Weekend Wars

Hi everybody! Here is an update of what I have been up to.
The past two weeks have been quite hectic, but generally in a positive way. Last Saturday I tried my hand a busking in Freo. For those who do not know busking is the art of attaining currency through street performance. On Saturday morning I took the train to Freo (with guitar in hand) and set out for Fremantle, and hour from Joondalup. Fremantle is a very beautiful city (or is it a suburb?). I was told by my dear friend Matt that I need to hit the market if I wanted to do some good busking. When I arrived in Freo I had an amusing predicament of being told very very bad directions by several people that ended with me being on a bus that was heading out of town. It turned out that in actuality the market was just down the road from the train station. After making my way back into town I set up in the market and started crooning. My set list was a vast array of different genres that I chose expressly because these were the only songs I had played to death enough to feel comfortable playing in front of the public. As I was playing several friends from ECU happened to pass by and failed to pay me any money at all though they seemed quite entertained none the less. Immediately after this Matt and his entourage came whirring by on bicycle having just biked ten miles. They did not pass by with the express intention of seeing me play but did give me several dollars which I was thankful for. At the end of the day I made $15.50 for one hours work.
The next day was sports day between the school villages of Curtin ECU and Murdoch (three of the four main universities). This was a free event of fun and sports akin to the field days of elementary school. The signs advertised free food which sold me on the event. At our village roughly 20 people signed up of whom 5 actually arrived. This did not harm our school as a whole however as the Mount Lawley campus had 40 plus students arrive. I had a great time and made many a new friend and discover that while I suck at foosball I am not half bad at volley ball. ECU managed to lose everything except for tug of war which we won will amazing ease. Seriously, we just gave one tug and they all fell over. This could be on account of the fact that our team had several behemoths. I only hope that I did not blemish the view these students had of Americans these student had that day as I took to shout in a guttural voice “ER! CAN YOU FEEL IT!” at the opposing team every time (after just having missed ten consecutive balls,) our team made a score.
That night I was informed by my friend George (of England/France) that our marketing group had an essay due the next day that astoundingly we all managed to forget. He also informed me that he would be of no help because of work in the morning and our other team mate is a slinky (not very useful but fun to push down stairs). So I was up until 4 in the morning writing like crazy with one 1/3 of the necessary information at hand. When I woke up (feeling like a zombie) I finished the paper sent it in and crossed my fingers. I was pleased to receive an email from the instructor telling me that she quite liked the paper and that we were the second group to submit our paper.
This Friday Matt invited me to see his The Chemists and Pathway play. These are two local up-and-coming bands that he promised to know personally because he went to high school with them and played in a few bands with them. It was a very enjoyable night. As it turned out he did not only did he know these guys but they were all close friends. The bands themselves were pretty good, at little on the pop side but talented musicians. The great bit was that Matt made a point of introducing me to all of them. And they all thought it was awesome that I was from America and kept chatting with me. One guy even told me about a venue in Freo that has open mic.
Yesterday I went to the Perth zoo. I went with Georg, Simon (from Germany), and Jed (from Australia). We got there with only an hour left so we decided to stay a half an hour after closing and if anyone was to give us a hard time we would have the German speakers do all the talking and speak English badly at that.
Today was sand surfing. We were promised that for $5 we would be taken to sand dunes with sand boards and spend the day sliding down them at high speeds. Today I learned that weather conditions that everywhere else in the area or a little on the brisk and damp side are nightmarishly brutal in the dessert. On our way there, there was some light rain and some wind. The guys at the boarding renting place said that (because of the weather) if we returned the boards with in the hour no charges would be given. Having lived in Michigan most of my life I spent the bus ride there with all the bravado a guy well weather in the cold of negative degree weather and lighting storm blizzards would understandably show in the face of some wind and rain. I had my ego put in check. Not only was it really cold and I do mean cold the wind was blowing the sand at us at an intensity usually used for cleaning industrial structures. As I got to the top of the surprisingly high dunes I realised that my board was working as a sail. To onlooker I must have looked as though I was impersonating Charlie Chaplin. I kept walking forward and finding myself either staying in the same place or moving several feet backwards. I could not see because the sand would blow into my eyes and I could only try to remove it with my sand covered hands. On top of all of this I had dressed as though I was going to the beach with a t-shirt swim suit and flip-flops. The sand boarding was itself heaps of fun. Because of the rain the dunes had taken on the consistency of wet concrete so as I would go down half way to the bottom my board would stop and I would tumble head first down a fifty foot dune in the manner of a barrel. After 20 minutes of this (and losing all the blood in my feet) I rushed back to the bus. After getting there I noticed I had left my soda at the top of the dune so I ran back to the top to retrieve it. A few student had been smarter and dressed in warm clothes so they lasted 10 minutes longer than me. On the way home I assumed the fetal position.
Yours truly,
Ryan