Socialising

Do you have any friends that like spending time with and although you have time to hang out, the planning to hang out rarely happens? Well my relationship with friends Dean and Crystal is like that. Matt and I enjoy hanging out with them, but we struggle to make it happen. Last Sunday we all finally set up a time to have dinner and chat. It was a great dinner, but what makes spending time with them so interesting is that we do nothing but talk and hours go by. We all can talk about a wide variety of topics and rarely get bored, including Matt! It's awesome to have friends like that and Matt and I really need to make more of an effort to spend time with people. 

Mutual with the youth was also quite eventful this week. I was so proud of our young men and one of our young woman who actually took the bus to get there. That's commitment! We played a fun M&M get to know you game where based on the colour of M&Ms you took you had to answer different questions about yourself. Afterwards we played "Never Have I Ever." When I told the girls we would play this game, one said "you mean, the drinking game?" If there was ever evidence that I grew up as a member of the LDS church, that was a definite moment of proof. I had no idea it was a drinking game and had always played it with other members of the church. This was the Mormon Modified Version. One person stands in the middle of the rest who are all sitting on chairs. The person in the middle states "Never have I ever" and then states something they haven't ever had or done. Then all those that have had or done that something have to switch chairs. This gives the middle person an opportunity to steal a seat and the last person standing is the new middle person. We had loads of fun playing this game and learned some interesting things about each other in the process. Success!

Wednesday was also an eventful day. After work Matt picked me up and we went to see Evita the musical with Jaydene and her lab mate. When we got there Matt had seen this Udon place for dinner, which was really good!

The musical however, was not as spectacular as we had hoped. We learned it was an amateur production so there were a couple of mistakes, but the real issues I had with it were the main actress. Having seen Madonna play Evita in the movie, I had certain expectations. To see a woman who I thought was not very attractive play the role of a beautiful actress didn't really fit to me. Her singing was good, but I just did not feel she fit the part. In fact, we all found it interesting that the song from the mistress clearly out-shined the main actress. Later, Jaydene found out that this may just be how the live musical was written and that the movie version was changed. I would suggest then for anyone interested in Evita (Eva Peron) to just watch the movie. Matt didn't like it at all, but mostly because there is a lot going on and he couldn't hear the words to follow what was happening. Oh well. 

Nevertheless we still had a fun night and even got to see a little of Vivid Sydney, which had been extended to Chatswood where we saw the musical. 

The following morning I got to see a cute little bunny on my walk to my bus stop. He didn't run away as I got close to take the picture. I thought about petting him, but then wasn't sure how wild he was and if bunnies carry weird diseases. Still cute though!

To finish off my weekend I ended by horseback riding at Sydney Trail Riding Centre with a couple of the YW, Jaydene, and Whitney. Before leaving it was my day to help clean the chapel so I was happily cleaning toilets when Fekita found me and helped until the others came. When we got there we were late so they rushed us onto horses and go started. It was a fairly relaxing ride since it was just an hour long walk, but everyone had fun. It was Jaydene and Fekita's first time riding so they were a fair bit nervous at first. In the end they loved it and had seemed to bond with their horses, even though Fekita's was a bit lazy and stubborn. 

After riding we got lunch at Little Caesar's on the way, which has American pizza! You have no idea how happy this made me! We got Italian cheese bread as well, which was definitely the best part. I even had the foresight to get some waters from the nearby McDonald's and we ate a nearby park which happened to have picnic tables. 

There was a random little museum next to the park so we decided to check it out. It was really neat surprisingly. The museum had interesting historic items and things relating to Liverpool, including a special ANZAC section. My favourite part was the story of a German escapee that Jaydene found and we subsequently had all the girls read. It was pretty incredible story involving him digging out of his own grave, walking from Liverpool to Sydney, and eventually marring the girl he promised in the end. 

Johann Kuhlmann

It was a great way to end the week!