Thanksgiving? Oktoberfest? Christmas? Whatever it was, it was Abroad

Anyone from America knows Thanksgiving and knows it well.  Anyone from Australia knows of  Thanksgiving and well… just doesn’t give a shit?

Luckily for me, Thanksgiving fell on my works Oktoberfest/Christmas party, so my day of thanks consisted of many aspects that are normally involved on Thanksgiving. Eating way too much food, drinking too much wine and jumping off piers into a shark-filled ocean? Sure, why not 🙂

My company has been planning this party for months, flying all the managers from over the world into Sydney to party for this event (my thanksgiving!). We had all the bells and whistles ready to go for the ultimate beach party on a secluded beach a bit north of the city.  Just like my  awesome dance moves, the weather was 100 percent unpredictable and come the morning of Thanksgiving it was ugly ugly uglyyyyy

Time for Plan B!

We rented out the Manly Yacht Club, located right on the water on the wharf side of  Manly beach. We set up our beach party inside and made the best of the crap weather. For lunch we hired Brazilian BBQ catering to come feed all of us drunks while we party away with beer pong, ping pong, giant Jenga, and plenty of beverages. It is not quite the turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing and yams that I am used to on this holiday, but I thiiiink I saw a piece of pumpkin in the veggies, so I’ll just take that and run!

I helped organize the Secret Santa segment of the day, where with 20 bucks we had to purchase something that our colleague would have to wear the whole party. People came up with some erm.. enchanting ideas.  My pick was our commercial director Graham, who I ever so nicely turned into a Christmas pimp, What whaaat!?!

We spend the whole day having fun and getting to know our co-workers from the other parts of the world. There was a major dance off which is always the highlight of my nights and a lot of fun in the water.  It was challenging being away from friends and family but through the company of my Aussie work pod I made it through. The night ended with me hanging out with my new roomie and drunk dialling some friends back home, the perfect end to my Australian Thanksgiving 🙂

 Stereosonic Music Festival

I have been really looking forward to my very first Australian Music Festival for some time now, so Stereosonic couldn’t of came soon enough. I really dig festivals. I love art, I love the culture, I love music, the great food and all that while being around friends just equals an extraordinary time. The problem with Stereosonic was that it lacked almost 99 percent of EVERYTHING I just mentioned.  There was no art… no local restaurants.. no culture whatsoever- unless your definition of culture is drunk 18 bros.  The festival was held at Olympic park and consisted of 5 different stages around the stadium.  The line up was STACKED and I genuinely loved the majority of the acts listed. I just wish they would have done

 The festival was held at Olympic park and consisted of 5 different stages around the stadium.  The line up was STACKED and I genuinely loved the majority of the acts listed. I just wish they would have done more with the overall event.  Each drink at the event would throw you back 12 bucks and was made of 3.5 percent alcohol and 235 percent sugar. Sooooo 100 dollars later I was in no way drunk, but had a very serious tummy ache and couldn’t even dance due to a stomach filled of  sugary liquid.

  

I met up with some random people  from Malaysia who just flew in to Sydney for the festival. They were all really cool, nice, crazy – and overall a great time. I found it interesting to see how other people from outside Sydney viewed this “rave” and country.  I had some good fun for a good few hours  but then….was over it.  I had already danced the allotted amount that my feet were going to put up with and I was surrounded by thousands of wasted 18 years.  I am not sure if I didn’t enjoy myself because the crowd of kids.. or if  it’s just not my scene anymore..or because it just reminds me of old times with friends I no longer see.. or just reminded me home in general. I dont know. I guess, in retrospect, it might of been a combination of all of that, and I had unexpectedly  set myself up for failure. I ended up Ieaving kinda down, feeling out of place and quite alone.   I can scratch that festival off my list of things to do and look forward to going to other ones that possess more of the qualities I look for in festivals…and  with hopefully less condoms on the floors.

More culture, less drunk kids from the Jersey Shore

  

Worlds Largest Speed Date on  a Train

The worlds largest train date, where to even begin.

I signed up for this 95% for motivation for writing and 5% for the chance to meet an actual romantic connection. I have done many different types of dating, mostly what one would call “horrible or nightmarish,” but never any type of organized speed dating. After I got done paying my 3,999 dollars for this thing (exaggeration, but seriously it A LOT),  I was directed to a page to fill out my profile. It was asking all the normal questions such as my education, height, interests, etc. I was not thrilled to find out that they in no way included any questions referring to what I was actually looking for.  Maaaybe I am attracted to someone half my height? Or someone who never graduated high school and lives with their Mom? I guess they will never find out! So right then I just figured this speed dating had zero to no odds of working out, which provoked the scheduling of a Tinder date in the city directly afterwards.

7th guy of the night is the charm right?

The speed date begun when I received a text around noon telling me where my first date was going to be located.  Plaform 4 aisle 2 seat 4 at Central Station.

 Sweet, this is like a treasure hunt to find douchebags.

 I arrived at the station to find hundreds of single people just like myself looking to find love, or the bar .. they both usually leave you pretty messed up. With one quick glance I could already see that this was going to be a very very long and not so speedy date. I didn’t see a single guy around me who I would have even considered relatively attracted, and the worse part was that girls out numbered guys BIG TIME. There were people of all ages, which I found adorable imagining a bunch of older people using this avenue to try and meet someone.

WOOT WOOT, you go old people over 50!!:)

We all paced around the platform while awaiting the doors to open. They had bars set up with sparkling wine and beer to help make this evening less… well, ridiculous. I ended up running into a few friends I knew from Meet Up events which was nice because at least we were all in this crazy thing together!!

The doors opened and we were all officially off on our scavenger hunt of looooooveee. I sat down to find an average looking guy who was dressed quite nice and smelled like Fruit Loops or Starburst….I never figured it out…

I was able to get a couple questions in before another girl sat next to me, claiming she too, was paired up with this guy. Frankly, I didn’t care because I wasn’t interested in him, but I did make her show me proof of this! The rest of the 10 minutes was filled of the guy asking us questions, and me asking the girl questions so it was obvious I was not into him.

The bells rang (THANK GOD) and it was now time to switch to the new idiot, I mean date.  I found my seat after 10 minutes of tying to walk through a stampede of women, only to find myself with a guy that was old enough to my Dad. I felt like there had to be a mistake with the set up, but didn’t really care too much as this point and just chatted with him.  I took a minute to look around and see how the rest of the train was doing. What I found was many pairs of girls in the corner chatting away, obviously not attending their dates. Great idea.  Only the people who were a bit older or very drunk actually looked like they were enjoying themselves. I completely ignored my phone and date match ups after this and just started bullshitting with the people around and making fun of the fact their was randomly a mariachi band singing on board. I stole one of the guys instruments and tried playing along. That was the highlight of the night.

        

At this point, I was 100 percent over the train date, was feeling extremely claustrophobic, and for some reason craving a burrito. I made a typical Michelle impulsive decision, which sometimes is a gift, but in this case was a curse. I decided to just jump off the train randomly at the next stop having no idea where I was. I thought, “well, we can’t be THAT FAR out of the city, I can just cab it back.” NOPE! I get off the train to find out I have absolutely no idea where the heck I am.

I leave the train station to not only find it is pouring rain and thunder storming but to also find out I am over an hour out of the city, in a place, frankly I have never even heard of! A normal person probably would have just jumped back on a train home, but no, I make life weird.  I finally found a cab to pick me up only for him to tell me that he had to go an hour out of his way to switch drivers.  Unless I wanted to pay him for his time and the other person’s time for waiting, he was gonna leave me in the middle of nowhere. So, after negotiation 286 bucks, I found myself on the way back to the city to meet up with my lucky number 7 date of the night,  Mr. Tinder boy who I will never see again.

Even though I was now a part of “history”, the night was not the biggest success. Between my A.D.D & bad match ups, there way no chance in the world for that to have worked. Seeing some friends was nice and I had fun goofing off with my Tinder boy, but the rest of the night was expensive, crowded, and long. Not sure if I will go on a speed date again, and I am pretty cool without using the train again for a long long loongggg time 🙂

Not sure if I will go on a speed date again, and I am pretty cool without using the train again for a long long loongggg time 🙂

<3 Hot Mess