6/28/23
Week 2 down under is in the books, and no I have not developed an accent yet. Being a “Yankee” does have its fun though. People here constantly ask questions about the States and its differences between the U.S. and Australia. One of the big comparisons was questions about Vegas or Miami against the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia
The Gold Coast is a stretch of beaches in Queensland that is considered to be, well, a massive party during the summer. Everyone in Australia migrates there during the summer for the warm weather, nice sharkless beaches, and an extremely fun nightlife. It is also home to the tallest building in Australia, the Q1, which stands at over 1000 feet and is taller than the Empire State Building. During the summer, the beaches are extremely crowded and is home to some of the best surfers in both Australia and the world.
I went up to the Gold Coast on Friday with 3 other guys: Mitch, Emmett and Ricky. All 3 of the guys are here from the States as well playing lacrosse on different teams just like me. Mitch and Ricky both play for the Cavaliers of the University of Virginia and Emmett is still riding high after just winning the National Championship with Notre Dame. We stayed for 3 nights and it was a complete blast. After we checked in to the hotel on Friday, we grabbed a bite to eat at a surf club that was home to what seemed like thousands of the best surfers in Australian history with their names all around the building. After we hit the beach and had a few pops on the sand. There was next to nobody on the beach because it is technically winter down here, but regardless it was really nice. It was a nice 75 degrees, sunny, and the water was cold but nice enough to go swimming. The area we were staying in was called Surfers Paradise, and we could definitely tell from the waves we were body surfing. We were getting tossed around like ragdolls.
Friday night rolled around, and after a long day of travel and early fun, I decided it would be best to call the night on the early side.
Saturday came, and Mitch and I decided to grab a late breakfast at a pancake house and the food was insanely good. Later, we grabbed Ricky and Emmett and walked around the outside mall close to where the bars and clubs are and explored the area. We got some stuff for the beach, including a speaker and football, and I picked up an awesome Victoria Bitter hat. VB is the equivalent to Coors Light back at home. From there, we went to the hotel to grab more suds, suit up, and hit the beach for the rest of the day.
When the sun was setting, we went back to the hotel to get changed for dinner. We went out for some Chinese food, which was again unreal, and we prepared for the night out.
We went to 3 different clubs that night. The first was the most underwhelming, a place called “Bedroom”. Their schtick is that along with tables to get, you could also get a bed. It was public but roped across so nobody could get into any funny business but it wasn’t anything super cool. The room was very crowded, it smelled like shit, and the DJ was that of a casual frat house. We didn’t stay long, and we migrated to the second bar, “Lost Kingdom”. This bar had an awesome entrance. After getting in, you walked through a long, dark hallway that was lined with smoke and green lights. It felt like the entrance for the Philadelphia Eagles heading into the club, and it was an awesome way to walk in. It was a jungle themed club and it was a lot of fun. Not too packed, not overly priced drinks, and the DJ was cooking. We stayed there for almost 3 hours but it seemed like an eternity.
We went to one more club for 2 more drinks, but I wish we had went to this one first. The club was called “Asylum” and it was probably my favorite. The lighting and the atmosphere was definitely the best with different tiers for people to look down on the dancefloor and the DJ was the best by a mile. The DJ was also one of those dudes that had a helmet on so you couldn’t see his face. It was late in the night, so there wasn’t a lot of people in there, but it was still a lot of fun.
We decided to call it a night and started walking back to the hotel. As we walked back we noticed on the other side of the street a sports bar that was clearly closed but had TVs still playing sports. One of the TVs had an NFL game on so we all pointed and laughed at the fact that they had a game on so late at night. In front of the bar were two girls, one of which was on another planet, and her friend trying to help her survive. ET saw us pointing and laughing their way and started screaming at us from across the street. She made a push to try and cross the street to fight us but her friend pulled her back. We walked faster because we needed to cross the street at some point to get to the hotel, all the while this girl is still screaming at us. We walked passed a bar that we wanted to grab one last drink in, but it was on the other side of the street. So, we crossed the street, waited in line for the bouncers to check our IDs, and as we were waiting, guess who caught up to us?
We ignored the girl, thinking she forgot, but as they walked passed, the girl who was pissed off kicked me in the back of the leg. It wasn’t anything violent, but it was just funny because the bouncers saw it and we were all confused and laughing. Anyways, we got one more drink, ate some food across the street, and went home.
Sunday was a very lazy Sunday. Sleeping in late, chilling on the beach, and doing absolutely nothing. It was awesome. We had dinner at the top of the Q1 building. You could get a ticket to go up there or go up there and get a $20 voucher for food and drink as well. We got up there around sundown and the views were unreal.
We had some amazing food and good times up on the 77th floor of the building. It was an awesome memory.
The trip ended Monday with arriving at the airport at 5am, only to find out our flight had gotten canceled! Luckily for us, the attendants noticed we were americans and got us on a new flight right away. a few hours of travel, later, I finally got home and was wiped out. I ended the night with a good meal of noodle soup with a bunch of different things in it including ground beef, eggs, peas, corn, and whole chicken legs. They weren’t bad, but just not a lot of meat on them.
All in all, week 2 was a success. The Gold Coast was an awesome, relaxing time, and definitely a must for anyone who wants to travel around Australia.
Sports n Stuff 