the bubbles of love...
the title today is from a song lyric we heard on the bus ride up from byron bay to brisbane. it struck me as hilarious. "remember the bubbles of love that we made" was the exact wording, i believe. oh, pop music.
so our byron bay experience is over. it was decidedly not as hippie as i wanted it to be. perhaps summed up by the following interaction: Nabia, Xena (aka Xenia aka Ksenia - all alternate spellings, i learned), Raj and I were having a lovely conversation on a street corner about how McDonalds is the devil and our future life plans, when a man approached us, wearing hippieish clothes and looking a little wide-pupilly. he proceeded to try and tell us about how he planted the trees in that town and the hippies built it. he's lived there for 24 years. he has a son. and now he can't afford the rent. everything's upmarket and he's getting pushed out. he was pretty upset. he and raj ended up trading some insults, but all in all it didn't end horribly. but it's the idea: the hippies set up a really cool artsy creative town and then everyone else went there because it was where interesting culture was happening, so then it became the place to be, then it's all upmarket and expensive and the original people have to leave. it's like the west village. or williamsburg, or park slope, or hell's kitchen... sad.
anyway, Byron Bay: there were some cool clothing stores, more thai fisherman's pants than you could shake a stick at, and the hostel, though it started out being louder and drinkier than i might have liked, turned out to have a decent atmosphere. especially the cinema. we treated ourself to 2 films while there: motorcycle diaries and garden state, both of which i'd seen before, but was happy to re-view. both gave new perspectives yet again, and if any of you haven't seen them, i recommend. if you can find a movie theater with blacklights and cow-print covered lounge sofas that encourages feet up on the seats, i'd recommend that too. cuz that's how we watched. cool theater.
Other things... i really enjoyed the yoga classes we took (went again on wednesday morning)... the beach is absolutely gorgeous. really a bay. wide graceful arching strips of sand so fine it squeaks when you walk on it and flat out into the tide for a while before getting deeper. not that i even went in that far :). we sat there one afternoon when we met up with Xena and Raj, and we looked out over them from the (famous, i hear) lighthouse for 2 sunsets. gorgeouso. Apparently the beach from brisbane to byron bay is just one long strip. that's a lotta beach.
on the culinary side of things: na and I chose to eat very healthfully this week. we made our own food (cheaper and more control) and tried to detox a little to make ourselves a little stronger for asia. some highlights: a salad of wombok (napa) cabbage, red capsicum, carrot, good crunchy sprouts, tofu, and sunflower seeds. yum. had roast chicken with a beetroot, broccoli, feta, sunflower seed, balsamic & oil salad. good food is just so tasty! Anyway... I really enjoyed all the raw veggies, as I will not be able to eat them once we get on the plane from sydney. little monsters living in the water...
ummm... otherwise we pretty much laid low and did our errands and sat by the pool and hung out with Xena and Raj. i read "the five people you meet in heaven" and it was depressing but good. now i need a new book but all the books are expensive. i don't like expensive. i like cheap!
oh! yesterday we took a little day trip with them to Nimben. Nimben is a town that seems to have one point and one point only. marijuana. they have pot olympix every year, with rolling competitions, bong throwing, and other various events. they (clearly) believe it shouldn't be illegal. we were offered "smokos," pot cookies, or some other form of the substance at least 10 times in our 2 1/2 hours or so there, walking around town. it's smoked and sold on the streets, the children have bags under their eyes, and i got a serious contact high from walking through the museum. by which i mean a headache and a slight case of the munchies.
now, i've had a request for more pictures. the trouble is getting them off the cameras at the least cost to us. if it were up to me, we'd be posting photos every time we blogged. but sadly that's not really possible. i'll get a bunch up when i can. luckily for you all, though, we did just get one of our underwater cameras developed and had them put the pictures on a CD! so, here are some photos from the great barrier reef. some are from further north by Port Douglas, and most are from Lady Elliot. Enjoy! (to view them without signing in, just click "view photos" from your email and then again on the webpage. you don't have to put in a username and password.)
piktchas
so now we're in brisbane. here for 2 days staying with another servas host, and then flying down to sydney for a while to wrap things up and see our new friends Karin Gerry and their family. Then off to brave new bird-flu infested worlds (we're going to be very careful and keep both eyes on the news and the CDC)!
And i guess i never did this: if people want to post anonymously on this site but want ME to know who it is, just email me a pseudonym and then sign that name to your post. then i'll know and you'll know, but no one else will. sneaky. in any case, please post.
remembering the bubbles of love that we made...
amy
email me
so our byron bay experience is over. it was decidedly not as hippie as i wanted it to be. perhaps summed up by the following interaction: Nabia, Xena (aka Xenia aka Ksenia - all alternate spellings, i learned), Raj and I were having a lovely conversation on a street corner about how McDonalds is the devil and our future life plans, when a man approached us, wearing hippieish clothes and looking a little wide-pupilly. he proceeded to try and tell us about how he planted the trees in that town and the hippies built it. he's lived there for 24 years. he has a son. and now he can't afford the rent. everything's upmarket and he's getting pushed out. he was pretty upset. he and raj ended up trading some insults, but all in all it didn't end horribly. but it's the idea: the hippies set up a really cool artsy creative town and then everyone else went there because it was where interesting culture was happening, so then it became the place to be, then it's all upmarket and expensive and the original people have to leave. it's like the west village. or williamsburg, or park slope, or hell's kitchen... sad.
anyway, Byron Bay: there were some cool clothing stores, more thai fisherman's pants than you could shake a stick at, and the hostel, though it started out being louder and drinkier than i might have liked, turned out to have a decent atmosphere. especially the cinema. we treated ourself to 2 films while there: motorcycle diaries and garden state, both of which i'd seen before, but was happy to re-view. both gave new perspectives yet again, and if any of you haven't seen them, i recommend. if you can find a movie theater with blacklights and cow-print covered lounge sofas that encourages feet up on the seats, i'd recommend that too. cuz that's how we watched. cool theater.
Other things... i really enjoyed the yoga classes we took (went again on wednesday morning)... the beach is absolutely gorgeous. really a bay. wide graceful arching strips of sand so fine it squeaks when you walk on it and flat out into the tide for a while before getting deeper. not that i even went in that far :). we sat there one afternoon when we met up with Xena and Raj, and we looked out over them from the (famous, i hear) lighthouse for 2 sunsets. gorgeouso. Apparently the beach from brisbane to byron bay is just one long strip. that's a lotta beach.
on the culinary side of things: na and I chose to eat very healthfully this week. we made our own food (cheaper and more control) and tried to detox a little to make ourselves a little stronger for asia. some highlights: a salad of wombok (napa) cabbage, red capsicum, carrot, good crunchy sprouts, tofu, and sunflower seeds. yum. had roast chicken with a beetroot, broccoli, feta, sunflower seed, balsamic & oil salad. good food is just so tasty! Anyway... I really enjoyed all the raw veggies, as I will not be able to eat them once we get on the plane from sydney. little monsters living in the water...
ummm... otherwise we pretty much laid low and did our errands and sat by the pool and hung out with Xena and Raj. i read "the five people you meet in heaven" and it was depressing but good. now i need a new book but all the books are expensive. i don't like expensive. i like cheap!
oh! yesterday we took a little day trip with them to Nimben. Nimben is a town that seems to have one point and one point only. marijuana. they have pot olympix every year, with rolling competitions, bong throwing, and other various events. they (clearly) believe it shouldn't be illegal. we were offered "smokos," pot cookies, or some other form of the substance at least 10 times in our 2 1/2 hours or so there, walking around town. it's smoked and sold on the streets, the children have bags under their eyes, and i got a serious contact high from walking through the museum. by which i mean a headache and a slight case of the munchies.
now, i've had a request for more pictures. the trouble is getting them off the cameras at the least cost to us. if it were up to me, we'd be posting photos every time we blogged. but sadly that's not really possible. i'll get a bunch up when i can. luckily for you all, though, we did just get one of our underwater cameras developed and had them put the pictures on a CD! so, here are some photos from the great barrier reef. some are from further north by Port Douglas, and most are from Lady Elliot. Enjoy! (to view them without signing in, just click "view photos" from your email and then again on the webpage. you don't have to put in a username and password.)
piktchas
so now we're in brisbane. here for 2 days staying with another servas host, and then flying down to sydney for a while to wrap things up and see our new friends Karin Gerry and their family. Then off to brave new bird-flu infested worlds (we're going to be very careful and keep both eyes on the news and the CDC)!
And i guess i never did this: if people want to post anonymously on this site but want ME to know who it is, just email me a pseudonym and then sign that name to your post. then i'll know and you'll know, but no one else will. sneaky. in any case, please post.
remembering the bubbles of love that we made...
amy
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 2/24/2005 12:02:00 AM
7 comments
