What I Did For My Birthday

Yesterday I turned twenty-four. I was woken up by my flatmates singing Happy Birthday.
They burst into my room with pancakes covered in maple syrup, coffee and a big gold box. Inside that box was an Australian flag towel, bikini and beer cozy. I have tested out the bikini in the saltwater pool below our apartment, but I opted to leave the towel at home in case I was mistaken for an overly patriotic citizen and recruited to work on a sheep station or worse, attend an entire cricket match. Tomorrow I will test out the towel with a regular bikini.

Later on in the evening we celebrated by going to the Steyne hotel to have some beer. (Yes, it is pronounced "stain." And no one seems to find it funny, but these are the same people who have named a beach "North Steyne", so there you go. Mr. Steyne must've been a popular guy.) Along with our beer, we had some meat. Actually not just some, but quite a lot. When self-professed carnivores need to pause because they are getting the meat sweats, well, you know there was a lot of meat. I myself opted for the beef burger, which was more of a three-pounds-of-beef burger, served with onion, tomato, cheese, lettuce and sliced beets. Yes, they put beets on burgers here. Not sure about that one either.

To entertain us while we stumbled through all that flesh, we competed in the bar trivia contest. This consisted of trying to answer many questions about random celebrities, name songs based on random snippets, and identify people in photos that we may or may not know. Even for someone who watches a lot of American television, I thought the match was a bit skewed towards North America. Anyway, our table came third and so we won twenty dollars in bar vouchers. Which, like a good Canadian, I made us spend on Canadian Club.

My friend Kelsey also gave me a towel, a big beautiful thick beach towel, which she said was to discourage me from using hers. She's a smart cookie that one, because she has the Rolls Royces of beach towels, and they are awfully tempting. And just so I don't roast myself while testing out new towels and cossies (Aussie for bathing suit) she gave me a sweet fuschia slap bracelet watch. Friends and roommates beware! You just might get slapped! The late 80s are back!

The tip of the evening had to be the cake, though. Again, the lovely Kiwis, fond of an inside joke, gave me a chocolate cake with white icing that read "How's the Serenity?" For those of you who have not seen The Castle, let me enlighten you.
The movie is about a typical Australian family, a bit on the hick side of life, who are trying to save their house from being torn down to make room for another runway at the Melbourne airport. The father of the family is well-meaning, but a bit lost. He likes to take his family up to his little get-away he calls Bonny Dune, which of course, is quite a dump. While sitting on the porch one night with his family, who are being defeaned by the zzzzzt of the bug-zapper, he turns and asks them, "How's the serenity?" in all seriousness. Apparently The Castle is to Australians as Bob and Doug are to Canadians, so it was all quite fitting.

And that was my birthday in Oz.

The View From the New Place

Okay, so I'm keeping up my tradition of stealing photos from other websites. I got this one off of a real estate agent's site, but I can't remember which one. This is essentially the view from my balcony off the living room. The two headlands in the distance are the North and South heads of Port Jackson, which is the official name of Sydney's harbour. Beyond that is the open Pacific. Ferries cut across from where you see the apartment building on the left of the photo to the gap between the south head and the closer point on the right side of the photo. There aren't so many sailboats lately, it's been rainy and stormy.

Shout-outs to the Roommates

I moving into a new place on Thursday, an apartment with views of the Sydney Harbour.
I will be living with three Kiwis (New Zealanders), who have been asking me how come I'm not writing about them on my blog. So, in honor of our new place, I will introduce you to my new flatmates.

1.
Name: Jane
Alias: Dewey Decimal or DeeDee for short. This is Australia, remember. Abbr.
Occupation: Librarian
Interests: I don't know all of Jane's interests yet, but she has good taste in music, clothes and books. I think we are off to a good start. For example, she likes Douglas Coupland novels, and has awesome sunglasses. She brings home copies of Vice Magazine.
Plus, she can speak Japanese.

Jane is a vegetarian, and she makes a killer bowl of noodles.

2.
Name: James
Alias: Alpina
Occupation: Acoustical engineer
Interests: Alpinas. I direct your attention to this quote gleaned from the Alpina company website:
"To build special automobiles for a small circle of cognoscenti, for people who have a taste for exclusivity and the finer things in life, and who aren’t in need of exhibitionist exterior presentation in their automobile."

James has a fabulous collection of sneakers, lots of books about other cars, and a shiny silver pin depicting a DeLorean with the doors open. (The same type of car from Back to The Future.)

James is also my New Zealand vocal coach. I'm not a very good student, because I still sound very Canadian.

3.
Name: Will
Alias: Posh Lawyer
Occupation: Media lawyer
Interests: Surfing, contracts, a nice glass of scotch. Will may also be taking a ski trip (or it may be snowboarding, I can't remember that part) to a remote region of India. The brochure cautions that there may be land mines and head-high wire in some areas. We are understandably concerned on his behalf about this detail. I think we should try to urge him back in the direction of Whistler, don't you think? (Yay, Motherland!)

Will says that when I imitate his accent I sound like Mary Poppins.