Reigning Champion

We had promised ourselves that we’d make at least one more trip to IKEA Tempe before we left Sydney just to get their delicious ice cream cones! We had noticed that Par, our host, had a complete IKEA apartment, but also had some items that he wasn’t planning on using in the apartment so we offered to return them for him. He was beyond ecstatic since he was nearing the 3 month return mark and was about to head off to Sweden for a week! We were more than happy to do this for him since we were going there anyways, and it would be a nice way to repay him for letting us stay at his very nice place! We had our whole day mapped out, but had to make some quick changes whenever we realized how heavy the stuff was, and the fact that we didn’t want to have to carry it all around the city while we did some last minute errands. With extra bus swipes needing to be used, we hopped on a bus and rode it all the way to Tempe. Returning the items wasn’t hard at all, we just probably looked fishy since we didn’t have the credit cards that the purchases were bought with and we didn’t know Par’s last name. The lady was very helpful though and went along with our request. The ice cream cones were well worth the trip along with finally trying their cinnamon buns that we had been putting off. Instead of icing there are small little dots which could be icing or salt, either way they never really looked that appetizing. They turned out to not be so bad, just not what we’re used to at IKEA Charlotte. With our last days in Sydney slipping away from us we had to get a move on to finish the rest of our errands. We made a stop at the University of Sydney to get some last minute pictures of the campus – or rather all the places that we populated. The afternoon got away from us though and instead of rushing to get everything in we decided to just save some errands for tomorrow and relax a little. Actually, we just hung out at McDonald’s waiting for 6:30 PM to come around. We were planning to meet up with Neill and Terrid for our going away dinner of $9 steaks at a local pub. We had gone there for trivia before and had always wanted to try the steaks so we couldn’t put it off for any longer. It was great for us to all be together for a one and only dinner, especially since it was nearing our last days. Then it was off to trivia at the usual Kelly on King pub.

Par was planning to join us, as well as bring two of his colleagues along so we were excited to go out with a bang. The more the merrier, except for the fact that Par and his friends were running late and didn’t get there until after the first round was already finished. They did help complete some more of the crossword puzzle though so we let them slide. We had hoped that it would be America themed trivia since it was 4^th of July but we weren’t so lucky. We finished well by not coming in last but with the place being absolutely packed today there was no chance of us getting the big prize like we had hoped. There was still one more thing to hope for though – another win at the airplane contest. I told everyone that I’d be doing the airplane again since it was our last trivia and no one argued that. I stuck with the reigning champion fold and asked Lauren if I should throw it underhand again. She immediately responded with an excited “Yes” and I was ready to give it another shot! There were about 5 people in front of me but I didn’t mind since I like going closer to the end anyways. The second person got their plane out the door and that raised the stakes a little. I calmly stepped up to throw mine but my heart was drumming on the inside. I steadily threw the plane underhand and it glided out the door…and into the street! My hands immediately threw up into the air and Rufus, the host, could not believe his eyes! The whole pub went crazy and I walked down to the table high fiving everyone and feeling like a champion! In all the times that we’ve been to trivia I have never seen anyone get their plane into the street! None of the remaining contestants could top that so I was once again the champion which was the perfect ending that I had hoped for.

 

 

Everyone was completely happy for me and was fine with giving the winnings to Lauren and myself! As per usual after winning we stayed to do a few rounds of trivia. We would both list a few songs that we were debating between and then the other person would pick the song, surprising the other. Lauren was first and was surprised to see that she’d be singing ‘That don’t impress me much’ by Shania Twain. I know she likes her country music so she sounded great! Lauren had picked one of my favorite songs ‘Back to Good’ by Matchbox Twenty and Rufus even said in all the years of hosting he has never heard anyone sing that song! We wanted to end the night by singing ‘I love this bar’ together but after waiting about 45 minutes we found out we were still 7 songs out and decided it was already too late. We didn’t want to get back to Par’s place too late so we unfortunately had to say our goodbyes to Rufus. He was sad, but definitely glad that we had been loyal trivia players. We arrived back at Par’s place to see him working on a countdown video for his girlfriend since he was going to see her soon. We had agreed to help him with the countdown and heading down to the lobby to shoot the 3^rd and 4^th day. We even got the concierge in on the action as well as the apartment mascot dog.