Best. Grocery. Ever.

Before I bore you with my new fanaticism over the local market, allow me to tell you about the freakiest thing that's happened here thus far.

So there I am in bed this morning, under my new IKEA comforter, the cheapest possible textile available. Paying 12.95 Australian, I new quality was not going to be the dominating trait of this comforter (12.95 A$ is approximately equal to the cost of having a key to a lock that does not belong to you copied, minus the profits from using said key to remove contents that also do not belong to you). So this particular comforter feels almost paper-ish, like a dollar bill that's been crinkled repeatedly, and it is filled with a highly sythetic substance, perhaps polyurethane, who knows. Whatever, it keeps me warm and provides neutral camouflage for my Misha Barton-dress pattern sheets. Anyway, I was in bed thinking of how flammable this quilt must be, that in a fire it would go up like tinder, not exactly a safety net for me. so I begin looking around at how a fire could spread or catch on my bed. I swear on Lil' Wayne's life the following took place:
I told myself the only way my bed would ignite is if my light hanging on the ceiling sparked and blew out, falling to my new throw rug and jumping to my quilt, like something out of the movie Final Destination. So I get up to go to the bathroom, come back in (no more than 2 minutes later), and turn on the light switch. On cue, my light explodes from its casing, goes dark, and falls to the floor, albeit harmlessly. I can't believe my fucking light blew out 2 minutes after I envisioned it blowing out. the modern day Nostradamus I am, I'm currently focusing all my mental prowess (which is a lot) on imagining yankee stadium ablaze, with godzilla-like dinosaurs crushing the new proposed stadium.

In other apartmental news, while in the shower this morning, high sensitivity sensors in my skin told me to lower the temperature; the water was too damn hot. While attempting to turn the "cold" nob counter clockwise, it came off in my hand. Of course it did. So now I'm standing there scalding my back, yet having to risk life and limb to re-enter the bombardment of radioactive fluid to replace the knob and increase the cold water. Ahh, the relief of having your skin blister off - that's how you know a shower gets you clean. Naturally, the steam was a natural hair straightener, and I emerged looking like Balki from Perfect Strangers. Hot.

So this market, the Queen Victoria market, is about 6 or 7 blocks from my house, and it is a hunter/gatherer's dream. This bitch Vicky has everything, at least 10 meat vendors, a whole warehouse sized facility for fruits and veggies, and breads, cheeses, cured meat, sandwiches, pestos, greek places, italian antipasto, olives, i could go on and on. And everything's cheaper than the bulk-selling safeway. It's all vendors hawking their wares, but such quality! Such convenience! Such a cess-pool of civilization, ripe with a mass of humanity swelling and moving with the deals and shouts of asian men yelling that their meat is the most succulent. I bought 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of lean diced beef for 12 A$ (which is cheaper than 2 big mac meals in american dollars... seriously) 3 Fresh containers of pesto/tapenade/eggplant spread for 10. A freaking bag of oranges for two bucks. It's incredible..the competition drives the quality up and the price down, like the hookers on K street in DC (and by quality, here, of course I mean transsexualism). Honestly, it was overwhelming, but I can't say enough good things about it. You need to see it to believe it. It's like my hunger had entered free agency, and all of these teams were offering me competing contracts. Delicious Italian chicken breast stuffed w/ ham and smoked mozzarella for dinner last night. Ain't nothin like seasoned chicken titties.

Now speaking of food, I haven't quite fulfilled my requirement to speak on my first drunk night here. We started off at a bar called Young and Jackson watching cricket (we, Australia, won the Ashes vs. England on Monday, recapturing the urn of burnt wickets from the Poms), and continued to some other bar overlooking a road, accessible by escalator. At that point, I wasn't up to my normal routine of hiking up moving escalators, and shooting condescending sideways glances at the plebian butterballs I pass. So after we had 9 or so rounds of aussie beer (probably a distant cousin of Mr. Foster), I was starving. Fortunately the next bar we went to, The Retreat, had a kitchen. AUSTRALIA HAS THE BEST BAR FOOD EVER. We got chicken parmasean that came with salad. At a bar. Amongst throngs of drunken people. What other bar (that has a dance floor no less, more on this in a minute) in the States has a full gourmet kitchen. I know the BA does, but this is more of a social atmosphere, weird, but good. Nice of them to make sure I eat my vegetables to go with my hops and yeast.
Now the dance floor. Awesomely hilarious. One of the other lab workers, luke, says to me while motioning to the court of gyration, "you much of a dancer" - I said no, rudely pointing out that I am white. His natural reaction was to tell me everyone here is white. I look around. I agree. Everyone on the dance floor is white, and they all make the tin man, oil free, look like Justin Timberlake on extasy. They all looked like Elaine (Seinfeld) had children with Carlton Banks (Fresh Prince) and the kid has scoliosis. And a Joe Theisman broken leg. I cracked up, not remembering that I suck at dancing, but I'm pretty sure Shakira couldn't help australian rythm. Here's the funny thing, it makes these people more comfortable to be around, because you know their not going to attempt to "Bring it On" while you're drinking your beer, or have a drop it like it's hot competition while shaking 280 pounds of fried chicken or oatmeal legs. They all were just enjoying themselves, singing along to the 80's and dancing, and had a general air of geniality. I don't think i'll be showing off my groove thing anytime soon, but I enjoy the bars here so far, very relaxed, housing suit wearing business men as well as fratted-outfit wearing college kids, all intermingling like a utopian sociology experiment on Noah's Ark.

But chicken parmasean with a salad! And beer too!