Those Awesome 80s...

Friday was an absolutely entertaining day for me. Now, I will admit that I was pretty tired, and I hit the snooze button one extra time. So I was running almost 10 minutes later than usual. But it didn’t matter, because I found the one thing I needed to see all week!
As I was exiting the train station to walk to the client’s office, I walked out and there was a guy in an Obama t-shirt, handing out fliers. I headed straight for him. He looked at me, smiled, and held a flier out. I took it, pulled out my earbuds, and told him, “I have a question for you.” He gave me a look like, “What in the hell is going to happen now?” but maybe since I had a little grin on my face was cool with it and said, “Okay…”
I told him something to the effect of: “I’m an American, obviously. And I am really quite curious. You are the second person I have seen this week handing out information on Obama. I am wondering why you guys are handing out this information? What is the benefit here? Why are you targeting Aussies?”
He looked at me and said, “Actually, we’re not targeting Aussies.” Not entirely true, but okay. (He was handing fliers to anyone and everyone who would take one, and the flier is addressed to Aussies.) I think I know what he meant. The guy was an American. He told me that this group he is in believes that there are 50,000 Americans in New South Wales (the state that Sydney is in). And he told me that I might have been the 5th person from the US he had seen today. (As I said before, Central station is the busiest station in the city.) This group that he is a part of is about 5,000 strong. So they are trying to encourage the other Americans in NSW to vote.
The flier: On one side, it asks people to tell any American they know to go vote. On the other side, it tells of all the meetings and rallies they have to support Obama. Not exactly an impartial group, but whatever. Now, I am not sure how effective this little campaign will be. Especially since not one person at the office happy hour Friday night said one thing to me about how I should make sure I vote in November. Not exactly reaching the masses... I still think it is funny that they are campaigning for Obama in Australia, but at least I now know what they are doing, since it was driving me nuts all week.
On Friday afternoon, we walked out of the client’s office and hopped into a taxi to go back into the office for the end of month drinks party. Surprisingly, it was quite easy to find one. (If you haven’t read the prior post, the client is a taxi service.) The taxi driver was pretty entertaining. He started telling us this story about the car he bought. Apparently there was some older woman who he had to keep picking up at her house to take places. He noticed that the lady had a car, and he asked her why she kept calling him. She said she didn’t drive, and that she wanted to sell the car. So the guy said he was interested, and she said she wanted something like $5,000 for it. He told her it was too much, and he offered her $300. They laughed, and a couple of weeks later, he picked the lady up, and ended up buying the car off of her for $500.
Then the guy proceeds to tell us how he got insurance for it, put a new radio in it, and cleaned it up a little. Apparently the car was in great shape. Something like a 2000 model Hyundai with only 14,000 miles on it. He figured out what similar models were going for, bumped it up a little because of the mileage, and ended up selling it for something like $6,000. So Sai, one of the guys I am working with this week, looks over at him and said, “You just ripped off an old lady!” We all were thinking it, but no one had said it. Hilarious!
Once in the office, we walked around to say hello to folks, and eventually wandered into the party. It was pretty fun. It was karaoke night, but they were absolutely blasting music, waiting for people to get up and sing. You had to scream to talk to people. I seriously lost my voice after being there. Ask Sally, Amy, or Hughlene. They had called me Saturday morning and wanted to know what was wrong with me, because I could barely speak.
After a while, they ran out of beer. So a group of us headed to a pub across the street from the office. When we got there, Sai happened to know the vendor out in front of the pub, and we all told the guy hello. We were starving, but headed into the pub, figuring we could get some food in there. Especially since the hot dogs he was selling were $6.50 each. Nope, no food inside. We got our beers and went outside to hang out and talk, as there were several people there with us. It was fun, and eventually, everyone wandered back over to the vendor to get some food. I walked over and ordered one, and one of the guys there said, “I only paid $6, not $6.50. Just so you know.” He was quite proud. I lucked out, though. The guy said, “You’re Sai’s friend, right? $5.” Sweet! A little while later, more people were eating hot dogs, and I was still hungry, so I went back for a second dog. Still $5. Man, I’m good!
A little while later, pretty much everyone had taken off except for a handful of us. So we decided to walk over to another pub. What we didn’t figure was that it was 2 am, and the pub was closed. So one of the guys decided he was done for the night. The two other people I was with were my friends from Canada, and they wanted to go down to Kings Cross – it’s kind of the party area of town. Plus they live on that part of town, so it was a chance to head down their way. So Lara, Tariq, and I grabbed a cab after Tariq grabbed my hand and started pulling me, quite excited that he was going to get to introduce me to Kings Cross.
We got there, got out of the taxi, and started walking down the street to find somewhere to go. The other two pulled me into a line for a pub, but we weren’t able to get in. Oh well. We walked down to another bar, and grabbed a beer. We hung out for a while, and Lara said that she was hungry, and wanted to go to her favorite local spot in Kings Cross. Yep, it’s almost 3.30 am, and we went to some little Indian place. I would say restaurant, but it was seriously like a serving station stuck between two buildings, with a tin sheet as a roof and a tiny table right next to the counter where everyone who came it could sit. There was room for maybe 6 people at this table. But I’ll tell you – the food was really good! I realize that at 3.30 am, after a night at the pubs, most anything might taste good. But this food was seriously some of the better Indian food I have had here!
As we were leaving, Tariq and Lara kept telling me to come stay the night at their place, since the trains weren’t running and a taxi would be expensive. But as we were talking about it, I looked up, and there was a bus that said “Kings Cross-City” across the top. The guy was driving along pretty slow, and I kind of waived at him. Sure enough, he stopped right in front of me, even though I was not near a bus stop. So I thanked the guys, but told them I could get back. I hopped on the bus, and started to pull out my bus ticket. The driver stopped me (thinking I was getting out money) and said, “No, it’s a free ride.” Wow, okay. So they pick up the drunks at 4 am and haul them back into the city. So I jumped off the bus at Town Hall, hailed a cab, and was off. The taxi driver was nice. And, of course, I had to show off what I had learned at my client, and started to talk to him about driving a taxi. He was a super nice guy, gave me his card (he’s an independent driver), and told me that if I wanted to go see any sights, I should call him and he’d take me around. Nice guy.
After the late night out (I think I was home at 4.30), I ended up taking it pretty easy on Saturday. I got going early afternoon, and headed off to run my weekend errands. The number one item on my list was a haircut, since I have been looking kind of shaggy lately. I found a place, and the lady told me to come back in about 45 minutes, so she could finish up a couple people ahead of me. I walked down to another place, and the guy there was pretty much busy all afternoon. So I went to the grocery store, took the stuff home, then headed back out yet again. I went back, and the girl was just finishing up. What timing. So she had me come sit down, and asked me how much I wanted cut off.
Now, I was wanting to cut an inch to 1.5 inches off, but, of course, I had to tell her in centimeters. Huh? I told her I wanted about 3 cm cut (there’s about 2.5 cm in an inch), and held up my fingers to show her how much. She said, “Well, that’s about 5 cm. This is 3” and puts her fingers down to show me. I swear, it was the same thing I was holding up. So I showed her and said, “This much” and she was off.
She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there. (The first question I typically get from everyone.) I told her NC, and let her know where NC was in the US. She told me she was wondering, since she noticed my accent but had only been to NY and Hawaii. So we talked a while, and she was freaking hilarious! I was quite happy that I ended up going to have this girl cut my hair, because it was probably the best 20 minutes I have spent with anyone this week. She was so funny, and asked a ton of questions. It was nice to sit and laugh with her.
After the haircut, I jumped on the bus and headed into town. I had to go get my computer out of my locker at work so that I could give you guys a weekend update post. Well, and so I didn’t have to get up any earlier on Monday to swing by the office on my way out to the client. As I was walking into the office, I saw the ultimate in proof that Australia is still stuck in the 80s. I was standing at a crosswalk with a group of folks, waiting for the light to turn. From the side that had the green light, you could hear a somewhat loud group crossing towards us, and everyone standing near me turned to look at them. The first part of the group was people carrying video cameras and sound equipment. Behind them was the rest of the group, all dressed up in suits with tennis shows (All Stars and Vans, of course). Most people in the group had these green masks on that looked kind of like the Comedy/Tragedy masks. At the back of the group was a guy, in a suit with tennis shoes and a trench coat, carrying a boom box (I swear it was an original from the 80s), blasting Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” They walked through the crowd waiting, and kept walking along the road. I’m not sure where they were headed, but I’m thinking there is some new video recently posted from Australia on YouTube that I probably never want to see… Of course, I would like to thank them for getting that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. (You’re welcome if you have it in your head now, as well.)
Saturday night was low key, and I stayed in. I got up Sunday morning and went to church, since I had promised the minister last week that I would come back. When I got there, a woman was walking in the door in front of me. We got inside, and she turned and said, “You came to visit last week, didn’t you?” I told her I had, and we had a quick chat about things. She said she was a little disappointed that I was just a short-term visitor. Apparently that church used to be bigger, but a lot of people had left. She said that the new minister had a different style, and that some people didn’t care much for it (he didn’t want to have elders in the church, for example), but that she was hoping that things would pick back up. Apparently the church used to have about 100 members. Much larger than the 21 who were there for today’s service, which included a woman who showed up for the 10 am service at 10.45 (just before the sermon started), and the guy who walked in at the very end of the sermon, around 11.15.
Before the service starts, the minister came in the door and started making his rounds. He came over and said hello to me, and spoke to the three people sitting in front of me, as well, who were also visiting. Pretty nice guy. Then he announced that they were going outside the box and wanted to have a “Passing of the Peace” moment, so everyone got up and started talking to everyone else. Ann, the minister’s wife, came over and said, “Hello, Jenny. Glad you came back to visit again.” How nice of her to remember my name from a week ago. I said, “Hi, Ann. Good to be back.” And we spoke for a few minutes before things started winding down. Of course, there were still 3-4 people who had to work their way all the way around the room to say hello to everyone there. Two guys came over and talked to me while Jason (the minister) was trying to get the service started up again. It was pretty funny, since it was a small room with very few people, and everyone could hear us talking. Oh well…
Overall, the service was nice, and I was glad I went back. Although I think I am going to try to visit a couple other places before I come back home, so I am not sure I will see them again. Jason asked if I was sure I wanted to go back home, that I could just stay and enjoy the spring that would soon be here, and come visit them whenever I liked. Nice guy.
Well, I should probably wrap this post up, since it is getting long. I will tell you all a quick story before I sign off. They have Australian Idol over here, which I have flipped through a couple of times. It has been somewhat interesting, since the judges are pretty similar to the American Idol judges (although still kind of different and a little less harsh than Simon Cowell). But I saw part of the initial audition shows, as they traveled around Australia, which was really just visiting 3 cities. The best was that America was well represented. Naked Cowboy came in and auditioned here in Australia. If you have never seen Naked Cowboy, it is a guy in NYC who hangs out in Times Square in his tighty whitey underwear, also in a cowboy hat and boots. He sings and lets people take pictures with him, and gets money for the songs and the photos. The judges (two guys and a lady) were giving him a hard time about “singing in his skivvies” for money. They asked him if you could really make money doing it. Naked Cowboy said that he was now listed as the #3 sight to see in NYC, and had made about $3 million so far this year. Holy crap! $3 million for singing in your underwear? Really? Of course, the Idol judges jumped up and started taking off their pants as a joke, but I seriously can’t believe that this guy makes that much cash!
But enough ranting about millionaires in their underwear. Before I go, I want to give a big shout out to Paul… Happy Birthday, Paul! I hope it’s a good one!
Okay, to close out, I have a favor to ask you guys who are reading this blog post. My office back home has a Race For The Cure team for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. For those of you who are interested in helping out, I have signed up to be a part of the team, even though the 5-K run/walk is the weekend before I get home. This year is one of very few that I have not been around to run, and I am a little bummed about it. But I still want to support the cause. So I’m asking two things. The first is for those of you who are in the office reading this post and are part of the Race For The Cure team, please feel free to add a comment to the end of this post and provide the link to your site. Hopefully you will get some more visits from the readers of this blog page. For everyone else, if you might be looking to make a charitable donation for a very worthwhile cause, please check out the following link (or any of the links that might be included in the comment posts from my friends in the office):
http://www.komencharlotte.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1020&px=1052742