The Race That Stops The Nation

Well, hello there, fancy seeing you here. As you may have noticed, yes I have been absent in putting up new posts. This is not because I have nothing to say, I always have plenty to say. However, I have been pouring my brains onto paper the last week and a half in order to finish my first semester. Needless to say, after many late nights, lots of coffee, writers block, and finally getting somewhere I have finished and turned in all of my assignments. So let me get back to this post that I started composing a week ago, but did not have the brain space to finish composing it, so here we go.

Every first Tuesday of November is a very big deal in Australia. It is the Melbourne Cup. America has the Kentucky Derby, but the mania that ensues here is incomparable. The parties the festivities, the whole nation. Think about in the U.S. Superbowl day but the Superbowl parties on steroids with fancy outfits. The call it "the race that stops the nation," because, quite literally, everyone in the nation stops what they are doing and for those few minutes watches the big horse race. It does not matter whether or not people like horse racing, or gambling, I think the percentage of people not watching is under 10%. It is absolute insanity. I had work and class the day of the race, and I had to leave work right before the race started for my class. Everyone from work was sitting in the conference room watching the pre-race TV coverage on the projector, drinking beers, and eating snack food. I left and made it to class a few minutes before. My professor came in and said, "Help me get the race up on the screen." So even my whole class watched it before the lecture would start.

I was quite excited, it was one of the first cultural things I have experienced here. It was extremely hot that day about 100 degrees and 100% humidity, and my place is on the second floor with no air conditioning so about the same heat in my room as well. I still had a ton of papers to do and did not feel like suffering heat stroke, (OK, maybe I am being a bit over dramatic, but regardless I did not want to sit in my sauna of a room while I tried to focus on my paper.) So I went to James' apartment, it is always cool in there, plus he was gone and so it was nice and quiet. I was not looking forward to the hour commute into the city and then over the bridge on the bus. However, that bus ride regardless of heat was one of the neatest commutes I have ever had. I just stared out the window in amazement at all the beautiful outfits I saw on the ride. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Guys in suits, girls in beautiful dresses with hats or feathers in their hair. The whole time I was wishing that I did not have papers to write, because I wanted to be dressed up, or maybe I just wanted a feather in my hair. I walked around the city for a bit with a smile on my face and a look of amazement. I probably stood out like a sore thumb me, my yoga pants, and big back pack and everyone else in fancy dress. I might as well have had "amused American" written on my forehead.

Well maybe someday when I am no longer studying I will be able to actually make it to the races and put a big feather in my hair...until then I will just have to get one and run around my house with it on. Well have a pleasant today, while I have a pleasant tomorrow worry free from school.

OK Aragog, I Gave You Plenty of Warnings...Now it's War!

Well, as I have been keeping you updated on the spider situation down under, I would like to tell you I am declaring a state of emergency. When I first moved here I wrote a plea to Aragog too keep his fury eight legged friends outside of the dwellings that I would be inhabiting. So far he unleashed an early attack with one of his soldiers, far before the normal huntsman season. Then he had one of his slightly smaller, yet hairier, and more poisonous soldiers crawl across my foot in a vehicle. Now, he unleashed another soldier into James' house, while he was not here, and my spider fear was ultra vulnerable.

It was about 100 degrees today, and very high humidity. Once I got off work and class, I decided that since it was nearly that hot in my room, I had nothing to do tomorrow and, I have many papers to work on I would come to James' house. He is at sea and his house stays nice and cool, and is quiet with very little distractions. Well, tonight after dinner it got dark and the wind started blowing. There was a loud clunk outside and I got nervous so I went to the back door to lock it, peered outside thinking I might see the boogy man (well not really, but I have an active imagination, so I imagined it for a minute) and instead I saw something much worse hiding behind the curtain....a huntsman. My heart nearly flew out of my chest and I had to quickly re-group. I knew I had two options:
1. Grab all of my stuff and leave James' house abandoned with all the lights on and not come back until he was here to take care of it.
2. Actually get myself together and kill the ninja soldier.
I quickly assessed the options and came to the conclusion that James would not appreciate me leaving all of his lights and TV on for a week. Also, the spider was near the door entrance so I was going to have to encounter it in either option. I choose option 2. So I ran to the kitchen got the biggest can of bug spray I could find, grabbed James' biggest flip flop and braced myself for action. I started spraying the spider but it did nothing but make him run faster towards the opening under the couch. So I smashed him as hard as I could with the thong before he could make it under the couch and I would be paranoid all night long until he reappeared and I had another heart attack. Then I swept his body up in the dustpan and threw it into the garden as a warning to his spider friends.

I am trying to recover now with a cup of tea, not until after I searched every nook and cranny I could think of for spiders to try to limit my paranoia for the rest of the night. I sure hope I can fall asleep tonight...I was feeling tired before, but now I am wiiiiiide awake, and I have the itchy heebie jeebies.

I think I need to get a pocket sized can of spider spray, because this is officially war. I made a clear cut agreement with Aragog, keep your spiders outside and I will leave them alone. So far this year, I have seen far more spiders inside houses than I have outside. This is on like donkey kong, Aragog you are going down!

Tony the Tigerrrrrrr

Well, hello there. How are you yesterday?

As I am sure you are all aware, Halloween was two days ago for me, one day for you. I was indeed Tony the Tiger. It was rather funny because people either got it right away or it took them about an hour and would then tell me it was GREAATTTTT! It was a good conversation starter, however, I did have to live through a conversation about cereal with a boring guy who was explaining to me the different cereals he liked at different ages...blah blah blah, I don't want your cereal history buddy. Also, I found out that in Spain they call him Tigertone, which translates loosely to big happy tiger. Regardless here are some pictures:

THEY'RE GREEAATTTT!!!!

And part of a nutritous breakfast...well kind of.

Here is the gang from left to right: the dude from some movie I have never seen, a mummy, a girl who put on some wings, Lizzy the sheriff, me Tony, Cassi the other sheriff, Jen the costume that kept changing (she was first a 50's pin up girl, then cabaret, then a trapeze artist) and Louise as Popeye.

It was all GREAAATTTT fun!