Cafes, Paddy Wagons, and Beverages

..so as a continuation of last night's cricket extravaganza, let me just say I'm sold on it, and here's why: yes it's rather long, and no, nothing truly exciting really happens, but it's really an excuse to drink beer ("bE-ah"). At David's game (keep in mind these are 13 year olds) everyone sat around in the sun for 3.5 hours drinking ice cold beers. It was glorious. So not only do the streets practically run with Fosters, but parents/fans/me drink beer at juvenile cricket matches. This would be unheard of in the States, where you can't buy, let alone carry in, some suds for even high school games. Here it goes all the way down to the wee ones. In fact, one of the kids came over and asked his dad for some, and the father said (as we would all expect): "no (here's where it's different), not while you're playing." In other words, beer is perfectly acceptable for this youth outside of [semi] athletic competition. Another kid playing what is sort of like outfield came and sat in a lawn chair next to his dad. I fell asleep (hot sun + beer + no food + recently worked out +, obviously, cricket), so I don't know who's attention span is shorter, the players' or the fans'.

Now here's perhaps my new favorite thing about melbourne: about a third of the police cars look like this:

I love it. Not only is there very little crime (aside from that in which I would be the plaintiff on Judge Judy), but the police force looks like it's well equiped to pursue such notorioius criminals as Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Who ya gonna call?!

On a more praising note, the food here is very fresh (not as fresh as Lil' Wayne, who is reportedly "fresh, like I'm by Mennen and shit", but fresh), and very good. I don't know how else to describe it other than fresh-tasting. For instance, you pay a little more, but in all the cafes (and there are tons) the chicken is not frozen for delivery, the hollandaise sauce is made just before being added to my eggs benedict, etc. I had a fresh-squeezed OJ with my breakfast, and they did it right in front of me, no pulp or anything, it was fantastic. I was drinking from the teat of Valencia. It reminded me of those old Tropicana commercials where they just stick a straw in an orange...don't tell me you've never tried this. When I did it I think I gave myself a blod-clot behind my eye from sucking so hard to try to get a few molecules of orange-like substance out. This was much more satisfying. The other interesting thing to note is that when you get a glass of water (they think I say it funny, by the way -- foreigners are weird) with your meal, there's no ice in the glass. You either get a caraffe of cold water and glasses, or they'll refill your glass from a pitcher; again, no ice in any of the above water repositories.

But the strawberry milk! Oh man, this stuff is great. I think you all know how much I love my pink-milk, in fact, some of you may remember when I knocked over my Nesquik onto my computer, shorting it out (the laptop, not the beverage). However, I was much more concerned about the spilled milk. In fact, I cried over it. But the strawberry milk here (goes by Big M) is terrific, it tastes cleaner and less artificial. I've had 3 in the last day. There's a place in the train station that sells it colder than others, so I'll go out of my way a little bit to get it there. It's .05 more than than buying it at 7-11, which in American dollars is about equal to purchasing a nappy-ass weave from chinatown.

Finally, a little human note. The people are all very friendly and happy to give directions, along with a "no worries, mate." They are also quite soft-spoken in general. In fact, if someone asks for the time or directions, they don't say excuse me and wait for you to look at them (like you'd do back home; again, they're totally polite about it though, you'd know what I mean if you heard it) - but they just ask very softly, and you're not really sure they're addressing you at all, noticably so if you're not even looking in their direction.

aight, drinks with my hosts and their neighbors, holla back.