sooo…. It’s been a long time folks! Missed me? Ok, well when I last left y’all I was going to the beach. And that I did. I went to an Australian beach with Australian, German, and French friends. Never thought I’d be doing that in my life. And it was awesome! However I didn’t realize my camera battery was dead until it was time to go and so I didn’t take any pictures. But my friends all want to go back, so I’m sure I’ll be able to get some later. Anyway, we went there and the beach was almost empty, just a few families running around. We had some food before heading down to the sand, and this mom and pop shack actually had a vege burger! I’m sure it touched utensils soaked in meat juice… but I didn’t want to think about that too much. Anyway, we walked down this little bridge and ta-da! It’s the ocean! And it was beautiful. And there was this huge island that just looked like a big rock off in the distance and I kept wondering if the LOST castaways were hanging out over there. Anyway, we walked up and down the beach and laid out and even though I just put my feet in the ocean, some of my friends tried to body surf. They didn’t do too well. But the water and sand were so clean! A good amount of seaweed was washing up, but no shells…? I saw maybe 2 tiny shells, I thought that was strange. But over all it was amazing to a) be at a beach, it’s probably been about 2 years since I’ve been to one and b) get out of the city!
On the drive down I did have some funny conversations with the german:
He first of all asked if I knew the “May ver ee icks”… and it slowly came to me, but I got it: the DALLAS MAVERICKS! Heck yeah I know them! Then we talked about Dirk. Ohhh dirk.
I then tried to introduce the game of “Slug Bug”… or as you northerners call it: Punch Buggy (that’s so silly. The name… not the game. The game is good. Cause I’m good at it.) Then he said something to the point of ‘de nancies drive de beetle” but then later I think he was saying Nazis.
He also spent years of high school in a boarding school in Connecticut, of all places!! Crazy! He then told me that Connecticut has “small villages” and said he was so surprised how cheap “the wheat” was. Then I thought maybe he was saying ‘weed’ but then he says he doesn’t do drugs. So I guess he was, in fact, talking about the wheat. So hey, wheat’s cheap in Connecticut, who knew!
Anyway, other funny things occurred throughout the day, they are bound to with mixing so many cultures.
Australians do indeed love their abbreviations: Breakfast is Brekky. Even the Macker’s commercial refers to their bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich perfect for brekky!!
All of them pronounce Adidas: Ahhh deee dahs
We then all got in a long conversation about cell phones. The german kept asking about our ‘portable’ phones. “Well, dey are portable, are dey not?”
He also kept calling the suntan lotion his ‘sun cream’
Whenever the French guy talked about his older sister, he referred to her as his ‘Grand’ sister. I kept giggling.
Anyway, like I said, the day was great, learned a lot about Germany… even some German: Achtung! Achtung! And then we came home to hang out at the dorm’s BBQ (which the australians believe they invented and any BBQ in texas wouldn’t be good enough for them) (but I don’t think they even have/use bbq sauce. They use olive oil??)
So we all ate, showered, then went out to a bar called Mooseheads. I actually came home early, I was so tired, I blame the sun. But came home to some friends sitting outside, so we talked for an hour or so while they all smoked (omg, everyone smokes here. I was sitting outside tonight with 5 smokers, and my throat started to burn… I had to stand away… ewwww). Anyway, that was my Thursday!
Friday 2 of my friends went home for the weekend so I didn’t do much that day. In fact I stayed in that night because I don’t have enough money to go out every night and I don’t have enough energy to go out every night. I ended up watching Silence of the Lambs on tv at about 10 at night. I got pretty freaked out… until I researched the Buffalo Bill character, the skin cutter, and he is now Monk’s detective boss on Monk! So I wasn’t so scared of him anymore :) furthermore, it was nice to wake up Saturday morning and not be tired :)
Saturday I walked around on a campus a bit with a friend and on the way home she kept saying she could really go for an Icy Pole. Omg… what? Ends up she wanted a popsicle. They all call them icy poles here!
They say 'i reckon' heaps. "I reckon she's a pretty nice girl" "i reckon there'll be heaps of students at mackers for brekky skipping their toots"
Also they don’t say chug, they say scull (I guess that’s how it’s spelled) It’s so weird: I dare you to scull that olive oil!
And any sweater or sweatshirt is called a jumper. Even hoodies and zippies. All jumpers.
So at night we went out to Academy again and it was fun, even though 2 of our friends weren’t with us.
I’ve seemed to have made myself quite a core group of girls:
S, A, J, and K. now you can know who I’m talking about :) haha, sorta
But they’re great and remind me of how I was freshman year of college. Hyper, loud, energetic… now I’m like ‘hey, it’s 1am, let’s go home’ “oh don’t be silly Texas, the club’s open for 3 more hours!” I am too old for this.
Anyway, Sunday was a nice day. I slept in and enjoyed a lovely (everything here is ‘lovely’) relaxing Sunday. At night I got a call, one of my friends had returned, J, and she wanted all the ‘goss’ from the weekend. So a few of us congregated downstairs and talked and talked and talked. Then we made some dinner and watched CSI. They love them their CSI here. I went to grab some chips and salsa from my room and my friends were intrigued by the ‘white corn’ chips. They usually use Doritos with salsa. What?? That is so weird. And sounds pretty gross. But I then retired to my bedroom for the evening because I figured Monday would be a long day… now that the campus was going to be back in order… I was going to be looking forward to a day of errands.
But then I was kept awake by the lineup of movies my few tv stations offered… no no Australia, don’t show the good movies during the day. Keep showing Lawn Bowling and Lifetime movies from the 70’s, but at night, when I want to sleep show High Fidelity and Adaptation. Thanks for keeping me awake til 1am.
So moving on, today was fairly busy… with it starting at 11:00am. I hit snooze for an hour and a half. Anyway, I went and got myself an Australian phone! It is a Nokia, so my father can’t be mad :) Anyway, it’s one of those pay as you go phones and I think it’s gonna work out nicely. And it’s pink! And a flip phone! I’ve never had a flip phone.
I also signed off on my loans, so now I’ll have money to live off of! (from which to live, grammar kids.) So then I came home and apparently had the biggest urge to clean. Psha, I know, so not like me. I actually scrubbed my kitchen. Scrubbed y’all. I then put away all my clothes (on hangers!) and started to organize my desk until I realized it was time to go to the gym for the bodycombat class. I then found out the $110 dollars at the gym gives me access to ALL the group classes they offer. I thought I had a to pick just one class. I’ve learned that here in Australia, there are many catches, so I prepared myself for the worst, and was very pleasantly surprised when I was told how much the 110 really buys! Hooray! So I did bodycombat, came home and my friends were bbqing outside and my other friend S had just gotten back from her weekend from home, so it was a lot of fun! I showed off my new phone and the phone numbers here are so weird. They all seem to begin with like 0404 or 0403 then followed by 6 numbers. I guess that’s still only 10 numbers, but it certainly isn’t the American pattern. They also all started to plan for their Easter holiday. They all invited me to stay with them over the break, so we’ll see where I end up: either Melbourne or Sydney. So after, I then made my way upstairs to shower and as soon as I shut my door, the dorms fire alarm went off. Omg people, please learn to vent your steam!!!
Anyway, just a few minutes ago my Adelaide friend downloaded a program onto my computer, where I don’t even have to be online, just have my Ethernet cord plugged in (so it won’t use up my MB’s), and I am now tapped in to the network where I can download anyone’s file. It’s like being back on phynd.com or whatever that place was in undergrad. I love networks. I also love downloading the last few episodes of the office for free in under 5 minutes. I don’t think you people realize how excited I am. So now I am off to watch “Phyllis’ Wedding”. Tomorrow I have one lecture at 10 and then I’m off with S to the grocery store to stock up again!
Life looks pretty good right now.
Love and hugs to all of y'all
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9 comments:
Learning to Vent Your Steam is prolly the title to my self-help book. Also, it is ok to call me your Grand sister. Really, I don't mind.
You can come to the NH for Easter.
jen, for a $2000 plane ticket, no she can't
sorry about the icy pole incident. my add kicked in, don't know why i said 'icy pop'.
i also meant to mention that their YIELD signs here they say GIVE WAY. much more polite. as in, 'if you have the time, please give way to the other drivers' instead of in america 'YIELD or die' type tactics.
and pt, if jen wants to spend 2 grand on me, don't talk her down from it!!!
Hey, do the exit signs say "way out?" cuz i always found that funny.
Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it was Jen's $2000!
Don't forget the pedestrian walk signs with just the cut off legs and feet.
i haven't seen any 'way outs'.. i think i've only seen 'exit' but i'm wondering if maybe that's what it says in their 'shopping centers'. they make fun of me for saying 'mall' or parking lot... or parking garage. all of their parking takes place in 'car parks' no matter if it's covered or not.
but i did see a commercial for "tyres"!!
What about signs that say "Far out". I think that would be hip.
And you should just hitchhike or something to NH. It will be fun.
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