Week 21: More than halfway done!

Alright. I'll admit it. I'm a big fat liar. No quick little blog for week 19. Karl said I wouldn't find the time, and for the only time in our married life, he was right. It turns out that we had a quite the busy weekend. Our residence had an end of the semester party on Friday night, Saturday we went ice skating (yes, there is ice skating Down Under, and I'm much better Karl), and Karl of course had a game on Sunday. The game was really exciting because both teams played well, and our team won, 22-14! The most exciting part is that Karl broke his finger! How fun, eh? That meant that Monday he skipped work to visit the doctor's office. The doctor told Karl that is was a good thing he wasn't wearing his wedding ring during the game because he would have had to cut it off. Over three weeks later Karl's ring still doesn't fit because of the swelling, but at least there isn't a game this weekend, so he can rest. So, as you can imagine, all of the packing and preparing for our two week adventure occurred on Tuesday, and no blog writing occurred.

Gold Coast (Down Under Bowl w/ Victorian Team)
We started our latest adventure on Wed. 29 at 5:00 a.m. We had to get up so early to catch our cheap 9:05 a.m. flight at an airport far away. With Claire's help we arrived in plenty of time, but we soon realized how much time we had to spare. Our airport was closed because of fog, so our plane didn't leave until almost 1 p.m. By the time we got into Gold Coast, the team's first practice had already been canceled because of the delays. No worries, we had two scheduled practices for Thursday, and the game wasn't until Friday afternoon. After getting up at 5:30 for brekkie (breakfast), Thursday's morning practice was canceled because of rain. This turned out to not be just any rain, but the greatest rainfall the area had seen since 1974! All the down the coast, people were trapped in their cars, the Gold Coast, Brisbane, and Sydney airports were flooded and obviously closed, and prime minister declared it a natural disaster. So much for going to the beach. As you could probably guess, afternoon practice didn't really happen either. Karl had flashbacks from the national championships as the team conducted walk-thrus in the hotel's parking garage. Friday morning we woke up at the same unGodful hour to once again have practice canceled because all the known practice fields were flooded.

The game went on as scheduled somehow, and the boys were not so prepared for the Kentucky team they played against. On, I forgot to mention that six of the 34 boys had gotten sick with the Rhino flu (a severe flu disease named after patient zero, James "Rhino" Styles). The whole situation was compounded by the fact that many of the players were a bit scared to play the Americans. After all, it is our game; the Americans lift weights; and many of them were college scholarship players. The game ended 33-0, but that doesn't really show how well the boys played outside of the first quarter. The Aussies didn't play on winning, so after the game it was all fun as they traded jerseys and hats with the Kentucky boys. I even met a Greenwood player was would be playing at Western next year, and a Logan County boy who would be giving up his football gear for Phi Delt letters. He was definitely stereotypical of both the "LC" and Phi Delts.

After morning practice on Saturday, the team and I got to go to Dreamworld. A theme park that tried pretty hard to be Disney World. They had the train that circled the park, a Main Street entrance, different worlds, a Tower of Terror, etc. It did have some good rides, though. Their Tower of Terror (left) is "one of the fastest rides in the world. The Tower's electro-magnetically powered 'Escape Pod' accelerates its passengers to a massive 160 kph in seven seconds before it climbs to almost 38 storeys high." The Claw was awesome! It's description: "The first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, The Claw (right) is the most powerful pendulum on the planet. You'll be propelled 9 stories high, swinging up to 75km/h while spinning 360 degrees." It looked kind of fun almost relaxing, but once it started I was so scared! Being upside down nine stories in the air while spinning was nothing relaxing, but definitely worth doing. We went on some other rides, but these were the best! After the park we went to a steakhouse, Karl and I's first in Aussieland. We got 650 gram steaks (454 is a pound), and the players didn't think I could eat all of mine. I proved them wrong, and I finished mine before Karl! While I didn't eat any of the fries or salad, I did finish my ice cream dessert. Definitely a good day!

Sunday was more practicing for the boys, and laundry for me and the team managers. The laundry took almost 4 hours, but I finished my third book during that time. Monday was of course, 4th of July. The Down Under Bowl puts on a parade, and in spite of no fireworks, it was nice. The boys played their final game that afternoon. Even though they lost again to a Southeast combination team, they had fun and really had improved their playing. It would helped to have our quarterback, but unfortunately he fell victim to the Rhino disease, too. The picture is John Murphy (head coach) and Leo Mancini (football friend and Tony Soprano look alike).The boys celebrated their last night in Gold Coast by all going to this bar called Shooter's (legal drinking age is 18 and most of the guys were 18-20). I wasn't going to go but I got talked into it, and I had a fantastic time. Leo and Karl decided to pretend it was my birthday, and Leo kicked off the celebration by buying me a Bailey's based shot. As they started singing Happy Birthday, the boys joined in. Then, they joined into the shot buying frenzie. Each time someone bought me a shot they all sang Happy Birthday again. They sang it so many times and so loudly that the management thought it was my 21st and brought out a tray of 21 shots and 3 shakers of alcohol and wished Happy Birthday. I just laughed and said thanks:) The funniest thing is that most of the boys really thought it was my birthday when it actually was one of the guy's birthdays. Even the equipment manager thought July 4th was my real birthday for days. What a trip!

I was going to write about being in Brisbane, but this is really getting too long. I'll write about that and Sydney next week. It will be on Wednesday, I promise. Girl Scout's honor. Very quickly, I'll share one of the many new words we learned this weekend.

WORDS OF THE WEEK

Scone. Most of us probably have heard of a scone, but we only think about it in the biscuit like sense. We also would pronounce it with a long o sound. Well, the Aussies pronounce it like scon, and it can mean thick skull. Keryn said something like this to Karl when he was pretending to not understand something she was saying, "Can you get it through your scone?" I also learned a new word for brown nosing, but I can only remember the hand gesture for it right now. You put one hand on top of the other and wiggle your fingers. I think it's an imitation of some sort of bottom feeding fish:) We also learned the real meaning of kangaroo: "I don't know what you're saying". The aboriginal people said kangaroo when the European settlers asked what the hopping creature was because they couldn't understand the words coming out of their mouths.

That's about enough fun information for now. Miss you!

Britt