Mayhem, prizes, and little crustaceans

Hi everyone.
I know it has been quite some time since I have blogged. Much has happened. But before I get to all that I just wanted to let you know that I am sitting on the couch watching Crocodile Dundee, which I found silly before but find even sillier now : ) HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone. I personally am very thankful that I got the chance to talk with some of you on turkey day. Sounds like everyone enjoyed a wonderful meal (best yet according to my mom), and great company. The four of us here had an awesome and, I don’t want to toot my own horn too much but, tremendously successful meal and day. We collaborated with my new friend Dianna, Amanda one of her American friends from home, Dianna’s Australian boyfriend Alex. It was exciting and amusing to share the holiday with Alex. He might have been bluffing by saying he loved the tradition, but I doubt it. Each of us cooked/baked our own special contribution and even after we were rendered immobile due to overconsumption there were still mounds and mounds of leftovers to take home. I’m happy to have had this opportunity to come together as friends and really feel like adults cooking our own thanksgiving meal… but I’m also looking forward to next year with the family.

So what else???? Oh ok so I do have a new job. When Brian left Sahnias it just wasn’t the same so I left. OK that’s not the whole truth, but yeah it just wasn’t that great a place. They didn’t pay much, and I couldn’t get all the hours I needed… so I peaced. (that means I quit) Now I work at this little café in Double Bay which is right beside Rose Bay where we live. It’s only a hop skip and a jump from our house (translated, a ten minute bike ride) which is much better then the forty minutes that it took me to get to work before. The place is called Bar Indigo and it is only open during the day so I have all my nights free which I love. Double Bay is a pretty nice part of town so we get a lot of the wealthier patrons which is nice for tips. Some of the botoxed women are kinda unpleasant but that’s ok. I don’t love the job and am still looking for something a bit better but it does pay the bills and leaves a little to save so I can’t complain too much.

Dianna is great… that is my new friend AND a girl I might add. It’s so nice to have another female to hangout with now and then. She is from Maine and very nice. She has been here for about four months now and has an Australian boyfriend like I mentioned before so she knows a bit more about what and where to find fun. We have been going to markets and cute sangria places. One night we went to crab racing. Once you throw in your money you pick a number from a glass and that is your crab for the next race. You also have to think of a great name for your crab (sometimes the best name wins a prize). Then they have all the hermit crabs in the middle of a bar table with numbers painted on their backs and once all the names are read they lift the lid and the fist crab to fall off the edge of the table wins that round (don’t worry they catch them as they fall) and the winning hermit gets a prize. So my crab never actually won but I made friends with the bartender announcer guy and for one race he gave me a free rugby shirt anyway. Very cool, and very large, so basically its Jesse’s, but the whole night was fun none the less. Let’s see… what other neat-o things have we been up to. Oh yeah, Jesse and I went to a salsa lesson one night. SO FUN. At the end of the class our teacher, Guillermo, invited us to an all night salsa club. So the following Tuesday Jesse, Dianna, Brian and I all headed out to salsa salsa salsa. I was a good time, we all need a bit more practice, but I think that we put on an entertaining show.

I’m not sure what more I can talk about right now… Those were the important parts I believe. Jesse’s birthday is coming up on Wednesday and I am taking him to see a comedian at the Opera house. We are both super excited and I’m sure he’ll blog about it after so keep your eyes peeled for that installment.

Miss you all and can’t wait to hear more about your holidays. Been loving the individual emails so if you are ever bored I would love to hear from you and I will do my very best to write back quickly.

Have fun getting ready for the winter holidays : )

-Erin

Hurry, Hurry, don't be late...

Hello peoples… sorry for the lack of information streaming your way these past few days. We’ve been busy doing various things. I’m not too sure what other people have been busy doing exactly, but I’ve been working on getting a day job and I had a trial the other day. It went well and I worked for three hours (and got paid $45 cash) and I’m waiting to hear back. I don’t actually think I will take it, however, because I talked to Sean (my manager at the BBC) and he said he could get me more hours and mostly day hours. So we’ll see how that goes.

We are in preparations for Thanksgiving currently as well. We are all making one or two dishes for the big day and we are combining with another group of fun people (Erin’s friend Dianna, her boyfriend and another friend). We will be having it over at their house because they have a bigger table and more chairs. I am making green bean casserole (my absolute favorite) and garlic mashed potatoes. It’s been a struggle trying to find French friend onions like we have at home and after a long and more or less unsuccessful search, I finally decided to just make some. I looked up a recipe and tried it out and they look (and taste) delicious and almost exactly like the store-bought brand. Crisis averted.

Anyway, we’ll be back with pics and stories and updates and everything (I’ll try to force Taylor and Erin to write a little Thanksgiving Day writeup at least) after Turkey Day, but right now I have to go back to work. I’m at the in between time of two shifts today. Also I have to work tomorrow morning (on thanksgiving day… BUMMER!) because I have to help do the kegs and they forgot to order them on time so they’re coming a day late. Normally I’d help them on Wednesday morning, but this week it is Thursday. Ugh. I work from 6am – 9am so I’ll be back for all the festivities.

Anyway, I gotta go run and catch a ferry so enjoy the pictures below of my little jaunts down by the Opera House… beautiful, isn’t it?

- Jesse “too hurried for a shout out” Meredith


--also i haven't proofread this so I apologize for any and all grammar/spelling errors--

Comment Away

Anonymously if you please even. We heard that people were having trouble leaving comments on the posts so I changed the settings to allow you to post even if you aren't registered with blogger. Hope that helps. And plus if you have something especially controversial or just meanspirited to say you don't have to put your name on it. Win win win.

Adventures Abound

Brian “second dinner” Lindberg here

Hello again friends and a happy Thursday to you all. Actually it's only 12:01am on Thursday here but since for most of you it is only Wednesday and Thursday is only a distant future. So I would like to let you all know from the future that this Thursday will be a good one. At least the first few minutes of it anyways.

This last week was a good one with lots of adventuring and sightseeing and absorbing of this beautiful city. On Friday I revisited Citibank and got those mysterious fees squared away. Turns out they charged me $40 in overdraft fees for a $50 charge that I paid for after 1 day. I felt that $40 was a little extreme to pay for interest on $50 for one day. But thats how it goes I guess. After vowing never to return to citibank I spent the rest of the day exploring Sydney. I started by crossing the street to a huge mall which I had accidentally entered a few times before. It was pretty busy being a Friday afternoon and I had an excellent time people watching. I wandered into a hobby shop and looked at all the board games I wanted to play. I spied a little shop devoted to selling things with dogs on them. They had tshirts and mugs and umbrellas and everything you could think of adorned with pictures of any type of dog you want. I knew my pugloving family would exhaust their stores of pug memorabilia and I could only shake my head at the silly merchandise. There were a number of other souvenir shops that I wandered through, but mostly the mall was filled with jewelry and women's apparel stores much like the TO mall back home. My favorite part of the mall was the three story Christmas tree stuck right in the middle of it all. It was huge and so difficult to get good pictures of because it stuck up through holes in the floors just large enough for it to pass. I made my way to the bottom floor to see the monster of a Tannenbaum up close and maybe get a pic looking all way up its side and found you could walk right under this tree. Can't say that I have ever done that with a christmas tree before.

I wandered down to Darling Harbor after the mall. There were tons of cute little cafes and restaurants along the water that I approached just close enough to see the overpriced menu before I quickly scampered away in fear. The zoo and aquarium looked like fun but I decided there were plenty of other things to see in the harbor for free so I passed. The Chinese gardens were very relaxing with their fountains and rolling hills until I almost was run over by a Dilophosaurus driving a steam engine. Sculptures were also all over the place including this odd one of a sheep getting stuck in some sort of iron curtain maybe. I can't pinpoint the significance of this image but I can say that it caught my attention more than most sculptures do.

Finally I wandered over to the National Maritime Museum to learn all about ships and commerce and Navys. Similar to the Powerhouse Museum, I was not overly impressed by the displays. Most of the exhibits consisted of pictures of ships which I did not find to be too interesting. I did enjoy investigating one of the winners of the national Darwin Beer Can Regatta. Then I got to climb my way up something like 4 stories worth of stairs to the top of the Darling Harbor lighthouse. The stairway was so small and curvy I could understand why the museum people made a big deal of making me leave my backpack at the bottom of the structure. Upon reaching the top a tour guide old man was waiting for me and promptly asked me “how many steps?” I kicked myself for not having Taylor with me as he is known for counting steps and would have been able to reply immediately. I unfortunately had to content myself with counting the 63 steps only on my way backdown.

To finish off the afternoon I explored the Star City casino located near the harbor. I'm not a big casino person and didn't bother betting on anything but I had a great time wandering around watching other people win and lose their fortunes. I was impressed with the casino's huge fake rock structures and waterfalls that reminded me of my swimming pool back home. There was some sort of daily poker tournament going on so I stood around and watched a number of hands at a few tables. Trying to learn as much as I can so I can maybe beat Jesse a few more times and sound a little smarter when I play.

On Monday we went back out to Watsons Bay to explore some more. Last time I had explored the East Side of the South Head point and was never able to navigate my way to the actual point of South Head. So I tried my luck wandering around the West Side and eventually found my way to the point. From there it was really incredible to look around and see Manly straight ahead across the bay with Sydney and the harbor bridge to the left and the endless ocean to the right. I also stumbled on some tide pools and had a good time chasing crabs around trying to get good pictures of them. Turns out that there is also a nude beach called Lady Bay down near the end of South Head so I decided to stroll over there and see what I could see. Alas I was only fortunate enough to encounter a couple of old men hanging out. One was lying out on the rocks reading a book with all his clothing rolled up in a ball to be used as a pillow as he lounged. The other seemed to be having a marvelous time wading in the water up to his knees with only sunglasses and a baseball cap on. I thought that was a bit anticlimactic. If you are going to a nude beach and you aren't wearing any pants you might as well go all the way and lose the hat. It still got me thinking how wading in the water without clothing must be completely different from all the playing in the surf that I have ever done and now that I think back I am more and more intrigued and think I will have to go back there and try it sometime.

Tuesday I ran more errands and on Wednesday the four of us got up early (10am) to catch a matinée showing of the new Bond film down at the mall in Bondi Junction. I enjoyed the film for my $13.50. Pretty much exactly what I expect from a good Bond movie. The theater was pretty nice as well. Stadium seating with the cushiest seats I have seen in a theater in a long time. It wasn't at all crowded either which was a little surprising since Bond had only opened hear in Australia the night before. Also, Taylor heard rumors from other staff members at the hotel where he works that Daniel Craig was apparently staying this week for the premiere of the movie in Oz. I thought that was really cool after the four of us here have been so excited to see his movie for the last month or so. If Taylor ever gets a glimpse of 007 I will pass along the info. Another interesting piece about Aussie cinema is how they have assigned seating in the theaters. Our tickets came with seat numbers on them. It seemed bit unnecessary with the theater almost empty. Also the previews and commercials lasted incredibly long. The movie was listed at 11:10am yet the feature presentation didn't come on til 11:37. I wouldn't have minded so much except for in the 27minutes of advertising we saw about 3 movie previews and the rest were commercials for beers and anti-aging oils and who knows what else all sponsored by James Bond himself apparently. They also ran most of the commercials twice which didn't make much sense to me and mostly just made it worse that we had to sit through it all a second time. So next time we see a movie we will make sure to be fashionably late.

After the movie I wandered around the mall much like I did at the beginning of this post. The only noteworthy part of the experience was when a girl approached me as I was about to wander into a bookstore. She asked if I would like to get a haircut. In my head I had been preparing answers to most any other question she might have for me: “I don't know where the food court is in this maze of a mall” “Yes I am from Los Angeles as you can see from the Dodger shirt I am sporting” “Yes I can recommend an excellent nonfiction title from this establishment” “no I'm not Brady Quinn but I get that a lot” so it took me a second to respond and so she continued to explain to me that she worked at a haircutting place in the mall and was in training and needed a model for one of her lessons. I was flattered that she would pick me out of the crowd as someone that might be in search of a haircut and I admitted I was in fact interested in a free haircut. Unfortunately she explained that the lesson was not until 530pm and I decided to turn down the job as I didn't feel I could find enough stores in the mall to entertain me for the next 4 hours. I do regret the decision now though as I could use a good haircut and I did have a bookstore at my disposal with nothing else to do that afternoon.

So all in all it was a good week. I miss you all back home. I saw my rec league volleyball team ended up finishing first for the season and I am immensely proud. I do think that you guys could have maybe lost one game at least though after I left just to show that my being there made a difference, but you guys went on and dominated without me. Going undefeated without me will hurt my free agent value when I eventually return. The four of us are trying to cook up some plans for Thanksgiving here. I am desperately brainstorming the easiest traditional Thanksgiving dishes to prepare so I can contribute to our feast. It will be strange being the only ones observing the holiday in this strange land, but at least that makes it easier to get time off work. I don't know how it is almost Thanksgiving anyways with xmas trees sprouting up all around us too. Time is flying. Anyways, goodnight and continue to leave comments and send emails about how things are going back home.

Rain, Rain, go away

It is RAAAAAAINing outside right now… insanity rain. Big, thick, heavy, aggressive and wet drops of rain. I feel bad for Taylor. I got home an hour before the rain started, Taylor will probably get off work in the next 2 minutes and have to fjord the river home. Maybe try and float the wagon across.

Anyway, this is the Jess-ster. Living it up. Like I said I just got back from work a little while ago. Work was good tonight, I waited tables on the bar floor today (Lina took the back section, I took the front). Once again I learned a lot and had a pretty good time. It’s fun to stay busy and there’s almost always something to do. The tips weren’t as good at the bar level, but that’s mostly because people normally just get a couple of beers and pay for them right away. There isn’t as much service involved. Also there weren’t near as many people on a Wednesday night as on a Friday night – so I’m looking forward to hopefully working downstairs in the restaurant on the busier nights so I can bring home the cheddar.

Since I blogged last – hold that thought… There was just a monster lightning/thunder combo. It had to have been the tree out front or something because the thunder came instantly after the lightning, the house shook. Awesome – ok continuing… Since last time, we had a nice little day on Tuesday. I went for a run and made some delicious dinner. I bought a couple different kinds of kangaroo meat at the store the other day and we tried them out Tuesday night for the first time. Kangaroo sausages, which have a tasty little zip of some sort to them, and Kangaroo mince were the two types I bought. Sausage sandwiches are easy enough, but I really enjoyed grilling the mince up with some spices and mixing that into a little pasta sauce and veggies to make a tasty meaty pasta sauce. Throw that over some pasta and there ya go! I’m not positive on the health benefits of kangaroo meat, but I do know it is better for Australia and for me than eating cows. You see, kangaroos rarely, if ever, fart. Cows, on the other hand, are almost constantly farting. They create something like 15-20% of Australia’s methane. It sounds like I’d have to make that up, but I’m not. Kangaroo meat is fairly lean and has tons of Iron, so I’m sticking with it for the time being.

Tuesday night we went Salsa dancing and brought along eMay’s friend, Dianna. She was nice, a little quiet and hesitant to dance at first, but that’s understandable when somebody like me is out there tearing it up. We had fun and after a couple hours Lindy got off work and joined the crew (Taylor had to work late again). Dianna has an Australian boyfriend and a buncha US friends who we’re going to hang out with this weekend. Fun stuff.

Today we saw 007, Quantam of Solace. If you haven’t seen it yet, James Bond dies! No, come on now, be reasonable. He doesn’t die… well maybe he does. Just go see it. It is so exciting and intense, and there are about a hundred more chases in this one than the last one (car chases, boat chases, plane, foot, etc). It was quite a spectacle. The end left me wanting a little more, but that’s good because I’ll definitely go see the next one.

Word to your father.

Shout out to Daddy Dick tonight… Dad, your comments always make me laugh, I love reading the US/Aus lingo and is there a manheim auto auction in Sydney? Because maybe you could come out here and buy a car for us… we could really use one at times. Good luck selling the Trailblazer, I’m sure it’ll go quick if you’ve got anything to do with it.

That’s it for now.

Jesse “ready for the sun” Meredith

Queso en en Banco

What’s happening folks? I’ll tell ya what’s happening here… crummy weather. I feel like I’m in Lancaster, PA in October except none of the trees are turning orange and losing their leaves. It’s been only about 65 for the past few days here and gloomy looking at best. Once in a while the sun peeks out for a second to say hello, but then it’s right back where it came from, behind the clouds. Luckily it hasn’t been raining all that much (or really at all) and it’s supposed to get to be warmer starting at the end of this week and into next week. That’s when summer will ideally kick-off and we’ll be in what I like to call ‘Real Australia’ rather than ‘Actually real Australia’. Because in my mind, ‘Real Australia’ is always sunny and warm and the waves are big and friendly and warm and wonderful. Give it a couple weeks.

Alright so my job is pretty cool. I like the people I work with for the most part and I get paid fairly well. I worked a split shift on Friday starting at noon and ending around 11pm. The first 3 ½ hours I was just running food/drinks and bussing tables. It was super busy and a bit hectic, but enjoyable nonetheless. Easy peezy job for me… Then I had an hour or so break before I had to be back for the real fun. Sean (my manager) informed me that I’d be ‘taking the downstairs’ with Samson shadowing me, which meant I got to wait on people finally. Samson said he’d take the two monster tables of people that were supposed to come in (and I’m glad he did) because they ended up being real doozies. The one table he did (with 20 people) was nice enough, but when they food came out everyone forgot what they had ordered and so they had to keep passing the dishes back and forth until it all got figured out. The other table he did (10 people) was a group of Asians that, for the most part, struggled with English and, on the whole, struggled with tipping. I didn’t have to deal with them, however, except to bring them some food and clear their table.

All of the people on my tables ended up being much nicer, friendlier, simpler, and in a few cases, drunker. I took care of one larger party (8 or 10) people that were seeing their Canadian friends off and all of them ordered steins of beer (1 liter each), which cost ~$20. 2 or 3 hours and $400 later they were outta there and I was $30 richer, which is pretty fantastic considering nobody in Australia is supposed to tip. I must have gotten lucky, however, as I was able to rake in a pretty decent pull of tips on the night. Overall it was a fun and different experience and although I’m nowhere close to being sure of what I’m doing completely, I’m moving in the right direction. I work Wednesday – Saturday this week. I’m scheduled for 24 total hours, which is 8 more than last week so that’s gotta be a good sign.

Let’s see what else is going on… Well on Saturday we all had a kind of lazy day again around the house. We did some cleaning and picking up of trash and whatnot before going out to a semi-fun little bar with some people from my work. We all went over to Anna and Lina’s house (two girls I work with) before heading to the bar in Bondi. The dance floor was sub-par and the DJ was even worse, but I got a couple dance moves in before getting tired and heading home.

Erin and I went to church Sunday night and it was a nice service. It was much shorter this week and they added a bongo-playing dude for 2 of the songs. I think he must have been the Pastor’s nephew looking for a gig or something because he was not too good. He didn’t play the bongos for the last song, however, which was perfect because it was one of my favorites. After the service we went to a BBQ at Big Ben’s house (the pastor) and ate all sorts of delicious food. They made beef kebabs, salad, some sort of rice salad dish, and some sort of chick pea salad dish… all of which were far superior to anything I’ve been cooking up lately. Tim, this sweet dude I met the first night of church and who was in the bible study we went to, gave us a ride to the BBQ and back to our house afterwards. He is a baller. He is such a nice guy and his wife is awesome and their house was so cuters (that’s where the bible study was) and they made chocolate covered strawberries. These people are so nice to us. Also we met an American dude at church named Jay. He’s a nice enough guy but I think he’s a bit peeved at us because he was the token American at church. Now we are there and since we are newer everyone wants to hear our accent over his. HA, tough luck Jay!

Today Lindy, T, and myself went to Watson’s bay and walked around this national park thingy called Gap Park. The pictures below are a shot of what we saw and also the general gloomy weather we’ve been dealing with.




Last night I spent 2-3 hours researching fun things we need to do over the next couple weeks and I am excited to say I’ve found quite a few over the next couple weeks/months/etc. Tomorrow night we are going to a free salsa lesson. Following the lesson is a Latin Salsa party that supposedly rages on all night. We’ll all be salsa experts by then so it should be fun. Lindy will show up late because he works until 9 or so and T probably won’t make it because he works until his shoes wear through (he works in a sweatshop from 4am to 2am and sleeps for an hour or so in between days). Erin has made a nice friend called Dianna, but none of us are sure yet if she is real, imaginary, or some sort of halfsies. We’ll see tomorrow as Erin claims she’ll be joining us for Salsa. We’re going to see a comedian for my birthday in a couple weeks (I found him during my research time) and I’m psyched for that. He’s a funny dude based on the youtube clips I watched of his and he’s performing at the Opera House, so how cool is that? I’ll fill you in on other things we’ll be doing as they come up, but for now as a taste I’ll inform you that they include, but are not limited to… Billy Joel in concert, Monday night poker at the University center, secondhand jean/leather jacket market at Kings Cross, Bob Dylan’s art on exhibition, betting on crab racing, giving blood to Australian Red Cross… get excited for updates.

Shout it out…

Garrett – thanks for the e-mail filling me in on all the happenings at Stanford right now. I think that I speak for all of the rescuers (so basically just me and Lindberg as of late… or as of ever… but hopefully that’ll change) in saying that I want you to start your own blog just so I can have something to read and make me laugh all the time. You are great.

That is all people – keep rocking is old school.

Jesse “captain makin’ it happen” Meredith

**side note… please leave comments, but know that I may not respond directly to them in the comments section. If you want to say something specifically to me, send me an e-mail at JesseM288@gmail.com and I will respond asap, thanks**

This Day is an Earful

or blogfull.

Hello family and friends and family of friends and friends of friends (and maybe friends of family?) all of whom I feel are quickly becoming my friends. This is Brian again. I might make a blog one of these days and pretend to be Taylor just so you all hear a little more about what he is up to. But for now I am just plain ol' B, me.

It's Thursday night here and I finished work for the week. All nine hours of it over at Pizzaria del Elvis (I like that more than simple ol' Elvis Pizza). I am spending a fair amount of time these days trying to find more work but am torn between being very picky in the places I look for a job and possibly not find a job for a few weeks, and being not picky at all and work wherever they need people who speak the native tongue for whatever price. The last couple days I investigated bookstores in the area to see if they perchance needed extra helpers during the busy summer months. My searching did not yield much. I found 3 bookstores on googlemaps within walking distance of Rose Bay. 1 place didn't need any help, and the other two don't seem to exist. One address on googlemaps sent me to an apartment complex down by the beach one neighborhood over. Unless there is a bookstore hidden in unit C on the 4th floor of 8 Mervyns St...well I don't know what the internets were thinking there. The other address I was pointed to took me up one of the main roads into Double Bay around here. I found the address I was looking for and the bookstore revealed itself as an Oporto's burgary. Once again, good work interwebs. I would blame Google specifically but I love Google. Speaking of, Google just released a video chat feature for gmail which I hope to use with anyone who wants to talk sometime soon.

So after searching for imaginary bookstores and before waitering for a party of no fewer than 4 Elvis impersonators, I went down to central Sydney to see if I could clear up a little $40 mystery that is appearing on my bank statement. I received a large charge on my account and there is no explanation as to why and rather than fighting through long call times and frustrating customer service reps on the phone I thought it would be less stressful to just go talk to someone in person. After explaining my problem at the branch office, the person behind the counter promptly informed me that their computer-programs-servers-world-wide-interwebs had just crashed/stopped functioning. He was happy to give me a phone and dial customer service for me. I proceeded to wait the obligatory 10 minutes for a customer service rep to become available and after another 10 minutes of discussing my problem and giving her all the necessary account numbers she informed me that their computers were down and I should try back another day.

So all around success on my missions out today. Walking back to the trainstation from my waste of time visit to citibank some peppy solicitor asked me if I was yet a proud owner of an amex card. I had a lot of choice words I considered sharing with the man in his suit about my lack of amex pride these days, but I refrained. I did give him one of the more nasty glares I have ever given anyone as I walked by, and then summoned up some angry music on my ipod to match my black mood. By the time I had finished an album's worth of bitter angry yelling which I like to think of as music by Simple Plan I was feeling considerably better. Then I realized I had listened to an entire album and was still waiting for the final bus to get me back to my home. That did not sit well with me either.

After a workout and a shower I felt cleansed of my day of not finding what I wanted, and I was ready for my evening at work. About half way through the shift a man walked in huge chops for sideburns and all dressed up in a suit. Rather than giving him the usual song and dance about his seating options and the proffering of a menu I figured he was here to see the owner. The owner of Elvis Pizza is himself an Elvis impersonator and seems to be friends primarily with other Elvis impersonators. Once all members of the King's council had arrived, there were four of them including the owner comparing their Elvis voices and singing along to the perpetual Elvis soundtrack in the restaurant. Having not worked during an actual Elvis performance I was eager hear what they got. It really seemed like a lot of fun and quite the spectacle and I enjoyed it as much as I could while trying to handle the Thursday rush during which we ran out fax paper and couldn't find our machine that handles bartercards. So in the end an eventful evening made up for a slow day. Also I won $2.60 off Jesse at poker after I got off work. Most of it was luck I think since I kept getting aces on the river. I'm not a big poker player and am still not completely sure how to use the term 'river' in most cases but I still felt pretty lucky tonight.

To finish up here I want to give a shout out to my Dad. Always ready to impart some spiritual wisdom on anyone who cares to listen. Some people change what they say and how they sound when they put things in writing and are half a world away. Not my padre though. And I love you for it. But if you even think of trying to sing a praise song when we video chat later this week I am hanging up right then and there.

Good Night from down under,
Brian the nerd

My job so far and stuff

Hey peoples – it’s jessem. Just a note about some recent happenings. I had my first night and morning of work last night and this morning. They both went pretty well. Last night started off a little silly because I walked in and they said there had been a lot of cancellations so I could go home if I wanted. I said come on now, be reasonable… It’s my first night and I want to learn something. So Sean told Samson to train me and some other girl a bit before letting us do some work. Midway through the training it got really busy so we had to get down to business. I started just running the pass (carrying plates and trays of food from downstairs up to the tables when they were ready), which was a good way to start because it helped me learn some dishes. Then Samson told me to wait one table, so I started doing that but I had no idea about what to recommend and it was their first time there, so I was kinda screwed. I just made some stuff up and they gave me a small tip so it all worked out in the end. It would have been fine if I was just waiting tables or just running food but they wanted me to do both so it got pretty hectic because I’d keep running from upstairs to downstairs to check the kitchen and back. I learned a lot and it was fun, though. I finished around 10:30 and ran to catch a bus.

As I was getting to the bus station… the bus I needed was just leaving. Since it was 10:30pm, I knew there wouldn’t be another one for a while, so I took off running after the bus – in my dress shoes, pants, and with my backpack. It was great. So anyway, I caught the bus stopped at a red light and knocked on the door and the guy just shook his head at me. So I checked for the busses blinker and just started running the way it was turning. After another block or two of sprinting I found the next stop for the bus and made it just in time. I thanked the driving and wiped the sweat from my brow.

Then this morning I worked at 6am! All we did was move empty kegs from the basement to the street level and move the new kegs down to replace them. Not too bad… And I got a free breakfast out of it. Then we set up the restaurant and bar for the day and I was out of there at 9:30am. Next stop… Bed.

After my nap Lindy and I went to the beach to hang out as T and E left for work and continued working, respectively. Nice day and lots of sun and relaxation at the beach until a couple dogs started going crazy and got sand all over everything. All-in-all a fun day, though. Thanks for reading… Adios.

Shout out of the blog…

Pie – I’m so proud of you mom… reading blogs on the internet and posting comments, it must take you hours though (for how slow you type). Thanks for helping to set up the little online video conference thing the other night, it was great. Even though it didn’t work out perfectly, I still had fun talking to everyone and kind of seeing you guys. You’re the best. Love you.

Sightseeing Sunday

by B

Good afternoon everyone. It's Tuesday afternoon here and I don't have much to do until I work tonight so I thought I would get some writing in rather than look for a day job. I spent Sunday evening exploring the cliffs by the South Head neighborhoods. There is a really incredible 3km walk with some great views of Sydney bay and the ocean. Here are some pictures:

For the entire walk the path was right along the cliff looking out to sea. I was up a couple hundred feet above the water staring straight down contemplating if I could jump from there and live and if there was any good scuba diving out off the cliff. I figured probably not and probably not. Every once in a while there would be little signs with little facts about historical naval expeditions in the area or names of the indigenous plants and animals. I really liked this huge anchor from a ship that crashed nearby.

I took too many pictures to post on this blog but I did upload all of the them to this site here. That web album has a number of other pictures from the trip that I haven't had a chance to post also.

Besides the cliffwalk, not a whole lot has been going on out here in Rose Bay. I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to find my way to a library that had a book I wanted. I put the address of the library into googlemaps and it showed me where to go. Little did I know that the street numbers reset every once in a while so the 247 Oxford St I was directed to was in fact a solid 20 blocks away from the library. I was almost halfway back to Rose Bay by the time I found the book I wanted. It was one of those days too where I missed every bus every time I needed one. So that was an adventure of sorts. Public transportation appears to be an adventure more often than not.

The Office
We all thought Customer Survey was excellent. Jim and Dwight working together is always great, and Jim and Pam in each others ear was awesome.
Pam: What color mustard is his shirt? Yellow or Dijon?
I really wanted to see Jim and Dwight do things Jim's way and come up with a prank for Kelly rather than Dwight's way and simply telling Michael on her. And we were laughing so much through the Bill Buttlicker scene that I think we missed half of the jokes.
Michael: I can’t tell you how much leftover guacamole I have ended up eating. Over the years.

Happy 1st Month in Oz

Hi Everybody,
Brian here. I wanted to write a little more so the first thing you see at the top of the page here isn't about me losing a job. It is a quiet Sunday afternoon and the four of us have spent the day lazing around the house. I generally have made a great effort to be completely unproductive so far today.

The weekend was pretty relaxing. I have been fighting some sort of sore throat/head cold type thing for most of this week and finally started feeling better on Friday. A friend at work said that everyone gets sick within the first month of moving out here. I know Erin wasn't feeling great either for most of this week but it seems that T and J have made it through the first month mostly healthily. But finally feeling better I was pretty excited to have a good weekend. Jesse, Erin, and I went out to the Bondi Hotel on Friday night to meet a couple people from Erin's work. And Saturday night we went out with some people from Jesse's new work. That evening turned into quite an adventure that included visits to 4 different bars that are located on opposite sides of Sydney. But I will leave the telling of that adventure for another post hopefully.

One other thing I wanted to bring your attention to is the subscribe by email option now available on the blog. Now you can be lazy and not check the site everyday and let the blogosphere send you an email whenever a new post is up. I know some people like my Dad were clamoring for this feature. Personally I prefer the RSS feed alert format but to each his own I guess.

Alright I would write more but I am really trying not to accomplish anything today and having written this much and added that feature to the blog is really way too much productivity already. Thank you to everyone who is leaving comments: skinner, GarBear, the whole Meredith clan, even some lindbergs, and spedl who made my day with the mop comment. I'm glad you all get excited to read the blog because we get more excited to read your comments. Have a good weekend and I promise to get some more pictures up soon with my posts.

B is for bread and butter is all i can afford these days Lindy

Why the Long Face? (Face = Blog)

G’day to those of you out in the blogosphere. I hope this bloggerton reaches you at a fantastic point during your day as I am writing it before going to bed and thus in a happy state of mind (and also it turned out to be quite long so if you are at all bored or tired upon beginning, brace yourself – you’re in for a doozy). For those of you that don’t know… I did actually secure a position working at the Bavarian Bier Café and I have my first official shift on Tuesday night. I’m only scheduled to work 16 hours this week (in addition to the 4 training hours I ‘worked’ this past Saturday, which I’ll tell you about shortly). That will hopefully change soon because 16 hours, although it leaves me a load of free time to do other fun things, is probably not enough to make money so we can travel in a couple months. Apparently a lot of the people that work there are students and they will be leaving soon, which means I’ll get more hours. Also, once I learn the menu and start shadowing people I’ll have enough experience to get my own tables and start waiting rather than just running food. In the meantime, however, I’m working on trying to find some other casual work just to get some more cash.

Ok – so the training day on Saturday was ludicrous. I was essentially paid money to taste wine and other goodies. It started off with them showing me how to change out the kegs downstairs in the basement, which I’ll definitely end up doing because I am 1 of the 3 or 4 guys that works there. Then the next step was to taste all the schnapps they have to offer… there were maybe 15-20 varieties. We just had a couple drops worth of each, but it was interesting to try and guess all the flavors (or should I say flavours?). Then we took a little test to see if we could remember some facts about the schnapps, like what the gleishereis schnapps tasted like, it’s color, proof, etc. Fun stuff. (FYI – the gleishereis is a 100 proof, sweet pepperminty flavored, blue, and expensive type of schnapps).

The next station was waiting guidelines and info. We have to follow the BHG (Bavarian something Guidelines) for everything… let’s see, what does it entail? Ok, for instance, when I bring somebody a beer I have to put it in the matching glass and coaster and put it on the table and twist the glass so the little label faces the customer. I also have to know that we only serve ‘Pure Bier’, which is governed by some Bavarian law made in 1516 that says all Pure Bier is made from only 4 ingredients (water, malt, barley, hops – unless of course it is a wheat eier… which has yeast still in there). Anyway, we learned a bunch of interesting but otherwise useless information, which I am struggling to memorize so I can start waiting tables.

The next and final station was a wine tasting station and they had something like a dozen glasses of different wines poured and we had to smell and taste them all and rank them from least to fullest bodied taste. I know nothing about wine and so it ended up being a random assignment of numbers beneath the names of all the wines. I like numbers so that was pretty great. It was already 3:45 by that time and we were supposed to be gone at 3 so most people saddled up to leave. I found out I was working Tuesday and that I’d just get the rest of my schedule then – so I left. After I had walked to the bus station I realized I never gave them a copy of my stupid RSA certificate, so I went back. When I got back there, Sean (the manager) told me to grab a seat and a beer and he’d take care of the paperwork in a couple minutes. Samson (another manager), Manu (a french guy that got hired the same time as me), and I all sat there drinking delicious free beer and chatting it up. Then Sean ordered pizza for everyone and everyone that was still there and not setting up for the night of work hung out for a while. It was a lot of fun and it made me pretty excited to be working there because the people were great for the most part. Also free beer.

Sean and Rachel invited us over to their house and I said I’d be over later so I went home and picked up Blindo and T-Money (eMay was at work, but she’d meet us later) and we went on over to Darling Harbour to hang out. After getting lost and asking directions numerous times, we found the place and hung out before heading out for the night. The first place we went (where a bunch of girls from my work were hanging out) was packed and had a $25 cover charge to get in… ha, right. So we went to Kings Cross instead and Sean knew the managers to a couple clubs there so we got in for free without hassle to 3 different places (the third place Erin met up with us). All-in-all it was great except for having to walk all the way home… that 40 minute walk is really getting old.

Switching gears – tonight I went to a new church. It was called St. Mark’s Anglican Church and looked very cathedral-ly. I think the morning services are pretty traditional and catholic-like because they had the kneelers and all sorts of stained glass and whatnot, but the 5:30pm service is a very small and contemporary service geared towards younger people. There were at most 45 people there and everyone was under 45 years old I think. I don’t quite know what their obsession is with the number 45, but as soon as I figure it out I’ll let you know.

Regardless of them being 45-aholics, it was quite a nice service. We sang a song and there was this cute couple that led worship. She played the piano while he sang and although neither of them was very exceptional, they were both very genuine and I really enjoyed it. It was infinitely less expensive, grand, and absurd than the worship at Hillsong last week… and because of this, much more intimate and poignant. The theme of authentic and honest continued throughout the service as various people gave announcements and then Ben went up to speak. Big Ben – what a friendly guy. He wasn’t that big, but he wasn’t small either. I don’t think anyone calls him Big Ben, at least not to his face anyway. His sermon was based on two passages, one from Isaiah and one from Romans, but focused more on the latter. He spoke mostly about pride and spent some time discussing how faith and arrogance can often go hand-in-hand. We are taught to be 100% sure of our faith, but not cocky… completely sure we are right, but not condescending… it’s hard to make sense of in a way. But I guess that’s the fun part that we’re left to do. The most powerful thing I got from the sermon was that we are never to be proud of our salvation (in the sense that we, ourselves, have accomplished something great), but rather to stand in awe of the grace we’ve been given. Good stuff.

After the service Big Ben walked on over to me and introduced himself and asked me all the generic questions… where I’m from, what I’m doing, favorite popTart flavour, how much I bench, etc. and he said he was glad I was there. I said I was, too… and I wasn’t lying. He handed me over to this other guy, Tim, I think, and two of his buddies who ran a couple small groups that meet throughout the week. After a couple more minutes of chit-chatting I gave them my contact info and got myself invited to join a fun little mid-week small group bible study with anywhere from a handful of people that meets at somebody’s house with food and fun. I’m psyched to go. Wednesday night. One guy even offered to give me a ride because it’s on his way there… easy as pie.

Speaking of pie, the pies here are amazing. You can buy flaky and delicious pies almost anywhere with meat, potatoes, bacon, cheese, and anything else you can think of injected into the heart of the pie. They are so tasty and usually are quite cheap. Another sidenote – Big Ben didn’t really ask me about pop tarts, because they don’t exist here. Sad, I know.

Golly this blog is getting quite long… but I’m not quite done yet. If you are still reading – bravo. I am excited for Tuesday morning because I’m hoping to video-chat with my family back at home. My parents are hosting a Bible study on Monday night and my Sister and Brother-in-law will be there (and possibly some more people) so I’m psyched to get to see and talk to everyone… hopefully. Who knows if it’ll work out, but I’m not scheduled to work and the internet has been getting the job done here at the house so far… so it’s looking good.

Shout out of the day…


Erin [Meredith Martin] – I can’t wait to get to talk to you on my Tuesday, your Monday nights (hopefully). It’s been so long and it’ll be great to ‘hang out’ with you guys for a while. What’s going on with you these days? What are you doing to keep yourself busy now that volleyball coaching is over? Also, has banshee stopped eating electrical cords yet? Man your cats rule… Alright Ni, keep it real and tell Nik to read this blog once in a while too, I know he’s got the time. And if he says he doesn’t, tell him not to re-watch one ‘How it’s Made’ show he TiVo’ed. I love you and will talk to you soon.


Jesse “giving himself carpel tunnel because this blog post is so long” Meredith

Additionally, the pictures at the bottom of this post are all random ones that I liked from when Erin and I went to the aquarium.

Fired Guy

Hello everyone in blogger land. Brian here. I have a couple things to go through on this post. We have Halloween and the weekend, the Melbourne cup, the election, and the job situation for yours truly.

Halloween

First off the four of us had a nice little weekend. A lot of people have asked about if there is Halloween down under. There is, kind of. Going out during the day you couldn't tell that it was Halloween. I am used to spooky decorations being everywhere and there was none of that. I saw a couple masks throughout the day but besides that there weren't any real ghosts or ghouls costumes out and about during the day. Later that night we went out dressed as ourselves to a bar that was having a halloween party. About half of the people there were dressed up. We had a nice little time dancing around and having fun. But overall, I felt like Australia treated Halloween like the states treat St Patty's Day. People dress up in a bit of green and there are a few decorations around but for the most part it isn't really a full blown event.

Melbourne Cup

The Melbourne Cup is pretty much the biggest horse race of the year out here in Oz and took place yesterday Nov. 4. Pretty much the whole country shut down for about half an hour to watch. We went into Sydney to find a fun place to partake in the festivities. A huge big screen was set up outside Martin Place in downtown Sydney. We sat down in front of the big screen with a few hundred other sydneysiders and watched the horses and jockeys get introduced. Immediately we became fans of horses with ferocious names such as Zipping, Barbaricus, and especially Ice Chariot. Septimus and Mad Rush were two of the favorites but in the end it was Viewed inching out Bauer by a nose in a photo finish. What a race! Definitely kind of anticlimactic when they all galloped over the finish line and we all had to wait for the photo finish analysis to announce the winner. Personally I was glad I didn't bet on the race because I can safely say I would never have put money on a name so boring as Viewed. All in all it was a lot of fun. Its cool to see people get so excited about random things like a horse race.

OBAMA

Today is election day as well and Obama has just been announced as our new President! I am a little surprised by the large amount of interest out here in Australia. If someone asked me, never in my life could I tell you when an election was taking place in another country while at home, but out here when people learn I am American they never fail to ask me what I think about our election. I took a nice little jog around the block right after Obama's speech and some lady was taking out the trash and asking her neighbor if she saw who the new American President is. I could only smile as I ran by. The television coverage of the election was also excellent. All day we have had access to cnn and msnbc's coverage of the show and it has really been nice to hear American accents analyze everything that went on. Earlier in the day we only had regis/kathyesque morning shows on tv. They all made passing references to the election and then spending the majority of their time talking up some sort of ziffer mop that moistens and dries your floor all at the same time! When they finally focused on the election they decided to run a 5 minute montage on all the blunders American presidents have made over the years. 4 and a half minutes of the piece was centered on Bush and Clinton. I could only shake my head at Australian TV.

Fired Guy

On to the job front for me. It turns out things weren't working out with me and Sahnia's restaurant in Bondi, though no one officially told me until today. Erin was talking to management on Sunday about her work schedule and it came up that things weren't working out with me and waitering at that establishment. This was all news to me when she later relayed the story to me. I waited and tried to contact the owner for a couple days before having to physically walk down to the restaurant to get the owner to talk to me. By that time I was almost relieved to learn I was fired because I was sick of sitting around and wondering. Over the last couple days I have been really frustrated with getting fired. Getting rejected with something I put my whole self into has not happened often for me. I remember in 5th grade I got denied from getting promoted to the major league division of the Thousand Oaks Little League even after I domoed the tryouts with impeccable execution of every part of the process including multiple homeruns in the batting portion. I was devastated being denied.

I just finished another book, a biography of pitcher extraordinaire Sandy Koufax. Something that really caught my attention was how Sandy stressed the importance of being grateful for any opportunity you may receive. He mentioned how other baseball players felt entitled to a chance to play in the majors. Sandy said you should only feel lucky and fortunate for an amazing opportunity like that. That is the mindset I am trying to keep right now on this whole situation. I think back to my little league experience and realize how lucky I was to have that incredible program to participate with in the first place. I am enjoying my time over at Elvis Pizza and I should be able to get by for a while with just that one job even though I only work about 9 hours a week there. I still haven't seen an actual Elvis show though so it still feels like I haven't quite been initiated as an employee there yet. Hopefully that right of passage happens soon.

Anyways thats it for me, Blindy. I also want to shout out to Plaw as one of the newest readers. It's always great to see new faces on the blog. Not that I don't appreciate the old faces because I do. Patrick, we all down in Aussieland want to hear what you are up to these days. We miss you and we miss everyone else holding down the fort back in America.

B “we have internet in our house again so we can talk to everyone more often” Lindy

and of course the discussion of the last Office is here. Also, Garrett I'm interested in how Fringe is shaping up. I watched the first couple episodes before I left the country and it seemed mildly amusing and a barely acceptable substitute for when LOST isn't on. I might have to download some more episodes online if you think its worthwile.

The Office: Employee Transfer

Didn't like it at all. Really poor episode in general. I don't understand the Jim/Pam story lines recently. We don't know Jim's brothers and they weren't funny. Jim and Pam barely interacted. I don't know what they are trying to do with those two these days. How does Jim defending Pam advance that story line at all? I think we already know he would do that is totally committed to her. I felt the same about the Dwight/Andy feud. I realize D is trying to bother Andy, but I don't understand how that will help him win Angela back. Can someone explain how acting like an idiot and pretending to go to Cornell or pretending to be a Beet farmer will get you closer to winning over the girl? It doens't make any sense to me. Finally Michael and Holly and Darryl was amusing and sad. Singing the blues at the end was the highlight of the episode. I don't want Holly to leave and hope they bring her back. So mostly I am just really confused about what they were doing with this episode. If they are just trying to advance story lines so there can be some sort of ultimate confrontation with Dwight/Andy or some big moment with Jim/Pam then fine. But I don't understand where they are going with this and they didn't make it that funny.

Quick Turnaround – (jessem)

It seems like I quite recently put some words to the screen, but I’ve got a couple things to say and Linder and T are already in bed (10:30pm on a Sunday night – their parents should be so proud) and Erin is still at work (4pm – close)… and there ya have it, I’m blogging while watching some cable TV movie [Outbreak – never heard of it but Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Morgan Freeman are in it according to the credits, so it may be watchable after all].

Bam, what have I for you today? Well… funny you should ask. Erin and I went to church this morning at 11am. It was the Hillsong church (the one with the guy that my mom heard speak somewhere and she said he was fantastic) so we went to check it out. Just our luck, but the guy who my mom heard speak wasn’t speaking today because today was their 25 year celebration. Some guy from South Carolina spoke instead and he was pretty good. He was by far the highlight of the service as I did not care much for the laser light show, smoke machines, and otherwise concert-like atmosphere for the first 45 minutes. They continually referred to the huge celebration tonight at the harbor that was going to be “amazing and awesome”. I gathered from the snippets that there was fun to be had by all including, but not limited to, laser skirmishes, fireworks, jet-boating, and other fun activities. It kind of sounded like a carnival and probably would have been fun to attend. All-in-all I’d say this particular church experience was a good one because we realized it’s almost definitely not the church we’d stick with and I’ve looked up another couple that are not only closer, but from their descriptions on google… less commercialized and media-ized. Incidentally, what exactly does Anglican mean? There’s an Anglican church nearby with some sweet services for young people that I’d like to check out… thanks for the info.

Next I’d like to discuss the upcoming election. Nothing too political from me, but we’re all very excited about it here at 597 New South Head and therefore it should be in the blog somewhere. We’ve been keeping up to date by checking cnn and other news websites… as well as watching Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. It seems like Obama has it all locked up, but honestly who can say for certain? Remember that one time they printed those newspapers with Truman – anything can happen – but we really hope it doesn’t. You should hear people here in Australia. People want Obama to win so badly. It’s surprisingly similar to the US here because so many people are concerned with the election, which is so strange when you think about it. I mean I guess it makes sense when the President of the United States is the leader of the entire free world and by connection the world as a whole (which Australia is a part of). I’ve also been watching Australian government television from time to time, which is just video of the parliament in session. It is very similar to British parliament and consequently superbly entertaining. The Aus Prime Minister is so smart and well-spoken (and has to be because anyone can ask him any question they want to and he has to answer it). I’d love to see Bush in a situation like that, or better yet Biden or Palin.

Handball tomorrow night – I’m psyched. I think tomorrow will be the last practice we go to for a while because they have exams coming soon and cancel practice for two or three weeks. I guess I’ll have to try to find some other way to stay in shape. We’ve spent so much time job hunting and doing other things inside that our tans are really struggling right now. I can’t wait until I actually get a job so I can have a set schedule so I can start getting out to the beach and getting my tan and surf on.

Shout out of the day…


Bskins – haha, you’re vegan. I laughed so hard when I heard about Hof’s response. Alright – the real reason I had to give you the shout out isn’t just to make fun of you, it is because I heard that song… punk rock girl with flowers in her hair… you know the one. Anyway, I heard it while I was in Target and I absolutely lost it. I laughed so hard and now I can’t get it out of my head. I wonder if it is a popular song in other countries or if somehow their playlist got corrupted with it. Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for ya kid. We’re working on big plans for December 30th – January 11th. Woot!


Hold it down in the old US of A for us…

- Jesse “Outbreak (the movie) is like camping when there’s a fire in the circus” Meredith


**Last second update** Since I wrote this on Sunday night (it's now Tuesday afternoon), I have gotten a job working at the Bavarian Bier Cafe. I'm excited about it. I don't start until Saturday but at least I've got something to look forward to. More info in the next post... keep your eyes peeled.

job?

Alrighty folks – quick update on the Jess-meister. As you know from last time I have a job… well that isn’t entirely the case anymore. I don’t currently have a job. No, I didn’t get fired. I quit. I know that it isn’t much better, but it is. Seriously though, you should have seen me at my job. It was a joker broma. Also the people I was ‘working’ with were a joke as well. I worked in a team of 4 or 5. I’m not sure which it was because it there were 5 of us total on my training day, but then the next day one dude had quit. Then there was a French girl who spoke English pretty well, a 19-year-old kid from Georgia, me, and our group leader guy… who I honestly had no respect for. I tried, but I couldn’t respect him. It was a kind of weird sensation because typically I would say even if my boss is a goofus, I’d still respect him/her. This guy/kid though, I mean he was 22 – he wore ridiculous looking sweatpants because he was trying to look sportier because our contractor was fitness first – he had a dumb-looking green tattoo on the back of his neck – he pretended to be going out for beers every night I was around him – he’s never been anywhere in Australia outside of Sydney – and his sales pitch was a joke. He would literally ask every person that walked by, every person, even 100-year-old people, he would ask them if they had come from directly that way or around the corner of the building. They’d be so confused that they would either keep walking and shake their heads or stop and ask for a clarification. If they stopped, he would say – it doesn’t matter, what I do need to tell you is that there is a new fitness first opening up in 4 months across the block. Reading over what I wrote, it doesn’t make much sense… but let me assure you, he is ridiculous.

Be that as it may… I am currently on the market for a job again. And I’m not planning on working in face-to-face sales/marketing. It was horrible. I hated bothering every single person that walked by me. Anyway, I’m looking at working in the hospitality sector. Ya know – maybe to keep the streak going. Erin and Blindo are both working for restaurants and T is probably going to work for a hotel of some sort… so I guess I gotta as well. I’m going to get RSA (responsible service of alcohol) certified tomorrow, which is a boring 6 ½ hour long class that apparently (according to eMay and bLinder) is pointless and easy-peezy. After the class is over I’m running over to the Bavarian Bier Café, which I went by and gave my resume today. It seems like a pretty sweet little place. They have all sorts of awesome Bavarian beers and schnitzels and pretzels and crispy spicy squid and all things delicious. There’s also a café right down the street that needs help on weekends and I gave them my resume, and that’d be a nice little part time thing to make a little extra money (or just money).

Besides work… we’ve been doing some fun things. As Erin said, we went to the Australian Museum. It was fun. It got me so excited to go swimming with the sharks because it’s so unlikely I’m going to get eaten. Also, as Erin mentioned, her birthday was fun. I bought a cake pan so now we can make cakes whenever we want, and we finally figured out how to get the oven fired up, so we’re in business. Taylor and I went to a ‘working holiday expo’ today and it was fairly lame, except we learned that after we are done in Australia we can file to get money back on taxes and they will actually give it to us! Beyond that… there is some sort of program that aus has where they give us an extra 25% of our paycheck just because we are “living away from home”. Now I don’t really understand or fully believe that yet just because I got a 2 minute explanation from Betty and Susie at some tax stand, but even if it is only partially true it’s something fun to check into.

I’ve decided to start a little thing for every blog I finish and post. I’m going to give a shout out to one of The Rescuers’ readers – I know, kind of hokey and a cheesy ploy to get you to read to the end and see if it you that particular day, but hey, I’m doing it and you can’t stop me.


And now my shout out for the day…

Aunt Sandy – I think you may quite possibly be our most dedicated fan and I love getting your comments. You seem to be one of the first to read and comment for every single post. My aunt is so cool. Any big plans for the 5th wheel over the next couple of months? From the sound of things… it’s still quite nice in Dewey so you don’t even need to travel.


Ok that’s all I’ve got everyone – love you all and talk to you soon.

- Jesse “mmm, raspberry jam” Meredith

**update on the jobhunt** Today (Friday the 31st… Halloween) I did my RSA training course and afterwards went to the Bavarian Bier Café and talked to the big kahuna there. They are looking for help asap and got a load of applicants, but apparently I am exactly what they are looking for because I am – (a) not a skinny little girl, (b) not a skinny little boy, (c) on the working holiday visa, not the student visa, and (d) able to speak English. Both (a) and (b) are necessary because they have a lot of girls working there now and they need people to carry full/empty kegs up/down the stairs to/from the basement. (c) is a good one because I can work more than 2-3 shifts a week, and (d) is great because we’re in Australia and they speak some sort of English dialect here. Anyway, I’m going in on Tuesday for a 1-2 hour ‘test-run’ of sorts and if I do a reasonable job, I’ve got the job. So wish me luck. Thanks… that is all

Grinding Away

It's Brian here

It's not quite summer here as most of this week has been gloomy and wet. Couple that with my first full week of work, and this week was sort of a grind. I worked my first two full shifts down at Sahnia's in Bondi as well as my first shift at Elvis Pizza. I spent most of my time trying to remember names and learn the system of the restaurants. There were fun moments but mostly it was kinda stressful. I found myself at times walking around with a half scowl on my face from concentrating so much on not screwing up. So hopefully with time I can relax more automatically and have a better time. Like Erin said, we had a wine tasting event on her birthday which was a lot of fun. I have also never done any sort of wine tasting and couldn't tell the difference between any of the selections we sampled. I did take copious notes though and was prepared the next day when a lady asked me to recommend a sweet, not dry, wine. I was proud to be able to suggest the Goodwynn as one of our sweeter wines.

Another part of my week that was especially slow was the Responsible Service of Alcohol course the state makes you take to work at the restaurants. The course was a 6 hour snoozefest. We sat in a classroom while the teacher told us we should try to keep people from getting drunk. Most of it was a complete waste of time but there were interesting portions. We watched a video that talked about how alcohol affects the body and how that causes what people feel when they get drunk. For instance, the video discussed how alcohol causes testosterone levels in females to skyrocket while hardly affects that of males because our testosterone levels are already so high. The video described how food slows down the rate at which you get drunk by slowing down how fast the alcohol enters your intestines. Then the video went into how carbonated drinks can force open the passage between your stomach and intestines with all the air pressure from the released fizziness. I don't know if I buy that theory and would like to obtain a second opinion before I believe thats how my body works. The teacher was also at times entertaining. She led us in a side conversation about how a hotel in the area recently provided a customer a complimentary gelatto with human feces sprinkled in. Disgusting but entertaining. Probably my favorite part of the course was after the alcohol and anatomy video a kid raised his hand and asked the teacher “why do we sometimes forget what happened the night before after we have been drinking?” The teacher answered matter of factly “It's because of the alcohol” and continued with her lecture. We all just stared at her. It really was an ingenious insight. I could only nod my head. Of course. I never had thought to link alcohol to the effects of drinking.

So thats about it for this week. It's Halloween today and I have no idea what the plan is. I still don't have a costume and if I did I don't know where I would wear my costume out to. Yesterday I registered at the local library having finished all the books I brought with me. I picked up The Secrets of the Chess Machine by R Lohr. But I am more excited about picking up an Australian library card. It is like I actually live here or something. Finally here is my little bit about The Office. If you haven't seen it or don't care, stop reading here. Happy day of the dead everyone!

C.R.I.M.E. A.I.D.

Andy: You’re always safe with me. I’m a very good screamer.
Probably my favorite episode of the short season. Except maybe Weight Loss. Much better than the last couple episodes.
Michael: It squeaks when you bang it. That’s what she said.
I thought this episode moved faster than almost any other Office episode which I enjoyed because there was more substance crammed into the 22 minutes. There were a couple random pieces of the show that I was confused with. David Wallace showing up for the auction seemed random but I guess it was necessary to set up problems with Michael and Holly's relationship. I also didn't love the story line with Jim running into Roy and driving half way out to NY. Seeing Roy was random and setting that whole situation up just to show Jim trusted Pam didn't work for me. I was also reading a Q and A with the writer of the episode here and when asked when Jim and Pam will finally meet up again he said “I’m not sure I’m allowed to say when or if Jim and Pam see each other again.” I have to say that is not something to be kidding about. Judging by a poll taken of our apartment, 25% of people who watch The Office will stop watching it right there if Jam breaks up (Erin's out). Again, I don't even want to consider the possibility. Anyways I can't think of anything else about the show offhand. Everyone have a good weekend! I will hope to have more pics up soon.