Days 10-11: Gold Coast vacation days

For the sake of organization and the logical progression of our trip, I'll consolidate the last two days in to one blog post.

We had the first two of our five total days off with no accommodations this weekend in Brisbane. We chose to go to Surfer's Paradise in Gold Coast, Queensland, one of the world's premier surfing and beach-going spots on the globe. It certainly lived up to it. The high rise condos and cheesy tourist traps initially give it the feel of a Panama City or Destin, but once you see the beach you see where the name "Surfer's Paradise" came from. The water is perfect and clear, with large powerful waves and fine white sand. I've never been in an ocean with such huge waves. I ventured in a little further this time, as we were on the beach for a while and did not see anyone need to be rescued. I guess maybe the even the riptides are more pleasant here, too.

Not a horrible view. 

Our condo for the weekend was incredible as well. A couple of the guys in our group teamed up to put together a really amazing  trip, including cheap travel costs (only about $8 each way on the TransLink buses and trains) and lodging (about $100 total for a condo easily worth 4 or 5 times that). We enjoyed a couple of great cook out meals together, including lasagna the first night and hamburgers grilled by our condo pool the second, as well as $300 in free drink vouchers for a local club that we received from the hotel due to our room not being ready upon our arrival. So even though we felt like we were living large, it was really a very economical trip (I promise I am trying, Dad). 

After a day out on the beach and an afternoon spent at the pool, we had our hamburgers on our condo patio last night as a big family. The food was all delicious, and we followed it up with some games of 20 Questions and Would You Rather. Needless to say, games like that quickly get a little disgusting for the girls, being surrounded by 9-10 Building Science boys all the time.

Jason was really excited for his Double Patty Fried Egg with Peanut-butter Burger

I am looking forward to spending the rest of our time in Brisbane getting some work down here at the on the free internet of the State Library of Queensland (no more McDonalds wifi!) and really getting a leg up on my research phase of this project. I have finally gotten a good grasp on exactly what it is I will be including in my paper, as well as some good ideas on ways to go about performing these studies.