The week started a bit askew as the overnight shifts had proven too much for my mind to keep track of. Going to bed at 9AM on Monday morning and waking up at 4PM on the same day – well, would you look at that. I actually was talking about Sunday. Going to bed Sunday morning, it felt like I was waking up on Monday and it’s completely thrown off my week. I spent the day at home, enjoying the fact that I had Nick’s place to myself and getting some things sorted out plus cleaning the house a bit. Thinking it was Monday, I was expecting that Nick was going to be back that night and was starting to worry a bit before I realized it was Sunday. When Monday did come, I went and met Norm at his lifesaving club and we went kayaking. The weather was great but the water was sure cold. I know because Norm gave me one of the more advanced and unstable ones first and I tipped into the shallow water within seconds. We moved down to the more simple surfskis and it was much better. Through the harbour looking at all the boats and back, and I saw my first penguin! It had swam right into the harbour and was floating with the yachts and katamarnas… and us.
As always, it was fun to catch up with Norm. Aside from the ocean trek and a second fall into deep and cold marina water, we went to a mall, walked around and had lunch in Hampton, and I fixed up his internet connection and got him onto Facebook. Yeah, I’ve become a Facebook user and I now understand why people do this social networking thing. And while I’m giving the geek report, I should mention that I now have some videos from the trip up on YouTube. Just follow the link of search djkatsiris and you’ll find all the videos I’ve uploaded.
I was supposed to have every day off until Friday, but I went to work for Kirsti on Tuesday, which was my first day shift since starting. It went pretty fast and it’s so much easier serving at lunch because everyone just orders souvlakis and a soft drink. No water bottles and glasses to haul/fill, no cutlery or plates to carry/roll, nice and quick. Wednesday, I went out with Nick and a few of his friends from Ocean Grove for what was supposed to be $5 chicken parmas. Except that one of his friends wanted to go to a place that he thought had much better ones (with chips and salad) for $10 at the Union Hotel. So we went there instead, and that was just not such a great idea. The place was, to use a term from here, utterly bogan in every way. A dive that survived on gambling more than drink or anything else by the looks of it. Wall to wall screens of stats and computer-generated horses vying against statistics to win a fictional race that, for some reason, people might actually bet on. Still, it was fun to visit and sit in a place like that, since I haven’t yet been to the Outback. We later went to the Waterloo Hotel, which was surprisingly upscale and much better on the eyes in more ways than one.
Thursday, I was slated to go see Cirque du Soleil at 4:00, so I left at 3:00 hoping to run a few errands, namely picking up my new watch (that I got for a steal of a price, hence why I got it) and exchange an generic iPod cable that was not working at all for an Apple one. Well, it took longer than I thought to get in to the city and I had to leave the watch and just exchange the cable, except that they wouldn’t exchange it as it worked with their iPod. So, I had to bring mine in another day. Nice. Because exchanging an iPod cable is some sort of scam I run. Customer service at its finest. But that small annoyance aside, I was then on the tram to Cirque du Soleil. I got to the site and, after some significant queuing, under the big top and was delighted to find out how good my seats were. I was about 6 rows from the stage and could see every eyelash on the performers.
And boy, did they perform. While the spectacle doesn’t compare with Ka, which I saw in Vegas, it really was an amazing feat of human performance. There were also a few flubs, but that just increased the sense of dangers as these guys launched each other 60 ft plus across the stage and towards the top of the big top, landing in a big sheet and sliding down, not to mention one guy laying on his back and using his feet to spin another person in flips like a dolphin flipping a ball with its tail. The show finished at 6:30, and I went home, met up with Nick, and we went out with some of his friends for Vietnamese food at a place called Thy Thy. The food was pretty good and definitely reasonably priced and we enjoyed our meal when all the restaurant lights dimmed. They carried out a birthday dessert and the waitresses started singing and the whole restaurant joined in, including me. And then they turned, coming towards our table and I looked, wondering who they could be coming for before realizing it was for me. Well, I was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing as it was, then I saw what it was and my face probably did turn red. It was a banana and two scoops of ice cream. Yup. Like that.
And from then on I’ve pretty much been working and sleeping. I saw a guy walking by outside the restaurant the other day with a rooster on his head. Really. A rooster, on his head, as he was walking around. To say that I found this hilarious is an understatement. Only in Australia. But I have a few days coming up that I’m going to have off, so I’m definitely looking forward to having my own chance to wander the streets, perhaps with a rooster on my head, most likely, not.
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