An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman...

Greetings all

Well it’s been a busy weekend, and an all-round British themed one as it’s ever going to get in the southern hemisphere.

On Saturday I went to a wedding, friends of the family I’m staying with, which was the 2^nd wedding I have had the pleasure of attending in Australia. I was looking forward to busting a move on the dance floor (as per usual) and the music turned out to be standard British vibe of the 70’s and 80’s to which I managed to pull out the robotics, and some young kid did some cool breakdance moves, whilst the older generation went crazy to the tunes that they remember first being released.

Sunday was also a blast from past, though not so far distant past, in that I played my first 11-a-side game on Australian (hard) soil! It’s been nearly a year since I’ve had played this scale game and boy I enjoyed every minute of it… except the 80^th minute where I collapsed in pain from calf cramp (a first), which probably proves it’s been a long while since I’ve played 90 minutes of soccer/football.

Later on in the day, we (Jon, Nina, Leo, Aaron and I) watched some English Premier League game at the local ‘Irish’ pub (is it weird I felt at home as soon as I walked in?!) The atmosphere was everything you’d expect from the football fans in your local tavern during a game (night kick-off for us, lunch time kick-off for you) and I got carried away as I seem to do when watching football, pardon my passion. This is the second time I’ve managed to watch a live game, which is somewhat bizarre since it was a weekly (if not more often) part of my life back home but it still filled me with the same ‘nervous, openly exclaiming, jumpy’ tendencies that have so become my spectator nature. It was actually amusing to see the weather switch between sunny and raining during the game and the players consequently slipping about a bit, I can’t recall the last time I have not been sure-footed on the ground as the ground is so very dry here than in the event it does rain it is soaked up by the earth straight away.

In other more Australian news I have another job (the waitressing one petered out) working at a mid-range department store in the footwear department, an ideal job because I am a fan of organisation and this job requires it…lots of it. Will be doing 8 hour/day over 4 days/week which is a pretty intense change of habit from the casual lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to over the past few months (you could say I was taking the stereotype of Ozzie to the letter).

They say 4 months in a country and you can master their language… well obviously I knew the language already, but now I instinctively talk in dollars instead of pounds and I am saying soccer interchangeably with football (even though I do feel like I betray the game when using the Australian noun). Another characteristic I’ve picked up is not leaning against walls without checking for spiders. I think I’ve immersed myself well into this culture, but watching a TV series the other night, which was set in the highlands of Scotland, made me nostalgic for yon green scenery of Blighty.

So on that note, ta ta the noo :)