ColdStone lives on

Last night my friend took me to an ice cream place called ColdRock... basically it is Australia's version of ColdStone.  While my ice cream loyalty still lies with ColdStone, I did enjoy the scenary at this ice cream shop much better than the ones at home.  ColdRock is located at a marina right on the beach.  We ate our ice cream by the water and watched some massive crabs climbing around on the rocks.  It was a good time until we packed up to leave and my friend found a cockroach in his empty ice cream cup!  Needless to say I'll never be frequenting that marina at night again. 

Boxing Day

It is officially summer in Australia and luckily our neighbors have headed out of town for the next month and I have free reign to use their pool whenever I want.  I've already taken advantage of their offer and have spent the good part of today floating in the water, trying to cool off.

Yesterday was Boxing Day, an official holiday here.  While I've asked several people for the defiition behind this day, no one seems to be able to give me an answer.  I'll that I've learned is it's a day where everyone barbeques and watches the start of cricket.  I caught a few minutes of the cricket match but got bored and headed out to a friends house to go swimming, bbq, and have some drinks.  Not sure what Boxing Day is for but I had lots of fun and recommend that we introduce this holiday in America!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  The holidays have been a crazy time for me.  In the past few weeks I've started a new job, quit the job, started giving pitching lessons, had my shifts doubled at work, attended various christmas parties, been doing extra softball practices to build up for our big tournament next week, and have successfully fought the shopping crowd at the mall. 

If I happen to get a spare moment I love to visit my secret beach. I like to think that it's a place where only a few locals and I know about because it's a gorgeous beach off the beaten path and it never gets crowded.  I've gotten to recognize some of the regulars at my beach.  I know what you're thinking Shannon, and no they are not Hugh Jackmans... more like some very leathery elder men.  They may not be good eye candy but they do remind me to reapply my sunscreen.

Miss everyone and hope you have a happy and healthy holidays!

Game ON

With the start of December comes the start of the neighborhood Christmas lights war! After a full day of stringing lights and running extension cords all over the house my host family unveiled this years lights display and it is nothing short of impressive!

The dad was so proud of his decorating that we had a special family outting to see the lights in full force for the first time. We were the first house to step-up to the Christmas challenge but since then, the two neighbors next door have been spending their free time putting up lights. While neither of them have lit them up yet, from what I can see during the day, we may be in for some trouble! The best part of the whole thing is that while our house and the two neighbors next door are covered in lights, nobody else in the whole neighborhood even has one string of lights up! Go big or go home definitely seems to apply to this neck of the woods!

This is an actual picture of the house lit up at night! Needless to say it's a bright one!

Wine & Kangaroos

This past weekend I attended a "concert on the green", which was a mix of AU favorite artists performing outdoors at a vineyard.  Eventhough I didn't know a single artist there I had a blast! Enjoying a gorgeous summer day sprawling in your lawn chairs with a picnic dinner and some bottles of wine leaves little to be desired. While the concert started out pretty tame the bottles of wine kicked in at the end of the night and I witnessed a couple drunken brawls on the dance floor... nothing too serious, just enough to keep the night interesting :)

After the concert wrapped up we got a ride home with my friend's boyfriend. On our way back we made a detour to go off-roading in the forest on a search for kangaroos. After driving for 30 minutes into the heart of the forest we finally spotted 3 kangaroos! Just like deer, these kangaroos were frozen by our headlights for a couple of minutes before they hopped off. Mission successful!

However, on our trip out of the forest we got stuck in some serious sand. Luckily the boyfriend is no stranger to off-roading and was equipped with all the essentials to get us moving again. My friend and I enjoyed the music on the radio while he worked his magic and got us out of the sand and back to civilization.

Wacky Ways

Every Friday and Sunday we have a league softball game with my Eagles team. So far we have racked up an impressive win total of.... one. Our team is young and lacking in the skills department. However, the girls crack me up and no one takes the losses to heart. To top off our semi-dsyfunctional team, our coach never fails to cause a scene by yelling out terribly embarrassing things and always engaging in a verbal fight with one person per weekend. At first I would get upset with how ridiculous our coach would act, but now I've learned to love it. Every weekend I walk away from the ball field with the funniest stories to relay to my friends at work.

During our game yesterday the opposing team had a string pitcher from our national team. Clearly we were having trouble getting hits off of her, so our coach came up with the bright idea to try and confuse her by batting left handed. Furthermore, during the same inning he actually takes out our only true left handed hitter from the game and puts her on the bench. So, one by one we step up to the plate left handed and the pitcher pipes one down the middle while everyone stands there trying to figure out how to correctly hold the bat. Once we get our first strike on us we are allowed to hop back over right handed.  Basically, our coach is saying that since we can't hit the pitcher we are first going to get behind in the count and then try to hit off her. Completely brilliant and not at all embarrassing.

Luckily this only went on for two innings and I was not one of the batters up in those innings, so I managed to save my dignity.  The final innings of the game were filled with numerous left handed jokes and laughs.  While we ended up losing, it was definitely a game for the books!

Thanksgiving

After collecting all of Ter Bear's recipes I attempted to make a Thanksgiving dinner with all the toppings! With a good deal of help from the mom Carolyn and daughter Kristy, we managed to whip up a solid remake of an American Turkey Day.  I put my business education to work and strategically delegated the cooking of the turkey to the dad Rick.

We invited over some family friends invovled in softball and I ate my first thanksgiving dinner outside.  Our dinner consisted of turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, strawberry salad, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and lots of wine. I'm proud to say the main course was flawless but we weren't so lucky with the pies. The combo of overcooking and improper ingredients left the pecan pie pretty dark and the pumpkin pie tasting more like a slice of cheesecake. However, my guests didn't know any better and loved them all the same. Overall, my first attempt at cooking a Thanksgiving meal was successful but I will be looking forward to leaving the cooking to the experts next year!

Hamish & Andy

I am in love with Hamish & Andy... they are two Aussie entertainers (they do everything from tv to radio) and here are some of my favorite clips from them, enjoy!

Ghosting

Ghosting 2.0

3 Step Hiding

Cab Drivers

College Round 2

Just got back from a four day trip to Sydney for our first tournament with the West Australia National team. WA is one of five teams from each region in Australia plus the New Zealand team. Throughout my time here all six teams will compete in four tournaments and the team with the best overall record will win the Gilley's Shield.

The trip turned out to be deja vue of my college playing days... minus some rain delays and add in a couple beers. The long weekend included all of the MN softball necessities: travel suits, team vans, ice baths, sandwiches inbetween games, banning of cell phones, and my favorite post-game massage :)  I had a fun time but just like coach B always said to us during school, this is a business trip not vacation. My teammates had a good time teasing me about how much I loved my first trip to Sydney... with all the well known sights that I got to see!

While there was no opera house in my weekend, I did have a great time and our team finished 6 for 6. I pitched four of the games and survived my first weekend of solid heat. Each opposing team had a handful of past olympic players on them which was lots of fun to compete against. Also, we played at the 2000 Sydney olympic stadium which was exciting and attended a big Australia softball banquet on Saturday night. While the banquet did little to entertain me we were allowed to have some beverages to pass the time. Definitely different from college!

Minimum Wage

Since I have too much free time the team hooked me up with a job at a local baseball/softball gear store called Fielders Choice. Everyone who works at Fielders is on the Perth baseball or softball team, so it's more of a casual hangout than job.  Our store doesn't put prices on anything so depending on how well you know the workers and how loyal you are to buying at Fielders, the prices you get vary. Basically we just make up a price when you ask... this has to be illegal, but no one seems to think it's weird! I've only worked one day so far but in that day I managed to shoot off multiple emails, catch up on perezhilton.com, and even creep on facebook.  While work may be dull, our pay check is not! Minimum wage in au is $16.70/hr but most retail places pay around $20. In addition, your work buys you lunch everyday and you get paid during your lunch break. I'd love to bring this concept back to the states!

While I'm not punching the clock at Fielders I am also coaching a grade school softball team. It is the least competitive form of softball ever! We have a team bag filled with floppy cloth gloves and one metal bat that each home team needs to supply. The girls use a glove from the team bag and then leave it at their position so the other team can use it while we bat. While the softball may be at a low level, my girls treat every play like it is the game winner of the world series! The girls are 13-14, so even the littlest thing gets a full minute of high pitched screaming. Even though I usually leave the games deaf I still love coaching these girls. The school that they go to is a preppy private boarding school where they were polo uniforms and sweaters. They love trying to talk to me in an American accent and they always bombard me with 50 questions. So far we have only lost once and our last game is on Thursday so hopefully we will place first in the league!

Shocking Victory

Yesterday was the Melbourne Cup which is a HUGE horse race that "stops the nation". People on the east half of the country get work off because it is considered a holiday and the west half takes a couple hour break during the day to celebrate and watch the race. After reading up on all the stats I strategically picked my horse based a little on the numbers and a lot on uniform color. Surprisingly, I ended up with no luck. However, I did enter a pool at work where you pick a horse out of a hat and my guy came in dead last which actually meant that I got my money back. So overall I came out even on the day.

Today the paper was filled with all the fashionistas and celebrities that attended the race in their big hats. No worries, America represented nicely by sending the Madden brothers from Good Charlotte to the race. I guess Benji Madden blindly chose the winning horse (named Shocking) and the paper captured a huge picture of him celebrating in his maroon fedora. America's finest, ladies and gentlemen!

Softball Time

I had my first game a couple days ago with the team below us in order to get some practice. The game went pretty smoothly and we won in 5 innings, but I did have to get used to the fact that we throw off of a rubber mat instead of dirt! Pretty strange but luckily it didn't effect me much. The girls on the team were pretty fun to play with. To spice up the game they would choose a letter or category for the inning, then when we were on the field they could only cheer for me with words that started with that letter or were in the category.  I had to focus extra hard to block out my aussie 3rd baseman yelling "strike 'em out asparagas". 

Then last night I had my first practice with the West Australia national team. The practice brought me back to the college days minus coach Y and 15 x 80's, thankfully! The head coach was the assistant coach for the Australia olympic team and I really like him! I met with the coach before practice to get on the same page and he was so knowledgable about the game. He was really interested to hear what my softball goals were and I think I thoroughly dissapointed him when I explained that college was my pinnacle and now I'm just wrapping up and having fun. After giving me a long shpeel about how you peak until late 20's and there are still opportunities, we decided to agree to disagree for now on the topic. Little does he know that I was putting it lightly when I said I'm planning on leaving my cleats in Australia.

With a new team again came another list of names and faces that are already slipping my mind. It was pretty cool that two of the girls on the team played for Coastal Carolina and Louisville, so I have faced them during college. During practice I went off with the other two pitchers for the first half then threw a little BP while the players worked on their short game.  It was so nice to be back in my comfort zone where I just deal with pitching and hanging out in the bull pen.

The Weakest Link

After totaling over 24 hours of being in the air... Ali I'm sure you're having a heart attack right now just reading this... I finally landed in Perth, Australia.  The president of the softball club and his daughter/my teammate were there to greet me with a hot chocolate.  I immediately could tell this was going to be a good trip :)

We hauled my huge suitcases back to their house where I spent the rest of the day struggling to stay awake.  After what seemed like a never ending day of meeting teammates, coaches, and taking in the sights I finally layed my head on my pillow and didn't move until 13 hours later.  I'm really lucky that their house is so nice and they have the perfect set up for me.  I get my own room, bathroom, and cell phone. Plus they are awesome cooks and have two extra cars that I can use. However, one is a stick shift and seeing as how poorly my lessons went in Holland I'm just going to stick to the automatic.  Not to mention that I still have to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, yikes!

While everything is great, my favorite part of the house is the button right next to my bed that brings down these heavy duty blinds that block out all light from my window... it reminds me of Cameron Diaz's LA house in The Holiday! I'll definitely be needing one of these back home :)

Yesterday was another full day of meeting people and touring around Perth. We spent a good chunk of the day hanging out at the beach before we made our way back home for my welcome party grill-out. At the party I got a lil preview of the Aussie tolerance.  These people sure know how to put them back with no problem... I will be the weakest link on our team!

Mullet + Outfit = The Mullout

When I landed in LAX I booked my way across the airport to the far corner where the V Australia ticket counter was located.  However, I'd say V Australia was more of a dance club then ticket counter! The area was dim with florescent blue wall lights, had Lil Wayne blaring over the sound system, and was operated by employees who didn't look a day older than 26.  This gave me a good idea of what to expect in Australia, that was until I noticed the man checking-in at the counter next to me. From the top he looked like a typical middle-aged business man; cleanly cut gray hair, white collared shirt, and a sharp suit coat.  But then I looked down and was thrown by his zubas, sandals with socks, and surf board laying at his feet. Lets hope he was an Aussie because if so, people watching down under is going to be epic!