Week 2 of Classes & Australia Day (Jan. 24-30)

(View the best of my Gold Coast photos here.)

(one of my self portraits)

By the second week of classes I was finally beginning to manage the whole 6 a.m. wake up schedule and classes became even more enjoyable. For my photo class this week, our assignment was self-portraits, which I knew would be interesting. I bought a tripod in preparation and got my roommate to come with me so the wind on the beach wouldn’t blow over my camera. I don’t know that I’ve ever had to take self-portraits before and I’m quite thankful for that. It was a rather trying experience. In the end I was fairly pleased with how they came out, but it’s certainly not something I hope to do again.

(Sunset on Australia Day)

The second week of classes included Australia Day, a national holiday, and the equivalent to our 4^th of July. From what we could tell, the only acceptable way to celebrate was to go to the beach, which was packed, and drink for the entire day. The weather was perfect and once classes got out, the day went absolutely splendidly.

As the sun began to set, the sky became shades of pastels so I grabbed my camera and we decided to walk down to Surfer’s Paradise to see what the celebration looked like down there. I’m absolutely in love with the photos I got on our walk down, the water looked amazing and it was such a perfect sunset. By the time we got down to Surfer’s, the celebration was at a lull as people switched from beach party mode to bar party mode so we decided to find somewhere to eat. My roommate remembered seeing a good Italian restaurant down the street so we went in search of it. But what we found was so much better.

Pancakes in Paradise. With a huge ceramic stack of pancakes outside advertising endless pancakes for $10, we just had to check it out. My roommate got the endless pancakes while I went for the strawberry crepes and we were both quite pleased with our selections. I had left my bus card back at home so rather than pay our way back, we decided to walk back to Broadbeach.

It was certainly a memorable journey. Australians really love their country and never was this more evident than on Australia Day. As we walked home, cars driving by and people walking by were so excited to be celebrating the beginning of their country, their excitement was infectious. 

(someone enjoyed Australia Day)