Fail

For the past four days Pramod, Alex, and I have been staying just outside of Melbourne with Alex's relatives. Alex's aunt Deanne and uncle Tom have been amazing hosts, and it's been great to have a taste of home after a month of traveling in mostly developing countries.

Two days ago we decided that we were going to stay in for the day and maybe watch a movie. I set about starting a fire while Pramod set off to the shower and Alex searched for a movie. Unfortunately it's been a while since I've set up a fire, and the first one was a bust. Alex and I continued working on the fire with no success, until Pramod emerged from the shower half an hour later to discover that the fire was still only smoking. We eventually did get the fire going after the judicious use of kindling, but I'll consider the fire the first fail of the day.

Enervated by our fire-starting efforts, we sat back to enjoy the fire for maybe half an hour, when we realize that we're hungry. Pramod was craving Mexican food that day, so we decided to adventure to Taco Bill to try the local cuisine. Alex grabbed the keys to the Toyota Kluger while I found the directions, and we headed out the door. It was at this point that we completely ran out of luck. 

Alex first realized that he had grabbed the wrong keys, that is, the keys to the manual car that it probably wasn't wise to drive on the left side of the road for the first time. "That's no problem," he thought, "I'll just run in to grab the other key." But somehow the doorknob to the front door was locked. We had the key to the deadbolt, but unfortunately the knob required a different key and wouldn't yield to any of us. Realizing the predicament, Alex reached for his cell to ask his aunt or uncle what to do. Sadly, the phone was sitting inside comfortably out of reach.  We circled the house for about twenty minutes looking for a door that would yield to our key with no luck: the house was the residential equivalent of fort Knox. Not to be stopped, we decided to walk the 2 miles to taco bill. It was nice outside and we could stand to stretch our limbs.

Forty minutes later, we arrived at Taco Bill. It was awfully dark inside. We peered into the windows hoping to catch a glimpse of delicious "Mexican" food, only to be greeted by a sign saying that the restaurant opened at 5:30. It was 2:00. Our situation was becoming dire. Driven by hunger and shamed by our inability to get anything right, we trudged to the nearest gas station to ask for some directions to the nearest provider of food. After a wonderfully helpful attendant set us straight, we managed to find the Templestowe hotel. Pramod ran over to the bar and asked if there was food. It was 2:25. The kitchen closed at 2:00. Luckily as we were about to leave, the chef popped out to say that he would keep the kitchen open for us. With a sigh of relief we sat down and waited for our food. Pramod was served a chicken parm as big as his face and with enough fries to feed, well, Pramod. Alex and I were greeted by some rather dry bangers and mash. It didn't matter. We were famished. Over the next hour and a half we enjoyed our food and watched a taped match of Aussie rules football. As I sat back and savored my beer that fittingly had a note of uric acid, I realized that it had been a rather enjoyable day.