My friend Fern lives in Palm Beach, which is north of Sydney city. I haven’t caught up with him in a while, actually. Nick and I had been meaning to go to the beach, at least before summer runs away, so he suggested Palm Beach and we went there on Sunday. I’d never been there until then. I thought it would be quite far to drive, but it wasn’t too bad. It took a little over an hour, if I remember correctly. I drove in my car and the new experience in driving to a place I hadn’t driven to before was, as usual, a little mysterious, magical and exciting.

Compared to some of the extremely popular and crowded beaches, Palm Beach was quiet. I’m so used to seeing Bondi Beach, which is very famous in Sydney but always packed with people. I don’t quite understand the appeal, except for the fact that there are a lot of shops along the beach as well. I think I very much prefer beaches in quieter towns…

Anyway, I can’t say that getting in the water was thoroughly enjoyable. After putting sunscreen on – it was forecast to be a cloudy day but it was still rather hot and sunny – we walked into the water. The temperature was tolerable but the waves were not. They got pretty rough, and for some reason I just kept laughing every time a wave came and knocked me over. I don’t remember the last time I actually got my swimming gear on and went for a swim at the beach. I went to an inland “beach” last year but it was just a lake, more or less.

The main thing that bothered me about the waves was that they were rough enough to wash me up on the beach and I found myself being pushed along the sand, up the shore. It was quite funny, but the sand was also filled with lots of tiny shells so it felt like the shore was grazing my stomach as I was swept up. It hurt a little bit, and did on my back when I happened to be on my back, but I was pretty amused, and wasn’t injured. I ended up with a lot of sand in my swimmers though, which was far less than pleasant… haha.

After that we just lay on the sand for a while and enjoyed the sun, and didn’t get back into the water. We had some ice cream at the tables by the kiosk, and unfortunately a toddler decided to do his business at the table next to us… it wasn’t a pleasant sight, and was quite uncomfortable, so we walked down to the far end of the beach and just sat for a while.

The air conditioner in my car isn’t working properly for some reason – I think my dad might go and take it to the dealer to get it checked out soon. It shouldn’t be a huge issue, because it was working fine last week. We just opened all the windows.

I drove us to Sizzler, a restaurant that exists in quite a few countries around the world (I went to one in Japan). I am not sure how different it is, but it has a salad bar with a substantial range of food from which you eat whatever you want. It’s quite affordable too. I had kept it as a surprise for Nick because I remember us having a short conversation about it once, and we both hadn’t visited a Sizzler restaurant in quite a while.

I had given Nick a few clues, and he said he had thought it might have been Sizzler. It was nice, he didn’t really have any idea where we were going and we had to pass and do a u-turn, but he had been looking down when we passed it. The food wasn’t exceptional, but I never really gave it a huge amount of credit anyway. My opinion of it is just “good”, but there is nothing wrong with something being just good. :)

We’re looking forward to visiting the beach again, that was also the first time I wore my bikini to an actual beach since I bought it. I hadn’t gone swimming or to the beach for a while before that, and actually didn’t have any swimwear, so it was certainly nice for it to see the light of day, haha.

On the way home we stopped by McDonald’s and went through the drive-thru, at which point I was going to order in an English accent – Nick did it last time, and I am usually very good at English accents but I forgot and ended up speaking normally. On the way out, the car in front of us stopped by the bin at the exit and the person in the passenger seat began throwing their trash in the bin.

Usually this is all well and good, but they took far too long. Someone pulled up behind us, wanting to exit too, and beeped his horn. I just followed suit, and the car in front still didn’t budge for a good half minute.

Up at the traffic lights, we pulled up alongside the car in the next lane. The guy behind us went behind the car. They were cool to turn left when the left arrow went from red to green, but again the guy didn’t budge. When he finally moved, our mates who were initially behind us drove past us – the guy driving said something like, “How ridiculous!”

It was just a funny way to end the night, and it’s always nice to have someone on your side even if it’s just mocking someone who isn’t really paying attention to the road. :P