Waking Up in Oz

Mandi and spent our first Australia Day participating in the age-old Australian tradition of going to the movies. What? I know, we’re lame. I spent my day off from work watching a Meryl Streep movie instead of participating in any sort of  activity in the sun with the rest of the country. Oops. No one we knew really had concrete plans and since Tuesdays are known as “tight ass Tuesday” here in Australia, movies are only $10. Sidenote: Speaking of barbequess, it seems like there’s a common rule of “bring your own meat” to a lot of  these gatherings. I find that odd.

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Now that we have jobs and are getting paid (so nice to see money going IN my account and not just out of it… at one point I had $2.78 in my Aussie bank account. Yes, the decimal is in the right place.), we’ve started planning trips around Australia. We just booked a flight to Melbourne for a weekend in February. We’re going to try and cram in as much stuff as we can in 2 days. I seriously know nothing about Melbourne, so I’m sure I’ll be researching like crazy for the next month. If any of you living in Melbs have some “must do/must see” recommendations (particularly involving food!), send me an email or a comment.

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We’re also looking into a weekend getaway to Gold Coast in March. I keep hearing it looks exactly like Florida, and after looking on the Gold Coast tourism site, I can definitely see the similarities. Between the high rises and canals, it looks a lot like Fort Lauderdale. I don’t plan on doing much there other than laying around on the beach.

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I also went to my first cricket match last weekend and saw New South Wales play South Australia. Mandi and I enjoyed it way more than we were expecting! It’s so much easier for me to understand a sport after seeing it live. I had tried watching it on TV a few times but always zoned out within 3 minutes and had no idea what was going on. Granted, the match we went to wasn’t the traditional 5-day match and was only a few hours. Not sure if my attention span could handle anything longer. Also, one of the interesting things about work life in Australia is they have sports on in the office. The sound isn’t on, but every day there is cricket on, and the past week the Australian Open was on. The TV is right in the middle of the office positioned so everyone can see! Work life in general is really laid back, totally my speed.

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As far as the latest Bollywood drama…he’s gone for good! His departure included our flatmate getting home last Sunday  at 8 a.m., seeing him sitting out on the couch with a possible hooker and drinking red wine (sooo random), and yelling at him when she saw how badly he destroyed her room. Turns out he stole about $100 worth of change she had on a bowl on her nightstand and has yet to pay rent. I’ve never met a bigger loser. He’s certainly not missed… which means we’ll most likely run into him somewhere around Sydney.