Every time I hear SWINE flu and PANdemic, I get a hankering for some bacon.

My new-found love comes wrapped in plastic, layered with chili sauce and stacked between two, steaming buns. Oh Oporto burger, how grand do I love your chicken hotness. If I could eat you all day, I would.


Oporto is actually the name of the franchise that grills me up a burger everyday, because I'm special (I wish). It specializes in Portuguese style chicken, burgers, chips and spicy chilli sauce. Being half-Portuguese, it makes me even more proud to stuff its amalgamation of deliciousness into my mouth and saviour its Portuguese-wonder.

Oporto has more than 100 restaurants in Australia and New Zealand, although a large majority of these are located in New South Wales. Clearly, University of New South Wales is the best for me; five minute walk from the nearest Oporto!

All I want to say is, Amo comê-lo, Oporto. (Portuguese translation: I love to eat you, Oporto)


A few more interesting discovers:

• 'Store Hours' are actually 'Trading Hours'
• Happy Hour is 4-6... Everyday!
• Open-alcohol in public is legal between sunrise and sunset
• Goon tastes like piss
• "My meat is on your table"
• The Big Banana is a big banana
• Seagulls = Bats
• The o-zone layer is a lie; sunscreen is your new best friend
• Maccas - Australian translation: McDonalds; synonymous with: Mickey-D's, McDicks
• Oporto chicken burgers are amazing =)

What a shit day.

I am not one to whine about tiresome things.... okay, that's a lie. Regardless, due to my laid-back nature, I find I am tolerant of random shitty-ness events happening to me, but when they come as a series of back-to-back-to-back shitness, it only leaves me to thinking, What the bloody hell?

Let's begin my rant:

• Only obtained four hours of sleep; thank-fucking-you 'delta-whatever currency risk exposure hedging' tutorial questions
• Had to wake up at 8:00 AM for a 10:00 AM class... that was only an hour long
• Went for a walk to Randwick... TWICE because it was too early for me to go to sleep at lunchtime
• Internet on campus won't work for me, only GOD knows why
• It's Thursday so a brand new episode of Supernatural should be on tonight, but it's not Thursday in North America
• I miss my dog
• I failed at cooking caramelized onions
• I can't shave, why....?
• Because the power in my apartment blew out!
• And my only option for movie-watching tonight is... 'New Moon'... ... ... BLEHHHHHHHH!!

As I was sitting in my apartment in the dark, I caught my mind wandering to the ceiling because watching the paint peel is one miniscule iota more entertaining than succumbing to boredom (too late), the epitome of 'Could this get any worst!' shined on me! Well, not literally; it was still pitch dark in my apartment. The best way I can describe the subsequent occurrences of random shitty-ness and the end result of it all is by a quote from the film The First Day of the Rest of Your Life that I saw at the French Film Festival:

"Hit rock bottom, and kept on digging."

However, it's simply just a day. It only lasts 24 hours, and like this shit day, it will soon be over and tomorrow everything will start anew. I'll be able to get a decent amount of sleep because I'm already dead-tired, MSN/facebook won't keep me up late because I have no power in my flat, I'm listening to an awesome remix of Daft Punk because the internet is finally working, and tomorrow I'm skipping class to go to the beach in order to bathe in 28 degrees of sexy sunshine all day :D

Props to Andy Gonsalves for perfectly portraying my blog.

Since day one, I have harboured a distaste in my mouth towards the Australian powerpoint. I dislike the shape of it, the inconvenience of it, the setup of it, and the submission of it to my needs; I would consider it a hate-hate relationship.

No, no... I'm not talking about Word Powerpoint, the user-loving software program that is the star of all my business presentations. I'm talking about the point on the wall where electrical power flows from, or as North Americans call it, the electrical outlet/plug.


Since my connectors are not angled crookedly, I was forced to purchase a power converter. I purchased one in Canada manufactured by Fusion (worthless piece of shit, would not recommend). However, due to its refusal to convert, I had to buy a new (working) one in Australia.

Wikipedia describes the normal relationship of plugs as, "An electric plug is a male electrical connector with contact prongs to connect mechanically and electrically to slots in the matching female socket." If this is the case, then what would my power converter be technically classified as, the electrical connector condom?

The worst about Australian powerpoints are the redundant on/off switch for each and every outlet, as seen in the photo above. I'm guessing they're there for safety reasons, but it is unbelievably annoying to wake up the next morning and finding my phone battery still dead because the power outlet was left in the 'off' position the night before. Even the hand-dryers in the public bathrooms are connected to outlets that have on/off switches. When would they ever need to be in the 'off' position? However, the set up is perfect for April Fools Day, devilishly turn them to the 'off' position and wonder if anyone notices.

Regardless, as long as none of my North American electronics are able to properly mate with any Australian plugs, I don't think the powerpoints or myself can move beyond this mutual feeling of loathing.

Finally, after many months of preparing and waiting, I have arrived in Aussieland!

Looking back in time from when I found out that I was going off to Australia to when boarding the Boeing airplane for a 16-hour flight from California, I've been through a helluva lot just to get to Sydney! To mention a few: a shit job, an amazing job, Walt Disney World in Florida, studying like mad, losing my wallet in the airport for 5 minutes and the World's Worst Landlords. But, I survived the good, the bad and the ugly.

Regardless, I'm glad to be out of the (once) harsh cold winter of Canada to the warm summer of Australia.
It has only been five days since the arrival, yet I've already met a lot of new people and discovered a lot of new things. I'll end off with a little sample:

• 'Ketchup' is actually called 'Tomato'; ie. Tomato Chips
  
• Tomato Chips don't actually exist in Australia
  
• Everyone drives on the left side of the road
• Unconsciously looking left to cross the road = Dangerous!
• Some Aussie's are hobbits - don't wear shoes in public
• Cereal clumps popularly come rectangular
• 'Bar Hopping' is also known as 'Pub Crawling'
  
• 1:30 is actually 'One-half' when telling time in Irish
• 'Type A' personalities are an@l
  
• Bats CAN attack
• A transit system exists that is actually worse than the TTC