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.

click the pics to expand

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