What happens when you put a girl from southern California into weeks of non-stop rain, on her last weekend break from school, and dealing with a stressful job?

 A spontaneous, last minute, and a very EXPENSE trip to the Gold Coast 🙂

I decided to try a new airline this time since Tiger Air was such a shit storm. I heard great things about Virgin Australia so I paid the extra 30 bucks or so to fly with them.  And guess what????? That’s right… wait for it ….. MY FLIGHT GOT CANCELLED!!!!!!!! Wow Australia, you are super consistent with this! The flight I booked just that day was already cancelled by the time arrived at the airport, thank god the next flight was only 45 minutes later but shheeshhhhsshhshshsehh.

So now I am stuck at the airport 2 hours early on a Friday night….

What to do….how to stay entertained?

Well, I do not enjoy shopping so that was out of the question, so I decided to sit at the tapas bar and have some dinner. This is the problem with tapas, I never know what the heck I am ordering!!  I pretty much just point at two things that seemed reasonably priced on the menu and prepare to be surprised. What I ended up getting appeared to be chicken salad stuffed between to Pringles and a block of cheese with an apple next to it.

I knew this would happen.

Those tricky Spaniards.

  

I sat at the bar awaiting my flight when a nice boy from Adelaide approached me. We started chatting as he played professional footy and it was quite interesting hearing his stories. So interesting in fact, by the time I looked at my phone to see the time, the plane was supposed to be taking off in 6 minutes!! Yea, who guessed that was going to happen? I said “thanks for the chat.. gotta run, have fun traveling, you’re cute and have a good night” – sprinted to the gate where apparently they were waiting on me and jumped on the plane.

It is either a really really good thing or a really really bad thing when flight attendants know your name before you hand them your ticket :/

I enjoyed Virgin Australia and the flight. I sat next to a woman from Brisbane and her 10-year-old daughter. I spent the whole time giving her life advice and she spent the whole time keeping me distracted from the fact I hate flying. Fair transaction 🙂

Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort & Spa

I arrived at the hotel around 10 pm to check in and I stood there talking to the reception guy for awhile. He was sweet enough to put me in an exceptional room, some which I paid for but some I think because I tipped him with peanuts I got on the plane 🙂 First thing I did was open up a bottle of sparklingly wine (mini bottle of course), drew a bath and just relaxed. Yes, that is a very nice Friday evening.

The hotel was gorgeous, the room was amazing, the view was spectacular, the tub was relaxing and the bed was cozy. I honestly have nothing bad to say about this room or the resort for that matter. As for the rest of the night, I was in the mood to get out of but not “go out” if you understand the difference? (One involves combing my hair and putting heels on, the other involves putting my hair up and sweatshirt).  I went back down and started bugging my new friend again. He suggested I check out the casino so of course I had too.

 The casino was huge, just like any casino, but it didn’t feel very classy to me like the one I went to in Melbourne. The vibe was much different..more..Gold Coasty? Which you will understand that meaning by the end of this post.

I sat my little Californian but down at the first blackjack table and was ready to start winning some money. After 20 minutes of no cocktail waitress coming along, I asked my new pal Stu, the dealer, where these ladies are. He said, they are not allowed to serve you and you are not supposed to drink at the tables, you must go to the bar…. Ummmmmm what kind of casino is this?  Do you want me to blow all my money here or not???? Just like all their other weird laws, the Gold Coast and each venue have their own strict strategies to try to reduce violence caused by alcohol. This one I thought was just really bad business, I get the lockouts and being strict on people getting in if they are too trashed, but not while one is winning/losing hundreds of dollars playing blackjack.

I had the guy at the front bring some fish and chips up to my room so I could enjoy my late night meal during my cartoon marathon. I also tried to get him to stay and hang out with me. I think he got the wrong impression and kinda freaked out.  He said no but he would call me in the morning…

I’m like, “yaaaaa you better!!!!!”

Him – “Yes, you requested a 7 am wake up call”…

Me- “Ohhhhh yeah.”

“IDIOT!” (To myself the rest of the night)

 

I woke up that next morning at 6 am to the crazy Gold Coast sun blazing in my eyeballs. I got up, grabbed the french fry that was stuck to my butt, threw it on the floor and gazed out at the beautiful view that had just rudely woke me up. I had the waters of the Gold Coast completely surrounding me, with a sunny bright blue sky to accompany it.

After a delicious breakfast feast from the restaurant downstairs, I walked over to the pool to find that it was not a pool but a mini beach lagoon with people snorkeling. It was quite beautiful. I grabbed a fruity drink (only appropriate) from the bar and began chatting it up with the bartenders.

Adventure Time!

After a friendly taxi ride over to the jet ski boat, I signed in and began getting nervous for this jet ski speed boat ride I signed up for. As much as I love these things, they still freak the crap out of me. I began chatting with a family that was taking  3-week road trip up the coast. The daughter was super excited I was from LA as she was going to go this summer. I swear, teenagers think I am so cool. If they only knew 🙂 About 8 of us all jumped in this ski jet boat thing and was prepared on how the ride was going to go, which pretty much was like,  “hey make sure to hold on causeI’mm going to drive like a crazy guy. We rode up and down the channels and extremely high speeds and did crazy turns that got every soaked”. He gave us a tour around the rich fancy houses along the river and showed us some wildlife. Overall it was a lot of fun. I was able to sweet talk my way into getting the driver to give me a ride to my next adventure, so off we went to the helicopter ride at Seaworld.

Now here’s the thing with Seaworld that I found interesting as I was getting driven through the park to the helicopter ramp by an employee. This don’t even know who Shamu is? The have no Shamu??? It is like having Disneyland without Mickey Mouse. They do not have animals in captive as harshly as other places,  I think this is why there still isn’t much of a stigma about Sea World in Australia.

I arrived at the helicopter pad and was ahhhh excited as I have never been one on before. After the pilot ensured me he was not going to kill me, I jumped in and prayed to baby surfer Jesus. It took me a good  5 minutes to get used to the headset as he kept saying to me.. I can’t hear you, talk in the mic. 2 minutes later, I can’t hear you talk in the mic… I guess I was supposed to talk in the mic! But hey I probably saved him from hearing a lot of jibber jabber coming out of my mouth 🙂 The view was amazing, just

The view was amazing, just breathtaking. You could see the ocean with the channels, the skyscrapers with the river. The water was blue, turquoise and just gorgeous. As we were landing, a group of girls who were dressed up to go to prom in 1999 showed up saying they missed the time, the pilot being extremely nice and awesome cause we both made fun of them on the helicopter, and he allowed them to jump in the back and we went out again!

 

After my fun filled day, I was exhausted. Did I have the energy to go out? Did I want to start Tindering up to meet some friends? Well, I thought I did. Until I ordered room service, drank some wine from the mini bar and feel asleep watching Space Buddies. What an exciting night!!!

Surfers Paradise

Sunday came, way too quick let me add, and I was not ready to say goodbye to the Gold Coast or my comfy bed.

I walked to Surfers Paradise which is an extremely touristy area. And I mean Extreeeeeemely. I have never seen so much of “America” in Australia yet. They had Hooters, Hard Rock Cafe, wax museum and gift shops galore.

 

My last stop before the airport was heading to Coolgantta to meet up with a coworker that we have in our Gold Coast office. I spent my last few minutes chatting up with my coworker about life and work. He did confirm that I am just as crazy as I sound in my emails and I did the same with him, so, all in all, it was a successful meet up!

Overall the trip was nice, perfect actually for what I needed. The Gold Coast is a beautiful, with beautiful people, tons of tourist, and a lot of people who like to party. Not the classiest region of the country I am sure, but I still had a great time.

I really work my butt of here in Australia, so I don’t mind giving myself some “me” time when necessary.  I guess this is a good example of how the quality of life is better here in Australia. People are urged to go on holiday, unlike home. Taking vacation is part of life here, it’s culture.  At home if it was raining, I would have just bought an umbrella because that is all I could afford. Here it was raining, and I was able to just jump on a plane and go to paradise.  Knowing what works for you to be happy and satisfied with life and circumstances is such an important variable in actually being and staying happy. Some people love buying expensive things as treats when they work hard. Some vacation, some play video games, and some just party their asses off.  Positive reinforcement is necessary to give yourself.. Motivates peoples, drives people, and as a result makes people feel good.

My life is once again that much more satisfying, and now I am ready to conquer my stressful job and my new semester of school that just started up again.

Work hard play hard right?

Even though I realize my “play hard” has slowly turned into, “Just let me relax hard” but it is just as equally satisfying 🙂

<3 Hot Mess