Muffins, Monkeys and Missed Flights

I tried to order muffins for my job site to help us celebrate International Women's Day, and when I entered my information into the online order form and clicked 'submit', it came back with an error message that read: "We're sorry, but 'Reid' is not a valid first name. Please enter another name, and try again." Mom, Dad...how dare you. This pretty much sums up my experience in Australia. I never know what is going to happen next. One minute, I'm calmly working on my cost control paperwork, and the next minute, I'm ordering dainty muffins for 20 burly construction workers, and I learn that Australia does not recognize 'Reid' as a first name. You gotta love this country.

While I apparently need to change my name, or maybe just make it official and go solely by "The Man", everything else about Australia is going great! I'm making more and more friends (you can only go up from zero!) and getting more involved in the community. Last week, I went to a jazz cafe Tuesday night, bible study Wednesday night, and then played basketball with guys from my church Thursday night! It was a pretty good week.

The week before that, I went to a concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Melbourne has a series of free concerts during the summer, and the last one was centered around Australian made, directed and produced music. When I was invited to the concert, I expected a few older people in lawn chairs, a few families on picnics, and some artistic-loving musicians. I was wrong.

This is about 1/8th of the people at the concert.

There were so many people there, it could have been registered as the second largest town in Wyoming. (Which isn't saying much. The local Wal-Mart is the fifth largest city in Wyoming.) It was a gorgeous day for a concert, which started around 7 o'clock, and went until around 10 o'clock.


7 o'clock.



10 o'clock.

The concert was surprisingly entertaining. The second half of the concert was a little slow and boring, but the first half was very exciting, up-tempo and erratic music. I felt very cultured, since I was taking in a cultural event in an entirely different culture. It was a double-shot of culture like none other.

That same week, I made a big move into settling down in my home, and I bought a bike!

It's the same model that Lance used to win his 4th Tour de France.

It may be a tad rough on the eyes, but the little devil is a lot of fun. Well, it was a lot of fun...it has a flat rear tire now. But hey, it still looks goo...well it doesn't look good either. So, basically, I own an ugly bike that doesn't work. I'm living the dream! But before my bike got the flat tire, I had a lot of fun riding around town, checking out the sights and pretending I was Tony Hawk or Shaun White.

During one of my rides around town, I rode down to the Queen Victoria Market and unexpectedly found the Wednesday Night Market. For those of you who don't remember, the Queen Vic Market is a big indoor-outdoor market/farmers market. The Wednesday Night Market is almost exclusively a foreign foods festival, with live music and hundreds of food booths set up around the marketplace. Oh, and it's absolutley packed.

Pictured: 4th largest city in Wyoming.

I had a nice Seafood Paella from the Spanish booth, and then fought my way through the masses so I could watch the Victorian Police Band. They captivate you with their sound, and then arrest you with their cuffs. (That was stupid, I'm sorry I said that.) I was having a pretty good time at the market, and then it got better, when around 50 bikers riding Harley Davidsons rolled in. I felt like pumping my fist and yelling "U-S-A! U-S-A!", because what's more American than a good ol' Harley. The Harleys were like 50 little bits of America rolling down the road.

Get ready for this sweet segway. Harley Davidsons are from Milwaukee, I have a friend from Milwaukee, and she and another friend came to visit me. Boom, segwayed. Justine (from Milwaukee) and Caitlin (from Provo) came up from Tasmania to visit Melbourne over the weekend a few weekends ago. I wanted to show them a good Melburnian time, and so we decided to go to the beach. We got our swim suits, sandwiches and towels and headed to the beautiful St. Kilda beach. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was in the low-70s and very cloudy. Not exactly perfect beach going weather.



Only real beach lovers go to the beach when everyone else is wearing jeans and hoodies.

The next day, we unthawed our toes, shook the frozen sand from our towels, and headed to the Melbourne Zoo. This may sound like deja vu, and you may be thinking, "Wait, wasn't your last post all about going to the zoo?" Yes, you are correct, but my friends are both zoo keepers, and they really wanted to go to the zoo, and I enjoyed it so much that I didn't mind going back!

Reason #1 why I didn't mind going back. Big kitty.

We had a gorgeous day for the zoo, and it was a lot of fun. You know how when you see a movie for the second time, you notice things that you hadn't seen the first go around? That's exactly what it was like the second time I went to the zoo.

It was also nice going to a zoo with two zookeepers, because they got excited about almost every animal. Of course, it's hard not to get excited when you get to see these guys:



The animal version of your typical college male. Sup bro? Just chillin'.

Monkeys. Are. Awesome. One minute, they look like they haven't a care in the world, then the next minute they're playing the most intense game of tag you've ever seen. And it's all so easy for them, too. If I could have a prehensile tail, I would do it in a heart-beat. I also learned that a monkey's wrists are a ball-and-socket joint, so their hands can actually twist around with no problems. Cool, huh! You know else is cool? Staring contests.

Don't blink!

This guy could not get enough of looking at the visitors. He and his friend would swing around the enclosure, then come right back to the glass and give us a good looking at. It made for some very entertaining video and some really funny pictures.


Left: Caitlin. Middle: Justine. Right: What every young boy wants to be.



Can we keep him, Mom? Please?

The zoo was a lot of fun, but it was a long day, so we afterwards we went back to my house and watched 'Scrubs' on TV. And that's where it all went wrong. By coming to Australia, I have been able to check a lot of things off of my bucket list. I've touched a sea turtle, lived in another country and gone scuba diving. And now, I can also scratch off "make someone miss their flight."

Now, it wasn't entirely my fault. A lot of the blame can be placed on the fact that we watched 'Scrubs' for too long. Here's how it went down. Their flight was to leave at 7:20 p.m. We watched 'Scrubs' until about 6 (oops), walked to a tram spot, waited for the tram, took two trams to the bus station, waited for a bus, took a bus to the airport, and then walked to the terminal. Now that I type it all out, I realize that we had almost no shot at making it on time. Nevertheless, we did our best! Unfortunately, our best was five minutes too late. So, $60 later, the girls had changed their flights to the next morning. I tried to win them over by buying them coffee and ice cream, and I think it helped, but they're still not talking to me, so I'm not sure. (Just kidding, they actually handled it really well.) Apart from the initial phsical abuse (girls punch funny), they took it in stride and chalked it up to "a life experience". We managed to get them on their flight the next morning (at 7:50 a.m.) and they got home safely.

This last weekend, I went on a little bit of a trip myself. I went to Wilsons Promontory, which is a huge national park 2.5 hrs east of Melbourne. I'm going to dedicate my next blog entirely to this trip, but for now, I'll leave you with a picture, as sort of a sneak peek.

It was an awesome trip.

I hope everything is going great for you back home. I'd love to hear from you! Cheers!