Mistress Ketchup Quite Contrary

This weekend has been a whole other experience in its own. Filled with mature decisions, philosophical conversations and intellectual enlightenment.

Yeah. That's a lie. I had a ton of fun this weekend. Nothing intellectual about it. Just pure stupid, drunk fun.

My first day back in Coogee after the festival was one of much sleep. I didn't get out of bed until 11. It was glorious. After I got up for a few, I decided to take a nap. I was pathetic. I knew I didn't have to be at work until 5pm, so it wasn't a big deal -- no obligations makes Mariah a boring girl.

Going back to work was actually good. I enjoyed everyone I worked with and we closed a 1/2 hour early. Basically, we close when no one is in the restaurant, regardless of time. And I still made decent tips. Lisa, one of the girls I work with, told everyone to meet at the Coogee Bay Hotel (CBH) for drinks after work. I went home, changed and met Pedro, Lisa, Kate (another American girl) and Christian in the Beer Garden. It was crazy packed, but they had a nice table that faced the ocean. As soon as I got there we started to play drinking games. When did I enter a sorority? I don't even know.

Some random stranger next to me decided to strike up conversation. He was from Canada and really bizarre. He asked me what city I was from to which I responded Florida. He proceeded to yell at me because "THAT'S NOT A CITY." So I told him Jacksonville and he said that's not really Florida. Florida is like...Miami. Shut up, Canady. He was with another guy from Scotland and a girl from Canada as well. Our conversation ended there.

Of course, alcohol consumption was flowing, so what to do next? Ah yes. Spin the Bottle. This was Lisa's idea -- hmm...wonder why. Will explain in a minute. Promise :-) At first no one wanted to really play so there was a lot of hesitation. But eventually we all got drunk enough so we were all kissing each other. I kissed Pedro, Christian and another co-worker Joe (who showed up later on).

Christian and Kate. I love Kate's gangsta pose in this one. She's hardcore.

Pedro. Drunk.

No matter what. I couldn't get a pic of Lisa.

Not even this one.

Joe & Cookie.

Lisa & Joe kissing. This is for blackmail later on.

Remember Canady? Yeah, well his friends left him and he started to talk to me again. He was really annoying, but I dealt with him. I guess he decided to compliment me by telling me he knew three things about me.

1. I have nice hair.

2. I have nice eyes.

3. I have good skin.

Seriously?

His friends came back and the girl sat down next to me asking me if she should date the douche. I told her two words. Two very important words that my friend once to me.

"RUN AWAY."

What happened next? She didn't run away. Or perhaps she did, but she ran away with him. Leaving the Scottish guy with...who else? Me. Stewart and I got to talking and ended up hanging out the rest of the night. I think all we talked about was how weird his friend is and how I have nice boobs.

Score 1 for Mariah.

Drunk Face!

Stewart!

Awww! Haha!

Only one thing scandalous happened. Pedro and Lisa started making out. Whoops. Kate told me Pedro still kind of has a girlfriend -- and they're all friends. Uh oh. More blackmail!

Saturday wasn't very different from Friday. I slept in til 11:30. YES! It was awesome. Although I did finally get myself out of bed, did my laundry then met up with my new friend, Murray.

He's Australian, very nice and lives about 45 minutes outside of the city in a place called...Brooklyn. He's in finance, but does DJing on the side. His favorite singer is Michael Jackson -- no seriously, he's obsessed. "Shomowa!"

He picked me up at the train station and took me back to his place. I met his older sister Kathy, her boyfriend Bruce and his dog, Gypsy. They live in this really cute house right on the lake that overlooks the harbour. Tons of boats, great view, awesome lifestyle. Only thing. Brooklyn is very small. So small that there's only 2-3 restaurants and you still have to drive to get there.

Murray took me "into town" and we walked around the lake. There were a lot of people bringing their boats in. It was really awesome. I want to go back and do some kayaking on the river -- if Murray will have me back. I might just show up. Hmmm....not a bad idea.

After we walked around, we went to the "local pub" and decided to have dinner there. I ordered something I thought that would be simple -- Local Blue Swimmer Crab Salad. Sounded good, thought it'd be the healthier option. Oh. It was. Except. I had to work on the crab like it was my last meal on a deserted island. It took me about an hour to eat the damn crab. It was rather embarrassing honestly. Not quite the 1st meal you want to have when you're hanging out with someone for the first time. *hangs head* pitiful.

Big Rock.

Extreme Close-up by Murray

The lake

I thought it was cool?

Murray drove me home, thank goodness I didn't have to take the train back to Coogee alone. I had to be at work at 7am -- booo! -- so I needed some sleep. Not really. I mean, I have only been sleeping in til 11. Pathetic.

Had a tough day at work thanks to the boss man. He's such a dick (hm, I never use that word, eh?) and I think he still thinks I'm too new to work anything. One thing I've learned, if you aren't running around pretending like you're working, you'll get sent home. So we all just run around, looking busy (regardless if we are or aren't) so we can make our time and a half. It's kind of sad.

The highlight of my work day was the sound of sirens. No, not like ambulances or police sirens. The sound of a siren going off because there's going to be a terrorist strike, or a tornado has touched down, or a warning for a tsunami. Except it has nothing to do with all these natural (or not so natural) disasters. It has to do with something pretty typical in Australia. At first, I was confused because I had never heard that siren before -- I had no idea what it meant. Then everyone in the restaurant stood up and went straight to the doors and windows. Everyone was looking out towards the ocean. I just happened to be bringing drinks to a table and overheard what the fuss was about.

Shark sighting. It was crazzzy and, frankly, scary to see all the people swimming as fast as they could towards the shore. I never saw the shark (boo), but was a bit shook up. Thankfully no one was hurt.

Oh. That reminds me. When we were at the festival, our stupid boss had to change out the gas tanks and almost blew up the tent. The first day we were there, one of the guys (Jason to be exact) set the tent on fire. It was blazing and we had to scramble to find the fire extinguisher to put it out. I handed over the extinguisher. I saved the day. I win.

Anyway...the second day, Chris was switching out the propane tank and all of the sudden we heard a loud gas sound. I just stood there watching then looked up to see everyone running as far away from the tent as possible. Huh? Oh sh!t! RUN! I hesitated for a minute then figured out that the whole tent was in jeopardy of blowing up. Duh. Luckily nothing happened, but I was shaking for a bit afterwards. I thought I was about to get blown up. Awesome.

Tonight (Sunday night), I met up with a buddy -- Blain from Canada. You may remember him from Christmas. He was one of the guys on the couch on the beach. We've been facebooking and we decided to hang out tonight. He suggested we go to Darling Harbour and have dinner at a place called Hurricanes. It. Was. Scrumptious.

Best. View. Ever.

I wasn't ready for the pic to be taken!

We ordered ribs. Hi, thighs. Nice to see you again.

Darling Harbour at Night.

We took this ourselves. Not too shabby!

The best part was my bus trip out to Central. Some guy's phone kept going off -- doing this really annoying sound everytime he got a text message. I was listening to my ipod, so I just turned it up. The bus driver didn't have it that easy and ended up stopping the bus. Just stopped the bus in the middle of an intersection and told the guy to turn off his phone. The guy said absolutely not. They went back and forth for a little bit, then some lady behind me started cussing him out. She was yelling so loud and hard she was literally spitting on me. "Turn off your effing phone! F You Mate!" I was kind of hilarious. Eventually they stopped yelling and the bus driver started driving again. Then, the girl got out of her seat and took her jacket off. I was like OH HELL NO! I thought it was on. Turns out the guy got off at the next stop and she ran after him and hawked a BIG loogie on him and told him to F off. She was livid. And the bus driver was totally on her side.

"That guy is lucky I'm in uniform..."

Holy God. What is up with the aggression, people?! Then some guy got on the bus at the next stop and told the lady she needed to shut her mouth. He hadn't even witness what had happened earlier. The bus driver told him to shut up and sit down. It was awesome. I can't even repeat the words that were exchanged between these two people. And they were easily in their mid-to-late 30's. Nice.

That was my weekend. Had a really good time and look forward to doing/experiencing more things like that! Trying to live it up in Sydney. Trying -- at least my fat lip is gone!

In other news, my Uncle Craig (Stan Adams) suffered a massive heartache this past week. He was rushed to the hospital and was very fortunate to have gotten there when he did. He has a stint in one artery and should be getting another one in 4 weeks or so. He's doing much better, but please keep him in your thoughts. It was tough to hear about him, but I'm really really happy to hear he's going to make a full recovery. I was worried and wasn't sure what was going to happen next or what I would do. So please, no one get hurt while I'm gone. And I mean it damnit. Please be safe.

Home, Home on the Range...

Okay. So maybe it wasn't a range or home, but it was in a valley - a hot, steamy valley of Aussies. And. It was pretty freakin cool.

Man. Where to freakin' start. Okay. Here we go. This is going to be a long one.

After working 3 hours on Sunday (yeah, wasn't so happy about that), I waited for Melanie to get off work so we could book it to Peats Ridge Music Festival. We caught our bus, went straight to Central Train Station, hopped a train and off we went. It took about an hour to get to Gosford and from there we took a cab to Glenmore Valley Horseriding. This is where the experience began.

We met an awesomely nice cab driver who told us all about his travels as a yout and how he's been a cabbie for 4,000 years. He told us what places to definitely check out and what not to (ah-hem, Ayers Rock...most Australians haven't even visited. It's just a typical tourist spot and is literally, a rock just...chillin).

Then he waited for us while we got our tickets, drove around the horse farm where not one person could really tell us where to go. Seriously? Don't you guys work here? Hmm..I guess the "festivities" had already begun.

The cab driver dropped us off where there was supposedly going to be a bus to take us down to the valley. Which. Never. Came. We sat in the heat, talked to some guy who had been working there since Boxing day and wasn't leaving anytime soon. Could we sense he was a bit...hmm..bitter? Yes.

Then. Randomly. Some lady shouted -- "HEY! Hop in my van, I'm not a hippie serial killer! I swear! Here, have some brownies!" Okay, maybe that's not what she said..but that's sure how it felt. Here's a picture.
BTW. Melanie is sitting on a mattress -- the hippie driver's mattress -- the mattress she'll be sleeping on for the next three nights. Awesome.

After about 3 hours (which should've taken 15 minutes), we get down to the bottom of the mountain. All the while, she was telling me to NEVER hitchhike in OZ. Hm. Ironic.

Now, we finally arrive at the festival.

Our morning commute.

Hula Hoop Workshop

The Chai Temple. Notice everyone taking their shoes off before they go inside. This place smelled of Indian food.

Thinking I would break my neck.

A contortionist show we watched on one of our breaks.

This girl was selling her organic balls. No. I'm not making that up. Plus, she's completely painted from head to toe -- what is it? I don't know.

Ever see Party Monster? This is them. No. Seriously. They were always dressed to the nine.

This is their flyer. They handed out lollies before their..show? I don't know. I left before they started. But I did take a nice nap on a body pillow stuffed with mismatched foam. It was actually delightful. I think anything at that point was nicer than the ground.

What was our next stop after arriving? To find Mr. Chris Taylor immediately. The boss guy. He was nice, his wife was super cute and there were a bunch of guys helping setup. BTW. Nothing had really been setup -- and we opened in the morning. We were a bit scared.

He had one of the guys, Jason:

take us to our campsite, setup camp and then come on back. He showed us the ropes (sort of) and fed us corn on the cob with a stick in it and baked potatoes with cheese and beans on top. Definitely different, but it was free and it was food. We drank some wine, chitchatted then we were all sent off to go to sleep. We had an early 7am call the next day.

That, Ladies and Gents, was the best night of sleep I had while camping. It was quiet, calm and relaxed. Beautiful and serene, if you will. I would never see that sleep again.

Here's a nice snippet of what our toilets were like...compost toilets. Nice.

The next day was interesting. I'm going to be very candid, regardless of who reads this, because I've already been paid, but man-o-man, Chris was....brutal. I can understand why, but talking down to people isn't very business-savvy. And that's something Chris did and did very well. He had no problem telling people they were "young and had a lot to learn." I've dealt with people like before in my life and I know how to handle people like that. Plus, this is his business, he's going to do what he needs to do in order to make money. I just have to abide by his rules in order to get paid. No prob.

Melanie didn't really get that concept and took most of what he said to heart. Thus, creating a bit of conflict between the two. Whatevs. Not my prob, moving on.

It turns out, Chris really had too many people working for him because not only did he have backpackers (7 total), he had also invited his friends to help work the event. We were not that busy. Not busy enough for all of us who were money hungry and willing to work 16 hours -- which I did two days worth. Working from 7:00am until 2:30am (with a few breaks in between) back at 7:30am the next day. Hey. I was there for money. Nothing more.

I could go on and on about the things I saw, experienced, but all-in-all, the people at this festival were a delight. No lie. They were the friendliest bunch of people I had ever met. I had so many conversations with all walks of life, it was refreshing to meet people like that. If I had worked this same festival in America, it would've had a different vibe. People were carefree and easy going -- which I think anyone who went to this festival would've been like -- but there was just something there that would've been missing in America. No matter what, everyone was in high (no pun intended) spirits and just so freakin friendly. It was awesome.

Here are a few bullet pointed things I experienced -- if you want elaboration...feel free to comment and I'll explain.

1. I camped. For four days. And. I. Loved. It. Don't ask questions, just accept it. It was the best camping experience ever.

2. I saw the biggest Huntsman Spider in my life. And he wasn't as intimating as I expected. Probably because I was with people.

3. I worked two 15-1/2 hour days, one 14-1/2 hour day and half a day on my last day. I made $750 cash. Not too shabby. Plus I got to go to a music festival for free and met a shitload of people who made me realize...damn. I like people. And I might be damn good at sales. Oh God.

4. I took the coldest shower of my life. All the while there was a dying, twitching bug at my feet -- I watched him the whole time. Never took my eyes off him.

5. We camped near the Drummer's Circle -- that was a stupid idea. They drummed all night long. New Years Night was by far the worst, no one went to bed. Not one single person. I heard a fight ("DON'T YOU EVER EFFIN DO THAT!" "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!") And I also heard one guy who was screaming at the top of his lungs some drumbeats. It was an experience.

6. In this hippie festival, there was a rapper, BuckCity. He was pretty good (UPDATE: See video below!), was from Jersey and kept saying how this lady looked at him and scuffed at his shoes. No one wore shoes at this fest. No one. Plus, he gave a shout out to the only other black guy at the festival. It was really funny.

This guy was rolling a crystal ball around during the Rapper's song -- it was pretty interesting to watch.

7. They had my favorite. Electronic Dance music at night. I only got to dance once -- just after the new year and it was amazing. I would've been on the dance floor the whole night if I wasn't focused on money.8. I met a guy (probably about 45 years old) who loved me for my accent. His wife is from Philly and he really wanted corn, but didn't have enough money. So he gave me $2 and told me to hold on to it as a deposit for him to come back tomorrow. He took my hands in his hands, asked my name, told me his was Jay and it was lovely to meet me. Chris let me keep that money as a tip. Ha!

9. I developed a crush on one of the guys -- James. He was really cute, french and english (or something) and was just genuinely nice the whole time. Nothing came of it and nothing ever would...just nice to have a crush.

10. There was a guy named Jason who I thought was nice and semi-attractive, but he turned out to be a dick. Plus, he disappeared for awhile...came back sniffling and I jokingly said, "You been doing coke?" And his response was, "Is it that obvious?" Wow. Wasn't expecting that one. Then afterwards he yelled at me for doing my job. He was a dick. He and Chris got along great.

11. The first day it rained, we had very little visitors. The second day it was hot as H and we had several people desire juices and smoothies -- but no matter what we did, Chris got on us for not bringing in more people. BTW. I can make a killer juice/smoothie now.

12. I had a crazy mo-fo hit on me. His name is Jean and his hair is bigger than mine. He came back 3 times and finally awkwardly asked for my number. It was very awkward. Being polite, I gave it to him. Now I'm regretting that decision.

13. There was a hot guy who worked in the Kiosk two over. He kept giving me the "eye" -- later he told me he thought I was hot. Ummm. Ah-hem, how in the....?? I looked like a Mom.

Like a 40 year old Mom with no fashion sense. Plus I was camping. Ew. We met up after the New Year and he immeditately asked me to make-out. What is up with this crazy Aussies? Whatever happened to being asked out on a date...seriously?! Anyway, he wants to hang out. We'll see. At least he's hot. One point for Mariah.

14. Saw a cool electronic indie band called Parades in the Underworld Tent (each tent had a theme). I loved them when I was listening to them, but found them on myspace and am not really a fan. The heat must've gotten to me.

15. New Years was different. They have this huge masquerade parade where everyone dresses up. They had a tent where you could make your own masks...

so Melanie and I were determined to make one the day of the 31st. We didn't get our break until 4:30 and the tent was closing up shop. We were PISSED. But they had some masks for sale, so I bought one. Let's just say. It was a hit :-)

Meow!!

We worked until 11:50pm -- then walked out in front of our "food stall" and all of the sudden it was 10-9-8-7-...and I'm like WHAT??! ALREADY?!? BAM. Then it was New Years. We all hugged, I kissed this 54 year old guy named Alan who was working the stall next to us, his co-worker and that dick, Jason -- right after he had yelled at me. I hugged a guy named Leo. Hugged Melanie and the two other German girls we were working with. One of the German girls, Anya, had tears in her eyes. It was actually very sweet.

This is Anya's twin sister Steffi. Note the banana hanging from her hat.

We went right back to work, served a few people and then the music got to me and 54-year old Alan went with me to dance. He was terrible, but I freakin' loved it and stayed for a good 20 minutes. Jason was nice enough to let me leave. It was awesome. Not a bad New Years -- better than last year -- and that's all that matters.

16. Our last day there SUCKED. I had to be there at 8am -- working the smoothie stall and everyone and their mom wanted a freakin juice. The boss LITERALLY sat on his ass the whole time drinking beer. His wife was sick from a hangover and couldn't do shit but look miserable. It was just me and Anya trying to make 9347612937123 people a damn juice. We pulled through, but there was one point I thought I was going to die. I hadn't drank any water and I was about to keel over and pass out. I was in the process of taking an order but decided to hold up my finger and have a whole glass of water. Much needed. One guy, the only guy at the festival to do this, got pissed because "I've been waiting 30 minutes for a banana smoothie!"

I just looked at him and said, "Sir, we called out for a banana smoothie awhile ago and you weren't here, so we gave it away. We'll make you one right now." He continued to argue with me and I just argued back. It was actually funny. After such a good vibe from everyone at this festival, I was getting shit from some douche bag that ordered and walked away. Did he want us to just let it sit there and get separated? Apparently so. I laughed. I wasn't nice at all. Hey, guess what? I could give a shit if you come back to this food stall -- it's my last day bitches!

I was gone by 2pm. And it was glorious. I had money in hand. I was sitting down. And I was going back to my place at the beach. Need I explain more? Nope.

The funny part about this picture is not my face. But the girl behind me. I hate this pic of me, but she makes the picture. CAUGHT! I had to keep it.

ANYWAY -- that was my Festivus for the Rest of Us! Now I'm off to work. Yup -- working again. Money money money! Ah, it really does make the world go 'round.