March-Sep 2014
I'll do this one in English, since I'm so cool n international now. Back in Sweden after a year in 'Stralia. Thought I'd do a sum-up. I'm sick and bored. It got soooooo much longer than I thought, but this is just so that I have something to look back at and remember when I get old and nostalgic.
I really miss everything. Walking barefoot every day, living the easy life where the biggest trouble was that the waves were bad or that there were no seconds for dinner. What I miss the most is having people around me all the time. If I wanted company, there was always someone to chat to, play a game with or just watch a movie with.
If you just wanna read about the last six months of my trip, you got it right here.
Anyways, here we go:
MARCH
After a week in Thailand to visit my old home and friends with beach parties, Bangla Road, Phi Phi and diving with leopard sharks, I went to visit my old friend Ida (yeh she's like over 25 yrs old!).
Ida lives with her man Leo in Perth. I lived in a hostel in Freo for a week. It was fun. We saw a lot of beaches and hiked at Rottnest Island. Even though the signs were confusing or non-excisting, we managed to find our way around. A lizard ate Idas lunch and we did see a quokka. And Ida made a b-day cake for Leo that looked like a brown doodle.
APRIL
EBS (European Bartender School) asked me to come to Sydney to work. So I moved to Redfern and shared bed with Louise. That was cosy. We lived with two Korean guys who couldn't speak English. Before that, I lived at the school for a few days. Jocke lived there too. I closed the door but he didn't have the key. We tried a lot of ways to open that door. After an hour and a half, we finally managed to get in.
Bar Training
Flair training in Central Park
Pia is awesome
At the Opera Bar I had rose wine with Jossan from my hometown Linköping.
I worked with Pia and Patrik. They're awesome. The whole crew went surfing one day. I was stoked. And paintball another day.
At my birthday (10th of April), I ate heaps of chocolate cake. But Stål-Jocke was afraid of getting fat. Then Me and Louise made tacos and I got candles in the chocolate ice cream. It was a gooood birthday. I was full.
We had whisky and tequila tastings at the school with a guy who worked for Jack Daniel's. Me and Patrick drew funny things.
And graduation dinner was a meat feast with all you can eat. So I did. Ate. A lot. We opened the bar at the school and made cocktails and handed out diplomas before heading to Frankie's for an epic party night.
MAY
I started woofing (work for food n accom) at a hobby farm outside Yeppoon, close to Rockhampton in QL. I lived with a family and took care of the animals. We went to a bar where they had rodeo. That was cool. And Thor the alpaca had to get milk from a bottle. But when I fed the animals bread, there were four geese that chased me. They were scary.
When I left after about 9 days (I just wanted go suurfing), I stopped by Brissy for a night and went on a ferry trip around town.
JUNE
I found my home. Spot X Surfcamp. Kev from North England showed me around and Rossco from Scotland explained the 3 months instructor course I had in front of me. I didn't understand what they were sayin. Robin from Cornwall had one of my first lessons. Didn't understand him either. But I loved surfing!
I worked in the Photoshack.
Mon-Fri mornings (6.30 or 7 am) we had a 2 hour surf lesson, usually with Glen, Jimmy or Cuzza. Cruisy, blond aussie surfers (stereotypical?). In the arvo there was either theory or fitness. The rugby game on the beach was fun! The ocean mission not so much.. Run, swim, paddle, run.
"There are always waves to surf", Jimmy said, "so don't complain! Except today.." One day it was a lake! So we had a paddle comp and then we paddled to the Point. Me and Granny Annie jumped from the board and played in the water.
The Soccer World Cup was on! I went up before my surf lesson and watched the games in the photoshack at 5 am. It was cold and dark, but cosy. Usually I got company from a few. And when the finals were on, we got the TV channels in the movie room and could snuggle up there.
I lived in the Woman Cave, a small cabin just next to the surf school. In the bed above me slept my wonderful Issy. We went swimming together as soon as I got there, and down that road it is... ;) Ryan moved in to the Woman Cave and got a proper welcome. He served dinner in a dress and makeup. We had many nice evening chats in there, where Sarah gave good advice and taught us foreigners English.
I had my first experience with the sweat box and Kev's colourful dancemoves humping the ceiling. Robin had his cow costume and someone got NBO'd (Next Bus Out) for kissing an Academy girl. Katie missed clubbing, and Claudia didn't like snoring. Nat and Martin made amazing impressions. And the staff meeting was about yes to fuck farmers.
We celebrated Swedish Midsummer with games and dancing around the pole. That morning I got the surfboard on my chin at Mullawarra and it made a little hole. 3 stitches later everything was fine.
Team Sweden, we organised the Midsummer Celebrations :)
It got really cold in the mornings and evenings. I had socks in my thongs, which BrokeBackChris loved. To put on the wet wettie was torture. And the fingers were hurting when we walked almost to Corindi in the mornings. But the water was warm and nice.
JULY
The low season really started. More and more people left. That gave us some advantages. Pancakes or egg and bacon for brekki. Luckily 'cause Andi's porridge was just milk with some oats. Toasters for the wraps at lunch. And we always had lunch in the sun around the firepit.
We bought nerf guns to shoot people with. Ryan liked our spontaneous dance, buddy Andi danced funny, Lucca said Aha-ha and Collin was South African. We had a massage train. Charlotte was drunk. Rose taught us yoga. Almost everyone was called Chris.
Oh, and Mike made his first dinner speech but thought his name was John. Would you have an icecream that tastes like poo or poo that tastes like icecream?
Kev and Bear left for a month. So we were free to play. Me and Sarah organised Camp Cocktail. It was Julie's first night. I helped everyone to make their own cocktails. Mojitos, orgasms and some other yummy stuff. It became an epic party! But the limes were too many..
And then the night with the Dirty Dancing jumps when the lamp broke!
In the end of July, there was a storm and Stuey got lost in a rip in Byron the day after they left camp. Everything was horrible. So I moved to Mojo Byron for a little while. We had the paddle out* at Watergos with flowers and drank Irish whiskey, Jameson. It was beautiful.
* you gather in a circle in the water with surf boards to honour someone
I drove the troopy with Izz n Bryn to Byron.
I lived in a cold tipi without electricity in the Arts Factory with Lois from London. We went skydiving and that was amazing!! And a lot of us made tattoos from Stueys drawings.
AUGUST
After 10 days in Byron I went back home to Spot X. We had a Cake Off in memory of Stuey. All departments made their own cake. The nightstaff and Gary's kids were judges. The kitchen crew won (surprisingly).
I worked in the kitchen and went farming for a few days. And then daystaff. And then both kitchen and day. And then kitchen. And then back to the photoshack in the end.
My board was unlucky before I bought it from Katie and got 5 dings. Benavitch fixed it and the day before my surf test I finally got it. The test went shit but the weekend course was fun. Me and the two Frenchies, Lucca and Justine, drove to Coffs in the troopy and they sang Pokemon in French.
And the boys were always singing Disney songs in the showers so everyone could here. And Lloyd was playing the guitar and singing every night so Emil fell in love with him. Paula was a guapa but Tom was fucking annoying. Aled always wore pj-pants with comic book dudes.
The twins Vic and Lloyd showed us a fun game where you try to lift a carbon box from the floor with your teeth without touching the floor with anything but your feet. And we had a fun game of charades in the photoshack!
One night, we actually left camp (!) and had a night out in Coffs (in a real nightclub!) with some of the new farmers. Tom got kicked out for taking his shirt off. Me and Toby got kicked out too. I only closed my eyes and then we had kebabs.
We went rafting in over head waves and Ben abandoned us so Carlsy, the only guy living in the academy house, took command. We got smashed.
We spent a lot of evenings in Bens work shack just watching boards get shaped. Rossco Krypto had a cool design by Bryn Byrd.
We were about 5-10 peeps in the academy lessons this month. One day, there was one client. And the academy house was almost empty. My two Swedish gals were both away on different adventures in Asia so I didn't speak Swedish at all.
When Lloyd and Vic left :(
I love the spelling
SEPTEMBER
I finished my surf lessons. Issy and Nat came back! Later Ryan and I left the woman cave to live with the boys and Kat in GHQ next door. We had 5.30-surfs in the mornings. That was awesome! It started to get brighter in the mornings and warmer again.
Crab shakka
There were a lot of beers for Eddie with the tailgina (and a little bit of vodka) and fires by Benzys tent. We sat and talked the whole party night without realising, Ben, Eddie and I.
Tim had 8.000 followers on Instagram (was up to 10.000 before he left). Jordo came and made bad jokes that Nat couldn't stop laughing at. Truck off! And they're still together in Tassie :D Issy left us which was sad. But Fatima joined team Sweden! (Or was that in October?)
The awesome girls of the Woman Cave
Me and Emil went full moon surfing. Siiick! The waves were hip high and slow, I had a perfect right-hander the first wave! But it was hard to see each other. And the academy house started to fill up again. The German party girls who liked Nutella came.
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