Loyola at Leigh, Overtime (aka pt 2)

March 20, 2016

The next morning was the beginning of another busy day.
We started at Omaha Beach, where the water was amazing. It had a really strong side current though, which I'm starting to see is super duper common here. I wonder if all of the Pacific is like that? Apparently it's been too long since my last trip to California or Hawaii. 2009 to be specific. Yeah, I'd say 7 years is too long. Autumn and I are planning to fix that soon, but that's another story for another time.
So anyways, the beach. I brought a beach ball but it was super windy so it stayed under my towel until I un-flated it. But there was volleyball and boogie boards and ocean and waves and sand and fun and such. A beach. It was lovely. I was in the water a majority of the time.
I also made sand angels. Most people come to New Zealand and there like "lol sorry mom" for bungy jumping or skydiving. My "lol sorry mom" is for making sand angels because that's like, well, typical me but also feels like it's in need of an apology to those that raised me. I'd say it was a very good sand angel though, but you can be the judge of that on the picture to the left.
The water was full of the mini jellies that haunted our Ocean City beaches this past summer. For the life of me I couldn't remember what they were called, but they were in our weekly Beach Patrol bulletin for like 3 weeks in a row because they were such an infestation. My grandmother read all of our bulletins, maybe she'll be kind enough to comment on what they were (eh hm). But yeah so they were everywhere, which kept a lot of people out of the water, but not me.
Eventually about 5 or 6 other Loyola kids came in with boogie boards, but the current kept taking them out of the swim zone. I was torn on joining them or staying in the swim zone because there was a 50/50 chance they'd just have fun outside the area or they'd become a party pool and I so was not about that party pool life. So I stayed in the zone debating if I wanted to join them or not, when of course the guard went in after them. It was literally like less than waist deep so he just told them they needed to move back into the area but still, glad he didn't have to come in for me.
Also, let me comment on these swim zones.
So in OC, we have designated surf zones (thank God or I wouldn't've had that job last summer). In these zones, surfers must stay between the flags and swimmers have the rest of the beach. Here in New Zealand, the surfers have the beaches and the swimmers must stay in between the flags. And they're flag area is less than ours. I'm still not really used to it being opposite like that, but I've only been to like 15-20 beaches here so I guess it's all in due time haha. But yeah I guess that also says something about the super awful side currents that seem to be everywhere here.
So anyways during one of my oceanic breaks, Lin and Bianca were doing some acro-yoga. It looked seriously cool. Then Lin asked if anyone wanted to try, and I was all up in there. I was like "I'll try!" and jumped up. I'm so glad I did it was like the coolest thing ever. I was literally in the air being held up by nothing but Bianca's feet. Lin was spotting so I didn't die, don't worry. I only did one cool thing and no one got a picture of it, but I did a few other boring things that Celeste took pictures of, and Aissa took a video of the first "plank", so when I make my video for this weekend be sure to look out for that :)
But like seriously it was super fun and now I'm obsessed. The main (possibly only?) yoga studio that I can find in Auckland (it's about a 40 minute bus ride away according to Google) doesn't have regular acro-yoga classes but they do have two workshops/classes coming up, one Saturday in April and one in June. Hopefully I can find someone that wants to go with me but I'll probably go to them because it was so fun! Besides, I need pictures of me doing cooler things than anything I got to do at the beach that day. Hopefully I can do it. I believe I can and if you can believe, you can achieve. (Also that was a Suite Life of Zack and Cody reference btw - the believe and achieve thing.)
After the beach we had a picnic lunch in the park then headed to the local winery where yours truly worked the vineyard as seen in the opening picture to this post (jk we all know I don't work).
We went for a wine tasting. I'm not sure why I keep insisting on going to wine tastings when I do not like wine. Maybe it's because wine makes me feel classy. Maybe it's because New Zealand is apparently known for wine (? although each wine we taste comes from a different country even though it's grown here in the Land of the Long White Cloud). Either way I keep insisting I participate in wine tastings! This one though, clearly is acceptable because it's with the Loyola group at a Loyola sponsored event (although we did have to pay our own $10 for the tasting, which we weren't even warned of beforehand - how rude!!).
So anyways we self-explored the vineyard for a few minutes while they prepared the tasting for us. Once it was finally our turn for the tasting, I guess they suspected I wouldn't like it because they gave me the littlest amounts every time. Like probably less than a shot of wine. But as each shot is $6-8 and the whole tasting was only $10, and we got to sample 5 wines, that'd be $2 a "shot" of wine, so mathematically it was a solid deal, even if I didn't like it so much.
Dani or Marina (I forget which) said that I kept making a face after each sip that tasted like I'd just taken a "sober tequila shot". Maybe it's my familiarity with Mexico and their willingness to give away free tequila, but I can guarantee no such face is made when I take tequila shots while sober (and totally legal in my beloved Mexico). On the third wine I understood they were correct in the fact that I was making faces, but it totally was involuntary and totally not on purpose. Guess I can trade my high society wine and cheese life for my coconut and mango island life, as if it's not too late. But hey, at least I tried. And I drank all of the little shots they gave me anyways, bc even tho it tastes like sour poop mama didn't raise no quitter.
After the tasting we went back to our Auckland accommodations to prepare the next few days until Easter Break.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha

Loyola takes Leigh

March 19-20, 2016. 

After a night with the girls, we woke up on Saturday morning to join the van of Loyola Uni Hall Apartment girls and Luke to go to Leigh Area for our Marae weekend.
We were a bit early so we stopped at the local farmers market, where of course I had to get a smoothie. Sorry to disappoint; it appears I did not take a picture of my smoothie, but rest assured it was good. A bit small, but it was fine. We then headed to the Marae (the Maori ceremony building on sacred ground) where we met up with the rest of our Loyola group before participating in a welcome ceremony - a powhiri. We even got to hongi! A majority of you reading this most likely aren't here with me, so you don't know, but hongis are my favorite. It is the Maori formal greeting and I'm probably not supposed to because I'm not Maori but I do it with my friends all the time because it's fun (shout out to Justin, Sarah, and Emily for embracing my weirdness). So clearly I was excited. But I messed it up all 3 times lol so there's that. The last time the lady kissed my eye because she was kissing cheeks and I turned my head on accident lol. But it's whatevvvver. All that stuff is like sacred though, so no pictures were taken so use your imagination, k thanks.
After we became their family and no longer the visitors, they treated us to some kai.
Rant time.
So I have a friend name Kai. Even though he's clearly not here with me I'll include a picture because we're super cute so see the picture to the left. Anyways, he's always like "Kai means wave in Hawaiian" (turns out it actually means ocean/sea but close enough), but in Maori it means food! At first I was obviously a little confused because when we first got here to Auckland the Maori lady that was teaching us culture (and she taught us the hongi, shout out to her!) said that Maori and Hawaiian, and all the Pacific Island languages really, were so similar that they can all be talking in their own language and still understand and communicate with each other from different places in their own languages because the languages were so similar. (I hope you understood that, it was super rambley but I don't feel like trying to translate myself into proper words and thoughts.) Therefore I thought the words would be like the same but the only similarities between the ocean and food is that I couldn't live without either. So I guess what I'm sayin is it's just interesting how although the languages claim to be so similar and interchangeable, they do have different words, well the same words with totally different meanings.
But the food was super good. All the meals that weekend were made by the Maori hosts and were totally edible. So at least I didn't starve to death.
After lunch we broke into two groups for our afternoon activities. Luckily (or so I thought), I was in the first group to go snorkeling! I love snorkeling! Here in Auckland I even have my own pink mask and snorkel (because we all know I look good in pink!). But anyways so like the weather was looking like it might not hold up for long so I was glad to go first, plus I couldn't wait to get in the water (naturally). By banging two rocks I attracted fish, but they were behind me so although Lin and some of the others got to see them, I only saw two fish the whole time. Kinda a bummer but it's okay because I was still having fun in the (not sun) water.
It definitely looked like it was about to pour, so we were all glad that we got to go snorkeling and have the beach part first. But the second group claims they saw so much, but maybe they're just saying that because they know we didn't see much. But oh well. I'm going back April 9-10 with the Underwater Club for some SCUBA Diving so I'll probably see more then.

My feet were all red from the flippers, now I know why booties are so important. But snorkeling isn't that intense to need booties haha.
After snorkeling, we switched with the other group and had our hand at Flax Weaving. It was Palm Saturday and usually on the weekend of Palm Sunday (well, in high school) I would go on the Pilgrimage in Wilmington, Delaware, with church to prepare for Easter. There I would get to see my all time favorite priest Father Carroll and I would get my palms for Palm Sunday. I would always have to have someone make it into a cross for me because I don't know how. Here in New Zealand, I'm obviously missing Palm Sunday, being on a Loyola Maori retreat, so I thought of the Flax Weaving as the equivalent of the cross-making of my palms.
We made Flax Flowers. Once we actually started the weaving, it was really simple. The preparation needed in order to finally get the flax ready to weave though was a bit difficult. Megan (I think her name was?) even showed us the proper way to cut our own flax down so that we can weave some on our own if we wish (many flax plants grow all around campus and Uni Hall Apartments). I almost cut down some to show Justin how to make (once I got back) but the preparation deterred me from doing so. But maybe one day I'll make another one, at least now I know how.
I was actually, not studying, but like having an intense look at the grass while I was in Australia this weekend (don't worry, posts coming soon), and grass is basically a mini flax. Like it grows differently but the actual grass strand was just a miniature version of the flax leaf we wove. Also, fun fact, they can't cut the flax in the rain because it's a sacred plant. See, sacred plant, it really is almost like a substitute for my Palm crosses.
Once everyone was done and the groups were back together, we still had time before dinner, so we went into Leigh. There was a fish comp that day, so we were to go to the weigh in. Okay, okay, so I know, summers in Ocean City. White Marlin Open. How have I not been to a fish weigh in before? Well they're on TV and they're always so crowded, and honestly, why would I want to go? But I don't think this (what we went to) was a fish weigh in so much as a fish auction. (Sorry I couldn't pick just one pic; it was AMAZING.)

The fish just kept coming. There were so many! And they were so big! And they were going for so cheap! If I had any money with me, bet I would've bought enough fish to last me the rest of my time here in Aotearoa. I would just need to find someone to clean and cook them for me. Or I guess I could learn, but only so I could guarantee my survival on a deserted island. But I didn't have any money on me anyways, so the point is mute. But seriously it was like the coolest thing ever. This year I'm totally gonna go to a weigh in just to see if it's nearly half as intense as this one was. The money went toward the expense of the competition because the winner received a boat as a prize. 

After dinner, we went back for the night life of the competition. 

There was a live band and everyone knew everyone. It kinda reminded me of a honky-tonk but definitely not the one I've been to so I'm not sure why it reminded me of that haha. Anyways, there was this drunk guy (Chris maybe?) who kept trying to go on stage and take the microphone and the police in a trench coat just came and fixed the microphone and it was totally funny lol. He also tried to body slam me but I think he just fell because ya know, he was drunk. Like totally and completely wasted. Like control your beer; you're a grown man. But hey, you do you, just don't die.
We jammed a bit but we didn't stay very long but that's okay.
This post is starting to look super long, so I'm gonna put the next day in another post. Hope ya'll don't mind, and if you do, who cares? Not me.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha

St. Patrick's Day

Ever notice how my blog post titles are getting less and less original and creative each time? Yeah, sorry, I'll try to work on bringing the gusto back for the next post. But like I'm exhausted; I've been here for a month and I've been running (not literally, we all know I don't run) non-stop for that month. So give me a break. I'll bring back my usual suave for the next post. Maybe.
Also it's super windy here and my curtains keep blowing out my window....if they rip off I'm so not paying for that. Every time I close my window I can't breathe so they can get air or deal with the wind tearing off their curtains.
Okay sorry, this is supposed to be about my St. Patrick's Day.
My mother told me before I left that I was lucky to be spending St. Patrick's Day in New Zealand. I wasn't sure why, but now I'm thinking it's because here I'm old enough for the bars legally. (After all, I'm the only h*** my momma ever raised ;) )
So first off I had to stay up til 2:30am so I could register for my fall semester classes for my senior year of college. Like what. But yeah. So I watched Rock of Ages for the first time and like ohmygoodness how have I not seen that before?! Literally my daily soundtrack in a movie with one of my favorite ever people, Julianne Hough. Like shame on Daddy for not having me watch that. It even had Cherry Pie in it!! But whatever. It kept me up like it was supposed to, but then it was too intense for me to sleep after because like how could I not have seen that before, like I don't understand.
Then I woke up early because the residence hall was filming their promotional video and they needed people to be in it and we all know I have a problem with cameras. Cameras and eating. Which, coincidentally, the reward for letting them film you was free food. It's like they could've just written my name in the sky asking to see me, but whateverrrrr. So we did the outside filming and such but then they said we were done so I went to sleep and missed the indoor shooting, but oh well. Homegirl needs her sleep haha.
Once I woke up, I got all prettied up but unfortunately I was still too incoherent to take a selfie, so where my usual selfie is, today ya'll get a video of my beautiful lip syncing because that's the only thing I successfully saved apparently :( But hey my dearest mother has to deal with receiving about 235,648 little videos of me lip syncing various songs every day, so you can deal with one.
Edit: the video doesn't wanna stay in place so ya'll don't get to see it, snapchat me if you wanna see it tho haha
Edit #2: lol so I tried to screenshot the video so you'd have a pic of me at the end and it's super hilarious but please be aware that I was "singing" the entire video so there could be no possible decent picture of me but I'm gonna put it up anyways, Only God Can Judge ;P 
To start the night, Justin and I headed our classic favorite Irish Pub, because ya know, St. Patrick's Day is like Irish and such. So what better place to celebrate than with the Irish? They had live music and it was jammin, as usual. Two thumbs up. On our way there, it appeared that the line was insanely immensely long, but things are not always as they appear. Once you actually got inside, it was less crowded than a normal night, but as the night picked up so did the crowd.
When we were too hot to handle any more of our beloved Father Ted's, we headed to a new place where Neelam claimed to be. Once we reached the Fiddler, though, she was no longer there, but we checked it out anyways. The bar part downstairs was packed, but once you ascended the stairs to the pool room it was empty. There was no music though, so we left pretty immediately.
While we were walking around looking for our next stop, the music coming from QF Tav drew us in. It always seemed like a poppin' place and it was totally rockin last night. I'm so glad we went there it was so fun. Oh they're music was live too. But once the band took a break, we stayed for about 2 stereo songs before heading off to our next adventure.
We were walking again. Walking felt soo good; everywhere was so hot and it was so nice out. Plus once you're on the main road, no hills (thank God). There was a bunch of people outside some club next to Roxy's (another place I haven't been, surprising since Roxy is like one of my fav clothes lines so ya'd think I'd go to a club with the same name, but maybe one day). They were with a bar crawl, but they were leaving. So one they left we went in. Since bar crawls usually rent the places out we were almost literally the only ones in there and they had a big fan and it was nice. It was a great like maybe 10 minutes until the bartenders realized we weren't in the bar area and were by the fan and music and such and then we left lol
On our way back we got milkshakes :) I got a caramel instead of cookies and cream, because I've had so many cookies and cream milkshakes the past couple days, but I gotta say, there's a reason the cookies and cream is the best.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha

Birthday Celebrations

My birthday was on Sunday. I'm almost officially old now. One year from halfway to forty - EW. But anyways of course we had to celebrate it.
My momma sent me the cake you see in the picture above. She says it was the only one they found that wasn't chocolate. It was pretty good.
So anywhos, we started on Friday night. Okay so wait backup. Sunday was mine and Deepa's birthdays. It was Deepa's 21st; that's kinda a bigger deal than 19. Okay you're caught up now. So Friday we celebrated Deepa's birthday with her chocolate cake her mom sent her, in her flat. We have a lot of the same friends so we just made it a big weekend for both of us. So Friday was her cake night.


Then Saturday was my cake night where we had my madre's cake in my flat. Big thanks to Sarah for taking a couple pictures because Justin was seriously slacking because he had a date. That's totally no excuse but whatever, Sarah to the rescue.

Then at like 11 we went out to Occidental because our birthdays kinda officially start at midnight and even though everyone is legal in New Zealand, Deepa needed to have a drink on her 21st because now she's legal in the States.
They were playing live music and it was rockin for a while.  Eventually the music stopped though, so we left.
Sunday I went to Pasifika. See previous post.

After Pasifika, we went to Tony's Steak and Seafood for dinner because on the menu they had steaks stuffed with seafood. That's like too good to be true, right? Totally. So I got the crab stuffed steak with shrimp on top, and I literally at the whole thing in two bites. It was kinda super awful. Don't give me that "did it at least taste good" because I have no idea because I ate it so fast because it was so little. I should've just got a regular steak because they were cheaper and of much much larger size, but oh well. At least the fries were good, after I dumped a pound of salt on them.

So then after dinner we were gonna go get ice cream, but to be honest I totally forgot. So Justin and Emily went to Countdown while Sarah and I went to the liquor store because it's my birthday and I'm legal here.
After way too many hours because I didn't plan it right, the Loyola kids joined us and my friends all came back to my flat to celebrate the good old birthday party way. Well, without any decorations or anything, so not really a party. And no food. And mostly no music because the speakers weren't working and you couldn't hear my laptop, so I guess maybe we were just hanging out and not partying then? Idk. Idk what the definition of a party is. Lol that reminds me of our first (and only) UHA family dinner when Matt was on the phone with Celine and was like "No, they're not drunk; they're just American."
Anyways so even tho the music wasn't really working, there were a lot of us and my flat is super small. So of course the RAs had to come yell at us, but they only yelled at us twice so I'd call that a success. But once I decided I didn't wanna take any more chances (even tho I asked if I could get deported before I said anyone could come over and the answer was no, so idk why I was worried) we all went over to Emily's flat, because hello, best friend status.
It was a good night.
So then Tuesday we went to Father Ted's, our local hangout, for steak, trivia, and karaoke. Lol we go there so often they didn't even card me. But anyways there I got a half kilo steak and fries for $15 NZ. OMG SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE STEAKHOUSE. Like why didn't we just stay with what we know and go to Father Ted's for my birthday? Oh well that's what we get for trying to break the status quo. Stick to the stuff you know. It is better by far to leave things how they are don't mess with the flow no no . (Hey at least I previously warned you about my musical interruptions.) At first it was a little chewy but it's okay because it was great. And the fries only needed a little extra salt. We did not do as good at trivia as I do on my beloved Carnival, but the 3 answers I did know, I knew. We didn't stay for karaoke but we came back to the flat and had our own karaoke - with Cherry Pie, so it was much better than any karaoke I've seen in Auckland.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha

Pasifika

This weekend was the Pasifika Festival. We went on Sunday. It was a great way to spend my birthday.
So Pasifika is like the heritage festival for all the Pacific Islanders. It's held where the music festivals here in Auckland are held, and next weekend is the City Limits Music Festival so the main stage was like set up to the side so that was cool. Anyways the park (it was in a park) had different sections of tents for each island(s) but they were all connected by a path. It was cool. My favorite islands were Samoa and Hawaii. I've already been to Hawaii twice and I planned on going to Samoa while I'm here anyways, so that's reassuring. I also wanted to go to Fiji while I'm here but I wasn't that impressed with the Fiji part, but we'll see. It's all dependent upon my final exams schedule and the moolah so we'll see.
Anywhos, so as soon as we walk into Pasifika, there are people drinking out of coconuts. If you know me, you know that I live off of coconut water (as I'm writing this I am currently drinking some more coconut water to be honest). So this was a necessity I needed like right as soon as I saw people had them. So Celeste and I went to find the coconut waters. I got the big one and she got one of the medium sized ones and I ended up drinking mine and most of hers, but she mostly just wanted the meat anyways so she ate all of her coconut meat while I couldn't finish mine because it was a lot. But Evan got a $10 meat (like animal meat not coconut meat) package thing and he couldn't finish all of his food either (because it was legit so much) so I ate some of his leftover lamb while Celeste worked on the chicken, so maybe that's also why I was too full to finish my coconut meat.
If you couldn't tell from the picture up and to the right, these coconuts are a severely different species of coconut than the ones we get in the Caribbean Islands. It's kinda funny; I was just talking to Sarah about how the coconut water I've been drinking here comes from Thailand and it tastes so insanely different from the coconut water I'm used to, but it's so much sweeter; it's super nice. But here's some visual aids to help you visual learners:

My Samoan coconut -
brown, round, and hairy.

My usual Caribbean coconut -
green, oval shaped, and hairless.

So the water was sweeter, but there was less of it because the coconut was smaller. But the meat was a lot softer/squishier and had a totally different texture. It was like legit smooth. Kind of like those "jell-o shots of my childhood" that I posted on Instagram that got like 0 likes. It was strange though because I was only eating one coconut, but the two halves had different meat. The first half was insanely smooth/soft/squishy, and the second half was thicker and harder, more similar to those I'm used to, but still way too smooth/soft/squishy to be the same or to even have similar texture. It was really good.
Coconuts are good for healing. Like if you're sick or kidney stone or cancer or hangover or depressed or anxious, drink some coconut water. Tis natural medicine. You should use it. Don't matter what species coconut I believe; coconut is coconut. Coconut is healing. 

Poor Celeste, I feel like I talked to her about coconuts until we moved on from our little coconut & food break. Oh well. 

So after enjoying our foods and watching some Samoan entertainment, we walked around the rest of the Samoan set up. We saw a man dying a sheet by using paint and a carved stone, see picture to the right. Then I entered to win a trip to Samoa that I probably won't win but we'll see, and I got some free stuff. A water bottle, a towel, and sunscreen. Who doesn't love free stuff? I also hung out with some firefighters because well, it was my birthday and my daddy's a firefighter so it's kinda like he hung out with me, right? Nah I'm just a loon but it's okay lol.
So Celeste was like "it's her birthday" and they were like "oh how old are you" and I was like "19" and they were like "oh we're way too old" and I'm just like lol I'm not trying to get with you, I just want a picture because my daddy's a firefighter...lol yeah. 

Then we tried to move on to other villages, and on the way we saw some intense birds. Black swans, gigantic ducks, huge chickens (which if they're that big and just run wild idk why KFC is the best fried chicken I can find down here but whatever).

We visited the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Niue, and Fiji before we reached Hawaii. It was cool to watch the American Flag flying above the Hawaiian stage, even here in New Zealand. Celeste got a meat skewer and we watched the traditional sugar cane dance/song before Celeste and I headed to Tonga. Tonga was another one of my favorites. They had a lot of different coconut oils for sale and I bought a meat pack similar to the one Evan got in the Samoan part, to take back to my flat for later.
Unfortunately, we missed the Tahiti part, as well as some other lesser known to me islands. After Tonga we purposefully skipped Aotearoa because that's simply New Zealand and next weekend our Loyola group is going to a Maori thing all weekend where we will get more cultural background than if we were to just stop by their booths real quick. We did pass a couple on the way out tho, so I guess we didn't really skip it. After Tonga we went back to Samoa to get pineapple sundaes, but they were out of the pineapples so we settled for watermelon sundaes instead. We meaning the others lol. Emily had one earlier and Evan had one at the end; I didn't get one which is why there's no picture, but it was great. I tried some of Emily's. 

Celeste and I met up with some professional rugby players - the Auckland Blues, and of course we had to get a picture. I only got a picture with two of them but there were about 6 or 7 there. They just had to wish me a Happy Birthday.
Then we got back on the bus towards town and found our dinner restaurant on our way back to our flats. 

Until next time,
xoxo,
Tasha

Pi(e) Day

Please excuse this post from the normally New Zealand/travel related posts so that I may bring your attention to Pi Day, which will only be for another hour and a half back in Maryland, has already come and gone in New Zealand, and only has a few hours remaining on the west coast.
Please enjoy this YouTube video that I watch on repeat several times a day.

Beach Day Out

Saturday was University of Auckland's Beach Day Out. We woke up too early for a Saturday but later than the times we've been waking up to adventure and headed up the street to the shuttle that would take us to Takapuna Beach to cheer on our fellow University Hall Apartment Hounds (shout out to Celeste and Emily) in their Waka Ama race. 

We waited for the bus for a while and once the bus came it filled without us, so we waited for another, but eventually we all got seats and we made it to the beach. The bus almost hit a car turning into the drop off point, but it didn't so that's good. Then we had to walk through the water to get to the area where all the other people were. Justin and I got free Red Bulls and Sarah jumped in line for the free food. Then after saying hi to the UHA kids we got our tan on in the grass while jammin to Nate's music and watching the paddleboarders.
Later the boys, Katie, and I went swimming where Sebastian tried flipping off Nathan and Justin. The first one didn't go so well but the second one was great. If I wasn't wearing my tanning suit instead of a legit swimsuit, I totally would've made them flip me next. After we got out, I went to go get the free food, but even though it was only like 1:30 (the beach day out started at like 11), the food table was completely packed up and gone. So I ate the trail mix I brought and complained about missing the food. Then James came back over and we went back in the water.



Once James and I were way too cold to stay in any longer, we reluctantly got out and Sarah brought me my towel and things like the best friend she is. We then headed back to the bus and back to our flats.
Being the film major he is, Justin made a really great video featuring our Beach Day Out theme song, Land Down Under, that you can find at this link (seriously go watch it).

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha

The Beach that Busted my Bum

A Hawaiian, two Germans, and a blonde head to the beach. 

That's it. That's the line. No joke (Thank God, right? That would've been an awful joke). Real life. (That's as far as I've got with my cleverness...) Wait, while we're on my cleverness I should probably explain the cleverness of my title because I feel like most of you (hmmm hmmm MOTHER) won't get/appreciate my beautiful genius, even though you'll certainly say you will. Kinda like my Cherry 3.14, but that's another story for another time. So anyways I totally didn't bust my butt I'm 100% as not broken as I was when I woke up this morning, but the cleverness of this title is something that you need to appreciate (MOTHER). Anywhos, so obviously there's the alliteration that I'm addicted to (oh look there's more) and then there's the whole "bum" situation. Clearly I'm referring to the butt with the word bum, but it also goes beyond that as a beach bum is sometimes commonly what I might refer to myself as occasionally. So yeah, point is, it's clever. Understand it. Appreciate it. Laugh at it. Tell me I did a good job with it (hint hint Baba, since you seem to like commenting on these...). 

So as you know, I don't have classes on Thursdays. So when Nick posted on the Surf & Beach Club Facebook group that he wanted to go to the West Coast [Best Coast?] this Thursday (aka today) I was totally for it. So afternoon comes and I head over to UniLodge (the one with the pool) to meet these strangers to take me to the beach. I was the first one there so I got the front seat. Radio didn't work, so no DJ duties, but I was in charge of GPS. It was only like 27 miles away but took almost an hour, but we did kinda get lost bc "lost satellite reception", go figure. But we made it. Thea and I rented boards while Jonas used one of Nick's and Nick played teacher. He was a super good teacher and I can only assume Kai should seriously consider teaching lessons, being as how all his girls end up needing Lauren to rescue them...anyways, Nick was a great teacher and I feel like the $5 I gave him for gas probably should've went towards the free lessons he gave instead, but whatevssss. 

The waves, water, and beach themselves. um, wowza. I am a water person. The water is my person (my person being what hipsters these days call soulmates). I am much more than the 50-65% water an average human is. But this water. This awful water. I think maybe it was trying to kill me. I've never been in such a strong current in my life, like I didn't even know it was possible to be that strong. I've never seen waves like that. (The ones we couldn't even get to because of the current. We were surfing on purely the whitewash foam.) When I asked Nick if they had waves like that in Hawaii, he said they weren't that bad. & of course they're cleaner (surf term, abuela, not clean like the water was dirty. like it was choppy and not nice surfing waves) in Hawaii. But we survived. & I will survive as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive. Cause I've got all my life to live and all my love to give to the ocean and I'll survive. (Hey I warned you a couple posts ago about my brainwaves....get it, brain WAVES, HAHAHA. like music waves because of the song or like ocean waves because of the post. ITS A DOUBLE JOKE HAHAHA; yeah I'm a bit tired...or am I just sun stoned? Too much sun, too much surf,...alex. hahaha [she prob doesn't even read these so that joke will totally go wasted bc it's an inside with her, oh well] also I literally just spent like 15 minutes going back through my texts to find the correct term for that.)
So I took a break from this to go get a milkshake because I needed brain fuel and now I'm totally too into my Pandora, but I think ya'll get the gist of this post anyways. So yeah, I think I'm gonna like end it here, but first I'm gonna throw in another shout out to my besties here; this one for Emily. Emily coming in clutch with the potatoes earlier when I was hungry and tired from the beach, then she just went with me to get milkshakes and GAVE ME HERS when I drank mine and I guess she didn't want hers anymore? Idk how she could've not wanted it, but isn't that so nice? She's the best.
Oh also I forgot the point of this was to like tell ya'll about my surfing adventure and I haven't really even mentioned us surfing besides the fact that we rented the boards and used the whitewash. So anyways, yeah, we couldn't make it to the actual waves because the current was a demon. So we practiced our paddling and pop-ups with the whitewash, which was like mega confusing at first bc if it's not breaking because it's already broke, how do you know when to pop up? Apparently you just go when it pushes you and it's like totally under you? I dunno. Whatever. So anyways, the last time I was successful I was on an 8ft board, but my board is like 5'6". So my goals were clearly to eventually make my way down to the size of my little baby board. So we get there and I tell the lady this, and I'm like "so can I try like a 7ft board maybe" and she was like "We have 7'3" and 6'8" but not 7'" and I was like "Okay I'll take the bigger one" and she gives me the smaller one (I didn't notice til..later in the story) >:( . But so I went out on that one anddd...I got to my knees a couple times, but like that's so not what you're supposed to do. Then I realized my hands were too far in front of me in my pop up, but I'm sure there were other issues also. So then Nick's all like "you should go trade that for a bigger board" so I go back to the lady and I'm like "can I have the bigger board" and she's like "do you want the 7'3"? Or here's a 7'6"" (UH WHY DIDN'T SHE SAY THAT ONE TO START WITH) so I take that one and, oh gee look, I'm better. I only actually rode a couple, but I stood every. single. time. Just like you're supposed to do - stand. If I had started with that one, maybe I wouldn't've felt like a failure in the beginning. Like it was looking like I never even saw anyone surf before. Like it was bad. But whatever. I didn't die. I didn't get hurt. I survived the worst beach I've ever met in my life.
& I'll probably go back.

This pic is from
Cathedral Cove
but I don't have a pic of
just me from today

til next time,

xoxo,

Tasha