1st game + Victoria Market

Had my first encounter with international lacrosse this morning. It went pretty well, we won over Japan 17-2, if I remember correctly. Really fun to see lacrosse from the other side of the world. We were all pretty tired though, we scrounged up 14 of us, the coach played, the 2 players that got delayed in Maryland and missed the flight showed up just in time for the game, and we found an American that was working the tournament to help us out. All in all, fun game.

Then we headed back to the unit (the apartments we've got in Melbourne [apparently pronounced like Melbin] which are very nice) for showers. From there our tour guide, George, dropped us off at the Queen Victoria Market. What a place. It's enormous. We split up for food, and my group just wandered around the market for a while, looking at all the cool swag. George said the best way to do it, is to look around at everything first and check the prices, then come back for what you want. Otherwise you might get a less than favorable deal. As we've been going to shops and restaurants, everything is more expensive here than at home (beer is off the charts), but at the Victoria Market, everything was much cheaper. So we did our recon and headed for the free trolly back to the unit. That's as far as I've gotten today. Now, trying to get in a quick nap before we head out to our game tonight.

Our trolly approaching

First Australian brew. Called James Boag's Draught.(George tells us it Tazmanian and no good)

More pictures to come soon. Must nap.

Morning Post

I'm just trying to post as much as possible now, while I can, because I'm not sure that I'll be able to access the internet the entire time I'm here. Plus, I don't want to forget things.

Went out this morning (it's almost 8:00am here, I think) and found an ATM. They wouldn't take my card last night, so I got worried. But it's all good, apparently it was just that one place.

I'm hoping that I'll pick up some of the cool phrases they use here in Australia, but I can't remember even one right now. So I'll have to work harder on that today.

Now I'm about to do breakfast, then head out to play the Japanese team this morning, then another game tonight. In between, who knows.

WOW

wow.
Long trip. So this is the first time I've had a chance to post, I thought I'd be able to in LA, but that didn't work out. Well, I left Dallas on Tuesday, May 29, 2012. I had the goodbye Whataburger and everything. I flew into LAX with 5 hours to spare before the long flight. I hit up the food court, hung out for a bit, found out the internet wasn't going to work. Keith showed up about 45 minutes after I got there. I saw him walk in with another guy from the team (we've all got matching t-shirts so we know who's who) and we made our way through security. We met up with a couple other guys and the coach. Introduced ourselves, lots of names. Found the airport bar, realized it was super expensive. A very nice girl came by and gave me $20 in meal vouchers that she didn't want, so I was fed again. The rest of the team trickled in, and we realized we were going to be tight on numbers, nothing new for me. More introductions. The girl's team was showing up too. Then, the time came to board the plane.

The plane was crazy huge. Everyone on the team was scattered out, I think I was the most scattered, kind of off by myself. But I ended up getting a lot of extra space when the couple next to me moved. The other guy in the row turned out to be a Syracuse lacrosse player. Small world I guess. Slowly the amenities of the airline made themselves known. Videos in the back of every seat, cool stuff like that. So I stayed up til dinner, drinking my pepsi. Dinner was pretty cool. Not the best food, but there was a decent amount. They had chicken or fish. I chose the chicken, I mean, I've seen Airplane (good thing too, because some guy got sick apparently. I woke up to the captain calling for someone with medical experience, yikes). I stayed up for a bit after dinner, watched a movie on the seat in from of me. Then I fell asleep. Slept for probably about 9 hours. Woke up about breakfast time (great timing) which was pretty good. I felt like my whole life was that plane. It ended up being about 16 hours I believe. So we got off the plane, went through customs, baggage claim, all that good stuff. We did get to see a drug-dog in training, which was neat. All this and I still haven't left airports. After a big hassle with money exchange, we were off!

Outside, Australia is AWESOME. Tons of cool stuff. Maybe I'll add pictures later. I'm much too exhausted.  We went out to lunch, had some good food. Then we headed out for a little "practice". Afterwards, we headed back to settle into the apartments. Found some wifi, took some showers. I headed out for pizza in the middle of writing this post. Just got back. Now, time to relax. We've got a game at 10:30 tomorrow against the Japanese team. So I guess we'll see how good our 11 guys are.

In conclusion: I have no idea what time it is or what day it is.