how the west was won

First things first: I already knew that the in-laws were avid readers of dearest Ingrid’s blog, but new news has reached me. It seems that Ingrid’s mum (here on known as ‘Mama M’) prints off each entry and accordingly posts it down the road to Bodø for Ingrid’s grandma (here on known as ‘Granny M’). Granny M then proceeds to read said blog and file it in its own specific binder for future reference. When I heard about this I was amazed! Ingrid then proceeded to tell Mama M about my excitement and she expressed her interest in reading my blog (Hi, Mama M). I guess I’ll have to clean-up my act and make sure all of my ‘i’s are dotted and all of my ‘t’s crossed, if I’m to warrant my very own blog binder on Granny M’s shelf (Hi, Granny M).

Anyways…Monday through Thursday of the previous week were spent working as I continued to grind through my continuous 8 day attendance at work. Most of the days are filled with working either a 10-6, 12-5, 1-6, 1-9 or 4-9 (we’re open for late-night shopping on Friday). I don’t mind though. As I’ve already said: everybody I work with is top and the job is well-paid enough for me to put with arsehole customers day-in, day-out and tune-out their whining, petty ignorance and lack of basic manners to the music I play in my head (Led Zeppelin are among the favourites), which usually leaves people baffled as to why I’m furiously air-guitaring at the changing rooms. The reason why I play music in my head is because the shite usually playing in-store revolves around out-of-date mix-tapes that were never good in the first place, but you only listened to ‘as a laugh’ but as it loops and loops around on the CD player, fastly makes you want to kill yourself and everybody in about a half-mile radius. It’s either this or listen to Kanye West and the Black-Eyed Peas on repeat. The choices remain slim. The only other noteworthy occurrence in this initial days of the week was me being ill, that was followed by a staff-meeting in which we all received a royal-bollocking. But, quite rightly.


Led Zeppelin (Bonham - drums, Plant - vox, Page - guitar, Jones - bass/synth). Thanks for making my day go quicker boys!

With Ingrid working a couple nights in the week I usually take the opportunity to come home, put on a brew, make tea, watch tv with housemates, and then settle down at the desk. This past week I’ve been continuing learning Norwegian. It’s going ok (helps having my own Norwegian tutor for free), but it’s a bit dry at the moment - just constant revising of vocabulary and vowel sounds. It’s a shame, because I learnt all the swear words a looong time ago. If I’m not learning Norwegian I like to keep the history-studying going. At the moment I’m using the City of Melbourne’s library resources to read up on the discovery, mapping and exploration of Australia; and also, some more in-depth accounts of Pacific and Australian exploration - such as Captain Cook, Abel Tasman etc, etc. I realised when I first got here that I don’t actually know much about Australian history (shamefully so for someone with a history degree). But there’s more to it than that - it’s just refreshing to finally be able to read and study what I want with no deadlines or pressure.

Captain James Cook

When Thursday evening rolled around it was definitely time for a break. I had two days off of work in front of me, just warm in the knowledge that I was on my time for the first in over a week. So, what did I do? Well, to quote the words of the girlfriend ‘let’s get druuunk’, (or something close to that) with a fiendish and determined glaze to her eyes. So, that’s what we did. We headed home, freshened up ands went out drinking. Over two nights we were able to consume a decent and respectable amount of beers (for me) and vodka/cokes (for the lady) with some Pernod thrown in there for some reason. We also managed to accumulate a hefty eight stolen toilet rolls (four each) from one of our favourite watering holes. Who are you to judge? Whatever it takes to get by and make ends meet right?

On Friday we both woke up (surprisingly with no hangovers) and I slept in and went to meet Ingrid in town. We both had a stroll down to Chapel Street, in one of Melbourne’s closer suburbs to look at what the high street shops had to offer - now that my Australian bank account has been sorted. I racked up another awesome t-shirt to add to my collection. For those of you wondering what Chapel Street really is…well, it’s nothing much. Just another excuse for people with money to do more shopping and hassle poor retail workers for their measly bucks (no bias there). It means more for me though: it contains an adidas originals store AND an american apparel store! I’m just as bad as everyone else really…


After Chapel Street we headed back into the city where Ingrid had agreed to take me out for a meal. Yes, that’s right: take ME out. We went to a Chinese restaurant in China Town (surprisingly enough) where we tried squid and I had a monster meal of crocodile meat. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was epic. White meat, no fat and tasty, tasty, tasty. One has to try these things when abroad. The beer wasn’t half-bad either! Certainly one to try again; although it’s supposed to be healthy so I’m not sure if I like it anymore.

Croc! Mick Dundee would be proud!

Saturday was spent sleeping in, doing washing and then I met Ingrid in the city after her Model UN day for uni. I was too tired to do anything, got my weekly shopping done and we headed home. Ingrid had agreed to meet her friend - so I was pleased that they finally got to spend some time together without my friendless-arse tagging along. Instead, me and Ken stayed in and watched movies. We watched ‘Munich’ - epic film and one of my favourites (Eric Bana is a don, shame he’s an aussie). That was my choice. Now it was Ken’s and he chose ‘Days of Thunder’. For those who don’t know, it’s an early Tom Cruise film about stock-car racing (Nascar) and equally as epic - just in a verrrrry different way. Check it out! I proceeded to eat stolen sandwiches from her conference, courtesy of Ingrid (notice a theme here).

I sit here on a Monday, having been back in work two days and contented with life. I’m very proud of Ingrid for writing a short story for a young writers’ competition in Melbourne, that she handed in today. I work again tomorrow, but it’s also pay-day. Ingrid is out working tomorrow and Wednesday night so I think I’ll treat the guys to a couple beers.

Hade!

P.S. We can now get English football for free, that comes with our internet connection! YESSSSSSS! Suck on that Australia!

Reading: Sebastian Faulks, ‘Engleby’. (nearly finished though. Top book. Recommend it).
‘Terra Australis to Australia’.
‘Captain James Cook: a biography’.
‘The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Prehistory to 1520’.

Writing: scattered ideas for a collection of short stories set in various cities I’ve travelled to).

Listening: Led Zeppelin, Ace Enders, Apostle of Hustle (thanks Ken), The Faint.