After the extreme suckiness of Malaysia, we decided to make our way to Bali, Indonesia for some fun in the sun! We set up camp at The Island Bali Hostel, which had a lovely infinity pool right outside our door! In addition to the comfiest bed on this side of the world! (Although it consisted of a queen size bed as a top bunk and a lounge area as a bottom bunk...how we survived in first year university with bunk beds, we have no idea..we're not as agile as we used to be and found climbing in and out of bed wayyy to challenging!..and we were sober!).
Our first day at the beach (we stayed near Double Six Beach in Kuta) we came up with the bright idea that we needed to become surfers. As the beach was lined with various surf schools, and some nice toned, bronze bodies we figured what the hell! We should give it a whirl! The waves didn't seem TOO scary, so it seemed like a good place to learn. We signed up for lessons the next morning with the Quiksilver Surf School! It was a bit of a rough start that morning, as we forgot we were pasty Canadians and our skin burns much to easy over here. Also, we forgot the basic rule that you can still burn if its cloudy outside (seriously, you really can!)Sore and tired we waited for our intructors to pick us up from the hotel. Little did we know they would come on motorbikes that were not passenger friendly (nothing to hold on to) while travelling down narrow alleyways with maybe two inches to spare on each side between your kneees and the cement walls. Our muscles were already exhausted before our lesson even started due to death gripping the bikes with our thigh muscles for fear of losing limbs. The second we got off the bikes, we heard an interesting loud, rumbling sound. Hmm, that wasn't there yesterday? We looked at the ocean to see massive ripcurl waves pouring in one after another. Ohhh crap. These waves were monsterous, averaging between 1-2 meters...which may not sound huge, but trust us, they are! We registered, signed our lives away (Caroline doesn't like to read things before she signs..luckily Kaitie is a business student and read the waiver first, but still signed anyways because surfing is for cool people!)and recieved our Quiksilver surf shirts!
Our lesson started with an embarrasing lesson about surf safety, and what the names of various parts of the board were called. We took this as a game of trick questions? Apparently he was serious when asking what the bottom of the board was called. We replied "butt"! He didn't get it. By the way, it was so a trick question. The thing was called the bottom. Stupid university has jaded us into thinking that every question is a trick question and has a much harder answer...apparently not when it comes to surf safety? We then learned about surf etiquette. What do you do when there is a surfer coming right at you? Answer: Move out of the way. Kaitie and caroline then ask: What if he moves left, and you chose to move left? Apparently even learning their "safety methods" doea not mean you will be alive at the end of the day.
Next up, was learning how to control the board in the water! This was fun as it was basically body surfing. After about half an hour of this, we were brough back on shore to learn the basics of how to stand up on the board. As our instructor had faith in us, he first taught us the "jump up" method, where you literally fling yourself up from laying on your stomach straight to your feet in one quick swoop!...this did not happen for us. Caroline has the legs of an 80 year old, and almost immediately fell over, and Kaitie has a serious lack of upper body strength. Our instructor laughed at us, and decided to even skip method number two (the in between one) and opted right for the slow and easy method. After practicing a few times on the beach (we looked like total tools) we went to try it out in the water! We ran into the water baywatch style! Confident that we would be pros and asked to join thier surf team! We did pretty god at first! Caroline even got up first try, and we were standing in no time!....Then the exhaustion began to set in. And the waves were getting bigger. Did we mention that they wouldn't give us the ankle straps for the boards? This meant after every wave you ran as fast as you could through pounding surf to try and grab your board before it smacked into the shore. Doing this for two hours, in the Indonesian sun, already sun burnt and exhausted, catches up to you pretty quick! We were suddenly very grateful we were poor and could only afford the half day lesson! At the end of the lesson, we were able to look at the pictures that they took of us! Unfortunately, they mostly consisted of us bailing and getting utterly smoked by huge waves! Although very humerous, we decided that our mental images and pain will last much longer. We were awarded completion certificates of the beginner level surf lesson signed by a world champion Quiksilver surfer! Coooooool!
After our lesson we went back to our hotel, showered, and passed right out! When we woke up, we were surprised as every single muscle in our bodies (even ones we never knew existed before..there are a lot) seemed to be hurting. We were wondering at what point were we picking up elephants during the day?? This lovely feeling lasted for the next 5 days. Ok, ok, so we may not be pro surfers yet, but our instructor said 3 months everyday, and we could be good! There's still hope! Stay tuned to see if Kaitie and Caroline become pros at anything other than...eating cake? dun dun duuuuuuun!
