And the winner is...

And the winner, for first piece of mail delivered to my new address in Australia goes to Amy Chou! Thanks Amy! You are so sweet. Not only did Amy send me the first piece of mail, but she also gave me an update on how things she picked up at the big 29 give-away are working out. At least I know she’s using the stationary. f

I got my boxes this morning. I can’t believe how much stuff I have. I have waaaaay too much clothing. To steal a phrase from Amy Cooper, I’m a bad Buddhist. I haven’t even started unpacking and my giant apartment is basically already full. I am going to be so spoiled when I try to move back into 29. I will be unpacking later tonight.

I got Deirdre as well. She is in pieces. I am not sure how to put her back together. I’m sure I could take her to a shop, but I may look it up on the internet and see if I can do it as a project.

The Hoyas went and lost in decisive fashion to Syracuse. Boo. I’m actually okay with that, as I didn’t want to go into March with the pressure of a long streak looming over the team. Also good to get a little taste of humility while you should be working hard. This will just make winning the big east tourney even more fun.

When Amy Cooper & I studied abroad in Dublin in 1997 we had a little expression, “That’s so Ireland.” Things that merited this comment included trying repeatedly to pay a water bill with ever heightening complexity, paying 10p for a pack of ketchup, (Which incidentally is called tomato sauce here. They have never heard the word ketchup and will look at you like you have 3 heads if you request it.) and trying to decipher the multiple tiers of fares on the bus.

I’m resurrecting “That’s so…” and here’s today’s installation of “That’s so Melbourne.” Letting you order something twice. Jerks. Here if a sandwich comes with chips, it doesn’t say so on the menu. If you order a sandwich and chips, they won’t tell you, or ask if you mean to get them in addition to the ones that come along with it. They’ll just bring you your sandwich and two orders of fries and look at you like you are a pig. This happened to me last night at dinner for the third time. I ordered the soup. Thinking some bread might be nice with that, I ordered a piece of bread. My soup came, accompanied by two little plates with bread, one that was automatically included and the one that I ordered. “That’s so Melbourne.”

Okay, I’m off to something called “Late Market” at the Queen Victoria Market which involves free wine and shopping. Then I’ll go home and try to deal with all my possessions. I hope there’s plenty of wine.