In This Economy?

When ITE decided to send me overseas to report on the international economy, I thought, “When did we get a travel budget?” But when they said I had to pay for it myself and be gone the last half of January, I knew they were just providing me with an alibi while they murdered my wife. So off I went.

Brief history

Australia was created by God as a prison colony for criminals with funny accents.

A national anthem was written (see below), and nothing else happened until I visited.

Landing

I arrived in Melbourne after a 15-hour flight stuck between two people and barely being able to move my legs and OH MY GOD, I WANT TO FUCKING DIE. PLEASE KILL ME, I cried. PLEASE KILL ME…

My first day was gorgeous and hot because it’s the middle of summer. That’s right. Down there, winter is summer, summer is winter, and women don’t gnash their teeth and gouge out their eyes when I walk in the room. Weird.

As an experienced world traveler, I did what every American citizen should do when setting foot on foreign soil: find a place to watch NFL football. I had to be at a casino by 8:30 a.m. Sunday and 5:30 a.m. Monday to catch the games, but I knew it would be totally worth it to watch the Cowboys destroy Old Man Favre and the Vikings. (POSTSCRIPT: The Cowboys owe me five hours of sleep.)

Yes, I spent 12 of my first 48 hours in Melbourne watching American football. When you find out how many hours of The Simpsons I watched, you’ll wonder why I even went to Australia. (30 hours. It was on all the time! Best trip ever.)

Things I like about Australia

Australian milk goat

1. Sales tax is already included in the price. So if something on a menu or price tag says $4.90, you pay $4.90. However, nothing on a menu or price tag says $4.90 because everything costs a lot. A skinny Jim Thompson crime noir novel? $25. A slice of pizza with goat cheese? $650 because you have to buy the whole goat, which turns out to be a southern brown bandicoot in a goat costume.

2. The cops don’t take shit. I heard multiple stories about police awesomeness, such as the man who was taken down and thrown in jail for the crime of yelling at an officer who ran a red light without using a siren and almost hit the man’s pregnant wife. And then there was the slightly drunk couple exchanging (explosive?) fluids with their mouths who were subsequently slammed to the ground and hauled in to the hoosegow. The moral of these stories? Keep your tongue in your pants. Or something like that.

3. All of the Americans there are named Zack. I met one from California while watching the Colts/Ravens game. Then I met another one from Dallas the next day during the Cowboys game. And though I normally don’t like to divulge such personal information, the Z in SurlyZ stands for Zack. The name “SurlyZ” is what we in the literary business call a “lie.”

Things I don’t like about Australia

Too many hot women wearing next to nothing.

Well… I’m sure there was something I didn’t like about Australia.

Coming soon

The stage is set for the next two chapters of my story. Consider this one the wooden dialogue and clumsy setup of “A New Hope,” which means the next part will be a kick-ass “Empire Strikes Back”-esque blog post, while the last part will be a “Jedi”-like letdown with stupid teddy bears dying in the forest and me giving in to the Dark Side.

Stay tuned. Or don’t. It’s no wuzzle off my wallaby. (That’s a fake Australian saying!)

Tags: AC/DC, Australia, bandicoot, Cowboys, Favre, Melbourne, NFL, southern hemisphere, The Simpsons

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 1:18 PM and is filed under Human Encounters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.