Railway Hotel with Shawn and Katie from England. We drank there for a while and watched a live one-man band perform on stage. This guy, Nathan Kay, was really impressive. He played guitar and didgeridoo (though not at the same time). He also played the Technotronic song Push It beat-box style with just a drum machine to back him. Sweet. After a couple drinks there, Laura and Kayleigh (from the night before) met up with us for some more beers there.


Soon it was time to go dancing. We went to Cocomanga's first to claim our free drinks (given to everyone staying at Cape Byron YHA). We each got one drink with Malibu rum, pineapple juice and grenadine in a jam jar. Tasty stuff. At Cocomanga's my posse of English girls treated me well. They plied me with drinks and kept me dancing until we got bored with the music -- too repetitive. We knew where to go next: Cheeky Monkey's (the same place we went the night before).


At Cheekies we met up with Penny, Carla (both from England), and Emma (Swedish girl from the night before) from the hostel and danced until 3 in the morning (when it closed). The music was the same cheesy Top 40 mix from the night before. I decided that being the DJ at Cheeky Monkey's must be a really boring job since you basically play the same music every night. Boring!

On Wednesday morning, surprisingly, I was not hung over. I guess when I start to dance I forget to keep drinking and don't end up getting overly shmammered.

I took myself on a walk to the cape to see the easternmost point in Australia and the lighthouse. The lighthouse was set up high on a hill, and I made a brisk walk of it. The views from up there were stunning. On the way, I scrambled over a lot of rocks on the beach to get to Cape Cook Lookout. I had to choose between wading through the knee-deep water on the beach or scrambling and hopping over the rocks with water rushing between them to get to the Lookout. I had taken my shoes with me and didn't feel like taking them off and them putting them back on with wet sandy feet. Instead, I scrambled over the rocks. It took a while to find the right rocks to jump between and I sometimes had to time my jumps to avoid the splashing water. In the end, I didn't even get wet one bit!


When I got back to the hostel, I said goodbye to Laura and Kayleigh. We had really fun times together and I would really miss them. They were traveling north to Surfer's Paradise (just like 90% of the people I talked to in Byron), so I don't know if I'll be able to see them. I seemed to be in the minority: I was traveling south and most people were traveling north. So, I probably wouldn't be able to see most of the people I meet ever again. It's things like this that really make the backpacker experience very bittersweet. You can make friends really easily, but you often have to give them up after a few days. I had Kayleigh's phone number though and would try and stay in touch.

My second surfing lesson went much better than the first. It was with the same people as my lesson the day before. I tried another method that Jock showed me, but it wasn't working out for me. Then I tried switching to leading with my other foot and going with the original stance. With this arrangement, things started to click for me. I was able to ride a few waves for a really long distance before jumping off the board. I was doing it! I was surfing! I was even holding my own by paddling into the waves by myself (before, Jock was pushing me to get started at the right time). Close to the end of the lesson, though, BOTH of my calves cramped up really painfully and I had no choice but to hobble to the beach. It was raining lightly at the time and the sky was filled with a rainbow.

After the lesson, I found a few people from the hostel, Shawn and Emma (both from the night before) and Pete (from Scotland) and went out to the sushi restaurant, O-Sushi, in Byron. I was lusting after sushi for the past few days. Rumour has it that O-Sushi was the "good" sushi joint in Byron, so we had to check it out. Surprisingly enough, they had a sushi train there, including a locomotive with a little driver dude inside. The sushi there was, in fact, really good.


After drinking four nights in a row, I decided to spend the night "in" at the hostel. I hung around on the patio and played card games with some people and had a couple beers before turning in.

On Thursday, I found out that my surfing lesson for the day was cancelled. I was disappointed, but inwardly, a little thankful. My calves still felt tender from cramping up the day before and I didn't know how long I'd be able to surf before suffering the same fate as before.

The weather that day was absolutely gorgeous -- for the first time in Byron Bay. The weather on all the other days was generally overcast with brief bouts of rain. I hadn't visited the main beach yet and went down to check it out. The waves were crashing into shore pretty violently. They were curling over in the classic style and were easily over my head in height. I decided to try and go in the water to play in the waves. They crashed into me and tossed me around. It was really fun.

I took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy and spent most of it sitting around the pool. I self-catered my meal that night -- pita bread, hommous and a banana. Simple, but healthy stuff. I had to say goodbye to Emma that afternoon. I was going to miss her, too!

I played more card games on the patio with a whole bunch of people. After a while, we had an eight person game of Spoons set up. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out drinking that night, but they dragged me out to Cheekies anyways. Yes, I went there three of my six nights in Byron. This night was my last in Byron, so I might as well celebrate. I went out with three very hot girls from Scotland: Moira, Julie, and Gemma; two guys from Norway: Ziggy and Lars; a girl from Germany who's name I can't remember; and Carla from the night before. I didn't end up dancing until 3 AM this time, but decided to take off at like 1:30 AM. The hot Scottish girls had left a while before, and it wasn't as fun without them there. Oh well.

On Friday morning, my time in Byron Bay was over. I caught a Greyhound bus at 11:05 AM on my way to my next destination, Coffs Harbour.

New Photos Posted: Byron Bay

Hi! I've posted photos from my stay in Byron Bay. Enjoy!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Coffs Harbour, Australia

First Few Days in Byron Bay

From the airport in Brisbane I caught a bus to the Brisbane CBD. I had to wait about two hours for the next bus to Byron Bay, so I was pleased to take the opportunity to explore the city core for a while. I had lunch sitting on a park bench in Anzac Square, wandered through the main shopping streets, the Royal Botanical Gardens and back along the riverfront to the bus station. From there, it was about a two and a half hour bus ride south to Byron Bay.

Byron Bay is located at the easternmost point on the Australian continent. It's famous around the world as a backpacker haven. There's a lot of things to do here: surfing, diving, snorkeling, mountain biking, sky diving, paragliding, mountain and rainforest trekking, and a good night life. It's a really small town, too! The population is only apparently 4000 people, but I don't know how many backpackers there are in addition to that. It's definitely a lot, lemme tell you!

I had one chief goal for myself in Byron Bay -- to make the best thirtieth birthday for myself that I could make while I was separated from my family and friends. I would do that in several ways -- by making lots of new friends while I'm here, and to go surfing and skydiving!

The first hostel that I checked into was the Cape Byron Lodge. It was the only place that was available to book from the internet -- and the reviews showed that it wasn't a particularly great hostel. I knew that Byron Bay really fills up on the weekends with people on road trips from Sydney and Brisbane, so for the weekend I would just stay in the dirty hostel and find myself a place to stay for the rest of the week once I got there.

The Cape Byron Lodge was, indeed, a dirty hostel. Lots of spiders and bugs everywhere, mold on the shower curtain, smelly kitchen, and the manager and his mates smoking most of the day nearby my room. It was also about a twenty minute walk from the centre of town -- pretty inconvenient! I would spent two nights there (Saturday and Sunday). After that, I booked myself into the Cape Byron YHA (Youth Hostel Association) which was much closer to the centre of town. YHAs are supposed to maintain a certain standard and are generally known as good hostels. It was a bit more expensive (AU$32/night), but definitely worth it.

After only being in the hostel for about an hour, I learned a brand new word: goone. That's the word they use for cheap wine in a box in Australia. Rumour has it that it's made from sawdust, cigarette butts and other unmentionable things. After tasting it, I'm pretty sure that its just made from grapes like normal wine -- just cheap stuff. It's generally the cheapest alcohol you can get, so a lot of backpackers drink it more than other things. It's much cheaper than the cheap beers, even. Sadly, beer is expensive in Australia :( I might have to put aside my beer fetishest principles and start drinking wine. Alas.

On Saturday night I went out with my roommates, Eamon (from Scotland), and Ann (from England), Janie (from England) and another guy who's name escapes me (also from England) from Cape Byron Lodge. We went to the Beach Hotel for drinks then to La La Land for dancing. Good times! We stayed there drinking until like 1 or 2 in the morning. I didn't get a lot of sleep that night, though. I was still getting used to the transition, and sleeping on the top bunk isn't that fun.

At that hostel, the managers seem to own a few snakes. On Sunday morning the snakes were out and about and people were taking turns holding them. It was pretty cool to hold a snake. They have soft skin and are pretty wriggly. It wrapped itself around the back of my neck and slithered down my arm. Their movements are muscular and feel weird against my skin.


After that, I got myself sorted out in Byron Bay. I make my booking for the YHA, I bought a SIM Card for my cell phone, booked my surfing and skydiving trips, bought some groceries and used the internet for a while. That night, I didn't out to drink, but instead ate dinner at the hostel and sat on the outside patio talking and drinking goone with my new roommates, Janni (from Sweden) and Alexia (from California, USA). There was this guy twirling fire and we watched him for a while. Pretty cool.


We ended up playing some drinking games (with goone, of course) on the patio with some guys from Quebec and some girls from Switzerland. I still decided to go to bed a bit earlier, though, since I knew that I was going to be skydiving in the morning!


On Monday morning, I checked out of the Cape Byron Lodge and walked to the Cape Byron YHA. My pickup for skydiving was supposed to be at 9:30 AM, but ended up being at 12:40 PM after the weather had cleared. In the meanwhile, I chatted with people on the hostel patio. It was pushed back because of crap weather (of course, it was raining on and off!). It was pretty much the craziest thing I've ever done. Beforehand, I wasn't really nervous or excited or scared. But as that little plane climbed up higher and higher into the sky, the nervousness started to set in. There were four other people jumping with me. Each jumper had an instructor harnessed to their backs. Having the instructor was very reassuring. My instructor was J.J. from Israel. They jumped several times each day and they've been doing it for years. Also, the guy would make sure you didn't have a chance to chicken out! As we approached 14,000 feet (4.2 km) over the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast from Byron Bay, the earth seemed to get farther and farther away. The plane took about 15 minutes to get enough altitude. Inside the tiny cabin of the plane there were three lights: a red one labeled "1 MILE", a yellow one labeled "1/2 MILE", and green one labeled "DROP ZONE". When the red light came on, one of the instructors opened up the side hatch of the plane and a blast of cold wind took all of the regular air from the cabin. The plane slowed down to 80 miles per hour and the instructors checked and secured all the harnesses and equipment again. The yellow light came on about 15 seconds later. My ears were popping like crazy. I checked my goggles again. The ground was so far away. Crap. It was all feeling so real now. Then the green light came on and we shuffled on our bums to the hatch. I was the fourth person of the five people to jump. Crappity crap crap.

Suddenly, it was happening. The wind took my breath away. It was so so so cold. The earth was rushing up at me. Soon, J.J. tapped my shoulder and I was allowed to start waving my arms. I didn't order a cameraman to jump with us, so I just waved them around aimlessly and tried to enjoy the terror. After 70 seconds of free fall (though it felt more like 10 seconds!) J.J. opened the chute and to catch our descent. He expertly guided our fall back to the airport where we took off. I think it only took like three minutes to get back to earth. The whole time, J.J. was steering us in big circles towards the ground. As we kept turning around, my stomach started turning in its own little circles. Regardless, I was grinning the whole time. It was a fantastic feeling. It was amazing. Everyone needs to try this! Finally, we landed (in a puddle of course -- though there were a lot of them and they were hard to avoid). After a few minutes for my stomach to settle, I talked excitedly with the other jumpers. Everyone agreed that it was awesome. We watched the videos of some of the other jumpers. They were so cool. I was sad that I didn't get one -- but they were so expensive -- like AU$200 -- and the jump itself was AU$299. One of the jumpers there, Dominic (from England) would be in Melbourne at the same time I would be. We exchanged phone numbers so we could meet up there for drinks.





Yep! That's me with the yellow chute floating to the ground!

That night, I went out for drinks at the famous Cheeky Monkey bar in Byron Bay. It was the night before thirtieth birthday, and I had hyped it up enough that I found some fun people to go out with me -- Emma (from Sweden), Laura (from Wales), and Kayleigh (from England). They were good drinking and dancing buddies! Cheekies is a party bar that is open until 3 AM six nights a week and caters exclusively to travellers. They check ID at the door. If you're a local, you don't get in. The bar reminds me very much of the Bombshelter at the University of Waterloo -- small, dark, crowded, and cheesy (but fun) music. At midnight, the DJ happily told everyone that it was my birthday (I think it was Kayleigh who got the DJ to do that -- thanks!!). We drank beer and danced until about 1:30 AM. After that, we got some pies and walked back to the hostel to pass out. It was an exhausting day, but a good start to my birthday!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Byron Bay, Australia

Jumper

Hi, this is going to be a short post, but I have to shout it out to the world. I JUST JUMPED OUT OF AN AIRPLANE AT 14000 FEET OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'll try to put up pictures, soon.

Tomorrow is my birthday!

WOOO LIFE IS GOOD!

Last Couple of Days in Noosa

On Thursday, we were up at the crack of dawn. The proverbial rooster (i.e.: my dad) called us out of bed at the ripe hour of 6 AM. We got ready quickly for our big day in Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It's 124 km long and 24 km wide (at its widest point). It's composed of sand eroded from the shores of New South Wales in Australia that's been collecting for millions of years off of the coast of Queensland. Because the sand is piled up so high, it's believed to contain more sand, by volume, than the entire Sahara Desert! Even though the island is entirely made out of by sand, it still contains a thriving ecosystem of scrub forests, rain forests, beaches, lakes, creeks, and dunes. The island has no settlements and no paved roads -- only dirt tracks and beaches. The only vehicles that people can take onto the island are four-wheel drive trucks.

For our trip to Fraser Island we took a tour with the Fraser Island Discovery tour company. Even though people are allowed to bring their own (or rented) four-wheel drives on the island, I wasn't up for driving around in the mud, getting stuck, and trying to push ourselves out of the muck. Our driver was really good and I'm sure he did a much better job of driving then I ever could have! He weaved between big rocks on the beach, splashed through huge puddles of water, and plowed through big piles of mud.

Even though it rained almost all day, it was still a lot of fun! I was in constant awe of how beautiful the island was. I was so surprised to see so many huge trees on an island composed entirely out of sand.

Friday was our last day in Noosa. We were blessed with sunny skies in the morning so we took a walk in Noosa National Park. We walked for about eight kilometers along the coast and the interior. We saw a lot of wildlife, too! We spotted a koala maneuvering its way high up in eucalyptus tree. On the coast we were graced with fantastic views of hidden beaches, cliffs and rocks. On the inland side of the trail we walked through tall stands of trees and vines. It was one of the best morning of my trip so far.

That afternoon, I made myself an appointment with a pair of scissors and a hair dresser. I had been mulling over the decision to cut my hair for a long time. It was time though. I'm happy with how things turned out though. I don't regret my decision. I'll put up a separate post about this stuff, though.

On Saturday we had to leave Noosa early. I had to drive my dad and my sister to the airport in Brisbane and say goodbye. They were flying back to Canada that day. It was hard. We were all emotionally torn up inside as I hugged my family. I wouldn't be seeing them again until September. I was now on my own.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Byron Bay, Australia

New Photos Posted: Noosa

Hi hi hi! I've made it to Byron Bay now. I've finished uploading new photos from my stay in Noosa. Check 'em out!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Byron Bay, Australia

This is Supposed to be Called the Sunshine Coast?

While walking in the pouring rain today, my sister and I had a little conversation. It went something like this:

Christine: "I thought it almost never rained in Australia."

Rob: "You're so wrong. It actually rains EVERY SINGLE DAY in Australia."

Christine: "I thought that this place was supposed to be called the Sunshine Coast?"

Rob: "I think we should ask for our money back. The sky's still gray!"

Sad, but true. According to the TV, Australia is currently suffering from its worst rains since 1974. It rained yesterday. It rained today. It's supposed to rain tomorrow. It rained much of last week (especially in Sydney!). It didn't always rain all day, but most days have seen some rain, at least.

The TV showed us today that a yacht was stranded in really bad weather on Hook Island in the Whitsundays. We were just there last week! There was crazy flooding after some tornadoes in Mackay and some kid is currently missing. Mackay is only like 30 km south of Airlie Beach! I guess it's a good thing that we were in Airlie Beach last week instead of this one. But it's not all sunshine and lollipops here either. Last night there were supposed to be monsoon storms here in the Sunshine Coast. There were supposed to be winds of like 110 km/h! Luckily, the storm was deflected last night and went back to sea.

Nevertheless, it continues to rain.

The weather is warm at least. It's very pleasant in Noosa. It's about 20 to 25 degrees each day with medium humidity. It's what I would call, nothing less than, "perfect weather" (except for the rain).

Airlie Beach, about 1000 km further north and closer to the equator than Noosa, was much hotter. It was closer to 30 degrees and much more humid. You could really feel the sun's radiation up there. It rained most days, too, but it would come and go in fifteen or twenty minutes. It wasn't much of a bother up there.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia

First Days in Noosa

We landed in Brisbane last Saturday night. We collected our bags and went to the Hertz desk to pick up our rental car. Sadly, as I approached the desk, I looked at my reservation printout and discovered to my horror that I had accidentally made the booking for January 9, instead of February 9. Ooops. That mistake was an unfortunate one since Hertz didn't have any of the compact cars that we wanted. They just had big boat cars. Crud.

So we shopped around the other car rental companies in the airport there and settled on a little Corolla hatchback from Avis. It was an automatic transmission, instead of the little stick shift that I was looking forward to puttering around the Sunshine Coast. Oh well.

We piled in the car and drove off north to Noosa. It's only 140 km north of Brisbane and the drive was uneventful. Mostly, I was focused on getting used to driving on the left hand side of the road with a right-hand-drive car. Wierdness! The windshield wipers and the turn signal indicators were on the opposite sides from what I was used to. So, at first, I kept turning on the windshield wipers when I intended to signal a turn. Oops!

I got the hang of it eventually though. No worries! I drove us to our apartment at the Noosa Outrigger Resort in Noosaville. It was located across the street from Noosa River. Our apartment was pretty huge! Two floors -- two bedrooms, two bathroom and a balcony on the top floor; and a kitchen, living room, third bathroom with laundry, and two more balconies on the lower floor. Underneath it all was a covered spot to park our car. Pretty sweet. It was the biggest place we've stayed in Australia, and also the cheapest! Three cheers to getting the weekly rate!

In the morning (Sunday), it was time to get ourselves sorted out in Noosa. We drove to the grocery store to buy food for the week. We drove to the bottle shop (that's what Aussies call a liquor store) to buy fuel for the week. I was astonished to find a huge bottle shop only a few blocks from our apartment. I picked up a few specialty Belgian ales that I found there, including a bottle of Forbidden Fruit -- the very beer that started my fancy beer fetish.

After procuring essential supplies for the week we drove to the main beach in Noosa Heads. We wandered around the main shopping area, Hastings Street, and the first part of the national park on Noosa Hill. Noosa Heads is located on a small bay off of the ocean, where the Noosa River enters the water. Noosa Heads is separated from the ocean by the big hill in Noosa National Park. The other side of the hill faces the ocean at Sunshine Beach. That was our next destination. Unlike the main beach in Noosa Heads, Sunshine Beach has big waves and crashing surf. All of these locations are really pretty. Noosa is a really nice place! We drove along the coastal road some more before returning to our apartment to soak in the pool. For dinner, we made shish-kebabs and corn-on-the-cob on a poolside barbecue beside our apartment.

The next day (Monday) was a big one. Our destination was the Australia Zoo -- the very same zoo owned and made famous by Steve Irwin -- the Crocodile Hunter. It was only about a forty minute drive from Noosa.

My Lonely Planet, published in 2005, indicated that the admission price of the museum was AU$27. However, when we got there, we found out that that admission price is now AU$49. I guess that after Steve Irwin's death, they jacked up the price.... by a lot.

The zoo was pretty awesome though. We saw alligators, crocodiles, kangaroos, snakes, koalas, wombats, wallabies, cassowaries, emus, a tiger, elephants, lizards, tortoises, kookaburras, and a lot of different kinds of birds. The crocodile feeding shows were pretty cool. Steve Irwin would have been proud! We got to pet kangaroos and koalas! My sister says that she made friends with them! I hope the animals remember us.



After the zoo we stopped off at the Big Pineapple. It's a 15 metre tall pineapple located on a pineapple plantation in Nambour. Those of you from Ontario may know about the Big Apple beside the 401 highway in Brighton. The Big Pineapple is in the same category as Big Things as the Big Apple. Apparently Big Things are very commonplace in Australia. I'm sure that this isn't the first Big Thing that I'll see here. I do intend to visit the Big Banana in Coff's Harbour, at least! My sister bought some awesome looking pineapple and ginger jam. It looks really tasty. I hope that she enjoys it when she brings it back to Canada. Even though it's really tacky, the Big Pineapple was really fun. Once we climbed to the top

On Tuesday morning we intended to drive to Brisbane to do some shopping and sight seeing. However, we didn't go because it was raining SO HARD. We decided to try and go shopping somewhere closer instead: Maroochydore (only about 25 km away). After driving for five minutes though, I decided against it. The roads were awash with water and I could barely see. We had to stay in Noosa that day. We went to the Noosa Civic shopping mall for coffee and wandered around. It was pretty small though, so it couldn't occupy us for very long. We headed back to the apartment.

Once we got there, the rain let up a bit, but the skies were still drab and gloomy. We figured it could rain again at any time. I went for a bit of a walk, but stayed near the apartment. I walked by the river and checked out some surf shops. I bought myself a rash guard and a second pair of board shorts. We these articles of clothing, I was finally ready to try surfing when I get to Byron Bay next week! I headed back to the apartment and tried out my new swimming costume in the pool (even though it was raining lightly).

We spent the rest of the day at the apartment. I played Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on my DS, sorted through photos, drank beer and Licor 43 (my favouritest liquer in the world), and played San Juan (a card game) with my sister. We made sausages and baked potatoes on the barbecue. The whole time it was raining. Bummer.

This morning (Wednesday), we looked at the weather report. It was supposed to rain again today and tomorrow. Lovely. In the morning though, the sun was still shining, the skies were blue, and it was really warm. I took the opportunity to take myself out on a bike ride for two hours. When I left at 8:30 AM, my sister was still sleeping, so it's not like I was using up shared family time! heh heh heh

I biked along the river shore, to the main beach, up a big hill to an awesome look-out over town, down to Sunshine Beach, to the end of the spit at the end of Noosa River and back. I reckon it was about 20 or 25 km.

When I got back, my sister was up and, after a quick dip in the pool, we decided to go to Hastings Street for lunch and the main beach. We couldn't find parking near Hastings Street so we went to Noosa Junction for lunch instead. We went to the super little cafe where we had some really nice sandwiches and fresh fruit juices and smoothies. It was a nice light lunch that I really appreciated.

After lunch we walked along the shopping boulevard in Noosa Junction for a while. My sister wasn't feeling well after lunch, so we sat down for a bit for her to recuperate. After a few minutes, we were on our way again. We found the first Baker's Delight store (the same company that run's Cob's Bakeries in Toronto), and bought some tasty sweet scrolls for later.

It wasn't long and we were all Junctioned out and we drove back to Hastings Street. This time, I succeeded in finding parking. We shopped for souvenirs. My sister got some Billabong flip-flops and a cool beach towel. While we were there, the sky started to turn gray and we felt the first drops of rain for the day. We headed back to the apartment. My sister and dad went for a quick swim while I stayed in the apartment to write this blog entry.

Before dinner, my sister and I decided to walk to the Woolworth's grocery store to pick up a bit more food. When we left it was only spitting lightly. It was only about a walk of four blocks, but on the way, it started to rain a lot harder. We didn't bring any coats or umbrellas, so by the time we got to Woolworth's we were pretty wet. We did our shopping and tried to stall for time to see if the rain would let up, but, no luck. We walked back in the pouring rain and got soaked. Doh. At least it was warm out. We were wearing our flip-flops, so we didn't really get soakers! hehehe

Even though the weather forecast calls for rain tomorrow, we booked a trip to Fraser Island for that day anyways. Hopefully the biggest sand island in the world isn't washed away by a flood before we get there!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia

The Whitsundays

From Sydney, we flew north about 2000 km to the Whitsundays Coast Airport. Our destination was Airlie Beach. It's a small touristy town with a population of about 4000 people.

We stayed in these awesome apartments (the Sea Star Apartments -- I highly recommend them in case anyone else heads to Airlie Beach) some distance up the big hill in the city. It was a bit of a climb to get to our place, but the cool breezes and gorgeous views were well worth the view. There was this flock of white birds (they looked like parrots to me) that would fly onto our balcony and look for handouts. My dad is a sucker and would feed them bread. They would hold a piece of bread with one foot and eat it. He kept talking about how his new children were missing him while we were out. We called him "Papa Papuga" (Polish for "Papa Parrot"). He would call the parrots "moje dzieci" (Polish for "my children"). Being his real children, my sister and I were a bit alarmed by his new avian brood. Would he remember us in his will, or would these feathered interlopers sabotage our inheritance?!

Airlie Beach is located in the tropics and the weather was hot and humid. The temperature was bearable, however, when the sun showed up, you could feel it radiating heat directly into your skin. It was soooo nice -- much nicer than the feeble sun that we get in Canada during the winter months. I needed it so much.

It rained every day that we were there, however the rain would last only a few minutes. The rain wasn't really a bother in any way (unlike it was in Sydney).

We were in Airlie Beach to see two main things: the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands.

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a reef along the eastern coast of Australia. It's two thousand kilometers long. You can see it from outer space. It's one of the single most amazing places on the planet Earth.

We took a day trip out to the GBR -- in particular, we went to Hardy Reef. The GBR is not one single reef, but instead a long chain of individual reefs. The boat took about three hours to get there since it stopped at two other islands along the way to pick up people. The sea was fairly rough that day, and I actually got seasick on the way there. Ugh. Yak. Bleck. Right.

The reef is far enough into the sea that you can't see any land from there. The catamaran docked at a manmade platform called Reefworld. It was a good base for snorkeling. I was excited to go snorkeling! I had never tried it before! I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to see anything. I expected my glasses to either fog up under the mask, or I wouldn't be able to wear them at all. My eyes suck really hard (my prescription is about -7.0), so I was pretty worried about this. However, I lucked out, since they had optic goggles to use. Even though the strongest ones they had were a mere -6.0, it was close enough to be useful.

The current was strong, and I'm not a great swimmer, so I was careful at first. They had ropes set up on buoys around the reef for people to pull themselves along, so I was able to get around that way until I gained some confidence. After a while, though, I roamed around with more freedom and saw more of the reef. I saw many schools of various colourful fish. Many of the fish would swim right up to you and check you out. They weren't scared of people at all. I also saw lots of corals, giant clams, and a sea turtle. The turtle swam along slowly, fins flapping lazily, without a care in the world. It was an experience I'll never forget.

I didn't have an underwater camera, so I couldn't take any pictures in the water. However, we got to ride in a semi-submersible boat, and I got to take some pictures of the corals that way.

The waters were filled with jellyfish, too. Some of them, like the infamous Irukandji, had a sting that could easily incapacitate or seriously harm a human. Even though these jellies were tiny, they were still a very serious danger. We could only swim in the water while wearing a protective lycra swimming suit to protect us.

The Whitsundays are an archipelago or 74 islands just off the coast of Australia. They're located between the mainland and the GBR. Most of the islands are designated as national parks. However, a few of them are set aside as resort communities. Our second day trip from Airlie Beach was to the Whitsundays -- specifically to a pretty special beach.

Our daytrip took us to three islands. The first was Daydream Island. This island was a pretty small one with only one resort on it. We saw a kangaroo there! It was hippety hopping along the beach all by itself. We roamed around the pool area, a chapel, and the minigolf course. We got some fun pictures at the minigolf course, but it was pretty boring overall. It's a good thing that we were only there for about one hour.

The second island was Hamilton Island. This island was pretty awesome. Apparently, it's the largest resort in the South Pacific. Jet airplanes fly directly to it from many places all over Australia. It would have been nice to stay there, but it's way more expensive to fly to, or stay in, than Airlie Beach on the mainland. There's a few resorts there, but we only saw one of them. It was pretty freaking beautiful. The pool and the beaches there were gorgeous. They had ski kayaking there. I wanted to try it, but we didn't have time. We walked around the shops a bit and got some ice cream.

We were only there for about an hour and a half before we departed again for the third island: Whitsunday Island. This island had the fantastic Whitehaven Beach: seven kilometers of the softest and whitest sand anywhere. The beach is part of a national park. The only way to get there is by boat, helicopter, or seaplane. There were very few people there. It was fantastic.

We were there for about two and a half hours. We went swimming (again, with the protection of stinger suits) and sat in the sun. My sister was there to work on her tan. It lightly rained briefly, but, we were already wearing bathing suits, so it was no big deal. We walked along the beach and counted the dead jellyfish washed up on the beach. My sister took a ten minute walk and counted fifty of them in one short stretch of beach.

After getting back to town we decided we'd go to a pub for dinner. We got some two-for-one pizza and a few jugs of beer at an outdoors backpacker pub. For the past few days we had prepared dinner on our own at our apartment, so it was nice to get out. Since Airlie Beach had so many backpackers, there was a fun party vibe going on.

On our last day in Airlie Beach we went swimming in town's super lagoon. It's really just a big swimming pool, but it was still pretty nice because there were no jellies nor saltwater to worry about. I swam for a couple of hours. It was the only real exercise I had for about a week, so I tried to make the most of it.

We didn't get to stay there very long though, since we had to get to the airport to catch the plane so we could fly to our next location in Australia: Noosa.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia

New Photos Posted: Airlie Beach

Hi! I've made my way to Noosa and I've found some time to upload some pretty pictures from our four-day stay in Airlie Beach. Check 'em out!!




--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia

First Days Down Under: Sydney

We landed in Sydney in the morning. We had arrived 24 hours late, but we had made it after all. We cleared customs, quarantine, collected our bags and took the train into town.

Our hotel was located beside Hyde Park on Elizabeth Street -- one of the main streets in the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney. The train station was directly across the street from the hotel. How convenient! We checked in, got cleaned up and were ready to do some sightseeing.

One problem. It was pouring rain. This really limited our options. The spectacular harbour views that we were longing for were muted and gray. There would be no one at the beach. It was annoying to just get around. Bummer.

We tried to make the best of it, though. The weather report called for rain for the next two days. We were in Sydney for less than 48 hours, so we had no choice but to endure it. In fact, the television told us that almost all of the major cities in Australia were experiencing unseasonably large amounts of rain. Even if we had arrived in Sydney on time, it would have rained heaps on us anyways. Maybe spending the unexpected day in sunny Los Angeles wasn't such a bad thing anyways.

We decided to go to the harbour anyways. Along the way, we stopped for brunch. We had some crazy awesome Australian hamburgers. They had pineapple, beetroot, bacon, and eggs on them. They were SO TASTY! From now on, I think every hamburger should have beetroot on it.

We walked through the CBD towards Circular Quay. Even though it was raining, there were lots of awnings and pedestrian walkways to protect us along the way, so it was not so bad. When we tried to cross streets though, we would try to run for it. The gutters were filled with huge torrents of water rushing past. We had to step lightly to avoid massive soakers.

It was only about a fifteen minute walk to Circular Quary. From there, we saw the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (from a distance -- at Circular Quay). We decided that we wouldn't walk up to them for fear of a further soaking. Instead, we took a ferry underneath the bridge and around to Darling Harbour and spent a few hours at the Sydney Aquarium. The Aquarium was really cool. We saw lots of kinds of fish, a croc, turtles, frogs, corals, seals, sharks, rays, and penguins!! Yay penguins!

After the aquarium, we saw a little tourist train driving people along the dock at Darling Harbour. It had a sign advertising for the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. I HAD TO GO. Lindt is my weakness. We went to the cafe and warmed up with some mocha coffees. They were super yummers.

By this point, it was still raining, but not so hard. We were already wet, so we decided to walk back to the hotel through the CBD. Along the way we checked out the shopping malls and food courts while the monorail zoomed by overhead. The Queen Victoria Building is an old Victorian shopping arcade with lots of fancy stores inside. It was definitely pretty.

That night we went for dinner at a food court in Chinatown. I had yummy spicy Malaysian food. I enjoyed it greatly. My sister and dad had Thai food. It was the first time my dad had ever tried Thai food. It didn't really agree with him. It will be a hard task to wean him from bacon and eggs.

The next day, miraculously, it wasn't raining. The skies were still gray and threatening, though. We decided to be careful. We walked up through Hyde Park to the Opera House. The road along Hyde Park is lined with lovely old English-style government buildings and palm trees. We snapped some nice pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. From there, we walked to The Rocks and had a beer in a pub. We continued to wander around the Rocks and snap pictures in the area underneath the Bridge. For lunch, we went to a seafood cafe near Circular Quay. My sister and dad had fish and chips while I had sushi. Sadly, they weren't very good.

After lunch, we plunged ourselves into the crowds that were swarming around the Sydney CBD. There were so many people walking around! I enjoy walking through crowds and people watching, so it was fun for me.

Time was limited though. We had to make our way back to the hotel quickly in order to catch our train to the airport. We were flying to the Whitsundays Coast. Hopefully, up north, we could escape the rain.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia

New Photos Posted: Sydney

Hi! I'm in a rush today, so this blog entry is going to be short.

We spent about two days in Sydney. It rained most of the time there so we didn't get out to do as much stuff as we wanted there. We still tried to make the most of our time there. I've posted photos from our stay.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Airlie Beach, Australia

Finally Made It!

So we finally made it to Sydney... only 24 hours later than originally expected.

I'll put up more pictures sometime. It's basically been raining non-stop since we got here. Bummer.

Anyways, for now, here's a picture I took of sunrise over the South Pacific Ocean from the airplane window. I really like it.


--
Rob Szumlakowski
Sydney, Australia

New Pictures Posted: Los Angeles

Hi! I've posted pictures from my day in Los Angeles. You can find them on Picasa.


Enjoy!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Sydney, Australia

An Unexpected Layover

We didn't land in Los Angeles until 1:30 AM. We had missed our connecting flight by more than three hours. Air Canada said that they would help us find "solutions" for the travelers that were supposed to get on connecting flights. It turned out that their solutions were lame. Very, very lame. Essentially, they gave us the brush off. They told all of the passengers that they needed to visit the United Airlines service desk first thing in the morning and get themselves put on "standby".

Standby sucks. It means that we would have to show up at the airport and hope that some other passenger didn't show up so that we could claim their seat. If no seats freed up, then we would have to go back to the hotel and try for the next day. Air Canada said it was the only solution since all of the Sydney-bound flights were already overbooked. They also pointed us to a couple hotels that we could stay in overnight. When I told them that they were obligated to pay for our hotel, they got extremely defensive and told us that "there was no argument since the delay was weather related." Bullcrap. They failed to provide a crew for the flight on time. However, by this point, it was 2 AM and we were too exhausted to argue.

The shuttle bus to the hotel took almost an hour to take us there since the driver was on break. We didn't get to sleep until 3 AM.

In my opinion, let's forget that Friday February 1 ever happened. It was one of the worst kind of days. I've never had such a bad experience while trying to fly.

In the morning, I called Patrick McMorris to see if he had any suggestions on how to get us out of LA and in Sydney. Going on standby was not acceptable. PATRICK SAVED THE DAY. HE WAS SO HELPFUL. HE IS A SUPERHERO. THANK YOU SO MUCH PATRICK!

Patrick called the United Airlines ticketing agency and got a ticketing agent to rebook us onto the flight the very next night from our original flight. Even though Air Canada said that the flight was overbooked, United Airlines said that they would get us onto that flight. We didn't even have to go to the airport in the morning to take care of it.

For delivering us four hours late to Los Angeles and giving us the cold shoulder, Air Canada, YOU SUCK.

So we decided to make the most of our unexpected layover day in Los Angeles. The weather was about fifteen degrees and fairly sunny. The springlike weather made us feel happy. My dad and I had never been to LA before. My sister had seen the city some two or three years before. We decided to go on a bus tour of the city.

The tour was pretty good. It last about four or five hours and took us past downtown to Hollywood (including the Chinese Theatre), to the Farmer's Market for lunch, Beverly Hills, through Santa Monica to Venice Beach, and back past Marina Del Rey. Venice Beach was particularly cool. Its the part of town where the odd balls like to go out and strut their stuff. We saw a lot of crazy stuff, including a crackhead jumping up and down on broken glass and a rat riding a cat riding a dog.

Now we're back at the airport waiting for our flight to Sydney. Everything should be good now. We'll get to Sydney only 24 hours late.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Los Angeles, USA

This is the Start of an Adventure?

Canada would not make it easy to leave its icy grip. It made my departure as difficult as possible. It was truly a costly, frustrating, and stressful day. I have to hope that it gets better from here.

The weather today was royally craptastic. There was a big winter storm that blew through southern Ontario during the afternoon today. It dumped a lot of snow and freezing rain.

I started the day in Woodstock. My dad and I were going to drive to the airport in Toronto (normally about a ninety minute drive) in his old van. We were going to meet my sister at the airport, since she was coming separately from Toronto. Because of the crap weather, we gave ourselves a LOT of spare time. My dad and I were going to leave Woodstock at noon. We planned to meet my sister at 3 PM. Our flight was scheduled to leave Pearson Airport at 6:20 PM. The first flight segment would take us from Toronto to Los Angelese. After a two hour layover in LAX we'd fly directly to Sydney. We had lots of time to get to the airport, weather be damned.

The drive to the airport was very difficult. It was slow going. It was snowing the whole time. The road was slippery and it was hard to see. We never actually got to drive very fast. Finally, the crappy crap thing happened. I lost control of the van and we actually swerved into the centre median. Crunch! It happened in slow motion, but it happened so fast, too.

No one was hurt. A tow truck showed up within a minute and took us to an OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) station in Milton to report our accident. It was unfortunate that the van was wrecked, but our trip was not in jeopardy. We still had time to get to the airport. It was a good thing that we gave ourselves so much time.

We called a taxi to take us the rest of the way to the airport. The taxi ride was a joke, though. As soon as we got into the taxi, the driver got out and started fiddling with the driver's side windshield wiper. In the process, it seemed like he broke it. I'm not kidding. He brought the wiper into the car and kept fiddling with it. He asked us if we knew how to fix it. Again, I'm not kidding. Could I be making this up? He asked a tow truck driver who happened to be hauling another wreck into the police station (our van was long since towed away to an impound lot... I still don't really know exactly where it is!), but that guy wasn't useful either. So the taxi driver drove to the taxi company headquarters for help. Thankfully, he hadn't started running the meter yet.

He got himself and his windshield wiper sorted out and we were on our way. It still took a while to get to the airport. The fare was $90, and we didn't make it to the airport until almost 4:30 PM. So yeah, normally it takes an hour and a half to drive to the airport. Today, it took four and a half hours and cost us one Chevy Astrovan.

The airport check-in, customs, and security process went very smoothly, to be honest. Compared to what already happened, what else could go wrong? We had been checking the flight schedules all day and all signs pointed to our flight still being ontime. It looked like things were finally going to go our way.

Once we got through security, we ate the sandwiches that my mom had made us, drank lots of water and found ourselves some expensive airport beers. We had made it to our gate with time to spare.

However, unlike us, our plane did not make it to the gate on time. It was about twenty minutes late. We had to board the plane about an hour later than normal. When we got on the plane, we discovered, much to our pleasant surprise, that we had got assigned to exit row seats. We had a huge amount of legroom. It seemed like things were finally looking up for us. Sure, we got onto the plane an hour late, but our 5.5 hour flight to LA would be pretty comfortable.

We took our seats and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. After sitting on the plane for about an hour the pilot announced that the First Officer for the flight was delayed and would not be able to help fly the plane to Los Angeles. In fact, they were having a tremendously difficult time find a First Officer at all. There was ONE GUY (!!!!!) who would be coming off of a flight "soon" who might be able to join the crew for our flight.

At this point, I called Patrick who helped me discuss options for what we would do when we actually got to LA. There was no way we would be able to make our connecting flight to Sydney from LA. It turns out that there wouldn't be any likely flights that could carry us to Sydney until Sunday evening. We would end up getting to Sydney about 24 hours after we were originally supposed to, and would need to spend the night in some random LA hotel.

So we waited on the plane some more. Waited and waited. Eventually, the pilot announced that that ONE GUY was going to join the crew and help haul this bird to LA. It still seemed like it took forever for things to happen. Eventually, some three hours after originally scheduled, the plane pulled away from the gate. The plane was de-iced, taxied to the longest runway (which seemed to take forever) and we took to the air. I think we left the ground a total of four hours after we were supposed to.

Thankfully, there are power sockets available on this plane and I'm able to use my laptop to compose this blog entry without fear of draining my battery. Right now, as I'm writing this, I'm listening to so of my favourite tunes to help drain my rage. Today truly did suck. Hopefully, in our few hours in LA tomorrow we can figure out something that will salvage this expedition. Maybe we can go to In-N-Out Burger? Those are good burgers, Walter.