Back home in Perth a good Saturday night was on the couch by 20:30 to watch Midsomer Murders on the ABC. With decreasing frequency over the last decade friends might be out of the house and extend an invitation to also leave the house. One goal for our two years living on the other side of the planet was that we’d push ourselves (i.e. get off the couch) when the opportunity arose to do something. Last night, when we left Cam & Vincent’s after a relaxed afternoon (and a miserable Vincent was carted off by his valiant husband to an Emergency Dentist for a worsening toothache) I slunk into bed feeling guilty because our neighbour, Julian had previously alerted us to his intent to take his visiting friend, Collin, to a local nightclub, Buddies. We had murmured interest in going because we’ve lived here a year and, despite living a 10 minute walk up the street, had never been. When we got home instead of getting changed to go out, I crawled into bed, just for a rest. It was only 21:18.
Back home in Perth we’d exclaim things like, “I’m just going to have a quick nap and then I’ll get changed!” or, “Yep! I’m definitely going out! I’m just going to lie my head on the pillow!” with the intention of going to sleep and not going out at all. So, when Daniel called out, “Where are you?” and I said, “I’m just going to have a nap; Julian isn’t leaving until 11!” he closed the doors, turned the lights off, and came to bed. No! Not going to sleep! Then I fell asleep.
By some miracle (it wasn’t my phone, on silent) I woke up, roused Dan, we showered, changed, went downstairs, had a drink, walked down to Buddies, had a few drinks and tequila shots and had a brilliant night out, got home late and woke up in the morning feeling we’d got the most out of the night. We must have looked approachable and semi decent as I had to girls walk up to me and introduce themselves, and flip out at my Aussie accent. Dan got a lot of attention too, but from hot guys which boosted his self esteem as well (he did look good, even if he did take half an hour to get his contacts in). It was a great venue, with a friendly crowd. At the bar people queued in orderly lines. The opposite of Western Australia where you have to elbow your territory at the bar and hope to catch the eye of the bar tender.
I spent the morning cleaning the house. In the afternoon we caught the subway North to the end of the line. Dan had booked an afternoon entertainment experience at Escape Games with Kev & Adam, as we’ve barely seen them all year. I wished I’d looked at our planner when I happily agreed to a tequila shot at 1 am; our challenge was to escape out of a “Mayan temple” locked room experience, by solving mental puzzles. All four of us were a bit hungover but we managed not to kill each other while also solving all the puzzles and escaping out of the experience in just 32 minutes. The record was 26 minutes and you only get an hour: about 50% of groups so far had failed to escape. I had gone in imagining scenes from Cube and feared we’d never escape but it wasn’t anything like a science fiction thriller. We caught the subway to Yorkdale (a giant shopping mall somewhere in Toronto) and ate a late lunch in the food court before I couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Tonight’s plan: burgers and Netflix. Dan is on a 6-hour conference call for the Romance Writers of Australia, nestled in his study with earplugs in then sporadically talks very loudly things like, “Yeah, no… can you hear me?”
Glen's Travel Blog 