love hate relationship

the honeymoon is officially over. the rose colored glasses are finally off, and i am now seeing sydney for what it really is. don't get me wrong! i still like it "heaps" (aussie speak for a lot, or any large amount), but i AM noticing things i do NOT like. as i give you the highlights of the last week or so, see if you can find them from now on.

my last post left me even more penny-less (or 5cent less, because they don't have pennies here, they just round everything up to the nearest 5cents, a loaf of bread costing $4.91 would then cost you $5...hint hint for all those playing the "find things trystan hates" game, that's not a +), but glad i had found internet service for my house. it was to arrive on tuesday. friday i had my "formal" meeting with des about our research projects. everyone from the class, which is only 6 girls, met up with des, and one of his assistants, andrew aka snoop (i asked him why they called him snoop and he had no idea...weird), to talk about which projects everyone was going to be working on. it was a VERY casual meeting, which consisted of 5 min conversations about each person's project, 2 bottles of white wine, and a bunch of bs'ing about random semi-science related topics. not a bad way to start the weekend if you ask me :) i "rang" (aussie for called) shannon and chris to see what they were up to that coming weekend, and found out it was shannon's bday on sunday. chris, being a sweet bf, had bought tickets for he and shannon to go see phantom of the opera (i was immediately jealous for 2 reasons, 1 my bf wasn't there to hang out w/me :( and 2 I WANT TO SEE THE PHANTOM IN SYDNEY! how cool!) they said they might go out to an ISS event in coogee when they got home, and they'd call me. so i sat around on the sofa watching law&order until 11ish when chris called. he said the party in coogee was no good and they were going to bed. we did however make plans to go out for shannon's bday saturday night.

earlier in the week my romanian roommate ioanna (pronounced yo-ahna), had said she and her friends wanted an excuse for a house party so they had decided to "welcome" me to sydney. they were all going to come over sat night around 7, which i was a little iffy about because i would have rather spent the night w/people i knew. i decided i would stay @ home for a few hours, then meet shannon and chris when they were going out to the bar. i was still in search of a cheap printer, so i headed to bondi junction (HUGE mall in bondi). there, i wondered around looking at all the different stores they had, and bough shannon a small bday/house warming gift, and found a store with the best printer i could find. it happened to be the post office! (they have post offices everywhere). they also had a pet store in the mall...with puppies in the window! just like the song! it was horrible! i had NEVER seen a pet store window with puppies before, and i immediately wanted to buy them all! how sad for those cute little puppies :( i thought that had gone out in the 50's with soda shops or something. and really, who just walks out of the mall with a dog? go in for a sweater and new shoes, walk out with a dog? weird. since i had never been to bondi before i was a little unsure about which buses when were. i THOUGHT i had gotten on the same bus i took there, but i did not. i told the bus driver when i got on that i needed to go to carrington and carr, and asked if he could let me know when we were there. he did let me know when we were on the last stop on carr st...which was nowhere near where i needed to be. since i was now lost somewhere near my house i figured i'd just star walking up hill (my house is at the top of a hill, almost the highest point in the area). after a few wrong turns, and reorientation via the semi-familiar skyline of the city i found a park. there IS a park "near" my house, so i was on the right track. however, it was dark, i was only half sure of where i was, and i could hear voices coming from the pick black park. trying to stay calm and keep an ear on the voices and an eye on the guy walking behind me on his cell phone, i finally made it back to my street unharmed. ::sigh of relief::

ioanna's friends were mostly people from work, all of whom already knew each other, which made the evening a little awkward for me. however, there were 2 other americans there from springfield va! they were originally from chicago and had gone to college @ university of wisconson! (small world!) ioanna and her bf jeff, made fish and prawns for dinner, as well as steamed veggies and a salad. all our guests brought appetizers and drinks and it was quite a feast (a few things to note...amazing things to note, if you don't think it's amazing you don't know me very well :-P 1 the 2 americans brought small baguette slices with oil, tomatoes, and scallions on them...DELICIOUS...try not to pass out yet, but they were really great. i'm getting the recipe later. and an even bigger kicker, 2 ioanna made a sort of guacamole dip with avocado, feta, and ricotta...also DELICIOUS! i don't know who this new trystan is, but apparently she likes tomato bread and avocado cheese!!) over all the food was great, the company mediocre, but it was time to party!

shannon had said that i could invite whomever i wanted to join (ashley and liz were the only takers) and we were meeting at the beach palace @ 9pm. around 9:30 i walked to coogee (i missed the bus...sometimes there are SO frequent you get 5 buses @ once, then sometimes you have 1hr btwn buses...grr). shannon and chris' friend paul was visiting, and they had made some new friends: frank, irish; steve, aussie; and hailey, canadian (she lives w/christine! again small world...all the white kids have found each other and have made their own little clique...like the asian kids in high school, but in reverse. we walk around speaking english and have family guy on our binders...lol. jk...kinda). after a few glasses of wine from shannon's purse, we headed upstairs where there was loud music, drunken dancers, and sticky carpeted floors (fyi NEVER put carpet in a night club...i was scared i was going to loose my shoes!) we wondered around most of the evening, a little dancing here, a few random shots there. met a few random people waiting in "que" (aussie for line) at the bar.

guy #1, the polite guy: very nice. started a conversation with me about sydney. if i was liking it, where i was from. then he asked me if i was here alone. i said no, i had come w/my friends for shannon's bday. he said he did not want to offend any boyfriend/significant other, and i told him i DID in fact have a bf was in iraq in the US army. he said that he didn't want to intrude, and said goodnight...which wasn't really goodnight. BUT i thought i was very polite of him to ask if i was "taken". after the 2 guys i met last weekend it was a nice change of pace. later i saw him again and he offered to buy me a drink. **side note: i've been on a mission to have a random guy buy me a drink @ a bar. it know it's crazy, but it just doesn't happen to me** i agreed and we walked to the bar, the "que" was quite long so when 2 guys with a tray of coronas walked past he grabbed one for me. the 1st guy was disapproving, but his friend said it was fine. i asked "polite guy" if he knew them, but he said he didn't. even cooler! i just had a guy @ a bar steal me a drink! :-D he said he didn't want to be pushy, since i had a bf, he just wanted me to have a good night, and he'd be back to get me another drink when i was done with that one. he didn't come back, which was fine with me.

guy #2, steve...the "gentleman": our new friend steve, was the only local we'd met so far. he was frank's roommate and had his arm in a sling. i'm sure he was quite drunk that night because he introduced himself to me several times throughout the night. i later asked him what had happened to his arm and he led me over to the sofas, presumably so we could hear each other better. we sat down and he started telling me about his gf, who was in the army and that they were doing the long distance thing. she understood that he was going to "do his thing" and she was going to do hers. i told him i was in a similar situation, with my bf in the army as well. he asked me if i had met anyone nice in sydney and i told him about the 2 kiss attempts i had gotten last weekend. he was appalled and hold me he'd show me how an australian gentleman said hello to a pretty girl. i was thinking i'd get a simple kiss on the hand or cheek...but that was not the case. he started slowly leaning in...me:still hoping he'll turn for my cheek @ the last second...but he didn't...and he kissed me. immediately i said "HOW IS THAT YOU BEING A GENTLEMAN! YOU JUST TOLD ME YOU HAD A GF, AND I TOLD YOU I HAD A BF! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" he drunkenly apologized and said "oh, sorry, let's still be friends, i don't want this to be weird, let's just keep it @ just once" i cautiously agreed to brush it under the rug...then he leans in again! i backed up "steve! you said just once!" "ya...just once" "no...that was the just once...that's all you get" "oh...that didn't count, i thought we meant just once more" "no!! once is once!" he mumbled something about how he was sorry, fell off the sofa a little, then started talking to some other girls, so i left. that was enough for me!

guy #3, the technology guy: after dancing a while with ashley and liz...guy #3 showed up. he dragged me out to dance...awkwardly. and i tried to make the best of it. he smelled a little, and was w/his 3 friends, one of whom was a priest who the forced out to "meet people". we danced for a while and when he had to go he asked for my #. i told him it was a brand new phone and i didn't know what it was yet (very true). he said "i'll give you my number and you can call me and then i'll have it. i told him my phone was dead and i couldn't call anyone (not so true). he then insisted that i must know my email address and that he really wanted to show me around the city so we had to talk through email. he gave me his (which i convinently lost...) and i gave him "mine" which also conveniently was catherine's email (sorry cath! i figured out of all the email addressed i knew you'd be the most understanding ;) love you).

after all that excitement liz, ashely and i left the bar and called it a night.

the saga of my crappy internet:
on monday my dodo internet arrived. i was VERY excited because it was a day early :-D i called to get it activated which would take 15min-24hrs (quite a range!) i tried it though out the day, but it didn't work. when i woke up on tuesday, it still wasn't working so i called their tech support. i spent several hrs on the phone (my phone actually ran out of money...they charge cell phones by $ and then charge you accordingly to the different phone calls you make...sucks). i recharged my phone and then called on the house phone the next day. again i spent several hours on the phone with an overly friendly tech support guy (he kept saying creepy things like, you have a nice accent, where are you from, what did you do this weekend, where do you go to school, just really inappropriate). after 2hrs he suggested i take my computer to a computer store and have them help me. which told me that he couldn't do anything else to fix the problem. it was either an issue with my computer, or the modem. he said if i had an other computer i could just use that one...like i've got a spare computer! that's buddy, real helpful. he said he wanted to make sure the problem had been fixed and wanted to call me later. but after the creepy comments he'd been making i said i didn't want him to. on thursday i brought my computer to IT services @ school. it was free, and i figured they would be more understanding. after 2.5hrs of trying to get the service to work, i gave up. i gave it until 2:30pm and if it wasn't working by then, it wasn't worth the hassle, and i didn't want to give a bad company my money. i would just return it and get my money back...or so i thought. went i called them on friday to demand a refund they said they would have to check the modem first to make sure it was a problem w/my computer, ie. not their fault. and they could only refund me for the modem, not the delivery fee, and not my monthly service charge, and if there was no problem w/the modem i could only get partly refunded. i was furious!! i had not used a second of their service and i saw NO reason why i shouldn't get a full refund! i was VERY short with the woman on the phone who then said "we can go around in circles like this all day but you'll just have to accept that there is nothing we can do. you'll just have to send the modem back and maybe we can give you a little money" !!ahh!! (there weren't words for how i was feeling...or at least no appropriate ones). i mailed it back today, but who knows if i'll ever see any of the money again.

other random updates:
on wednesday my class took a trip to the fish market. one of our assignments in my conservation biology class we are to pick a marine organism sold at the sydney fish market and write about how the fishing industry has affected it (positively or negatively). we were supposed to meet des @ the front gate @ 8am. since the fish market is downtown and i have never been there before i made plans to meet ashley so that she could help me get there. i woke up at 6am so that i could meet her for the 7:10am bus and then we'd walk to the market. unfortunately i was ahead (ahem...please note i was ON TIME) and got on the bus before ashely. i did meet up w/her and jess later on after i got off the bus. from the bus stop we walked for 15-20mins to the fish market after briefly getting lost. we arrived @ the fish market around 9:30am. luckily we had des' phone number so we were able to meet with him. the fish market wasn't really anything i had never seen before, having been to quite a few in my day. we walked around taking pictures mostly and then des was nice enough to buy us some delicious prawns and "french sticks" (aussie for baguette...or maybe just des speak). it wasn't the most amazing thing i've done since i've been here, but i thought it was worth mentioning.

friday night shannon had rounded up hailey, christine and myself for a little "girls' night out". chris was out of town and she thought it would be fun to all go out to dinner. we met up at five o's which is in coogee and serves great food for very cheap. while at dinner hailey's 2 french friends julian and (guy whose name i don't remember...) sat with us for a few drinks, then we all went over to shannon's new apartment (which is beautiful might i add. hard wood floors and an AMAZING view of coogee beach...i'm VERY jealous). we sat around having a few more drinks (eventually frank came to join us. he mentioned that steve was "scared" because of what had happened last weekend and frank told him my bf was in the special forces. hehehe) and for at least an hour i tried to explain to 2 canadians, 2 frenchmen, and one irishman every detail of greek life @ CNU and why on earth you'd ever want to be part of a sorority. i felt like i was back @ recruitment! i really didn't mind, but it was a very difficult concept to explain to people who had never seen greek life before. when we discovered it was already 12am we hushed out the door to head for town so we didn't miss all the fun for the night. the next bus didn't leave until 12:56am and we didn't want to miss another hour of excitement so we bid adieu to the 2 frenchies (who didn't bring any ID's with them) and headed for argyle (a cool bar downtown) via cab. when we arrived and were next to enter, i realized that I had forgotten my ID too!! :'( the bouncers were VERY strict and would NOT let us in :'( i was worried i had ruined the whole night! we devised a plan for me to use hailey's birth certificate and old school ID to try to get in to the next bar (btw...i look nothing like hailey so this plan was very shaky). the next bar did not require ID but they were also closing in a few mins. a few phone calls were made and we then had plans to meet up with dave and paddy (2 of hailey's irish friends...i know...an irish guy named paddy...but it's really his name!) who had also forgotten their ID's. shannon really felt like having a crazy evening and wanted to go to king's cross (remember...that is where my 1st hotel was) to some of the strip clubs or gay bars or drag bars or any crazy bar. next thing i knew we were on our way to the gaff bar. when we walked in (again they didn't check our ID's) there was LOUD techno music playing and almost everyone was in a crazy costume! i vowed that i was NOT going to let anyone kiss me that night, and actually had to dodge a guy giving out cheek kisses @ the door. it was quite the experience. after trying to enjoy dancing w/out being on drugs (it appeared that was only way these people could have been having fun) we eventually ended up just standing around watching a man dressed in a puppy costume "dance" on the bar. shannon made the comment that "you go out thinking you'll miss the single life, but after seeing how crazy it is you can't wait to go back to your boyfriend". i couldn't have agreed more. shannon and christine said that i should go dance on the bar because i was a cheerleader and had the experience of dancing in front of a crowd. THEN a guy (we assumed he was a bouncer) grabs my hand and starts leading me toward the bar! the girls swore they didn't say anything to him but i was sure they had suggested he get me to dance up there. i was so embarrassed but was up for the challenge. suddenly, i look over and the guy (obviously NOT a bouncer) was NOT leading me on stage but was trying to lead my had toward the "puppy's" crotch!!!!! i pulled back and ran away to my friends. they were just as shocked as i was! (well shocked and laughing hysterically...i didn't know what to do). we thought that seemed like a good cue to leave, so we walked up the street to the next gay bar. it was getting really late by then and there weren't many people around, but we continued to drink and socialize. around 4am we realized that the bar sucked and was bad, gay bar or not and christine, shannon, frank and i headed for home. we had the cab driver take shannon home but drop christine, frank and i off @ a "petrol" (aussie for gas) station so she could get some chocolate. they were closed...even though they were supposed to be open 24hrs (we suspected the guy on duty was sleeping somewhere), and frank and christine walked me home. i tried to warn them about the large hills involved, but like good friends they didn't mind :) i attempted a little bit of homework on saturday night, but the library closed @ 6pm leaving me to sit outside in the cold and work until my fingers were too frozen to type well anymore. i watched a few movies on tv with my french roommate sophie (she's become a GREAT tv buddy) and went to bed.

today (monday) i met with ashely to do the outline for our conservation project (we ended up w/the possum trapping gig), and look for suitable internet. it's looking like iiNet will be my best choice, which sophie agreed to share with me. now i have to do is find a modem/router cheaper than the ones they are offering @ $200...there's gotta be something better!

ps. i have also, finally, added my pictures! there were too many to add to my old photo page (which still had pics from the summer/before) so i have a new one. i'll be adding them as often as i can :) ENJOY!