Day 284! Today was a day jam packed with activities! I got my hair cut… finally, hung out with some new friends in a park on such a gorgeous day, and went out with a bunch of my hostel friends! It was a really really good day!

I woke up this morning feeling motivated. I had been waiting for my first paycheck to go get a haircut and since I just got paid on Thursday, I was going to do just that with my morning.

The barbershops didn’t open till 10am so I went downstairs first to each breakfast.

While I was eating, I did some research on the barbershops around me… and I couldn’t believe what I saw. Haircuts were $40 AUD minimum! A big price jump from my last haircut of 350 Baht a month and a half ago.

I’ve gotten haircuts across multiple countries now, so I was excited to see how my first haircut in Australia compared to my cheap ones in SE Asia.

I had a bit of a wait at the barbershop, since the one I chose was walk-ins only. But once I got seated, I was with the barber who actually owned the shop, so made this $45 haircut a bit better.

I got my sides shaved down again and the rest trimmed up a bit, it’s hard to tell from this next picture but it’s a fair amount shorter now. And a lot more tame… except in the wind.

When I got back to the hostel, I went to the TV room to watch more Heartstopper with my friend Callum. We’re almost done with all three seasons. I’m sure by the end of the weekend we will have finished.

I started getting hungry, so it was time for lunch! I whipped myself up some tuna wraps and finished off my second big tub of hummus. Such a yummy treat to have.

2pm rolled around and it was time to set out again into this beautiful sunny day.

About two weeks ago, you may remember, I met a few Spanish friends at a concert! David, Dan, and Ali. At the concert, they instantly brought me into their friend group and made me feel very welcomed. We’ve been trying to find a time to hang out since, but we’ve all been busy or plans didn’t work out.

But finally, that was going to change!

Ali was having a joint celebration for her birthday, and a friend’s, in a park about a 45 minute walk away from the hostel. It was a really nice walk through a part of the city I hadn’t really explored yet!

I showed up and there were already a handful of people at the little gazebo in the park. They had their friends DJing and even had a couple slack lines pulled up!

There was also a ton of food and drinks and lots of new people to meet.

Most of these new people were native Spanish speakers, so it was another experience of sitting and listening. But everyone would either translate into English or chat to me in English too.

I ended up staying a lot longer than I thought. Originally, my plan was to come for a couple hours and then join my hostel mates at the beach. But I stayed practically until sunset!

It was a really nice little celebration full of singing, dancing, enjoying the outdoors, and new friends!

I started my walk home as the sun was setting. I wanted to get home and eat dinner before my plans for the night!

Dinner tonight was chicken and rice! I’ll definitely need to go get more groceries so I can cook up some more meals. But this one is always a cheap and good.

Tonight, my hostel friends and I were going to go support one of our hostel mates at a bar. She was DJing the entire night, so after some drinks at our local bar… the bench, we headed to the club.

We ended up staying out very late into the night and went from bar to bar.

It was a really fun way to end the day, but I knew this meant I was going to be sleeping in very late into Sunday… we’ll see if I get up to anything.

Oh! I also got an email back from the live-aboard diving job… odds aren’t great but I should have a zoom interview still. But more on that tomorrow!

– Elie