Food!!! And Thailand. And Taxes.

We finally bought food! I know that this is exciting to you all. Because it means that I may survive the next four and a half months. Jenn and I finally decided that we should man up and pay for some groceries. It was horribly expensive but what can you do. We have enough food for at least a week and some of it should last all semester. We were at the checkout long enough to make friends with the guy at the cash register. I’m pretty sure he was laughing at us for all of the food we bought… It was rather tough to carry all of it back to the house. And of course the tram took forever to pick us up since we actually needed to use it. But we have food! We also decided that really, Wooly’s should just pay us since we spend so much time going in and out of their store. It’s kind of silly. And I honestly think that some of the workers may have noticed at this point. But it’s kind of where you go for everything and we currently have nothing. So there we go. At least twice a day.

After some fantastic chicken and veggies and some terrible rice since I got really impatient, we went out to look for some school supplies for Jenn and some more kitchen supplies for me. We just wanted notebooks and pens for Jenn and a cookie sheet, measuring spoons and a few other small things like that for me. But today was our day to realize how expensive Australia is. We went to Target. We decided that we don’t like Target here. It’s so expensive! It seems more like a glorified JC Penny’s here. A lot more clothes and a lot higher prices. Unhappy Jenn and Meghan. There was definitely a point where we were sitting on the floor in the children’s stationary section (we couldn’t find/there isn’t an adult stationary section). It got fairly comfortable. We looked in several other places to no avail. We found one place with a very confusing amount of things that were on sale and clearly marked. Wooly’s of course had the school supplies but Jenn decided to wait a bit since we go there so often and there isn’t a huge rush since classes don’t start until next week. Weird thing that I didn’t expect: they use A4 paper here. I think that’s like the Asian standard, or at least I know from a friend that it’s the standard in Taiwan. Hopefully they don’t mind if I use my American notebooks since I may have brought some of mine along since I might be very picky about that sort of thing. 🙂

Since everything closes at 5 pm here on Saturdays and Sundays -_- We went home after going by Wooly’s. On the way we passed this crazy little store where they had been flagging people down with loud music and silly costumes since we first passed by. As far as I can gather it was this little Asian store’s going out of business sale. Since we had nothing better to do and I was kind of curious we decided to go in. It was kind of a fun store to just wander around in. It also helped that everything was 50% off. Jenn got herself a calendar and some folders (which we hadn’t been able to find anywhere else). I got myself a little notebook to replace the purple one I used to carry around with me that I lost at some  point and have been missing when I have to make shopping lists and such. That was a terrible sentence. I’m sorry about that.

Anyway, we had made plans to go out to dinner with our house mate from Sri Lanka, Mark, and his girlfriend. We ended up getting Indian food, which Jenn had never had before, and it was fantastic. We told Mark that we would appreciate recommendations on what to order and he ended up just ordering for us and then paying for our meal. He is seriously awesome. He even gave us a standing invitation to come visit him in Sri Lanka and told us we would probably only have to pay for a plane ticket if we went. It’s been really cool to talk with him and get his experiences since he comes from such a different background. He has a dream of coming to the US and getting a job where he gets to travel around the world. He is studying international business. He and his girlfriend are adorable, they’ve been dating for three years and she’s super quiet but seems like an awesome person too. I’m really glad we ended up with him as a housemate.

When we got home, Jenn and I decided to look into this fantastic trip to Thailand that the travel place IFSA had give us a presentation offers. It’s so cheap and sounds absolutely, ridiculously, once-in-a-lifetime amazing. Unfortunately, we also found out that airfare prices are absolutely crippling here. Yay taxes that are double the price of the actual ticket! Guess it’s time to look for a job… I’ve got to find a way to afford this trip!

Also, fire alarm went off today. Someone owes the fire dept. $600 for coming out to a false alarm. Jenn and I hid out at the McDonald’s down the street and used their free wifi until the awful noises stopped. 😀