Day 29 - October 21

Worked a long shift today, 15 hours. Fridays are when the cafe gets crazy. There were a lot of surrounding business buildings and that's where the majority of the customers came from. The odd tourist would stop in as well since we are the first cafe along the harbour.

For lunch I tried something different. I tried the Arinchini, which is pretty much pasta and rice rolled in a ball with bolognese sauce on top, and salad on the side with fruit. The apple and blackcurrent juice was really good too! I know Rob Foster would love this.









We all got a second break since we were working a long shift. My second meal was a spicy pepperoni pandini. First it's microwaved for 45 seconds, then it's in a flat iron press for about 2 minutes so that it's crispy. I think I want one when I come back to Canada.

Since I had extra time on my break, I decided to walk along the docks on the other side of the water. It was all restaurants. Some were even on boats. I also passed by a place where they serve dim sum, only they call it 'yum cha' here, which is how dim sum is pronounced in Cantonese. Funny. This ain't no dim sum boy, it's yum cha bitches!

While walking along the docks, there were a lot of stars on the ground, but I only recognized one, Wolverine!

When I walked back to the cafe from my break, I passed by the famous 'Cow in Tree' sculpture by John Kelly. This calls for a wikipedia moment: At the famous Coubertin Foundation, just outside Paris, Kelly created his iconic ‘Cow up a Tree’ sculpture, an 8 metre high, four ton bronze sculpture that reproduces Dobell’s camouflage cows upside down, high in the branches of an Australian gum tree. This surreal sculpture, based on flood imagery from Australia, caused a Parisian sensation and was commented upon in worldwide media including in The Times, ‘Cows and debris put Paris back on modern art map’. This sculpture, one of three in the edition travelled back to Melbourne where it has been on permanent public exhibition as part of Melbourne’s Docklands precinct.

The cafe usually closes at 4:00pm, except on Thursdays and Fridays where people can come in for alcoholic drinks and snacks till 6:00pm. Then it turns into a party venue (if it's booked out). There were two parties that night, both 21st birthdays: one was for a brown guy, the other for a white chick. Julie, a student from France (early 20's), PK, Adam and Grace and I were working that night.

The brown party was awesome. While I was offering hors d'oeuvres to everyone, all the girls were talking about my accent. They were saying "I love your accent", then I replied "I love YOUR accent" or "I don't have an accent, you have an accent" which never fails to make them laugh.

There was about 60 of them, about 30% were the parents. Everyone looked like they were having a good time and I was having a lot of fun talking and serving them too.

Adam was the bartender for the brown party while Grace was the bartender for the other party. Julie was mostly in the back helping PK and also serving food to the white party (I'm not being racist, I swear). I helped serve the other party as well, but they were no fun at all. They weren't even hungry. A lot of the times there would be a lot of food we would bring back to the kitchen after making the rounds. The staff and I would just pick at it. With the brown crew, they ate everything, they know not to waste food haha.

Some dude, Jenn, me, KB

One of the brown girls came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said 'you're the best, I'm going to tell your boss that you're awesome!". Sweet, I wonder if I'll get a raise. She later returned with 2 of her other friends. Their names were Tara, Jenn and KB. They were a lot of fun. This serving gig is awesome!

Me, Julie, PK, Adam

After the parties were over at 1:00am, we cleaned till 2:00am. Grace had already left at 1:00am. Adam said we celebrate a hard nights work with beers. I tried a Pure Blond. Just as I though, tastes like all other beer I've had.

I looked up online on how to get home and I had to walk to the Crown casino where a night rider bus was running every 30 mins between 1:00am till 3:00am. There was about 10 of these busses and the one I needed to catch was by the casino. It took about 45 mins to get home. It was about 3:30am by the time I got home. What an exhausting day. I haven't worked like that in a long time (if you are an employee from the Elbow River Casino reading this, what I really mean is that all this hard work reminds me of my working days back at the casino).

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