The Holy Day with Conor - Day Three

Sunday was here. Jackie had to work at the Catholic bookstore, so Conor and I went to Mass on our own. I wore pants today. I think it was the only time I wore pants down under. I also shaved my moustache.


St. Patrick's Cathedral. Pretty sweet building.




I think this was our entrance.


We took the tram to get there.
We took the tram everywhere. I kinda thought it was fun at first. Conor doesn't like to talk on the tram. I have to be honest, I think that's kinda weird...

While at Mass I went up for a blessing during the Eucharist, except I don't think I was doing my arm positions right cause the Priest kept trying to give me the wafer. He finally figured it out and asked if I was Catholic. To which I replied, "Hell NO!" Haha, I'm kidding (was that blasphemous, should I delete that??).

After Mass Conor and I ate and did a little shopping (I needed to buy a few Xmas prezzies for Jack and Conrad). For lunch I had a kebab, which confused me, cause whenever I would think of a kebab, I would think of a shish kebab...And in a Flight of the Conchords song they talk about eating a kebab with some girl, and I thought, "That's a weird thing to say." And even on the TV show when they get to that song she is holding a shish kebab.


See.

Well, it made more sense to me when I ate a kebab, because it is actually just like a gyro or donair which I've eaten before in Canada, but I didn't realize those are types of kebabs. So I think for the TV show they used a shish kebab cause Americans probably think of a shish kebab when they say kebab in the song. But you see, a shish kebab is on a skewer and grilled whereas a gyro has the meat rotated on a big pole. That was a lame-o story (but I enjoyed telling it).


Gyro: Greek for turn. GYROscope, GYRate, get it???

Then we went and visited Jackie and called my Mom cause it was her birthday. She didn't sound too excited to hear my voice. Guess I hadn't been gone long enough :) Then Conor and I went around town and ended up at the Art Gallery. Here are some photos:


A shield. It was really big.


Nice hats.


Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset Stomach, Diarrhea


Life and Death


I took these for Ting, only to discover Conor is also a fan.


Number 2


Number 3


Number 4








Indian art is so unusual to me.




I'm in love....(too bad my moustache is gone)


I thought this picture of fireworks coming off the Eiffel Tower was cool. This was from an exhibit on World Fairs.


The weather was spectacular!


More downtown


The big Australia/India cricket match was coming up so they had this sand sculpture downtown.


The lovely city Christmas tree. There were often people singing or performing Christmas stuff by the tree.

Well, the rest of the day I cannot remember what I did. Maybe Jackie can refresh my memory? Conor made an incredible supper as always. I think I did the dishes once while I was there. They must have been so pissed off.

I think I tried sleeping again on the air mattress even though it would lose air - End of Day Three.

The Moustache Lives!!! - Day Two

I prefer moustache rather than mustache, because it kinda looks like a big mouse on my lip.

The big event for today was going to see the War Memorial in Melbourne.


That's it.


My brother-in-law Conor admiring the flame.


Breathtaking!


Roughly 250,000 pounds was fundraised to built this Shrine of Remembrance back in the 1930's.


Melbourne from the steps.


Light shining down into the sanctuary where the Stone of Remembrance can be found.

Engraved on the stone is "Greater Love Hath No Man" (sexist!). The lady was all excited for us to see the light pass over the stone. You see, on November 11th at precisely 11am the sun shines across the stone. Everyday they recreate that effect for visitors. I was kind of expecting a huge beam of light to come down. In reality, it was about the size of a penlight. I was trying not to laugh cause it was a solemn occasion. Also would have been a bit rude to just walk out (which I also wanted to do).


View from on top of the shrine.


It got super windy and rainy at this point. I regretted not bringing a jacket. In fact, you think it would be odd for me to say I wanted a jacket in Australia in the middle of summer, when as you all know, I sweat like a pig when it is only mildly warm. All those people who were mocking me, "Oh Dan, you're gonna die down there!!!" were so horribly wrong. There wasn't one day on my whole trip where I thought, "This heat is going to kill me!" I've experienced hotter days in Fort St. John than I did down under.


More shots from up top.




In the basement of the Shrine is the "Crypt". Here is a memorial to a Father and Son who fought in the War.


Huge row of medals.

Something exciting happened to me while I was down in that area. They had a number of exhibits on Australia and New Zealand's involvement in the wars. At different stations you could hear real-life stories retold by actors. At one station I was moved. You see, the voice sounded very familiar...and that's when it dawned on me:


The actor reading one particular story just happened to be Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords. A single tear rolled down my cheek.

So that was the big event. Also in that day we went for lunch by one of Jackie's workplace (the coffee place). Conor and I had sushi (can you believe I absolutely LOVE sushi now???!? I even like rolls!). That evening Jackie and I decided to watch Disturbia. It was pretty good, although it's a modern telling of "Rear Window" which I think is a better movie. Conor didn't want to watch it, cause he's very different than me and Jackie in some ways (which I will get to in a later post!). He decided to go for a big long walk. He came back part way through and was mad cause he was hoping the movie would be done before he returned. Sucker!

Before we watched the movie I decided to try using their air mattress because the fold up bed was quite uncomfortable (it was like sleeping on a chain-link fence). So Jackie tried to trick me by saying there wasn't a pump, but it didn't matter in the end cause it was the worst pump I had ever seen. It was so gruelling using that thing...Jackie decided to catch a little bit of it on video. Enjoy!


She cut me off before I said "I don't know why you wanted this videotaped?!?"

I had a great sleep on that air mattress until about 1 am when I realized it was losing air. Wonderful!

End of Day Two.

I think he meant Jesus.

In church today our Worship Pastor was welcoming the guests and made some interesting comments...

"I hope you find something meaningful here...
or someONE meaningful...
I hope you find someone here you can take home with you today."

Oh boy, I sure hope that one day at church I can find someone to take home with me!!!

I Went to Australia?!? - Day One

The rumours are true, I did travel down under and I lived to tell about it. Actually, I've been up to a whole lot the last 3 months...and I didn't tell you anything about that, but I promise I will! But first while the memories are still fresh I would like to share with you my 3 week adventure to the Land of Oz.

My adventures began on Tues Dec 18, 2007 when I stayed up all night getting last minute work done at the church. I didn't get out of there until 3am. I then went home and started packing my bags. But in the midst of that, I wanted to do something fun...so I did this:


Wow I look tired...

So with all my bags packed and ready to go I had some much needed sleep. In the morning I realized I had forgotten one thing at the church!!!! Blah, so close! I had this huge list of things to do and I thought I had done it all, but missed one small slip of paper, my confirmation for the flight between Melbourne and Sydney (and then when I was in Australia they actually re-emailed me the confirmation the day before as a reminder, so I didn't even need it!!!).


I got Josh Krueger to drive me to the airport and we had some lunch together and talked about life and school. It was good times. Then I was off on my flight. I was so out of it from lack of sleep and everything, but I tried to be excited. My first flight was to LA on Air Canada. I wasn't excited about that, because I flew with them to England last year and it wasn't the greatest experience. But I was surprised when I got onboard. The plane was really nice. The seats all had tv monitors and you could choose what you wanted to watch. It was better than Westjet cause they even had movies. So the flight down I watched most of the Simpson's Movie.


Switching planes in LA was no big deal. When I got on the plane though I discovered I was in for an interesting ride. The girl beside me was so talkative. She was flying home to New Zealand from England. Strangely enough she had met another Kiwi on the previous flight and he switched seats around so they could sit together. This worked to my advantage, because then she was talking way more to him than me. She was nice and all, but just a little too enthusiastic for the mood I was in. (I wonder what she thought of my moustache, haha).


On that flight you could play Tetris. The girl was bragging about how good she was. Of course I killed her records (Tetris and Dr Mario are two of my spiritual gifts). I watched LA Confidential while everyone nodded off to sleep. One funny thing was the girl was going in and out of sleep and for some reason she took a glass of water when the steward went by, but I knew she was just going to fall asleep right away and sure enough, she fell asleep holding it and it spilled into her lap, haha!

I slept a little and watched a little more tv and finally we landed in Auckland. Now comes the crappy part! I had a 6 hour layover at that airport. That was hell. And I had accidently left my iPod on while flying to LA so the battery was pretty low, so I couldn't watch any movies that I had brought on that. So I found a secluded spot and got a little sleep, but it's not easy in an airport for me.


So I finally was up and away and headed to Melbourne. I watched most of Live Free or Die Hard. Wow, this first day is really exciting! You never thought my flying experience would be so thrilling, did you??? Oh, one fun thing...the guy I sat beside on that flight was absolutely terrified, haha, he kept looking out the window and clenching the seat and jittering the whole time. Classic.


In Melbourne I took the bus into the city to meet up with Conor. It was now Friday afternoon. From there we made our way to visit Jackie at the bookstore she works at. She was soooooo excited to see my moustache! I don't blame her, it was a thing of beauty. She was also really pleased to introduce me to everyone with that moustache. The rest of that day wasn't very eventful, or at least I don't remember what we did, I was so tired. Jackie set me up with a cot and I pretty much fell fast asleep that night.

Thus ends Day One.

I'm a little emotional...

Yesterday I was so absolutely stressed out! This Wednesday I leave for Australia to visit Jackie, Conor, and all the lovely folks down under. I made a list of things I need to get done before I leave. Well I was planning to use all of Saturday to clean my house (which it desperately needs!).


Until I slept in ridiculously late on Saturday (shouldn't have stayed up so late the night before, tsk tsk). So I crawl out of bed and watch tv for awhile (this is my ritual, the reason it takes me all day to clean is because i need ample time to procrastinate).

At about 6 o'clock it dawns on me...I haven't finished my Christmas shopping!!!

Now this might not bother you because after all, it is only Dec 15th...but for me...this is the equivalent of Christmas Eve because the next day I was celebrating with my family in Abbotsford. So I rush out of the house...I have an idea of what I need to get. So I get into Richmond, and of course, all the stores that have what I'm looking for are closed and the stores that are open do not have what I need. I walked away with 4 presents, but was missing a critical 3 more!


So unfortunately, I had to ditch out of church early to go shopping. I am such a heathen!!! I would have gone before church but the stores weren't open until 11. Thankfully I picked up 2 of the 3 presents, but sadly I have to get my mom her birthday present in January (SORRY MOM!!!!).

And then as I'm driving home completely bummed out, I realize I've forgotten to do stuff for church the next day, which meant I had to go to the church, which meant by the time I got home I was pooped and did zero cleaning...egads!


And then I woke up on Sunday with unbelievable happiness! I drove to church dancing to music. I laughed during the service. I danced and sang as I drove to Abbotsford. I had an incredibly fun time with my family opening presents, playing with the kids, and coming in 3rd at Ticket to Ride. Then I had a young adults night at the Funk's and also had a really fun time hanging out with the previous grads I've missed a lot!

And now I'm ripping music and burning cds for my sister, extremely excited about what awaits me over the next 3 weeks. It's funny how emotions can flip like that...

Erm, I'm a little confused...

I went to A&W tonight for a quick bite to eat. I asked them if they had any 2 burger deals like they usually do. Instead that had a burger and fries deal, which upon closer inspection wasn't a deal, it was the same price as buying them individually. Seeing as how I don't really like fries that much I just asked for one burger.

And then it got a little weird...She wasn't punching anything in but she was looking at the register and was saying umm and uhh over and over. She asked me if it was for here and I said to go and she kept shifting around all suspicious like. She quickly ducked into the kitchen and mumbled something to the cook then came back.


Then under her breath she said, "I have an offer I'd like to propose to you." That was unexpected...it kinda sparked something inside me, like I was about to be recruited by a secret division of the CIA or something. She got the order for the guy who was before me and gave it to him and then turned back to me, "We have a new sirloin burger and I would like to offer that to you instead." Then she mumbled some more stuff about take out and how it tastes or something but I didn't quite grasp it.


But then I realized, she is giving me a free burger! So I was like, yeah for sure!!! So I stood there waiting kind of still in shock, not really sure what's going on here. From what she mumbled I figured the agreement was I try out this burger but I have to fill out some evaluation paper for them. I have no problems with that.


But then she gives me the burger in a bag to go. Huh?!? And there's no evaluation or anything. After giving me the burger she goes right to helping the next customer. I kinda stood there not really sure what to do. So eventually I just left...and drove away...not really sure what just happened...

WHY DID THEY GIVE ME A FREE BURGER????? What was the whole purpose there?? Cause I'm still scratching my head, seriously. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight...