First and foremost, Eric got a job yesterday. Naturally the wonder kid was offered the first job for which he interviewed. It’s a small company with lots of young people, and he thinks he’ll be able to learn some new skills. They’re still working out the details, but he’ll probably start early next week. If he works on the desalination project south of Sydney, they’ll provide us with a car. While it’s been an adventure trying to do all of our errands by foot or by train, it would certainly be a lot easier to get groceries home in a car…If he works on a different project, though, no car, and we’ll certainly continue to be fine.

Anyone who knows me well knows my love of celebrity gossip, actual news, and random facts. Every evening as I walk into my train station, a nice little lady hands me a short newspaper filled with all of those wonderful things. I look out across the harbor at the bridge and the Opera House at sunset, then get on my train to read my trash. Ahh…

I got a haircut last night – finally. I chose the salon based on the name – Pelo Hair. As pelo means hair in Spanish, the name is really Hair Hair, which I thought was hilarious. There aren’t too many Spanish speakers in Sydney that I’ve noticed. The salon is the first for two young friends, who opened it last October.

I arrived a bit early last night and was offered a glass of wine. I declined, not because I don’t love wine, but because I wasn’t used to being offered free drinks with my haircut. After a few minutes, another lady came over and offered again, letting me know that they just felt weird if someone didn’t have a drink. How could I resist? I was also offered magazines, and then the girl clarified, “Trashy?” I thought I’d gone to salon heaven.

When discussing what I wanted done to my hair with Bridget, I mentioned that I’d been thinking of some kind of bangs. Fortunately she has a brother in NYC and thus knew that I meant fringe, which is a much more accurately descriptive term, similar to mobile versus cell phone. However, she thought the word was bands, which makes about as much sense as bangs anyway.

As I left, I had another embarrassing tipping situation. I keep trying to tip people, and they keep pointing out that I’ve given them the wrong amount of money. The choice then is to either explain that you’re trying to tip them, or pretend you’re just an idiot who can’t count and take the money back. I made Bridget keep my $5. The haircut was $70, just $5 more than I was used to paying in Minneapolis, but I was used to tipping $15.