Monday, June 22, 2015
Getting a job
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Ankle and volunteering
And now for something completely different:
I'm sooooooooo bored! My job isn't challenging me, I live by myself and I can't do many forms of exercise. My parents recently told me that they're planning on not renting out the apartment regardless of whether I stay in their flat or not; which means I can continue staying there almost rent free! This is actually a curse in disguise because now I've got a financial incentive to stay in the apartment and continue festering away.
On the bright side my social life hasn't completely shriveled up yet. I recently went to a drinks party with a few friends of mine roughly my age. You know you're all growed up when random people you talk to stop asking you questions like "what degree are you studying?" and "what are you going to be when you grow up?" and start asking you questions like "so where do you work?" and "whats your predicted value of goldman sachs shares?"
In an attempt to get more out of life I've applied to volunteer for a number of places. I've recently applied to be a mentor / tutor for the Shack Youth Services. I also volunteered to help conduct noise and velocity measurements at the UNSW wind tunnel after I finish work. I volunteered for the same reason every else actually volunteers; to give myself a sense of accomplishment and an ego boost, not to help children. Fuck kids (not in the Catholic way).
Thursday, May 14, 2015
my shit's fucked up
Well, I guess this is the best excuse I need to start spending 33% of my time eating, 33% of my time sleeping and 33% of my time playing dota (eat, sleep dota repeat). The other 1% can be spent speculating on where my life is heading.
Getting fit was just one of the improvements I had on my list coming back from Europe. That's right, I made a list. No, that's not weird, fuck you. I later found out that creating a list doesn't really get you anywhere unless you actively try and tick off things from that list. I think that makes me the opposite of people who say "I don't make the rules, I just follow them". My complete list was:
1) Get a job
2) Get a home
3) Lean to code
4) Get fit
5) Learn to cook (well)
6) Learn German
7) Learn guitar
So far, the only one I've managed to somewhat cross off is learning how to cook. And that's only if you count preparing 'bacon sushi' a delicacy.
I was getting a lot of looks of sympathy from strangers on the bus as I stumbled my way to my chair wearing my compression bandage and clutching my crutches. This is a reaction I'm quite familiar with though because of my disgusting hair and top knot. I just want to let you all know, that I'm not actually a wanna be hipster because I stated growing the 'man bun' out before it was cool! Wait, actually that's exactly what a hipster would say! I guess that makes me a douche bag and a hipster. Fuck.
In other news, I've decided to invent a new game which I think will be awesome! It's called pedestrian jousting and it's a 4 player game. One team of two starts at one side of a pedestrian crossing and reenacts a medieval joust by getting one person to sit on top of another person and using their arm as a jousting stick. The other team does the same thing on the other side of the road until they collide at an agonizingly slow pace. Describing this game using words makes it seem pretty lame, but I can imagine this being the next Facebook if it's done right!
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Paris day 1
I'm pretty sure I arrived in Paris by mid afternoon at a train station which I'm pretty sure was smack bam in the middle of Paris - probably only a few meters away from the Eiffel tower. It was raining and my train was late, so I made my way to Marine's place as fast as I could. After swimming through the busy wet streets I finally arrived at her place. Sadly I needed a password to enter the apartment (which I didn't have) so I decided to go to the nearest store to get WiFi to contact Marine virtually. The place next door was a fancy upper class beauty parlor, and I'm pretty sure I could smell the French receptionist's panic as I walked through door drenched in mud and rain water. She started saying something in French which i'm sure translated to "I'm sorry sir, we can't clean you - no one can" before I interrupted her saying in English that I just needed WiFi.
I met up with Marine shortly afterwards and she led me to her awesome studio apartment. We made an awesome quiche for lunch and then headed out to see the city. First stop I think was the church called "sacre coeur" (no, i didn't remember that, I needed to look it up). It was a very large beautiful building which has a perfect view of the rest of Paris. There were donation boxes everywhere claiming that generous donations were the only source of income for the church - bullshit?
After visiting the church I felt like indulging in sinful behavior so we decided to go to the nearest pub to get drunk. We went to some awesome gamer paradise pub with plenty of Game of Thrones, Star Wars and V for Vendetta posters and props. I went up to the counter to order Marine a Guinness and myself an interesting sounding drink called a "monaco". I pulled the best poker face ever once I realized that a monaco is an extremely girly drink with hardly any alcohol in it. I even took a manly gulp of the Guinness in front of the bar tender so she'd be sure to think that the girly drink was for Marine - sorry Marine, I had to do it.
We ended up walking back to her apartment after the pub because there had been a bomb threat in the subway, and consequently the whole subway had been closed. Even though people definitely seemed to be more frustrated than scared, you could still since a tad of fear lingering around Paris after the whole Charlie Hebdo shooting.
We got back to the apartment to cook an awesome dinner featuring the highly anticipated spaetzle! That's right, I finally tried it! We spent the rest of the night listening to great music, eating fondue as the main, devouring cheese and bread for desert, and drinking plenty of fine red wine. What an awesome end to a great trip?!
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Milan day 1
I woke up and immediately headed to the nearest McDonald's. I had heard from the 2 Italians that McDonald's was promoting their breakfast menu by organizing a pajama party. It wasn't much of a party; just a really long que of people wearing pajamas waiting to get their free pastry and coffee. Oh my God, the McDonald's here is amazing! The place was so fancy, the service was awesome, the food was delicious and beer was on the menu! If I wasn't wearing a torn shirt and baggy clown pants then I would have thought I was in a 5 star resteraunt.
Next step was the university. I found my way to the mathematics department which looked like a beaten down shack compared to the architecture skyscrapers around it. I found a lecture running and looked through the window. They were learning projectile motion, which is a 1st year subject, yet the students all seemed aged around 25. Either the students here are very slow to learn or very fast to age.
Next I took the metro to Duomo which was a giant tourist hotspot because it featured a giant church. The line was too long to go inside, so I just took photos from the outside. The detail on the sculptures was phenominal; I'm no biblical scholar, but I think they made statues of every major biblical character - I couldn't find Jesus though, so I think they fucked up a bit.
I met Federica afterwards and we decided to head to the nearest pub.
Let me stop here and tell you about a few discoveries I made about Italy:
1) Milan has very few pubs in very inconvenient locations
2) in some pubs you need to pay for the beers (€5) and also pay to sit at the table (€10)!
3) you can legally buy beers from the supermarket and drink in public, but literally no one does it.
What the fucking fuck, Italy!?! You're in Europe! Where is your drinking culture?
At least their Nastro Azzurro beer is quite nice... It better have been :<
I was advised to go to Navigli for dinner, because supposedly it had cheap and awesome food. Whilst the atmosphere was enjoyable, the food definitely wasn't. There were only all you could eat beffets around and the food tasted artificial and packaged.
I was very disappointed because I missed a delicious pasta dinner I had been dreaming of for a long time and I had McDonald's for breakfast... What was I thinking? At least I had pizza for lunch.
All was mended though once I found out that chiao means both hello and goodbye in Italian. I had a lot of fun saying 'chiao chiao' to strangers I passed in the street.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Marseille day 2
I woke up super early and went for a walk around the town. Marseille is located right next to the ocean so the views were spectacular. There were seafood markets right by the dock selling fish, squid and crabs. The food was so fresh that most of the seafood was still alive when you bought it.
The architecture was pretty cool too. Years of playing the computer game 'age of empires' leads me to believe that its got a strong Italian theme to it.
I also really like the accent of the locals here; they speak French but they sound kinda Italian. As if I don't have enough language barriers already...
After i did the whole touristy thing I purchased 1 baguette with Bree and 2 chocolate crausants (how the hell do you spell that word?) And headed to the train station to finish my journey to Italy.
The train ride was unusually annoying. There was a guy listening to opera on his phone really loudly somewhere in the carriage. Also because of the nature of opera music, every 10 seconds it sounded like it was coming from a different direction - I felt like I was being surrounded. Personally I don't get why you'd listen to opera on your phone anyway, the only entertainment you can get from that genre is by watching little fat men dramatically waving their arms around on stage.
Oh and don't get me started on train taps in the bathroom! The "motion sensor" in each tap is like a blind tennis umpire. I was acting like Bruce Lee stabbing the air trying to get the water to come out, but it just wouldn't budge. Not cool Italy, not cool.
When I arrived at my hostel I messaged the two Italian girls I had met in Prague earlier in the month. Even though it was 10:30pm they were still keen to join me in a pub. We met up in this great place just around the corner and had a range of different beers. I had Salta-foss which I thought was an Italian beer until I read that it was a 9% Belgian triple. The girls had stouts (really strong and bitter dark beer) because it tasted more like coffee.
I really enjoyed talking to Federica and Beatrice. They're the least patriotic people I know, but that didn't stop them from recommending dozens of cool activities around town. They told me there was an Engineering and Mathematics university right by the hostel. I was about to make plans to go there until I realized its surrounded by the faculty of architecture - eww.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Marseille day 1
We all woke up and began to drive in the direction of Madrid. While in the car I looked at hostelworld & Google maps to see where I should go next. I didn't get very far though because Boaty gave me a riddle which occupied my mind.
I said my goodbyes to the Spaniards when they dropped me off at Lleida. At this point I was pretty devastated that 1) it might be at least another 2 years until I see pablo and Africa again and 2) my world trip was almost over. While I was in line for a train ticket I made an impulsive 'mid life crisis like' decision to go to Italy.
The train took me past Barcelona with a 2 hour layover. This turned out to be perfect timing because it meant I could try Paella and beer! I went to a cheapish looking resteraunt and didn't ask for a menu. The waiter tried so desperately to communicate to me in broken English that the serving size was for 3 people, but I tried equally as hard to convince him that I didn't care.
Sadly it was a 24 hour trip by train with a 6 hour layer in Marseille, so I decided to stay a night in Marseille and head to Milan the next day.
I walked from st. Charles station to the nearest hostel. It was getting very dark and there were drunk soccer hooligans everywhere. With my giant backpack, phone and innocent confused travelers expression on my face i was the perfect target for a mugging. At one point my GPS started walking me down an ally containing a few loitering black men - I'm not racist, I was just really scared because the men were naturally camouflaged.
I arrived at the hostel stabless and breathing. I instantly made friends with the receptionist and an American girl and a Brazilian guy. We all sat in a group on the balcony drinking bottles of wine from the bottle. Even at midnight you can still buy good wine for €2 - good on ya, France. Everyone had really cool stories to tell. The south African receptionist was an ex military special forces anti highjacking mercinary who (supposedly) had killed over 100 people. The Brazilian guy was a French sounding, musicially talented stonner. And the girl from Washington DC was teaching English to French kids in Paris for 9 months.