Me and Ali land at the Brisbane airport at 3pm, sleepy and hung over from anzac day. our boss Nick booked us rental cars and hotels, so we had to go pick up our cars. THe rental car place picks us up at the ariport in a really old ford. We think this is odd. So we arive at the "Rent - a - bomb" location. it's the cheapest car rental place ever. we soon find out why, when we are presented with our cars. 1990 toyota spirits. (some places on the car is says Spirit and some it says Camery. So... not sure what it is). My car's name is Baby Blue... but maybe not for long, because all the paint is in the process of peeling off. This thing is a bomb. Ali got the same car as me, but in maroon. Equally peel-y. we find out hotle, and when we park, i notice ali's car is smoking. I'm like.. um.. ali... pop your hood... is your car over heating? (note: it was a 10 minute drive from the rental car place to our hotel). I open her hood, and immediatly notice it's ON FIRE! Ali screams, and drops the hood. I yell at her to open it, b/c we have to put out the fire! Turns out, 1990 Toyota spirit/corola's have fabic inside the hood of the car. (????!!!??) NOt sure why there would be fabric near a running engine... not surprised her car caught on fire. SO, ali is not really happy about her death trap. We bring our stuff upstairs and find out there's food a short walk away. although i'm hung over, i need a beer. so we find ourselves at the breakfast creek bar/grill. depsite a heck of a bender in sydney, the beers are going down surprisingly easy. me and ali ate really yummy dinner, as we ended up at a steak place. we were looking for a sandwhich or something, but ate a really fancy dinner.
I head to the bar for another beer (Australia has no customer service, you have to get your own drinks at the bar, and pick up and order your food at the bar too. annnoying!) anyway, I can't help but notice a guy ordering 20 yager bombs. So I say, "what the occasion" and he jokingly says "what are you talking about?" but, it turns out, it's his mates bucks night. (that's aussie for bachelor party) He asks be to cary one of the trays over to the other boys and i am happy to help. SO from then on, therse 20 guys are facinated with me and ali and our american-ness. (this is a fub part about being in Australia... you are special every where you go. either that, or people hate you b/c you are american. but what's they talk to us, they love us) it's funny because we were so hung over, basically in our pajamas. (plane clothes) and zero make up. Not exactly what you want to be wearing around 20 hot aussie boys. haha. they ended up buying us drinks all night, which is always fun. It was another long night, as me and ali didn't go to bed until around 7:30am. We are really too old for this! One of the guys lives at the beach, and just bought a boat. Me and ALi are hoping to take advantage of this at some point before we leave.
So - whats the job? ISV HighSchools
What we have to do, it rock up to highschools, ask to talk to someone inportant, and get them to let us make an announcement to assemblies full of year 10, 11 and 12 highschoolers. I am not intimatley involved with my Gold Coast map book. It's actully really fun. Way more fun than i thought. I'm actully shockingly good at driving around on the left side of the road with a map book on my lap, flipping to different pages to follow my route. It's pretty empowering finding 8 or 9 highschools a day with only the use of an address and a map book. I only slipped up and drove on the right side of the road once. I was distracted by looking at the road map, and must have defaulted to my american ways, and drifted to the right side of the road. Lucky for everyone, there were no cars around. A note on this, after driving baby blue around, i couldn't be more excited to get back to san diego and drive my new car again! i miss Marilyn so much!! its like she'll be brand new to me again, b/c i've been here for so long!
Making assembly announcements to highschool kids is really fun. although the highschools here aer very different from american highschools.
- they all wear uniforms, whether it be public or private
- they are way more dicipline - it's like military school or something
- the boys have way cooler hair, and are way more fit. (not that i'm "looking" at highschool boys... just making observations for the sake of research)
Now, some of the private school assemblies are just out of control. Like, way too strict. The kids aren't allowed to smile, or clap, or make a peep! i was nervous at this one. And i was questioning myself during the whole thing...should i do my fun announcemnet, or change it to fit the strict and formal theme of this assembly. So when they called my name, i was still unsure. But - waht the heck - i gave them the standard loud, fun, fast isv announcement. at the end of it, they all cheered. They also all got detention. (just kidding - but they thought they were going to get in trouble for clapping!) I find it hard to keep a straight face during some of the assemblies. Like when the catholic kids walk out to rock music, carrying the crosses. or when the head master goes on and on about what color blue tights the girls are allowed to wear. maybe you have to be there, but it's pretty werid.
I've been doing pretty good on this highschool thing - booking lots of assemblies all over the gold coast.
During the weekend, I've been speding my time on a beach on the gold coast. It's great!!! amazing water, clear as can be, beautiful sand, and no people! it's nuts! I'm trying to get my tan back - after spenging a month and a half in melbourne... i lost it! Tamborine mtn. isn't too far either, so might try to hit some hiking trails this weekend too.
last note - going to be on a brisbane radio show on tuesday! will post about that :)
