Oz, Day 2

1.20.07

Today we went to Manly Beach, which was nice, except the water was much colder than we expected (and hoped) it would be. Some of the girls were sunning themselves despite the fact that they were pretty burned after yesterday.

Right now I feel like I’m on a ship that’s swaying side to side. I can’t pinpoint a reason for this. We are spending a good amount of time on ferries and such, but most of them don’t rock back and forth. I think the sun does extraordinary things to mess with your head. Yesterday, I felt drained once we finally got back from our excursions. Even though I don’t think I slept that much on the plane, I was still ready to go—but after we got back I was wiped, aside from the fact that I was very sunburned (hopefully it didn’t get any worse today—I wore my hat and put on sunscreen).

We really enjoyed the place we went to lunch. Five of us ate there while another friend took surfing lessons at Manly Surf School. It was only $55 for two hours, and she really enjoyed it—in fact, she said she thought she enjoyed it more because she was so bad at it than she would have had she been decent. The food was good, and the wine we had was good too, although the quality wasn’t on par with what we’d been drinking in this winemaking class that we’re here for. I drank two glasses of wine but I ate the entire chicken sandwich and all the fries (known here in Oz as “chips,” much like in England), so to me there was no reason why I should have felt like I had been drinking much more. I told this to one of the guys with us and he said it was probably the sun. There are few times in my life where I have been so cognizant of how exposure to the sun for long periods of time drains you. While we were waiting for our table at dinner last night, I could feel myself nodding off every so often. The other girls asked me if I was all right, but I was just so tired. Other than that, I was okay, even though I hadn’t eaten real food all day. I could easily have skipped the post-dinner bar visit, although we weren’t there that long either, fortunately.

The weather is really good despite the cold water at Manly Beach and the sun beating us into submission. I think the hotel where we stay in Melbourne has a rooftop pool, and I am rather excited about this.

Another thing that excites me is that Sydney seems to have an abundance of places that sell gelato. It’s not the same as it is eating it in Italy, but seeing as there are so few places outside Italy that seem to have the real thing, this excites me greatly.