Emily and I are moving to NYC. Well, New Jersey. I am going to have to document all the awesome and amazing things we do and the gorgeous people we will meet while there, so I figure I will just keep this blog up. Maybe I will change the name to the Jersey Birdie or something. No, someone can come up with anything better than that. The City Loner? Ha, no I don't do loner very well, especially not with another girl living with me in a 500 sq ft studio. Loners we will not be.
That is happening in one month so I have until then to go visit all my friends and wrap everything up. Wow how fun. I am ready to get out of this heat, that is for sure.I broke my beer bottle coming into the house today. That was great. It just dropped right out of the pile of crap I was carrying in. It made me really happy. So now, I am going to go drink Bud Light from someone else's fridge. Yay!
Friday, 31 August 2012
Monday, 20 August 2012
Adventures in Bali
Well, I realize this is about three months late, but I forgot I needed to write about Bali. I June I went with my Danish friend, Helle, and had one of the best holidays ever. We purchased a voucher that got us a hotel and free dinner and massages when we got there. The hotel was a little below par, but we still enjoyed it. Everything was beautiful there and out money went so far thanks to the exchange rate.
When we went to the restaurant we got the voucher for, we thought we were being taken to die. It was really far and we had to drive through these ghetto neighborhoods and out taxi driver was pretty sketchy. We asked him to not kill us and he took us straight to the restaurant. On the beach. It was gorgeous and completely unexpected. All the tables were on the shore and each seat was facing the water. We could sit and watch the planes fly onto the runway. Our menu was already chose, and it was mostly fish that stayed in the fishtanks inside until it was time to cook them. So delicious. Helle ate her first lobster there, a whole kilo! There was a tiny band going from table to table singing songs which everyone enjoyed. After dinner (and a couple bottles of wine) we were pretty much the only people there, so we hijacked their guitar and sang for them. Helle played "Ironic" and "Last Kiss" on the local's guitar and we sang along. It was also where we learned a great deal of Indonesian because we made friends with all out waiters. The other tables resented us a little because their waiters started to ignore them to hang out with us. Take THAT, boring tables!
A couple days later we hired a driver to take us around the island. We went to a monkey forest and had a pretty crazy time there. Monkeys were just EVERYWHERE. It was just like Jumanji. Especially when I went to hold a monkey's hand and the mofo BIT ME. right in the arm. I had to get tested for rabies because I wasn't sure if he was rabid. So for a few days, I had to live with the possibility that death was somewhat imminent. How fun. Nasty, Jumanji monkey....
So a couple nights later we stopped by a place we had been wanting to go to called Tequila Bar. We were one of two tables in the restaurant so I started being loud and making friends with the house band. The lead singer was really sweet and asked us to come up and sing. We ended up having so much fun we stayed up there for about six songs. She really enjoyed having us to sing with, however I am not convinced we were exactly bringing in the business. Didn't matter! We had such a good time.
On our way from that bar to another place, we were hassled by some little kids trying to get pity money from tourists. At this point, Helle and I were pretty buzzed and she didn't feel like giving money to this kid who had started following us. She looked at me and said "He may be fast, but he's not faster than us!" and took off! She actually raced a poor boy and I was laughing the whole way behind her.
Sometimes people would come up to us and ask us to enter their store or try and sell us something or whatever and it got so annoying we tried out different ways to get rid of them. We learned the Bali way to say "We have no money" and "No, thank you." When that didn't work I told Helle to start yelling urgently at people in Danish. That was really fun because when they don't understand why you are yelling urgently, they panic too. We also picked up that "hati, hati" meant "Caution!" so that was also a fun one to yell at people as we walked by.
Once we got to the next bar, we spent most our time in the dance area. There were a lot of stages for people to get up on and dance, not to mention a few cages. Helle and I were up on stage with about 100 other people at one point, but I remember her telling me we were getting off because everyone "had found their safety buddy." It was pretty hysterical at the time because so many people had paired off on the stage it honestly looked like it was "Safety buddy" time.
When we left Kuta Beach and went to Uluwatu we had some pretty memorable experiences. The first day I went off by myself to walk along the shore and happened to stumble across some dumb guy pleasuring himself behind a rock. That was incredibly unfortunate and I ran away. Too bad for me, the tide had not gone out yet so I ruined my poor feet running on shells and rocks trying to get far enough away from this loser. Luckily I found two women from California who hung out with me until he walked off. They were a mother and daughter and the mom was pretty badass when I told her what happened. She started yelling at him and telling him to get away, etc.
That night, Helle wakes me up at 5 am because she hears a strange noise on her side of the room. We had to leave our window open in order to get some cool air, and we had been warned that monkeys liked to enter the room to find food. So here I am at 5 am thinking that another damn monkey has come to bite me. I hop out of bed and turn the lights on and Helle and I enter the bathroom to find a massive crab scaling the wall. We sort of stared at it for a while deliberating what to do, and finally decided we had to go upstairs and wake up our host. (Now, it's so hot in Bali that you don't exactly need to wear a lot of clothes when you sleep, so my favorite line that night was definitely when Helle asked herself, "What am I going to wear?" then replied, "that's the least of my problems at a time like this!") We ended up catching it in a giant pot and hopefully they ate it for dinner the next days. Or for breakfast! A crab omelette!
I think that is mostly it for the written memories. For pics, you can go to my facebook page:
and
And be sure to check out the monkey who stole the ciggies.
When we went to the restaurant we got the voucher for, we thought we were being taken to die. It was really far and we had to drive through these ghetto neighborhoods and out taxi driver was pretty sketchy. We asked him to not kill us and he took us straight to the restaurant. On the beach. It was gorgeous and completely unexpected. All the tables were on the shore and each seat was facing the water. We could sit and watch the planes fly onto the runway. Our menu was already chose, and it was mostly fish that stayed in the fishtanks inside until it was time to cook them. So delicious. Helle ate her first lobster there, a whole kilo! There was a tiny band going from table to table singing songs which everyone enjoyed. After dinner (and a couple bottles of wine) we were pretty much the only people there, so we hijacked their guitar and sang for them. Helle played "Ironic" and "Last Kiss" on the local's guitar and we sang along. It was also where we learned a great deal of Indonesian because we made friends with all out waiters. The other tables resented us a little because their waiters started to ignore them to hang out with us. Take THAT, boring tables!
A couple days later we hired a driver to take us around the island. We went to a monkey forest and had a pretty crazy time there. Monkeys were just EVERYWHERE. It was just like Jumanji. Especially when I went to hold a monkey's hand and the mofo BIT ME. right in the arm. I had to get tested for rabies because I wasn't sure if he was rabid. So for a few days, I had to live with the possibility that death was somewhat imminent. How fun. Nasty, Jumanji monkey....
So a couple nights later we stopped by a place we had been wanting to go to called Tequila Bar. We were one of two tables in the restaurant so I started being loud and making friends with the house band. The lead singer was really sweet and asked us to come up and sing. We ended up having so much fun we stayed up there for about six songs. She really enjoyed having us to sing with, however I am not convinced we were exactly bringing in the business. Didn't matter! We had such a good time.
On our way from that bar to another place, we were hassled by some little kids trying to get pity money from tourists. At this point, Helle and I were pretty buzzed and she didn't feel like giving money to this kid who had started following us. She looked at me and said "He may be fast, but he's not faster than us!" and took off! She actually raced a poor boy and I was laughing the whole way behind her.
Sometimes people would come up to us and ask us to enter their store or try and sell us something or whatever and it got so annoying we tried out different ways to get rid of them. We learned the Bali way to say "We have no money" and "No, thank you." When that didn't work I told Helle to start yelling urgently at people in Danish. That was really fun because when they don't understand why you are yelling urgently, they panic too. We also picked up that "hati, hati" meant "Caution!" so that was also a fun one to yell at people as we walked by.
Once we got to the next bar, we spent most our time in the dance area. There were a lot of stages for people to get up on and dance, not to mention a few cages. Helle and I were up on stage with about 100 other people at one point, but I remember her telling me we were getting off because everyone "had found their safety buddy." It was pretty hysterical at the time because so many people had paired off on the stage it honestly looked like it was "Safety buddy" time.
When we left Kuta Beach and went to Uluwatu we had some pretty memorable experiences. The first day I went off by myself to walk along the shore and happened to stumble across some dumb guy pleasuring himself behind a rock. That was incredibly unfortunate and I ran away. Too bad for me, the tide had not gone out yet so I ruined my poor feet running on shells and rocks trying to get far enough away from this loser. Luckily I found two women from California who hung out with me until he walked off. They were a mother and daughter and the mom was pretty badass when I told her what happened. She started yelling at him and telling him to get away, etc.
That night, Helle wakes me up at 5 am because she hears a strange noise on her side of the room. We had to leave our window open in order to get some cool air, and we had been warned that monkeys liked to enter the room to find food. So here I am at 5 am thinking that another damn monkey has come to bite me. I hop out of bed and turn the lights on and Helle and I enter the bathroom to find a massive crab scaling the wall. We sort of stared at it for a while deliberating what to do, and finally decided we had to go upstairs and wake up our host. (Now, it's so hot in Bali that you don't exactly need to wear a lot of clothes when you sleep, so my favorite line that night was definitely when Helle asked herself, "What am I going to wear?" then replied, "that's the least of my problems at a time like this!") We ended up catching it in a giant pot and hopefully they ate it for dinner the next days. Or for breakfast! A crab omelette!
I think that is mostly it for the written memories. For pics, you can go to my facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100525295809908.2541853.12713738&type=3&l=96424dca3b
and
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100525314881688.2541859.12713738&type=3&l=d3631b0c6a
And be sure to check out the monkey who stole the ciggies.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
The Girls
(Problems with B's video. Will try again later.)
Sunday, 22 April 2012
So, how many times can you annoy a library before they stop letting you hire books? I have never returned a book on time. Ever. And I don't know if that's something they keep track of, but if it is I am already in hot water. Now I have to go tell them that aside from being presumably late on my most recent hire, I have lost one of their books. Left it at the airport and only realized once I was on the plane. Nice, Steph. Good thing I only have to have them like me for another couple months.
I am looking at plane tickets home. It's making me a bit sad, but also a bit happy since it looks like the cheapest way to get home is to (unfortunately) have a layover in Hawaii. Not a bad way to break up a 28 hour flight!
Had dinner again with Megan and Bart last night. I so love their company. It's always interesting conversation and I love talking serious subjects with them because we are all so intrigued by the others' decisions. We had an Italian sausage pasta with some pretty spectacular wine. Bart loves to cook and drink wine, so he pretty much fits in with perfectly with the rest of my friends and family. Megan is absolutely lovely and wildly intelligent and I swear I could just listen to her talk about any subject and be impressed and interested with what she knows about it. Jay, you would absolutely love her.
Ha, I had forgotten that I wanted everyone to know what Taylor said to me a few days ago. They had gone to Thailand during the tsunami scare and she came home and told me:
"We couldn't go in the water because there was a salami warning."
HOW FREAKING CUTE IS SHE?! Yeah, you wish you could spend all your time with her. I am so glad the family is back. It was glorious having a quiet house for the first couple days, but it got so strange without noise and kids running every where. I missed the whole family quite a bit. It will be incredibly difficult to say goodbye to them. Uhhhh...at least we will still have Vegas in a few years!
Also, should I write a book? What should it be about? Do I have the discipline and constitution to do it? Probably not...but I am wondering...
I am looking at plane tickets home. It's making me a bit sad, but also a bit happy since it looks like the cheapest way to get home is to (unfortunately) have a layover in Hawaii. Not a bad way to break up a 28 hour flight!
Had dinner again with Megan and Bart last night. I so love their company. It's always interesting conversation and I love talking serious subjects with them because we are all so intrigued by the others' decisions. We had an Italian sausage pasta with some pretty spectacular wine. Bart loves to cook and drink wine, so he pretty much fits in with perfectly with the rest of my friends and family. Megan is absolutely lovely and wildly intelligent and I swear I could just listen to her talk about any subject and be impressed and interested with what she knows about it. Jay, you would absolutely love her.
Ha, I had forgotten that I wanted everyone to know what Taylor said to me a few days ago. They had gone to Thailand during the tsunami scare and she came home and told me:
"We couldn't go in the water because there was a salami warning."
HOW FREAKING CUTE IS SHE?! Yeah, you wish you could spend all your time with her. I am so glad the family is back. It was glorious having a quiet house for the first couple days, but it got so strange without noise and kids running every where. I missed the whole family quite a bit. It will be incredibly difficult to say goodbye to them. Uhhhh...at least we will still have Vegas in a few years!
Also, should I write a book? What should it be about? Do I have the discipline and constitution to do it? Probably not...but I am wondering...
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Starting low, Ending high (so to speak)
I guess I am starting to think about jobs to get upon my return to the States. Uh. I have no idea what to do with myself. What kind of person doesn't have a dream job? Well, I've always known I wanted to be retired. Does that count? There is a good chance that I will never have any idea what to do with myself. I can see myself joining the Peace Corps or being a complete burnout or being a jazz singer or heroin addict. I really have no direction. I'll get there I guess.
There a few things I want to remember about Australia and these are things I am likely to forget if I am not living here. I will add to the list continually.
Far Out- They say this like it never went out of style at all. I kind of laughed at it at first but I really like it because it is a great substitute for the f-bomb (which is how they use it.)
Muppet- Common phrase for a silly, ridiculous person. Can be positive or negative.
How ya goin?- Instead of wassup
Ta- Thanks
Offspring- wonderfully, awesome tv show
The Project- tv show with a panel of hilarious anchors talking about headlines
Cuppa- "Want a cuppa [tea/coffee/water]?"
pash- making out hardcore
-pashrash- rash on your face from making out with a bloke with a beard
full on- intense "it's pretty full on"
oh! odd, but when the speaker at my church here says it's time for the offering everyone claps and cheers! I LOVE IT
There a few things I want to remember about Australia and these are things I am likely to forget if I am not living here. I will add to the list continually.
Far Out- They say this like it never went out of style at all. I kind of laughed at it at first but I really like it because it is a great substitute for the f-bomb (which is how they use it.)
Muppet- Common phrase for a silly, ridiculous person. Can be positive or negative.
How ya goin?- Instead of wassup
Ta- Thanks
Offspring- wonderfully, awesome tv show
The Project- tv show with a panel of hilarious anchors talking about headlines
Cuppa- "Want a cuppa [tea/coffee/water]?"
pash- making out hardcore
-pashrash- rash on your face from making out with a bloke with a beard
full on- intense "it's pretty full on"
oh! odd, but when the speaker at my church here says it's time for the offering everyone claps and cheers! I LOVE IT
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Tail bones are dumb
Yesterday morning Taylor came down early to visit with me in the kitchen. The day before I had mopped and we didn't have floor cleaner so I used dishwasher soap. I figured it would be like Dawn soap. Well, not exactly. It left the tile floor pretty greasy. So that being said, Taylor gets to the bottom of the stairs and says "steeeephanieeeee" and I poke my head around the corner and smiled at her. Then after a pause we started running towards each other a la every cheesy couples movie with the two running towards each other in a field of daisies.
Pretty much as soon as I reached her my feet slipped out from under me and I landed on my ass and it SUCKED. My gosh it hurt. How I felt:
I thought for a moment I had actually broken it, but I think I just panicked. Taylor tried to help me up but I couldn't move so I told her I would just stay on the floor for a bit. So she ran away. At first I was kinda hurt, but then I thought ok, well it's not like this is any fun for her. But then, bless her sweet little heart, she brought me a pillow from the lounge so I could put my head down on it! I mean, how much better could a little girl be?! Then we cuddled on the floor. Awww...
Pretty much as soon as I reached her my feet slipped out from under me and I landed on my ass and it SUCKED. My gosh it hurt. How I felt:
I thought for a moment I had actually broken it, but I think I just panicked. Taylor tried to help me up but I couldn't move so I told her I would just stay on the floor for a bit. So she ran away. At first I was kinda hurt, but then I thought ok, well it's not like this is any fun for her. But then, bless her sweet little heart, she brought me a pillow from the lounge so I could put my head down on it! I mean, how much better could a little girl be?! Then we cuddled on the floor. Awww...
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