Friday, May 14, 2010- Who Needs Friday/Saturday For Partying When You’ve Got Sunday-Thursday?

Well, it’s been an interesting five-and-a-half months in Melbourne, but alas the time has come for me to take my show on the road. Living here for the last five months has definitely been interesting, and if you ever told me I was going to live in such a small apartment with another person (see: Leeanna Lorbert) for such an extended period of time I would have called you bonkers (or probably something with a few more expletives). Alas, my lease expires today and I am currently writing this as I wait for my real estate agent/slumlord to come over and sign me back my bond money, although I probably owe him a good chunk of it for my unpaid water and hydro bills (was hoping he’d forget). It has definitely been trying at times, with no air conditioning during the at-times brutal summer heat and now a barely functional heater in winter, which is causing me to freeze my ass off at night as the temperatures hover between 5°C and 10°C. Never thought some of the coldest sleeps of my life would come in Australia. I mean fuck I’m from Canada for god’s sake, eh! Aside from all of that, it’s been a fun few months here and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

But now, more importantly, the update on what’s been going on the last few weeks…

After not really partying/socializing too much outside of my inner circle, okay just my girlfriend, things definitely took an uptick in the last few weeks. This has in turn caused a downward trend in my monetary gains, but another uptick in the good times category. Three weeks ago, I finally was able to convince Leeanna to come and hang out with some of my work buddies, although I’m still not sure she knows what to make of it. Myself and two co-workers, Antone and Kurk showed up at my apartment after work one night and proceeded to get Leeanna to come out with us as we were having a quasi-celebration for a couple of Irish girls, Zoe and Leah. One had just quit work that night and the other was leaving town to continue her travels/flee Melbourne’s winter. After getting a nice drink on at our apartment with the cheapest wine possible, we piled in a cab and booted it over to Bar Open (some “alternative bar” as the kids call it). We met up with the rest of my workmates and proceeded to drink heavily. After the closing of the bar, some of us still weren’t ready to go home yet so we found a bar that was still in business. Yup, it was the gay bar once again, and Leeanna was now officially a convert. Highlight of the night was me and the girlfriend laughing our asses off as we watched two dudes passionately groping each other right in front of us. That and having to take a piss with Antone watching my back and vice versa. Can never be too careful. Word on the street is that all homosexuals are predators. Either that or I’ve got a small penis and didn’t want anybody to catch on. I’m gonna go with the ladder.

The next morning was a rough one to say the least. It was a holiday Monday (Anzac Day, similar to Remembrance Day) and we had purchased tickets for the big Aussie Rules football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) between fan favourites Carlton and the defending league champions from Geelong. Leeanna and I somehow managed to drag our asses out of bed and grab some greasy McDonald’s before heading over to stadium to join the other 72,000 fans. The match ended up being pretty one-sided with the underdogs from Carlton thrashing the heavily-favoured Cats, much to the delight of the fans. It felt very much like being at an American football game, with the one exception being that Australian rednecks (or as they call them here, bogans) have a thing for waving flags of all different shapes and sizes at their sporting events. On that note, Aussie Rules football is the one popular sport on this side of the world that I can genuinely say I enjoy watching. The same cannot be said for cricket, rugby or kangaroo races.

A couple of days after the footy match, I returned to the MCG on my own to take in the National Sports Museum and a tour of Australia’s most famous sporting ground. As expected, the tour was pretty much all right over my head and irrelevant to me, as I am not much of a cricket fan and had no idea what my tour guide was talking about. The one tidbit I do remember is that in the painting of the “first ever cricket match” which supposedly took place in Australia the artist painted in a small American flag. Apparently this was a sign of protest by him, as it is thought in some circles that the first ever cricket match was played between the U.S. and Canada. Now you know. The Sports Museum and Hall of Fame was pretty standard stuff, with a pretty cool section on the history of the Olympics. Other than that it was pretty Aussie-centric and as far as I’m concerned the only Australian athletes that matter are the ones playing on the PGA Tour and washed up Aussie Rules players who go on to become placekickers in the NFL.

The following Monday, things got a little out of hand, at least for somebody as old as I am. After finishing our shifts, Cam and I were sitting around having our one free alcoholic drink that we are entitled to after work. That night, there happened to be some guys in the restaurant installing some carpet, and the bright idea dawned on me that we could just walk into the restaurant and borrow some beer out of the fridge. Fast forward a few drinks and about one hour and the both of us were pissing off the waterfront ledge into Victoria Harbour. With all of our new found alcohol-induced wisdom, we decided to catch a cab downtown to the Rooftop Bar. Unfortunately they would not let me in, as they said I was dressed too “casual”. Since when is beat-up sneakers, an over-sized sweater and cargo shorts not considered classy clothing? Anyways, we piled back in the cab and headed to the one place that’s always open and doesn’t give a shit if I’m dressed like a wanker….the Crown Casino. We had a few more pints at the bar upon arrival before Cam as usual wanted to gamble. We hit up the $5 blackjack table and promptly started losing. This was briefly interrupted by Cam knocking over a full pint of beer onto the felt table and the dealer having to summon his manager to get the felt squeegee followed by a hair dryer. Needless to say everyone else at the table was not amused and went to gamble their money away elsewhere. Cam and I sat there like a couple of stooges watching the dealer give the table the once over with the hair dryer for a good 10 or 15 minutes before resuming our losing ways. After this I promptly returned to my place of residence, a mere four later than I said I would and was rightfully so chewed out by my wife (this was without me even mentioning that I went to the casino!). Pretty sure I shrugged it off and hit the sack. That’s how I roll.
Last Wednesday, Leeanna and I went to check out my friend Antone play/sing/rap in his hip-hop funk band, Unleash the Nugget at a club called Miss Libertine’s downtown. It was good times all around, and I must give props where props are due, they are a pretty solid live outfit. Reminds me of just how pathetic my rap skills were back in high school! Haha. A bunch of my other co-workers also decided to attend, and we had a jolly evening of drinks set to a hip-hop soundtrack. Leeanna thought they sounded a lot like Gym Class Heroes, and I must somewhat agree, although I think Antone’s chances of dating Katy Perry a la Travie are pretty limited.

This brings us up to this week, and as per the last little while, the week started early, namely Sunday night. After a long shift for everyone at Medici restaurant (it was Mother’s Day, one of the busiest days of the year), we had to give our co-worker Mimmo a proper send-off as it was his last shift before he ventured onwards. Mimmo provided us with a shit-load of comic relief at work and was constantly saying “mamma mia!” much to both the chagrin and amusement of a lot of people. We had always tried to get him to come out drinking with us other nights but were never successful. Well Sunday we were successful and man was it funny. A group of us started at the bar next to our restaurant called the Lounge Hotel as our boss very generously gave us an open bar for an extended period of time. A few us made the most of this opportunity/abused it and got right tuned. After they closed up/cut off our free tab (truly awesome thing to have), we piled into a couple of cabs and headed to Bar Open to keep the good times rolling. Mimmo started getting pretty ignorant and at one point was trying to seduce everything with two boobs and vagina in his sight using his fresh-off-the-boat accent. This inevitably led to a gang of guys wanting to knock his face in and the rest of us trying to make sure this didn’t happen. How Mimmo made it home in one piece and on to a plane the next day, I may never know. What I do know is that I awoke the next morning, err afternoon, on Cam’s floor and was the victim of a famous end-of-night Brent blackout. We vegged out and watched UFC 113 (Machida vs. Shogun) before gearing up for another fun night of work!

That brings us to last night and the first of my two send-offs (supposed to be going for some more drinks tonight), featuring the affable bartending team of Cam and Nick. I had to work late, and they are both unavailable tonight so it was somewhat of a going away for me. At least that was the plan. By the time I met them at the bar after work, they were both heavily into the doctor’s sauce and there was no way I was ever going to catch up. So I actually behaved myself and can safely say the most interesting thing I did was try potato cakes for the first time, which appear to be some sort of Australian invention that is half giant french fry and half mutated/low-grade hash brown. I eventually made it home, although I was a half an hour late on my self-imposed curfew of 1:00am (had promised earlier in the evening). Understandably this upset Miss Leeanna as she had to work this morning and led to me finding a pillow and love note in the hallway of our apartment building. Love notes is what they call those things, right? Long story short, I weaseled my way into the apartment and did my best to explain that poor time management is just something that comes with the territory when you’re associating with a male Moreau. End of discussion!

That brings us up to today, and my final shift at work, which is forthcoming this evening. Should be good times! It sounds strange to say it, but I actually will miss working at the Medici and all the interesting characters I’ve met there in the last few months. It’s been one hell of a ride, and not always a smooth one, but in the end I can say it was a pretty decent place to work and contrary to some of my past blogs, I was treated pretty well, always paid on time, and got tons of free food and drinks. So I gotta show some love to the whole Medici crew, both past and present: Cam (Biggie Smalls), Antone (I got your back in the stall), Nick (sloppiest drunk ever), Zoe (section 2, what!), Leah (probably more sarcastic than me), Michelle (best drunk shift ever), Veenu (hands down my favourite Sri Lankan), Kurk (sometimes likeable asshole), Kristen (just babysit Kurk), Ben (as if someone from France plays ice hockey), Rosie (too nice for your own good, be mean), Majd (second best pizzamaker I know), Adam (I think Cambodian was the answer for you), and Mimmo (fuckin’ legend!). Everyone else it’s been real and all the best in your future endeavours…

Next up, visiting my parent's friends and a road trip. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi!!!