Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Hey thought I’d just throw you an update as to what’s going on down here in the big S.

Good
I went to a physio therapist today and got my knee taken a look at.  The good news is it’s nothing serious.  Its patellar tendonitis but it’s brought on by the fact that my hips and calves are really inflexible so I just have to work on my flexibility in my hips and calves for starters and also work on getting my knee back to 100%.  The physio therapist was great.  She knew lots about sport and such and had a real understanding for crazy people like myself that do stupid things to themselves in the name of fitness.  I’ve got another session on Monday where we’re going to start working on increasing my knee strength.  It already feels good just after one session of getting it stretched out and massaged.  As for now I’ll just be stretching and keeping away from squats and running.  I’ve substituted running with swimming, which I’m rather enjoying and even though I suck at it I think that I may have finally found a sport for myself.  I think it’s kind of like golf, as it’s an individual’s sport that you can play/compete against yourself and others.

Bad
The bad news is that it costs $69 a hit for a session so that means an end to lunches out and expensive restaurants.  I was thinking about dipping into my savings for this but I figure it’s more of an interesting and learning experience to do it with what I make instead.  Unfortunately to top it off it’s been really crappy weather here the last two day’s and we’ve closed shop pretty early so I’m not getting as much time in so next weeks budget will be a bit tight.  I was thinking that maybe my AB health would cover it but I highly doubt that.
Great
As for the great news, I’ve started to get together with one of the guy’s from Crossfit Sydney down here and am starting to train with him.  Today was our first session and it was rad.  He works as a life guard at this huge Aquatic/fitness facility about a 15 minutes walk away and can get me in for free anytime I want so long as he’s working.  It was my first workout in a proper gym in ages and it felt great.  Along with the workout and the physio I have a feeling I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow.  It’s great, for the first time ever I have a training partner and to top it off it’s another insane nut case that does Crossfit; can’t get much better I say.

That’s about that I can think of for right now.  I need to start writing down some of my crap so that I type it out.  I also need to get some pics of work and my view from work.  Work has been good and life in my flat has been fun even though I pretty much just sleep there and stop by to eat, other then that I’m either down at the pool, at work and now at the Aquatic/fitness facility hurting myself.  I figure that was the biggest thing that I was missing about from back home, a proper gym.  Sorry friends and family but what can I say, I love it.

Troy

This is a bit of a quick update just letting everyone know what’s happening in my little world.  The last couples weeks have been great, after getting off of KI I spent a week in Adelaide, laying back, relaxing and treating myself to good things.  I went and saw 2 movies, X-men 3 and Mission Impossible 3 and treated myself to 3, yep 3, good meals in nice restaurants, it was a blast.  I thought X3 was alright, not as good as the 2nd one but still good fun, as for MI:3 I thought it was really cool.  Lots of explosions, insane over the top stunts and just pure cheesy action, just what I wanted after reading way too many well written books.  For my dinners, I went to two Thai restaurants and an Indian place.  All 3 were great but the first that I went to was the best but I’m not too sure if that’s because the whole meal was very built up after an amazing day.
 

One of the Bestest Days Ever
June 15/06 was a very good day.  I woke up nice and early with the complete intention of having a workout but after realizing how cold it was I said screw that and put it off until the afternoon.  I guess it had hit like a 23 year low in the city that night, not too sure if it froze or not in the city but I think it got dam close.  I got out of bed, had a long hot, high pressured shower and sat down afterwards to a great cup of this Kenyan roast coffee that Kate brought back for me from South Africa, it is amazing stuff.  I then proceeded to make my rounds around the town taking my time, doing a couple little errands in between things that I wanted to do.  This was one of the first times I’ve just taken my time in the city in ages and it felt good.  After a couples little errands and homework I hit the movie X-men3.  It was good fun I thought.  I was pounding my head into the seat in front of me trying to figure out who it was that was playing Beast, the big blue guy.  I finally put the voice to the face and realized it was Side Show Bob, aka Kelsey Grammer, I nearly laughed out loud.  Afterwards I hit went back to the hostel and had my self a nice cup of coffee, it was delicious, from there I went to a local soccer pitch for a workout.  I used to always go there when I was in town for my workouts and I had hid a cinder block in the bushes to workout with back in March and lone behold it was still there.  Bonus.  After a great workout I headed back to the hostel and proceeded to shave my head.  Kate let me take an old pair of clippers that were kicking around at her place and earlier in the day I found a place called “Shavers” that was dedicated towards men’s shavers and shaving needs where I bought a guard for it.  I hadn’t had a hair cut since I left Kangaroo Island, the first time way back in the beginning of April so it was much in need.  After that I had another really long, really hot shower and finished it off with a nice smooth shave.  Wonderful.  Next I again, proceeded to sit down and again have a nice cup of Kenyan deliciousness, really taking my time with the cup and enjoying its flavors.  Man I love coffee.  It’s not that I’m addicted to the caffeine, I just love the taste.  Anything other than straight black is a travesty.  After that I went out and treated myself to something that was in dire need of being done.  A good meal.  I had been scoping out a couple places the night before of where I was planning to break the chain of only eating out of a grocery bag and finally made my choice at a place called Tiffany Thai Cafe.  They had a special on for $20 which included a main and an entree.  I ordered the Thai Salad, which was with cabbage, cucumbers, capsicum, prawns, chicken, cashews and a nice spicy Thai sauce.  There were a couple other odds and ends in there too and all in all it was an amazing salad.  For the main I ordered the green curry with Kangaroo meat which nearly knocked my socks off.  I love my curry and cooking one up so going to a nice place and seeing how they do it was really cool.  A job well done and I should have gone there a couple more times but I decided to see what else the town had to offer.  After my great meal I went down the street to a nice little café and had myself a pretty dam good espresso, after which I was so hopped up in caffeine and just simply feeling great from an amazing day that I just about ran thru the streets with the music to Rocky playing.  Fortunately I didn’t because I would have been the only one who heard the music and would have looked completely insane.
Oh another fun little misadventure I had that day was just about getting into a fight with some dude on the street.  I think he was homeless or at least a moocher.  He came up to me with this bit wad of paper acting all nice and such asking for money, saying that his bills for his medicine has gone up and he needs some cash.  Now, why he came up and asked me I don’t think I’ll ever know.  Here I am, shit covered worn out old boots, a pair of old tattered jeans (my only pair), all scruffy still (I hadn’t saved my head or face yet) wearing an old jacket that I just bought for $10 at the Goodwill the day before.  I don’t think I look like I have lots of money in fact I probably looked like I should have been asking him to help a brother out.  I really don’t even let the guy finish off his sad sap story before I march off saying, “sorry man, I’m a poor ass traveler, can’t help you,” as I walk away and cross the street.  He then starts following me across the street giving me shit that I didn’t need to be so rude and that I should get back on that plane and f-off.  At this moment I start feeling a bit bad, yeah I guess I didn’t need to be so rude to the guy and such and he starts telling me that if I was anyone he knew he would have kicked my ass.  I start thinking that, yeah I probably would have deserved it and think that I must make all other travelers, Canadians especially look like shit.  He follows me down the shit for a ways giving me shit and I take it feeling like a complete dink the whole time.  We finally split ways and he still yells shit down the street at me and what not before he walks out of my life forever.  Again, why he asked me for cash I’ll never know.  Do I look like an easy mark or a sap?  I hope not.  Why not ask some dude with nice shoes and a suit and tie.  He’s obviously got cash.  So we part ways and I start thinking about the whole exchange feeling like a complete ass and how he was right that I didn’t need to be so rude.  It then donned on me.  F^ck him I think, I wasn’t the rude one, he was the rude one.  The guy came up to me, a complete stranger on the street and asks for money for absolutely nothing in exchange.  Bullshit.  He came up to me acting all nice and crap simple because he wanted something, MY hard earned cash, money that I worked and slaved away for so I can be out traveling the world, experiencing new things and broadening my horizons.  I met this French guy somewhere and someplace, I don’t rightly remember and the topic came up as to why the French come off as rude especially to strangers.  He replied that it’s not that the French are rude; it’s just that we have no reason to be nice to you, a stranger.  They don’t know you, they’re not your friend so why be should they be nice to you?  He went on saying that, most of the time when a stranger comes up to you being very nice, they almost always want something.  What better way to get what you want than being nice and polite?  Sure, after they meet you and because acquaintances with you and even friends, that’s when they will be nice, generous and polite to you, until then what’s the point?  What has this person shown or done to be worthy of their generosity and friendliness?  Good point Frenchy.
 

So Long Suckers
Finally it’s happened, after a week in Adelaide, relaxing I took off to Sydney and I am glad as hell to get my ass out of Adelaide and South Australia in general.  I got there back in January and save a short 3 week stint in Melbourne and Victoria, I have left for good.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice place and was extremely welcoming after spending two months in the freakin’ desert and outback, which I’ll rant about some other time.  So I arrived in Sydney on a Tuesday and hooked up with my coursin Mike, who let me stayed at his place while I search for a job.  I spent a couple day’s getting my things set up before I set out looking for work on Friday.  I handed out 10 resumes that day and by the end of the day found a job.  Monday morning I had like 4 people call me up asking if I was still looking for work so thinkgs went pretty good.  I got a job waiting tables on Darling Harbour/Cockle Bay at a cafe/restaurant called Harbour Side Pie Cafe.  It’s right on the water front with a whicked view of the CBD.  Again, Score.  My bosses are great people and so are all my co-workers.  We’re all pretty much backpackers working there save one guy who’s an Aussie but other then that it’s pretty much the UN there and that could be said for the entire city.  I swear there’s no Australians in this town.  So after much worrying and fears of the future I found myself a great job in a great place right in the heart of the city.  Eazy Peazy.  The pay isn’t the greatest, only $10 an hour but its under the table/tax free so it’s all good.  From what I hear as a backpacker I would be hit with a minimum of a 45% income tax.  Ouch.  I’ve had some of my co-workers say that they’re making more money at $10 an hour tax free then at like $17/hour.  Oh, and I also get tips but since most people don’t tip down here it’s usually nothing special, about $10 a night I’d say I average but hey, I’m not here for the money but for a good, no great time. 

Home
So after finding a job with no hassles I went about finding a place to live.  There’s tones of advertisements all throughout the city from anywhere in the free papers to on lamp posts so I had a feeling this was going to be an easy one.  I looked at one place and took it not wanting to have the hassle of looking at a million places that look exactly the same, plus it was a Friday and I had to be out of Mike’s place by Sunday. I found a placeright downtown Sydney, like a 15 minutes walk to work and 5 to Chinatown and Paddy’s market, it’s pretty sweet location plus there’s about a million amazing restaurants in the area and it’s got a pool and a gym too which were sort of the selling features for me.  It’s a 2 bedroom place that I share with 5 others.  I share a room with a Swiss guy, Lionel, there’s a Thai/Koren couple in the Master bedroom that I never see, an Indonesian guy in the den/sunroom and an English guy in the cublical style room that’s in the living room.  All this for a bargain price of $130 per week.  You’re probably thinking what a rip off and how I must be living like a sardine but really, compared to a hostel it’s 5-star.  Most hostels are $20/night ($140/week), you’re in a dorm style room with about 8-10 beds and share a kitchen with about 50 others so really, when you put it in that context it’s actually a steal of a deal.  I do wish I would have found a place where I was in the living room though as it would have been a bit cheaper and it’s really not that bad plus I’m practically never home.  I must say it’s nice living with a bunch of people, it’s nice to come home to a place to someone.  When I get back home and move out again, I’ll for sure get at least one roommate if not four.

Waiting Tables
Waiting tables is fun and stupid easy.  I’m taking orders and talking to people all day, how cool is that?  Now that I’ve got this skill under my belt I highly doubt that I’ll go back to drafting when I get back home but of course that’s a long way’s away, at least 3 months anyways.  I probably won’t make as much waiting tables as drafting but could probably make pretty close to and more important than money, I’d be doing a job that I thought was fun and would have my sanity unlike back in cubical world.  Plus I figure I could make some killer tips back home.  People here don’t tip or at least very much or very often and I can’t help but feel that if I was wokring for my tips I could make some decent money.  It pisses me off that they don’t tip too as down here, I have the accent and could milk it for all it’s worth.  Back home I don’t have it.  Thus far waiting has been a blast, a breath of fresh air, a great experience and extremely interesting.  By interesting I mean I am seeing things on the other side of the coin sorta speak and seeing it thru the eyes of the people serving me.  It’s amazing how one person with a shitty attitude can walk into the place and bring you down but how one really nice person can come in and brighten up your day.  Some day’s and people can drive your patients, like the other day when no matter how much conversation I tried to stir up with people or how hard I tried to get a smile out of them I couldn’t get anything other then, “I’ll just get the bill”.  It was like talking to a brick wall.  I also see the value of a tip too.  Again, it’s not requirred to tip down here and give the 10-15% like back home but the cheapness some people pull down here is just sad.  The amount of people that sit there and wait for their $0.50 to come back to the table is just sad.  It’s not an insult to me but an insult to them.  Everytime I go out to eat now my rule of thumb, down here at least, is give 1-1.5%, might only be a couple bucks but if everyone did that at the end of the night you’d get an alright haul and I know when I get those few dollars I’m pleased and I know so are the people serving me.

Knee
The wing to my yang.  The balance of my force.  The good to my bad.  My left knee has been giving me problems the last month or so.  I first noticed it when I stepped off the bus leaving from KI.  At first it only hurt in the morning when I started to walk around but got better thru the day.  After a bit of a warm-up and stretch I could still workout with it no problems but in the last little bit it’s become worse and I’ve now gone to the point where I’m only doing upper body workouts and have just bought myself a cheap knee support to give it some rigidity and keep it warm.  It’s helped a bit but walking around still gives me problems.  It probably doesn’t help that I’m on my feet 6-10 hours a day at work too.  I’m looking to make an appointment with a physiotherapist and will probably end up paying out of my own pocket and out of the teeth for this but I don’t want to go home.  A girl I work with, her roomie is a physiotherapist from France and say’s that she could arrange us to meet but I’m thinking that that could take a while so I think I’ll just pay and get in but I’ll talk to her first.  It’s funny the way we are how we go from, “my knee is sore”, to “oh my god, I’m going to have to go home, get reconstructive surgery, end my trip and never get a chance to see the world like I had planned.”  We’ll see what happens.  I think it’s patellar tendonitis but we’ll see what the physiotherapist says. 

Food
Although I don’t make very much and pay out the teeth for rent, since I don’t drink I am making more money than I anticipated and need to spend more, which is why I came to the city in the first place so I’ve decided to spend my money on food.  There are probably more amazing privately owned, unique restaurants on my street alone than in entire Edmonton so I figure I’m going to take full advantage of it.  I’ve been introduced to a number of interesting foods as of late like from my boss Jenny, who’s Korean I’ve discovered Kim Chee which is a pickled cabbage/spinich in a discustingly hot/spicy sauce.  It’s a staple in Korea being served with most meals and is amazing.  Last week Mike took me out for Japanesse and I had some Sushimi, which is raw fish thinly sliced.  It too was amazing and I see there’s a great Japanesse restaurant across the street from my place that has a pretty decent looking serving of it that I’ve been meaning to try.  I also found this really great and cheap sushi place down the road that had a pretty good Kim Chee, not as hot as Jenny’s homemade batch but still solid and they got these rolls made of rice paper with like prawns, beefs and veggies inside of them, they kick ass.  To top it all off since I work nights starting at 3or5, which at first I wasn’t too fond about but now see it as a good thing, I can go out for lunch which most restaurants have special deals with as much as $5 off the dinner meal and even a lunch menu with a lot of great deals.  So my goal is of now to get fat, well not really.  All the food in these places is pretty healthy and taste so dam good.

Google Earth Fun
Here are a couple google earth coordinates for people to play with:
“Aussie Home” lat=-33.8789035705, lon=151.207552046
“Work” lat=-33.8721643945, lon=151.199313658
“Snelling Beach” lat=-35.6674298545, lon=137.07330339
“Maslin House” lat=-35.2435607015, lon=138.476060012

Well this is a bit of a quick entry as I really don’t have much patients for a computer as of late and writing this much has been pushing it so I’m going to cut it from here and perhaps go look for some sushi or sushimi as I;m not at home right now but at my cousins new place out by Bondi.

Cheers

Troy