Princess Ivy and The Last Time I Did Something for the First Time

Once Upon a Princess

Ivy was here about two weeks ago. I've known Ivy from training back at work. She's moved on to bigger things and I'm here. She mentioned she wanted to come and visit and tried to time the trip to coincide with her birthday (Aug 22nd). Having Ivy here was great. it was nice to see someone from home and have great conversation and good food. In accordance with her request, I took her out to eat quite frequently. She had the best pizza and pancakes, and together we discovered a new restaurant in Newtown called South, where we tried Spatchcock, a small roasted chicken stuffed with risotto and herbs, with accompanying cheese dip. It was amazing. (pictures below. they are in reverse order, so start from the bottom!)

After the first day, Ivy earned the nickname "Princess", which I found really funny because it kind of reminded me of how I was and how I am now. The differences from Manila and here, which I always knew, became suddenly apparent in little ways. For example, the first few days I was forever cleaning up. I made the bed, like I do every morning, and I put the clothes away, the things that normally I used to leave behind. It got so that Ivy started calling me Mommy. Then she started cleaning up, too. There was also the fact that Ivy was always late and like a true Manila girl had no sense of time management. I can't say that Ive become an expert now that Im here but I think I've improved somewhat. That's not to say I wasn't late myself, or that Ivy was able to calculate the range of distance that needed to be traveled over time, which is something you cant really do unless you've lived here for a while. This made for hilarious results such as "I think I've just missed the Bondi Explorer." or "How far is ____ to ____" and "I'll be there in ten minutes" when it was actually thirty...

We had loads of fun, she did a lot of things on her own, like the blue mountains, the bondi explorer, the bridge climb, the zoo and by the end of the week she was an expert on train, bus and ferry taking. In the end I somehow managed to convince her to consider the Australia option vs Canada, which i argued would be too cold - she wore 6 layers on the ferry here, and I only wore about three - besides she didnt know too many people there, either.

Ivy and Sacha got along really well, they played the piano together and we ate out a lot. On her last night here, Ivy and I met up with Andee and ate at the most horrible restaurant in Leichhardt, which we went to because it was always full. It was completely horrible. Dry food, and nothing special for the price. Not a wide selection either. Why there are so many people, I have no idea.

The day she left, I took her to the airport and got her some Oporto (local fastfood that sells roast chicken and chicken burgers) to take home, as she'd been wanting to try it all week. Then I went home and spent nine hours watching season 4 of alias. (Sigh.)

The Need for Speed

Sometime ago, after chatting with a friend of mine on the internet, we brought up the topic of Speed Dating. He had tried it before and found it fun. He didnt meet anyone that interested him romantically, but he had so much fun he recommended it. So Sacha and I decided to give it a go. We signed up, and were supposed to be joined by Jojo but he tried to sign up too late and it was full by the time he got in. Last night was one of the funniest experiences I've ever had.

The way speed dating works is like this. You sit on a chair and you all have numbers and a card. I was number 12, Sacha was number 11. So a guy sits down, you talk for 7 minutes, then the bell rings and he gets up, leaves and the next one comes along. At the end of the night, you check the numbers on your Match Card corresponding to the ones you like, and if they also checked their cards, its called a "mutual match" and you get their email address/they get given yours so that you can meet up.

I didn't get any mutual matches (sacha had two), but it didnt matter because I had so much fun and we made new friends among the girls. Aside from that, the consensus that no one there attracted us romantically. They were all friends material, so all the ones I checked were potential friends.

When the whole thing was over, we all met up in the bathroom to talk about the guys. There was only one remotely cute guy in the group and I think i may have scared him because of my discussion on how I thought that Aussie guys didnt do anything but try to make girls laugh and couldnt maintain serious conversations. I did tell him he was funny though.

There was this one guy who was so nervous he was shaking so much - everyone commented on that - I had to say, its okay, dont be so nervous (pat, pat), you should smile more. There was this indian guy who said "Kumusta" and said boldly, "Do you Like Me!" and I said, "uhm, I think we could be friends". He later told sacha, "I think you need to gain weight." (Helloooo!!!) There was this arrogant law student who was publishing a book on political parties, was a serial speed dater and was so full of himself. We talked a bit about harry potter and later on as he left he said "See you soon, its nice to meet people that read" and I didnt check him because, well he was full of himself.

There was this trio of crazy italian guys who were sober when they started but got funnier and flirtier as they went along. One of them asked me out, I said, "Maybe!" and I didn't think he was serious. He reminded me so much of the boys back at home, like an old friend who made me laugh. There was a french guy (who matched with Sacha) who I spoke to about futbol, because no one likes futbol in this country. There was a guy in a pink shirt who was funny but I thought was gay, an english guy who was a bookie and was only in the country for three weeks and who disappeared after the break, a guy who worked with weather satellites and one who was doing a postgraduate study on aging.

After the event, Sacha and I went out with our new friend, Rose, who is a primary school teacher planning to go to Africa in the next year or so to teach there. We had spanish tapas and talked about relationships, the difficulty in making friends once you're older and travel and generally all sorts of things. It was fun. We are making arrangements with Rose and her friend Megan to watch Mechants of Bollywood. Rose also talked about another speed dating agency that customizes things according to your interests and they have different ones with activities, and dates with cuisines, etc. Sacha and i agreed that it would be fun to give it another go sometime in the future, but not too soon. It was a great laugh.