Road Trip

This weekend after our games up in Brisbane we stayed around for a couple extra days. We went south of Brisbane down tot he Gold Coast. There we stayed at a place called Surfers Paradise. Katy and I stayed at a Youth Hostel right across the road from the main beach, almost out on the pier where a bar is and many nice boats and yachts are tied up. The place we stayed at was pretty nice. We stayed in a 4-share room. So there were 2 sets of bunk beds in the room. I didn't quite fit in the bunk frame (my feet hung off the end, over the metal frame that enclosed the mattress) so I took my mattress off and put it on the floor. The first night we were there, Sunday night, there was a live band a the Fisherman's Wharf (the bar next to where we stayed) that were not quiet. It sounded like the band was in our room giving us a concert. Even though it was loud we were pretty tired and pretty much fell right to sleep. The first night we were roomed with an older man, from New Zealand, who was here in Australia looking for a job. The second night we had a couple in our room from Germany. It was interesting, the guy walked around in his whitey-tighties and the girl just just went ahead and changed in the room like we weren't there. A little different than we probably would do it, but whatever.
The days there were very nice. The temperature got up into the high 70s low 80s and it was great. The first day we went and sat on the beach. It was the nicest sand we have ever seen. It was very fine and very white. It felt great underneath our feet. The water was also very clear, cold, but crystal clear. We got boogie/body boards from the front desk but ended up laying on the them in the sand instead of actually using them in the water. We laid out on the beach for a couple hours and then headed into the city to get some food and some souvenirs. They had some really neat shops and we were surprised at how many skyscraper/high rises there were. We looked at the price of one of the new buildings that is just being built (the Hilton) and the prices of the condo rooms started at $698,000. Other buildings were a little cheaper but still were pretty expensive.
The streets were filled with some neat restaurants and shops and Katy and both really liked it. We said we could definitely live there for a while and would go back if we got the chance. On Monday we decided to go hiking in the hills a little ways from Surfers Paradise. We saw one of the coolest waterfalls we have seen and the views from the rim of the old volcano of the city were awesome.
We really enjoyed ourselves and didn't want to fly back to Melbourne where it is 30-40 degrees cooler and rainy.