Monday – “Trash Day”

Well for starter, Happy St. Patricks Day! Ok, now we can tell you about our day. It all started with a trip to Maroubra Beach for a class field trip to see the Nipper’s lifesaving competition. For all those who are wondering who the Nippers are, they are a group of young children who want to grow up and be professional life savers. So adorable. But enough about that, we headed out at around 8:13 am trying to catch a bus that was departing at 8:15 and the stop was a little over 5 minutes away.  I know all of you are on the edge of your seats wondering if we made it, but we didn’t. Sorry to break the news so harshly. It actually wasn’t even the bus that we wanted even though the directory said “Bus 395 à Maroubra Beach” We even asked the bus driver if he was going to Maroubra Beach but he just pointed to the other side of the road we guess referring to the other bus stops that we could be standing at. We waited for the next bus to come and had decided to just ask every bus driver if he was going to Maroubra Beach. The third time around, when Lauren asked, the driver was a little friendlier but still said he wasn’t going there. Frustrated Lauren insisted that we just go try and catch a train down there since it was already 8:45 at this point and we were supposed to be there at 9 AM. We arrived at the train ticket booth which is really a computer that you type in where you are going. We typed in Maroubra but it did not see a corresponding destination. This added another bar to Laurens frustration meter. Now it was time to ask an actual ticket salesman who we thought knew where we had to go to find this train. We asked him if any trains go to Maroubra beach, but he said only busses go and that we should go back to where we were first standing. I don’t think I need to mention Laurens meter. As we made it back to the stop, I looked up and heard the music of the gods when I saw a bus that said “Maroubra Beach” was stopped taking in passengers. With no time to waste we ran across the street and climbed on board. Finally being able to relax and sit back we gazed out the window to observe the scenery while Lauren kept her eye on my watch. The ride didn’t take long, only about 30 minutes and we were let off exactly in front of the lifesaving club where we were supposed to meet our class. We thought we saw a group of people gathered, but as we approached we didn’t recognize anyone, nor did we see any competitions taking place. We once again asked someone for help, this time being a lifeguard and where the Nippers competition was. She regretfully informed us that Nippers ended last weekend and we didn’t know what to do. Well, we did have plans to spend the day at the beach so that’s what we did. First we went to find a water fountain which led us to a skate park. The skate park brought me back to the days when I used to skate. Those were some good days. Skate parks must be different from the ones back in the US since most of the kids here were riding scooters. Must be the new fad here. Nonetheless, there was a couple of good little kids who were flying in the air like pros. There were also a couple babies that pushed their little training scooters around which was pretty funny to watch. Off to the right Lauren finally spotted a water fountain and headed over to push the lever, but this wasn’t a normal water fountain. Good thing she didn’t put her head down to sip yet because the water squirted straight up in the air! I had to go over and assist her before we figured out that you just had to gentle push the lever to get a nice arch of water. We knew it was time to really hit the beach and sit down by the water. I will mention that we have not have good luck with beach weather since we’ve been here. First time it was too windy, the second time we thought about coming it looked like it was going to storm, and then this time we once again had hurricane force winds. We could barely stand it any longer until we spotted an oversized rubric’s cube down the coastline.

We headed in that direction in hopes that we could sit on the other side of it and have the wind be blocked. It worked enough for us to get a little bit of heat allowing us to finally sunbath a little and work on that tan! We later found out that we would get more than we bargained for. Once we felt like we had enough of the sun and wind we headed back up to the boardwalk to enjoy our packed lunch. I insisted on feeding the seagulls because they look so helpless, like they haven’t had food in days. There were probably about 50 seagulls in the patch of grass, but we noticed that there was an obvious alpha male and female. Every time one of the other birds tried to sneak his way to the food, the alpha male would squawk at the ground and lower his head into a charge. Lauren and I both found this very amusing. We eventually gave it a couple pieces of bread, but the other little boy who was throwing bread got annihilated by seagulls. P.S. Every time I see seagulls in Australia I think of the seagulls in finding Nemo, all of them saying MINE! MINE! Lauren said that was enough with the seagulls and we hit the shops. She had spotted a Snoball place from the shoreline, so you know that was one of our first stops. We walked in where an Australian guy greeted us. Right whenever we said hey he immediately asked us where we were from. He continued to tell us that he had brought this business straight from New Orleans; there were even American dollar bills on the wall which didn’t phase us at first. Leah you’ll be impressed – we had Tiger’s blood, and it was delicious!

We thought that we would stick around for a little bit longer, but I think the wind picked up its speed and we were struggling to walk up the road. We quickly decided we had enough and headed back to the bus stop. On the way there we kept seeing all this ‘trash’ sitting on the curb outside the houses. We kept walking until we noticed four suitcases lying outside one apartment complex. I was curious so I opened it up a little to see only trash in there. Lauren wasn’t too keen on the idea of us taking it without asking the owner if it was trash first. We searched for a door to knock on, but figured it was impossible to know who owned them since it was an apartment complex. So we rounded the corner of the street and saw even more trash on the side of the road. Riley’s eye caught a plastic crate that he had been wanting for the back of our bike. This time there was a door to knock on and the nice Australian lady informed us that Monday was trash day in Maboubra and anything that was left on the curb would be tossed in a trash truck so we could have whatever we wanted! This was music to our eyes and we grabbed the crate along with some pretty paintings. Then we headed back up the street and felt better about emptying the other suitcase and adding it to our collection! There were a couple of other vintage suitcases that didn’t have any wheels, just an oversized briefcase. Very cool, just not practical in our day and age. With our newly found treasures we boarded the bus knowing we had to get back to get ready for the rest of our Saint Patrick’s Day. We were planning to meet up with our two friends to see how Sydney celebrated the holiday. Walking down George Street we were slightly disappointed that nobody seemed to be in the Irish spirit. In fact, only about a third of the people were wearing green, which made us wonder if the oriental people even knew about the holiday. When we stopped at a stop light though, we saw an Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy’s that was definitely in the spirit. We walked in to see if we couldn’t get the whole effect. With a guy playing a fiddle it was the typical Saint Patrick’s Day scene in a pub that you often see in the movies – packed and a sticky floor. The upstairs was a lot calmer and more low key which we liked. We didn’t stay for long before we were off to wander the streets again. We came across a few more pubs, but nothing really caught our eye. On the way back to the original pub we found another Irish pub that was just as entertaining and full of Irish people. This one had a real Irish band playing all the classic Irish songs. It was nice to see the crowd really get into the songs and a couple of people even tried out their ‘jigging’ shoes. We were all supposed to attend a surprise 21^st birthday party for one of our friends, but the time kept getting pushed back. We casually walked back up George and Broadway Street to wait out the surprise party. The hour flew by and we made it to the apartment where we gathered with about 10 other exchange students. We didn’t have to wait long until the birthday girl walked through the door, slightly surprised. We enjoyed some made from scratch brownies from a Spanish exchange student, but we left shortly after that. We still had to make dinner and I still had some school reading to do. And this is a contender for the longest blog post!  

Here are a few other pictures of the beach: