The world is indeed a small place!
George was working with Maria, a new nurse from New Zealand.
George: Hi, Maria, you sound like you're from New Zealand. We used to live there in Lower Hutt.
Maria: Oh, really? You sound American or Canadian.
George: I'm from Colorado in the US.
Maria: I used to work with a nurse from Colorado when I was in Auckland.
George: Tom Amick?
You can imagine the look on Maria's face when she heard that. It was indeed Tom Amick, who worked with George at PVH ten years ago. We just got off the phone with Tom, who didn't know Maria had moved to Oz.
Let this be a lesson to you - whatever you do, someone knows someone who knows you!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Geriatric Melodies
I hope this peacock curtain on my illicit photo shows up on the blog because it was gorgeous as was His Majesty's Theater where we experienced our first Australian performance. I discovered as I was snapping it that no photography was allowed.
The production was extremely amateur with the principals reading Internet jokes and other people's poems from big booklets and forgetting their lines even with that. The main male actor was difficult to understand and too far away from the microphone much of the performance. When they sang the 12 Days of Christmas, Aussie Style, you couldn't understand the words at all. To be fair, what they lacked in talent, they made up for in enthusiasm but I have attended an elementary school performance that was far more professional.
The highlight was a solo by the piano player who was substituting for one of the regulars. I think we lucked out to get the understudy in this case! Fortunately, tickets were only $19 and we had fun together afterward with a lunch and gossip at a food court. I had an amazing Thai lunch for only $7 that helped make up for the dismal performance.
Here are the words to the Aussie version of the 12 Days of Christmas in case you want to mix it up a little at your next sing-along:
The Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me.
1. An emu up a gum tree.
2. Two pink galahs.
3. Three jabirus.
4. Four kookaburras.
5. Five kangaroos
6. Six platypuses
7. Seven koalas climbing.
8. Eight possums playing.
9. Nine wombats working.
10. Ten lizards leaping.
11. Eleven numbats nagging.
12. Twelve parrots prattling.
More Bus Adventures
We went to another fun dinner at Vito and Veronica's last Friday. Gastronomic delights this time included bruschetta with tomatoes and basil, assorted cheeses and olives, grilled Italian sausage slices, shrimp creole with rice, peas with carrots, and baked Alaska. Scrumptious!
And afterwards, we had a free concert on the bus. Six rowdy schoolies (Oz for drunken teens) were singing happily at the top of their lungs and taking requests from all. Somehow, they didn't catch my sense of humor when I requested Silent Night. Instead, they sang it with gusto. They were harmlessly having fun but we felt for the poor bus driver who had to endure that on his last run of the night.
Most of the bus routes stop at about 6 p.m. but they run the busier routes until about midnight and special Night Buses run in areas where the nightclubs are clustered. We changed buses at the railway station and glimpsed the night life of Freo on the way home. There was a throng of young folks out partying on the Cappicino Strip. Things must get out of hand at times because they had a security guard on the bus and another following the bus in a car.
Australians do like to party and fighting seems to be part of the culture. Every week, there is a news story about a young person who is hurt or killed in a bar fight. They are airing many public serivce campaigns about drinking irresponsibly and that one punch can kill. Now the government is considering making the pubs use plastic glasses since it's often a broken beer bottle or glass that inflicts the most damage. Since we don't hang out at the bars, it's certainly not a problem for us.
And afterwards, we had a free concert on the bus. Six rowdy schoolies (Oz for drunken teens) were singing happily at the top of their lungs and taking requests from all. Somehow, they didn't catch my sense of humor when I requested Silent Night. Instead, they sang it with gusto. They were harmlessly having fun but we felt for the poor bus driver who had to endure that on his last run of the night.
Most of the bus routes stop at about 6 p.m. but they run the busier routes until about midnight and special Night Buses run in areas where the nightclubs are clustered. We changed buses at the railway station and glimpsed the night life of Freo on the way home. There was a throng of young folks out partying on the Cappicino Strip. Things must get out of hand at times because they had a security guard on the bus and another following the bus in a car.
Australians do like to party and fighting seems to be part of the culture. Every week, there is a news story about a young person who is hurt or killed in a bar fight. They are airing many public serivce campaigns about drinking irresponsibly and that one punch can kill. Now the government is considering making the pubs use plastic glasses since it's often a broken beer bottle or glass that inflicts the most damage. Since we don't hang out at the bars, it's certainly not a problem for us.
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