Here it is in writing: Vaughn was right and I was wrong. About this one thing. I was, in turns out, overly optimistic hoping we'd get jobs in the first couple of weeks. It's now week six and quite a bit later than the second week I was hoping for, but I have a job. Well, a job offer. I'm waiting on the contract but we've agreed on salary and a starting date and assuming it's not a Mephistophelian contract I imagine I'll accept and will start work at the beginning of July.

In the meantime we've been getting out and about a bit more now with bikes and the promise of an income. We ventured out to Acton on Saturday for a BBQ at a friend's place, which turned out to be a big old UQ reunion with a bunch of people who also spent too many of their undergrad years in the refect playing cards.

These same people explained some of the rules of soccer to us the next day when we went to see the Australia-Brazil game. There'd been some research involved in choosing the bar since we were going with a bunch of Brazilians and wanted a "neutral" bar. So we didn't go to a Walkabout with decently priced foods and drinks, but to an incredibly large sports bar in Piccadilly which promised neutral territory. Neutral my foot! We were outnumbered about 50:1. Being Australian, and a Queenslander at that, I assumed that Australians generally were pretty sports proud and rowdy supporters of their teams. Let me tell you, we had nothing, absolutely nothing on the Brazilians! While they cheered madly (he's got the ball, another one's got the ball, ooh look he's kicked the ball, oh hooray we've still got the ball, oh golly we missed the goal but hooray anyway for trying), we clapped politely at any good play or when the Aussie goal keeper kept the ball out of the net. Towards the end of the game I think we were matching them, at least person for person, but it still sounded embarrassingly feeble. And when the Brazilian team scored (only twice, I think we did well), the noise was incredible! There were cheers and chants and drums - really, there was a drum - and I was just a little worried for the floor. I had images of the whole place collapsing under the force of half of Brazil jumping in time.

And to finish off our action packed weekend we met up with some Canberran friends, Julian, Gerard and Gerard's girlfriend Annie, and went to a bar just near Old Street that has open mic every Sunday and listened to some pretty cool freestyling. The only rules were that it had to be positive and laid back, and it was. Really cool.