I’ve posted some photos…

jump to the In the Meantime thread….

A most wonderful last weekend in Australia…

Went to a CD release party for a hip hop group, TZU, where Elisabeth (Lissy), a friend from NICA, was hired to hula-hoop during a song. She got me on the door list, and the show rocked. I met up with some of her friends at the show as well, and we went another club on Chapel Street (Revolver) for more beer and goodness.

On Sunday, Lissy taught me how to stilt walk! Ha! It was fun, and I was up and walking around for about an hour. Then I went to Transport bar for last drinks with the Blue Trainers. Fl!p, Rod, Craig, Andy, Chris, and Mike showed up. It was sweet, and I tried many good beers, including my first scotch ale (mmMMMmmmmmmm moonshine).

I’ll try and post a few pics, since I won’t be able to update the gallery for a while…….

Back in Australia, and all is well. Denver does feel like a dream, a cold snowy dream. Huttah for snow! It was good to see.

The flight back was really long - 4 hour layover in LA. The woman next to me on the flight from Denver nearly had a panic attack on landing. One guy sitting next to me on the flight from LA was an alcoholic, sweating the entire time. The other guy next to me was a wine maker from CA, too talkative, kept interupting movies. So I lied to him. I was an engineer working in renewable energy, working for a small firm in Boulder that had contracts in Melbourne and Auckland. It was good fun.

Now I have to organize going away things for the folks I know here and prepare for NZ!

Interview is over - short and sweet and relatively stress free.

Better news: Melbourne photos are online! HUTTAH! Go to meriwi.net, click on “Gallery”, click on “Joe’s Photos”, click on “Melbourne”, feast on eye candy!

Watched another good Aussie film: Two Hands - about mobsters in Sydney. Quite violent and edgy.

BEACH on Saturday, when it broke 100F.

Did my first ‘eyeball it’ pancakes. They were good.

Went to a rock show: The End of Fashion and Little Birdy. Both Perth bands, and entertaining.

Last shift at BT today. It was pretty busy for a Sunday, and I was glad to get off.

Now packing for JET interview in CO. Lots of things to get in line. Elaborations may follow…

Tuesday night at the Blue Train, Globe shoe company treated their skaters to dinner and drinks before the skating contest (which is tomorrow). 80 American skaters eating and drinking and being loud and American. It was not fun; luckily, I didn’t work any of their tables. Many many American accents, which I can hear like a non-American now. The strong ‘r’ sound we use sounds really funny and has a good measure of hokiness too.

I watched City of God last night - a powerful and intense film. Violent, but quality. I missed it at the IFS in Boulder, so I was glad to see it here (tho on a VHS).

I bought ingredients for burritos, but couldn’t find everything I wanted. No green chiles! It’s amazing. Does not exist. Not enuf Mexicans here. Plenty of Eastern (Indian, Thai, Japanese, etc) here, more than I’ve seen in Denver. But it makes sense.

My coming trip to Denver will feel surreal and like a dream. It’s so short, and I’ll be tremendously jet lagged (my sleep time for Denver is 9am to 5pm). I’m looking forward to seeing people, but I’m also anticipating moving on to NZ.

Monday night I ate with Ariel’s host family — Susan, Garry, and Darcii. They prepared a great meal - seasoned lamb, hamburger, salad, and freshly picked berries from a farm/grower they knew (they even gave me some to take with me!). It was great to talk with them and get a reaction about my longer, more out-of-control hair. I haven’t gotten a haircut since I left, and my hair is just about as long as it’s been since 7th grade (when I had a ponytail **shudder**). Don’t worry, it’s not that long.

Anyway, I liked the meal and seeing them again.

Interview time:

Wednesday, February 18 at 8:45am.

JET Interview Confirmed

I now know when I will be back in the US for the JET interview. Though I don’t know the exact day or time, I do know the possible days it will be. I have consequently finalized my flight itinerary to reflect this new knowledge. As for the I-know-and-somehow-don’t-know-everything thing, here’s the scoop…

I received an email this morning from the Denver consulate explaining some voucher that interviewees are supposed to get. In this email, the consulate mentioned the interview dates for Denver (18 and 19 Feb) and said that these vouchers would arrive after the notification letter. The letters were sent on Friday from Wash DC, and so would not have alerted my brother before I received the email. So there you go - I know and don’t know.

Flight Information

INCOMING:

Monday 16 Feb: depart Melbourne at 12:25pm, fly Quantas, arrive in LA on Monday 16 Feb at 7:30am. (Time travel, hey?)

Monday 16 Feb: depart LA at 10:55am, fly Frontier, arrive in Denver on Monday 16 Feb at 2:10pm. (Just 2 hours to home!)

OUTGOING:

Friday 20 Feb: depart Denver at 5:10pm, fly Frontier, arrive in LA on Friday 20 Feb at 6:35pm.

Friday 20 Feb: depart LA at 11:15pm, fly Quantas, arrive in Melbourne on Sunday 22 Feb at 9:30am. (Aye, there’s the rub)

Thus, I will be in Denver from Monday 16 Feb to Friday 20 Feb. Let us plan meetings and greetings in the “Summits” forum.

A few more discoveries were made…

(1) How to make a kick-ass curry. I’m done with stir-fries. See Chemical Meltdowns…

(2) A new drinking game - often called “The Silver Pillow” or “The Goon Game”. Here’s how to play - take a box of wine, take the bag of wine out of the box, find a large open space. The player must stand drink from the bag (or ‘pillow’) while spinning around as fast as s/he can until they fall over. At that point, the player must perform a tumbling trick - back flip, cartwheel, something else. As the game progesses, it might be wise to have a spotter, not for the player, but for the wine.

(3) A really good Aussie movie - “He Died with Felafel in His Hand”. Go and rent this from your nearest indie video store, because bloqbuster sure won’t have it.