It's finally the weekend! Even though this was a "short week" due to Easter it felt really long for me. Likely because this is the first time I've worked a five day week in awhile! In addition to my Thursday night, I went into work yesterday to fill in and it was really busy. I was so happy to come home today and head back to bed! This getting up early to drive Joel to work is driving me nuts. I'm tired and in bed by ten and I feel like I come home, eat dinner, blog/check emails and goto bed. Today he's informed me he'll be golfing every Saturday morning at seven am so I'll have to drive him to the course in order to have the car to drive myself to work. I think I'm going to start saving for my own $1000 POS car for my sanity. I'd take the bus, but the bus system here is terrible and super inefficient. It's a half hour drive to work so I can only imagine how many days that would take me via public transport.
Last night we had some rain and it was surprisingly quite cool for Australia! I even had to wear a sweater- something I thought I wouldn't need here! The moisture from the rain makes it feel cool. We went out to our favorite Italian take-away, Milano's, for a $25 dollar dinner. Best deal in town and always good food. The guy who works there joked that he thought he scared us away as we hadn't been in awhile. After that we went cruising to explore the Main Beach suburb, which is home to Sea World and the Versace Palazzo Hotel and is known to be a pretty high rolling area. As in Versace Versace. I thought that was very guido when I heard about it, but it's for real! It's Australia's only six star hotel and there is only one other in the chain in Dubai. Wasn't as exciting looking from the outside as I expected. Apparently Chris Brown is staying there this weekend for some musicfest.
At work I am still somewhat of a novelty to our apprentice, Kiarra. She loves to ask me questions about Canada (and she gets in trouble for talking to me so much instead of doing her work). I think she is so cute, but a little naive. (She is only seventeen and not very well traveled yet). Yesterday we were talking about swimsuits (called "swimmers" here) and she was asking me where I bought mine. I told her some from VS, some from a little boutique at home, to which she answered "You can buy swimmers is Canada???" I thought that was pretty funny. I told her yes, we do get some warm weather in the summer that we need them! "Where do you swim then?" Funny. She gets a kick out of some of the "Canadian" words and phrases I use and has been teaching me some Aussie slang. I learned "feral" (which is someone ugly or disgusting) and "sussed", which is basically short for "succeeded".
Next for my random info is the boy band that is taking Australia by storm, One Direction. They are like Justin Bieber times five. They were competitors on X Factor or some show and Simon Cowell's been promoting them. They were in Sydney yesterday for their first concert and every girl under sixteen was going crazy! The radio DJ's were joking about them all day. The concert took place in the afternoon and was only and hour and a half long. Because that's all the songs they have to sing. Anyway they are being touted as the next Beatles and the older generation is very unhappy about that because no one can replace The Beatles. You can't go a day without hearing something about them and their merchandise is for sale everywhere. Joel hates their music and switches station every time they come on, so every once in awhile I'll sing their biggest hit, "One Thing", so it's stuck in his head for the day! I don't mind their music in a turn up the volume, singing in the car, feeling good kind of way (come on, I love the Spice Girls and BSB). So if you too like cheesy music (Dewey), you should download them. Are they popular yet back home?
Next up is the My Family stickers. We have these in Canada. It's the Mom, Dad, children, and pet stickers that you see on the back of peoples cars. They are extremely popular here. I think they're cheesy, and laugh at the people here who are making fun of them. For example, I saw a junky car with a "My Family" sign, but only a single man sticker. Today we saw a "My Family" with two bunnies (must be a friend of our old bunny loving, military neighbor John) and another one that simply said "Making My Family"...
Late night shopping. It only happens ONCE a week!!! That means all the shops close at 5:30 (except the grocery stores and K-mart, which is actually decent here) every weekday except Thursdays, when they are open till nine. This drives me nuts. I learned from a client that even in New Zealand they are open late each weeknight. Might have to petition Can-do Campbell Newman (the premier) or Julia Gillard (PM) on that one. Makes me miss West Ed and it's infinite opening hours...
Finally, onto Drink Driving. It is a very big problem here. I've already met three people who've had DUI charges and have lost their licenses here. Joel's been tuning into a weekly show about it, and it appears that 20% of Australians are charged with drink driving. (This is just my guess. If there are enough incidents to make a weekly, hour long show about all the people caught, it must be at least that high). Rules on drink driving are the same as in Alberta, a one drink max (also texting and talking on your phone are big no-nos, but you can eat or drink a beverage). Maybe they should do like New Zealand and make more anti-drink driving ads, like this one to put a stop to it This video just makes me laugh. I know it is a serious matter, but the first time I watched it I didn't even realized they were speaking English! Courtesy of my awesome youtube/photobombing loving cousin Paul. Bloody leeegend!
Last night we had some rain and it was surprisingly quite cool for Australia! I even had to wear a sweater- something I thought I wouldn't need here! The moisture from the rain makes it feel cool. We went out to our favorite Italian take-away, Milano's, for a $25 dollar dinner. Best deal in town and always good food. The guy who works there joked that he thought he scared us away as we hadn't been in awhile. After that we went cruising to explore the Main Beach suburb, which is home to Sea World and the Versace Palazzo Hotel and is known to be a pretty high rolling area. As in Versace Versace. I thought that was very guido when I heard about it, but it's for real! It's Australia's only six star hotel and there is only one other in the chain in Dubai. Wasn't as exciting looking from the outside as I expected. Apparently Chris Brown is staying there this weekend for some musicfest.
At work I am still somewhat of a novelty to our apprentice, Kiarra. She loves to ask me questions about Canada (and she gets in trouble for talking to me so much instead of doing her work). I think she is so cute, but a little naive. (She is only seventeen and not very well traveled yet). Yesterday we were talking about swimsuits (called "swimmers" here) and she was asking me where I bought mine. I told her some from VS, some from a little boutique at home, to which she answered "You can buy swimmers is Canada???" I thought that was pretty funny. I told her yes, we do get some warm weather in the summer that we need them! "Where do you swim then?" Funny. She gets a kick out of some of the "Canadian" words and phrases I use and has been teaching me some Aussie slang. I learned "feral" (which is someone ugly or disgusting) and "sussed", which is basically short for "succeeded".
Next for my random info is the boy band that is taking Australia by storm, One Direction. They are like Justin Bieber times five. They were competitors on X Factor or some show and Simon Cowell's been promoting them. They were in Sydney yesterday for their first concert and every girl under sixteen was going crazy! The radio DJ's were joking about them all day. The concert took place in the afternoon and was only and hour and a half long. Because that's all the songs they have to sing. Anyway they are being touted as the next Beatles and the older generation is very unhappy about that because no one can replace The Beatles. You can't go a day without hearing something about them and their merchandise is for sale everywhere. Joel hates their music and switches station every time they come on, so every once in awhile I'll sing their biggest hit, "One Thing", so it's stuck in his head for the day! I don't mind their music in a turn up the volume, singing in the car, feeling good kind of way (come on, I love the Spice Girls and BSB). So if you too like cheesy music (Dewey), you should download them. Are they popular yet back home?
Next up is the My Family stickers. We have these in Canada. It's the Mom, Dad, children, and pet stickers that you see on the back of peoples cars. They are extremely popular here. I think they're cheesy, and laugh at the people here who are making fun of them. For example, I saw a junky car with a "My Family" sign, but only a single man sticker. Today we saw a "My Family" with two bunnies (must be a friend of our old bunny loving, military neighbor John) and another one that simply said "Making My Family"...
Late night shopping. It only happens ONCE a week!!! That means all the shops close at 5:30 (except the grocery stores and K-mart, which is actually decent here) every weekday except Thursdays, when they are open till nine. This drives me nuts. I learned from a client that even in New Zealand they are open late each weeknight. Might have to petition Can-do Campbell Newman (the premier) or Julia Gillard (PM) on that one. Makes me miss West Ed and it's infinite opening hours...
Finally, onto Drink Driving. It is a very big problem here. I've already met three people who've had DUI charges and have lost their licenses here. Joel's been tuning into a weekly show about it, and it appears that 20% of Australians are charged with drink driving. (This is just my guess. If there are enough incidents to make a weekly, hour long show about all the people caught, it must be at least that high). Rules on drink driving are the same as in Alberta, a one drink max (also texting and talking on your phone are big no-nos, but you can eat or drink a beverage). Maybe they should do like New Zealand and make more anti-drink driving ads, like this one to put a stop to it This video just makes me laugh. I know it is a serious matter, but the first time I watched it I didn't even realized they were speaking English! Courtesy of my awesome youtube/photobombing loving cousin Paul. Bloody leeegend!
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