moquitoes in the night. christmas decoration shopping. bondi to bronte swim. leaking dishwasher. beach bumming. surf lessons.

if only to sum up a few of the highlights of the past few days - those would be it. as the days get warmer, the nights become more muggy. more humid. more unbearably hot without the window open to let in some imaginary form of a breeze. of course - with it - comes the mosquitoes on the hunt for fresh meat. i am it. i am sleeping. i can not be bothered to do anything about it other that to sleepily swat away the buzzing insects that i can't see in the dark. eventually sleep wins and the buzzing stops. it is only when i wake that i remember my tiny fiends with the red, itchy bumps they have left behind. only then there is no buzzing insect to squish. except maybe the dead spider i found hanging from the blinds the one morning. he may have been dead, but i squished him anyway. someone had to pay for the itchiness on my skin.

at work, as the days grow nearer to the 25th - the day of christmas. the day that most know "should" be filled with snow, warming by the fireplace, slippers, hot chocolate and maybe an evening skate at the local rink - none of that is here. and yet, nino's still celebrates by decorating the shop for such a celebration. it was this week that we went out for the decorations and it was malin (from sweden) and myself that were chosen to do the shopping. the two staff that know not much other than snow in the winter were nominated to do such a task. ironic. maybe. either way we had a blast bustling our way through a busy, tight-isled "dollar" store on a saturday. i say "dollar" store as it was one of those that nothing was ACTUALLY a dollar. all items were more or less priced slightly cheaper than target.

we picked through the items obviously hinting towards a winter wonderland and opted for gold and red colors of various sparkling trinkets. and - of course - a christmas tree. we figured we'd put it in the corner and stick our outrageously large watermelons underneath it. perfect. $60 later we went back to nino's with our finds only to wonder how much our boss would have minded the amount we spent to decorate the shop as he didn't know we had gone out to do it. i suppose we will soon find out. or at least, i should say - i will be the one finding out. malin is going back to sweden.

in coming up to christmas, this past weekend was the annual bondi to bronte ocean swim - a total distance of 2.1-2.4 km. and no - i didn't participate. however, i was working that day and it just happens that bronte, being the endpoint, results in thousands of hungry and thirsty people piling into the beach/park area right outside our juice bar. we were ready. kind of. our plumbing had broken down 2 days before and it was yet to be fixed properly - we were simply told to "go easy" on washing dishes. easy to say when there's not thousands of people miling around looking for the best grub to get out of a lengthy competitive ocean swim on a hot day. we broke $2000 only 2 hours after the main competition was over. our unused dishwasher decided to complicate our completion of orders by spontaneously overflowing onto the floor half a dozen times. between mopping up the water and dealing with the masses of people - we hit noon and were tired. it was a good day. im told christmas day is like that 2 hours only from open to close. i honestly can't wait.

outside of work, i have spent the past few days beach bumming and enjoying watching malin and her boyfriend surf. it nagged on me that i was constantly sitting on the beach watching them surf when i really wanted to be out there with them. so anika and i booked in for lessons. today. 6:30 a.m.

we arrived at the shop at quarter after and squeezed into our wetsuits which, for those who have never done such a task, is similar to nothing other than trying to squeezed into a wetsuit. fortunately, i got a short one which meant it didn't reach all the way down to my ankles or my wrists. i was excited that i could put it on looking like a pro - or a least a pro in comparison to all the other first time surfers. i had put on a lot worse when doing my scuba diving lessons. and i figured since my wetsuit at home was a "5" (related to thickness) and these wetsuits were a "2" or a "3" (thinner for the warmer water) - i was off to a good start.

each of us put on matching t-shirt over our wetsuit. the instructors tried to pretend they were cool when in fact, it just made the group of us stick out like a sore thumb. at least now all the "real" surfers knew who to steer clear of out on the waves. we bare-footed our way over to the boards which were all packed in the back of a van by the beach. the instructor first pulled out a 9-footer and handed it to a girl next to me. i gapped at the height of it and wondered what i had gotten myself into. how could i possibly enjoy a sport such as this if i was expected to somehow control a piece of equipment more than 4 feet taller than me on waves that clearly have a mind of their own?

i was handed my own giant board. so were the other "students." we then were told we had to carry our boards and walk. immediately i had issues. my arm couldn't in fact reach to the other side of my board. it was too wide. i adapted a walking stance of using two arms, all the while trying to pretend that i knew what i was doing. i didn't. it was my first time. fortunately i wasn't alone. fortunately we could drag our boards once we got on the sand. and even then it was difficult. not even into the water and already my arms were burning. i huffed at puffed (one wouldn't even know that i have been running 5-8 km nearly ever day since arriving here) as i trudged through the sand - watching as experienced surfers were able to actually RUN with their boards securely tucked under their arms. granted, they were about half the size as mine - but still. i averted making eye contact with them and wondered what the next 2 hours were going to hold for me.

we started with a short introduction of everyone, did our stretched and then about 2 minutes of practice on the theory of how to stand on a board. we then walked to the water, all the while my mind is screaming - "THAT WAS IT?!" i wasn't ready to go to the waves. not yet. but in we went.

that's when my mind figured i might as well just get in there and do it. taking on the well known nike mantra, i slid onto my board and paddled. my arms were already tired. i began berating myself for not doing more pushups in my spare time. we made it over the gutter (the deep part close to the shoreline where all the water from the waves is pushed along towards the rip.... and no, that doesn't make much sense if you don't already know it as i do not have the ability to draw in the sand and show you as the surfing instructors did) - and then we could walk along side our boards. clearly we were not pro-stars to be able to paddle all the way through.

once we got to where the white waves broke, we positioned our boards, slid on and paddled to catch the wave. i caught my first wave and stood up. i immediately fell off, but i had stood up! i was hooked. i furiously turned my board around and pushed back out to catch my next one, and the next one, and the next one.

i wouldn't say that i have in any means mastered the sport. i only had a 2 hour lesson. i confidently (and not so gracefully) fell off my board every time. but i did experience standing up and actually riding the wave. my eyes and throat burned from the salt water. my arms got sore from paddling. my hair came out of it's elastic and i must have looked like a drowned rat. a happy drowned rat who has just discovered a love of surfing. i paddled so much (and most likely incorrectly) that i walked away from the lesson with rub burns on the insides of my elbows from brushing up the sides of the board. i have an ache in my side where another guy's board rammed into me (i happened to have just been standing there and watched it happen - it wasn't untill after that it occurred to me that i should have gotten out of the way). but i loved every minute of it. i wanted more. so much more.

there was something so fierce, so tranquil about the water. something so challenging yet so simple about the sport. it's mental. it's physical. it's spiritual. and it's practically for my backyard for as close as i live to the beach.

today i plan on going to get my own board. it will cost me as much as a few days of lessons (lessons of which will tell me the same thing over and over again) and yet i will have the board for as long as i want... i can't wait. now i understand why the guy questioned me when i signed up as to why it's taken me 2 months to get my butt in gear to learn how to surf. had i known i would love it this much - pick it up this fast - i would have been out there the day i stepped off the plane. okay - maybe not THAT quick - but still.