Byron Bay (Round One?).

We love it here!!

We arrived in Byron Bay (NSW) on Sunday Dec. 12th (yesterday) and have been thrilled with the place other than a few minor details. The beach is amazing. It's beautiful sand and tons of healthy (with the exception of sun exposure, perhaps) beach people. I mention this because I recently learned Aus is now leading ahead of the US in obesity and adult onset diabetes in children.  When we arrived on the greyhound yesterday morning, we were greeted at the bus stop by some hostels inviting us to stay there. We chose "Main Beach" for the free WiFi and the close proximity to the beach. It's a little more expensive than our last hostel ($85/night) but much better. Other than the kitchen (which is disgusting - Chris washes our dishes before and after we use them) the place is nice. Really friendly people, nice staff, and great policies. The areas bordering on residential property are closed at 10 and all other areas are shut down at 11 and seem to be enforced rather well. Also, we can borrow boogie boards for free and use our room key as a deposit. As Chris pointed out, that means we wont lose our keys at the beach. The beds are crap and I couldn't fall asleep for a while because my lower back was threatening to go out from the sagging in the mattress. We also have an en suite.

After we got set up yesterday we went down to the beach and boogied in the waves. I've never done that before. It was awesome and it made me want to learn to surf, which we may be able to do for super cheap at.... the Beaches of 1770... I think. I don't remember. Chris was looking into that. After dinner (Mom's tomato basil mozzarella) we walked over to this super cool hostel/ brewery/ pub called "Art's Factory" and each enjoyed a local brew and listened to the live music. The performer was this woman named "Lou" who sang country. Chris and I both thought she was about 30 (she resembled Mama Cass some-what) but then saw she has a tween daughter. I guess she still could be 30. She had a beautiful and very young sounding voice but had a good amount of power behind it. I'd like to figure out her name so I can listen again. She had a song called "I'm in love with a cowboy" I thought dad would really like. Her song after that was called "I'm in love with your mind". One the way home Chris and I admired the stars (you can't really see them in Bris) and talked about Orion. It's the most obvious constellation here but I also spotted the little dipper.

The salt in the ocean or something put my eyes back into itch-overdrive and I couldn't stand it anymore so I stopped by the local "chemist" (have I already mention that's what pharmacists and pharmacies are called?) and happened upon the most pleasant of Chemists. He was so helpful and friendly and genuine. I guess it's silly to go on about it, but I feel like he was just such a shining example of how people in the service industry should be.

On to the bugs: 
Last night Chris and I were in the common room checkin' up on the internettings, and we saw a HUGE spider run across the room and stop on the other side. I jumped up to check it out and alerted everyone else in the room to it's presence. A woman maybe from Germany took a photo of it so I ran back up to our room and took a photo for myself (will upload some time).

After dinner last night, Chris was washing the dishes and I went back up to the room to put the dry food away. While I was in there I thought to close the curtain as it was then dark out. As I slid them to a close, I noticed there was a MASSIVE cockroach right beside my hand. Rather than panic, I quickly began looking through the room to find a cup big enough to trap it. We only have one size of cup - some small plastic wine glasses I bought for Sadie and me to use down by the river. It's about 2 or more inches wide and I felt sure this wasn't large enough, but it was all I could find. So I went back with the cup and a piece of rigid paper. I was about to try trapping it when the little creep took a run for it. Luckily, right out the open window. Unluckily, it ran right back in then I reached to close the window. I grabbed my piece of paper back and tried to flick it out the window, but no, this only seemed to attract it. So it ran at me, grabbed on to the paper and I flailed (I think I was emitting loud squeaks by this point). My flail caused it to fall to the ground... or toward the ground. It actually landed on my ankle. I was screaming at this point. It ran off and under a backpack as I heard a knock at the door. It was my temporary hero, Chris Sutherland. He had a very amused look in his eye. I told him the situation in a laughing panic and proceeded to collapse onto the bed, happy to let Chris take over. He dealt with it after a lengthly chase. He still wanted to trap it, but I said No, kill it. I call him my temporary hero as I was left to deal with the 2nd giant cockroach of the night. After that we discovered there is a screen on the bathroom window so at night we are setting up the fan in the bathroom to cool the room and keeping the other screen-less windows shut tight.

After dinner tonight we were happily chatting about whatever when Chris unlocked our door and flicked on the light. He let out a panicked noise hopped a few times before practically taking flight and landing on the bed. I thought he was just overreacting and asked "Cockroach?" No. Biggest spider of life ***editors note: this is the biggest spider of MY life (thus far) - Chris slept with much larger spiders in Danetree National Park. A fantastic story. Ask him to tell you some time if you don't know it.*** Chris told me to leave, which brings me to now, blogging downstairs. Chris joined me a few minutes after that and reported the spider was about three inches with its legs and had a body the size of a small walnut.

Ew.

We will be shaking everything out thoroughly. Chris said at one point it went under the door... which means they can get in under the door. I don't even know what I'd do if I had to kill one of those. It makes me think of Jena. For the first time since arriving in Australia, I'm glad she's not here. She would probably pass out. Or give me a black eye while trying to run away.

Tomorrow we are going for a walk up the beach to a lighthouse. Chris said Byron Bay was his favorite place when he was here last year and this walk is just beautiful so I'm quite looking forward to it. Then the next day we'll head up the coast back into Queensland to check out House of Laurels.

Hope you're well!

Love, Jeri