Surfing!!

On Friday night I invited my friend Bryan over to our apartment to pregame and told him to bring friends. I was expecting him to show up with about 5 or 6 people, when actually he came with about 18! We were all pumped though to have so many people over! Everyone was very impressed with our apartment, and my roommates and I can't wait to have everybody over again!

Everyone stayed for awhile and then we all headed out to the Glasshouse, 151, and Hotel Illawara. It was so much fun to be with such a big group of people! When we got to Illa, we hung out with Matt the bartender who had taken us to Ulladulla on Thursday. We danced until 3am, when we finally decided it was time to go because we had to get up early the next day!

Saturday morning I woke up at 8am to get ready to go surfing for the first time. Jason, Kelly, Katie and I had paid $30 for a 2hr lesson that included a surf shirt and the board. I was so pumped to try surfing for the first time. We were running a little late, but we still made it before any major instruction began. We were given white surf shirts, mine smelled like a nasty combination of sweat and wet dog...yuck! We were given our boards and walked down to the beach, where we set up in a circle (about 30 people). We practiced getting up and went over some safety tips. Within about 15mins we were out in the water trying it for ourselves.

The water/waves were so powerful. I felt like I was being pummeled just trying to get out into the water. Each time a wave hit me, I thought my bathing suit bottom was going to fall off! After fighting against the waves I finally made it a good distance out. I laid on my board (which was not as easy as you think it would be)...haha! An instructor helped me catch the first wave, and gave me a shove when it came. I got up a little bit but wasn't able to fully stand. After several trys I was actually able to get up for a few seconds, and then quikly fell! Still... it was awesome!!
I continued to try to catch waves but was quickly getting very tired.

By the end of the 2hours I was exhausted!! The fact that I only got a couple of hours of sleep may have also added to the exhaustion. I now have much more of an appreciation for all of the people who surf daily. It is such a good work out! After surfing I came back to the apartment, took a shower and then a 2hr nap! What a great day!!