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.