America to New Zealand

Hey again its time for another email update.

Hello there, and welcome to seven monthly news. Im Tony Tardio. Join me for the next half hour as I try to make random things in Andrews life seem vaguely interesting.

There comes a time in someone’s life where they must say goodbye to things, people, countries and food. To ensure going out on a bang an Australia day party was planned.

A pre-party game of Aussie Rules Football was played. Fun was had, tackles were made and hands were frost bitten. Heres Jeff with more

Thanks Tony. Im down here at the soccer field behind woods house where rougly 2 teams of 8 people have turned out to play some Aussie rules in the snow. Some in shorts and without gloves; others…with brains. As you said, fun was had as the Americans seemed to enjoy playing a real game of football. The aussies also had fun tackling them as they haven’t seemed to grasp the concept of getting rid of the ball, sources believe this is due to the fact their version of football is different. Other sources believe that Americans just like hot Australian guys like Andrew chasing after them! To sum up the game was the winner. (i.e Andrews team lost) Back to you Tony.

Thanks Jeff. In that time I have quickly run from the studio over to Woods 10^th floor for Australia Day. Posters have been hung everywhere, kangaroo road signs, vegemite sangas, fairy bread. Its all here. There is a vegemite sampling tally going on over to my right. Im just going to go see the results. Wow, the yuks seem to be outnumbering the yums 10 to 1. One girl was even reported to have put her head over the bin and pull her hair back as she thought she was going to throw up. Andrew and Kevin are having a ball torturing these poor Americans. Fairy bread however is the much preferred food it seems.

I have just heard some rumors that the nutbush will be performed in 5 minutes. I might try the vegemite challenge while I wait.

Hello there, it seems Tony is vegemite intolerant so ill be filling in for him for the remainder of the program. As he spews…I mean, as I speak the room has been turned into a dance floor. Everybody is grooving to a dance the Aussies call the Nutbush. It seems the Americans did not know about this dance, but it looks as if they are more than willing to give it a go. Video evidence of this may be shown at a later date. Andrew had to persuade one of his more modest friends into doing the dance by agreeing to dress up as a woman for ‘ladies night’ at the next MSU ice hockey match. His friend was quickly up, on her feet and dancing.

After this a few people sat down to watch an Aussie favorite, the Castle. Most would agree this is the greatest film to come out of Australia.

This concluded the party. But afterwards Andrew and a few people were up for a game of Wahoo. A game like trouble (you know the one where you pop the thing in the middle to roll the dice) the only difference is that when you land on someone you get to go forward 10 spaces. Currently Andrew sits undefeated at this game. Friend Lindsey seemed unlucky to lose in their last match as she made it to the last square and all she had to do was roll a one to get the last marble into her home base. 20 failed rolls and Andrew was able to send his last marble ¾ of the way around the board to snatch an unlikely victory.

We managed to catch up with Lindsey post match and she had these words to say. “Unbeleivable”. We caught up with Andrew and he put the loss down to dice rolling skills and lack of strategy. Although Andrew is great and we like to believe him, the odds for him winning from that position were less than 2%

This win was revenge for a “pantsing” Andrew copped a few days earlier playing foosball. The scoreline 10 vs 0. The room was soon evacuated and Andrew dropped the pants and walked glumly around the table determined to do better next time. He didn’t.

On a more happy note Andrew made his way across to Hammonds house for his final game of Bond. It was an emotional time for the boys and Andrews team capitalized early, Taking 2 out of the first 3 rubbers. The match was then evened at 2 all before their opponents jumped to a 3 v 2 lead. Their opponents, unbeaten since the season which started 10 weeks ago looked to keep their record intact. The 6^th and final rubber was intense. 19 kills each (first to 20). Andrew saw an opportunity to sneak up on someone while in battle, not knowing someone else was doing the same to him. He caught a glance of the radar just in time to turn around and put a bullet in his face. Finishing the game, the night and the season. A draw. Andrew was overhead screaming loudly, although he said the result was no fluke.

In other sport news Andrew attended a Yoga class and found it pretty good and relaxing. He may look into this more when he return to sunny Australia.

He also had exams in this time. Which he describes as “easy”. He expects to pass with flying colors. And he expects flying colors translated to good marks. His advice “if ever you want to pass a subject go to America, even if you don’t pass just cry with an Australian accent and they will pass you”

This was about it for his American adventures. He was very sad to say goodbye, which he didn’t believe he would be when he left.

Before long he was on a plane in Los Angeles headed for Auckland with a little stink breath kid next to him who kept trying to sleep on him as well as elbow him at regular intervals. He touched down safely and is not complaining. Though if he sees the kid again he swears he will make his face as ugly as his breath.

While Andrew loved seeing familiar sights such as BP, the warehouse, etc. The language barrier seems to be bothering him more than it did in America.

As he went to pay for a night at the backpacker hostel our undercover cameras caught him make a rather embarrassing mistake. I would like to book in for 2 nights thanks. So you wanna chicken. Ummm excuse me. You wanna chicken. Andrew told us his thoughts at this point were, 1) maybe this is a term they use to abbreviate a 2 night stay and 2) maybe they give you a complimentary chicken if you stay 2 nights…serious.

Neither of this turned out to be true, all the girl wanted to know was that I was checking in. (Check in). Hahaha hilarious.

In NZ Andrew has found a bit of time to check out…as opposed to check in, some good sights and have a good think about things. He has decided that if there is a God (and he has no doubt there is) then it’s the only thing worth living for. He has also had a chance to think about eternity and deep stuff like that.

Andrew is pretty down at the moment. He seems to be missing friends in general, it seems he needs people around him. Here’s what he had to say. I miss you all you are all great, I really wish I was home at the moment, dang its lonely. Writing this helps me not be so lonely so thanks for reading it, if you haven’t then shame on you…but then if you didn’t read that far you wont have read the shame on you part either…hmmm. I have a plan. Header

Now onto the weather.

Its seems we are quite snowed in (haha Snowden) with loneliness at the moment and cant see too far past that. When it does clear up there will be spontaneous patches of photo taking, followed by gusts of excitement. Gale force winds are blowing money everywhere which may be countered by a North Easterly job search. The real weather has been wet but still a heck of a lot warmer than Springfield’s winter. 18 degrees…for all you Americans out there 65ish.

In stocks

Baked Bean shares have gone through the roof and a tight investor from Australia has taken keen interest. Constipation is at an all time high (I told you the on campus dining was slipping in something extra). Sleep has also awoken from its all time low and is on a steady increase. ParentDebt is set to rise steadily over the next few months. A few iloveyous may offset some of its effects. Hygiene has taken a massive plunge due to a shortage of free washing machines in NZ. Lorimer and Groves famous camp recipe (fried potato and baked beans $1.50 a meal!) has received interest from low risk investors that cant cook. Gas companies are definitely going to benefit from these ongoing trend. Company ‘Beard’ has plateau’d after months of steady growth. FreeInternets prices have soared, investors would be willing to pay a premium to grab a hold of their shares but unfortunately they are all tied up. TrashTalking has taken a dive as there is now nobody to do it to. And that’s about all the moment in the stock market.

Well that’s all for this edition of the news. I’m Jeff filling in for Tony. Stay tuned for the next edition of ‘the news’ (Emotional music etc)

Signing off,

Andrew

Final Words from America

Hello again and its about time I gave you an update on how I have been and what I have been up to. Well…heres some quick news to start with

Ice Hockey: Saw an attempt at a fight. I pressed the wrong button on the camera so I missed the action. Sorry

In sporting news the original Nintendo I bought off eBay got a bit of a workout and me and Greg passed the ninja turtles game. I even have film to prove it. Turtles rock.

Andrew was also caught betraying his country when he was spotted playing a bit of “football” for lack of a better word.

Went and saw STOMP in concert. STOMP is a band that plays the drumbeats with anything but drums…so I guess they don’t do drumbeats at all but you get my point. It was so good. I even bought their DVD the first DVD I have ever bought!! I had a little jerk kid (who would have been me 12 years ago) sitting next to me who complained mum this is so boring before it started and at the end half admitted he liked it ‘it wasn’t that boring’ or something along those lines. Hehehe, I remember those days. Anyway the concert was fantastic.

I played golf with Sally a girl who plays with a handicap of 1. Let’s just say I beat her on the first hole. We need not go into any more detail.

Had my first Tornado warning, what a waste of time.

I have figured out Americans don’t understand some other basics essential to Aussie life.
They haven’t heard of or eaten Dim Sims and they do not know what ‘full toss’ means. Bludger, Maccas and Uni are also words not found in the countries very limited vocabulary.

I also figured out that some guy has been thinking I have been swearing every time I say cool as, sweet as, wicked as, nice as. I found this out after the supposed 3rd time he has asked me. I can’t remember him asking me before but I’m sure he said. Are you saying sweet ass (I would hear sweet as) to which I would reply ‘yeah sweet as’. He ended up asking me bluntly after thanksgiving after I was commenting his grandma was cool as. Glad we got that one cleared up. I hope he is the only one that thinks I have been saying that! That may even rate a score on the embarrassment stakes along with a few more café dropped tray incidents.

So anyhow. Me and Mat (the ‘sweet as’ guy) drove up to Colorado after a thanksgiving meal. It took us twelve hours and we came within inches of our lives (I can use that term coz I’m in America but centimeters for all you stuck in the metric ages!!) We came so, so close to running into a deer. Thankfully we missed and that was the start of Gods protection over me for the weekend as you will soon see.

We got to Denver, Colorado and then trekked a bit further to a ski resort. I was about to try my hand at snowboarding as Tony is about to report.

In sport Andrew took to the Rocky Mountains to glide the gradients, slide the slopes, to to to…well you know? After an hour of phone tuition from an expert snowboarder back home he was ready, or was he??

No, no he wasn’t. He now knows how a boxer would feel after 5 rounds in the ring. And now knows God must be lookin out for him. Reports claim he fell at least 150 times and these are extremely reliable sources. Some claim up to 200 falls in his first day.

Is this the definition of persistence or perhaps the definition of stupidity? Reports confirm the latter. Andrews failure to learn caused him much pain both mentally and physically. It is believed he has bruises where he never thought physically possible (AKA bum crack). The next morning he was forced to roll over on his stomach to get up because his neck was so sore from its eccentric (lowering – for you uneducated non PE students) contractions from breaking his fall that it could not properly support his head. His many big spill left onlookers with quite an impression…one in particular, who got up close and personal. Hes her to talk us through the ordeal.

So there I was snowboarding behind this tall guy who didn’t look like too much of a clutz. He was traveling fairly fast so I assumed he knew what I was doing. Never ever assume. He must have decided he was boarding outside his ability and tried to slow down by cutting across the mountain. He cut across hard and fast and fell just before would have gone off the edge and into the nearby trees. At this point I was far too close to do anything about it. Clunk, I ran into his board…that’s all I remember.

Right, we’ll have to go over to Andrew to finsh this story.

Yeah so I take another fall and before I have a chance to sook about it I hear a clunk on my board. I look round to see this guy go flying. One bounce into a nearby tree. I heard the branches crack and saw him get wrapped round the tree. My first thoughts were. ‘Oops are you ok’ my second thoughts were ‘I wish I had a camera that would have one first prize on funniest home videos for sure’ After a few moments on the ground the guy makes his reply to my first thoughts which by then I had spoken out. Only a few of his words are appropriate to relay on this news cast but the jist of what he said was. I hate you why would you do that, you nearly broke my back. Suddenly my second thoughts were looking good. I made my reply ‘Like I meant it I couldn’t see you’. He proceeded with the four letter words that weren’t dumb, snow or fall. My friend who had stopped nearby and heard/seen all this then stuck up for me. You shouldn’t have been so close rah rah rah. It was good. I wasn’t worried, as he was downhill from me and on a snowboard so it would have taken forever to get me. Plus if he did get me I would be aiming for his fresly wounded back!! In short I do hope he isn’t hurt but dang that crash was awesome. My personal favorite out of stockpile to choose from.

While Andrew made it to the highlights reel for bringing pain to others the next day he woke up with some of his own As explained earlier. Today no doubt, he will be trying skiing. According to his friend Mat this will be a much safer option for both him and everyone on the slopes. How true…

Perhaps not. Being the all round klutz he is Andrew managed at least 20 crashes with the skis. He got down the end of the run and decided his body could not take any more beatings. A frustrated and dejected Andrew indeed.

The next day he gave himself off opting to limp around the city of Denver. ‘Nice and clean’ were the best three words to describe most of Denver except for the Maccas toilets which even a busting Andrew refused to go.

He had earlier found some relief at an ESPN urinal which was fully equipped with a TV above it. Just incase you had any spare attention!

The remainder of the day included resting and cruising round taking photos. For the record he did not fall over once.

This was another day spent thinking and resulted in a few thoughts.

First of all that God was serious when he said to have one rest day a week. To chill out and think about life and focus on him. Its great. So I’m gonna plan to do that a bit more.

I am also going to miss America (I have her phone number!) was the second thought. Its funny how people don’t tell you how much they care or how much you mean to them until you tell them you are only here for 2 more weeks.

Back to the news

The next morning Mat and Andrew were on the road again. The trip back got quite complicated. High winds closed all sorts of roads and forced them to take the backcountry. Andrew was delighted to see his first tumbleweed bouncing across the road.
He also spotted and snapped photos of two trucks which had tipped over on the road in the strong winds. Even this didn’t deter Mat and Andrew, (well mainly mat since he was driving), from getting home. Eventually after a few wrong turns, some alternate roads and a few pit stops for junk food and they were back in Springfield, bringing the snow with them. The first snow Andrew has seen in Missouri. It was also reported that they passed a sign reading “Correctional facility nearby, do not pick up hitchhikers”.

Andrew’s eating and health took a dive over thanksgiving. He knew he was in trouble when he started looking forward to the “healthy food” they serve at the on campus café.

I have got on the veggies since ive been back. All is well and I hope you all are too.

Love Andrew