Awash and Wet, Day 1

The night was insanely cold. Much colder than I expected or packed for. But then the day was warm, so it's impossible to gauge. Mary left for work at 8AM or so and Jeff and I slept in for another couple hours. Mary called to wake us both up -- if she's up, then we all are!

The shower drain was backed up so I showered in someone else's filth. Excellent....

Had a couple weird dreams. The first was that we never left the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel (pub) my whole trip here and Mary replaced her parents with a pair of blond thirty-somethings. She even named them Ben and Barb and assured me that I wouldn't have to lift a finger for anything, that her "parents" would comply. Strange, huh?

The second one was non-geographical and full of faceless people. I was on a police ride-along, in the front seat, listening to my iPod. The cop was dealing with something outside the car and then all of a sudden some houligans tried to get into the car. Feeling attack was imminent I unleashed a brand of hell in defending my territory. Then after they left, a little black girl tried to get into the car trunk and sit there but I told her she can't do that. She said "Fine" and left. Then I went back to wherever I came from and about a minute later realized that my iPod was left in the car, and was resigned to the fact that it would now be stolen. I went to sleep in my dream. When I woke up I saw that there were chalk marks on the tongue of my shoe with words on it and certain letters circled, and I immediately knew that it was a word jumble clue to where my iPod was being held hostage. I love a good treasure hunt.

Jeff was off Monday and we went and ran a couple errands while he showed me the skeleton of the city, George St. We went to Circular Quay, saw the majestic opera house, the Harbour Bridge, the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Rocks, the New South Wales Art Gallery and walked around some more. I was paranoid that my pictures wouldn't come out focused because it looked like my view finder was unfocused or dirty. So I took a whole row and got them developed. They were fine, and really incredible. I'm really happy with them. I probably annoyed the shit outta Jeff with my incessant talking. I really need to learn when and how to shut the fuck up.

I had some incredible mango gelato at Gelattismo at the Quay. Delicious. Mangoes are my favorite fruit. Mary says they taste like pumpkin with pepper on it. Not at ALL! Speaking of pumpkin, they are freaks for it here. Pumpkin everything! I love it. Pumpkin is my favorite vegetable and there's nothing wrong with a country that would die for a squash. Not in my book.

Jeff made chili for dinner. The green pepper was rank and every time we said it was good, he would downplay it and affect a sentence along the lines of, "Well if only we had green pepper...." He and Mary had this weird competitive chili leftover game they played the next couple of days. It became very personal.

We watched Australia's favorite TV show, "Neighbours." This will be familiar if you've ever read a thirty-second biography of Kylie Minogue, who is essentially a goddess over here. It's this half-hour daily soap opera that looks like it was filmed on the quick with a standard video camera. I keep expecting my family's Xmas home movies circa 1986 to be intercut with the footage seemingly filmed yesterday. There's a character on the show whose recent storyline had him going from not blind to blind to not blind again. Right....

Had a Streets Magnum bar for dessert. Just like a Dove ice cream bar at home. Mine was original while I let Mary and Jeff have the last two mint ones since they both really wanted them and I didn't care.

When I dropped off my film, the guy wrote "Jef" as my name and then seemed vexed and asked if it was "double f." Seems they spell it the way I hate over here. Geoff.

Went to an empty pub that closed at 10. The bartender was glued to "Desperate Housewives" and "Cold Case" the whole time we were there. Just like home....

And to end the night, Mary couldn't sleep. Just like home....