Byron Bay

Okay here's the deal, Byron bay is super mellow, people are mellow and everyone searches for the same thing: to relax. In my opinion that is two thumbs up. I'm looking for that, so I came to the right place. Directly from the bus I called my friends up from couchsurfing (Andy and Oliver). Within 5 minutes they picked me up and they escorted me to the hostel we were staying at. Luckily these guys reserved a spot for me in there room which was rad. The hostel room had our own kitchen, bathroom, 2 dorm rooms and a TV. In my room was three English girls and myself while Andy and Oliver had two Swedish girls. So far so good. I've noticed that most to all the travelers in Australia are either Swedish, German, or English. The own the backpacking region along with the 10 or so Americans I have met on my trip. The amount of traveling that Americans do is little to none and the rest of the world definitely notices it. Some people I have met said I'm the first American they have seen or even met. Go America!

The lead up to Christmas was me going onto couchsurfing and making a post saying "any Australian family want to adopt a child for Christmas" I got responses! which was fantastic but most of them were out of site and out of town so I couldn't make it.

Anyways back to Byron. I booked my hostel for 3 days. One of which was on Christmas Day. So the whole town was in the Christmas spirit. For me it was more like the twilight zone but I went with the flow and participated in all the weird activities that took place. This included lots of Santa outfits, Christmas trees/lights and a white Christmas. Oh wait, I mean sand Christmas. On Christmas day the whole hostel went down to the beach and celebrated. All of which were dressed to impress. It was such a weird experience though. I missed my family oddly and wanted them to experience the same things I was seeing.

The next day one of the girls (Chloe) I was talking to on couchsurfing said she was going to kidnap me for boxing day (day after Christmas) because I couldn't join her and the family for Christmas. So she picked me up and we drove up north about 1/2 hour to this town called Cabarita. Epic surf town that has a population of 200 or more. So barely any people but so awesome. She took me into her family, showed me around town and well I'm still here right now. Cabarita is great.

I'll talk more about it later...