Since coming to the great country I have had to make a couple of sacrifices. And for the most part that has been a good thing. Due to the outrageous prices of about everything........except the .30 McDonald's ice cream cones, EVERYTHING is 50% more. Including some of my vices. This includes, Diet Pop, Alcohol, and Energy Drinks. Luckily Costco has provided me a cheap outlet for an every now and again .80 Diet Coke, but the other two are being purchased less and less. And I am not good at math, but I think less buying is leading to less consumption. Other bad habits that have been quite easy to break are candy (never ate that much anyway, for $3 a bar, Gas- don't drive and have not ridden in a car for months (they are getting my money on the jacked up rail pass though, and gambling, can't afford it.
A few bad habits I have picked up
-Several phrases and terms: lads, reckon, unlucky. I will lose these quickly upon return to the states I hope.
- Being ok with having no clue what is going on in the world: is the government still on strike? I can't even tell you who is in first place in the NFC East- Cowboys??
- Gossip Girl- UGH, I am embarrassed, but I have all 6 season at my disposal
- A commute- not going to do that when I get back. 1 hour give or take each way, what a waste, which leads right into my next one
- Candy Crush: I may not be eating candy at this time, however I have had everyone's fill of Candy Crush. I think I am on level 385, ha what a joke, I know exactly that I am on level 385 and have been for 2 days now. If someone could write a letter to the company and tell them to make an end so I can quit that would be great.
Estimated Return Home: Late Feb, Early March. Still need to book my flight, but it's looking around that time. Work ends at the end of January and then I hope to travel just a bit more.
One request that I have been receiving a ton of is, what are you doing down there. I did a fairly decent job of outlining my travel time, but other than those amazing home gym photos I have not really summed up a typical day in the life if Australia Scott. So......
5:30 AM- First alarm, unless its Monday, then it is first and final alarm to get up
6:10 AM- Second alarm, won't go back to sleep, but refuse to get up, so I just lay in bed mad
6:20 AM- Get up and shower for work, dress in the hallway mostly to be polite to Stu the roomie (yep sleeping in a bunk bed, bottom luckily)
6:35 AM- Grab a $2 coffee from 7-11 and catch the train to BFE, where Costco is
???- No idea what time the train is scheduled, but I wait till one that is going my way comes and get on it.
CANDY CRUSH!!!
7:30- Get to work around a half an hour early because I can't handle being late, check fantasy football, emails, hide in the bathroom to avoid starting to work before 8.
8-4:27- I don't really like this time of my day. Soul crushing might be an understatement
4:28- sprint to try and catch the bus to catch the train home, usually its late, which is agonizing. You know when you are waiting at a stop and the bus does not show up, the time comes and goes, but still no bus. You are approaching the next arrival time, and then two buses show up at once, your late bus, and then the one that is on time. Mine is always the late one. Really sets the tone for a commute.
4:??? Same as the way to work, get on a train headed home
Candy Crush, or zone out and listen to another Adam Carolla podcast (current listened to count around 200)
5:45PM- Arrive home and depending on the day of the week I will have something to do.
Monday- Basketball league up North
Tuesday- Basketball league by the Bay
Wednesday- wash clothes, buy food, play cards. Note: any task that involves going somewhere is done on foot, meaning that it takes longer than back home and I can only do so much at once. Like carrying groceries or getting to and from basketball games. I still love the transit system though. Very efficient. Would have really enjoyed taking a train from Issaquah out to Seattle for basketball games, or UW games, I can not stress enough how much I hate riding a bus, in any country.
Thursday- Sit on the couch and watch some stupid British show for 15 minutes to just relax, then go change and get ready for some prime time lounging OR get our dream team together and head to trivia night at one of many many many bars. This team consists of whiz kid Dan- American who knows an insane amount about geography and general trivia, very smart guy, stinks at movies and sports....we are a good pair. Then you have previously mentioned Brit, Stu, Stu is our Australia expert with a great grasp on current events, British and other random sports, and various other categories you would find in normal trivia. Then we usually have a few stragglers that are good for an answer or two and most of the time talk us out of a correct answer so their contribution is next to nothing and in a couple people's cases negative.
Friday- Get super excited and be totally over stimulated, usually run to the store and not buy anything because I really want to go to the bottle shop (liquor store). Buy a case for the weekend, run out that night and then be forced to come back again on Saturday, or not drink, not drinking actually usually happens. Saturday is the day I lay around until noon and then head to the outdoor courts to hoop. Sunday is reserved for the Dawgs and sleeping.
Other things that have happened since my last update.
My Monday basketball team won our championship game and finished 11-0. Here in Australia they call every championship a Grand Final, which always makes me laugh. It could be the final of our Monday basketball league, or the last hand in a rock, paper, scissors best two out of three and it would be a GRAND FINAL!!!!! So dramatic. Anyway, the league was not great, as my 29ppg 12rpg 3bpg avg would suggest, but it was fun to get out and run each week. I have never scored that many points a game since grade school, it was kinda cool being the best player again. Is that sad?? NOPE, ok a little.
Halloween has come and gone and this is kind of funny. Brits/Aussies call dressing up for a costume party "fancy dress." No that does not mean nice clothes, it means wearing a costume. In addition they all dress full gore (blood, fangs, black everything, ripped clothes and such), so instead of skanky nurses, you would see a respectably dressed, undead, still bloody, pasty face nurse. I think we do it better, much better. We dressed Stu up as a mummy by ripping bed sheets and wrapping him up. It was a half-assed job that took about 25 minutes. He had tons of gaps and about one wrap around his head. We walked in to the party and after no more than 45 seconds he was told he was a nominee for best costume. So, when I say I think we do it better, I know we do.
Card Games: I have made the full conversion from guy, into old woman. I bring my own bags to the supermarket, I take public transportation everywhere, and now I can play the game Bridge. A group of us have taken to the game and enjoy it even though its still a bit too complex. Fun game, much like driving a stick shift car it was something I thought I would never learn to do in my lifetime. I was wrong.
Hoops/Race weekend, This past weekend Stu and I had a all sports weekend, with a Sydney Kings game on Friday night, and then the Randwick Horse Races all day Saturday. The tickets to both were free, but only the races were worth the price of admission. Sydney was playing fellow west coast rival Cairns and it was plain to see that both teams were over matched from the start. I know these guys are way better than me...taller, faster, stronger, but man did I feel like I could have gone out there and lit up their weak 2-3 zone. I posted a while ago that everyone out here plays a zone d, which applies to their pro teams as well. To sum up the game we saw 2 dunks, a lot of bricks and one pretty awesome split the d tomahawk drive to the hoop. Final Grade C-
Knowing that we would need a good night sleep, we took it easy Friday night and were up bright and early for the track. Met up with some of Stu's Rugby friends and were at the races by Noon. One of the guys father had a horse in the first race, we got their just in time to see it finish dead last. Bummer. But saved me the $10 I would have bet on that guy. All in all it was a sunny, amazing day and we all walked away up a bunch of money on racing, but down a bunch on drinks. Race three Stu and I both lied about the horse we bet on and then silently celebrated when our actual bet won the race, and quickly realized that we were both full of sh*t. Maybe the most entertaining part of the day is the outfits everyone wears. Guys in suits and ties and ladies in dresses and all the crazy hats you could ever think up. Think of the most insane art you can imagine, and then turn that into a hat. Bird's nest, yep, why not, anything is fair game at the races. No mint juleps though. Bummed about that, since I have never had one. Overall race experience B+, only because I got sunburned. .
No idea what the deal with this background coloring is, but I can not seem to shake it. Apologies.
Knowing that we would need a good night sleep, we took it easy Friday night and were up bright and early for the track. Met up with some of Stu's Rugby friends and were at the races by Noon. One of the guys father had a horse in the first race, we got their just in time to see it finish dead last. Bummer. But saved me the $10 I would have bet on that guy. All in all it was a sunny, amazing day and we all walked away up a bunch of money on racing, but down a bunch on drinks. Race three Stu and I both lied about the horse we bet on and then silently celebrated when our actual bet won the race, and quickly realized that we were both full of sh*t. Maybe the most entertaining part of the day is the outfits everyone wears. Guys in suits and ties and ladies in dresses and all the crazy hats you could ever think up. Think of the most insane art you can imagine, and then turn that into a hat. Bird's nest, yep, why not, anything is fair game at the races. No mint juleps though. Bummed about that, since I have never had one. Overall race experience B+, only because I got sunburned. .
No idea what the deal with this background coloring is, but I can not seem to shake it. Apologies.
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