Pictions and Depictions

Alright folks – I’m feeling bloggy today, but not all that much has happened so I’m just going to post some pics and then let you guys know a little story or two behind all of them. Maybe a little interesting tidbit, maybe some stupid anecdote, maybe a boring epitaph (except I don’t think anybody in the pictures died), who knows, maybe something you won’t expect. Check it.




First up we have a picture I took on Christmas Day of a bunch of people who were performing in the ‘boardwalk’ in between the beach and the town of bondi. They were Hare Krishnas and they were singin’ it loud and proud. I figured my dad would love it… so I took a pic.




Next up is another picture from the party that we went to on Christmas Day at Bondi Beach. As you can see… there were tons of people having a great time and it was a beautiful day and everyone had santa hats on. Also, take a look at that ‘too old to be there at the party but rocking it shirtless anyway’ right in the center of the picture. He is Will Ferrell from ‘Old School’. If you’ve seen that movie you can’t tell me that he doesn’t look like a drunk and naked Will Ferrell at a college party that he shouldn’t be at. He was loving it.




Next up is a slightly blurry picture (it was raining outside and I didn’t have time to let my camera focus) of a BBQ Brian and I went to at Bronte Beach with some friends from my work. It was a fantastically nice day outside and we were enjoying some Frisbee tossing and Doritos… when out of nowhere a massive storm front rolled in. Unfortunately we (when I say we, I mean Anna, who I work with, and some dudes) had just started grilling up some beef and chicken to sweeten up the BBQ (as the picture illustrates) when it started to rain and get really windy. [The reason we waited so long to cook stuff was that there was a massive group of Asian tourists BBQing that were taking up the entire 4-grill BBQ for 1 ½ hours or more] Once we finally got a crack at it, it started raining, storming, insanity. Babies were crying, umbrellas were swept into the sea, roofs were torn free… it was a mess. Lindberg and I thought it was an appropriate time to leave so we ran to the bus to get outta there.




Here is another picture of Tamarama… gorgeous… nuff said.




This is a nice picture of the Sydney skyline a couple hours from sunset. I went down to Duff Reserve aka Point Piper aka a tiny little clearing at the base of a cliff where you can see great views of the harbour. I went there today just to hang out for a bit to check out the view of the bridge and whatnot – just to check what it might be like to view the fireworks from there. It might happen, might not.




This is the volleyball court Linder and I played volleyball all day on today. As you can tell from above, it was a really nice day and we enjoyed a good little day of winning. I’m not sure if you can see from the tiny picture, but one of the guys we were playing with was Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. Jumbo beefstick. It was a fun day.



Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for today… hope you enjoyed the pictures and everything that went along with them. Look for more tomorrow or the next day.

- Jesse "Blogs R' Us" Meredith

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Bloggy People! Hello and how are you? It has been a while, wow, it seems like forever ago I was writing on this blog. I’m sorry I’ve been slacking, Blindo has picked up my slack and so you all know I’ve been working like a mad-man these past couple weeks. I worked two 50-hour weeks and it was pretty non-stop there for a while, but now that’s all past me. Christmas Eve was my last day of work for over two weeks! We (the Bavarian bier café, o’connell) close down from the 25th through the 4th and I am taking off the week after that so I can hang out with Skinner while he is here.

We’ve got all sorts of fun plans in the making for while Skinner is here. First and foremost – he gets here the day before new year’s eve and new year’s eve is supposed to be loads of fun here. Apparently the entire city more or less shuts down as everybody crowds downtown to various locations to get a view of the fireworks… should be fun. Then we are going to Melbourne for 3 days where we have a wide variety of new things to experience. We’re going to a Cricket match on the 5th (well just one day of the 5-day match) and I’m very excited for that.

Cricket is the most ridiculous sport in the world. It lasts forever – it’s unbelievable. Matches are 5 days long… and they play all day. It would never fly in the United States. Nobody could concentrate that long…

Anyway, Christmas here was quite interesting. It really felt nothing like Christmas. It was so bizarre. I mean when I came here I knew it’d be sunny and warm on Christmas but I had no idea that the vibe would also be completely different. We went to a BBQ at one of my work friend’s house and made some delicious chicken skewers and sausages. There weren’t many people there but it was fun hanging out at a real house for a change, with a back yard and a dog and everything. Then we went over to Bondi Beach for the ‘Sunburnt Orphans Christmas’. It cost 50 bucks and included entry into a big party on/near the beach where thousands of people with no families (within a thousand miles or so) were all gathered having a good time. There were a couple DJs and dancefloors and lots of santa hats all around. There was even an airplane smoke ad from Telstra encouraging us to call our mom.

Boxing day was equally as bizarre here as well… in that it is a holiday that makes no sense and isn’t real, but somehow exists. I think boxing day is like when we have the Super Bowl at home, except it’s a national holiday that most people get off work for. See when we have the super bowl everyone just kinda goes over to a friends house, maybe throws around a football, grills up some burgers and hotdogs, eats, drinks, and watches the game. Here it is similar because everyone watches cricket or has a bbq. We went to the park and threw around a Frisbee and hit around a volleyball with some of my friends from work. It was a nice day, little windy, but nice, and the park is gorgeous so we had fun. Then Erin had to work and Lindberg and I just kinda hung out for a while. I took a nap, watched catch me if you can with Brian, and now I’m blogging for all you people out there.

I feel like I should have so much more to say, but it’s been so long that I can’t really fill you guys in on everything that’s happened since I last blogged. Instead – I’ll just throw some interesting pictures from the last couple weeks and give you a little description of what they are and where they came from and what their significance is. Should be fun. Enjoy!



This one is another view of Tamarama Beach... the one you've been seeing in Linder's blogs. This pic was from the first time when Brian and I went to investigate the volleyball situation and we were up at the top edge of a cliff looking down on this gorgeous view. We thought there wasn't volleyball or anything because we couldn't see it from where we were. Great beach though...


This, believe it or not, is our $20 Christmas tree. I know, I know, it's fantastic right? So wonderful. We put a lot of time, money, and effort into creating this beast. I wish we had a picture from Christmas morning when all the presents were under there... but we were too eager and forgot. Most of the presents under the tree were from the Claytons, who sent us all sorts of gadgets and games that we'll be playing with for the next 9 months.



You may be trying to figure out what the heck that is... and for good reason. We were trying to figure it out for a while. Erin walks into the bedroom and freaks out - screaming - running - jumping - etc. So I go in there to investigate and find some sort of massive spider having its brains sucked out by some sort of orange and black giant bug. It was quite disconcerting, especially considering I had killed a spider of similar size the night before under the dresser in the bedroom. After some internet searching and asking around, it turns out the spider is relatively harmless in Australia terms (which means it will only bite you and make you bleed or something, instead of killing you with poisonous venom) and the blackish bug is just a terrifying wasp of some sort. That bug was actually probably somewhat dangerous and poisonous, but wouldn't kill us or anything. At least I hope not. Oh well - it's dead and gone now. Fun stuff.



This picture is a shot from the Sunburnt Christmas Party that we went to at Bondi. As you can maybe see, there were loads of people in Santa hats and whatnot... and we were supposed to call mum (which we all did, I might add).


And last but not least is the three of us on the beach at Bondi, on Christmas Day. Crazy, huh? Erin has her reindeer hat on and I've got my Santa hat on and we're all just excited to be where we are (but still missing everyone at home bigtime).



Anyway, I guess that's all I've got for now... keep your eyes open because I'm predicting a heavy week for blogging because I'll be home with nothing to do until skinner gets here so I'll try to take as many pics as possible of different things and write about them for your enjoyment. I love you all!

- Jesse "good to be back" Meredith

Mini-elephants, Pistols, and Handstand Push-ups

Exhibit A: my (BL here) two and a half year old sandals. Please direct your attention to the blossoming hole on the heel. I decided there are a couple of reasons for me to take a picture of my sandals and show you all. First, my family needs assistance in coming up with ideas for gifts to give to me for xmas because I am difficult to shop for and am constantly arguing that I can't afford to carry around extra things in Oz. Here is a link to the rainbow sandals site for your gift-giving convenience. I wear a size Large. Second, this shows how much stuff we are doing and fun we are having and the can't stop won't stop attitude we try to embody out here in Oz every single day. We are going to keep having crazy adventures and if our shoes fall apart because we are going so many places then so be it.

Moving on. Here are a couple pics I snapped of Tamarama Beach around 8:30 this morning. Pretty nice little place. Jesse and I intend to be spending a lot more time there playing lotsa beach vball. I have been down there something like 4 times now on my own to fulfill my vball needs. Jesse has been a workaholic so he hasn't been able to join me but I believe tomorrow (Saturday) we will be able to both get out there together.

One of those days of vball action was this last Tuesday. I work six nights a week and Tuesday is my one day off so I made sure to make the most of it. I played something like 8 games that day and then went over to a vball friend's house for a massive pizza dinner. Tuesday is also my one night off from having pizza from work so I also felt a bit foolish stuffing my face with more pizza but you won't ever catch me complaining about being given pizza.

The nice lady I play vball with who invited us over for dinner is named Olga. She is pretty much the vball guru in these parts of Sydney much the same way Ramon is the vball guru of Thousand Oaks. She organizes games almost every day, doesn't work too much, and shows up in the morning with fresh fruit to share just like Ramon. So she invited a few of us vballers over to her house for dinner. After some people couldn't make it we ended up with a nice dinner party of six. There was me, Olga, her husband, her 12 yr old daughter, another vball guy from the beach, and a friend of Olga's. The six of us put away something like 5 pizzas. We ate so much. Olga and I doing the majority of the damage I think. My stomach was punishing me for days but it was worth it. I had a lot of fun getting to know more people from out here and having more crazy conversations.

The most ridiculous part of the conversation came from the fact that Olga is Italian and can speak something like 5 languages, her husband is French and can do the same, the other vball guy is Italian and has very limited ability speaking English, and the friend of Olga is Australian who is currently taking Italian lessons from Olga. The result of all this is no matter what language was being spoken at the dinner table, there was always someone who wasn't following. Anything of importance had to be repeated in both English and Italian but much of the conversation was only in Italian for teaching purposes for Olga's friend. I did my best to follow along. I had hoped that my knowledge of Spanish would help me a little with figuring out Italian but it didn't. The daughter was the funniest as she would alternate mid-sentence from Italian to French to English with a heavy Aussie accent almost without noticing what she was doing to me. I eventually started speaking in Spanish just to confuse things more and because I felt that if they got to practice Italian then I should practice espanol. In the end we all had a lot of fun and couldn't get up to leave the dinner table for hours after the meal being so full of pizza. I am definitely excited to get to know these vball peeps more.

Wednesday was a much more relaxed day. Taylor and I went down to Redleaf Pool for a swim. Taylor went into the library which is right next to the pool to return a dvd. He noticed a sign for a xmas card making workshop going on that afternoon. We relaxed on the beach by the pool for a couple hours and then I headed for home to get ready for work. Taylor wandered around Double Bay with a hankering for some sweets. He ended up at the grocery store with an armful of triple choc biscuits, chocolate mint cookies, and gingersnaps. Not wanting to break any bills, he pulled out all the change he could find in his backpack and began counting to see how many sweets he could afford. Standing there by the checkout aisle he was joined by an elementary school aged girl carrying a box of cookies and fumbling with a handful of change. He described this image of him and this girl standing side by side counting their change to buy candy. So funny. He then returned to the library eager for some xmas card workshopping only to learn that the class was for little kids and it probably wouldn't be appropriate for him to attend. T just stood there listening to the librarian, pulled out a gingersnap and begain munching on it, and walked away. Anyways, I thought that was a priceless story where Taylor could be 22 or 7 and it would have all gone the same way (except for he could have made the xmas cards at age 7). And this blog needs more of Taylor (and Erin to a lesser extent) so I will continue to share his stories when I can.

Moving on to Thursday. Taylor and I spent the afternoon lazing around at home again while Erin and Jesse worked. We eventually got up and decided to do this crazy workout Taylor came up with. For twenty minutes we did a circuit of handstand pushups, pistols, and pullups. Pistols are one legged squats, everyone knows what a pullup is, and handstand pushups are one of the harder things I have ever done. The workout called for 5 handstand pushups each circuit. Every once in a while I would be able to get through 2 in a row before falling over and taking a breather. Once I got through 5 in a row. Probably my biggest accomplishment this month. All in all it was a great workout that I expect to be sore from for quite a while. But T and I had a great time and we decided to make a concerted effort to do similar workouts 5 times a week from now on.

Thursday night Jesse, Erin, and I went downtown to check out Ivy, this popular bar we have heard a lot about. We didn't know quite where it was located except for it was somewhere on George St. So we went downtown and started wandering George St and it did not take long to figure out where all the fancy dressed people were streaming towards. The Ivy is this huge multi level bar with all sorts of dance floors and seating areas and a pool that you can swim in apparently (either the pool was in a closed off area that we couldn't find on a Thursday night or it was this little fountain area under the stairs which wasn't too inviting. we will investigate more when we go on a weekend evening). Mostly it was impressive for how big it was. So much of it is an enclosed open air area which is really cool except for that allows people to smoke pretty much wherever they want which is not pleasant. There is a spot on a dance floor with 4 or 5 showerheads hanging from above and a big drain in the floor below. We wondered if they would turn on the showerheads on the weekend and let adventurous dancers get wet at their own risk or if Ivy would be more devious and wait for unsuspecting partiers to wander underneath it before releasing a quick downpour. Either way I like the idea and am eager to see the showerspot in action at some point.

Today is Friday and I went back to the beach like I said earlier. Stanford women's vball just mounted a huge comeback to beat Texas and advance to the national championship game against Penn State, a rematch of last years championship game. Jesse and I were at that game last year and we are pumped to see if Stanford can exact revenge this year. Penn State has been incredible all year. Not only are they undefeated but they hadn't lost a single game in any of their matches this season up until their semifinal match this evening. Pretty incredible. I would like to try and find a sports bar out here that carries ESPN2 from the states and watch the finals on Sunday afternoon.

Alright I think thats it for me and my week. I hope everyone is getting excited for the holidays and enjoying the festive season. December is flying by so quickly. So long from down under.

Sunny Side Up

Hello world! BLindy here. Its 11 in the pm on a quiet Monday evening right now. I am burnt to a crisp and exhausted but still pretty psyched for another full week ahead as long as the sun stays out. So despite my exhaustion and my constant need to reapply chapstick to my poor sunburned lips I will do my best to recount the events of the weekend for you without spontaneously combusting.

Saturday I rolled myself out of bed at some ungodly hour to stumble to the 10am bus down to Bondi Junction to catch another bus out to Tamarama beach. All this was extra difficult because Jesse couldn’t come because he had to work. Apparently he worked something like 50 hours this last week. Anyways, Jesse and I had visited Tamarama last weekend and were very impressed by the coziness of it all. Significantly smaller than Bondi or Manly, Tama is only a hundred meters across or so but is much deeper than that. What I mean is most beaches seem to run parallel to the water while Tamarama is more perpendicular. I think Jesse got a good pic of the place so he will have to post that soon. Anyways I got down there around 11 and played a couple solid hours of beach volleyball. The weather was pretty overcast until about 1230 when suddenly the sun came out and the wind stopped and it was a perfect day for the beach. The competition was mediocre overall. Mostly I played games with and against men twice my age. At one point we were playing a sort of 1 on 2 cutthroat where we took turns being without a partner on one side of the court. Pretty brutal. I also found myself in a game where I was the only guy and we were playing on a girls height net. Awkward game overall for me. I told my partner I had no desire to go all out on a net that was too low. Her response was she didn’t care how I played as long as we won. A statement I can always agree with. Anyways I got three or four games in that afternoon plus numerous dips in the ocean and a chapter or two read in my book (the haters from Zuma will be happy to hear that I still take extended breaks from the vball court to pretty much do nothing and be lazy.) So overall pretty perfect afternoon.

Moving on. On Sunday I got up even earlier! Like 8am! To go down to Manly beach to explore and check out the vball tournament going on down there. Once again I took the trip by myself as Jesse had to work and Erin was too exhausted from a long week and Taylor I think only found his way back home from an excellent Saturday night about half an hour before I woke up. All of us had been talking about getting out to see Manly for a while now but things always kept coming up so there was heaps of anticipation to finally get out to the Northern end of Sydney. The half hour ferry ride was beautiful and highlighted by a boat of santas flying by.

The ferry spits you out into a little shopping area in the middle of Manly with a little five minute walk down to the beach. I took my time wandering around getting acquainted. A couple odd things I found included a sign that said “Kiss n Ride”. I still can’t figure out what that means. Also in the middle of the downtown shopping mall area there was a church with its doors open and music drifting out into the walkway. I glanced in and found a praise band singing a song I knew from church back home. I thought that was pretty cool. Found my way to the beach and sat down for a while to watch the big Manly Beach Volleyball Tournament. I was pretty surprised to find only 10 courts or so of games going on. Even in the smaller tournaments back home there are usually more pools and more teams than that. And that was 10 courts for 4 different divisions (A and AA for Mens and Womens). But it looked like a lot of fun and a little more relaxed than the tournaments I have played in socal.

Wandering down to the end of the beach I hung out on some rocks jutting out into the water. A nice little bench seemed to be situated on the rocks far enough out to feel adventuresome but still removed enough from the water to be safe from the crashing waves. I sat there for a solid half hour just taking in the whole scene. I tried to document it somehow by taking pictures. Here is one that I really like.

With my polarized sunglasses on I could count five different shades of blue going from the water over the rocks to the water over the sand to the deeper water to the lower sky to the upper sky. I'm not quite the photographer yet to make that all apparent but i still like the picture. Anywho I took that picture a couple minutes before noticing a monster of a wave approaching with the potential to crash pretty big on the rocks around me. I had seen a couple waves shoot sprays of water 5 meters or so over my head and I expected even more from this one. I felt so foolish sitting there in wild anticipation and this outsider reached the rocks and blasted white water far above my head. That huge column of water proceeded to get caught up by the wind and fall directly on me and my backpack and all my belongings. I could only sit there and laugh for the next minute or two. Feeling pretty silly I glanced around at the sensible bystanders that had selected less precarious positions on the rocks and tried to figure out what to do with myself. Fortunately my camera is water proof and my phone and ipod and notebook were stashed deep enough in my backpack to avoid any real damage. I took it all as a sign to keep moving. Keep exploring.

When I got back to the vball tournament I met up with some friends I had met the day before at Tamarama. We hung out and watched some vball for a while and then went to play a little on our own. We started messing around with a volleyball and as usual that developed into an all inclusive game of 'lets see how many times we can keep the ball in the air before letting it fall'. We got up to I think 63 touches pretty quickly and of course everyone decided our mission was to break 100 touches. That mission seemed to take the rest of the afternoon and personally I wasn't too determined to complete it. We got to 94 once and since I was the only one counting and was counting mostly under my breath I thought about fudging the numbers and shouting out our success. But I didn't. 20 minutes later everyone was getting pretty sick of our game but still wouldn't quit. In the end we got up into the 90's and I was pretty nervous. 94, 95...dear god i hope this is it finally...I made an easy set for the 98th contact and thought how all the next person had to do was hit the ball anywhere in the air and I could run it down and touch it to reach 100. I'm still pretty dumbfounded by what happened next. As I set the ball perfectly to a girl two spots away from me in the circle, the girl next to me got some of her hair in her eyes apparently and started flailing around in a zombie or michael jackson thrilleresque way. While doing this she distracted and half ran into the girl I needed to make the 99th contact. While dealing with the zombie attack, the girl was only able to reach out and try to kick the ball up as it fell past her. I was helpless. Screened by the hair-in-the-face-girl I watched the ball graze off her foot to reach 99 and then fall to the sand. I apparently had hopelessly gone into a half dive towards where the ball fell and found myself lying on the sand with the ball in my arms. I rolled around in the sand awhile before explaining to the rest of them how close we had come. I then declared it quitting time. I took the ball away and went swimming. 99 is after all kinda respectable.

Monday morning I got back out to Tamarama by 10am to meet some people to play some more vball. We met out at the beach to find the whole thing flooded because of the huge surf. I don't know if its because of the full moon this weekend that is supposed to have been the largest in 15 years but the water had come all the way up the beach leaving a little lagoon where we intended to play. I talked with some people that had more experience in Sydney and they said that had only happened once or twice before in the last 20 years. Pretty crazy.

Without any volleyball, the four of us had a morning to kill. One of the girls (the competitive girl I had played with a couple days ago) and I decided to explore the cliffs around the beach to find a good spot to check out the ridiculous surf. We found an amazing little spot past Bronte beach on the side of the cliff. A little ways off the path along the cliff and down about 10 meters we found a little ledge with a sheer drop down to the rocks 30 meters below. The spot was pretty small and mostly sheltered from the wind with a little overhang to give some shade from the sun. It was pretty incredible to sit there and watch the crazy massive powerful ocean just hammer the beaches around us. We saw a couple guys out with a jetski and surfboard in tow. They looked to be trying to catch some of the massive waves without much success. From our point of view we couldn't tell if they ever caught one but I had tons of respect for them being out there either way.

The two of us hung out on that ledge for a while reading and talking and just admiring the view. She is a traveler from Sweden doing much the same thing we are: exploring Sydney and eventually Australia in general for around a year. The discussion ranged from IKEA to peanut butter and jelly. I have heard from a couple different people now that when Swedes get homesick, they go to IKEA and get swedish meatballs. I laughed on hearing this for a second time now in Australia. I expressed to her my overall dislike for IKEA (i've been in a store once or twice and just didn't like the experience). She responded to this as almost a personal affront. I had denounced her heritage, king and country and all that. I was very amused. Then somehow we established that the song I have sung so enthusiastically as far back as preschool (peanut, peanut butter...AND JELLY) was also known somewhat in Sweden. Pretty incredible I know. Anyways, overall it was another solid afternoon chock full of new experiences that I would say are pretty once-in-a-lifetimeish.

So thats about it for this weekend. I am slowly infiltrating the beach vball scene out here and hope to be accepted as one of them soon. Thanks for everyone who has been commenting and following all this. Anyone who read this post in one sitting especially should be commended. I am going back through this stuff and wonder who I am writing this for or who would want to read this. I am continually baffled that you guys put up with me. And for the rest of you who don't, enjoy the pictures. Those are for you. Also another note on the pictures: I usually have a lot more pictures than the ones I include in these posts and you can see all of them by clicking on the link on the side of the blog. Also I had to change the location of that link because of technical difficulties with my old computer dying. My photos will be separated more into folders by when they were taken. Here is the link to the folder of pictures from just this weekend.

Also I have been hearing about some growing pains as people learn how to comment on a blog or even learn what the word means (its like a noun thats also verb and probably adjective and adverb as well along. i would probably except it as any part of a sentence I think). I just want to say that I am proud of all of you. Its the thought that counts especially when your comment to the blog arrives as a personal email that is sent after only being half written. I will make sure to half respond and it will all get figured out. Alright combustion approaching. Happy Holidays and remember that the temperature in celsius here is greater than the temperature in farenheit where many of you live. HAHAHA.

B

Eid

Happy Friday! This is BL here. How is Christmas so close? How did the Lake Show lose to Sac Town? How is it still raining down here? How excited are you for LOST starting up again in January? How have we been in Oz for two months already?

Amidst all the questions to ponder, we are plugging away getting stuff done and having lots of fun as sydneysiders. Right now it is Friday afternoon. Taylor and I are relaxing at the apartment doing a whole lot of nothing. Listening to Alanis Morsette. Working on crosswords. Perusing the interwebs. It’s a tough life. I told myself last night that I would go to the beach today no matter how gloomy the weather is. Well outside it is pretty dark and cloudy and I have zero desire to pull on a sweatshirt and go sit in the sand by myself and try and read The Fountainhead.

So here I am blogging. I have set into a work schedule where I work 6 days a week from 6-10pm and barely make enough money to pay the bills and put a couple tens aside every week for traveling come March. At this rate I will be able to live off those savings until approximately March 2 before I need to dip into my savings from back home. Which is ok because it’s just money. Money isn’t real. But still I hopefully will be able to pick up another job for during the day so I don’t have to work 6-10pm every weekend night. That’s not too much fun.

Anyways the one day I get off from work is Tuesday and this last Tuesday I was invited by some of my friends at work to their Eid feast get together dinner. My friends from work are from Bangladesh and Eid is apparently one of the largest holidays in Bangladesh. I didn’t really learn as much about the traditional activities of Eid as I would have liked but I surmised it involved a lot of livestock slaughtering and dancing and general merrymaking. For us on Tuesday we just met up at their apartment a little ways outside the city. We sat around and had drinks and then ate some delicious traditional food. Some people were dressed up in traditional garb. Saris and such. My favorite part was the food. They brought out some chicken curry, beef curry, and rice and gave utensils to me and the other foreigners. I began using my fork and knife and then realized that everyone else was just digging into their food with their hands. I immediately discarded my eating utensils and began trying to figure out how to shovel heaps of curry and rice into my mouth with my awkward paws. It was the weirdest feeling to be mixing my food up with my hand. They brought out the hot sauce and warned me that even a small dollop would be too much mixed into a plateful of food. I didn’t listen very carefully to what they were saying. The hot sauce was delicious and the tiniest amount added so much flavor to my whole plate once I mixed it into everything with my hands. There was a bite of extreme amounts of hot sauce that left me incapacitated for a few minutes. I was laughed at as my whole face was running and I could barely breathe. I was laughing too. All in all I was just happy to find a real hot sauce for the first time in Oz. It had been too long. The feast was so much fun and such an experience. I left with rice and curry all over me, my nose running, my hands wreaking of curry (they still haven’t lost the scent today), and a smile on my face.

That’s the big story from this week for me. Volleyball this weekend hopefully. Happy Bday Mom! Everyone continue to leave comments and send emails about home please.

Love You All

Birthday Boy

I can’t believe I didn’t write at all about my birthday… it feels like it was so long ago that I posted, which it was, and my birthday was 5 days ago. Anyway – birthday was AWESOME! I had such a fun day and an even better night. I had to work a lunch shift and then we had some employee training and a wine tasting. It was great because they all knew it was my bday and sang to me and Sean gave me a bottle of wine to take home and just all-around fun.

Then… I came home and Erin had made me a delicious cookie cake. It was really just designed to just be cookies but she cooked it up in the cake pan we have and it was delicious. I ate almost the whole thing that night. She also made some special red icing and spelled out happy birthday on the cake. I can’t believe she baked for me, and quite successfully I might add. Typically she has a lot of problems heating things up, whether it’s chicken or beef or cakes or potatoes or pasta or whatever, she always seems to get distracted and leave it cooking for too long or she gets too impatient and just gives up before it’s done. Anyway, after hanging out for a while at our house, we moved on to the Opera House. It was a gorgeous night and we sat out at the Opera House Bar, which is right on the water, where we had a couple drinks before heading into the show, and oh what a show! It was so much fun. Jimeoin (the comedian we went to see) is a hilarious guy. The things he talks about are great everyday silly things and he’s a wonderful physical comedian. You should look him up on youtube sometime… here’s a good one to look at to get an idea of what he’s like.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RzfTJYMiuwc
By the end of the show and bus ride home I was super-duper tired and ready for bed, exhausted from laughing so much. I got to sleep in the next day and took it easy on my day off (Thursday).

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. Love you all.

- Jesse “old man” Meredith

Volleyballin’

Hey peoples – long time, no speak. Things have been a happenin’ around these parts. I worked 36 hours last week, which is a new record for me here in Australia and I hope to surpass that again this week because I am scheduled to work for 40 hours. Imagine that – working for a full 40 hours in a week. Whoodathunkit?

Alright so I’ll tell you a couple stories from this past week at work. Two nights this past week were complete polar opposites. Friday at work was the day from hell and Saturday was nothing like it. So first of all… Friday. Friday I worked a double shift starting at noon and ending at midnight with a 2 ½ hour break in there… well that’s what I was scheduled to work, but it didn’t end up being that simple. I started work at noon but didn’t get a break until 4:30 and then my break only lasted just over a half an hour before I had to get back to it. And that’s where the insanity began. So I was working downstairs in the restaurant with Caroline (who has been there for 2 or 3 years and is very friendly and a great waitress) and we split the place in half. I had the front section, which included one large function and a bunch of other smaller bookings, and Caroline took the back sections, which included just a few large functions. Her night was bad, but nowhere near as ridiculous as mine.

The function that I had to look after ended up being a group of some of the rowdiest, rudest, most inconsiderate people I have ever met. There were 18 to 20 people, all of whom were eating and drinking for free, but still found a reason to complain about everything they got. They forgot what they ordered and as a result ate the wrong thing so we had to return a dish and make them two extra ones. Also every person in the group was hell-bent on getting as drunk as possibly in the most demanding way. Anyway, in the end they had spent upwards of $1500 and they didn’t tip me at all. Besides those drunkards, three of the tables I looked after were wonderfully friendly (if not ridiculously needy) and seemed to like me quite a bit, but between the three of them I could only muster $1.10 worth of tips. Oh well, shake it off. We finished quite late and had to clean everything up, which took so long. Long story short – I worked for 12 hours almost straight.

Fast-forward… next day. Saturday, boom. Way different. Not very busy at all, we got finished early, I looked after a function of 15 people that were so nice and friendly and appreciative and spent way less money on everything, and gave me a monster tip. It was a great night.

Ok, today me and Linder went to Tamarama Beach to play volleyball because we’ve heard that’s the place to be. Other than it being quite windy, the day was fantastic. We found the courts (there were two set up at the time) and we headed on over to start getting warmed up. Once we started playing, well, let me just say, it was embarrassing. As rusty as I was in Italy, me and Brian were infinitely worse on the beach today when we first started. It was awful. Ball control… out the window, setting… non-existent, hitting the ball in-bounds… yeah right, serving… well we got it over the net. It was a joker broma. Anyway, after two games (and the guys we were playing asking us if we wanted to switch up the teams so we’d have a chance – we said no!) we finally figured out how to play. I think we scored a total of 15-20 points in the first two games and the third we won 21-16 (all against the same team). Then the fourth game was a marathon, it ended 26-24 or thereabouts.

It was so much fun. We both had a great time and were happy to know we still had it. Besides the volleyball… the beach was fantastic. Such a nice little secluded beach. The water is great (kind of an aggressive rip tide) and the sun was shining today. We both got a good amount of sun and Lindy made it back in time for work. I made it back in time to eat food.

That’s the past week for me… sort of. We also did a ton of other things, like going out to fun places and finding a load of fun pubs to go to. Great week. Love you all.

- Jesse “back in the game” Meredith

Working Holiday

BL
With the emphasis on Working. Well a fair amount of emphasis on Holiday as well. But a fair amount of working this week. I finally got bumped up to 24hrs a week at the Elvis pizza place which is very nice. Actually now I am working at Two Fat Chefs which is a pizza place across the street from Elvis pizza that has the same owner. While Elvis pizza is more of a sit down restaurant, Two Fat Chefs has the counter right next to the sidewalk so more people step in and order take away which is nice because I enjoy talking to people in person more than on the phone which is the majority of the orders at Elvis.



Switching locations I had to learn a new system at 2 Fats. It is very similar to the Elvis system just without computers so you have to do everything by hand which can be a pain but I am used to it now. I can’t be expected to go too fast when I have to write everything down with pen and paper. But there is still a lot of learning to be done. For instance, the other night a lady came back with some food she had ordered and told us how the gnocchi was completely inedible. I assured her that many people have eaten our gnocchi without incident. We eventually figured out the problem was that she had expected a gnocchi in tomato sauce while we made one in cream sauce. We offered her a tomato based gnocchi but she refused and asked for a pizza instead. I was unsure how to handle the situation and the other waiter working with me said we should call the owner and ask. The lady was a bit impatient though and did not want to wait (understandably) for me to phone the owner. I made the decision to just give her the pizza which the other waiter said I couldn’t do without the owners approval. I was getting a bit tired of the whole ordeal so I just pulled out my wallet and paid for the pizza myself. Everyone was very frustrated but the customer left with a meal they would actually eat. Everyone else working couldn’t understand why I would risk $12 on some customer. I just felt like it was the right thing to do. And in the end it is only $12 that I could lose which isn’t the worst thing in the world. And the owner did reimburse me later though instructed me not to pull any stunts like that in the future.

Which brings me to my next story. Before we opened tonight the owner came in to have a little chat with me and the other waitress. Apparently he got a few calls the night before complaining about late orders and incorrect orders. He went on to tell us how mistakes are unacceptable and how much business he is losing because of our supposed incompetence. He was especially harsh on the waitress because the customers had reported speaking to a woman on the phone. I did my best to explain to him the circumstances and the difficulty we have getting orders out in a timely fashion when we are limited by the number of drivers he has work every night. Sometimes it gets difficult when he only has one driver work past nine doing deliveries for both restaurants. Anyways getting chewed out by a boss isn’t exactly newsworthy and I really wouldn’t mention all this except for the fact that the owner was also doing a show over at Elvis Pizza tonight. Meaning he was all done up and in his Elvis attire. So while he was doing his best to impart the graveness of the situation and how unhumorous our mistakes are, I was killing myself not to laugh as I got reprimanded by Elvis. I expected and still expect a lot of things of this trip, but getting reprimanded by Elvis was not on my list of expectations.

Another surprise I think we have all experienced is the reactions we have gotten to our accents. The other night I was closing down the restaurant and two girls who looked to be 18ish or so walked in. As I explained to them that we were closing and couldn’t make any more pizzas they began to mock my accent repeating back what I had said. Out of nowhere I had two high school girls laughing at how I sounded. I just laughed along and shrugged it off until tonight when one of the two girls came back to order some food. I decided to call her out about making fun of me. She explained she was just kidding around but I still gave her a hard time. She eventually admitted she liked my accent which was nice to hear. Taylor told us everyday when he goes into work he has to pick up his uniform. His uniform is number 13 so everyday he goes in and asks for number 13. Every time the people repeat back to him “thirtEEn” stressing the hard E sound. The managers offices are right by the uniform station so they always hear this interaction and start echoing “thirtEEn, thirtEEn. We know you're here thirtEEn”. I don’t know. I think its funny. I have gotten to the point where I barely notice the Australian accent anymore except for when they say silly things that don’t make sense. One of their favorites phrases is “how you going?” which roughly translates to “how you doing?” which isn’t all that different but still throws me off. I find myself slipping sometimes and starting to use their silly phrases. I’m not very good with accents and don’t really have a good idea of what I sound like. Without that selfawareness I think I am going to pick up Australian mannerisms without realizing it or being able to control it. If I ever talk to anyone from back home on the phone or on skype and I sound silly, please let me know and give me tips on how to sound pure American again. Ideally I would like to be able to do an Australian accent, but I don’t want to develop an Australian American halfsie way of speaking.

Anyways, another fun encounter from tonight began with a youngish couple wandering into 2 fat chefs. They seemed fairly drunk and the lady came right up to me and leaned over the counter into my face and asked for a Hawaiian pizza. She proceeded to take out her perfume and offer a spritz to her bf and then turned the weapon on me. I politely refused and slowly moved away from the counter to create some space between me and her. I eventually struck up a conversation with the couple and let on that I have been in Sydney for only a couple months. They asked if I had been to Redleaf Park/Pool. I said no. They asked if I had made it down to A Fish Called Coogee. I said no. This went on for a little longer until they were fed up with me and grabbed a pen and pad of paper and began writing furiously. They were so funny. One of them would write while the other one would talk to me both spewing good information about the lesser known hidden secret hot spots in Sydney. They let me know I have been wasting my time here if I am missing out on these places. When they moved on to listing good bars in the area I mentioned that we had received a similar list of bars from someone else and a lot of them seemed awfully fancy. They understood where I was coming from as a lowly traveler with little money but said Sydney is really a town full of “wankers” which was an interesting way of putting it. They said you get judged on your collar and your shoes and if you didn't dress up and go to the nicer places you would miss out on the main scene that Sydney has to offer which is really really awesome despite all the wankers. I said I didn’t even bring a nice pair of shoes. The girl responds “Well I really recommend that you go out and buy a pair…Actually better yet, you can just borrow a pair from Tim here!” I laughed at that and Tim the bf goes “no seriously, you can” and she goes “what size do you wear?” I laughed and laughed. Before the trip everyone said how nice and friendly the aussies are and most of the time it is hard to see that in Sydney since so few of the people are actually from Australia. I’m happy to see more of that ridiculously outgoing and helpful attitude. Plus I now have 2 fat pages of places to visit many of which we could have completely missed out on.

One final piece of news I want to leave you with is the red pen scandal out here in Oz. It’s been all over the news out here. Someone (obsessive parents, emotionally scarred students, color blind teachers…not sure who) is pushing to remove all red pens from schools. The argument is that the harsh nature of the color red is doing serious and irreparable damage to kids. The kids see the score on the top of the test and all the markings all in red where they got questions wrong and they are just devastated. If their tests were marked up in more soothing tones this all would be much less detrimental to their psyche. The news reports had endless interviews of people talking about how absurd this whole notion was. One parent was asking where legislation could lead. Do we just get rid of red altogether? Who is the blue team going to play against? Oddly enough they did not have much any footage of people coming out in favor of the ban. I think it would be hard to show your support without sounding crazy. They had shots of tests that were all marked up in red with a score and a smiley face at the top. Perhaps if that face was in a color less demonic…kinda feels like its always looking at you…Anyways, does anyone out there in blogging land have a problem with red? Should we just switch to pink instead? That’s a nice color.

Have a good weekend everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving

BLindy here. Let me start by echoing Jesse and apologizing for slacking on the rate of stories being uploaded to the interwebs from down under. We had an awesome week here and I am going to do my best to hit on some highlights and work harder to keep everyone abreast of the goingons of Rosebay.

I spent much of this week looking for jobs, sleeping, and reading. The looking for jobs is starting to feel like a wild goose chase. I went to a steakhouse the other day and talked with some people there for a while who seemed very interested in me and said they would give me a call. Then they didn't. Then I went back a few days later and they said they didn't need any new waiters right now. Pretty confusing to me. I checked out a few other places that didn't look right for me. One I thought that seemed ideal for me ended up being very difficult to get to from Rosebay by train or bus or foot or bike. But my hours are picking up at the pizza joint so things could be worse. At least I am still making some money and I continue to see a steady stream of job listings popping up online so I can look forward to pursuing more and more deadends and then hopefully maybe find another sweet job. In the meanwhile I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was awesome for the first half of the book and then started getting too heavy on the philosophy and it started feeling more like a textbook. I still think it was a worthwhile read though. And then there isn't much to say about me sleeping a lot this week. I enjoyed it.

Like Erin said, Thanksgiving was awesome. Everyone made dishes and they all turned out so well. I tried my hand at some mashed potatoes and managed to create something edible so I am quite proud of that. The tremendous meal and the whole process of everyone sitting down to eat together is definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. Also it was very cool to celebrate Thanksgiving out here where no one has ever heard of the Pilgrims and treated the day like any other regular old Thursday. I really enjoyed jumping on the bus down to Diana's place carrying trays and trays of food and letting the other bus people wonder at what we were doing and then we all laughed at Taylor as he spilled hot grease water from some of the food on his arm. That is until I spilled the same grease water (cold grease water though) on myself on the busride back home. Then once we got back home we were all pretty much done for the rest of the day. I have been hit by some pretty large food comas in the past, but this one was something else. Even with all the sleeping I did this week I was no match for the lethargy that hit me.

Then on Friday it was great to celebrate the holiday all over again with family back in the states. I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed to skype with so much of my family at once as they were all together for Thanksgiving. I could see two maybe three people on the webcam but then would hear questions shot at me from numerous other people off camera and got a little nervous thinking about how many people were looking at me that I couldn't see. But it was still awesome to talk to everyone and feel a little bit like I was back in California. I almost wanted to ask that the computer just be left on the table as they were all having dessert so I could just listen to them talk and continue to pretend to be there kinda like in Arrested Development.

Saturday I finally got to work again as somehow my work schedule has me off Tuesday through Friday. I suppose that way I get a little excited to finally go into work which is pretty rare for me and for us and for people in general. Saturday was my first time closing down the restaurant without someone walking me through each step. It amounted to a minor increase in my overall responsibilities which made me feel a little more important and so I enjoyed the work just that much more. But before I could close the restaurant for the night I got to deal with the fax machine breaking on top of a fairly busy night even for a Saturday. There was a lot of chaos that went on but everything seemed to turn out alright.

That is until I got to the bus stop. I must have been so focused on eating my after work pizza that I missed the bus completely as it drove by. Not wanting to wait another half hour for the next bus I decided to pick up my pizza and chase after it. In the pouring rain. I eventually caught it about a mile down the road as it had to do a side circuit into the Edgecliff shopping center/trainstation allowing me to catch up. Soaked and sweating and wheezing a little the bus took me home just long enough for me to get directions to a party I heard about from a cousin of a friend (Eric Adamson from Stanford, his cousin who is from Australia). I inhaled the rest of my pizza, thought about changing clothes, decided there was no time, and went back out into the rain to catch a bus going back up to Edgecliff to get me to the party. It turns out that the bus I just barely caught was the same bus with the same bus rider that I had chased down only 20 minutes earlier. The bus driver seeing me jump on his bus drenched and wheezy for the second time gave me quite the look and I could only shake my head.

All the rushing around was well worth it when I finally arrived at the party and met up with Eric's cousin, Dougal. I got there at 12:30am and was pleased to see the party was still in full swing without any hint of dying down. The theme of the party was Stranger Danger which meant everyone was supposed to bring somebody that no one else had ever met. I was Dougal's stranger. The idea was to encourage everyone to mingle and get to know each other which was great for me. It can be awkward not knowing anyone at a party so it's a lot cooler when you realize that no one else knows anybody either. I got to meet some awesome people and had a great evening which I felt like I earned after my crazy evening of fighting fax machines and bus schedules and the freak spring thunderstorms.

Which brings me to today which is Sunday. I slept for most of today. Big surprise. But I am reenergized for another week of adventures. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well. All of us Rescuers miss everyone back home. I put a couple pictures up with this blog but you can see more pictures from Thanksgiving and all the other pictures I have taken by clicking on the link on the side bar “Lindy's Pics”. Finally, does anyone have any crazy stories from Black Friday or Thanksgiving? We have been wondering how the holiday shopping season will start off back home with the economy being what it is. It is hard to tell out here because without Thanksgiving there doesn't seem to be such an official start to the shopping season.

Somehow November has snuck by and we have been here for almost two months. Craziness. Also microsoft word is telling me that snuck isn't a word. Who knew? Then again they are saying microsoft isn't a word so who knows. Craziness. Happy Thanksgiving people.