CANBERRA AUSTRALIA - 27 June 2000 - On Friday night, Mike finally played pool for the
first time while in Australia. Dave and he went over to the Uni Bar, the main bar on campus,
after work and played for a couple hours. Mike was clearly rusty (at least that is what he
claimed) as Dave won just about every game. There were some differences from home;
one was that the balls seemed a bit smaller in Australia. This made the targets to hit
just a wee bit harder. Mike was confident though that with enough practice, he could
overcome this hurdle. Another difference that did seem as widespread was that there
wasn't solids and stripes. Instead, there were reds and yellows and of course the black. During
the course of shooting, Mike said, "Excuse me." to one of the Austalian lasses to which
she responded: "You have an American accent, don't you?" Mike was caught off guard because
it wasn't him who had the accent. Nevertheless, he responded to their query and exchanged
pleasantries with the group.
The rest of the weekend was mostly spent working. Mike had some exciting projects that
he wanted to get started on. The only time he left the apartment was to go into town to
go shopping on Saturday afternoon. This lack of events this week should be balanced out
by the trip to Sydney Mike is taking this weekend. He's taking the train with Steve and
Stacey early on Saturday morning, seeing
The Gondliers
at the famed Sydney Opera House,
seeing some sights, and returning on Monday evening. Of course, there will be full
report in this space.
Here ends Mike's eighth week in Australia.