Big news of the month: I have moved to Perth. Currently living on the dorm room floor of an ND friend who is studying at the University of Western Australia... but they go back to America next Friday so hopefully I will have found a place of my own by then!
The weather is much warmer and sunnier up here as compared to down south, but I'm sure it will be almost unbearably hot soon.
Here are a few photo albums of the past few months. The links don't work when you click on them but you just have to copy and paste them into the address bar.
Pictures from the footy season:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2244415&id=5612955&l=b0e79523dd
Pics of spring:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2244425&id=5612955&l=1754745fee
Friday, November 6, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
ParkLife 2009
Hey kids! It's been a long time coming, but I figured that with this little blog getting some ink I should go ahead and update it.
First of all, let's start off with a couple of pics from the footy season. As usual, click if you wish to expand them.
looking to get the ball out of the defensive 50
everyday I'm hustling. haha okay that was lame.
footy boys
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For about a month now, my friends and I have been anticipating ParkLife 2009. ParkLife is an annual outdoor spring music festival held in Perth's Wellington Square, with five stages and over 25 artists lasting from 2pm- past 10pm. We bought our tickets awhile ago, and this past weekend it was finally time to party.
The concert being in up in Perth, of course we decided to make a weekend of our trip to the city. Even though we didn't leave until about 6:45am, we were meant to leave much earlier so I got up at FIVE A.M. Keep in mind that I requested off work for that day, and I was normally supposed to be at work at 5am that day. Getting up at work time on a day off, now that's dedication. Anyways that was night one of little to no sleep. There were 6 of us going up to ParkLife from Denmark along with a few others hitching to Perth so we took two cars. I went with Jeff and Mia, while Damo and a few girls went in another car. The only good thing about this crack of dawn, four hour drive was A) seeing the sun rise over the inlet as we left my house and B) the fields of gold. Allow me to explain: in addition to sheep and beef cows, Australia's SW also produces a lot of canola, and as it is spring, the canola was flowering. This meant that for much of the way we drove through fields and fields carpeted by bright yellow flowers. It was really scenic and pretty, especially with a ghostly, towering eucalyptus tree intersperced here and there over the fields.
I should state that the whole reason we left so early was so we could make it to Perth in time to watch the AFL Grand Final, essentially the super bowl of the Australian Football League. However, we had a few stops to make first. Finally in the Perth area, we initially stopped in at Mia's grandparents' house to drop off her younger sister who was on school holidays but ended up staying for lunch. Mia's grandparents are from Greece and we were treated to a delightful Greek spread. We had a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but the thing that sticks out are the homemade stuffed vine leaves, which were little parcels of rice and meat wrapped in grape (?) vine leaves and served with an unsweet. Not too sure on what I was eating or what it was called but Dakes, I'm sure you can help me out here.
Next we hit the road again with one more stop before our final destination. This stopover was at the Belmont Forum, which is a mall. It's actually a quite ordinary, run of the mill mall, not even two stories, but it was great. If you find this humorous, try living in an isloated town of 4,000 for five months and then tell me how sweet a mall looks. I don't even remember what we had to get but unfortunately we couldn't stay long as it was getting close to 1pm and gametime. No thanks to the shoddy GPS, we finally made it to Sean and Pat's house. Sean and Pat are Denmark guys who moved up to Perth for college and live in a house together with some uni mates. We only missed the first quarter and were treated to a real thriller of a game. It was cool to see the game responsible for bringing me back to Oz played at the highest level, on its biggest stage. In the end, the dynastic Geelong Cats defeated the upstart St Kilda Saints (original, eh?) even though the Saints led at the turn of each quarter. The rest of the afternoon I attempted to nap but was distrupted by the Aussies playing drinking games in the backyard so after awhile I gave up and hung outin the back yard with them. It felt divine to throw on some shorts and soak up the sun after so many cold, rainy days down in Denmark. Just to feel that warmness lingering around even as the sun set was so nice... spring has arrived in Australia!
At around 7 Jeff, Mia, and I headed out to a part of the Perth area called Victoria Park for dinner with Mia's Dad, sisters, and relatives. We ate at a Lebanese restaurant, and along with that one time I got lunch from a Thai lady who spoke no English on the street in Bangkok and perhaps brunch in SDH on home game Saturdays, it was one of my more unique dining experiences. First, it was decorated just like a Lebanese Arab place if that makes any sense. There was canvas draped from the ceiling simulating a tent and other cool effects. We sat on small cushions on the floor at low tables, almost Asian style. As we had a big group, Mia's Dad ordered the works for everyone to share and we were treated to a delicious smorgasboard of fresh Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Feta cheese, thin Lebanese bread, Falafel, Tabbouleh, and multiple types of marinated Chicken, Lamb, and Beef kebabs and skewers. It was absolutely incredible so of course I stuffed myself. Oh and there was even a belly dancer who danced around the tables for at least half an hour. Keep in mind this was a pretty trendy, swanky place so it really lightened the mood and brought the whole restaurant together clapping, hollering, and dancing.
After that amazing dinner, the three of us drove back to Sean's house to quickly shower and get ready to hit the bars. Everyone else was already having drinks and ready to go so we had to move fast but were able to jump in one of the multiple cabs we called to take our whole crew to Northbridge. Again, another memorable moment. The cabbie had a brand new ride, and he surely was not holding it back... the dude was blowing by people on the freeway and tearing up entrance ramps like it was the Indy 500. We got to talking and it went a little like this:
Cabbie: So you are from Canada, yes? (note: unfortunately I get this a lot)
Kyle: Nooope I'm from the States.
C: America?? I'm from Iraq, so we're enemies!
K: Oh crap.
But it turned out to be okay... he had been in Australia for 12 years and was quite friendly. He also had family in America and was excited to go visit them soon. He said he is originally from Baghdad and had actually been back to visit since the invasion, which seemed insane to me. All he would really say about it was how annoying it was to be on the freeway, only to get stuck behind an American tank going about 12 miles per hour... once a cabbie always a cabbie I spose.
Anyways our group of 10 or so all met up in Northbridge (nightlife district of Perth City) and went to a few bars before settling on a club called Paramount where we cranked it until about 4:30. Interestingly enough, with violence on the rise in Northbridge, we had to be photographed and electronically finger printed to get into the club. When we finally got back to Sean's, I found all avaliable soft sleeping spaces occupied, much to my dismay. Rather than sprawling on the hardwood, I opted to spend the night moving from car to car parked on the front long trying to get comfortable before settling on Damo's SUV. My first sleeping in a car experience wasn't all that bad until the sun knifed its way into my eyes a few hours later. Night two of little to no sleep.
We all got up semi early and headed out to Sarah's house Sunday morning for our pre-ParkLife gathering at 10am. Same deal with Sean and Pat, Sarah and a few of her Denmark girl friends moved up to Perth. Hmm they must be onto something there... Anywho with ParkLife starting at 2pm, we had a few hours to chill and have pre-drinks while the girls got ready. The weather was GORGEOUS. Even by noon it was warm and sunny without a cloud in the sky and there was a perfect little breeze going on. We were having such a good time just sitting in the sun sipping our goon and juice that I didn't even want to go to the festival, but eventually the time came and again we hopped in a couple cabs.
ParkLife itself was really good. As stated earlier, there were five stages and tons of acts. It was mostly DJ's and dance/club type music. I really didn't know any of the artists, except I did see Lady Sovereign. Also, I saw Empire of the Sun put on their first ever live show. They are a Perth band that is blowing up in Australia and I wouldn't have even brought them up here, but they were recently mentioned on an episode of Entourage so perhaps they are getting noticed in America too? For most of the performances I would recognize a song or two that get radio/club play but otherwise it was all new to me. That didn't matter though, I still jumped and danced my way through all of it. It is really funny to think about my dancing progression and change of heart in terms of Aussie dancing. During my first time in Oz, when I was studying with other Americans, I can remember how much we made fun of the Australians for their dancing. We were shocked and amused to see groups of dudes dancing together, sometimes with girls and sometimes without. I guess you have to be here to see it but I think the best way is that us Americans were conditioned to be embarrassed to try and dance ourselves. However, since coming back the second time and spending all my time with Aussies, I have officially jumped on that dancing bandwagon. It probably helps that no one here knows me outside of 5 months ago but also it's just that carefree Aussie attitude. After Saturday night and ParkLife all day Sunday, I seriously need to detox from dancing... my friends and I cut some serious rugs this weekend.
That's generally all there is to say about ParkLife... it was warm, sunny, loud, crowded, energetic, blurry, and oh so much fun. When it was all over we all met at a predetermined gas station across the street. The convience store there had security out the wazoo; they had about 10 rent a cops inside the store and even set up a queue outside, forming a line and only letting a certain number in at a time like a bar. I bought everyone Paddle Pops (Australian fudgecicles) and as we sat on the curb slurping away and hoards of people descended on the place I understood the need for security. With somewhere around 30,000 drunk Australians across the street, if the place didn't have the insane security it would have been ransacked worse than Georgia during Sherman's march to the sea.
We couldn't get a cab so Jeff, Damo, Mia, and I walked about half an hour to 40 mins down to the central Perth train station to catch a train to Freo. Being a Sunday night it was rather quiet downtown, so we amused ourselves by softly singing songs such as Livin on a Prayer (oooh-oh walkin to Freeeo) and Dust in the Wind as we walked. We finally got back to Sarah's house and hung out before turning in around 2am. The next day Jeff woke up early and since we were all in the same room we all ended up getting up then too. Night Three of little to no sleep. Again, though, it was worth it, because Jeff wanted to go grab some breakfast at McD's or HJ's (Hungry Jack's aka Burger King) but I convinced him and a few others to go into Freo instead since we were just south of town. Monday was a public holiday so luckily the Fremantle Markets were open. It was kind of funny with myself leading the way for once, as I knew the area more than any of the others. I tried to refrain from too many "that place has great __'s" and "this one time __ happened over there" 's as that would probably be annoying but I slipped in a few fun facts here and there. For all those who studied in Freo with me, we got crepes from the markets and then had Old Shanghai. Everything is exactly the same, even that one bar that was boarded up (Madonna's I think it was called) is still closed with nothing new in its stead.
To make a long story long, that's about it. After walking around Freo a bit we went back to Sarah's, said our goodbyes, and hit the road. Sadly enough, I'm now sick thanks to my three nights of little to no sleep and the other disservices I did to my immune system over the weekend but luckily I have this weekend off as well so I can hopefully relax and sleep a lot.
That's all for now. In closing.... GO IRISH, BEAT HUSKIES!
ParkLife crew... spot the American
in the shadows of Perth CBD
...comments please!
First of all, let's start off with a couple of pics from the footy season. As usual, click if you wish to expand them.
looking to get the ball out of the defensive 50
everyday I'm hustling. haha okay that was lame.
footy boys
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For about a month now, my friends and I have been anticipating ParkLife 2009. ParkLife is an annual outdoor spring music festival held in Perth's Wellington Square, with five stages and over 25 artists lasting from 2pm- past 10pm. We bought our tickets awhile ago, and this past weekend it was finally time to party.
The concert being in up in Perth, of course we decided to make a weekend of our trip to the city. Even though we didn't leave until about 6:45am, we were meant to leave much earlier so I got up at FIVE A.M. Keep in mind that I requested off work for that day, and I was normally supposed to be at work at 5am that day. Getting up at work time on a day off, now that's dedication. Anyways that was night one of little to no sleep. There were 6 of us going up to ParkLife from Denmark along with a few others hitching to Perth so we took two cars. I went with Jeff and Mia, while Damo and a few girls went in another car. The only good thing about this crack of dawn, four hour drive was A) seeing the sun rise over the inlet as we left my house and B) the fields of gold. Allow me to explain: in addition to sheep and beef cows, Australia's SW also produces a lot of canola, and as it is spring, the canola was flowering. This meant that for much of the way we drove through fields and fields carpeted by bright yellow flowers. It was really scenic and pretty, especially with a ghostly, towering eucalyptus tree intersperced here and there over the fields.
I should state that the whole reason we left so early was so we could make it to Perth in time to watch the AFL Grand Final, essentially the super bowl of the Australian Football League. However, we had a few stops to make first. Finally in the Perth area, we initially stopped in at Mia's grandparents' house to drop off her younger sister who was on school holidays but ended up staying for lunch. Mia's grandparents are from Greece and we were treated to a delightful Greek spread. We had a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but the thing that sticks out are the homemade stuffed vine leaves, which were little parcels of rice and meat wrapped in grape (?) vine leaves and served with an unsweet. Not too sure on what I was eating or what it was called but Dakes, I'm sure you can help me out here.
Next we hit the road again with one more stop before our final destination. This stopover was at the Belmont Forum, which is a mall. It's actually a quite ordinary, run of the mill mall, not even two stories, but it was great. If you find this humorous, try living in an isloated town of 4,000 for five months and then tell me how sweet a mall looks. I don't even remember what we had to get but unfortunately we couldn't stay long as it was getting close to 1pm and gametime. No thanks to the shoddy GPS, we finally made it to Sean and Pat's house. Sean and Pat are Denmark guys who moved up to Perth for college and live in a house together with some uni mates. We only missed the first quarter and were treated to a real thriller of a game. It was cool to see the game responsible for bringing me back to Oz played at the highest level, on its biggest stage. In the end, the dynastic Geelong Cats defeated the upstart St Kilda Saints (original, eh?) even though the Saints led at the turn of each quarter. The rest of the afternoon I attempted to nap but was distrupted by the Aussies playing drinking games in the backyard so after awhile I gave up and hung outin the back yard with them. It felt divine to throw on some shorts and soak up the sun after so many cold, rainy days down in Denmark. Just to feel that warmness lingering around even as the sun set was so nice... spring has arrived in Australia!
At around 7 Jeff, Mia, and I headed out to a part of the Perth area called Victoria Park for dinner with Mia's Dad, sisters, and relatives. We ate at a Lebanese restaurant, and along with that one time I got lunch from a Thai lady who spoke no English on the street in Bangkok and perhaps brunch in SDH on home game Saturdays, it was one of my more unique dining experiences. First, it was decorated just like a Lebanese Arab place if that makes any sense. There was canvas draped from the ceiling simulating a tent and other cool effects. We sat on small cushions on the floor at low tables, almost Asian style. As we had a big group, Mia's Dad ordered the works for everyone to share and we were treated to a delicious smorgasboard of fresh Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Feta cheese, thin Lebanese bread, Falafel, Tabbouleh, and multiple types of marinated Chicken, Lamb, and Beef kebabs and skewers. It was absolutely incredible so of course I stuffed myself. Oh and there was even a belly dancer who danced around the tables for at least half an hour. Keep in mind this was a pretty trendy, swanky place so it really lightened the mood and brought the whole restaurant together clapping, hollering, and dancing.
After that amazing dinner, the three of us drove back to Sean's house to quickly shower and get ready to hit the bars. Everyone else was already having drinks and ready to go so we had to move fast but were able to jump in one of the multiple cabs we called to take our whole crew to Northbridge. Again, another memorable moment. The cabbie had a brand new ride, and he surely was not holding it back... the dude was blowing by people on the freeway and tearing up entrance ramps like it was the Indy 500. We got to talking and it went a little like this:
Cabbie: So you are from Canada, yes? (note: unfortunately I get this a lot)
Kyle: Nooope I'm from the States.
C: America?? I'm from Iraq, so we're enemies!
K: Oh crap.
But it turned out to be okay... he had been in Australia for 12 years and was quite friendly. He also had family in America and was excited to go visit them soon. He said he is originally from Baghdad and had actually been back to visit since the invasion, which seemed insane to me. All he would really say about it was how annoying it was to be on the freeway, only to get stuck behind an American tank going about 12 miles per hour... once a cabbie always a cabbie I spose.
Anyways our group of 10 or so all met up in Northbridge (nightlife district of Perth City) and went to a few bars before settling on a club called Paramount where we cranked it until about 4:30. Interestingly enough, with violence on the rise in Northbridge, we had to be photographed and electronically finger printed to get into the club. When we finally got back to Sean's, I found all avaliable soft sleeping spaces occupied, much to my dismay. Rather than sprawling on the hardwood, I opted to spend the night moving from car to car parked on the front long trying to get comfortable before settling on Damo's SUV. My first sleeping in a car experience wasn't all that bad until the sun knifed its way into my eyes a few hours later. Night two of little to no sleep.
We all got up semi early and headed out to Sarah's house Sunday morning for our pre-ParkLife gathering at 10am. Same deal with Sean and Pat, Sarah and a few of her Denmark girl friends moved up to Perth. Hmm they must be onto something there... Anywho with ParkLife starting at 2pm, we had a few hours to chill and have pre-drinks while the girls got ready. The weather was GORGEOUS. Even by noon it was warm and sunny without a cloud in the sky and there was a perfect little breeze going on. We were having such a good time just sitting in the sun sipping our goon and juice that I didn't even want to go to the festival, but eventually the time came and again we hopped in a couple cabs.
ParkLife itself was really good. As stated earlier, there were five stages and tons of acts. It was mostly DJ's and dance/club type music. I really didn't know any of the artists, except I did see Lady Sovereign. Also, I saw Empire of the Sun put on their first ever live show. They are a Perth band that is blowing up in Australia and I wouldn't have even brought them up here, but they were recently mentioned on an episode of Entourage so perhaps they are getting noticed in America too? For most of the performances I would recognize a song or two that get radio/club play but otherwise it was all new to me. That didn't matter though, I still jumped and danced my way through all of it. It is really funny to think about my dancing progression and change of heart in terms of Aussie dancing. During my first time in Oz, when I was studying with other Americans, I can remember how much we made fun of the Australians for their dancing. We were shocked and amused to see groups of dudes dancing together, sometimes with girls and sometimes without. I guess you have to be here to see it but I think the best way is that us Americans were conditioned to be embarrassed to try and dance ourselves. However, since coming back the second time and spending all my time with Aussies, I have officially jumped on that dancing bandwagon. It probably helps that no one here knows me outside of 5 months ago but also it's just that carefree Aussie attitude. After Saturday night and ParkLife all day Sunday, I seriously need to detox from dancing... my friends and I cut some serious rugs this weekend.
That's generally all there is to say about ParkLife... it was warm, sunny, loud, crowded, energetic, blurry, and oh so much fun. When it was all over we all met at a predetermined gas station across the street. The convience store there had security out the wazoo; they had about 10 rent a cops inside the store and even set up a queue outside, forming a line and only letting a certain number in at a time like a bar. I bought everyone Paddle Pops (Australian fudgecicles) and as we sat on the curb slurping away and hoards of people descended on the place I understood the need for security. With somewhere around 30,000 drunk Australians across the street, if the place didn't have the insane security it would have been ransacked worse than Georgia during Sherman's march to the sea.
We couldn't get a cab so Jeff, Damo, Mia, and I walked about half an hour to 40 mins down to the central Perth train station to catch a train to Freo. Being a Sunday night it was rather quiet downtown, so we amused ourselves by softly singing songs such as Livin on a Prayer (oooh-oh walkin to Freeeo) and Dust in the Wind as we walked. We finally got back to Sarah's house and hung out before turning in around 2am. The next day Jeff woke up early and since we were all in the same room we all ended up getting up then too. Night Three of little to no sleep. Again, though, it was worth it, because Jeff wanted to go grab some breakfast at McD's or HJ's (Hungry Jack's aka Burger King) but I convinced him and a few others to go into Freo instead since we were just south of town. Monday was a public holiday so luckily the Fremantle Markets were open. It was kind of funny with myself leading the way for once, as I knew the area more than any of the others. I tried to refrain from too many "that place has great __'s" and "this one time __ happened over there" 's as that would probably be annoying but I slipped in a few fun facts here and there. For all those who studied in Freo with me, we got crepes from the markets and then had Old Shanghai. Everything is exactly the same, even that one bar that was boarded up (Madonna's I think it was called) is still closed with nothing new in its stead.
To make a long story long, that's about it. After walking around Freo a bit we went back to Sarah's, said our goodbyes, and hit the road. Sadly enough, I'm now sick thanks to my three nights of little to no sleep and the other disservices I did to my immune system over the weekend but luckily I have this weekend off as well so I can hopefully relax and sleep a lot.
That's all for now. In closing.... GO IRISH, BEAT HUSKIES!
ParkLife crew... spot the American
in the shadows of Perth CBD
...comments please!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
new post soon.
YO update coming soon... just got back from an amazing weekend in Perth, Western Australia and I am itching to tell all about it. However I'm sick as a dog, which no doubt relates directly to said weekend, so bed and recovery come first. Check back in a day or two!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Blog 3: The End of the Beginning?
Hi everyone. It appears that it's been an entire two months since I have last blogged so I figured it's high time that I got back on that train. The only excuse I have is that I've been busy putting time into making friendships and settling into the community. As many of you have already noticed, I also finally got around to posting a bunch of pictures on Facebook. You can view them, even if you aren't a member of the site, here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2234464&id=5612955&l=674337973c
This past Sunday was the final match of the Great Southern Football League regular season. It was at our home field, and for some reason I seem to play better at home so I was excited to play. I played all 80 minutes of the Reserves game, as usual, and was tiredly waiting around for the League players to run out of the locker room when my friend Josh came up to me and said "I think you're playing League today." "Hmm shouldn't someone have told me earlier?" I thought. He went and double checked and indeed I did make the list for the A Grade team. I rushed into the locker room mid-coach's speech. I was happy to finally be in the lineup with all of my friends and the guys I have been practicing with for the past three months. I started out on the bench, and was glad to have the opportunity to rest as I was still exhausted from running and hitting for 80 minutes with no break. However, as the quarters clicked by with no change I realized that I was pretty much put on the team out of pity. In the break before the final quarter I was told my time had come. I think the coach just had the intention of leaving me in for a little bit while another player rested. I went in with a "balls to the wall" mentality and played my tired legs off. Not that anyone reading this will know, but I had several nice marks, a bunch of disposals, and at least one assist. Needless to say they left me in for the length of the quarter. As I trotted off the field I was greeted with many "great jobs" and even the coach said "Damn we should have brought you up sooner!" They were preaching to the choir on that one! It confirmed what I had thought all along; although my skills aren't on par with the big boys, I'm athletic enough to contribute in a well-defined role, as opposed to Reserves where it was basically everyone for themselves. In the end though, I was super tired from playing in back to back games but it was amazing to not only be finally called up but to have played so well in my first League game. I was getting a bit jaded with Aussie rules football but this was a great way to cap off the season. I'll be glad to let my ever present injuries heal now.
Things are changing at work. In the fruit and veg department we had two people leave, which catapulted me from fourth on the ladder to second in command for a small period of time. Then a man and his wife were hired, each with allegedly 20+ years of experience in F&V so it was back down to the bottom for me. For awhile I was literally chopping every vegetable and bagging every piece of fruit myself. The new guy is a real piece of work though, as he came in expecting to usurp the top spot from my manager, who has "only" 8 years of experience. On his very first day he was spouting off slimy comments such as "when i'm in charge things will change" and "do things his way for now but know it won't be that way for long". Now that he realizes his rise to power isn't happening anytime soon, he has ceased communication with the manager. Very mature. Of course you all want to know how this affects the dear author. With more than enough collective experience in the department, I now get to spread my wings in other directions. On Wednesdays I work in the Dairy department and on Fridays I work out on the floor with the Shop Manager. I don't mind it though, it's nice to have some variety from the monotony of produce prep. There has been lots of turnover in the other departments as well so there are many new faces around. Unfortunately the new hires are all older people. No disrespect to my wiser readers, but I miss seeing the cute checkout chicks.
Now for the part you've all been waiting for, the quick anecdotes!
>I'm drinking 2-3 cups of tea per day. It's easy when your morning break is labeled "Tea Break"
>I won $32.40 at the Pub betting on a dog race. I only bet because I had $3 and wanted another beer, so I placed three one dollar bets. Kyle 1 gambling 0.
>I went to see Transformers 2 twice. Like I said, we live in a small town... which brings me to my next point: You know you live in a farm town when you get in your car to drive home after work and you see a gaggle of toddlers walking/riding past on a pony.
>We went hunting awhile back but didn't get any kills. We went out to a farm because the overpopulated kangaroos break cattle fences. I rather enjoyed stalking around in the bush on the edge of the paddock as twilight approached; just a man with his gun, alone in a wild and strange place. It was also cool that on my right was what reminded me of the English countryside (or at least what I imagined it to be) with little babbling brooks among matted grasses and small stony hills and on my left was full on Aussie eucalyptus forest. Often I heard the soft thump-thump of an otherwise silent Roo jumping through the bush but didn't see one until, of course, I stopped to take a leak and put my gun down. Figures.
>One day at work I was unloading a stack of banana boxes from a metal push cart. When I lifted the final box from the bottom I noticed a menacing and very poisonous Red-Backed spider sitting on the cart right next to where my fingers had been. Just a day in the life.
>Speaking of work, I hate to disappoint those who thought IGA was connected to the IGAs at home, but I just found out that it stands for "Independent Grocers of Australia"
>Also speaking of work, the head of the Dairy is an avid movie watcher, and since most movies come from the US, every day he comes to work with questions about America for me. One particularly humorous exchange was about prom.
Nick: "Hey so what's the deal with prom? Does everyone do that?"
Kyle: "Yeah every high school has prom. It's just a big dance in the spring that the upperclassmen go to."
Nick: "And prom court. The American football guy is always the king... the quarterback?"
Kyle: "Ha not always but yeah there's usually football players on it"
Nick: "And the quarterback always dates the cheerleader. I bet that was you wasn't it"
Kyle: "nahh I was just a wide receiver and I wasn't prom king. Hahaha I did date a cheerleader though."
Nick: "That's so AWESOME. Football player dates cheerleader.. That's so American!"
Kyle: lol
>Also, many many Australians think there are 52 US states. And it's not as if they think Puerto Rico is a state, in fact no one has any idea PR is a part of the US. No, for whatever reason, they think Hawaii was the 52nd state.
>In July a group of us made the 4.5 hr trek up to Perth to celebrate Josh's 21st birthday. We even rented a stretch Hummer limo and dressed up in coats and ties to arrive in style. This was a great weekend because it marked the turning point in my social life here, as the many hours spent recounting hilarious stories from the night (most of which are too college to be discussed here) cemented several friendships.
>One perk of working in F&V is that I've been able to sample a great variety of odd, mostly tropical fruits. Look em up on Wikipedia for more info. I've tried passion fruit (hard outer shell; sweet, tart pulp with seeds that look like tadpole eggs), persimmons (looks like an orange apple, it is very astringent), lychee (from Thailand, it is very sweet and Asian-y. This probably isn't P.C., but it was somehow infused with like that smell you get in most Chinese restaurants), tangelos (cross between orange and grapefruit, not that exciting), papaya (actually not very good), champagne melon (watermelon with bright yellow flesh), mangosteen (a superfruit with extremely high antioxidant levels), and the strangest of all, a blood orange which tasted and looked like a regular orange except for the unavoidable fact that the flesh was dark purple with dark red, blood colored juice. I dripped some on my shirt and it looked as if I had committed murder.
>Thank you so much to those who have sent me letters and pictures. Pen pals are awesome.
>This past weekend Brent, Andrew, and I went up to Perth for a gathering of American footy players. There are 5 of us playing footy in the Southwest and the head of development wanted to bring us all together for an AFL (pro) game before our respective seasons ended. After being interviewed by a TV reporter and filmed kicking around an Australian football and passing an American football, as well as what seemed like an unnecessary number of takes of us merely walking across a park, we got to watch West Coast Eagles go through pregame drills in their private warm up drills before standing on the field as they ran out for their game vs the North Melbourne Kangaroos (how original, eh?). We then got box seats in the 40,000 seat stadium and enjoyed an exciting game. Oh and the night before I got to visit with two friends from my former dorm at ND who are studying this semester at UWA, which was great.
Whew, that's about it for now. I guess a lot has happened these last two months after all. In closing, I must say it's hard to believe that school is starting back up again, a fact that I am reminded of with a daily barrage of "omg i love Notre Dame, so happy to be back with all of my best friends" type of status updates on Facebook. I am sad to not be there in the thick of things anymore but at the same time I think the pain is fading. Graduation can only be described as a bad breakup; with time and separation, the sense of loss is slowly healing. I surely miss campus and my friends a lot, and am very jealous of those who still have time left, but already my time as a collegian seems like another lifetime. This can only be a good thing.
This past Sunday was the final match of the Great Southern Football League regular season. It was at our home field, and for some reason I seem to play better at home so I was excited to play. I played all 80 minutes of the Reserves game, as usual, and was tiredly waiting around for the League players to run out of the locker room when my friend Josh came up to me and said "I think you're playing League today." "Hmm shouldn't someone have told me earlier?" I thought. He went and double checked and indeed I did make the list for the A Grade team. I rushed into the locker room mid-coach's speech. I was happy to finally be in the lineup with all of my friends and the guys I have been practicing with for the past three months. I started out on the bench, and was glad to have the opportunity to rest as I was still exhausted from running and hitting for 80 minutes with no break. However, as the quarters clicked by with no change I realized that I was pretty much put on the team out of pity. In the break before the final quarter I was told my time had come. I think the coach just had the intention of leaving me in for a little bit while another player rested. I went in with a "balls to the wall" mentality and played my tired legs off. Not that anyone reading this will know, but I had several nice marks, a bunch of disposals, and at least one assist. Needless to say they left me in for the length of the quarter. As I trotted off the field I was greeted with many "great jobs" and even the coach said "Damn we should have brought you up sooner!" They were preaching to the choir on that one! It confirmed what I had thought all along; although my skills aren't on par with the big boys, I'm athletic enough to contribute in a well-defined role, as opposed to Reserves where it was basically everyone for themselves. In the end though, I was super tired from playing in back to back games but it was amazing to not only be finally called up but to have played so well in my first League game. I was getting a bit jaded with Aussie rules football but this was a great way to cap off the season. I'll be glad to let my ever present injuries heal now.
Things are changing at work. In the fruit and veg department we had two people leave, which catapulted me from fourth on the ladder to second in command for a small period of time. Then a man and his wife were hired, each with allegedly 20+ years of experience in F&V so it was back down to the bottom for me. For awhile I was literally chopping every vegetable and bagging every piece of fruit myself. The new guy is a real piece of work though, as he came in expecting to usurp the top spot from my manager, who has "only" 8 years of experience. On his very first day he was spouting off slimy comments such as "when i'm in charge things will change" and "do things his way for now but know it won't be that way for long". Now that he realizes his rise to power isn't happening anytime soon, he has ceased communication with the manager. Very mature. Of course you all want to know how this affects the dear author. With more than enough collective experience in the department, I now get to spread my wings in other directions. On Wednesdays I work in the Dairy department and on Fridays I work out on the floor with the Shop Manager. I don't mind it though, it's nice to have some variety from the monotony of produce prep. There has been lots of turnover in the other departments as well so there are many new faces around. Unfortunately the new hires are all older people. No disrespect to my wiser readers, but I miss seeing the cute checkout chicks.
Now for the part you've all been waiting for, the quick anecdotes!
>I'm drinking 2-3 cups of tea per day. It's easy when your morning break is labeled "Tea Break"
>I won $32.40 at the Pub betting on a dog race. I only bet because I had $3 and wanted another beer, so I placed three one dollar bets. Kyle 1 gambling 0.
>I went to see Transformers 2 twice. Like I said, we live in a small town... which brings me to my next point: You know you live in a farm town when you get in your car to drive home after work and you see a gaggle of toddlers walking/riding past on a pony.
>We went hunting awhile back but didn't get any kills. We went out to a farm because the overpopulated kangaroos break cattle fences. I rather enjoyed stalking around in the bush on the edge of the paddock as twilight approached; just a man with his gun, alone in a wild and strange place. It was also cool that on my right was what reminded me of the English countryside (or at least what I imagined it to be) with little babbling brooks among matted grasses and small stony hills and on my left was full on Aussie eucalyptus forest. Often I heard the soft thump-thump of an otherwise silent Roo jumping through the bush but didn't see one until, of course, I stopped to take a leak and put my gun down. Figures.
>One day at work I was unloading a stack of banana boxes from a metal push cart. When I lifted the final box from the bottom I noticed a menacing and very poisonous Red-Backed spider sitting on the cart right next to where my fingers had been. Just a day in the life.
>Speaking of work, I hate to disappoint those who thought IGA was connected to the IGAs at home, but I just found out that it stands for "Independent Grocers of Australia"
>Also speaking of work, the head of the Dairy is an avid movie watcher, and since most movies come from the US, every day he comes to work with questions about America for me. One particularly humorous exchange was about prom.
Nick: "Hey so what's the deal with prom? Does everyone do that?"
Kyle: "Yeah every high school has prom. It's just a big dance in the spring that the upperclassmen go to."
Nick: "And prom court. The American football guy is always the king... the quarterback?"
Kyle: "Ha not always but yeah there's usually football players on it"
Nick: "And the quarterback always dates the cheerleader. I bet that was you wasn't it"
Kyle: "nahh I was just a wide receiver and I wasn't prom king. Hahaha I did date a cheerleader though."
Nick: "That's so AWESOME. Football player dates cheerleader.. That's so American!"
Kyle: lol
>Also, many many Australians think there are 52 US states. And it's not as if they think Puerto Rico is a state, in fact no one has any idea PR is a part of the US. No, for whatever reason, they think Hawaii was the 52nd state.
>In July a group of us made the 4.5 hr trek up to Perth to celebrate Josh's 21st birthday. We even rented a stretch Hummer limo and dressed up in coats and ties to arrive in style. This was a great weekend because it marked the turning point in my social life here, as the many hours spent recounting hilarious stories from the night (most of which are too college to be discussed here) cemented several friendships.
>One perk of working in F&V is that I've been able to sample a great variety of odd, mostly tropical fruits. Look em up on Wikipedia for more info. I've tried passion fruit (hard outer shell; sweet, tart pulp with seeds that look like tadpole eggs), persimmons (looks like an orange apple, it is very astringent), lychee (from Thailand, it is very sweet and Asian-y. This probably isn't P.C., but it was somehow infused with like that smell you get in most Chinese restaurants), tangelos (cross between orange and grapefruit, not that exciting), papaya (actually not very good), champagne melon (watermelon with bright yellow flesh), mangosteen (a superfruit with extremely high antioxidant levels), and the strangest of all, a blood orange which tasted and looked like a regular orange except for the unavoidable fact that the flesh was dark purple with dark red, blood colored juice. I dripped some on my shirt and it looked as if I had committed murder.
>Thank you so much to those who have sent me letters and pictures. Pen pals are awesome.
>This past weekend Brent, Andrew, and I went up to Perth for a gathering of American footy players. There are 5 of us playing footy in the Southwest and the head of development wanted to bring us all together for an AFL (pro) game before our respective seasons ended. After being interviewed by a TV reporter and filmed kicking around an Australian football and passing an American football, as well as what seemed like an unnecessary number of takes of us merely walking across a park, we got to watch West Coast Eagles go through pregame drills in their private warm up drills before standing on the field as they ran out for their game vs the North Melbourne Kangaroos (how original, eh?). We then got box seats in the 40,000 seat stadium and enjoyed an exciting game. Oh and the night before I got to visit with two friends from my former dorm at ND who are studying this semester at UWA, which was great.
Whew, that's about it for now. I guess a lot has happened these last two months after all. In closing, I must say it's hard to believe that school is starting back up again, a fact that I am reminded of with a daily barrage of "omg i love Notre Dame, so happy to be back with all of my best friends" type of status updates on Facebook. I am sad to not be there in the thick of things anymore but at the same time I think the pain is fading. Graduation can only be described as a bad breakup; with time and separation, the sense of loss is slowly healing. I surely miss campus and my friends a lot, and am very jealous of those who still have time left, but already my time as a collegian seems like another lifetime. This can only be a good thing.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Blog 2
Heyo everybody.. Sorry for the hold up. I've been struggling with getting pictures uploaded in the format I want.
I've played in three footy games now and we've lost all three horribly. I'm still on the reserves team, which is frustrating because everyone on the team plays selfishly and refuses to get back on defense (especially aggravating when one is playing defense and is confronted with a 7 on 2 situation). The league team isn't doing much better and have lost all their games since I've been here as well. Oh well, I can't really say my skills warrant a promotion to the top level yet, as I'm still figuring everything out. Training remains quite difficult... for instance the other day we ran 10 laps around the track for warm up, a 4K. That's 2.5 miles, in case you were wondering. I'm waiting for the time when running a crapload will not be so hard but I guess I'm still out of shape!
Weeks are fairly mundane; work everyday usually 8am-5pm with footy practice on tuesday and thursday nights with a game on saturday or sunday afternoons. Since it's winter it's dark by 5pm so we can't really do anything after work except come home and watch tv, which is usually fine by me because I'm usually tired from work or training. It will be so nice when the weather gets warmer and it stays light longer. I think there will be a lot more to do then, such as take advantage of the fact that we live next to the water.
Weather has been pretty dismal, it rains every day without fail. Even if the day starts out sunny and promising it will be raining by late afternoon. The rain patterns are kind of weird, it either rains in half hour spurts and then gets sunny or else we get torrential downpours all day. It also hails a lot. Oh well, at least it's not snowing (even though it is a chilly).
Yesterday, Saturday, was a pretty good day. I woke up to a text from my friend Josh and met him for breakfast at a cafe in town. Ham and cheese croissant was dece but the chai vanilla latte was phenomenal. Then went down to the pub so he could place a bet on one of the horse races. That's right, gambling is legal in Australia and officially licensed bookies are as common as shoe stores. Aussies love betting; in fact, Josh also was doing instant lotto tickets at breakfast, or "scratchies." At the pub, there were about 6 older men watching the races and betting while enjoying beers. It was 11am. All in all though, the sports betting seems pretty harmless even though I didn't place any bets (too stingy). Next, we drove over to the footy oval to watch the Denmark women's team play. I was expecting to see a pretty sloppy game but we were both surprised by some of the skill exhibited by a few of the girls. After that Josh, Damo, Brent, and I drove out to Albany to watch our Colts team play (again, the colts is the U-18 footy team) because Josh coaches them. Brent and I then hung around Albany because we were going to go to the one nightclub that night, and it was pointless to drive 45 minutes back home beforehand. We stopped in an electronics store and purchased a wireless router, which I installed today. Having wireless is soo nice. Anyways we grabbed a case of beer and had a nice dinner at a BYO restaurant before going over to Jamie's place. He plays on our footy team b/c he's originally from Denmark but lives in Albany now. We had some predrinks and walked down to the nightclub. It is literally the only club in the entire south west part of the state.. the next closest ones would be 5 hours away up in Perth. It was a pretty good time but I spent too much money. Supposedly the place was voted worst night club in all of Australia but it didn't seem too bad to me. A year of Finnies and Fever will do that to someone.
Interesting parts from the last 3 weeks:
>The one time we went to the beach it ended up being too cold to get in so instead we explored Elephant Rocks and Greens Pool, which has good snorkeling when the weather gets warmer.
>There was a huge rainbow outside our front door the other day which was cool, until I realized that this is standard because as I said earlier, it usually rains and then gets sunny. Rainbow count is now at 7. If I didn't work indoors I'm positive I'd see one every day.
>I learned every member of AC/DC is from Australia. One is even from Fremantle.
>We sell Ratatouille at IGA. It's in with the potato salads and cole slaw in the deli. It looks like vegetables in marina sauce but I could be wrong. Hopefully no rats.
> I was talking to a girl about her trip to Seattle and asked her what she thought about our money. I was expecting something about how its boring and not very colorful (aussie money looks like monopoly money) or something about how dumb pennies are (the lowest australian coin is a 5 cent piece). Instead, she commented on how dirty it is. She said it was gross and she felt like washing her hands every time she handled it. You were right Mom!
>Josh, Brent, another kid named Sean and myself went fishing at the Wilson Inlet and the Denmark River last weekend but didn't get a single bite. Bummer.
> I got an unexpected letter from a friend in the US, which was really great. What is it about snail mail that is so satisfying?
>We made a huge batch of cole slaw from scratch the other night. Half a head of regular cabbage, half head of red cabbage, a few carrots and a onion. Miracle whip, vinegar, some olive oil, and a bunch of pepper. It was fun... In the post graduate world, you gotta get your kicks wherever you can.
Bed time.
Green's Pool
Good view
Elephant Rocks. The middle three or so are supposed to look like a group of elephants from behind
En route to fishing destination
Wilson Inlet on winter day
Good view x 2
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
First Week (back) in Australia
-click pictures to expand-
View of water from the kitchen
the crib
mean streets of downtown Denmark.. right down the hill from our house, 2 minute drive)
place of employment (again, 2 min drive from house)
downtown again. i love how the sun makes the skyscrapers sparkle
Denmark (a shop on this row is actually where I am posting this from right now)
Forest on edge of town
Neat trail
Wilson Inlet
Denmark River, feeds into inlet
Ocean beach from lookout
sunset at ocean beach
(Edit: wrote this monday but am posting thursday... the internet at home stinks!)
Am currently sitting on our back porch in Denmark, WA with a view of the water a ways off, it’s sunny today and very nice. It is going into winter here but today just may be nice enough to make my first trip to the beach. Otherwise it’s pretty chilly in the mornings and at night but jeans and a sweatshirt are generally all I need. The worst part is that it starts getting dark between 5-5:30 which really bums me out because the days were just getting longer back home and now it’s hard to get out and do stuff in the dark. Anyways I’ve been in Australia for a week now (wow is that all?) so I guess it’s time to get everyone caught up to speed on what’s been happening. I’ll give a blow by blow account of each day because it was the first week but after this post I’ll just talk about important and interesting things.
I left the Wednesday after Graduation, so it was definitely a whirlwind trying to unpack the past four years of collegiate life and then turn around and repack everything I would need to live on the other side of the world for a whole year in the span of basically two days. Flew from Dayton to Chicago to LA to Sydney (14 hour flight) to Perth (5 hour flight), leaving on a Wednesday afternoon and arriving on a Friday afternoon. It was quite a trek but overall uneventful, which is usually a good sign when traveling. This was definitely my easiest trans-Pacific flight so far, as I slept for what had to be about 8 hours, meaning after a few movies I had arrived in Sydney.
In the Perth airport I was met by Tony Fairhead, the man in charge of the footy training program I participated in when studying in Fremantle last year and the guy most responsible for getting me over here. We took the scenic route rather than the highway from the airport to Freo where he lives. We drove right along the swan river past downtown and the bell tower, down past Cottesloe beach and hotel, right along the train route and across the infamous bridge over river down by the freo port (no comments please, Shannon). It turns out Tony lives in the top floor of an apartment building literally across the street from NDAU. If graduation and senior week was previously my most surreal experience, it definitely took the cake to be back in Freo, retracing my steps of a year ago. The rest of Friday went as follows: lunch with Tony and a few others at Roma on the end of High Street, having a few beers down at the South Freo Football Club, eating at Waggamamma (recently put in next to Sweet Lips), and meeting up with Mackenzie--a girl I worked with at Reckers--and being introduced to the new Port Lodgers before retiring to Tony’s incredible pad for an early bedtime.
Saturday I went back to Port Lodge to catch up with Tom Staudt an O’Neill junior who lived in 3B with me and who was the first underclassmen I met my soph year. Tom and I and a few other junior domers got dinner at Pizza on High for the all you can eat pizza and pasta, which was great because I actually never made it there before. Then just like old times we pounded goon in Plodge before going to Newport. It was good to be back but just really not the same. I realized that so much of my wonderful experience last year was due to the great group of people I was there with.
Sunday I got up early and Tony took me to Cottesloe to meet up with Andrew Werner, an American that came over with Brent to play footy in Mt Barker, a small town just north of Denmark. We drove the 5 hours down to Albany so he could play in his game and I met up with Sarah, the owner of the house where I am now living. She’s the daughter of owners of the IGAs in Albany and Denmark and a manager of them. I grabbed the car and followed her on the 30-40 minute drive to Denmark. I should mention that Brent Mergen, the American who is doing the same thing as I and my roommate who has been here since the beginning of the season in March, had to return to America for his grandpa’s funeral right when I left the states so when I moved in down here I had a week in the house by myself. The house was very nice but I just went in and passed out right away in my new bed as I was exhausted.
Monday I met up with Sarah and was introduced to all the people down at the IGA but didn’t have to work yet so I decided to explore rather than sit around. I walked around my neighborhood and the tiny downtown area and took pictures. I stumbled upon a nature trail at the edge of town and went on about a 2 mile hike through a really cool eucalyptus forest where I saw lots of colorful parrots and some kookaburrahs. The trail dead ended at the Wilson Inlet which was cool. I got back to my car in town and was still feeling adventurous even thought it was getting late in the afternoon so I went for a drive and found Ocean Beach, which obviously was the actual ocean rather than the inlet (look Denmark up on google earth if you want to understand the layout). I saw some surfers down in the water even though it was rather chilly. I stuck around for awhile waiting for the sunset and was treated to a good one. That night two of the guys from the footy team, Josh and Damien (aka Damo), came over to meet me and they seemed like really fun guys.
Tuesday was my first day of work. I work 7-5, with an hour lunch break and 15 minutes for "morning tea", in the Fruit and Veg department at Supa IGA. The work is fairly mundane, consisting of cutting, wrapping, bagging, and pricing fruit in the back and stocking the shelves out in the store for 8 hours a day. It would be pretty boring but I work with some very chill guys who I enjoy working and talking with. That night was my first practice, or "training", down at the oval. It was at 6pm but was already pitch black by then so it was under the lights. Apparently Tuesday is the hard conditioning day because it kicked my butt.. we ran 6 200s and two 400s in addition to all the running in the drills. I did pretty poorly because it had been so long since I touched a footy ball. After training I went to Josh and Damo’s--which is apparently right across the meadow across the street from me--for a little to hang out.
Wednesday after work I went down to the oval to "have a kick" since I was so rusty but there were a lot of people there, so instead I decided to explore more and drove on another road which winded through the country and eventually became unpaved. It was a really cool drive; a dirt road with huge shady trees on the side of the road looking over vast fields full of wild kangaroos and forests. It was dusk, which is when the roos come out, so I saw hundreds of them. I turned back when it started getting real dark because I was scared of getting lost and potentially running over a roo, which happens quite often. I went to Josh and Damo’s for Chinese and a movie. The Chinese wasn’t anything like the stuff back home (no General Tso’s chicken), it seemed more like the Indonesian/Malaysian stuff I’d get back in Freo. Just goes to show you that neither country has authentic Chinese, just food tailored to the local population.
Thursday was pretty uneventful, I set up my bank account at lunch time so I can get my cheddar and had the second footy training. I did better, the skills are slowly coming back. The cool thing about this training was that there were kangaroos on the field! Of course I was excited but no one else cared since they’re just like deer here. After Thursday trainings people come down the club house for cheap burgers and beers so I had some of each since everyone else was. It was kind of funny to me, because as an American all I wanted after a strenuous practice was a Gatorade and maybe a cold shower but instead we were having greasy burgers and sucking down cold beers. Questionable, but hey, when in Rome…
Friday I made my first attempt at cooking, sautéing some roast beef and veggies in soy sauce, garlic, chilis, and random seasonings I found in the cupboard and eating it with rice. It was decent but needed some more flavor. I also learned that a little bit of rice makes a lot of rice so I had way too much rice. Later I went to Josh and Damo’s for drinks, met a few more Aussies there, and actually finally met Brent as he unexpectedly got a ride home from the Perth Airport that night. We then went to "the tav" (tavern), one of two bars in town, where there was a band. Everything closes at 12 here (yuck) so everyone came back to our place for awhile. A rando girl asked if she could have some bread and before I knew it she had turned the entire brand new loaf into toast with vegemite. I thought maybe under the influence Vegemite would taste better but it was still disgusting. Also, I was mad she took the whole loaf without informing me.
Saturday was pretty much a wasted day. Brent and I spent most of the day lazing around watching footy games before finally getting our S together and going down to have a kick at the Oval in the late afternoon. Hilariously, when we got back there was a loaf of bread on the front doorstep, in repayment. We went out to a sick party at this weird shantytown-type place outside of town that night. Apparently a bunch of alternative, hippie type ppl live there but let younger people party there whenever. Josh, Damo and some other footy guys have a band and were playing so we watched them but since we had a game the next day Brent and I didn’t drink and were both real tired so we went home early.
Sunday (yesterday) was my first footy game. It was up in Mt. Barker so we had to drove there. Oddly enough everyone has to pay admission, even players, so it was $6.50 for me to play. Strange. Anyways there are always three games: Colts (under 17), Ressies (Reserves), and League (the top level). Brent and I both played ressies (he because he had been gone for a week and a half and I because it was my first game ever). I did alright, caught most balls kicked to me, but handballing or kicking it off after catching it was a bit tougher. Also tough was just knowing where to be at all times as it is such a free flowing game. Oh well, these game-awareness type things will hopefully come with more experience. The worst part was just running so much.. I need to get in shape if I’m gonna make it through four 20 minute quarters of straight running. Anyways we won (I scored a point but missed the 6 point goal) but the league team lost. I guess Denmark and Mt Barker were tied for last place in the 5 team league so losing to the Bulls was not a good thing. Oh yeah, we’re called the Magpies and uniforms are white and black striped. After driving back home we went to the tav for the traditional post-game awards and dinner. Club members vote on the best players and the top three get small monetary prizes. Many of the guys kept drinking but all I could think about was icing down my aching body and going to sleep so I did just that.
Today, Monday, is Foundation Day, a state holiday celebrating the date Western Australia became a state so everyone is off work. It is unseasonably warm so we’re probably going to go down to the beach in a bit.
I apologize for the long post but again, now that I will be settling into a routine life of work and football I won’t have as much to write about. Leave comments!
View of water from the kitchen
the crib
mean streets of downtown Denmark.. right down the hill from our house, 2 minute drive)
place of employment (again, 2 min drive from house)
downtown again. i love how the sun makes the skyscrapers sparkle
Denmark (a shop on this row is actually where I am posting this from right now)
Forest on edge of town
Neat trail
Wilson Inlet
Denmark River, feeds into inlet
Ocean beach from lookout
sunset at ocean beach
(Edit: wrote this monday but am posting thursday... the internet at home stinks!)
Am currently sitting on our back porch in Denmark, WA with a view of the water a ways off, it’s sunny today and very nice. It is going into winter here but today just may be nice enough to make my first trip to the beach. Otherwise it’s pretty chilly in the mornings and at night but jeans and a sweatshirt are generally all I need. The worst part is that it starts getting dark between 5-5:30 which really bums me out because the days were just getting longer back home and now it’s hard to get out and do stuff in the dark. Anyways I’ve been in Australia for a week now (wow is that all?) so I guess it’s time to get everyone caught up to speed on what’s been happening. I’ll give a blow by blow account of each day because it was the first week but after this post I’ll just talk about important and interesting things.
I left the Wednesday after Graduation, so it was definitely a whirlwind trying to unpack the past four years of collegiate life and then turn around and repack everything I would need to live on the other side of the world for a whole year in the span of basically two days. Flew from Dayton to Chicago to LA to Sydney (14 hour flight) to Perth (5 hour flight), leaving on a Wednesday afternoon and arriving on a Friday afternoon. It was quite a trek but overall uneventful, which is usually a good sign when traveling. This was definitely my easiest trans-Pacific flight so far, as I slept for what had to be about 8 hours, meaning after a few movies I had arrived in Sydney.
In the Perth airport I was met by Tony Fairhead, the man in charge of the footy training program I participated in when studying in Fremantle last year and the guy most responsible for getting me over here. We took the scenic route rather than the highway from the airport to Freo where he lives. We drove right along the swan river past downtown and the bell tower, down past Cottesloe beach and hotel, right along the train route and across the infamous bridge over river down by the freo port (no comments please, Shannon). It turns out Tony lives in the top floor of an apartment building literally across the street from NDAU. If graduation and senior week was previously my most surreal experience, it definitely took the cake to be back in Freo, retracing my steps of a year ago. The rest of Friday went as follows: lunch with Tony and a few others at Roma on the end of High Street, having a few beers down at the South Freo Football Club, eating at Waggamamma (recently put in next to Sweet Lips), and meeting up with Mackenzie--a girl I worked with at Reckers--and being introduced to the new Port Lodgers before retiring to Tony’s incredible pad for an early bedtime.
Saturday I went back to Port Lodge to catch up with Tom Staudt an O’Neill junior who lived in 3B with me and who was the first underclassmen I met my soph year. Tom and I and a few other junior domers got dinner at Pizza on High for the all you can eat pizza and pasta, which was great because I actually never made it there before. Then just like old times we pounded goon in Plodge before going to Newport. It was good to be back but just really not the same. I realized that so much of my wonderful experience last year was due to the great group of people I was there with.
Sunday I got up early and Tony took me to Cottesloe to meet up with Andrew Werner, an American that came over with Brent to play footy in Mt Barker, a small town just north of Denmark. We drove the 5 hours down to Albany so he could play in his game and I met up with Sarah, the owner of the house where I am now living. She’s the daughter of owners of the IGAs in Albany and Denmark and a manager of them. I grabbed the car and followed her on the 30-40 minute drive to Denmark. I should mention that Brent Mergen, the American who is doing the same thing as I and my roommate who has been here since the beginning of the season in March, had to return to America for his grandpa’s funeral right when I left the states so when I moved in down here I had a week in the house by myself. The house was very nice but I just went in and passed out right away in my new bed as I was exhausted.
Monday I met up with Sarah and was introduced to all the people down at the IGA but didn’t have to work yet so I decided to explore rather than sit around. I walked around my neighborhood and the tiny downtown area and took pictures. I stumbled upon a nature trail at the edge of town and went on about a 2 mile hike through a really cool eucalyptus forest where I saw lots of colorful parrots and some kookaburrahs. The trail dead ended at the Wilson Inlet which was cool. I got back to my car in town and was still feeling adventurous even thought it was getting late in the afternoon so I went for a drive and found Ocean Beach, which obviously was the actual ocean rather than the inlet (look Denmark up on google earth if you want to understand the layout). I saw some surfers down in the water even though it was rather chilly. I stuck around for awhile waiting for the sunset and was treated to a good one. That night two of the guys from the footy team, Josh and Damien (aka Damo), came over to meet me and they seemed like really fun guys.
Tuesday was my first day of work. I work 7-5, with an hour lunch break and 15 minutes for "morning tea", in the Fruit and Veg department at Supa IGA. The work is fairly mundane, consisting of cutting, wrapping, bagging, and pricing fruit in the back and stocking the shelves out in the store for 8 hours a day. It would be pretty boring but I work with some very chill guys who I enjoy working and talking with. That night was my first practice, or "training", down at the oval. It was at 6pm but was already pitch black by then so it was under the lights. Apparently Tuesday is the hard conditioning day because it kicked my butt.. we ran 6 200s and two 400s in addition to all the running in the drills. I did pretty poorly because it had been so long since I touched a footy ball. After training I went to Josh and Damo’s--which is apparently right across the meadow across the street from me--for a little to hang out.
Wednesday after work I went down to the oval to "have a kick" since I was so rusty but there were a lot of people there, so instead I decided to explore more and drove on another road which winded through the country and eventually became unpaved. It was a really cool drive; a dirt road with huge shady trees on the side of the road looking over vast fields full of wild kangaroos and forests. It was dusk, which is when the roos come out, so I saw hundreds of them. I turned back when it started getting real dark because I was scared of getting lost and potentially running over a roo, which happens quite often. I went to Josh and Damo’s for Chinese and a movie. The Chinese wasn’t anything like the stuff back home (no General Tso’s chicken), it seemed more like the Indonesian/Malaysian stuff I’d get back in Freo. Just goes to show you that neither country has authentic Chinese, just food tailored to the local population.
Thursday was pretty uneventful, I set up my bank account at lunch time so I can get my cheddar and had the second footy training. I did better, the skills are slowly coming back. The cool thing about this training was that there were kangaroos on the field! Of course I was excited but no one else cared since they’re just like deer here. After Thursday trainings people come down the club house for cheap burgers and beers so I had some of each since everyone else was. It was kind of funny to me, because as an American all I wanted after a strenuous practice was a Gatorade and maybe a cold shower but instead we were having greasy burgers and sucking down cold beers. Questionable, but hey, when in Rome…
Friday I made my first attempt at cooking, sautéing some roast beef and veggies in soy sauce, garlic, chilis, and random seasonings I found in the cupboard and eating it with rice. It was decent but needed some more flavor. I also learned that a little bit of rice makes a lot of rice so I had way too much rice. Later I went to Josh and Damo’s for drinks, met a few more Aussies there, and actually finally met Brent as he unexpectedly got a ride home from the Perth Airport that night. We then went to "the tav" (tavern), one of two bars in town, where there was a band. Everything closes at 12 here (yuck) so everyone came back to our place for awhile. A rando girl asked if she could have some bread and before I knew it she had turned the entire brand new loaf into toast with vegemite. I thought maybe under the influence Vegemite would taste better but it was still disgusting. Also, I was mad she took the whole loaf without informing me.
Saturday was pretty much a wasted day. Brent and I spent most of the day lazing around watching footy games before finally getting our S together and going down to have a kick at the Oval in the late afternoon. Hilariously, when we got back there was a loaf of bread on the front doorstep, in repayment. We went out to a sick party at this weird shantytown-type place outside of town that night. Apparently a bunch of alternative, hippie type ppl live there but let younger people party there whenever. Josh, Damo and some other footy guys have a band and were playing so we watched them but since we had a game the next day Brent and I didn’t drink and were both real tired so we went home early.
Sunday (yesterday) was my first footy game. It was up in Mt. Barker so we had to drove there. Oddly enough everyone has to pay admission, even players, so it was $6.50 for me to play. Strange. Anyways there are always three games: Colts (under 17), Ressies (Reserves), and League (the top level). Brent and I both played ressies (he because he had been gone for a week and a half and I because it was my first game ever). I did alright, caught most balls kicked to me, but handballing or kicking it off after catching it was a bit tougher. Also tough was just knowing where to be at all times as it is such a free flowing game. Oh well, these game-awareness type things will hopefully come with more experience. The worst part was just running so much.. I need to get in shape if I’m gonna make it through four 20 minute quarters of straight running. Anyways we won (I scored a point but missed the 6 point goal) but the league team lost. I guess Denmark and Mt Barker were tied for last place in the 5 team league so losing to the Bulls was not a good thing. Oh yeah, we’re called the Magpies and uniforms are white and black striped. After driving back home we went to the tav for the traditional post-game awards and dinner. Club members vote on the best players and the top three get small monetary prizes. Many of the guys kept drinking but all I could think about was icing down my aching body and going to sleep so I did just that.
Today, Monday, is Foundation Day, a state holiday celebrating the date Western Australia became a state so everyone is off work. It is unseasonably warm so we’re probably going to go down to the beach in a bit.
I apologize for the long post but again, now that I will be settling into a routine life of work and football I won’t have as much to write about. Leave comments!
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