Aussie Invasion

It feels good to be back at work, kinda. Well not really, but it makes me feel like I enjoy work more when I try and convince myself that work is indeed a good place to be during the day when the weather is perfect outside. I try and rationalize things sometimes with bogus statements such as ‘id rather be educating myself at work then sitting in the sun watching beautiful women walk past in bikini’s’. Obviously, they have no ground to stand on. I pitifully digress.

Anyway, I say this because I have just come back from a long weekend with five friends who flew over from Australia to see me. All very impressive when you consider the flight time, money and bother so for these guys to be friends 6 though 10 to have visited me since moving here I am very lucky. For those who have not visited me yet I am very disappointed in you and for the few who TRULY should have been here by now, shame on you!

The boys kept me very entertained throughout the 5 days they were here (they didn’t just fly to Cali for 5 days; they also spent some time in Mexico and are currently in transit to Hong Kong) with old stories and random ramblings.

Things said that kept me laughing in fits:

* “I need to drop the kids off”, “The kids are knocking” – None of my friends have ‘Kids’ in the context that you and I would associate the word with. ‘Kids’ refers to, in this case, going to the bathroom and doing a number ‘2’. Somehow, somewhere along my many years spent in Australia I seemed to of missed this term. Dropping the kids off is Australian for ‘I need to take a shit’.

* “When you get to ‘The Park’ (nightclub) just talk really loud, the ladies will then form a circle around us. They can’t get enough of the accents” I said. Skywalker (who I shall name) then continued “oh mate, I just have to tell them im a dolphin trainer or kangaroo catcher or pro surfer and they’ll drop their pants”.

* We were driving back from San Francisco in our family van that we rented and were talking about sending cars back to Australia and how if you did, you would have to change the steering wheel to the other side of the car which would incur some costly fees.

One of our friends has lapses of intelligence sometimes so we thought we would run with this a little bit. “Mate, not only do you have to change the cars over but you have to change the motorbikes too. Its bloody ridiculous, you gotta swap the front tire with the back one, turn the single headlight upside down and swap handlebars over” I mischievously bantered.

Tabloids (who I shall name) was stirring over what we were discussing, obviously pondering the authenticity of it all but not sure enough to disagree. We then continued “Also, isn’t it stupid how when you change states in Australia you need to change currency from Queensland dollars to New South Wales dollars, its fuckin dumb don’t ya reckon Tabloids?”. He sat there for a few seconds and said “I don’t get it, what the fuck are you’s on about?”. We continued to tell him that to change states you must also change currency and I finally said “Tabloids, do you not think you have to change currency from state to state? And he followed up with the priceless line “Fuck mate, obviously!”.

* Also on the trip back from San Fran, Honkers (who I shall name) was tossing some numbers around his head for a while and finally came out with ‘iv been doing some thinking and I don’t think our flight leaves at 1pm tomorrow. It just doesn’t make sense if we are to land there at 6am”. Natedogg (who I shall name) who was in charge of organizing all flights, times and travel arrangements piped up with “oooh, now that you mention it, I did see 1am” what followed was a chorus of boos. Needless to say upon arrival they had to pack their bags and rush out the door for the drive BACK to San Francisco for a 1am flight to Hong Kong.

They spent two hours driving to San Francisco yesterday morning, two back to Sacramento in the afternoon, two again to Frisco and then a 14 hour flight and then the day they land there is a $250 lunch for them at a conference with free alcohol. I cant wait to hear how that goes!

* I took the boys to ‘Ruth Chris Steak House’ one of the finest establishments in the Sacramento Area. The first thing out of Tabloids mouth in front of our server was “I think my credit card is maxed out fellas, you’s wanna cover me”.

That was a snippet of the goings on of our long weekend. I think we all had an absoluate ball and I cant wait to do it again. Have fun in Hong Kong boys and I will see you all (except Honkers) in Australia in 8 days!