A Missed Opportunity

So I was going to go with Alvin today...and I set my alarm for it too. I got up and was ready, and my door was open slightly. I guess he knocked, but it was so soft of a knock, I thought it was on Ash's door, so I didn't open it. Then Alvin left without me. Oh well.

I packed half of my stuff today. All the stuff I never use and clothes I don't wear and paper work I don't need but want to take home. I also played a bunch of Guild Wars.

Later on for dinner, I went biking again with Alvin to the video store and then Pizza Hut. This time I wore a helmet, since apparently it's against the law to not wear one here! Guess I'm a criminal. Haha. He was too lazy and didn't want to unfold his foldable bike, so he grabbed Julian's instead. Julian's doesn't have any brakes though...so Alvin went way slower. He also had flip flops. I had shoes. So I rode way up ahead and waited at a bench for him to catch up. He asked if we could switch bikes since I had shoes and it would be easier to stop and slow down. I agreed.

As we continued, the pedal started wobbling on the left. I was like..hmm...then a few seconds later, the pedal just flat out fell off the bike. We laughed about it because it was so crazy. We were starting to walk our bikes back when we decided to just go to Pizza Hut since we were so close, then turn back. So we walked our bikes back to Pizza Hut and got a pizza and Pepsi (Aussie Pepsi tastes different slightly, and not as good, I think) and walked the bikes back.

I watched a little of Naruto after, and talked to people. I'm gonna miss 'em.

Oh hey! The new "Australia" movie comes out November 26th in the US. I think I will have to see it. Now do I want to see it with family or friends...hmm.

I might go to the beach tomorrow, but I'm not sure. Carmeron's parents are here and they are taking him and some of his friends here for dinner at this cafe at Darling Harbour, so I got invited to that. Woohoo! It's really nice of them. They rented a car and are driving here, I can't imagine how they are doing the mindflip.

A couple things I've been meaning to blog about recently:

-On the bus last week, I saw a World Youth Day backpack! Someone was wearing it. Oh it brought me back to July when I first got here and all that was going on. I'm so glad I was here for it!

-The soap I'm using...I duno about it. It says "soap free" on the bottle. It's not like my normal soap gel. It does lather up though like normal soap. I hope I'm getting clean these last few weeks of being here...it feels more liquidy than my normal stuff. Weird.

Also, when I was on my computer today in the common room, the TV was on and I was watching that too. There's this comedian here with the last name of Rove and he does a show called Rove, and is also Australia's announcer for the "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" show like our version of Jeff Foxworthy, but funnier.

First we watched Australian Idol. They still have 2 hosts. I miss our 2nd host that quit after the first season. Just Ryan Seacrest isn't enough. One of their hosts here is gay and that actually was a little weird...but I wasn't paying close attention at that part. They are down to the last 4 contestants and all are male. It was "American Hits" themed. They all sang "American Hits" but what song from America isn't a hit, right? Haha, just kidding. But that theme is a bit broad...

It was interesting about how much they talked of the recent U.S. election. They kept coming back to it! "Here's your chance to cast your important vote for your favorite idol! Well, except for the recent American election. Which is why we had our show themed after their country! It's full of change and very fresh! How exciting!" It was kinda cool and really odd at the same time.

The weather is in the mid 70s. I heard that the Dakotas had a blizzard yesterday! Crazy. The exchange rate hovers around .67 still.

Then moving onto Rove which is sort of like a Late Night show/Daily Show/Colbert Report type dealio, he spoke a ton of the election. They had a bunch of pics from the election and the best captions ever. Like Palin waving to a car and the picture had (unedited, I think) a dog sticking it's head out of the back window of the car. "Palin waving goodbye to her campaign manager." And John McCain waving with both hands to people..."John McCain telling us how many votes he actually got." And before this, Rove was talking about, "How change is in the air. It's so exciting, a monumental election just took place! New Zealand elected it's new prime minister, John Cain!" It was all pretty hilarious and also odd how it was so U.S.-centric. Tonight really was an eye-opener. I know my adviser at Bethel will love to hear about it!

There's also this beer commercial making fun of Americans. A woman in an airplane with the door open and goggles on is yelling: "We're taking the carbs out of our beer and giving them to people we know will truly appreciate them!

Americans!" Then she kicked a crate out of the plane and the rest of the commercial has unsuspecting Americans outside while crates fall and crash from the sky. Pretty funny...

To me, Australia is, above all, a goal I set out to achieve and accomplished. It's also a sign of how stubborn I can be. And if I want to put that in a positive light, how determined I can be also.

The rest of the time here I have to:
-Go to Bondi Beach
-Go to Manley Beach
-Go to Woolworth's and get aussie snacks
-Go out to eat with Cameron's parents
-See Chopper (movie)
-See Alvin's new place and girlfriend
-Video at The Rocks
-Pack and go!