When in Australia...

When in Australia, you must do as the Australians do...as hard as that may be for an American like me. Here are some of the differences I've discovered so far...

(this will be an ongoing post, so keep checking back)

• When you see signs for a "chemist" that actually means pharmacist.
• You don't ask to use the restroom, you ask to use the "toilet." Ew. I can't get used to that.
• Brekky = breakfast
• On almost all the resident mailboxes, there's a small sign that says "No junk mail. Thank you!" What?! You can do put that, and the mailmen will listen!? The US needs to get on that!
• Weather is in degrees Celsius. 29 degrees sounds cold, but it's actually 84*F!
• They use the metric system here. I don't like it. I thought the speed limit one day was 100mph, but it was 100km/h; which is roughly 62 mph...ha!
• When turning on the lights, down is on, and up is off
• Outlets have on/off switches too...
• There's no tax! Or rather, it's already added into the price...so what you see is what you pay.
• There's no such thing as pennies here. Nor is there $1 and $2 bills; instead they have $1 and $2 coins.
• They drive on the left side of the road, but still walk around the shopping center, and up/down the stairs, on the right side like we do. Why not change it all?!
• Instead of their road signs saying "yield," they say "give way."
• Which by the way, there's a good chance I may get run over because I keep looking the wrong way when I cross the street. You have no idea how confusing it really is... And it's not just since I've been here only three days, Taylor's been here two months and almost turned the wrong direction driving the other night! Luckily Ethan saved us.
• They call substitute teaching "relief teaching" which would've been good to know before I went walking into the schools asking if they were needing substitute teachers...
• Silverware is known as "cutlery" here. Yeah, I learned that the hard way when I ordered a salad at Subway and the lady working asked if I needed cutlery and I told her no...
• You pay for your gas by the liter, and in cents, not dollars. It's no wonder I was so confused when I saw the signs saying gas was 159.9 at the gas stations...
• Most houses are solar powered here.
• Microwaves aren't that common. And we don't have one at our house, which we ALL forget about daily...
• Iced coffee, is not iced coffee. But it's not a frappuccino either; it's weird. I think it has ice cream in it...
• Trash is called rubbish.
• It gets dark here around 5pm. So I'm not sure if the reason I'm going to bed at 8pm is because I'm jet lagged, or because it's already been dark for three hours!?

XO - Cristin 

Quotes I Hear Living With Boys...

This will be an ongoing post, so be sure and check back every now and then...

Living with boys is definitely different than living with girls. They have much less of a filter, and are just hilarious.

• "You eat like a pigeon. I'm just assuming pigeons don't eat much. That's a saying, isn't it?"

• "Look at that cloud. I'd live in that cloud!"

• That's the fittest pug I've ever seen! They're usually pretty fat, right?"

• "I'm one happy man right now...wrapped up in a blanket, hangin' with my best buds, and drinking tea."

• "Look at how veiny my feet are. That's gotta be why I'm so fast!"

• "You need to walk in front of me. I'm farting like crazy right now."

• "Oh it would be torture teaching her to drive on those hills!" Thanks, guys...

• "She only talks when she's angry...like all girls."

• "Is it like an oxymoron to wear a tank top with sweatpants?"

• After making pancakes for the first time today, and realizing that their syrup is nothing like ours in the states...

"Dude, what is wrong with Australia? How do you not know how to do syrup!?"

• "It's not about wanting it, it's about needing it."

• Watching Ellen, who happen to have chippendale dancers on the show... "It's so frick'n weird that there are male dancers like that." Uhhh, there are female dancers like that too...wouldn't that be just as weird? Yes.

• "Who is that?! She's a looker."

•  "I was a little taken aback when I first saw you at the airport with that mustache, Ethan. But it's grown on me now."

"It's grown on me too, literally."

• "Are you going to get mad if we occasionally leave the toilet seat up?"

• Ethan and I had both just bowled three strikes in a row (mine on a slight technicality). I gutter balled my first shot and then hit the strike, technically giving me a spare. But really, it's still a strike in my eyes... Taylor leaves to go get a drink and use the restroom; upon arriving back for his turn he told us that he was "just trying to ice us," meaning he wanted to slow the game down to mess us up. 

So Ethan says, "You can't ice fire, Tay!" Then, after Ethan and I both bowl our next frame without getting a strike, "Dangit. It worked."

• "I'll just call him. Solution solved. Wait, does that even make sense?"

"No, it's problem solved, Tay..." 

•  "I'm so glad, sorry Cristin, that we are circumcised." 

• "You know how many pancakes I ate this morning!?"

"Seventeen!" 

"No, that's outrageous. Six!" 

• I can't tell you how often I hear the words, "Oh for cryin' tears!" 

• Anytime lyrics are accidentally said within a conversation, one of the boys breaks out in song...

• "Two minutes in girl time is like ETERNITY in man time!"

• "Blame it on the woman." Or, "blame it on Cristin."

More to come!

XO - Cristin

Let's Go to the Beach, Beach...Let's Go Catch a Wave.

So about 10:30am we finally get off the couch to head to Mooloolaba Beach, which was about an hour 'n a half drive. Before we got on the road though, Ethan decided to take us to one of his favorite cafe's called "Schibello Caffe." The boys decided to get breakfast sandwiches (Taylor's with a side of cheesecake), and I opted for just an iced coffee. Man was it all good!

While I was waiting for the boys to finish eating, I picked up the nearest gossip magazine and started flipping through it. I was most intrigued by the celebrity weight transformations...celebrities like: Jessica Simpson, Beyonce, and Hilary Duff. The boys ate, I finished my magazine, and we headed out the door and off to the beach! The car ride was a lot of fun: random topics of conversation, loud music, sightseeing, and lots of picture taking (for me). That mountain in the next picture is called something like Gorilla Mountain...apparently it has a breathtaking view from the top!

It wasn't until we were about halfway through the drive that I decided to check my backpack to make sure I had everything ready for the beach (I'm OCD in that way...always triple checking). Well, I had everything! Except my wallet... Three days into my trip and I had already misplaced my wallet. That wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that it had my driver's license, $200 cash, my insurance card, and my debit card in it. Not wanting to alarm the boys, I casually said, "Uhhh, Ethan? We might need to call Ally." They were surprisingly more calm about it than I was, I was freaking out in my head. They both asked where I thought I left it, which I knew it was at the cafe, because fortunately we hadn't stopped anywhere since we left there, and I knew I had paid for my food there...(how awful would it have been if I had lost it at one of the TEN bars we went to last night!?) So Ethan got on the phone and after about an hour of back-and-forth texting, calling, and internet surfing between us, the cafe, and Reesby (one of their other teammates) we had located my wallet and Reesby had gone to pick it up for me! The only downside to this was that I couldn't get my wallet for two days because that would be the next time I saw Reesby at their game, and I wasn't about to make him drive twenty-five minutes out of HIS way for MY stupid mistake!

So we finally get to the beach. And this is exactly what I pictured it being like in Australia! If I could live on a beach every day of my life, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I pretty much played the role of "paparazzi" taking pictures of the boys ''til they couldn't stand it anymore :) 

Apparently there's no ozone layer in Australia, so more UV radiation hits the earth. That's my kind of thing! I love those rays. Have you ever seen the movie "The Odd Life of Timothy Green?" There's a part in that movie when the sun comes out and he raises his arms, turns toward the sun, just to soak it all up. That's how I feel when I see the sun out. Taylor on the other hand, was under his towel hiding from those sun rays after about an hour! 

We swam, laid out, read, and played at the beach from about 1:30pm to 5pm. I could've stayed longer, but the boys were hungry...go figure. 

Taylor practiced some of his martial arts moves...

And Ethan just wanted to take selfies all day... (kidding, that's his GoPro, haha)

Overall it was a successful day at Mooloolaba Beach. I'm already ready for more!

XO - Cristin 

Game Day.

We started the day off with a drive to Taylor and Ethan’s boss’ house for breakfast.

Jonsey (their boss) made us a feast…eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and juice! Kym (Jonsey’s wife) even made Ethan a cake to celebrate his belated birthday :)

We were picking up my dresser (aka “wardrobe” in Australian) from Jonesy’s house too. I made the boys do all the heavy lifting and move it into my room.

Had to drive into the city to watch the boys play…

Boys tied in their soccer game. Ethan’s nickname on the team is “Tex” (I’m assuming it’s because he’s from Texas)

Taylor’s nickname is “Swift.” I thought it was because he was a fast runner, but it didn’thit me until halfway through the game that it COULD be because his name is Taylor…like Taylor Swift, the pop/country singer!

It got cold towards the end of the game, so I bought myself a cup of coffee. And in case you were wondering, Starbucks isn’t really that expensive when I just paid $3.50 for this itty bitty cup

Kids love me. I don’t know the reason, but they do. While watching the boys play a three year old boy named Loke started playing a game of peek-a-boo with me, and then his two four year old sisters, Olivia and Tilly, joined in on the fun too.

As we wer leaving the game we got pulled over by the cops, for doing absolutely nothing wrong! They made Ethan take a breathalyzer and all he’d had to drink was water…the game had literally just ended and we were pulling out of the parking lot, so Ethan passed the test with flying colors!

We hungout at their teammate Ally’s house before heading into the city for my first night out.

After leaving Ally’s we went out in “the valley.” We had decided to bar hop, and have a single drink at each stop before moving onto the next. My Conway people will appreciate the second picture below :)

Before we went home stopped at the casino to win some money. I’m not the gambling type, but Ethan left $20 up, and his friend Reesby left $100 up!

We made it home around 5:30am, just in time for the UEFA Champions League game with the two Madrid teams playing! None of us made it through the whole game, and we woke up like this…

And then Ally moved around 7am to get a bit more comfy...

I think I got a good, uhhh, one hour of sleep in before my dad called me via FaceTime...

We finally got up and moving around around 10:30am and then headed to Mooloolaba Beach!

XO - Cristin