The most wonderful time of the year!

Was at the mall earlier. So weird hearing Christmas songs while wearing a tank top and shorts.

Random thought after spending several hours wandering through the stores around downtown Sydney:
I wish I liked clothing more and books less. Then (obviously) I'd be better dressed. And also, carrying the fruits of a shopping expedition would be easier on my shoulders.

Seriously, though, most of the time I go into a clothing store, I am just overwhelmed with choices and can't be bothered to dig through and try to find something I might like. In a bookstore, though, it's just the opposite. The bigger and more cluttered, the better. I'll spend forever and have a fabulous time looking through random titles. I'm a nerd. Who knew?

Say yes to life

I am watching "Yes Man" currently with flatmate Steve. Jim Carrey jst uttered the titular (very deep) quotation.

I saw a guy wearing a Phillies hat on Hall Street in Bondi today! He was probably drunk, definitely creeped out when I said "Hey, nice hat" upon passing him. Oh well!

Anyway, I've kind of buried the lead here because the real story is that I bought a car today! I now own this:


Awesome. Now that the quest for a car is (at last!) at an end, I am searching for a name for this vehicle. Consider the forum open for suggestions.

Happy almost Thanksgiving!!

Weird story

Thought I would share this, but I am a terrible blogger who can't figure out how to link. Here's the story from a paper in Perth:

"AUSTRALIAN twin sisters have been shot at a Colorado shooting range in a bizarre incident that has left one dead and the other critically wounded.

The 29-year-old siblings were simultaneously shot in the head at around 2.50pm local time on Monday at the Cherry Creek State Park shooting range southeast of Denver, the Denver Post reported today.

Reports suggest a suicide pact is suspected but police have not said whether the shooting was accidental or intentional.

One sister was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was taken to a local hospital where she underwent surgery and remained in a critical condition.

Arapahoe County Sheriff's Captain Louie Perea said the women were Australian and were not being named pending the notification of family members.

The Denver Post reported that their visas indicated one sister arrived in Colorado on September 7 and the other on August 19, with one scheduled to fly back to Australia on Wednesday.

Captain Louie Perea said the pair were traveling on cultural exchange visas.

Surveillance videos did not show the incident itself but suggested that there was no third party involved in the double-shooting, KDVR-TV said.

The owner of the shooting range, Doug Hamilton, told The Denver Post the women were shot almost simultaneously, adding they had appeared normal before the shooting.

"The ladies hit the pavement virtually at the same time," Mr Hamilton said.

"They were definitely normal," he said. "We are always aware and watching for signs. There was absolutely no indication."

Since I mentioned Katy and Ross, I thought it would be a treat to include some photos from our time staying with them. Our last night we made breakfast-for-dinner, and a Tim-Tam/banana parfait creation. Yummmmerz.



Also, would you believe these two lovely creatures (below) are 17? I'm getting old.

Midweek update

God, my feet are tired. I kind of hate my schedule because it ensures that whenever I have free time, I want to spend it off my feet, doing as little as possible and not dealing with people. Not exactly the key to a productive social or cultural life. Well, at the moment I am relaxing at a cafe on Pitt street, where I had to buy a diet Coke (which was tiny but will surely cost at least $3) for the privilege of using their wireless. Whatevs, well worth it. I like sitting in these little cafes and listening to the staff and the other patrons chatter, and it always smells good. I find I have to frequent a few different places, though, because I always buy only enough to not feel bad, and therefore am not exactly a huge source of revenue for these places.

ANYWAY. Not too much has been going on. Got to meet up with friends and best Couch Surfers ever Katy and Ross on Tuesday night, which was awesome! I paid the price yesterday, though, for only having gotten 4 hours of sleep. Hopefully will be meeting up with them again on Saturday at Bronte Beach. And my Dashboard tells me it will be nice weather, too-- hooray! It's lovely out today, though I don't have time to go home to the beach today since I just went to Redfern to (drumroll please)..... look at a car! That's right, I am currently investigating the possibility of buying a used car to road trip around this beautiful country. It's kind of cool, since there are so many backpackers here, there is always someone looking to sell off the station wagon or campervan they just used to drive to Cairns or to wherever, and they'll throw in their tents and maps and all the accoutrements as well. I am wary of getting shysted, though. And I know nothing about cars. All in all, a daunting prospect.

More later kids.
XOXO

PS Happy birthday (from the future) to my darling younger brother and sister!!

Polling for opinions...

"My friend back home in Canada just won the lottery and bought me an around-the-world plane ticket. Tonight is going to be my last shift."
--Co-worker's alibi yesterday, upon quitting. I find this, to put it mildly, a tad dubious. Thoughts?

Countdown: 12 days

Hello all! The titular countdown is to my birthday.... but is probably unnecessary because I imagine all of my friends have his/her own "Margaret's b-day" countdown, starting November 22 of every year.

Anyway. As always, I have much to say and not enough time to catch up on everything. I've included some random photos, too, so things don't get too dry. So, for the majority of my days I am occupied with work, but I try to make the most of downtime/days off. This includes exploring various aspects of Sydney life including the abundance of coffee shops, which they are obsessed with. Despite not drinking coffee, I usually manage to justify my presence in these establishments with skim hot chocolate and some kind of sugary creation. I have also been browsing at the various markets that pop up around the city on a weekly basis, and while I haven't bought much, I have come to a few realizations:
1. Most of this crap is over-priced and sells because people are of the mindset that markets are cheap and cool. And then you get home and it breaks and you realize it wasn't a bargain at all.
2. Chicks love markets. I guess this is true for shopping establishments everywhere, but it was especially apparent at this cool little market I went to in Paddington two weeks ago. It's set up inside a bar. All the tables and stuff are filled with people selling jewelry, clothes, purses, etc; it was a really cool set-up overall. The best part, though, was that the bar itself was still serving so you could see this whole congregation of bored boyfriends commiserating over a beer and wondering when their birds would be done. I LOL'd.

Another observation/rant is that EVERYONE who works in hospitality smokes. This makes things awkward for myself, a non-smoker, at my restaurant job, for the following reasons:
1. When asked to light the candles on the tables before dinner service, it was really embarrassing to tell my manager I don't know how to use a lighter.
2. I think it's massively unfair that smokers--and this is not just limited to hospitality jobs--are allowed to just go off, stand outside and smoke in the middle of a shift. First of all, is the addiction really so intense that you can't get through a six-hour shift without a fag? Second of all, when was it universally decided that tobacco is a permissible excuse to leave work for ten minutes? Would I be allowed to just be like, "I'm going for a Kit-Kat, be back in a few." I doubt it. What these breaks of theirs really mean is that they are being paid to smoke! We get the same hourly rate, and I am not skipping out everyone 90 minutes or so to smoke. I'm getting ripped off.
(I also feel ripped off in that the past 2 Saturday night shifts I have worked, I've gotten $5 and $2, respectively. Come ON Sydney diners!)

To the right here, surfer-in-training.
Oh-- one further note. I think I have kicked my Tim-Tam addiction for the time being. This has been accomplished by refusing to buy them or keep them in the house. I crumble in the face of Tim-Temptation (hahaha!), so it's been avoided altogether. The bad news is that I have picked up a new addiction to caramel slices, which are probably even worse for me. At this rate, I will be arriving home tipping the scales around 200 pounds. Awesome. Time to go for a LONG run.

Love and sunshine, Gossip Girl

Random thought

It is really disheartening to watch current 30 Rock at the same time as season 1 30 Rock. It used to be so much better!

I love Bondi Beach.
That is all.

Random stuff

Hello my unknown audience!

I must begin by admitting I am slightly discouraged by the progress of my blog. I feel like I just don't have enough time to keep up with it as much as I imagined doing. Also--perhaps--I am being lazy about it and not being proactive enough. I'm going to try to be better. I just had a caramel slice before opening up this page, so hopefully some kind of Pavlovian conditioning will take effect wherein I feel compelled to blog immediately after eating sugary foods. Then the posts will be rampant!

ANYWAY. I am currently sitting in a little cafe in the Surry Hills neighborhood, which is one of my favorite. "Hills" is not a misnomer, though, and my already over-used legs took a beating on the way here. I finished work at my own cafe just an hour or so ago, and am relaxing before going in to the restaurant to work the dinner shift. Another day, another dollar. (An Australian one, which grows ever more powerful while the US prints up a billion new dollars. Yikes.)

Yesterday was Melbourne Cup Day, which is basically Kentucky Derby times ten. It's a horse race in Melbourne; and Victoria gets the day off as a public holiday. In Sydney we do not, but everyone leaves work around one and gets pissed while watching the horsies and betting on them. It's seriously a HUGE deal-- every bar and restaurant in the city had been advertising their Melbourne Cup Package since I arrived in September, and yesterday there were balloons and decorations on every storefront I passed. At the coffee shop in the morning, everyone who came in talked about where they were going to watch the race, what horses they were betting on, etc. For the race itself, we had a function of 160 people come into the restaurant and drink for 5 hours. The ladies were all wearing fancy hats, and some of the men as well. The women seemed to all relish the opportunity to get all gussied up, whereas the male camp seemed to be divided between the traditional "gentleman" look (which was lovely and Mad Men-esque with fedoras and three-piece suits) and the outrageous (coonskin caps, bight turquoise brocade silk jackets). They were a nice enough bunch but obviously it's not the most fun to serve alcohol to a bunch of drunk people. Even less fun was telling them they had to leave and could not have any more wine when 5:00 FINALLY rolled around. C'est la vie.

Finally, I just want to share the book I finished a few weeks ago. It's an Australian book, and actually takes place in Melbourne. I loved it so much I wish I could go back to the time before I had started it just so I could read it again for the first time. But I'm a freak. It's called "The Slap" by Christos Tsiolkas and I encourage anyone who's interested to try and track it down.

Thanks for slogging through a picture-less blog post. I hope it wasn't too painful. Hope to write again soon!

Hmmmmm

I am getting ready for work right now and i can't find my hairbrush. This begs the questions, did I leave it at work Saturday night? Which in turn begs the question, have I not brushed my hair since Saturday night??

Ponderingly yours,
Blogger Extraordinare

BUTTER, etc

Hey guys!
So... more observations on the Aussies. They butter everything. When it's gotten to the point where even I'm grossed out, you know its bad. They put butter on banana bread, ham sandwiches, etc.... I finally drew the line at work the other day when someone ordered peanut-butter toast, and Steve BUTTERED the bread before putting on PB. Ew.

Here's what happened to me today:
1. Worked at the coffee shop. Had a brownie for breakfast.
2. Worked at the restaurant. Was forced to clean toilets, which was degrading. But not as degrading as the look my manager gave me when I responded to the toilet-cleaning request with something akin to "Are you f---ing kidding me?"
3. Turned these:

into this:


Woohooo go me!

Also shout-out to Marita and Kev for sending me Silly Bandz and Amurrcan candy!!
I welcome more packages from Stateside. Just saying.
PEACE OUT.
PS I miss this:
Love you 1506!

Awkward things

1. Yesterday at work, I asked one of the chefs what he had done on his day off. I thought he said, "Just played with myself" so I said "ew." Turns out he said "played with my son." Whoops.
2. Australian TV subtitles any English speaker with a remotely foreign accent. WTF? For a country full of so many people from all over the world, there is a lot of crazy ig'nant shit and racism.

K that was my deep thought for the day. Here's the Opera House.

XOXO

Monday Funday

Hello readers! Firstly, I just want to say that Monday is my new favorite day of the week. I work three hours in the morning, and then have a glorious weekday afternoon and evening to frolic. Details of today's adventures to follow.
Secondly, I want to shout out to the lovely and talented JCo, whose email made my night. Love you!
Thirdly and most exciting, I learned to surf yesterday! Sadly, I don't have any photos, but just picture it pretty much like this:

Only, you know, with even more toned abs.

Aaaaanyway-- surfing lesson yesterday at Boat Harbour Park was sweet. Today I worked at the coffee shop in the AM, then went for yet another coastal walk. As ever, the scenery was gorge. The route was from home in North Bondi to "the Gap," where Sydney Harbour opens out to the Pacific. Here is the map:

It was indeed really pretty, but honestly, there's only so many oceanside cliffs one can look at in an afternoon, AND most of the route was uphill, so by the time we got to Watson's Bay, a gelato reward was very much in order. OMG the bitch at the gelato place was so rude though. After me and Alex both had sampled 2 flavors and asked for another, she was like "So are you guys going to buy anything?" I was about to walk out when she said that. A) I didn't realize sampling was contingent upon an imminent purchase, and B) way to imply that we're chintsy freeloaders or something. UGH.

After that, we hit up the Nighttime Noodle Markets in Hyde Park downtown, then played chess (I lost) at a bar called Pocket, where I saw my first Aussie midget. All in all, a successful day, and now I am tired and ready for bed. Obvi I will subject you to a few more photos before I go.






Love it!
XOXO,
Gossip Girl

One more thing

To those who say I can't cook, may I offer the following rebuttal?

BOOM.

Rejoice podophiles!

That word in the title means "foot fetishists," and I am shouting-out to them because today's post has a distinct podiatric flavor. I have not one but two (!!) pieces of foot news. The first and arguably less exciting is my new shoes. They were $8 from K-mart.

They are sweet.

Item 2 is not for the faint of heart. Or the short of attention span. Last night, after an incident in which I feared the loss of my life first at the hands of Alex driving on the Sydney roads and secondly at Housemate Anne's wrath after she discovered he had driven her van, I was at Cole's doing some grocery shopping. As I perused the selection of muesli bars (vom. I miss Fiber Plus! Maura??) I somehow injured my foot. I actually stepped on it with my other foot, I think. I wasn't really even thinking about it, and it didn't hurt, but then I looked down to investigate and blood was dripping off my right foot, all over the base of my flip-flop and into the aisle. At first I was just like WTF? How is this cut so deep? And then, to the surprise of no one who remembers the Blood Draw Incident of 2009 or other similar moments of shame, I started to get light-headed and sat down to try to get my head on straight. My vision kept getting blurry and my hearing and fading out, and...... then I came to on the floor, hearing "assistance needed on aisle six" over the PA. Awesome. Some manager named Arthur came over and was very attentive and worried. I kind of felt bad for him because he was making such a fuss over me, but then I realized the excitement, as well as the opportunity to whip out the first-aid kit, probably made his night. In the end, he had me "write a statement" and give my name and address. He probably heard my American accent and assumed I was going to sue. (I was surprised I didn't even score free groceries out of the deal, I'll admit.) ANYWAY. My foot hurts. Here is a picture of my gash:


Some further insights and anecdotes:
1. Ozzies call goosebumps "chicken skin."
2. In an event which has been foreshadowed since my mom (Hi Mom! If you're reading) stopped me on my way to school in second grade because my hair looked like "a rat's nest," I was told off at work for my hair not being neat enough. Shocker, right? I now apply hairspray in such proportions that my hair has the texture of a football helmet during my shift. Oh well. It could act as a shield in the event of projectiles.
3. Sunday = day off. This week, I went with Ranger Alex, Housemate Anne, British Steve, and Maybe-Midget Natalie to this beach called Mallabar and did a bush-walk. My first! It was purty. Here are some pics:

Avocado rhymes with tomato and other insights

Hello all! It is currently 6:22am and I am sitting at the kitchen table drinking Diet Pepsi straight from the 2-liter (4 for $5 at Coles, what what!!). I will be working for like the next 18 hours straight--bleh--so I figured I'd stop in and say hi. And also share with you an anecdote wherein:
1. Ranger Alex buys 4 pairs of socks in Kings Cross for $4
2. R.A. then accuses me of losing them, accidentally throwing them out, etc
3. Three days later, said socks are found, in their original packaging, in the FRIDGE. Someone got a little hasty reaching for the bacon packet after work one night, it seems!

Anyway, that's it except:
- I sneezed all day yesterday and I still hate that cat.
- I get paid today!!


In closing, here is a picture of a man doing a choreographed dance with a crane outside the opera house. LOVE it.


Love, Margo

Hump Day

Just a few things to share today.
This is my street:


Y mi casa:

I love love love living in Bondi. Even when, as happened today, the local McDonald's runs out of ice cream and cannot supply me with a McFlurry. (Lesson from the trenches: Burger King makes an almost identical product called the Storm. CHECK!)

Finally, this is the Cat.

I have a strong distrust/animosity for this animal. His name, I shit you not, is Jizz. Despite my repeated demonstrations that this animal is not welcome in my personal space or near my belongings, I frequently pick up articles of clothing to find them covered in white hairs. Currently taking suggestions for how I can stage Jizz's death and (this is crucial) make it look like an accident.

That is all.
Mucho amor!

PS I ate 4 servings of fruit today. I rock.

More Milestones

Went for my first run today since arriving almost a month ago. I've been carrying my running shoes since landing, and they have been mocking me as they gather dust. However, I feel the lapse in working out is somewhat mitigated since I've been super-busy with job search, general exploring, and my morning job. So it's not as though I've been sitting on my arse eating Tim-Tams. (Most of the time.) Anyway, had the afternoon off today and the weather was beautiful, so I thought it an excellent opportunity. Here is my run:


Notice how I've measured it in km? I decided it's better to just learn to live life in the metric system/Celsius rather than trying to convert all the time. Anyway, I was pleased because I went about 5k. I was NOT pleased when, upon my return to the Shack at Wairoa, housemate Anne was like "Is that you back already?" The "already" nettled me a bit and I wanted to be like "Um, YES bitch. How far have YOU run today?" Meow! But I fought my baser instincts.

Anyway, today was an excellent day in that I worked, went to the beach (!), AND got everything on my to-do list done. Okay, I'm tired of time off now and want to go back to working doubles every day. At least that way I've got enough $$ to support my Tim-Tams addiction. Below is the aforementioned confection in all its addicting glory:



Peace out my little chickens!

3 weeks, 2 couches, and 1 futon later....

Hey y'all

I am starting a blog of my Australian life. This ensures that a) I can still write/post stuff that is too mundane to clog the inboxes of my nearest and dearest, b) my friends can all have another time-waster blog to read at work, and c) my writing can find a wider audience, so more people than just me can laugh at my jokes. 

Anyway, I landed in Oz about three and a half weeks ago. I am on a yearlong work-and-holiday visa, so--ahhh!!--I have only about 11 months left Down Undah. 

THE PLAN: get a job here in Sydney, work nights, frolic/lounge on the beach/explore during the day all summer. Once summer ends, I want to travel up the east coast, go to the outback and whatnot, and also visit some parts of Western Australia. This country is seriously BIG. And FAR from everywhere. Their local vacation destination is Thailand, which is still a 10-hour flight away. Ker-ist. Anyway, after using up my year here in Oz, I'd like to go to Southeast Asia, and maybe Fiji. Etc Etc.

Here's how it's been going. 

Job 1: barista/waitress at a cafe in the downtown neighborhood of Surry Hills. I work 7:30-10:30 every morning, which is a bitch, but it pays cash and my boss is really nice (his bad, repetitive jokes aside.) He also hired me when I had no idea how to make coffee and has been training me, so I feel kinda bad deserting him. IDK how long I can stay on this wake-up-at-6am schedule, though. Bleh

Job 2: After a lengthy search and a few failed "trials" (this really nerve-wracking part of the hiring process here, where they'll basically throw you behind the bar/out on the floor of a restaurant and make you do stuff), I got a job at a fancy restaurant on the 36th floor of a hotel in the harbour. However, the hours were loooong, the pay was bad, the uniform degrading, and the freebies non-existent, so I started looking around for other stuff. Eventually got hired on at the same restaurant and fellow traveller Ranger Alex, who is now frightened that I will make him redundant. Eek-- let's hope not! We are both currently working on memorizing all this info about the fancy dishes served at Bel Mondo, our place of employment. I can go into great detail on the process behind "aubergine ragout" and "elderflower granita." Yay for life skills!!

Milestones this week:

1. I survived on 4 hours of sleep for like 5 days running. Survive being a generous term for someone who was constantly as grumpy as I was. However, I slept about 12 hours yesterday and am gloriously refreshed, and ready to start it all over tomorrow!

2. On Monday I was left alone to run the coffee shop by myself--for all of 15 minutes while Steve (the bossman) ran to the shop, but still! I am slowly proving myself as capable of not burning the place down, which is an excellent skill to complement my newfound ability to toast a croissant. 

3. In celebration of my morning of triumph, Alex and I did the Bondi-to-Coogee coastal walk on Monday afternoon. It was sooo pretty, and we did it at the perfect time; the sun was setting as we were walking south. I loved it. Pictures below. Please forgive if the formatting is non-sensical, as I am just working out this blogger stuff. 

This is Bondi Beach, surf capital/tourist destination extraordinaire. My house is 5 minutes up the road from here. I love my life.

Here we have some random cliff, and then the lovely Tamarama Beach, next stop on our walking tour of the Eastern beaches.

more pretty pictures. sorry, i cannot figure out how this formatting works AT ALL. 

okay now I am done. One more picture of the sunset at Coogee Beach, then I'm signing off. I wouldn't call this first post a raging success, since I don't know why this blasted text is underlined, nor can I figure out how to make the photos go how I want them.    I think "Work in progress" is the most apt summation at this stage. 

Okay, I am going to go enjoy my day off. Will try to drag the Ranger to see "Easy A." It's cheap movie day in Sydney at $9AUD.  PS it is also labour day here so happy LD!

-marge