Week 31:Break!!!

With only nine weeks left to go in our Australian Adventure, we are taking a break. Tonight (Thursday) we are heading to the country's Red Centre! It will take us two days, with stops, to reach the real outback. We'll be seeing gorges, ranges, and Uluru (Ayer's Rock) in 90 degree weather! I am so ready for some sun. We haven't been in 90 degree weather since last August, and minus the honeymoon/stopover in Hawaii, we haven't been in 80 degree weather since then either. Anywho, we'll continue our trip by driving for two days to the north end of the country to Darwin to go canoeing, hiking, and diggerdoo buying. It's the aboriginal centre of Australia. The whole 10-day holiday will be fantastic and hilarious because none of us will really know how to drive the manual SUV we got for the bush roads. I wish we were leaving now! But, more about that next week.

This past week has been quite productive. First, Karl wasn't kidding about being a human guinea pig. He's volunteered to be part of a study of metabolism and muscle breakdown. He's at the school right now, doing one-leg cycling until the point of exhaustion. Karl will do this type of thing for about 30 minutes on 4 different occassions. The last one will last 5 hours, but he's getting at least $500 for his trouble--TAX FREE! I say, "Keep signing up!"

Second, I have been a busy little beaver, editting my thesis. I have completed my first round of revisions, but I think I still have lots to go. We'll know the Monday after next when I meet with my supervisor. Either way, I'm emailing it to him after one last quick read through, and I'm forgetting about it. Third, the other ambassadorial scholars and myself have been really busy. We've had two meetings this week in the city (which equals out to me spending 6 hours on a tram) to plan a fundraising event for St. Jude, that school in Tanzania Africa that I've written about before. We're having a 3-course dinner, raffle, and scholar-created entertainment centered on the theme of Thanksgiving. We're thanking our Rotary districts for hosting us, and we're asking them to give money to St. Jude. We think it's a fantastic idea! Hopefully the Rotarians will too and they'll fork over the cash:)

I think that's about all the news we have for this week. No blog next week cause we'll be in the outback! Look for lots of new photos and exciting stories the week after next. I promise it will be on time:) Miss you guys!

Britt

WORD OF THE WEEK

You know how you Americans are havings record gas prices at around $3.00 a gallon? Well, the Aussies don't complain about gas prices; they complain about petrol prices (which are at $1.33 a liter and there are roughly four liters in a gallon. Makes you look silly, huh?) They have "gas" here, but it is for lawn mowers or something. Petrol is what you put into your car. They do actually pronounce the 'r', too. You might be wondering, well do they call it a petrol station? No, they don't. It's called a service station, usually shortened to servo. So, on our trip, we'll be stopping to get petrol at every servo we see because they're few and far between in the lonely desert.

Week 30: Picking up Steam (Karl)

Howdy ya'll,

Your well traveled author is back. No, not Brittney, it's me KARL!!! I know you're excited I can see it in your eyes. Anyways, another week has passed. This week seemed to be a little more exciting than we had anticipated. Brittney and I celebrated the end of another week by working all F$#&ING day long on Thursday. Wasn't that exciting?!

Friday picked up steam a bit...After hanging out with the ever so exciting Rotary kids (they're really great), we went up to one of our "well-to-do" friend's houses. This place is out in the middle of nowhere, has an unbelievable view to the city, a theatre room, bar, in ground pool, tennis courts, and endless alcohol (this is how the night gets interesting). Since Brittney-poo and I were the designated drivers as usual (at least I was), we got to watch drunk people wander around with one goal in mind...to hook up! One guy took it a little too far and scared the crap out of all the North American girls. He just got a little too...anxious we'll say. Good guy for the most part, he just looks scary, piercings, red hair with the sides and back shaved off, he just looks really scary. It doesn't help that he's loud and groping everyone. To his defense, he was not a sexist groper. I was actually groped on several occasions along with several other men. Well, the night ended abruptly, and our man Leo came through in the clutch to drive us home. Yes, I realize we were the designated drivers, but we don't have cars. How are we supposed to drive people around?

Saturday was another alcoholic adventure! The night of my football team's awards presentation...Adventure isn't the right word, but we'll just leave it at that. To start the day...we'll just start at 6:30 pm. So I'm told to show up at the football field at 6:30 (this is where we're having the presentation). Of course, my lovely ladies and I are the first ones there. In typical Aussie fashion the rest of the people who are supposed to set up for this shindig show up at 6:45. NO WORRIES MATE as they say here, and we got set up pretty much on time. This event was supposed to begin at 7:00. At about 7:25 the first car shows up, and there's not a single one of them who could even attempt to walk a straight line let alone drive a car. Eventually everyone showed up and we got underway with the food.

Our president had a really good idea to have comedy awards to start the evening off after dinner. This is before we have our real awards. It was hilarious! Basically we made fun of some of the guys while giving them awards. I wrote up some things for the people to say when presenting the awards. They didn't know what was coming, and it was quite funny. The crew needed a cigarette break every hour, and they were quite talkative to boot. Those awards went fairly well. Now it was my turn. I decide that I'm going to say a little bit about each player. I didn't have anything planned, and I was told I did a good job winging it. A good job, that is, until they decided to interrupt me every time I spoke. They're all wasted, and I'm trying to be somewhat serious. Not an easy mix. We got through all the presentations and awards with minimal difficulty. And then the fun started...

In Australian tradition, we had a raffle to raise some money for the club. Prizes were donated and money was taken to raise money. One of the prizes happened to be a bottle of Jim Beam. Great idea, except for the fact that everyone in the room was drunk. Long story short, someone walked out with the bottle and the president became unhappy. I was giving a goodbye speech when one of the Samoans walked out ready to fight because he was accused of stealing the bottle. I went on with the speech and no body seemed to notice the slight escapade. I was showered with thank yous and good lucks, and it was a great time. Later a fight broke out between two brothers...It was insane! We came to find out that the guy that left in a huff was upset because he was accused of stealing the bottle. He actually had it, and everyone knew it. He wasn't mad that he was caught or that someone told on him. He was mad because one of the guys played a joke on him and sold him the bottle for $15. Well, no one told him it was a joke, and furthermore, no one gave him his 15 bucks back. We got out of there unscathed, and we lived to see Sunday.

I can't tell you what happened on Sunday, but I'm sure it was great. Oh yeah, I watched Western Kentucky University beat up on Eastern Kentucky, Brittney planted trees and picked up garbage, and we ate dinner. AWESOME!!

Monday....yep.

Tuesday....ummmm? Oh! Brittney was supposed to go someplace up north to give speeches. Well, the woman that was supposed to host her had the worst weekend in the world (broken ankle, flu, death in the family, pregnant daughter,etc.). So, Brittney couldn't go out there, but the first draft of her thesis is finished.

Which brings us up to Wednesday. I've been offered $500 to be a guinea pig. They want my sperm!!! Brittney said no, but when I told her I can even earn more if I do good she changed her mind (kinda kidding). Basically, all I have to do is work out with my legs while they run tests on me. I guess I fit their needs: big, dumb, poor. No sperm involved, but I do get paid to work out.

My fantasy football team sucks, but might get better. And we're getting ready to go on one of
our many adventures...

That's our week in a blog page!

Word of the Week

When two cars run into each other, no one is hurt, but traffic has been stopped, they've been involved in a bingle.

When something is "sick" or "totally radical dude", the kids here (even my boss) would say that it was grouse. Don't ask me...I thought it was a bird?

Thanks, as always, for reading, and we'll be seeing you on November 30th if you're in the Chicagoland area and December 10th if you're in the Bowling Green region of the world. Talk to you kids later, and remember...don't tell me about my grammatical errors. I just don't care that much. Love you, Mom!

Karl

Almost forgot...I got an article published about me on this Australian website that covers "Gridiron". www.thebear.com.au

Week 29: Springtime!

Yes, it's officially Spring Down Under! Sept. 1 is the first day of Spring! That means that football is over, the weather is beautiful (60s-70s), and the last thing I want to do is work:) My rough draft will be done this week (ie. tomorrow). I can't wait to take a break from writing. 15,000 words is so many words. I counted the weeks left in the semester that we won't be traveling, and I only have four more weeks. Yea!!!! Next week's blog will mark the three-quarters mark for our adventure, which means that we will be back in the States in 10 weeks! I'm so excited! As we've said before, this has been an incredible experience, but in 10 weeks, I'll be ready to have a home and family experience.

Now the real question is what will we be doing in 10 weeks time? Well, we'll spend Nov. 30-Dec. 9 in Chicago, and then travel south to BG. This trip includes a one-night stopover in Louisville on the 9th. Once we're in BG, we expect our friends to throw us a welcome home party, so we catch up on the missed year. We'll also be organizing our lives and worldly possessions for a move. Where will be moving? Who knows? Probably into an apartment in BG, but that all depends on whether or not a job for Karl is open at good ole' Western. Hopefully, we'll know something in the next month! Now, what will I be doing if we're in BG? Again, who knows? Most likely, I'll be finding a job to support us b/c we all know that WKU football doesn't quite pay the big bucks. All I do know is that during the first week of January, I'll be working the Disney Marathon in Orlando (with or without Karl). I figure with the price of gas as high as it is, I'll barely break even, but I'll make a little cash, add to my resume, keep my casual status at Disney, and do something fun for my 24th b-day (Jan. 6). The whole thing was finalized today, and I'm super excited to see my Disney friends and play at "the world."

Back to the present. Karl and I have been doing a whole lot of nothing lately. He's only working one day a week now (10 hr shift), and he didn't work at all last week because of a scheduling conflict. He is at work now, so I can finally finish my thesis! I have been taking my breaks lately to get exercise and see something other than my computer screen and little dorm room. Carol and I went on a 2 hr bike ride on Sunday, and today my butt finally has stopped hurting! It was great exercise though, and I got to see this great park that had been too far to simply walk to. Karl and I watched Western's first football game through live streaming last Friday morning. We even got mentioned on Big Red Radio when we sent an email in to Mike Legg. I think we'll be sending in a weekly email to see if he keeps giving us a shout out! This weekend should be fun for us, too. Karl's team has their award night on Saturday, and having Karl MC will be humorous at worst. It's also BYO, so I'm sure the guys will get rowdy. On Sunday, I'll be planting trees with Rotary while Karl watches the Eastern vs. Western game. Good times!

WORD OF THE WEEK

This week's word contains a not nice word. That's kind of our theme, isn't it? Well, anyways. This word comes to us via Carol who got the word from Karl's boss's wife. Still with me? Okay, so the word is figjam. It's an acronym, and means that a person is full of themselves. Any guesses? Fuck I'm Good, Just Ask Me. Karl has several figjams on his team.

Look forward to next week's blog. Once again our favorite, Karl, will be guest writing b/c I'll be in a little town called Euroa giving Rotary presentations Tues-Friday. Enjoy!

Britt