Byron Bay

We flew to Byron Bay for Tim's 31st birthday. Byron is a cute little hippie surfing beach town on the eastern coast of Australia. From an authentic fish and chips experience, to quality breakfasts each morning, to a healthy game of beach volleyball, we all had a great time. Tim and I stayed one more day after everyone had left, to have some time to ourselves. We adventured out to the tip of the peninsula to watch the sun set over the ocean. We even went hang-gliding, which was awesome fun! I was a bit nervous, and couldn't seem to relax despite my peaceful and relaxing surroundings. We rode separately, Tim then me, and during my ride the instructor offered to elope with me to Fiji on our glider. I thought Tim might get jealous, so I politely declined. It was a great mini-vacation!

Tree Planting

Every year, Tim and his family and friends head 4 hours north of Melbourne to go tree planting, and I was invited to join along this year. It was a weekend full of camping, digging and planting, campfires, and generally having a good time. I've already forgotten the names of the trees that we planted, but between about 200 volunteers, we managed to plant 10,000 trees (or so they told us) over a period of 1.5 days. Not bad. They also took us to see the trees that had been planted the year before, and which had a 80% success rate. It was pretty cool, I must say =)

Au Revoir, Babsi!

Elizabeth Bishop once wrote:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
[...]
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

Does the art of losing really get easier? Like going numb? One of my few but close girlfriends here in Australia, Barbara, (affectionately referred to as Babsi) has decided to move to Kuala Lumpur for work with her partner, Troy. My first reaction was surprise at such a big decision. Then I thought of my own decision to move half way across the world to live and work, and my surprise turned to understanding and acceptance. Of course, I am still sad, and will miss Babsi terribly. But now....I'm looking forward to visiting her and Troy in Malaysia =)