Living in a tent & some Christmas times

Hey, so 818 page views so far!  I dunno, think it's kinda cool...

It's been 6 days, and they seem to just fly by.  I think blog posts go by the wayside because getting on the Internet is a special occasion around here.  I know I know, I should write the blog offline!  So since moving into Tent City, I've made a few more friends and learned a little bit more about some of the people that I already know.  Three people are now gone and moved on to bigger and better things; we sent off Asha and Jessie today, who are headed towards Sidney and will stop off wherever on the way.  Asha is from Chi-town and has been hobbling around Tent City on crutches since I met her.  Jessie is from Portugal and speaks English fluently; both great gals.

I still don't have any kind of mat to put down in my tent.  So as far as living conditions, things are still the same.  I have however bought $14 worth of food.  I'm interested to see how long I can go without buying food at a restaurant before I go back to the store.  I bought noodles and rice to be complimented 5 cans of tuna for $4.  The tuna is of all different flavors and I also have some sweet chili sauce to compliment the tuna/rice or tuna/noodles.  I just need to start being more conscious of my depleting cash flow until i get my first paycheck from Rae's.  I'm also still inquiring daily at reception about "work for accommodation" and I've also applied for a pay job here at The Factory.  The pay job that I'd be rocking out would be 10 hours/week for the accommodation and the other 20hrs to be paid $17/hr or so... not too bad for working on the same property that you live!

So Christmas happened; just like it did when I was in Florida several years ago, somewhat uneventful.  Although this time I had the Cavazzini Gang to spend with friends!  Christmas Eve, which many of the Germans believed to be Christmas was a blast.  The hostel put on a huge party; it was $20 for all you can eat and they seemed to have an endless supply of champagne ta boot!  Great food prepared by a catering company, and I had the chance to meet a few more people; including a German kid that reminded me of Tim Tebow.  There was live music and even a few of the kids from the hostel got up and jammed; it was pretty cool.  I forget what time the night ended, but I went to my tent and passed the F out.  Woke up Christmas morning and heard about some epic waves at Main Beach.  So, before I walked to Giac and Julie's I walked to Main Beach and sat down to watch the badass surfers for a little while.  It was amazing, I had never seen the water so high!  The waves were super big too, were talking 20+ feet for some of them.

I arrived at the Cavazzini's mid-morning and we headed out for a walk on a beach down the road, the waves still awesome.  I met Giac's parents and they were great, especially his mother's cooking.  Seems like anytime I'm over there, it's a ridiculous meal.  I had some more shellfish and continue to be just fine.  We had Christmas evening unwrapping presents, which I was surprised and happy to have a few too.  I had a bunch of knickknack stuff that Flinn undoubtedly picked up at the camping store.  There was definitely a theme to my gifts, and it was welcomed since I need all the help I can get in Tent City!  It reminded me of my own Mother; she has a tendency to give gifts in themes or sets.  I was surely thinking all of Christmas day that I'll never have the kind of Christmas I truly know to be a "Simminger Christmas" again.  Whether we were at "the old house" (Asbury Hills Dr. on the other side of Beechmont) or the Lancelot house, the story was always the same.  Patrick and I would... wait, scratch that.  I would wake up first and go run into Pat's room and wake him up.  As a small kid, I'd jump around and wake him up quite abruptly.  As I got older I realised that it was more advantageous to slowly wake him up.  Either way, we couldn't go downstairs to see the presents because Santa had put out the Wine Table bar stools blocking the stairs.  C'mon Santa, don't you know we're ready to see our mounds and mounds of presents?  (there were definitely a few years in there where we didn't see a whole lot of carpet in the family room)  We had to first go in a crack Dad's fingers to wake him up; a skill that I crafted and relieved Patty Boy of his duties at some point.  (just like mowing the lawn of course)  Anyway, once we got the go ahead, we went downstairs and put on some coffee for Father; one the few days that he has a cup.  Usually, we were able to get the folks to come downstairs by 10:30; although it seemed much later because the anticipation was killing us!  Throw the breakfast casserole's in the oven and now it's present opening time... That's my real Christmas morning in a nutshell; good thing we managed to take a decent amount of pictures over the years.
Oh well...

Oh yea, I skyped with my fam on the 23rd.  It was pretty cool to see them all at once doing the same thing I know them to do every year.  My cousin Johnny and his wife Jamie were in town with their two kids.  Johnny wasn't terribly enthralled with the beard; says he's a clean shaving kind of guy.  I think he realises I'm off my rocker anyway.  Danny and Dold were also present, as were Jeff and Becca.  Speaking of Jeff, I've currently got headphones on without any music while I type this.  A little trick I picked up in Hoboken.  And if I mouth the words I'm typing, it just looks like I'm singing along with the track.  The skype was cool though, but after a couple minutes it seemed like they didn't really care and it was like I was just hanging out with Dold at the kitchen table.

Took my first shower in the hostel yesterday.  Yeaaaaa, it had been a while but whatever, is what it is.  Have I mentioned that you can turn off each outlet individually in OZ?  It's really cool, and I bet it saves a ton of energy just stopping the flow of electricity into the outlet... those are just some oddball things

PEACE & LOVE