Week 37: Happy Halloween (Karl)

So, as you may or may not realize, this will be our last blog while we're in Australia. The next month or so will be spent roaming from Melbourne to Perth and finishing up our "Australian Adventure" in New Zealand. I'm sure when we get home we'll send one last update giving a conclusion to our trip and thanking the wonderful hosts we've had all across this beautiful country. But that's not my job! I didn't come up with the idea of keeping everyone updated with a blog...Hell! I never heard of a blog until Brittney told me SHE was going to write one. Anyways, she's super busy with her thesis, but she says hello. On with week 37!

I have another little story to tell. As always, it's totally true! If you don't believe me, ask Brittney. But before I get started, I'd like to update you on what's been going on in our lives. First, I'd like to say congratulations to the Western Kentucky University Men's Cross Country team for winning the Sun Belt Conference championship and forcing Coach Long to be coach of the year, AGAIN. I think that makes 47 coach of the year awards for the old man. Well, maybe closer to 27, but either way, it's impressive! He also celebrated his 35th (?) birthday on November 1st. Again, quite impressive since he's lived with only women all of his married life. Happy Birthday to Eric Ravellette who turned 25 on November 2nd. If you multiply his age by 10, you almost have his weight. Well....

So, anyways, Brittney capped off her Rotary presentations by crying at her host club in the middle of her speech. I could have saved her if I knew what she was supposed to say, but she wouldn't let me preview the presentation. So, I sat there helplessly and watched her cry with the rest of the group for about 15 minutes in silence. It wouldn't have been so awkward if she was talking about positive aspects of Australia. Instead, she was telling the group about the Anti-Americanism posters that hang through out Melbourne. I'm sure she would have put a lovely spin on the positive side of these posters, but it was lost in the tears. Poor kid. The people felt awful, and I didn't know what to say. But she moved forward with the presentation and provoked other women to cry as well.

As you know, Halloween was the big holiday of the week. Typically, Australians do not celebrate my favorite holiday, but this year we lucked out...We got to celebrate twice. The first celebration was at our dormitory, and the second was with other North American Rotary scholars. We dressed up as dead beauty pageant winners. I could not fit into a dress; so I ended up being the dead host with the most. We had some really great costumes, that will be posted on our picture page. Which brings me to my story...

At the first party we went to (in the dorm), we were a hit. People were taking photos with us all night because a lot of them had never celebrated Halloween. A couple days later, we went to a costume party at a bar in the older part of the city.

First of all, we had to take a cab in broad day light to the bar. People were pointing and laughing at us the whole way. We, of course, tried to look scary the entire time since we were dressed up like dead people. Usually, we ended up laughing in a failed attempt at keeping a straight face. The taxi driver pulled up to the corner near the bar.

As we stepped out of the cab, I looked up and noticed that the sky was extremely gray. It wasn't necessarily overcast and not particularly cloudy, but it was deep gray. I thought nothing of at the time since our Halloweens always look like this. The only difference between our Halloween and Australia's (besides the fact that they don't celebrate it) is that theirs is in the Spring time. (I know some of you are completely lost, but since Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, their seasons are opposite ours).

When we stepped out of the cab we made a guess at which direction the bar was. Crossing through traffic we received more scared faces. Some cars honked while others just watched us in the mirror as they passed. The street we walked down was vacant of any type of business. Giant elm trees towered over the tattered street, and the old brick houses seemed to stare at us as we walked passed. But the bar was there on the right. No cars parked in front, and no lights on inside. Quite appropriately, the name of the bar was Bar Nothing. Bar Nothing was located inside an old, one level, brick building. The building looked to be as old as the city, but we entered without any preconceived thoughts as it was a private party.

The inside of the bar was set up like a coffee house. There were no stools or high standing tables, but rather covered couches and plastic chairs. Halfway up the red brick walls were small, 12 inch television monitors. There were about 6 of them scattered throughout the bar. The peculiar thing about these monitors is that they were on, but nothing was playing. The only thing on the screen was the white fuzz or snow.

I know what you're thinking, he's going to say that he heard ghosts talking on the screen. No, I'm not lame enough to use bits from a movie to make my story better.

Anyways, Brittney's friends stood inside at the far end of the building where the actual bar was located. We went back to greet them and introduce them to our Canadian friends. Some more of my football friends showed up, and slowly but surely there was some life to our private party of about 25 people. The drinks were cheap, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Brittney's Rotary friend, Courtney, was the one who organized the party. She somehow got a deal to get the bar for 4 hours (7-11).

By 10:50, the bartenders began to clean up the bar. One of bartenders chuckled to himself and shouted, "You yanks better get going!" The other bartenders turned to him and laughed as well.

To us, their laughter made it seem as though they didn't care whether or not we stayed or left. So we stuck around a little while after 11. The bartenders kept cleaning the bar area. After a few minutes, they began to lock the bathroom doors, and the four of them got behind us and slowly pushed us towards the exit. I looked down at my watch and noticed that it was only 11:15.

At this point, I had had a few too many. I got bold and loud like Maslowski's tend to do, and I said "Hey! What's the rush? There's no one else coming in!"

Just then, one of the bartenders looked at me with a fire in his eye that I had not seen in him the entire night. "What's the big deal!" he shouted. "The big deal, is that it's time to go or else you have to deal with the consequences!"

First of all, I was about 3 times the size of this guy and his mates. Second, even though I'm a poofter, I did have a couple of male counterparts, twice my size, that had my back.

Again, bold and unsober, I said, "Consequences? I don't want to have any problems, but I think I can deal with the consequences."

Just then the bartender looked down at his watch. Suddenly, his expression changed from fiery rage to panick stricken fear. I felt so proud that I had scared the bejesus out of this guy that I became unaware of my current surroundings.

All at once, the lights and TV's flickered and shut off. A shockingly cold breeze slammed into my back knocking me and the rest of our party to the ground. From the front, we heard the door to the only exit in the building slam shut. My lip trembled and my body began to shake. Brittney began screaming at me, "What did you do!"

We could not move; our bodies were paralyzed as we laid in a pile on the floor. Suddenly from the ceiling appeared an apparision. I don't know whether it was male or female, but it came face to face with me. I sat there as we stare at each other. I wanted to scream or run, SOMETHING, but I was frozen.

"LEAVE!" A booming voice came from the ghostly figure scaring us to our feet. We got up and ran as fast as we could to the door. Suddenly, I felt a hand grabbing at my suit jacket pulling me backwards. But everyone was in front of me. "Why is it holding on to me?" I stopped to face it, but before I could turn around, it whispered softly into my ear, "Let's put another shrimp on the barbie." And it disappeared, laughing into the night.

Trick or Treat!

Words of the Week

All week long, Brittney has been pretty crook. She caught a lurgy that has given her coughing fits, a stuffy nose, and the voice of a boy going through puberty.

Basically, she got sick because she caught some kind of cold bug.

As always, thanks for reading and disregard the grammatical errors. We'll be seeing you in less than a month!

Karl