It continues..

Sooo, since my last entry I haven’t done any further travelling, but rather experienced more here in Wilmington. We went to another college basketball game – we lost again – but the following game they played (which we didn't go to, they won – so that might be saying something . . )

Pretty blurry, but couldn't upload the original as it was too big

Last sunday a group of 20+ of us went out to dinner to see how good the Aussie Outback Steakhouse was – and to throw down a Tooheys New (or a VB for the Penrith westies) – only to arrive, scope out the beer list to see that the only beer listed under ‘Australia’ was Fosters – which can hardly even be found in Australia!! But on a positive note, they found some Boags out back and my steak was pretty gooood – Medium raaaaaare

Tuesday night I went out with some American friends to watch a Hockey game at a sports bar - Carolina Hurricanes (GO CANES!!) vs Pittsburgh Penguins. The bar we were at got mentioned in the broadcast as the place to be if you were a Canes fan, so I was right in the heat of things! This was the first game of Hockey I had ever fully watched – it is mental! An American mate tried explaining everything to me but I kept getting distracted when the players would break out into a fight and it was allowed to happen until one of them hit the deck. Unreal sport!! Hopefully going to a live game late Feb! Sadly the Canes lost in a shoot out. I must be a sports bad omen. 

Friday night involved heading down town for the first time to a bar where some upcoming/indie bands were playing. It proved to be an interesting night, with the first act consisting of a bloke who danced around and yelled to the crowd as if he was performing at Big Day Out (instead he had a crowd of about 80), also when you closed your eyes and listened, he sounded like a chick, then there was the token black guy to stand behind the decks and rap a verse or two every 2^nd song, and then the standard boring drummer who sits there and doesn’t say anything – the highlight of their act came when they played their final song where they performed a dance routine which would have given the Spice Girls a run for their money. Following this was an atrocious duo who basically forced us to leave. This also caused us to come across the greatest sandwich restaurant ever (Jimmy John’s) so all was not wasted.

Out at Brickhouse

Saturday night started interestingly for me, the boys told me to hurry up and get to campus to have some pre-drinks with them before heading down town again. So not having much time to get my shit together, and having no time to cook food (actually, no food to cook really), I took college eating habits to a whole new level by eating dry rice, swallowing it down with a bit of water, in the hope that it would be able to line my stomach and absorb the beers to come. Good news is: it worked, bad news is: my stomach was sore for 2 days! Nevertheless, I got to campus to join the boys, to find them playing ‘Pong’ on the Atari game system. I took control, dominated the field, and with the help of a couple of glitches, smashed Nicko 11-0, resulting in him having to do a nudie run outside around the college – great start to the night.

An amazing piece of technology

Last night we went out to a Japanese Steak House for Brendan Sing’s (Fellow Aussie from Perth) birthday. The Americans had warned us that it was quite expensive. We soon found out that they don’t know what expensive is when for $25 we got an entrée of soup and prawns, then for the main: about a kilo of rice each, noodles, teriyaki chicken and 3 beers!! Not to mention an incredible show by the chef who set the BBQ on fire and entertained us by throwing all the prawn tails and leftovers onto our friends on another table.

Pretty impressive snap for an iPhone if I may say so myself

Our main man

This was what was leftover from my plate alone

Today was the most amazing day in terms of weather so far. It was about 22, so we all donned the shorts, shirts and thongs and lapped up some sun. We headed down towards the beach to a bottle shop we’d been told stocked some Aussie beers – found out they only sold Coopers or James Boags, so we ordered in some cases of Boags for our Aussie Day party we are having at a local bar in town. However we are starting our celebrations here on the 25^th so as to listen to the Hottest 100. Should be unreal. Then the 27^th is my birthday and we’re doing a river cruise and heading out – so if you haven’t yet sent me a present it’s okay, I’ll accept late arrivals ;) . Anyway, this bottleshop claims to have over 100 different types of beer so, being such a nice day, we thought we'd get one and sit outside in the sun. We decided to go for beers with the best names/labels - bad mistake - all 6 of us hated our beers, the best scored a 2.5/5. On the plus side, we now have 6 bottles/cans of beer with funny names.

Bitter American 1/5, Second Wind 2/5, Stone Levitation 1/5, Hop Wallop 1/5, Horn Dog .2/5 (not a typo, there is a point in front of that 2 - I picked a winner), Sunny Haze 2.5/5

Whilst here we came up with a beer rating scale (out of 5)

A beer with a rating of

0-1 means you can barely finish it, and pride is the only thing pushing you

1-2 means you can handle a maximum of 1 of these beers

2-3 means you would drink it only if it was free

3-4 means you would buy it only if it were on sale

4-5 you're enjoying life

5 - Winning - you will pay whatever amount for another one

6 - Is the equivalent of rating a girl a 10 - so pretty much near impossible. In the case of a beer, to receive a 6, not only does it have to have the taste of a 5, but the company and atmosphere whilst consuming this beer has to be second to none. My hopes for a 6 aren't too high hanging round these Penrith boys so much. haha.

Steveo, Dean, Nath, Nicko, Jimmy

Other interesting things that have happened.....

-The Penrith boys bought a 7 seater van. It’s actually pretty unreal. So I’m looking forward to some road trips ahead with them. 

We just need to get heaps of lollipops and kids toys to complete it

-Swedes don’t know how to lock up bikes. Christian borrowed Jimmy’s bike and when ‘locking’ it, tied the chain around the spokes, only to come back and find out that someone had kicked in the spokes and knicked off with the bike!

- Never consider spewing in a cab it will send you more broke than if you were to do it in Australia

We are still waiting for the first victim

- Chinglish is just as good here as it is at home

We delivery. But no deliver on Sunday

- I HAVE actually attended ALL classes and they are going well so far ;)

That’s it for now. I’ll hopefully have more interesting stories for the next one. And also all those people who thought I wouldn’t ever write another post (Mum!) - in the most polite way possible - I've proved you wrong ;)

Hope all is well. Party hard on Aussie day, have a beer or 11 for me!!

x

p.s. I have an American number, and if you have the latest iPhone software, then its free to message with iMessage +1 910-547-1196 - alternatively: Viber and Whatsapp are still linked to my Aussie number