10JUL09

Time: Friday Night
Alice, Louise, and the Perils of Public Transportation

Alice makes great meals every night and last night, in a frenzy of energy, I gave her the night off and made my infamous chicken and mushrooms (it's infamous, along with my banana bread and lemonade, because those are the only three things I can actually cook. Oh and pancakes, thanks to Dad). The portions were huge for just the three of us, so we're eating it again tomorrow night. Luckily everyone liked it. I love cooking and want to learn to do more, but it's going to be hard getting motivated when I'm cooking just for my lonesome self. Hmmm. Must...make...friends...

Alice and I had all sorts of adventures today, most of them involving missing buses, waiting for buses, reading timetables, walking back and forth between multiple bus stops, and generally just getting in the way of normal commuters. We learned a lot, though.

We took the train, first thing, into Central Station in the city. Went to Paddy's Market on Hay Street in Chinatown, where I had vivid flashbacks to Hong Kong; it's the same sort of frenzied vendors of fresh fruit and vegetables, little stuffed koalas, soapstone Buddhas, knockoff handbags and...Uggs! That's right. In celebration of my new apartment, I bought Uggs. This market, by the way, is a 20 minute bus ride from my apartment (that's an hour and a half, if you do it the way Alice and I decided to do it today. Which was wrong). So this is where I will be purchasing all my fresh groceries for the next twelve monthsish. Then we went to meet my new landlord Bruce, who handed over the keys, made me sign some things, took a good deal of my money and then skipped out the door, likely chortling to himself about what suckers Americans are. I think he broke the buzzer on the way out, too, because it worked perfectly well when he demonstrated it for us but then after he left Alice went out to the front and rang, and I tried to buzz her in, and five or six fruitless minutes later I had to walk out and physically open the front door--just in time to rescue her from a suspicious gentleman and his suspicious dog, whom she had seen walk by twice already.

Tomorrow, in (further) celebration of my new apartment, I plan to buy peanut butter, toilet paper, Tupperware, Windex, a heater, rubbish sacks, dish soap, Swiffer, notebooks, a wireless router, laundry detergent, cereal, manila envelopes, and a refrigerator. Alice and Frank are loaning me all sorts of things: pots, pans, a stool to sit on, towels, sheets. Anything to make the place livable because, obviously, I have absolutely nothing (two suitcases of clothing, a lot of paperwork, and a valiant little camera whose energy I am trying desperately to conserve so I don't have to shell out for yet another converter). In a week or two, my new landlord is going to drop by to see how I'm getting on. He will find me spread eagled on my brand new, impeccably clean tiled kitchen floor, my clawed hands (did I mention I don't have nail clippers? And I'm not gonna waste money on them either. I have a perfectly good set in the mail, dammit) convulsively clutching a plastic rubbish bag to my chest, completely naked (in this scenario, I hung all my clothes out to dry on the line like a good Aussie, but a flock of angry kangaroos stampeded through, thundering into the blue horizon with my clean unmentionables trailing forlornly from their ears) except for a pair of one hundred and fifty dollar, lamb-fur-lined Ugg boots. And an empty, well-licked jar of peanut butter in the corner, where it fell during my death throes. With not even a refrigerator to my name.

Feeling sorry for myself? Yes, yes I am, thank you for noticing.

Well Alice noticed, anyway, that I'm getting a little freaked out about school and living on my own and, you know, the whole foreign country not knowing anybody thing (must...make...friends...) so she took me out tonight and showed me Australia's best. That's right...

We went Drinking and Gambling.

He, he, he.

Now she'll kill me because I told you. But honestly it's not so bad as it sounds. Alice neither drinks nor gambles, she just encouraged me to do both, and simultaneously. Besides, Aussie pubs are a lot less skeezy than American ones. Firstly, you can hear your companions talking (especially when your companions are screaming at the widescreen because the Maroons are on this winning streak again and the Blues just traded off Derby Matsco in the Ashes against Manchester United last fortnight and then Sammy "Does It Half" MacQuarie defecated on the lawn of a hotel in Woollongong and is sitting out the next six games to think about the error of his ways) because the music is loud, but not unbearable. Second, THEY LEAVE THE LIGHTS ON. How nice is that? You can actually look people in the eye and judge instantly whether you're talking to Bill O'Reilly, Kevin Rudd, or Sammy "Does It Half" MacQuarie.

I asked the bartender, optimistically, what Aussies drink on a night out and she pointed to the menu, which advertised Beer, Wine, and Cocktails. I meekly ordered a Fruity Tingle, which sounded exotic but proved not to be, and joined Alice, who had wandered through into a quiet room off the side. Here were the "pokies," or slot machines, and a few quiet but determined old ladies slipping their pensions away, ten cents at a time. So I slid in a tenner and had a go. Within minutes I got three pyramids in a row, and the little machine sang a jaunty tune and loaded me up with 370 credits!--which proved to equal-- three dollars and seventy cents. Three Australian dollars and seventy Australian cents. Not even enough for a second Fruity Tingle.

Anyway, eventually I broke even and made my way back to the unimaginative bartender, who gave me most of my money back. Not bad for a night out on the town. Alice and I, exhausted by singing along with the jaunty tune, retreated to bed in preparation for another adventure in the city tomorrow.

Good morning, America, good night, Oz.