I was presented with half of the closet, an armful of hangers, a few bins of varying size, an outlet adapter, and (not to worry) a mattress with a blanket and pillow in the cozy-sized room I will be sharing with my baby sister. Believe it or not, it took me longer than I thought. Adapting to less than half the space I had for so many months previous was strange. Yes, with less than half of all I owned, but still.
The most refreshing thing to walk into was the summer air. Not at all like the weather I left in Utah. The most exciting thing? Christmas Day was forecasted at 90° F and I would be spending it at the beach!!
It's Christmas morning and somehow I manage to sleep in until nine o'clock. I walk out to the kitchen and of course, my mom has baked the family cinnamon rolls from our secret recipe (don't asked me to tell you when you discover how amazing they are, I won't tell you). I'm surprised again that their intoxicating aroma didn't wake me up.
After the quick opening of presents, everyone begins prepping themselves for the beach. Yes, it's very unusual that the unwrapping of gifts in this household should take such a short amount of time, but being in Australia, and being that anything they get here will either have to be used up or thrown away, it went rather quickly.
By how extensive the drive was I was sure no one would have any energy to do anything once we reached its shores, but to my utter surprise everyone popped out of the small minivan like daisies. We marked our territory on the beach and my siblings made a dash for the boogie-boards and waves.
However, I, being a naive, in-experienced boogie-boarder myself, had to ask for instructions and only hoped to catch the smallest of waves washing up on shore. I attempted and did my best, but I never quite impressed Poseidon to the level I'd hoped, because I didn't exactly ever roll all the way back to shore. In return for my efforts the beach thought it would gift me by leaving it's mark. The sand was unbelievably soft, but I still walked away with all these little, tiny scrapes on my knee from bumping the shore every time I surfaced from the waves. Classy.
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| Blue skies AND blue waves. Nothing better. |
While the sand was soft, it was as hot as boiling. Though in the shade of our lovely beach umbrella, the contents of our water bottles boiled as well. Oh, by the way, the sun fries you three times as fast here. Sunblock was applied and then reapplied religiously.
On the return home we found our struggles to shake off were in vain, sand was still very much everywhere. Still, I only had the luxury of a three-minute-shower, because of course seven other people were in line behind me.
Dinner shortly followed, and I was amazed at how many of our "American" dishes we were able to construct here down-under.
All-in-all Christmas was good, I wouldn't say I'd want every Christmas to be flip-flop weather, but it was a nice change.
Cheers,
Jess
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