I'm not dead....

Okay, so I’ve been a busy man, somewhat slack, in getting the next entry to you all. But finally here it is – with a lot to catch up on. Hope it's alright

Australia Day – Wow, what a great night we had here. We went back to the bottle shop with the shit beers to pick up our 6 cases of Boags - that we were generously buying for all Aussies, and wannabe Aussies to consume – and this is where the night started well. The bloke stuffed up and sold us the Boags for $13.90 a case, the price of a six pack (in other words $83.40 for all 6 cases). You would have thought that by the time he scanned the 6^th case he would have realised that it was wrong, but no, just another simple American.

Yeeeew let the party begin

So we headed to “Fat Boy’s” the bar (basically a converted house) where we were celebrating the big count down and dropped off the beer and set up the place decking it out, before everyone arrived, with all our Aussie flags, towels, beer coasters etc. 

Having a sneaky brew and setting up

The Penrith boys have a mate studying at East Carolina uni so he came up with 5 others to join in on the festivities. Everything kicked off and everyone was having a great time, Aussies, Yanks, Poms, Swedes, Fins, until the bloke who owned the place changed the Hottest 100 to some shit songs, and when we approached him he said he had to keep everyone happy, we were like “Mate, everyone is Australian, countdown now!” – He was foolish enough to make that mistake once more, needless to say he’s now pushing up daisies. But the worst/best was yet to come. The bar had to close before we’d even reached #20 in the countdown. Heartbroken and devastated, “King Bagel” came to the rescue and invited 20 odd people back to my apartment where we partied on until the number one song was announced (approx. 4 in the morning) – Apologies to my roommate, and the two floors below us!

STRAYA DAY!!

Then came the 27^th, MY BIRTHDAY. Back in orientation we had paid $5 to go on the “Cape Fear River Cruise” – sounded cool at the time. Oh how wrong we all were. We arrived at the docks and got onto the “cruise boat” and started the tourist cruise down the river. The bloke providing us with information was trying hard, but, we found it a better option to sit out the back of the boat and look at the dirty water, piles of chopped down trees and islands of mud instead of being told about them. We decided we should get a beer to ease our suffering, and celebrate my birthday, only for our hopes to be shattered by the woman who organised the cruise who wouldn’t allow beer to be sold due to the fact that there were under 21’s on-board. Could things get worse? The answer we soon found out was yes. As we had completed the cruise up the river we were coming back into the docks, all of us ready to get off and start the partying, until the “cruise boat” passed right by the docks . . . . to go up the other end of the river – the reason for this we still don’t know as all that was there were tanks, cranes and industrial area. Steveo, being a huge fan of cranes, absolutely loved this leg of the trip though.

  

Chris, Nicko, Jimmy, Brendan, Steveo, Nicko and Janne

Steveo's favourite crane

Many of you warned me not to fall in love over here unless it was with an Aussie - so I've done just that

<3

After 3 hours we finally got off the boat and headed to another Aussie Day party (our first house party) which soon got shut down, so we headed down town, Jimmy was being soft so he didn't drink, and managed to lock the keys in the car when we arrived – we then got told by a car of girls – whom we casually asked if they had a coat hanger we could borrow – that taxi drivers can unlock your car?!? So that crisis was averted and we had a great night – from what I can remember, due to many a drink bought for me. Cheers to all. Upon arriving back at campus, Nath, Brendan and I decided to challenge each other on who could run the furthest into the woods, progressing a couple of trees at a time as we couldn’t see shit, but then we got scared, well I did at least, because of a luminous green building – reminding me of the Simpsons episode when Mr Burns is radioactive and roaming through the woods so we ran away. (Nath won)

Saturday (28^th) went to a Frat party – kegs, DJ, Ice luges and all – Nath had a go but ended up wearing his shot - special kid. This party was then shut down due to the floor in the living room falling through!! I then headed into the beach bars to catch up with a couple of American mates while the others went home.

On Sunday (29^th) I had some of the boys over for a nice bromantic dinner and movie night where we watched ‘The Inbetweeners’, had a few beers and I cooked up a huge batch of Spaghetti Bolognese (3 packs of mince and 2 packets of spaghetti) – went down a treat. Shame that’s the only meal I have the ability to make. (We are trying to make it a weekly occurrence now – Leon cooked up an amazing Chicken stir-fry on Monday (6^th), and after claiming "I don't know how I ended up in the kitchen", we later learnt he'd had previous cooking experience, lessons and all!! Good luck to whoever cooks next)

Thursday (2^nd) went back to Fibbers – the U21 bar we went to in first week – it was so dead they closed the dance floor off and all, it was basically just us playing pool but still had a good night. Friday we then went to another house party with the theme BLT – Black Tie, Lingerie, Toga, pretty random… We chose the black tie option. 

Jimmy, reppin the turtle neck and tie

It was pretty chilled, met some cool people and played beer pong, where I first teamed up with Jimmy and was tearing it up, I then teamed up with a girl, I lost all my ability and what made matters worse is she was also shit – this was never going to end well. We lost without sinking a cup and as a result I had to do a nudie run. Due to the house not being that big, it ended up being a nudie walk... around the beer pong table... wearing only my tie... and high-fiving everyone at the party – there is also video evidence floating around (please ignore this future employers). I also met a guy with a Lion King tattoo - So yeh… interesting night to say the least. 

Hakuna Matata

Saturday we took a night off (I even did some uni work!!) to prepare for the Super Bowl! Super Bowl Sunday arrived and we had no idea where we were going or what we were doing for it, a million parties were “happening”, then a million parties were called off. We ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings Sports Bar – what a game it was (GO GIANTS!!!), everyone was kitted out and going mental. 

Janne and Me - Stickers: 'More Sports' & 'More Beer'

I ordered some hot wings, with the 3^rd hottest sauce out of 16 types – wow was my mouth on fire and I couldn’t even have a bloody glass of milk to ease the burn – stupid lactose intolerance. We then went out to Fibbers where the bouncer checked the first of our ID’s realised we were Aussie so his way of checking the rest of ID’s was for us to give our best American accent – he had a go at mine so I told him to give his best Aussie accent to which I told him to keep working on it. Good fun night out, then Steveo, Nath, Nicko and I ended up chilling back at some random blokes house near the beach, where there was a guy there who only talked in rap/rhyming lyrics – he would have been cool but he was a small white guy - and definitely not the next Eminem. Then around 5am we rode our unicorns to Maccas where they were already serving breakfast, we had a feed, and after Steveo tried to convince us his name was in fact 'Sting' and everybody in Maccas addressed him as that, we got back to mine just before 7am. I somehow managed to wake up and shower to try and make my 9am class – I then thought this was a silly idea so went back to sleep (missing my first class of the semester!!) for a couple of hours before waking again to begin studying for my exam at 2! I made it to my exam, didn't think it was too bad, we got the marks back the following day and I somehow managed to pull 85% with the average being 80% - so I was pretty happy – however, to manage a mark like this with only a couple hours sleep, filthy hangover and one hours study, it hasn’t provided me with too much incentive to study harder!!

So that’s about all I can remember for now, so I’ll leave you with a few random things:

• A line we’ve had from a few Americans, both guys and girls “You have such a cool accent! I wish I had an accent” – You do, it's American…
• I recently found out that when I was to get picked up from the airport at the beginning of semester they were warned that if I didn’t show up, then not to worry because (as a result of the mug shot I sent in before I arrived) I looked like a stoner – cheers
• I sort of bought into the boys van - First road trip this weekend :)
• We decked out the van with a few stickers and also thumbtacked a poster of Mick Fanning onto the roof - we pimpin now

AKR - Aussie Kunts Reppin/Rule/Rollin

• Americans think they can drive drunk (their limit is .08, higher than home but still – you can’t be shit faced). Noah experienced this first hand when the girl he had been having a few drinks with said she’d drive to wherever they were off to, Noah tried to convince her not to drive and that she was too drunk. To no avail the obnoxious American hopped in her car and reversed straight into the dumpster where they’d just been throwing their empty beers and completely ruined one side of her car – I can’t even imagine the self control Noah had not to burst out “I told you not to drive”.
• A chick at subway described my accent as ‘Very pretty’ – that’s a first, I thanked her
• I have developed a habit, when drunk, to talk to black guys so I can wear their hats – why? Who knows!?!?

I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of "Hold up, I'll pretend we just stole this bag" - no joke

• I also recently got told one of the most stupid things I’ll possibly ever hear in my life. One of my friends knows a girl who tried to build her tolerance to roofies – so she roofie’d herself just in case she actually did get drugged, she would be okay . . . .

Things that annoy me:

• Light switches are the opposite to home
• After tax - prices marked never include tax
• American drivers inability to use indicators, and even when they do, half the cars here have red indicators so they just look like break lights
• Bread has about 8 kilos of sugar in it – hence I’ve become a huge fan of Jimmy Johns and Subway as they have the most normal bread I’ve come across
• Sweet tea – it’s offered everywhere. Ice tea with about 30 teaspoons of sugar, I enjoy 2 sugars in my tea and I thought that was bad – this shit is revolting. (This is what also made our river cruise worse as it was the only drink offered – needless to say we threw them over the edge)

Things that impress me:

• All the cabs here are maxis therefore can fit 6 people in – however, the cabbies really don’t care. I think our record is 9 – not including the driver. We basically have our own taxi driver, Chris, who ditches other jobs to come pick us up – pays to be nice and tip well!
• On nearly all red lights you can turn right when it’s safe. Definitely a rule we should have at home.
• And of course the price – of everything!!

2L Smirnoff - $20!!

$1.79!

• There is much more of course (like this shopping trolley), I’m not a completely negative Debbie Downer, it just doesn’t make for as good reading.

We have also come up with a list of Girls with boys/interesting(to say the least) names. So far we have:

• Stevie
• Cory
• Shaun
• Christian
• Linden
• Justice
• Hayden
• And wait for it . . . . . . Barry
• We can’t wait to stumble across a Darren

So I hope you enjoyed this update, probably not as entertaining as the last two, but after this weekends road trip I'm sure some stories will come of it. I'll try not to leave it as long next time so I can remember the finer details and make it a shorter read ;)

You stay classy San Diego

I'll leave you with a final thought I had - Why are 'baked' and 'naked' not pronounced in the same way when only the first letter is different?