Monday, December 20, 2010

Time for a Mini-Vacation

After seeing some of the city in downtown Melbourne and not loving the cold-ish weather, we decided to catch some cheap flights up to the Gold Coast and live on the beach for a few days. The adventure began in Coolangatta, a neat little surfing town right next to the airport. We literally got off the plane, walked to the beach and decided to stay. Within a few hours of deplaning, we had already purchased a cheap surfboard and were on our way to becoming locals - until we realized that the whole town shuts down around 8pm. So off we went the next morning in a rental car to drive down the coast and check out Byron Bay. It was a real treat to go back to Byron and see my old hangouts. We drove up to the light house, surfed at Lennox Head, ate at my fav pizza joint and saw some live music (played neil young!) while watching surfing competitions. We were living in paradise. After Byron, we made a quick roader to Surfer's Paradise (which doesn't quite live up to the name) before flying back to Melbourne.

Some more Aussie slang:

Now I know that Canadians shorten words like Timmies, Undies, Hoodies, Pressies, etc. but the Australians take this to a whole new level. They use these words in national commercials and are probably in their dictionary (though I can't be bothered to check):

Here are a few of the words I came across in four short weeks:
Chrissy = Christmas
Breaky = Breakfast
Ta = Thanks
Mozzies = Mosquitoes
Esky = Cooler
Chook = Chicken
Bikkie = biscuit, which is short form for a "cookie" (not a biscuit)
Roo = Kangaroo
Sanger = Sandwich

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