and now, the end it near… and now i face, my final curtain

DAY 26

Monday. Woke up with a scratchy throat. It maybe from the long weekend and lack of sleep. I had a light breakfast since we had dinner plans with Steph for one last time. I will admit that I willingly (by my own free will) watched a couple episodes of glee. That aside, it was about time to start our day.

It wasn’t nearly as hot as Sunday, but was still pretty bad, so I threw on a jersey and kept my PJ shorts on as we went to run some errands. We had to grab some cream since matt’s mom was making chocolate ripple cake tomorrow. Had to stop by the other Honda motorcycle dealership too, just to check it out; not that you care, but you’re reading this so its in your hands now.

Whilst shopping for the cream at the shopping center, I also had to pick up James Woo’s Minties, James Pham’s soy chicken chips, a thank you gift for steph (funny looking pot holder) and a thank you gift for matt’s family (popsicle makers). After a quick pit stop at the house, a shower and change was in order before our departure for Steph’s.

Then I was afraid. Very afraid. Every time food and Steph combine I end up leaving full of 2 giant meals and liquor. Today was no exception. Once we were greeted it started. I was handed a tall glass of heiniken, then another, then the Wine/peaches combo. Steph was making a seafood pasta with fresh crab.

Oh yea, I forgot to tell you that matt and I made pasta in the morning at the house to give to steph for dinner. Anywho. The Pasta was delicious. But then after a few more glasses of wine came the fillets (not to be confused with filets). Then after the fillets/bread, and a few glasses of whiskey came dessert… Home made chocolate soufflé with ice cream. I was so full to a point where it wasn’t enjoyable. I said almost.

After a couple hours of conversation with Steph it was time to say goodbye for the last time. I gave him his gift, and kissed the aussie Italian goodbye. Italian style of course, and that’s cheek to cheek in case any of you people are getting the wrong idea.

Ciao Bello…

It was after midnight by the time we got home. The end was near. I was officially in my last full day in Australia.

 

DAY 27

We opened the day with a hint of glee. A hint of glee and now a REALLY scratch throat, that is. Now im worried I may be getting sick. Breakfast consisted of home made toast and eggs. Our major plan for the day was to go fishing. We had a rod but were short when it came to bait and pretty much everything else besides the line. So on our way to the dock, we got bait, and pretty much everything else besides the line (hooks, weights, floacts).

The sun was out and he wasn’t jokin’. I ended up taking off my tank top just as a nearby fight broke out. Crazee aussies.It took us a few tries to get everything working but eventually we succeeded. Meanwhile I had my last sausage roll with sauce (ketchup). The guy next to us caught like 3 calamri in the 10 minutes he was there.  We had already been around for over an hour.

Given the circumstances we decided to switch things up in regards to our set up. Didn’t help though. Eventually our hook, the pretty one with the shiny fish, got caught on something and it wasn’t budging. Matt and I looked at each other with much regret because we knew what we had to do.

As the tension rose (tension on the line, that is) I whipped out my keys and with one swift swipe of the wrist the line was cut. It was more than just a lost hook/bait/weight. It was a sign that the day of fishing was over and we were left sunburnt and fishless.

We got back and jumped in the pool to relieve ourselves of the fishy odor in our pours left from the bait. Matt’s mom was finishing up dinner, so we only had a quick dip. I showered quickly and wrapped the Xanthopolous family present as Matt’s dad was calling out that dinner was ready. Dinner was leg of lamb, with pasta and bread. Matt’s mom was also nice enough to make me a custom going away chocolate ripple cake for my departure.

Can you say Yum?

And then the packing began. I had to wash most of my clothes, and start cramming things into my two suitcases. Unfortunately a few things were able to come on the ride home and had to be left behind. Sad face.

My goal was to stay up as much as I could. But with my cold creeping around I couldn’t hang. I had to take an hour nap at midnight.

 

DAY 28

Woke up, and continued packing and gathering all my random belongings. Then 2:30 came around. One load finished but I had another to go.  Then 5:00 came around. My body is exhausted. Decide to have another hour nap. Only this time it wasn’t an hour. I slept through my alarm and 8:00 decided to spring up on me. Oops. count down 2 hours til departure. Got my new load out of the dryer and pack attack. Breakfast was toast and eggs.

Time to start saying my goodbyes. First with Ms. X, then lil nicky, then Mr. X. Chris wasn’t home, but we made a pit stop by yai-yai’s house on the way to the airport. She gave me a box of chocolates as we were walking out the door.

After all but one goodbye I hopped behind the drivers seat (that’s on the right side for all of you Americans) for my last drive. Check in at the airport went smoothly, and luckily my bag stayed under the weight requirement.

So here I am, thousands of feet in the air writing the rest of this blog wrapping up the trip to Australia…The good and the bad, the ups and the downs. From how ya  goin to gday mate, this kid from the states is home.

Whats next on my plate, perhaps??

Hint: Reveille on bugle

looks like i have some writing to do

will update with photos hopefully by tomorrow

DAY 21

day 21 is/was january 18th 2012. it is mrs. xanthopolous’s 28th birthday. We all gathered around the table for breakfast and had the hash browns, toasts, poached eggs combo. then we proceeded to give ms. x. her card followed by presenting her with presents. interesting how i can present her with a present in present tense. anyways. besides the confusing nature of english, i gave her a peeling knife and knife sharpener from a specialty cookware store. hopefully she genuinely liked the gift, but i did what i could. maybe i can try again on her 29th birthday.

after breakfast matt and i went to the mornington peninsula shopping center, kinda like a farmers market around some stores. we got some coffee and checked out some of the kiosks and i was able to find a couple gifts for some people. hooray.

soon after that escapade, we noticed the motorcycle dealership on the way home. i really needed a motorcycle jacket and gloves given my recent run in with thievery back in SD. they were having a kick butt sale and i almost bought a jacket but it was one size to small, and then i couldn’t fall in love with any gloves. you’d think i would be done, but i did something bad and bought something i didn’t need. Ill give you a hint, it rhymes with helmet. it was just such a good deal i couldn’t pass it up. augh.

we needed to make it back in time for dinner so after scoping out the surrounding car dealerships we booked it home with just one stop at the local produce store. tonights menu consisted of marinara (which is actually seafood and not tomato paste). funny though cause it was still served in a pasta. we took more pictures, and had some cake and ended the night by watching transformers 3 with everyone downstairs.

happy birthday ms. X!

the aussie family

DAY 22

Thursday i got to see more fancy animals. We went to go check out the Melbourne zoo. they’re enclosures were really nice. some of the animals were hard to take pictures off because of fences, glass, and hiding animals. However, I was able to crank out some decent photos of some cute little creatures and accompany them with funny captions.

[photos and captions go here jermaine]

 

 

the zoo was a big part of the day. I got some cool encounters with some of the animals. I also found some cool gifts for people too, but ill explain more when those people get their new toys.

On the way home we swung by Crown casino. I ended up playing roulette for a little bit. after falling in a small hole, i made it back to even with my finances and actually made a dollar fifty profit. horray! winner winner, chicken dinner. speaking of dinner, we walked along the river to find a restaurant, but everyone was fancy and i was wearing a canary yellow t-shirt and found my way to the food court instead. had some place called shark fin. nice portions, but thats about it.

when we eventually got back to matt’s house, it was determined that another pizza was in order. so after siting for a little we went back out and got a pie from stephs restaurant. when we got back home we ended the night with some billiards, the pizza, a few drinks, and a night time jog.

DAY 23

friday was started with the way thursday ended. with a run. that was the plan at least, but noon came all too soon after waking up. once we realized what time it was we had to get ready super quick because we had plans to eat lunch with matts friend, alex, in china town. we order a shmorgousbourg of plates and all kind of shared. there was some good noodles, veggies with oyster sauce, pipping hot dumplings, and a yummy desert called pumpkin cakes.

once we ate lunch we strolled over to the shopping center in that area. alex helped me pick out a new v-neck shirt and a retro kinda shirt that says “i wanna xxx myself” some awesome chick on it. it was legit because they were on sale, and i was also drinking bobah at the same time. unfortunately alex had to part ways and we said goodbye.

on the way back from walking alex to her car, an arcade was calling my name ever so gently. jermaine….. jermaine…. there were a couple racing games there. one of which was right hand drive, with a shift knob, and a clutch. pretty big deal. plus the car that i picked was a euro accord (thats a TSX for all u non hip to the JDM scene out there). there was also some crazee asian game that was like mario party, but more importantly there was a claw game. I know i claim to kick ass at the claw game, but thats only cause its true. and for all you disbelievers out there, below is proof.

gotta keep him safe too

after my accomplishment we started to head back to matts neighbor hood. we checked out one other giant mall on the way home though. nothing purchases or winnings there. but once we got back I’m pretty sure we went on that run that was supposed to happen earlier. it was nice because it wasn’t too hot out.

now lets think about what we did for dinner. ok. got it. we ended up having the left over marinara and what not for the other night. i was full to say the least. after learning some impromptu peanuts theme song on the keyboard we had to get ready to meet casey and jamile. we picked them up and went to a pub. it was pretty lively and saw some familiar faces. nothing too out the ordinary or extravagant for a night of drinking but it was chill. deep sleepy time once we got back.

DAY 24

10 o’clock seemed way to early. especially wen bars and stuff don’t close til around 3 or 4 here. but matt, myself, and matts younger brother nicky, had plans to go to the Australian open near the city. so i got my act together, ate a heavy breakfast, and prepped for the day.

after an hour trolly ride, or an hour nap in my case, we got to the gates. its about 2 at this point i think. much to our surprise, the grounds passes (cheap ones) were sold out for the rest of the day and even the expensive tickets weren’t guaranteed to be available until later that evening. soooo the three of us just bit our tongues and bought tickets for the following day. but we had just taken an hour train ride and were right next to the city.

the three of us ended up walking to the city from the tennis grounds. i saw a funny thing so i will present it below.

after some aimless strolling and munching on Boost (aka Jamba juice), i found some stores where i was able to nip almost the rest of my presents list in the but. we ended up killing a few hours before we headed home. once back we got some pizzas and matt saw 40 year old virgin for the first time. yes, i was just as surprised as you are. but hey, we can all congratulate him later.

i was full again, much to no surprise, and with some time to kill, we ended up cutting my hair.

we gave a shout out to casey but she had already left to go out. so with big plans again tomorrow we opted to just stay home for the night. still stayed up kidna late though swapping programs on each other’s computer. ended with some high school video projects and said peace out to saturday night

DAY 25

At least this time around i wasn’t hungover. but i was still pretty groggy from the lack of sleep. with only 5 hours of shut eye we had to be up and at ‘em in order to get the full experience of the day. so we didn’t waste any time, got ready, and hit the road. got some brekky at hackers (breakfast meal/sandwhiches at mcdonalds) and drove to the city this time.

We got in to the Australian Open this time with no problem. it was kinda like a car meet since there were a lot of different vendors there and you would play games in order to win prizes you don’t need. after that was accomplished we went to experience the real reason we were there. yes thats right, women’s doubles.

the matched we watched were hotties Panetta and Dulko against some scary russian girls. it was a good game, but unfortunately the girls lost in a tie breaker. once depressed, we checked out more to the Tennis Open Grounds. we got food, my camera, and water. but most of all, a tan line from sitting under the australian sun for a few hours. it was hotter than the dickens. nearly 36 Celsius which is almost 100 F, so excuse me for not looking my best.

Came back and snapped a few shots of the co ed doubles. dulko played again. and dulko lost again.

at that point it was time to go home. for dinner we swung by charcoal chicken. its a place that servers rotisserie chicken cook on charcoal. hence the name of the restaurant. quite delicious, but may not have been too nutritious since it was consumed with cole slaw and a giant box of chips (fries). once home we pounded through the food and after a brief moment of debate, decided on going to crown since they have a nightclub open on sunday nights.

for a sunday night Co, the name of the club, was pretty cool. it will be a nice place to remember to check out on a poppin night. thats busy night for any of you old people reading this. it was just a kick back time at the club and no binge drinking or flirting with girls was involved since it was just the two of us. had my chance to check out australians Hungry Jacks (burger king) on our journey home. pretty exhausted from the weekend and long day my head hit the pillow almost immediately. and by almost immediately i mean after spending nearly half an hour on omegle.com. but hey. i survived to make it to monday which will be in store for the next blog.

boom.

-jermz

keeping it real

Day 17

Well Saturday decided to show its face again.  And who am I but to embrace Saturday’s pretty face.

Yes, I have fallen a few day behind on my blog… again. But I know you all love the suspense and anticipation. And I know you all love the fact that I forget details. Like what we had for breakfast Saturday morning. I want to say that I had cereal.

I spent a lot of Saturday morning recapping the last few days on my blog. Once that task was done we headed back to the city. We had arrangements again to say at the same hotel as last week, because we don’t like the fact of intoxicated Jermaine or Dundee driving. The second our stuff was put away we were back on the streets to explore the city. There were lots of cool things there, like train stations, old libraries that don’t give you access to the top, cool plazas with xbox on giant tv’s, and what would have been the parliament of Australia.

don’t ask me what this building was, but i did take a picture of it. wanted to make it look old. but i went a little overboard on the grain and it doesn’t help that there are new cars in it.

this is a library. it is one in melbourne. it is called the melbourne library. i think. i couldn’t get to the level i wanted to in order to take a cooler photo, so i got stuck with these dinky ones.

After roaming around the city for a little while, we grabbed some jack and coke to pregame for the night, and finally dinner from a kebab place, except I got a burger. Anywho, we lugged all this stuff back to the room and had a feast. I found some time to go to the gym after dinner and once all that was said and done, got ready for the night. We met the girls and the posse at a place called CQ. I have to say night clubs down here are quite intriguing. The ratio was like 4 to 1. And yes, that’s girls to guys. cant complain there. Although I didn’t succeed too much with the ladies there, I did spend a good amount of the night dancing with Simone. Horray! Maybe she’ll be there Friday when we go out again. So after some stumbling and some pit stops at Macckers (mcdonalds), we made it back into our room in one piece, just time for bed.

here is drunk me again. don’t mind the two people in the background.

friends and fam:

DAY 18

Another beautiful day for a hangover.

Was there breakfast involved?? I cant remember exactly. Eventually we stopped by the mall to get coffee and stop by the apple store. Then, like any other normal person, we went home to sleep away most of the day. That does sound pretty tempting right now actually. But ill try and resist. Eventually we needed to get up after watching a few episodes of Raising Hope because we had dinner reservations again at Stephs restaurant.

Tonight on Jermaine’s plate was Rabbit. You may know them as those furry creatures that hop around and eat carrots. Tonight however, there was no hopping for them, and instead they were served with carrots. The meat was a little gritty compared to chicken, and it seemed to have a lot of tiny bones that you have to fish out.  Was worth the experience, but I don’t know if it will be on the top of my list when thinking about food.

After dinner we went home and did something, I don’t remember what exactly. Nevermind, I remember. Sorry I don’t delete the previous sentence, but at least you can feel like your in my state of mind. Anyways, we ended up watching the movie The Fourth Kind when we got back. It was a pretty legit film. Pretty scary and mind trip. The lady in it freaks me out just looking at her.

Then I went to bed hoping to not have nightmares about her.

DAY 19

Monday again. No case of the manic Mondays here because everyday is funday. Unfortunately I didn’t run or anything like that. But we did go to the animal sanctuary.

The sanctuary is somewhere in between a zoo and a wild animal park. All the animals are super close and are within arms reach. So I could see more Americans getting their hands bitten off here. But there were a lot of interesting creatures like Emus, wallabies, tazmanian devil, and koalas; all of which I got to see up close. We spent a few hours there, and found out as we were leaving that we were supposed to pay for admission. Ooops. Good thing we were already out the door.

there is this ugly emu. its the national thingy of australia. that explains a lot jk. some of these aussie chic are prettay cuteee

emus are not only ugly. they are mean and scary.

i thought id set sights on a cuter animal. like this wallaby. he wanted to say hi. and I’m always down to make new friends.

knock knock….

WHO’s there. (i crack myself up)

who’s that you say. oh just lil ol me the koala. 

i would like to end this sanctuary trip with a lizard. they’re cold blooded. i learned that in the 3rd grade.

So on the way home we mad another pit stop and got some kangaroo franks. Just like the kangaroos that were supposed to be at the sanctuary. Welp, we found em. We threw those suckers on the Barbie (BBQ), rolled them up in some bread, slapped some sauce on them, and called it lunch. The meat is less salty then hot dogs or sausages, and is a little more though. Who cares though, its high in protein.

After digesting the kangaroo meat, we had tickets to go see a movie at village cinemas in gold class. It’s a theatre with only like 30 seats, but each seat is an electric reclining chair. You order food before you go to see the film and they bring it out to you at the beginning, middle, and near the end. The two of us (not a date) saw The girls with the Dragon tattoo. Didn’t know what to expect, not because the trailer or synopsis was confusing, its because I never saw the trailer and never read the synopsis. But yes, I can confirm that it was a pretty good flick.

It was a pretty clear night on the way home, so we decided when we got back that we’d try taking photos of the starts. From Mattt’s pad you can see the Milky way pretty distinctly, as well as Orion, his belt, the southern cross (which you can only see in the southern hemisphere and which is also on the Australian flag), and some other constellations/planets.

it looks like disco

Day 20

I seem to be writing a lot more in comparison to my first blogs. Sorry for all the reading?

Tuesday huh. Well Wednesday is Ms. Xanthoplous’s birthday, so we spent some of the morning grabbing supplies and running errands for the young lady’s big day tomorrow. This included grocery shopping, buying last minute presents, and so on. Once that was all done it was more time for fun.

Today’s agenda was to bet barreled in aussie. Unfortunately, the waves didn’t get my memo cause the beach was more like a lake. After some patience, a few sets started to roll in. Got some decent wraps and tried to sneak in a barrel. Did I mention it was like 6 o’ clock when we first got there. It was pretty dope cause we were at the beach til almost 8 o’ clock and there was still plenty of sun left. Only down side was there were giant flies there that constantly bite you. I wanted to cry.

After I caught my ticket home we went back to the fish n chips place and got.. well, umm, fish and chips. No disappoint once again on the fresh fish. Is it worth the fat feeling I have in my stomach, and the extra layer of “coushin” that I have developed. is it worth is? I want to say yes, but I also don’t want to look in the mirror. Perhaps I am just pregnant.

does vegetable oil count as a serving of veggies?

for your enjoyment. here is a really terrible photo of me. don’t be surprised if i decide to delete it later

Quick recap of the rest of the night: After eating. Went home. Jumped in the pool. Took a shower. Got the glass out of my foot. Tried to watch “Waiting for Superman” but Internet pooped out halfway through. Fell asleep.

To be continued…

kangaroo jack-son

Day 13

tuesday.

i don’t know where to start. but heres what happened. we planned to go to matt’s uncle’s farm in the country. his pad is 2 hours away from matt’s house. earlier that we we had gone to meet his cousin to find the keys to the farm. so after a quick little 2 hour drive we ended up at the farm. gate 1 unlocked. we roll up to the place and look for the keys to the house but its a no go. ooops. we were given the wrong set of keys. so we had 3 options. go home. stay there and wait for the keys to get mailed, or get the keys.

welp, lucky for us matt’s cousin lives in the city, which is only an hour away. but you know us and luck. unlucky for us that matts cousin was not in the city and was in a town all the way back by matts house. double oops. so we made a decision, sucked it up, and drove back down to matts house, got the new set of keys, then drove back up to the farm. if the keys didn’t work this time i think matt may explode. but with one turn of the knob the front door opened. and with the front door opening we also had the keys to the shed which had 2 quads and a dirt bike. woot. its go time.

we had like 6 acres of land to explore. all filled with butterflies, high grass, and wild kangaroos. i won’t lie. matt and i did some tandem riding. but i will upload the footage when i can.

[insert atv footage here]

we started at the farm so late and couldn’t wait to get on the quads we almost forgot about dinner. by that time almost everything in the small town was closed. except for one place. we lucked out because the fridge was broken and we would have went to bed hungry.

after dinner and kicking it. i spent a majority of the night writing my blog.

oh wait. but before going to sleep. a little friend came to say hi. his name is mr. huntsman and he’s about the size of my palm.

Day 14

it was pretty simple. woke up. had breakfast (bacon and eggs) and then like any boys do, went outside to play with their toys.

we got both quads running and did some cops and robbers action through the fields. eventually we had to eat. so we got some take away (aussie for “take out”) i opted for the fish and chips. i don’t know what i was hoping for though. we were no where near any body of water so fresh fish there was like rubber. yumm. i ate more than enough though.

our secondary quad decided to bug out on us. so after some trouble shooting we ended up just doing some tandem riding. sure its not safe. but when have i ever said no to a chance to take a risk. as the sun started to go down, i decided to go on a run, given the fact all my food from the day was brown and lacked any color. at the start of my run i saw a fatty pack of kangaroos. this photo is from the next morning though and not from my night run. but you get the picture. (figuratively and literally)

the sun didn’t stop setting so i took the opportunity to take some more photos to bid the day goodnight.

the day ended with the leftover food that was uncooked form stephs house, some tv, and some heavy conversation.

Day 15

day 15, thursday was pretty packed in my opinion.

we skipped breakfast, hopped in the car, and started driving. our destination was mt. bullen which is close to 3 hours away by car. on the way we stopped at the bakery to get some sausage rolls and meat pies. this place was pretty fresh too.

on the drive to the mountain i saw a horse. at first i thought that he was malnourished so we flipped around to take a look. wouldn’t want to call anyone out on animal cruelty, but ill do what i have to. after i got a closer look, it was determined that the lil guy was just old. but hey, it was an opportune moment to take a photo, so guess what i did….. i took a photo.

mt. bullen is a ski resort in the winter, but during summer it had some interesting stuff goin on. there was a little village at the top and was pretty interesting. oh yea, there were kids and adults that had the guts to mountain bike down the freakin mountain.

there wasn’t a whole lot to do there. but it was like 5 degrees celcius at the top. not to mention the drive up and down the mountain was a scary one. a lot of the turns don’t have any guard rails. so if you look down for one second while driving, you could end up down the other side of the mountain. good thing dad happened to call and distract me from my near death experience.

as you can tell by my ability to write in the blog again, you can assume that we didn’t crash off the mountain in a fireball of a car. what did happen though was more photo opportunities. after the drive down the mountain, (which isn’t that bad, maybe 20 minutes. no where near there 1 hour drive up big bears face) anyways, after the drive down the mountain there were a small creek and a cool log that fell and acted like a bridge. i didn’t want to fall in, not because id be wet and my phone would be broken, but because id have to check that stupid box on the immigration form on the way back to the US asking if my shoes had been exposed to any freshwater lakes or streams. nonetheless. i made it, and were able to test out some slow shudder experiments.

we continued on our journey and some more one on one time with the road.

in case you were wondering, its this road here.

i wasn’t the only one who had some one on one time with the road though.

first note. cockatoos are a wild bird here. you see them everywhere. i had stubbled getting a photo of one for a while. i think you may know where this is leading though, given my personality. two words, and you’ve heard them before. jim brandenburg (2.0)

i found an opportunity to take what i had learned from my encounter with the dead kangaroo and live it up with parry the cockatoo. below is the end result.

i have a mortuary style photo of the lil guy, too, but id figure i would spare you the graphic nature of the photo and stop any further speculation of my sanity that has already arisen.

a quick stop by the market in the next town over to grab the ish for making dinner, and then we headed off to lake eileen. it was a little bit off course but hey, we were already 3 hours from the farm so we figured we might as well.

so as the sun started to fall, we ventured back tot the farm. we had all the ingredients to makah dah pasta…. thats my italian accent. with chef matt by my side i was unstoppable. theres not questioning his experience with food.

pasta is simple apparently. 100 grams of flour for every egg. or vise versa, it you really care. we had 400 grams of flour which meant…… 4 eggs. good job.

got my hands dirty and rolled it through and there you have it. fettecinni noodles.

along with the noodles, we made a heavy sauce with bacon, mushrooms, freshly diced parsley, parmesan, red onions. slapped some extra virgin olive oil on top of that biz and viola. dinner is served. a little trick i have up my sleeve for my next date idea. thanks mate.

we ended up eating til my stomach couldn’t handle any more, and then topped off the night with a little bit of memoirs of a geisha. gotta love those eyes.

besides matt injuring himself on the bunk bed, which i had no part of but apparently thats debatable. i slept juuuussstttt fine.

day 16

its time to leave the farm. theres a lot more to australia than chasing kangaroos on quads and jerry rigging brake handles on dirt bikes. but we gave it all on last go before the trip home.

on the way back to mt eliza we stopped by hanging rock. its has something to do with volcanoes or something sciency like that. all i know it was a big rock and i was determined to get to the top of it. as you can see, i kicked that rocks ass.

don’t mind the dirty shirt and the same clothes i was wearing the previous day.

we had dinner plans with ya-ya at 730 so we started booking it home. i ended up driving, as matt slept in the car. surprisingly we didn’t end up in china and made it back to the house in a timely manner. a quick hop in the shower to rinse off the muck and dirt from my skin and we were on our way to dinner town. matt let me use an australian open polo that i get to keep and ya ya gave me an australia shirt after dinner. people love me

now its day 17 and were going back to the city to get shwasted. i bid you good day and will see how the night goes.

here’s to the freakin’ weekend

you know that rhianna song I’m talking about

haven’t proof read any of this or added photos so check bakk soon for it to update

Day 9

anyways. excuse any politically incorrect statements in the following descriptions.

Friday morning we had a pretty heavy breakfast. however, this would be my downfall later on in the day.

we met up with matt’s grandmother to experience the blessing of the water. its seemed to be a pretty big deal down under.
In the Greek orthodox the men race to get a cross thrown into the water after it has been blessed. The man who gets to the cross first is also blessed with good luck the rest of the year.

There were literally thousands of people there to watch the spectacle.
A plus side to all these Greek people In one location…. Greek food.
Although I was still pretty well off after breakfast, Matt’s grandfather got me, Matt, and Matt’s I’ll bro (Nicky) each a sandwich. It had the ever so popular lamb that is a big hit down here. Quite delicious. Slowly but surely I finished my much appreciated sandwhich. And what does a generous grandmother who gives sandwhiches to a bunch of good looking young lads do? That’s right. Buy desert for the strapping 3 boys. As if I wasn’t full already I had deep fried pastries. I forgot the real name for them, but nicky said just to say “look at ya motha” really fast and it sounds like the Greek dessert we were eating

Well after partying ways with ya-ya, the three of us went to a mall. I did some window shopping and checked out some eye candy
Dunno why I’m so nervous talking to girls I’ll probably never see again but hey, I’ll come around

I thought walking off all of our food would help, but I forgot to mention that we ended up going to 7-11 on the way to the mall.

Well once we rested up at home and peeped game on a few episodes of raising hope, we had to make our dinner plans at 730 at conrad’s (the restaurant that Steph owns and where Matt also works). Steph didn’t let us down again with my pollo avocado order with fettuccine and garlic bread.
We ended up staying like 3 hours and had some good convo with some fellow food fans. One lady said that she would help us get together with her son who wants to go shark fishing soon. Hopefully that plays through. Even if it doesn’t, we downed some home made lemonchella and went home full and content. Spent.

Day 10

its saturday and you know what that usually means. First thing first though, i had to go on another run after, matt and i packed for about a day or two and drove about 40 minutes to the city.

we made a pit stop just before to check out the chadstone mall (pronounced chad-stin). it was pretty big and pretty legit with some classy stores. i didn’t buy anything. gonna sit and wait and see how my finances are near the end of the trip. speaking of which. all you kids need to tell me if you want anything specific from here or else you’ll probably end up with a boomerang or something. there was some dank food place at the mall and i almost exploded.

we parked at the crown which is a casino here. they have the roulette tables with only one Zero. none of that double zero B.S. we have. i didn’t play, don’t worry. maybe i will another time. nonetheless. we parked at the crown and walked maybe about a mile to our room in the city. we stayed at the oaks which is kinda like a residence inn. appartmentish rooms that are now available for nightly stays.

after we checked in we got the keys to our room and as the door opened, Lowe and behold…. One queen bed. Oops. 2 boys 1 bed will not be the next viral video so I we rang the front desk and they fixed our reservation. The ended up putting us on the top floor with 2 queen beds instead of 2 singles.

Crisis averted. to add to the good vibrations there was a health center there!!! Good ol jermz got to lift for once. Had to make it quick though because we had plans for the rest of the night and Casey and her posse were Comin by soon so we could all go out. So as soon I was done working out wee strolled down the city streets to find dinner. There was this place called peri peri that served some legit Portuguese chicken. No bueno por que los estados de las America’s no tiene el restaurante.

Couldnt forget the preface liquids so pit stop by the liquor store was a must. I ended up buying some Australian rum call b something. It’s low price in comparison should have forewarned me of the slight burn I would taste going down. Anyways. Made it back to the room to run through the three S’s before the peeps came over.

Blue jeans. Red button up. Open vest. Ladykiller. Great combo. The kids came over (Casey, her bf jamile, and Simone) and we had social hour before going out. All of us strolled over to a bar called the Carlton. It had a ton of cool stuff on the walls. And by cool stuff I mean stuffed giraffes. After a few pitchers the girls began to feel the wrath and Casey stated to lose her edge. So we called it an early night instead of going a dance club and jamile had work in the morn n e ways. So Matt and I walked a few blockers back to the room. I was able to peep game on some craze stuck up broads who were staying at our same hotel. They ended up playing doorbell ditch with a note written with lipgloss with their room number. Don’t worry. Nothing happened. Lol The girls were to dumb to realize that they put the wrong room. Hahaaha. All good though. Met some broskis who told us they would get us some details on anything happening next weekend.
So back to the room we went 4 hours into the start of……

day 11

Hangover central.
Woke up tired and like the grim reapers older unkempt brother. But the day must go on.
Or so I thought. We were both too lazy todo anything so after packing and walking back to the car We ate KFC and and tried to catch a flick at a swanky theatre. Bummer kill. All sold out. Double bummer, it’s cloudy and rainy out so i didn’t want to bring my camera around the city. We both agreed we’d save it all for another day.

After the long drive home and once we made it home safely, my eyes closed the second my head hit the pillow. We really woke to eat dinner thanks to Matt’s mum. Yummy. Sausages a fried rice ville. Not much more went on that day except for recovering. And by recovering i mean randomly going out for a midnight run in a dark scary park. No need to fret though friends and fam, I brought a pen for safety.

Plus, I figured I could run faster than Matt anyways if bums should happen to jump out of the shadows

day 12

Word to the wise with a little bit of wine and dine

Not much more to life than hearing about life itself from a wine filled Italian who worked his way up from nothing.
Day 12 was Monday and we had plans to meet at Steph’s pad with his wife to cook dinner.
They live in a nice neighborhood where u can see the ocean and the city from their balcony/patio.

I didnt eat breakfast so I got kinda boned later. But to start things off we cracked open the bottle of whiskey and gave cheers to each other and the new year. (btw whiskey and soda water is a pretty good combo) Then as Steph was prepping some of the other food, I helped prep the wine. He had bottles of home made wine that Matt and I cut peaches for and threw into the glasses. Looked pretty classy if you ask me. Not much of a wino but i was surprised at how smooth this went down. Didn’t really taste like dymatap for once.

Tonight menu. Beef Wellington with grilled veggies. I snapped some photos of Matt sealing the eye fillets before Steph went to town. He’s one mean cook. It tasted better than it looked. And it looks pretty damn good. As much as it hurt to keep eating, I couldn’t finish. Which was actually good thing cause id get to enjoy it for leftovers.

After the main course there were a few more glasses of wine, and some strong (I mean strong) grappa, which is essentially brandy. And by brandy I mean kerosene. Don’t get me wrong. It smelled like kerosene but went down surprisingly smooth.

Steph ended the night with a few thoughts on life. And by a few I mean 5 hours of enlightening conversation. I don’t want to tell u his life story because that’s his business and he was nice enough to share it with us. There were a lot of things he said to us that night, all lot of it was words of wisdom. All helpful, and all from the heart.

I can’t remember all of of the themes of the night word for word. But here are two that i remember verbatim:

“do something good, forget about it. Do something bad, think about it.”
And
“don’t let anyone put you down unless you believe it yourself to be true.”

So after our great night we made our way home….. Oh wait. A few more swigs of brandy really quick. Then we headed home. Wait…. Just one more. Then back to the pad. Oh, wait wait. One more one more. Goodstuff, good guy, good company. You just can’t no.

Eventually we made it home and I crawled into bed and passed the F out….. After some beef Wellington of course

3 day recap

i fell behind again. drats

day 6

if my memory serves me correctly this would be tuesday. the day after having dinner with matt’s family friends.

can’t remember what i had for breakfast, or if we had breakfast. its hard to remember. it was soooooo long ago.

UPDATE: sorry. its 15 minutes later and we figured out what we did for food. i skipped breakfast cause i slept in forever. but we made a pit stop by matts other job today to drop off a birthday present. Lucky for us this birthday boy was an italian gentleman who was nice enough to let me try a crown beer (don’t worry it was 12:30 pm) and as he was preparing to reopen his restaurant for its post holiday season, he mashed up a quick batch of spaghetti and tortellini…. for freesies. we let him get back to work and we continued on our journey.. didn’t take any pictures, sorry people. but anyways…….

we ended up going on a little drive. got to check out some stuff in the opposite direction. we followed most of the coast. it was kinda gloomy that day. i got to see a boat yard where they stack boats though. just like you would stack cereal in a cupboard. we walked around and i found a line of tree stumps. if any of you know me all to well you know what is happening next.

yes…. i had to jump from one to the other.

we didn’t really have a plan for the day. i guess you could say our plan was to have no plan. but i was tossed the keys and was put in the driver seat to find our way home. don’t ask me why i always have a stupid look on my face

at the end of the day. we got some pizza. got to try 3 different pies from a local place. one garlic, one aussie pizza (it had egg on it), and compared the bbq chix pizza to the cpk one. all were pretty good. brought the pies home and watched amores perros (loves a bitch) an xmas present from janine. its spanish film that i started in one of my film classes and never got to finish. pretty good if you ask me. and if you didn’t ask me. then ill just tell you about day two.

[insert law and order sound effect here]

Day 7

well my fat ass woke up and decided to do some exercising. luckily it wasn’t 40 degrees out (celsius). threw on some tunes and hit the pavement. ran maybe like 1.5-2 miles. only cause running is boring, so i split it up with push ups. haven’t really gotten a chance to set up any kind of gym membership. but maybe i won’t have time to work out. i do miss bench press and incline dumbbell press, and hammer curls, and cable kickbacks. perhaps i can use this as an excuse to bulk up….. errr, something along those lines. I weighed 160 wen i left. 165 on a good day. wave good bye to any abs i have temporarily. less talk about my body though.

after i got back we got packed and started out fun filled day. the plan for the day. Phillip Island. its about an hour and a half from matt’s pad. we bought tickets to check out the Phillip island penguins… its mating season more about that later.

so once we got to our destination and checked the spot where we needed to go later, we did some exploring of the island. on our way out of the parking lot I made a friend.

he was a cool little fellow. he had a fluorescent colored beak. i guess in case he decided to do any night flying.

i really gotta remember that my camera take video too. he would have been interesting to interview.

anyways. we went to go explore the island a little more. but first as growing boys. we went to stop for lunch. i ate a souvlaki. had some lamb in it. it was satisfying. also got my hands on some ginger beer. (no alcohol content) it was unique and refreshing. so as we were sitting and waiting for out food, took the opportunity to snap a few photos.

we still had some time to kill. so we checked out a tourist attraction call the knobbies. its essential two big ass rock formations that is just off the island. the whole island was created from a volcanic eruption. and hence forth, Phillip island was born. it was pretty damn windy at this place. but matt got some pics of me thinking about sweet nothings.

so below is a picture of the “knobs” and some other cool water stuff.

seems to be a little bit of glare. but your over it.

the water here was pretty cool in case you hadn’t noticed.

still more time to murder. so we checked out another beach. this couple noticed how awesome i was so they asked me to take a photo of them. silly people with their point and shoot. if only they had a dslr they could take pretty photos of a wooden stair set.

at this point. I’m pretty sure I’m out of order as far as what has happened chronologically in this days events. but i will tell you that we made another pit stop because i saw another bird. this time it was a mean old pelican. it was low tide so the sea floor was exposed. i tired to get as close as i could but every time i took a step i started sinking in the muck. and then the jerk of a bird kept moving away from me as if i was going to eat him or something. i tried to convince him that all i wanted to do was take a portrait of him. but he wasn’t havin it. so i took my photos anyways as i flipped him off. this may explain the dirty look on his face.

then there was this little girl and the pedophile that i am took a picture of the adorable lil toddler. unfortunate for her that the pelican decided to eat her.

i was saddened by the way the pelican ate the little girl. so we decided to go to the penguin sanctuary to wait for our little friends to arrive. much to my dismay, the area doesn’t allow cameras to protect the safety of the animals. we got there at maybe about 6.30. well the penguins don’t come out until the sun goes down, which is at about 9 o’clock over here. our friends are afraid they will get attacked so they come back home when its dark and cold.

so yea we had over two hours to kill. sitting in cement like bleachers facing the ocean. then dundee wants to try and talk about my “feelings.” jokes was on him though cause i don’t have any feelings.. hahaha. crisis averted.

eventually god turned the dimmer down on the sun and everyone started getting nuts cause the cute little 33cm lengthed penguins started parading up the beach. perhaps that is where they got the name penguin parade. they waddle up the sand only to be knocked back down like bowling pins and roll back down the back. it was a fight like normandy for them but eventually they made it. we watched a few more troops march up the beach and decide to get a closer look at the cute lil guys. The place is set up kinda like those old zoo’s where you sit in your car and get really close to the lions. but instead there is a wooden pathway that you follow and you can see the penguins up close within arms reach and see them go to their shelters, listen to their chix cry, and laugh the whole time cause they are so little and funny.

here is a video of what we experienced since i can’t show you myself.

so once we said goodbye to our new midget friends, we made the journey home. sadly, many places were closed on the way home, so we had to resort to mcdonalds. i got something called a mcOz…. it had beats in it!! surprise. but as we munched down on our long awaited food, we threw on a movie from netflix. It had that main guy from that 70′s show in it. its called “Take me Home tonight.” worth watching in my opinion. matt fell asleep. poor fellow. haha. i did the same…. once the movie was over.

day 8 sukkaz

today we decided to take it easy. we have a long weekend ahead of us. so i will apologize in advance if i can’t keep on my blogging.

i decided to unpack. (a week later i know) so in the meantime we watched like the first 25% of the first season of Raising Hope. its a pretty cute show. some nobody who knocked up a serial killer and he ends up having to take care of his child cause the mom is put in the electric chair. maybe i need a baby… on second though. maybe not.

then we watched some stargate, and once that was over, worked on some blogs, then sent you this link.

enjoy.

-jermz

2012 already?

so a lot has happened since my last post. i guess i have a lot to sum up.

my last post was about my first day, so i guess ill start from there.

my second day in aussie land we did a bit of exploring. I guess the area we were in was called sorento. there was a bunch of driving around aimlessly involved, but fortunately…. i was able to come across kangaroo roadkill. my first encounter.

at first i thought it would be smarter to have the car in it. but now that i look back. i shouldve taken the car out. i think less would have been more and the photo would still told its story and gotten the point across without the car in it. but hey, it is what it is.

felt a little inspired by some jim brandenburgh “chased by the light” action with this one. reminded me of the photo he took of the dead deer but in his case he took a close up of the eyes. in a sense it seemed to be more powerful that showing the whole deer/kangaroo.

next off the old bucket list was lunch. and i sure did give myself an appetite after that. we stopped by a popular place and i ordered up some phresh fish n chips. it was d-lish-ouse. tasted it was just caught as i was ordering it. i mean this fish literally melted in your mouth. only downside was the grease made the paper bag nearly clear as cling wrap by the time i was finished. no regrets though.

on an even greater note. I found a beach with skim!!!!

cant wait to tell you about that later. i have video of it but have to work out all the kinks in compressing and uploading all that jazz so ill work on that later.

in the meantime. here is a photo of a different more secluded beach. (not the skimming beach)

keep in mind these arent all the photos. that would just take forever. and even the ones i have uploaded, not all of them have been edited. you might be able to tell the differences. but anyways. we took a walk down to the sand here and i snapped a photo of a daad and his kid. i thought it was pretty cute.

so what has happened since then????

well i havent had too much time to play around with my camera only because we were away for the weekend for new years. On saturday we met up with one of matts friends who is going out with some guy who is friends with a girl who had a beach house from her parents for the weekend. so saturday we all cruised up to the beach house to let the fun begin.

i was able to try a few different australian beers. fosters (kinda like a keystone), carlton drought (sorta like sam adams), and vb (which seems to be like the budwiser of beer down here) all experiences were good. there were a few other people there and im glad i got to meet a bunch of new faces. we all had a blast and even i got to “sing” to everyone. if you dont get that joke ill just have to explain later. all aside from the usual jermaine, nye was fun.

**CLICK ME**

new years day was pretty cool. we all rolled down to the beach and lucky for me it was the one with the shore breaks. and lucky for me we threw the skimboard in the car. and even luckier for me matt took a few photos. Boom!

after a beautiful after noon of skimming and an afternoon of aussies staring at meet intrigued by what i was doing. we went back to simone’s house and hung out a little  more. I was still a little tired so i crashed early. once we woke up out for breakfast, off to the beach, and then back home for a few toasts before everyone went there separate ways. matt and i had to be back early to say hi to some family friends. there was some chatting some jokes and some ice cream but all in all a mellow day.

so that concludes most of everything up to yesterday. which led me to today. which i will write about tomorrow.

My first experiences

After I landed. I thought to myself. “well, I’m here”

There were a few issues with the phone and prepaid sim card I had purchased, so I had trouble contacting matt, but luckily it worked out and he was at the exit when I had arrived.

My first afternoon here the weather was great. It wasn’t too hot. It was interesting seeing people drive on the other side of the road, but I was expecting it. After we settled down at the house we made a trip to the local bay and i got to touch australian water for the first time.

For those of you who noticed….. Yes, I did wear my roscoe’s chicken and waffles shirt on my plane flight and my first afternoon here. Gotta represent the west coast, ya know!

And also for those of you who didn’t notice…. theres a pair of car keys in my hands that don’t belong to me. that can only mean one thing. I got to drive a right hand drive car in australia!!!!! I swear it was like trying to learn how to drive all over again. I felt like a 15 year old behind the wheel for the first time with my permit. I turned into the wrong lane god knows how many times and kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the signal light. Matt took some video of it so ill see if i can get it from him later and update the blog.

**CLICK ME**

Of course food is a must after the plane flight. So we also stopped by the local bakery by Matt’s house and got some sausage rolls, and meat pies. Yummm. can’t wait to tell you about the food i had the next day.

We also went to matts Nana’s house (aka grandma) who was nice enough to lend me one of her beds so now i have a nice comfy queen size bed to sleep in at night.

To end the night matt’s family good dinner, lamb chops, but fortunately this one didn’t taste like a sock puppet and sing endlessly. We all ate outside and i got to hear the sounds of some awesome birds. After dinner we went inside to watch cowboys and aliens on the big screen. pretty good movie if i do say so myself.

laid my head down and checked off day one in australia.

Jermaine Down Undah

G’day friends and family.

its day 3 on my month long trip to austrailia.

for those of you who were wondering, my flight was fine. Took 2 sleeping pills. Slept, woke up to eat, slept, woke up potty, slept and watched movie. 

Im gonna be updating my blog from time to time so you can check in and see whats new with me. 

Miss everyone already and can’t wait to tell you all about my experiences. 

 

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