Last week, TV was riddled with commercials previewing the Asian qualifying match for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Being the ex-soccer player that I am, I got pretty excited to see this, and talked some people into getting tickets to go. The game was Australia vs. Uzbekistan. So Wednesday a bunch of us made our way back over to ANZ Stadium in Olympic Park, same place we watched the rugby match at. Only this time, the place was packed. If I didn’t mention before, this was the stadium used for the Sydney Olympics, so it isn’t small by any means. The place seats 83,000 fans, the crowd for the night was something about 59,000, if you can believe that! It was so cool to see almost the entire place packed full to the rafters. This week has been pretty rainy, so we were pretty excited that we arrived dry, and without the help of an umbrella. The rain had held off until about five minutes after we got inside, and then it started down pouring. Considering we’re all stretching to make ends meet, our tickets weren’t close down near the field, actually the exact opposite, we were literally in the sky. Really good view though, we could see the whole field, and more importantly, we were covered. Staying dry while everyone else in the lower sections was being soaked really made me smile.
The game was great. The first half was pretty uneventful, but it was really fun to be watching some good soccer again, I’ve really missed it. And World Cup soccer is always exciting soccer. Leslie and I have a plan to rob a bank and take that money to head to South Africa next summer for the actual tournament. I remember hearing about a man a few years back that sold his blood plasma for like two years straight in order to have enough money to make it to the Cup, perhaps that’s an idea as well.
During half time I made my way over a couple sections to say hello to Erin and her sister, Jenna, who is visiting for the week. Chatted with them for a bit then headed back to home base. It started getting interesting the second half, with Australia having plenty of scoring opportunities. I started trying to make movies on my phone, hoping to catch a goal being scored, but after plenty of near goals and no actual goals, I gave up. Of course the play after I stop making videos they score a sick goal. I was pissed, but exciting of course that they took the lead. The place went wild; it was such a cool atmosphere to be a part of. Then not five minutes after the first goal, Australia was fouled in the box, which resulted in a PK. The fact that the play was stopped before the shot was taken allowed for me to prepare my camera perfectly and got the whole thing on video. Yes, they scored again, and they place went wild again!
Nearing the eight minutes remaining mark, someone who didn’t really care about the game asked us to leave early to beat the crowd, but I know that eight minutes is a enough time for anything to happen in a soccer game. So Chuck and I protested this terrible idea, and stayed behind and watched, praying for something, anything to happen so that we could prove that leaving early was a silly idea. And things did happen. In extra time, Uzbekistan DID score, but it was called back for offsides. I didn’t know it was called back until the next day though because even more excitement was happening behind the Uzbekistan goal. The Australian fan section was behind this goal, and somehow a fire was started right in the middle of this crowd of people. There were huge clouds of smoke billowing from the stands. WHAT?! How does this happen, I’m not quite sure. And on that note, the game ended, with Australia winning 2-0. I believe that this secured them the title of the first team to qualify for the Cup, less South Africa since host country gets an automatic in. Chuck and I headed out of the stadium and into the pouring rain to meet up with the rest of the group, who despite leaving early, didn’t get too far. We were corralled like cattle at the train station into sectioned off areas to get into the train cars. At least they keep order, I can’t imagine how that would have gone over in the States, it’s chaos after a Bears or Cubs game gets out, try imagining 60,000 trying to get home. Yikesabee.
On another subject, I’ve come to find that I really love red wine. I mean I knew that I liked it before I came, but with the price of a bottle of hard alcohol hovering near the price of a plane ticket out here, and my sudden disinterest in beer (probably I just miss 312 and Miller), I’ve come to drink a lot more wine instead. Since it’s local rather than imported, you can find bottles for as cheap as $5.50. Now I would never stoop this low. And while most of the kids here drink “goon” which is what Aussies refer to as crappy cask, or boxed, wine, I can’t drink the stuff. It’s absolutely terrible. At home I’ll drink Franzia, but this is like 10 times worse! The fact that they’re getting an entire box worth for the price I’m paying for one bottle should tell you something. And so, being the daughter of my father, I stick mostly to Shiraz. This is what was the drink of choice in the deVane household before Australia, and now that I’m here I’ve come to find that Shiraz is actually one of the most popular grapes grown in Australia, so its much more prevalent here. Not to say that you can’t find good Shiraz at home, but Solo isn’t necessarily your best bet. Now this shouldn’t be the case, but it is. I like to choose my bottle of Shiraz based on the label design, I can’t help it, as a designer I’m drawn to good design over bad design, and when I see bad outsides I have to assume its bad insides. I’m sure it isn’t the case 99% of the time, but the fact is I’ve been happy with most of my choices so far. I think I’m going to start documenting the different wine bottle labels to share with you all. I’ve also got to thinking that designing bottle labels could be really fun, some get super creative with it. Just gotta find a studio that does that sort of work. Leave it to me to already be researching it.
So the other night I’m all set to call it an early night when I get a call from Erin saying to come over. Her older sister, Jenna is here visiting, and so I changed real quickly and caught a bus with Jocelyn over to The Village where Erin lives. We all hung out there for awhile, and then around 1am decided that we should go to Cargo Bar. I decided that I was not going to go seeing as it was already 1, so as Erin and Jenna hopped into a cab I told them I was just going to get a cab home. Turns out I was wrong, and one of Erin’s roommates came up behind and insisted I come along and guilted me into getting into the cab. As it turns out, I’m glad he did, we had a really fun time, despite Cargobar being absolutely dead! First of all, we went in upstairs, which is usually reserved for VIP entrance, but when we got in I looked downstairs and the lights were on and pool tables were in places they normally were not. I guess Thursday nights are not Cargo’s best nights. But it was still fun, they played ridiculously 90’s tunes all night, including Footlose, which prompted me to get up and dance on one of the bench seats I can only assume was put there for sitting, and not for dancing to such songs. I was soon reminded of this by security of course, thought he was nice enough to just give me a look, which said all that he didn’t need to. I hopped down and continued my dancing frenzy. Now when I say frenzy in reference to me, it isn’t really a frenzy, but when I say it in reference to a guy I like to call Will Smith, I really mean FRENZY. Will Smith is in fact now the actor in plenty of box office smashing movies, but rather a blue shirt-wearing, blonde crazy dancing Australian we met at the bar. Before I found out his name was Will Smith which just adds to the fun, Jenna, Elise and I decided to call him Bluebeard, for the sole reason his shirt was blue. Don’t ask. Anyways, he took an extended interest in Erin, coming close to whipping out his wallet to prove to her that his name was Will Smith, she believed him without the proper identification. He then proceeded to dance the night away, mostly by himself and just around the rest of us. It was quite awkward, but really just mostly funny. Will Smith was quite the character, I’ll tell ya that. I met a guy named Rob, who is here for five months as well, though he only just arrived two weeks ago from England. He’s here to play rugby, not to study. Sometime I wish I were here solely for tanning purposes, and not to study. Alas, I am not.
Yesterday I was sitting in my room just minding my own business when off go my lights, and the power to my computer, and my air-conditioning. And then comes—The Voice. The Voice comes from the speaker that is mounted in my room above the air-conditioner. It creeps me out every time, makes me feel like I’m on the TV show Lost. They came on to announce that the power had gone out. Well thank you, as if we were not aware already. Apparently it was not internal, but area power, and they’d be working to figure out a quick fix. In the meantime, the lifts obviously weren’t running, so I decided to suck it up, opened my blinds and read a book for the entirety of the maybe hour-long outage. The Voice made its way into my room about three times throughout this time, each time scaring the living daylights out of me!
It’s Saturday today, and looks like my Saturday is going to consist of cleaning my room and getting homework done. Always the Saturday that I look forward to! I’ve got to go to the post office and send out some letters and then Emily and I are planning on going to the Glebe markets. I’m guessing they’re more like The Rocks Markets than like Paddy’s Market. I’m hoping to get some good vegetables for my morning omelets. We were also thinking about maybe going out to dinner tonight, since we never really venture anywhere besides Broadway considering anywhere else we go we’ll probably spend an additional $15 to what we’d spend on our pizza. But hey, it’s time to splurge. Emily and I aren’t taking a big trip for spring break, so why not treat ourselves to a nice dinner? We are however looking into maybe taking a short 4-day trip down to Melbourne just to see what there is to see there.
I suppose that’s all the really is to inform you of. Still doing the rain thing here, not as bad as the first time, but it has raining for some amount of time everyday for the past week. Lame. I have come to learn that State Radio is playing here in Sydney next week, so I’m gonna try and go to that, tickets are only $10, making me more than down to go! Just gotta find someone to attend with me, Luke would but he’ll be on his way to Byron Bay to see them there at BluesFest. Lame. For me, not for him. Alright that’s about all I’ve got, really should get to the whole cleaning game. Laundry has been beckoning for days, maybe today will be the day. Most probably it will end up being tomorrow though. I can only spend so much time a day on chores here, I’m in Australia dontcha know!
Sidenote; we've rediscovered Warheads. I know! Don't be too jealous! Oh and I've discovered a way to watch .wmv movie files on my macbook, which is excellent news because Dad couldn't get some movie files he brought me to convert to .avi, so I took it upon myself to figure it out, and I have, so now I can watch some new movies I haven't seen yet. And one of Chuck's friends who is coming to visit later this month has a boatload of movies that he owns, and asked Chuck which ones he wanted him to bring, and Chuck being the nice guy that he is, tossed the list my way and asked me what I wanted as well. So I'll soon be watching Back to the Future I and II, along with a bunch of other movies, though ones that probably can't compare to Michael J. Fox's performance, but they can try ;)
