Skip to main content

Immigration

Scene: Sitting at a bar in the Gold Coast Casino, Las Vegas - 8am. The World Cup Quarter Final between Brazil and the Netherlands is on the tv in front of us. A guy sits either side of me gambling in the fruit machines which are built into the surface of the bar. Their attention is suddenly grabbed when Holland grab an equaliser to make the score 1-1

Guy on my left: Wow! That was a good score. Who are Brazil playing against.
Guy on my right: New Zealand...
Guy on my left: The names of those players don't sound very Australian
Guy on my right: They have a lot of migration there.
Guy on my left: *nods and exhales to express understanding*

Both go back to their fruit machines.

Comments

JoeDiego said…
World class soccer interaction right there!

Popular posts from this blog

Austrian scumbags

I close my eyes. The aroma of cheap hair gel and cigar smoke fills my nostrils. I feel my face being scrutinised. I hear the familiar click clack of poker chips, the drag of a cigarette and then the exhale. Did he just breathe his cigarette smoke on me on purpose? I pull the brim of my hat to cover my eyes further, try to remain still and control my breathing. My opponent is clearly frustrated and I know he is probably going to fold. I want him to fold. I try not to do anything, even to move. I don’t want to give him any ideas about making a hero call . Eventually, after a painfully long time, he folds. *** I had heard the poker games in Vienna were good, so had travelled to the Austrian capital to investigate. A nine hour train ride with Swedish backpackers later and I was in the suburbs of the Austrian capital. The Montesino Card Club is located in a very odd leisure complex, the centre piece of which is four large gas cylinders which have been decommissioned and converted for modern...

Casa de Scaffolding

Portugal is one of my favourite travel and poker destinations, but I have a terrible record of booking accommodation there. During the first time I had played beach volleyball, I received a recommendation of somewhere to stay in Lisbon. Firstly let me say, don't play beach volleyball. It really hurts your hands and you get sand in your face a lot. On my ill adjudged foray into this sandy and painful game, I got talking to my team mate and mentioned I was about to go to Lisbon. "I know a great place to stay" she assured me. We chatted further between points and as I had no writing device to hand, I made a mental note of the B&B she strongly urged me to stay in Lisbon - Casa de Hospedes . It sounded great and just up my street. A couple of days later, with the trip approaching, I still hadn't booked anything. I remembered the beach volleyball tip. A quick google and it popped up straight away. I had a personal recommendation and it was very reasonably priced so ...

Chairs missing

The Thai Park takes place in southwest Berlin every weekend. From spring to autumn a bunch of Thai ladies gather with camping stoves, cool boxes and supplies and make various delicious dishes . It got kind of famous now and there are always rumours that it will close down but each year so far it has started up again with the warmer weather. The 'soup lady' from the park even now has her own Imbiss (small restaurant) called Thai Art and all food there is always tasty. Photo from berlinfoodstories.com On this occasion several years ago the park was busy and buzzing as usual. The crowd sat around the park on the grass and blankets enjoying the food, sunbathing and having a generally lovely time in the sun. Set apart slightly there were a collection of older men seated around a table in a shady spot under a tree. I ambled over and saw that they were playing poker. Texas Holdem in fact. I watched a while longer and it appeared that they were playing for real money and th...