1/24/10
Today was an amazing day. It started off terrible though. I was sound asleep and this thing kept beeping. I was like..."where is that goddamn beeping noise coming from? It is so freaking annoying. Can somebody please help my find whatever is making the racket and--Oh. That's my alarm clock. It's 8 in the morning and I have to get up. fuck."
Walked into the bathroom in my usual state of morning joy and two people shot a chipper GOODMORNING at me. I didn't even hazard a death stare at them in case I accidentally set them ablaze. I heard someone laughing over the calming sound of running water leaving my body--which Katlin has so eloquently likened to an "exploding firehose" in one of our many nights of mildly intoxicated candidness. The chuckling stopped and I heard Kat explaining to my unwary foes that morning communication was oftentimes hit or miss (meaning I either hit you for being to chipper or I miss).
I realized that we didn't have lectures, but had a 2 hour self-guided tour of the Australian Museum, followed by a lunch break and then a two hour guided tour of the New South Whales Art Gallery. I was not happy about this as I figured I would be bored after an hour and my feet would hurt the entire day, but at least it meant we didn't have to leave Arundel until 9:30 as opposed to the usual 8:45.
I did my yoga and woke up and felt better, and even did some push-ups and ab work to finish off. Someone had stolen my eggs (the second time it's happened) and I was pretty frustrated, but then Kelsi V gave me her last three and I thanked her profusely. I stole someone else's egg too so I ate 4 scrambled eggs w/ cheddar and two pieces of toast. It was delicious. I then made a grilled cheese and PB n J for lunch, grabbed my $100 stipend for the next week, and jumped on the bus with food in my belly and a smile on my face.
The museum was amazing. Period. I basically spent my two hours solely in the Indigenous Australian's exhibit, which had some really cool artifacts and AMAZING artwork. I will post some of that later. It really struck me to my core. As I was taking a corner around the exhibit two double doors burst open in front of me and the sight that met my eyes produced some pretty immediate physical and emotional responses, i.e. I nearly yelled "FUCK!" and I had one foot turned to the nearest exit before my brain could comprehend and analyze the image in front of me.
Standing approximately 7 feet from me was a 12 foot dinosaur (it was a brontosaurus if my childhood obsession serves me correctly). It had the body about the size of a small cow and an 7-8 foot neck. It was moving it's head very realistically, attempting to size me up by turning sideways and moving up and down. There were a group of school children laughing their asses off at me in the other room (behind the dino) hence, why I didn't immediately scream a mouthful of profanities.
The "instructor" came running out after the dino (which I then noticed had a pair of human legs tucked into the sheath of it's hind legs) and put a hand on its chest as it started advancing towards me.
"No, no. Come back here you!" the "instructor" said into his microphone, "Back inside back inside. Sorry mate, where are you from?"
Moment of silence as my brain still tries to work out what just happened.
"Portland OR, United States."
"Ah," he says, turning around to close the doors. Then, after the door is closed I hear the mic sound above the continued laughter of the demon children, "Bloody foreigners can't handle the Australian wildlife. Typical."
I failed to see the humor in the situation. That is, until they brought the incredibly life-like dinosaur downstairs to the lobby right before we left and spent 10 minutes sneaking up on old ladies and scaring the crap out of them. That was hilarious.
We then walked over to the edge of hyde park and ate our lunches. I bought a chocolate cupcake from the very nice lady at the cafe stand nearby (I asked her for a biscuit, read:cookie, and she was about to get one for me and then said, "Wait. These aren't chocolate. You know that right. They are fruit." I was appalled. I thanked her for saving me and bought the chocolate chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate frosting, read: butter).
I then took this delicacy over to Kelsey C so that I could bribe her into telling me the details of her "Australian man" situation (if you want the details you're not going to find them here. Ask her. It took my half of a 5 dollar cupcake to learn them).
We then went to the NSW Art Gallery and had a pretty poorly done tour of colonial art. I didn't care because I know a lot about art and art history and I took my own things away from the paintings and ignored the hour of opinions she gave us in place of any sort of facts. Other people were not so happy though. (I will say the one good thing that came out of the first tour was the discussion of what makes something an artifact and what makes it art. As Brian would say: "THINK ABOUT IT."
The second half of the tour, the part about aboriginal art, was amazing. This was obviously her forte (as she was indigenous) and she told us some really great things and I really got a bigger sense of connection to the different cultures and beliefs of the different aboriginal communities around Australia.
After that I came home, went for a swim in the pool (thats three days in a row I've gone now. It is just so much easier to swim than to run, because it just too hot to run. Especially for a Seattle boy. 85 degrees with 95 percent humidity at 5 in the afternoon just doesn't do it for me) and made dinner. Dinner was delicious, and I convinced Emily (a rather shy but incredible adorable Young woman on the trip) to come have a beer with a few of us in the evening. Half the group went to a very touristy pub and apparently had an amazing time (I think most of them got home at about 5:00 this morning). But we all got a little tipsy together on a balcony before we left for our different destinations. I headed out with four of the shy girls on the trip (which are the most fun when drunk...duh) to a bar down the road which has jugs of decent beer for ten dollars. The cheapest you are going to find anywhere. They all got cocktails and I bought a pitcher for myself and we sat and talked for a couple hours until the bar closed. I got to hear lots of things from Emily! Apparently she has many many opinions on things, she just likes to never tell anyone what they are. I think the most amusing point was when I asked who the most attractive male on the trip was, and the three girls gave their opinion before Emily bursted out with "WHAT!? Uh, NO! It's obviously ... (you wanted that name didn't you? too bad).
We came back to the house and were going to watch a movie, but then Nat came down and she had a little drunk conversation with us (she is so much fun when she has had a half bottle of wine or two...or four). Kelsey fell asleep on the beanbag chair and so we woke her up and went to bed.
In the immortal words of Ice Cube: Today was a good day.
Today was an amazing day. It started off terrible though. I was sound asleep and this thing kept beeping. I was like..."where is that goddamn beeping noise coming from? It is so freaking annoying. Can somebody please help my find whatever is making the racket and--Oh. That's my alarm clock. It's 8 in the morning and I have to get up. fuck."
Walked into the bathroom in my usual state of morning joy and two people shot a chipper GOODMORNING at me. I didn't even hazard a death stare at them in case I accidentally set them ablaze. I heard someone laughing over the calming sound of running water leaving my body--which Katlin has so eloquently likened to an "exploding firehose" in one of our many nights of mildly intoxicated candidness. The chuckling stopped and I heard Kat explaining to my unwary foes that morning communication was oftentimes hit or miss (meaning I either hit you for being to chipper or I miss).
I realized that we didn't have lectures, but had a 2 hour self-guided tour of the Australian Museum, followed by a lunch break and then a two hour guided tour of the New South Whales Art Gallery. I was not happy about this as I figured I would be bored after an hour and my feet would hurt the entire day, but at least it meant we didn't have to leave Arundel until 9:30 as opposed to the usual 8:45.
I did my yoga and woke up and felt better, and even did some push-ups and ab work to finish off. Someone had stolen my eggs (the second time it's happened) and I was pretty frustrated, but then Kelsi V gave me her last three and I thanked her profusely. I stole someone else's egg too so I ate 4 scrambled eggs w/ cheddar and two pieces of toast. It was delicious. I then made a grilled cheese and PB n J for lunch, grabbed my $100 stipend for the next week, and jumped on the bus with food in my belly and a smile on my face.
The museum was amazing. Period. I basically spent my two hours solely in the Indigenous Australian's exhibit, which had some really cool artifacts and AMAZING artwork. I will post some of that later. It really struck me to my core. As I was taking a corner around the exhibit two double doors burst open in front of me and the sight that met my eyes produced some pretty immediate physical and emotional responses, i.e. I nearly yelled "FUCK!" and I had one foot turned to the nearest exit before my brain could comprehend and analyze the image in front of me.
Standing approximately 7 feet from me was a 12 foot dinosaur (it was a brontosaurus if my childhood obsession serves me correctly). It had the body about the size of a small cow and an 7-8 foot neck. It was moving it's head very realistically, attempting to size me up by turning sideways and moving up and down. There were a group of school children laughing their asses off at me in the other room (behind the dino) hence, why I didn't immediately scream a mouthful of profanities.
The "instructor" came running out after the dino (which I then noticed had a pair of human legs tucked into the sheath of it's hind legs) and put a hand on its chest as it started advancing towards me.
"No, no. Come back here you!" the "instructor" said into his microphone, "Back inside back inside. Sorry mate, where are you from?"
Moment of silence as my brain still tries to work out what just happened.
"Portland OR, United States."
"Ah," he says, turning around to close the doors. Then, after the door is closed I hear the mic sound above the continued laughter of the demon children, "Bloody foreigners can't handle the Australian wildlife. Typical."
I failed to see the humor in the situation. That is, until they brought the incredibly life-like dinosaur downstairs to the lobby right before we left and spent 10 minutes sneaking up on old ladies and scaring the crap out of them. That was hilarious.
We then walked over to the edge of hyde park and ate our lunches. I bought a chocolate cupcake from the very nice lady at the cafe stand nearby (I asked her for a biscuit, read:cookie, and she was about to get one for me and then said, "Wait. These aren't chocolate. You know that right. They are fruit." I was appalled. I thanked her for saving me and bought the chocolate chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate frosting, read: butter).
I then took this delicacy over to Kelsey C so that I could bribe her into telling me the details of her "Australian man" situation (if you want the details you're not going to find them here. Ask her. It took my half of a 5 dollar cupcake to learn them).
We then went to the NSW Art Gallery and had a pretty poorly done tour of colonial art. I didn't care because I know a lot about art and art history and I took my own things away from the paintings and ignored the hour of opinions she gave us in place of any sort of facts. Other people were not so happy though. (I will say the one good thing that came out of the first tour was the discussion of what makes something an artifact and what makes it art. As Brian would say: "THINK ABOUT IT."
The second half of the tour, the part about aboriginal art, was amazing. This was obviously her forte (as she was indigenous) and she told us some really great things and I really got a bigger sense of connection to the different cultures and beliefs of the different aboriginal communities around Australia.
After that I came home, went for a swim in the pool (thats three days in a row I've gone now. It is just so much easier to swim than to run, because it just too hot to run. Especially for a Seattle boy. 85 degrees with 95 percent humidity at 5 in the afternoon just doesn't do it for me) and made dinner. Dinner was delicious, and I convinced Emily (a rather shy but incredible adorable Young woman on the trip) to come have a beer with a few of us in the evening. Half the group went to a very touristy pub and apparently had an amazing time (I think most of them got home at about 5:00 this morning). But we all got a little tipsy together on a balcony before we left for our different destinations. I headed out with four of the shy girls on the trip (which are the most fun when drunk...duh) to a bar down the road which has jugs of decent beer for ten dollars. The cheapest you are going to find anywhere. They all got cocktails and I bought a pitcher for myself and we sat and talked for a couple hours until the bar closed. I got to hear lots of things from Emily! Apparently she has many many opinions on things, she just likes to never tell anyone what they are. I think the most amusing point was when I asked who the most attractive male on the trip was, and the three girls gave their opinion before Emily bursted out with "WHAT!? Uh, NO! It's obviously ... (you wanted that name didn't you? too bad).
We came back to the house and were going to watch a movie, but then Nat came down and she had a little drunk conversation with us (she is so much fun when she has had a half bottle of wine or two...or four). Kelsey fell asleep on the beanbag chair and so we woke her up and went to bed.
In the immortal words of Ice Cube: Today was a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment