So Tuesday here in Lennox Head is Steak Night…and just recently, it's become Trivia night as well, a night of epic mishaps, and misunderstandings, but fun nevertheless. This past trivia night, we actually got together a real team instead of just sitting in the pub and playing on our own without the chance to win the jackpot (it's $600)
So here we are, a group of 12 backpackers from the US, Canada, and Britain attempting to answer ridiculous questions. Now the week before, the questions were easy, straightforward things you knew from high school, but was that what we got this week? No, it was not. This week it was Australian trivia and we were extremely bad at it. So bad, in fact, that the guy leading the quiz night, gave us a couple points each round and subtly tried to give us clues as to the answers, which would have been great, if we'd even been paying attention.
As it was, half the table was chatting away about something or other, a group were drawing pictures on the beer coasters, some were doing sudokus, and the two people at the end of the table were making peanut butter and banana sandwiches for an after dinner snack. We didn't so much discuss our answers as yell them at each other, not really caring what got written down in the end, but enjoying the argument. What made this picture even better was the fact that the rest of the teams in the pub are the real serious sort, who come every week, and keep track of their score, and even contest the announcer when he gives them an extra point (who does that?!). I do believe we offended their sensibilities. Amazingly enough, we didn't come in last…we got 4th, out of 7 team. I think we'll go again next week…the regulars are gonna kill us.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Ah...a holiday!
ok, so i'm not as good with updating this thing as Steve is, so apologies up front, but i'm going to continue as I am…sorry.
We haven't been working the past week and a half since Suz and Avigdor went to Tasmania for a few weeks on a retreat and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoy the life of the semi-retired. In fact, I think I'm spoiled rotten and don't want to go back to work. Our time off has coincided well with the arrival of some awesome people at the hostel. We've formed our own little family, getting up, spending the day chatting, eating, and hanging out at the lake or beach and it's fantastic. At night we either have movie nights or board game nights or a combination of both…and I'm learning to like board games slowly but surely. I actually played my first game EVER of Scrabble last week and won it by 60 points….although i then followed that epic win by an epic fail, but then that's just how my board game abilities go…it's either one extreme or the other.
I finally made it down the beach to the Headland and climbed up to look down on Lennox. It's gorgeous up there and I timed it just right to watch a rainstorm roll in over the town.
I got some packages from overseas in the last 2 weeks which made my week off of work even better. Steve's Chrissy prezzy for me came and he got me a KINDLE! so now I don't have to lug around books when we're moving from place to place. It's really neat, but I'm going to have to get used to not having actual pages to turn and dog-ear, and in general, mistreat. And I don't think I can take it out to the beach…I'm not daring enough for that. And a day later, a surprise present came from Belgium! from ellen. She got me a day calendar thing that I write down the day's events in…that's why i can tell you what's been happening since I last wrote. Otherwise, me and my horrible memory would just come up with… "um, yea, I've been going to the beach and um, hanging out." haha…this is slightly better than that i think.
In the mean time, my faithful secretary, Mom, has been working behind the scenes helping me get all my application stuff ready for the mail so I can apply to the post-baccalaureate program for Communication Sciences and Disorders at Western Washington University. That program will get me prepared for a master's in Speech Language Pathology. The app is due April 1st (April Fool's Day, which makes me a little leery) so I should know sometime in April where I'll be come September. Wish me luck!
We haven't been working the past week and a half since Suz and Avigdor went to Tasmania for a few weeks on a retreat and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoy the life of the semi-retired. In fact, I think I'm spoiled rotten and don't want to go back to work. Our time off has coincided well with the arrival of some awesome people at the hostel. We've formed our own little family, getting up, spending the day chatting, eating, and hanging out at the lake or beach and it's fantastic. At night we either have movie nights or board game nights or a combination of both…and I'm learning to like board games slowly but surely. I actually played my first game EVER of Scrabble last week and won it by 60 points….although i then followed that epic win by an epic fail, but then that's just how my board game abilities go…it's either one extreme or the other.
I finally made it down the beach to the Headland and climbed up to look down on Lennox. It's gorgeous up there and I timed it just right to watch a rainstorm roll in over the town.
I got some packages from overseas in the last 2 weeks which made my week off of work even better. Steve's Chrissy prezzy for me came and he got me a KINDLE! so now I don't have to lug around books when we're moving from place to place. It's really neat, but I'm going to have to get used to not having actual pages to turn and dog-ear, and in general, mistreat. And I don't think I can take it out to the beach…I'm not daring enough for that. And a day later, a surprise present came from Belgium! from ellen. She got me a day calendar thing that I write down the day's events in…that's why i can tell you what's been happening since I last wrote. Otherwise, me and my horrible memory would just come up with… "um, yea, I've been going to the beach and um, hanging out." haha…this is slightly better than that i think.
In the mean time, my faithful secretary, Mom, has been working behind the scenes helping me get all my application stuff ready for the mail so I can apply to the post-baccalaureate program for Communication Sciences and Disorders at Western Washington University. That program will get me prepared for a master's in Speech Language Pathology. The app is due April 1st (April Fool's Day, which makes me a little leery) so I should know sometime in April where I'll be come September. Wish me luck!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Best Job Op EVER!
So I was perusing the local paper tonight and came across this ad in the classifieds. I think I found my new job.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Well...that was a first...
Work's been a bit easier these days. Suz left on a three week trip to Tasmania, so we've been working with her partner, Viktor, finishing up the last few things to do on the shed/guesthouse. And he's quite a bit easier to deal with than Suz is. Also, last friday and today, we spent helping their next door neighbors pack up their house because they're moving about 10 hours south to Newcastle. I love Mel and Vinay and their 3 year old daughter, Aasha. They made us tea both days we worked for them and Mel baked this awesomely delicious banana, pistachio, chocolate chunk bread which is addictive and I ate way too much of. I gotta get the recipe for that even though I don't bake...just in case I ever change my mind and take up the hobby. Today, we cleaned out the kitchen and Steve walked away with about 10 pairs of chopsticks and we got a bottle of Jose Cuervo and another liquor since they didn't want to pack them up and haul them south. Score! Tomorrow, we clean out the fridge and we'll probably eat like kings for a week!
The last few days have been quite dramatic at the hostel. Our roommates (this would be our 3rd pair in a week's time) are undergoing a crisis. It's a boy and a girl from the UK who've been friends forever, but apparently the guy wants more and the girl doesn't and she just realized that he wants more than a friendship so now she's really uncomfortable around him. The tension and awkwardness between those two is almost palpable when you walk into the room (my room). Makes it hard to sleep at night...not really...but you understand what i'm saying. Anyway, she wants to cut the trip short and go home and he says that if she does, their friendship is over....cue drama and long discussions with third party observers (ie. me and steve) and endless pro/con lists of what happens if she stays and what happens if she goes. Don't get me wrong...I like this girl. She's fun and I like talking to her. She's actually one of the best roomies we've had, but I don't understand the back and forth. She knows what she wants to do, but then keeps second guessing herself. We'll see what happens. They're leaving in the next couple days, so I might not get the end of the saga.
Unrelated words of wisdom: It is incredibly hard to line dry your clothes when it insists on raining 2-3 times every SINGLE day.
Saturday night Steve and I went down to the pub with our UK roomies and actually stumbled upon something I'd never seen before. The band entertaining us were freestyle rappers who had artists draw on pieces of paper and their drawings were projected onto the wall behind the rappers. They played games trying to guess what the artists were drawing, what phrase the artists were representing, and telling a story about the pictures. It was pretty cool until they let a local in on the drawing. A very hammered local whose only artistic accomplishment was being able to draw wieners. They got rid of him pretty fast, but a while later he was back and took it a step farther, unzipping and flashing his junk so it'd be projected up onto the wall for the whole pub to see....and this is where Australia is soooo different from the States. In the US that guy would be out of the pub as fast as the bouncers could catch him, but here, the bouncers just shook their heads sadly and ignored him.
I think that's all the gossip and shenanigans that have been going on here...so...hope you're enjoying January and 2011!
The last few days have been quite dramatic at the hostel. Our roommates (this would be our 3rd pair in a week's time) are undergoing a crisis. It's a boy and a girl from the UK who've been friends forever, but apparently the guy wants more and the girl doesn't and she just realized that he wants more than a friendship so now she's really uncomfortable around him. The tension and awkwardness between those two is almost palpable when you walk into the room (my room). Makes it hard to sleep at night...not really...but you understand what i'm saying. Anyway, she wants to cut the trip short and go home and he says that if she does, their friendship is over....cue drama and long discussions with third party observers (ie. me and steve) and endless pro/con lists of what happens if she stays and what happens if she goes. Don't get me wrong...I like this girl. She's fun and I like talking to her. She's actually one of the best roomies we've had, but I don't understand the back and forth. She knows what she wants to do, but then keeps second guessing herself. We'll see what happens. They're leaving in the next couple days, so I might not get the end of the saga.
Unrelated words of wisdom: It is incredibly hard to line dry your clothes when it insists on raining 2-3 times every SINGLE day.
Saturday night Steve and I went down to the pub with our UK roomies and actually stumbled upon something I'd never seen before. The band entertaining us were freestyle rappers who had artists draw on pieces of paper and their drawings were projected onto the wall behind the rappers. They played games trying to guess what the artists were drawing, what phrase the artists were representing, and telling a story about the pictures. It was pretty cool until they let a local in on the drawing. A very hammered local whose only artistic accomplishment was being able to draw wieners. They got rid of him pretty fast, but a while later he was back and took it a step farther, unzipping and flashing his junk so it'd be projected up onto the wall for the whole pub to see....and this is where Australia is soooo different from the States. In the US that guy would be out of the pub as fast as the bouncers could catch him, but here, the bouncers just shook their heads sadly and ignored him.
I think that's all the gossip and shenanigans that have been going on here...so...hope you're enjoying January and 2011!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
So begins another journey around the sun
2011 has started well I think. The first day of the year was filled with rain and a trip into Ballina for groceries and a rare meal out at the mall food court. I bought myself a pair of sunglasses since the arm on my old ones snapped off and no amount of glue (the stuff we've been using to put the walls up at work) would keep the two parts together. Now, is that promising for the walls or what? can't even hold together some crummy sunglasses.
Today has been even better since the sun came out to visit and I got to spend the day where any self-respecting resident of a sea-side village would, at the beach. So I spent the majority of the day sacked out on a boogie board on the sand, slowing frying myself a slightly pink color because I forgot to reapply sunscreen after my trips to the ocean.
Now, the ocean is still recovering from all the floodwaters that have been making their way to the coast from inland. I don't know if you've been following the floods in Australia, but some of Queensland is under water and that water has been emptying into the ocean near Lennox, bringing dirt and other various toxins. All this healthy pollution translated itself into heaps of foam washing up on shore, which the children here on holiday seemed to think was their own personal Christmas present and exuberantly slathered the stuff all over them in delight. Anyway, the foam has disappeared, but we've still got some floaty bits in the water here, which I decided to brave today since I was melting. It was really quite enjoyable and I was having fun watching the kids have a blast, until the little boy right next to me pulled his swim trunks down to his knees, popped a squat and did his business right there. Needless to say, I booked it out of the water pretty quick after that and stayed out of it for a while afterward.
This evening I decided to be industrious and headed to the other end of town to climb up to the headland, which overlooks the entire town and 7 Mile Beach. It was going pretty well until I came to the end of the paved path, and was promptly reminded that it has been raining for the last week and a half. (I don't know how I forgot) I thought I could avoid the mud, but in sandals it was kind of impossible and I ended up flipping mud across the back of my shirt and into my hair and had to walk back through town conspicuously covered in muck past all the tourists eating dinner, who were probably wondering where I found a mud hole in town. I swear, I am just that talented.
Tomorrow, it's back to work for Suz. I think this is the last week of that and I am excited. It's actually coming together quite a bit. We painted the walls and now the different sections of plywood don't look so horrible. Still not professional in any way, shape, or form, but not nearly as bad as before. This week we're re-painting the ceiling, scrubbing the floor (whoopee!) and then painting that. Should be fun.
Today has been even better since the sun came out to visit and I got to spend the day where any self-respecting resident of a sea-side village would, at the beach. So I spent the majority of the day sacked out on a boogie board on the sand, slowing frying myself a slightly pink color because I forgot to reapply sunscreen after my trips to the ocean.
Now, the ocean is still recovering from all the floodwaters that have been making their way to the coast from inland. I don't know if you've been following the floods in Australia, but some of Queensland is under water and that water has been emptying into the ocean near Lennox, bringing dirt and other various toxins. All this healthy pollution translated itself into heaps of foam washing up on shore, which the children here on holiday seemed to think was their own personal Christmas present and exuberantly slathered the stuff all over them in delight. Anyway, the foam has disappeared, but we've still got some floaty bits in the water here, which I decided to brave today since I was melting. It was really quite enjoyable and I was having fun watching the kids have a blast, until the little boy right next to me pulled his swim trunks down to his knees, popped a squat and did his business right there. Needless to say, I booked it out of the water pretty quick after that and stayed out of it for a while afterward.
This evening I decided to be industrious and headed to the other end of town to climb up to the headland, which overlooks the entire town and 7 Mile Beach. It was going pretty well until I came to the end of the paved path, and was promptly reminded that it has been raining for the last week and a half. (I don't know how I forgot) I thought I could avoid the mud, but in sandals it was kind of impossible and I ended up flipping mud across the back of my shirt and into my hair and had to walk back through town conspicuously covered in muck past all the tourists eating dinner, who were probably wondering where I found a mud hole in town. I swear, I am just that talented.
Tomorrow, it's back to work for Suz. I think this is the last week of that and I am excited. It's actually coming together quite a bit. We painted the walls and now the different sections of plywood don't look so horrible. Still not professional in any way, shape, or form, but not nearly as bad as before. This week we're re-painting the ceiling, scrubbing the floor (whoopee!) and then painting that. Should be fun.
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