9 To 5

How are you going?

I'm going pretty good. On Tuesday, our second day off, me and Sascha finally got our asses out of the apartment on time and went shopping in the city. We parked underneath the exhibition center and walked from there. It was a lot warmer than two weeks ago.

We didn't have a map and I was surprised when we arrives at the big JB Hifi from the opposite direction and sooner than I had anticipated. I bought seasons 3 and 4 of The Wire, while Sascha looked for a boom box with an iPod dock. Unfortunately the only box with enough boom bass cost $500.

Then we headed for lunch. There are a lot of small alleys near Flinders St. Station and there are a lot of nice restaurants on those alleys. The atmosphere was New Yorkian and we settled on a Italianish place. I had a pizza with chorizzo and Sascha ate a Turkey risotto, which he praised.

Before going to pick up Ana I also bought a couple of magazines in case I have to kill more time at work waiting for Sascha. Lastly we stopped by a JayJay's where I bought my first two t-shirts of the trip and some Sesame Street underwear as well.

We had a goo time with Sascha, I got almost everything I wanted -- I still need some jeans but $80 nor skin tight are not the way to go -- and that, my friends, was Tuesday. A pizza (Dr. Oetker!) and an episode of episode of The Wire later I was in bed.

I woke up the next night at 4 AM for seemingly no reason and couldn't sleep for two hours. I was pretty tired when I got to work but it was okay after I got going. We were going to lay a new slab of concrete with Richard but it started raining before we even finished the frame so it was off to other stuff. I got to re-paint several used blackboards, which kept me busy for most of the day, and I also got to use a pressure washer -- I think Richard called it a gurney or something. Then I waited for Sascha reading one of my magazines before heading home.

At dinner we got to talking and we had a good time even though the guys tried to get me to drink some Fortified Cabernet. A 20% red wine? No way can I drink that! Instead I chugged down some newly bought lemon and lime Solo which actually tastes almost exactly like the green lime Jaffa in Finland.

I woke again in the middle of the night but I wasn't awake for too long. Today we finally got the concrete done. Richard had finished the frame and while he called the concrete people I topped of the frame by laying some discarded wire fence to keep the fortified concrete together.

When the stuff arrived we used shovels, pieces of timber and flat surfaced tools to level the stuff into the frame. Richard finished the edges with a special tool. At lunch he asked me if I'd ever done that before and he said that I'd done it very well. It was my first time and it was actually a lot of fun. It felt rewarding and it'll feel better tomorrow when it's actually hard.

After lunch we put up a sign for the INXS concert on the side of the Maroondah Highway. I also got to drive for the first time -- it was a pick-up or a "yute"? with manual transmission but changing gears with the left hand isn't that difficult. Then I helped John rearrange the drink stocks to get the new shipment in the back and the old stuff to the front and our last order of business was poisoning some snails on the wines. Sascha had to work a function which ends at nine so Richard gave me a lift. I stopped by at McDonald's for my dinner and watched one more episode of The Wire before updating my blog.

Then I pressed send.