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.