Jan. 16, 17 & 18: Airlie antics

Spent Saturday keeping the invalid company.  Lounged around, lazy as can be, watching stand-up comedy on YouTube, talking, eating crisps and tim tams (Australian "biscuits" aka cookies).  We tried to internet stream my favorite movie, Almost Famous, but it came up subtitled in Japanese with the audio waaaaay off.  I went to the video store to rent it but they didn't have it!  So I rented my second favorite, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and we watched that with the shades drawn & the aircon pumping.  Went down to the hostel for breakfast and dinner, and didn't really do much else that day.  Lazy, lazy, lazy.

a lazy still from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Next day,  Kiwi, Nicko, Sarah and I went down to the Lagoon, which is a huge saltwater pool next to the beach.  In this area, the jellyfish are deadly; despite how blue and tempting it is, you really can't swim in the ocean, so everyone hangs out at the lagoon.  We sat in the shade, I wrote in my journal for a while, we talked and swam.  There was a large family in the water building human pyramids & towers of people standing on each other's shoulders; it looked like so much fun! I wanted them to adopt me!

Airlie Beach Lagoon

On the way home, we stopped at Cold Rock for some ice cream - I got cheesecake ice cream with rasberries & rocky road folded in - and I got one for Nick, his favorite, though it melted almost completely in the 5 minutes it took us to walk home.  He still appreciated it.

Nick had to work, and his back seemed to be feeling a lot better, which was good to see.  He and Chris were practicing guitar. Behind reception, they cranked up Taylor Swift & played along. If you'd turned off the sound, they'd have looked really manly & attractive, strumming intensely, but with that poppy teen-chick music blaring, I could not stop giggling at how ridiculous they looked. The music ended & they cracked up. "You guys are gay together" I said. Chris said, "your face is gay."  Touche, sir. Touche.

Speaking of gay, that night, the guys told the girls we could pick the movie (it's always some dude action movie!) and we got really excited but then they went back on their word & ended up playing the new James Bond movie - grrr.  Nick convinced Nicko & Chris to let us watch TV in the "gentlemen's club" and a total chick flick was on - yay!  The funny thing is, once all the girls were hanging out in there watching the girly movie, all the guys slowly filtered in & watched it too.  They should've just let us play what we wanted to begin with.  :)

The next day was more chilling out, hanging by the pool.  I got to talk to Chick & Todd on skype and I gave them the skype tour of the hostel & they got to "meet" everyone.  It was really fun talking to them; it made me miss home.

Nikki, Sarah, me, Kiwi Sarah making silly faces

Both Sarahs were leaving Wednesday, so we decided to go out Monday night instead of Tuesday so that they could recover on Tuesday.  A big group of us went to Paddy's for some crazy dancing - Nikki, Sarah, Kiwi, Kate and I danced like different animals and made silly faces and were just generally being nerds - and then to Mama Africa's for real dancing.  It was a really fun night out with really fun people.

I am so grateful and happy for:
~ silliness
~ favorite movies
~ friends cooking dinner for all of us
~ ice cream on a hot day!

xo! n.