All posts by Jon

Date Night

Adventures

Now that Sara is down under with me, I figured I should take her out on a proper date! Imagine my surprise when I saw that the Palais Theatre in St Kilda was bringing none other than the Counting Crows to town on her third night here.  Shockingly it wasn’t sold out, so I scooped up some tickets a few days before the show and started listening to all the Counting Crows albums I have so I could be ready.  August and Everything After really brings back those Acalanes high school memories, while Recovering the Satellites came out during my UVA years.

Elevator ussie.
Elevator ussie.

After tailgating a bit at home, we got all dolled up and headed out to dinner.  Sadly, I did not bring a (LEGAL) “to-go” beer with me for the short walk, as I was trying to keep it classy for once.  After walking into the wrong restaurant first, we went to a small middle-eastern restaurant called 40 Thieves & Co – and it was quite good.  We split a few plates and a bottle of Australian wine.  Not only are we getting a solid discount on our spending with the *very* favorable USD/AUD exchange rate right now, it is always a nice surprise to get a restaurant bill and realize that’s the total – no adding sales tax and tip.  Apparently people here only tip for super exceptional service – and then only about 10% or so.  I believe minimum wage here is about $22/hour.

Concert ussie
Concert ussie

So we head over to the theatre and Sara is quite excited to see that Bobby Brown and Naughty by Nature will be there in late May.   We are then alarmed to see a long line of people waiting to buy concert souvenirs.  We bought some beers and proceeded to people watch until the concert started.  We spotted a nice mullet (sorry no photo) and quite a bit of folks wearing Counting Crows t-shirts from previous Australia tours.

The concert was entertaining, though sadly they did not play Mr. Jones.  The Australian crowd was pretty tame and remained seated the entire time.

Afterwards we headed out into the St Kilda night to see the “Blood Moon” – a total lunar eclipse that turned the moon red.  Quite a sight.  After treating my beautiful date to her favorite dessert of a McDonald’s ice cream cone, we headed home before we turned into pumpkins.

The Palais
The Palais
The shockingly long line for $45 t-shirts.
The shockingly long line for $45 t-shirts.

Truckies and Sparkies

Random Musings

I’m trying to pick up the lingo here and hearing certain things on the news continues to crack me up. Truck drivers are just called “truckies” and electricians are called “sparkies” – the list goes on and on, and it makes me want to make up my own names for various jobs. I think plumbers should be “flushies”.

A startling trend I’ve noticed here is the proliferation of the “El Camino” or “Suburu Brat” style cars here. You don’t really see pickups, but man these things are everywhere. Also, one of them is named the Thunder, which I find fitting.

They have their own “Flo” for Progressive Insurance here, but her name is Kitty. They pronounce known brands differently here – Hyundai – which is typically “Hun-Die” in the US is “Hee-Yun-Die” here.

I watched almost the entire Australia / India World Cup Cricket semi-final (almost 8 hours!), and I’m fairly certain I fully understand the “One Day International” format of cricket.  The World Cup final is here in Melbourne on Sunday against New Zealand.  The Aussie rules football season starts on Thursday, so I’m going to have to figure out which team to support and learn all those rules.

I’ll leave you with more pictures!

The Thunder from down under
The Thunder from down under
Palm trees and office buildings, a nice mix.
Palm trees and office buildings, a nice mix.
Public toilets, very convenient when you are utilizing the liberal open container laws!
Public toilets, very convenient when you are utilizing the liberal open container laws!