Surfer's Paradise

So we got a week off from school like spring break back home in the US, except my professors decided to cancel their classes the week before as well.  I had scheduled a concert, a weekend class, moving my stuff, and Rosh Hashanah going on during the week off, so I decided to book a trip during the week with canceled classes.  I booked a hostel and plane tickets on Friday for a 4-day trip to the Gold Coast the next week.  I had an essay over the “Genocide Convention” due on Monday but my flight was leaving at 11:40am……so I pulled an all-nighter at my friend’s apartment near campus (probably would have happened anyway) to turn in the essay to the office at 9:30am (400 words over the required!).   I took a bus home, called a taxi, packed, and left home at 10:35.  The cab driver was Armenian so we talked a little bit about a portion of my essay where I wrote about his heritage hahaha (The Ottomans killed off hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the early 1900’s).  It’s very fulfilling to be able to apply what I’m learning in school. 

I met Pete and Liz on the flight up to the Gold Coast.  Pete is studying law at Bond University and from Toronto.  I had applied to Bond as my second choice to the school I’m at now.  Liz is from Chicago, and graduated from Madison so for any of you who know me, I had a lot of commonalities with them haha.  We became fast friends and they gave me a ride to my hostel: Sleeping Inn Backpackers.  I ended up staying in a room with Korean guy who didn’t speak much English.  HOWEVER, he had about every episode of LOST (how he learned most of his English), which is one of my favorite shows…so we watched 2 episodes before his computer died.  Good to find that when English fails, I can find common ground with American television.

I stayed in an area called Surfer’s Paradise, and you can probably guess the origin of the name.  I started the first full day by hitting up the theme parks in the area.  I bought a pass that gives access to 3 parks because they are owned by the same company.  I started at Wet ‘N Wild which is a pretty cool water park.  I was pretty excited to be in a swimsuit and flip-flops because I’ve been living through 2 months of windy, rainy winter in Sydney.  One lessoned I learned by going to this area in the off-peak season is that the parks plan constructions for this time of year. So, there were three or four rides closed for revamping.  It wasn’t so bad because there were plenty of other rides at my disposal. Off-peak season also means that there are basically no lines so that was the upside.  My favorite was the “Mach 5” which has 5 different slides you can go down at fairly high speeds at different angles.  Note: It is important that you cross your legs when going down them or else you will get the most uncomfortable wedgie you’ve ever had in your life—worse than rock-climbing. 

After a couple hours of nearly empty queues, I moved on to Movie World.  They had a couple cool rollercoasters: Superman and Lethal Weapon.  Superman goes 0-60mph in 2 seconds and hen has a straight drop down which was badass.  Lethal Weapon was a hanging rollercoaster that kinda left me with some whiplash going around the corkscrews but it was worth it.  There was a park I didn’t get to that had electronic queuing so that you could sign up and go ride something else while you’re waiting.  That’s something Six Flags should look into ;)  

I went to Sea World the next day just because I already paid for it with the pass I bought.  I saw a polar bear doing some flips in the water but not much other cool stuff.  I spent most of the second day hanging around the beach and central shopping/hang out area.  That night I went on a pub crawl organized by the hostel.  We paid $30 and got on a bus with 2 other hostels, basically 50 obnoxious 20-something’s, and went around to a couple bars/dance clubs.  I was surprised that the bars were pretty full for being the middle of the week and they had some pretty good layouts too. 

The last day a Swedish girl (Romanian heritage), Lidia, moved into my dorm room in the hostel.  We had lunch together at an Irish pub/restaurant that overlooked the beach.  She’s stopping by on her way to live up north in Whitsundays, which is a string of islands.  I’m hoping to visit while she’s up there.  I never saw Pete and Liz again but I have some friends in that area now, which is pretty cool.  A lot of the businesses had names like “Hats in Paradise” or “Hamburgers in Paradise” or “Paradise Lost” because of the area’s name ya know.  …I thought it was funny.  I met a lot of people who are travelling here from other countries like me.  Australia is a backpacker haven, especially up and down the eastern coasts.