Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I chat with my girlfriend Quel about our recent experience where our landlord kicked us out and stole our money!
Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes | Android | RSS
AE 434 – Interview: She Kicked Us Out & Stole Our Money!
G’day, guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today, I have a special episode for you where I sat down and I chatted to my girlfriend Quel, and we had a bit of a chat about a recent… how can I best describe it? A recent drama, a recent event, that we went through where we had recently moved into the Pakistani embassy, as you guys may or may not know from the previous episode Canberra Renting Nightmare, and we actually got chucked out.
So, anyway, you’ll find about what the hell happened with that story in today’s episode. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy this interview episode with me and Quel. Let’s go!
****
We should talk about what it was like trying to find somewhere to live in Canberra and that process, and see if we can give anyone some advice on house hunting. Don’t trust old ladies… I’m joking. Cuidado as vovozinhas! Cuidado gente! Meu deus! (Watch out for old ladies. Watch out, guys. My god!)
So, alright, so what happened? We came to Canberra and we were thinking initially we would try and find a house for ourselves. It’s like a two or three bedroom house. We would rent the whole thing and pay for the bond, pay the rent, kit it out. Like, we were crazy. Like, how… We could never afford to do that? Well, we could have, but it would’ve everything we had. It’s like… So, we were hunting around for a while, and I guess, there were loads of places, but the competition was just ridiculous. There was 20, 30, 40 applicants every single time we went anywhere to look. Yep. It was funny, because at the beginning, I think you’ve got fed up within a few days. Yep. And, I was like, okay, we’ll be fine, like just let’s keep looking. And then, five days later, I was like, I can’t keep doing this. Just please let’s… I think the most frustrating part was that you would go to these house inspections, you would check the house out, and you would fall in love with the house and think, oh my gosh! This is perfect. I can see myself living here with you. We could totally, you know… Oh there’s a balcony! We could have dinner on that! And then you would submit your application and within two days you would get the, “Sorry it’s been unsuccessful!”, and you’re like, “Fuck! Again?” Like, we went through probably like six of those, and then, we just decided, right, we were like, you know what… And it was funny, we both did it independently on this day, I think. I sent you a message being like, “Should we just want to sharehouse? Like screw this let’s just find a house where there’s already people. We don’t have to pay for a bond.” And I was like, “I’ve already found one.”. That’s it. You’d already been looking for ads online to suggest we go and check out. I just couldn’t do this, like, it’s really tiring, and when you don’t have your own space, your clothes are all over the place, like, you don’t really have a routine, ’cause you’re always moving, and it’s not your house so you have to, like, you know, be aware of and considering to towards all of them. Like, I don’t know. You just can’t completely relax. It’s always like, “Oh, am I moving tomorrow?”. But that’s more, that was more, when we were staying with our friends, where we weren’t paying rent and it wasn’t really our place at all, so you couldn’t just relax. You kind of had to be respectful of their space and time. Yeah, no, yeah, totally. And we didn’t want to, you know, take advantage, like, “Oh, yeah, I’m not paying! Let’s stay for another week!”. You know, like, I wanted to find a place. We had some very kind friends that we were very very… We were very fortunate to know. Yeah, and we got to hang out with the dogs, and, I guess the… We were there for three weeks, housesitting, taking care of their dogs, which was fair enough. We’re at least doing them a favour too. And they’re pretty well-off so it wasn’t like it was going to cost them money. Yep.
But then, so we we applied to some of these share house places. And so what happened, Quel? I’ll let you talk so I have a breather. So, what happened that day? You submitted two replies, I guess, to these people.
So, we had two options. One was this massive house and the other one was a bit smaller, but the second one, the guy didn’t have time on the same day to see us or something like that. He was away I think. ‘Cause we were always checking out a house, the inspection, and you had applied to those two places before. And I got replies from them. And then after it, one of them was like, “Just come round in an hour or something”.
Yeah, and the other guy was like, “Oh you know like next week or something.”, and we were like, “Oh?”. And we had to be out by like… Well, people were back the next day that we’re living in the house we were housesitting.
So, we decided to give it a go and we went to see the mansion. Yeah, the Pakistani embassy in Canberra, the old Pakistani embassy. They got booted out for reasons unknown. Everything’s so shady. Yeah. I don’t know. So, what happened? We got there. We drove through this place and it was like this suburb full of mansions and embassies, and we were like, “How are we… Are we in the right place?”. We can’t pay for that. Like, that’s probably a trap. And then, we drove up the driveway and the lady… you called and she sounded really rude, right?
Yes. So, I’m… How can I say that? I’m really sensitive. So, I do pay attention to the way people talk to me and like the vibe that I get from them. So, the moment I called her, she was a bit rough. Abrupt, short.
Yeah, she was a bit weird. It was like, “Okay, I can’t… you know, I don’t know this person so I’m not judging, and maybe she’s had a bad day.” Yeah maybe she had a bad day. And then we got to see her she was really full on, like she was a bit… I don’t know. You know, one those people… She was kind of half funny and lighthearted, but serious at the same time.
I didn’t… I couldn’t say, “Yes she’s kidding or like she’s serious”. It was a bit like, “What are you talking about?”. Because it was kind of like all business, but then the odd joke. And you’d be like, “I don’t know how to gauge this person.”. And something that I… yeah, like if I can give one advice always… One piece of advice*. Yeah, always trust your instincts.
I had this feeling… it was a really strong feeling, like, we shouldn’t be here, because she was saying horrible things about old housemates. People who’d lived there previously. Yeah, and I was like, “That’s not really nice.”, but we were laughing, and sometimes you do say things like, “Oh, this person, you know, like…”. Well maybe they had been a nightmare. We didn’t meet them, but yeah.
Yeah, but it was really weird that she was complaining about everyone, and I was like, “Okay, anyway, like, maybe they were horrible and she’s just a poor little old lady, that…”. That’s the thing too, I think she got us in that trap of being an old lady, and we’re like, “Oh yeah, vovozinha, which is “old lady” in… “little old lady” in Portuguese. We were like, “Oh, she’s probably right.”. She was not all right, guys. She was not alright. She was really nasty.
So, what happened? We said yes that day, right? We said yes, and then we moved on… two days after that.
Yeah, and we paid 1800 dollars, straight up, for the month. Yes, because… We texted her. We said, “Can we have four weeks? We’ll try it, see how we go.”. We gave her $1,800, $450 a week, for a room that was alright. It was a pretty big room, lots of space, and then a walk-through robes. It wasn’t that bad, honestly like… Walk-through robes, wardrobes, and then a nice big bathroom.
Yep. It was nice to have you know bathroom, and, like, I personally don’t like sharing bathrooms and, you know, things. So, I was really happy with that, and the fact that she was going to cook for us was a big thing. Yeah, that was another thing included in the bills. She was going to cook for us.
Yeah, and another, you know, another way to save money. We don’t have to go, you know, go out and buy food every day. She would provide it. So, it was, “Yeah, let’s definitely stay here.”.
The funny thing was, like, the food was… it was all right, but it was pretty… it wasn’t junk food, but it was very… I don’t think it was healthy. It just depended, I guess, on what she cooked, but a lot of was…
I think the food was really good. The problem for me was I never… I didn’t know what to expect. Yeah. Like, on Fridays, for example, she would… “Oh, yeah, we’re having pizza!”, and, like, “Okay, like, you know, I’m trying to be healthy, like, at least say, and, like, just, you know, say something beforehand so then we can, alright, we don’t really want pizza. So, we going to plan something else.”. Yeah, but some days you would just come and like “Oh, we’ll have fish and chips”. I was like, “Oh, we had pasta, yesterday.” So, it’s like, I don’t know, just very…
Anyway, so, yeah, we moved in, we were doing that, it was okay, but the funny thing… I guess, “the penny dropped” we say in English, when we… when you suddenly realise what what’s happened, “the penny dropped”. We had dinner with her and, I guess, I was… I say “Jesus” a lot and I say “God” a lot. Yeah, I do the same. And it’s not because I’m trying to be offensive to religious people, nor trying to swear, it’s just… it’s kind of something that’s just said in English. I think I got it from you, actually. Like, we… when we’re shocked or surprised, we’ll say just, “Oh, Jesus!”, or we’ll say, “Oh my God!”, you know, like, you just say those… It’s kind of like a verbal tick, like an expression that’s used. So, I was saying those unwittingly, unknowingly, at dinner, and the next day, what happened? So, you got in the car.
I was… she would give me a lift to the bus station in the mornings. So, she was like really… I don’t know. She was really careful with her words. She was like, “Oh yeah, you know, like this is a Christian house and I don’t like swearing. So, if you guys can be more…” And, I was like, “I’m pretty sure Pete wasn’t swearing. So…”.
Yeah, I think I was making an active effort like “shit” or “fuck” or anything like that whilst talking with her. Yeah, and I normally don’t say… don’t swear, like, unless I’m with friends or something.
Or you hear them doing it. And that, I think, was the thing that confused me most, ’cause when you told me that, I was like, “I specifically remember her saying “shit” at the dinner table, and maybe even “fuck”, and dropping that.”, and that’s why I was so confused when you were like, “Yeah, she doesn’t like swearing.”.
Enjoying Aussie English?
Support AE on Patreon today so I can bring you even better content!
And we were, like, just confused. Like, what does she mean by ‘swearing’? Like we didn’t do that. So, then I went to work and she came back home, I don’t know, and she went to talk to you.
Yep. She sat me down and she went through the same spiel, and I was like, “Oh, here we go”, ’cause she told Quel. And I was like expecting it first, right. I was thinking, “Alright, she’s just Christian. She doesn’t like it.”. I didn’t think she was going to be absolutely bat-shit crazy. I did not expect for her to be bat-shit crazy. So, she sat me down and she’s like, “You know, this is a Christian household. I don’t like swearing”, and this is where I was thinking like, “I don’t remember swearing.”. Yeah. And then she said, “You can’t say the words ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ in this house, because I believe in the power of prayer and it interrupts or interferes with my prayers, and the Holy Spirit gets confused”. Like, honestly if the Holy Spirit gets confused, that… you should rethink that, like…
Yeah, it’s a bit presumptive to think that God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus are going to get confused and not answer your prayers , ’cause two people in the house are using the words. But I think then the thing that freaked me out and really made me think, “Oh, this chick is nuts. This lady’s crazy!”, was when she was telling me about how she believed in the power of prayer to raise the dead. So, to bring people who have died back to life. “Not she wants to brag!”. And she said she had done it twice. She’d prayed twice and people had come back to life.
That’s really… That’s really crazy.
But I guess to put this in perspective, guys, and I don’t know how many listeners will be of the same faith, and I don’t mean to offend anyone who is of the same faith, you know, it’s probably just this old lady, but she was a Pentecostal Christian, and introduced herself that day, at least after we’d moved in, so too little too late. Yeah. After we’d paid all this money and settled in. She introduced herself as a “fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian”. Yeah, the combo. And it was weird because most people don’t refer to themselves as a fundamentalist anything, right. You know, that’d be like introducing yourself, as “Hi, I’m a cult leader.”.
Yeah, like, what? It was a bit strange. I don’t know. We don’t have any problems with religious people. Not at all. Like, my family’s Catholic. Like, my best friend was really for many years. The problem is she was just getting worse and worse and worse.
Well, that was the thing that really shat me, really annoyed me, was the fact that it wasn’t that she was Christian at all, I don’t care about that, but she kept pushing it on us. Yeah. She kept trying to sneakily get you to come to church. She kept trying to be like, “Did you want to come and do this, and then afterwards we can go to church?”. Yeah, she was like, “Oh, I’ve noticed you don’t have wear the clothes.”. I was like, “Yeah, like, I haven’t got paid so I’m waiting for my money to come through, and then I can go. Hopefully, winter will hold back a little bit.” She was like, “We go on the weekend and we can go to church or something…”.
And I was like, “Ehhhh…!”. There was a lot of that too, right, because she was saying, “Oh, this is a Christian house”. And then, later we find out that there’s only one other Christian living there. And so, she’s kind of just forcing her faith on everyone else.
And, like, there was a guy living there who had a boyfriend. So, he was gay, he was a homosexual, and she seemed to be at least, obviously, knew and tolerant. Yes, because I would talk about it all the time. But she won’t or wouldn’t allow him to have his boyfriend come to the house and visit.
So, stuff like that where it’s kind of like, “Oh, it’s a share house and you live here and you can do whatever you want. Oh, but you can’t if it’s against my faith, even though I’m not going to know or be here because I live upstairs in a different room.”.
I think for me the last straw was when the Brazilian couple went there. So, we became friends. Like, they needed a place to stay. It was like, “Yeah, you know, I’m living at his house and there’s so many rooms. You guys can come and talk to the lady. She seems to be nice. Just come.”. And they did, but I don’t know what happened, and she… they were supposed to stay for like a month or something, for three weeks, and after five or, you know, seven days. She accepted their money. Yeah, she accepted the money, and then she was like, “You know what, you guys have to leave. I have this other house, like, in the middle of nowhere that you can stay (at) if you want.”. Like, why are you doing that?
And that’s the reason we ended up leaving. It wasn’t because of her religion. You know, we tolerated her doing her thing. It was more the way that she treated the people living there, and she treated it like we were dolls on a shelf that she could just rearrange. “Recycle”. And… she kept referring to people as like, “Recycling them”, anytime she wanted to get people to leave the house, because she didn’t like them, because of some problem, or because she wanted them to move into a different room, because she thought, “I could get a couple to move into the room this other person’s in, and then up the rent and charge them more money. And then, I’ll be able to make more money”. Because that was the problem, I guess, ultimately for us was that she’s paying for the entire house, and then subletting to all of us, and she’s trying to make as much money as she can. So, she wouldn’t just get you into a room and let you stay there, at least, for some of the other people whilst living there. She would get into a room and you would sign up, you would pay your rent or whatever, and then afterwards, if things change with other people in the house. She would just move you. She would try and move you around, and switch you, and move rooms, and you’d… Yeah, it was very bizarre. Not really respectful.
And so, we had two people leave, and… because, I think, they were sick of it. Yeah. And just the way that she was very busy body. She was very yeah like, you know, I’m going to tell you what to do, where to go, how to move, and I think also she was very set on helping people, you know, in quotation marks. Not really helping them, but helping them in a way that makes her feel better. Yeah. So, for instance, she was saying apparently to some of the other housemates, “We need to find a real job, because he doesn’t have a real job”. And I was like, “She doesn’t know anything about me. How do you know that I’m not making billions of dollars from Aussie English. I could be a billionaire. You don’t know anything. You don’t know who I am!”. I just happen to like this house, you know? I’m not a billionaire.
Yeah, she was really, honestly, one of those people that they try… they do the wrong thing, they can be really nasty to you, but then, “Oh, you know, I had the best intentions, and like…”. Yeah. I was saying to Quel, I was like, “I think she is a really evil person’s idea of a good person.”. So, someone who is really horrible at heart, like, I think she’s… She’s good because she wants to be good, not because she’s genuinely good. She wants people to think she’s good. Yeah. So, it felt a lot more about, “I want people to feel like or think that I’m doing the right thing by other people, but then when it comes down to it, I’m doing everything for me and other people’s needs and wants don’t matter.”.
And so what happened with us? In fact, first, the Brazilian couple, she decided to kick them out, because one of them didn’t have a job yet, and they’d just moved to Canberra. But that girl has a job and they, you know, they… if they went there, they probably had money to pay for it. So… They offered to pay the rent. They offered to pay for everything. But she decided because he didn’t have a job yet, she wanted them out.
And for me, the worst was she kicked them out, and then, I think the next day she felt bad about it. I don’t know. And she was like, “Oh, you can have this fridge if you want. You can have this mattress.”. And then, the girl would get excited, like, “Oh, yeah, sure! I’m moving, like, I don’t have anything. I can definitely take it.”, and she was like, “$300. $500.”. Like, if you say, “You can have it if you want.”. You assume that you don’t have to pay for it. She was like “You can have it if you want.”, “Oh yeah, I’d love it.”, “Oh, it’s this much money.”. Yeah, so if you want to pay that’s what I forgot to say.
I think, too, the thing that really irritated me was that the fridge she was going to sell them was one she’d given us in our room and it didn’t work. Yep. And that felt really dodgy.
And it just… we are so nice, because… that… having this fridge in the room was one of the things, “Yeah! That’s awesome.”. And then, you got there. It wasn’t working, and you didn’t say anything. We were like, “Oh whatever.”. You know, we didn’t even care, because… yeah, it was really intense. It was a very very intense situation, but the worst thing, and the thing I guess I was most annoyed about, was that she was trying to get us to pay the next month’s rent two weeks early , because obviously, she wants to be in control and have money ahead of time. Yep. And we decided when she asked for that… So, that was two weeks. We decided to tell her, “Well, look, we think we’re going to move, ’cause we don’t really feel like this is where we want to live. So, we’ll stay here for the month. We’d given you the $1,800 for the month so after a month, we’ll move out.”, and she raged. Because… she got… she was furious.
Enjoying this episode?
Get the bonus content for this episode with quizzes and vocab breakdown!
Enroll in the AE Classroom for $1 for your first 30 days
Yeah, she was really angry. And honestly, it really irritated me, ’cause I was being extremely polite to her. Like, “Hey, thank you! Thank you for everything. Like, it was nice to stay here. I’ll give you two options. We can leave in five days, and then you give the money back, or we can leave in two weeks, which is like more than enough for you to find someone else, and you don’t have pay us.”.
And I guess, the thing to mention, the thing we’d worked out whilst… when we told her that, we had found the place that we’re currently living in, and had accepted that. And so, we were okay. Yeah. The problem was that we couldn’t move in for a week. Yes. Yes. And it was also that, yeah, we had two weeks more at this other place. So, we were like, “Yeah, we’ll just stay up until the date, and fair enough, we said that we would stay here for a month. Keep the money. Keep the money, yeah. And we’ll move to the new place.”. She didn’t want us there anymore. She was just like, “You know what? You’re leaving in five days.”.
No, it was even less. She decided to back track the rent and increase it per day, the per daily rate, so that she could kick us out. So, instead of paying for a month, you pay for 18 days. Yeah, she said, “Oh well, because you guys only want to stay for a month. I’ve decided to charge you 100 dollars a day, so you have to be out after 18 days.”, which was like three days after we’d told her.
Yes, the funny thing… like, thank God we were going to Ocean Grove for the weekend. So, you know, we had a place to stay otherwise we’d be like, “Okay, so we’re not… What are we going to do, because of this crazy person’s kicking us out?”.
The funny thing was we kind of pretty much packed up the car when we drove back to Ocean Grove for Easter all the way down in Geelong in Victoria. So, we pretty much brought all of our stuff back with us, anything of value, because I was like, “I don’t trust this lady. I don’t want her to have any control over us and go into our room and take things.”. I mean everything, computers or the camera. Yeah, anything worth anything. Except the clothes. She can have those.
Yeah. So, we ended up getting kicked out after 18 days. So, she effectively owed us $720. She does. And we could have stayed, we could have fought it, but obviously it was so uncomfortable at that point that we just didn’t want to bother. Yeah, like… And our friends had said, “Just come and stay with us.”.
Yeah, at the beginning, I was like, “You know, like, I’m not giving in. I want my money back and everything”, but then we realised, it’s just not worth it, it’s just money, you know. Like, I don’t want to be around this person. She would be completely nasty to us, and I just want to deal with that.
And, we hadn’t signed anything too. That was the part that really irritated me, was that she said, “Don’t you remember me telling you that if you were going to only stay for a month…” And it was like, you didn’t say that. You’re saying that now because you’re annoyed that we want to move out, because, you know, a few other people have moved out at the same time, you’re not making enough money to pay for the rent without going into your own savings. Absolutely.
And so, yeah, but I guess one lesson to you guys, if you guys end up having issues with landlords, you can go to what’s called the Fair… I think it’d be Fair Rental or Fair Housing Work… no, not work, Ombudsman. So, you’d be able to go to other Ombudsman in whatever state you’re in. And if someone’s doing something dodgy to you, don’t just take it, ring up and ask for advice. Yeah. ‘Cause I found out afterwards too, after doing some research, that actually we could have stayed because the documents that we had signed said that she had received the money for a month, $1,800 for a month. There was nothing else in it saying that if we decided to leave after a month that she could change the rules. Yeah, absolutely. So, we could have stayed if we wanted to, but the trouble was as soon as we moved out, we would have no due course to complain or to go back, ’cause we had willingly and purposely moved out.
And maybe… we were a bit naive as well. Like… We rushed into it. Yeah, we were like, “Oh, yeah, it looks really nice. let’s do it.”. So, if you guys can just ask as many questions as you can. Just… and make sure everything’s really well explained.
And that’s the trouble, though, because I feel like… you… those sorts of questions are so hard. Like, if I’d gone back, I would have said,” Are you religious? Are there any sorts of…?”. But even then, 99% of the religious people I know are normal. And you don’t have any problem with religious people. Like, that’s not something that would… So, it’s difficult. You can’t just be like, “Are you a fruit loop?”. Yeah. “Are you crazy? Can you just let us know ahead of time?”. “Do you speak in tongues?”, “Are you nuts?”. Yeah. “Have you ever brought someone back from the dead?”, “Just to make sure”. Yeah, that’s it. “Without bragging, can you tell me?”. Yeah, it’s really hard. You can’t think… You know, you can’t really, “Okay, this prison is extremely weird so assume that it’s a horrible person”, maybe not. Maybe they’re really funny and nice. I don’t know, just make sure you sign… you read everything you sign, and don’t… yeah, don’t be naive.
Yeah, that’s it. So, that was the experience in this previous house, guys. And, I guess, it was funny because Quel and I were watching a, I guess, a Walking with Pete kind of vlog/video that I had made this day after we had accepted moving into this house, and my… what I say on there, you’ll see when it goes up on YouTube eventually, I’m very positive about my thoughts about this place. And I’m like, “You know, this old lady, she seems a bit weird, but…”. You even said that she was lovely. Yeah, that’s it. “Oh, but she’s probably lovely, and we’re going to move in, and it’s going to be good, and it’s crazy, because it’s this old mansion, the Pakistani embassy.”.
Little did I know. Quel and I were both watching this video and Quel’s like, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! She’s going to kill you! She’s a witch!”.
Yeah, so. Oh, it was funny. But where are we now, Quel, and how has it been, you know, three days, two days in? We found another place. Yeah. Yeah, seems alright so far. Been here for like three days, four days. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it’s a bit hard for me,’cause I have… now have to take two buses to work, but honestly, like, just coming back home and being… Peace of mind is a bit better. It’s fine. Like, we have a dog and everyone seems alright. Like, the girl is lovely, the guy who lives here is alright. These people are both our age and really friendly, especially, Elena, the girl who we’re renting from.
So, I thought that was a good idea, because we would have someone our age who we. could be friends with, and chill out with, and have stuff in common with. So, it seems to be working out. Knock on wood. You know. Maybe. Just in case. Maybe she’ll come to us tomorrow and tell us that she’s, you know, a fundamentalist Buddhist or something crazy. “I’ve changed the rules!”. But, it seems to be. going alright.
Yeah, I’m really enjoying it, and it’s a nice area as well, like, it’s a. nice area as well. Like, the apartment’s a bit small. It’s definitely smaller, and we have a share bathroom. Yeah, so… But, it’s not that bad to be honest. It’s definitely cheaper. We’re saving, like, 100 bucks a week now. So, 400 bucks a month, which is worth it, I guess, to put into savings, and put towards other things, whether it’s our own food, or, get to chill out. Yeah, I like it here. Let’s see what happens. Exactly.
Well, we should probably finish up there, I guess. We’ve been talking for almost 50 minutes. But, I thought it would be good to have you on the podcast again, and I guess, give the listeners more of a… an experience listening to us talking in a conversation. So, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. I hope you guys got a lot out of it. Lot’s of vocab in there.
Yeah, hope I didn’t say anything wrong. Yeah, that’s it, hopefully, you didn’t get too offended by our views on this old lady and the occasional swear word in there. I’m trying to swear a little more often in these podcasts. Not because I don’t swear normally, but because I swear normally, and I have been trying to keep keep it off the podcasts as much as possible, but I think I’ve realised that it’s not… I want exposure to real English and I want show you how I actually speak, especially, in informal friendly conversations and environments. So, don’t be offended if you hear the word, you know, shit, fuck, cunt. That’ll happen from time to time. Menino! É doido! (Boy! You’re crazy!”)
But, I guess, as a disclaimer that if you’re ever in doubt with regards to swear words in English… Say it! NO! Don’t say it. Don’t say it. If you’re ever in doubt, don’t say it. Joking! And feel free to ask me, guys. If you ever have a situation arise where you’re like, “Well, I heard this and I wasn’t sure if it was okay, or I felt like I want to say this, but I don’t know if it’s okay.”, feel free to ask me.
But, yeah. That’s it. Thanks for hanging out, guys, and we will try to do more like this in the future. Bye! See you, guys!
****
Alright, guys, so that was the interview. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you though that it was an interesting story. I hope you got a lot out of it. And I would love to know what you think of it, guys.
So, make sure that you comment on Facebook or on the website and let me know. Was this lady crazy, or maybe she was normal and we just deserved to be turfed out? Thanks, guys, and I’ll chat to you in the next one. See ya!
Enjoying this episode?
Get the bonus content for this episode with quizzes and vocab breakdown!
Enroll in the AE Classroom for $1 for your first 30 days
-
Expression: To Have A Blast/To Be A Blast
Learn Australian English in this Expression episode of Aussie English where I teach you the expressions TO HAVE A BLAST and TO BE A BLAST.
Expression: To Have A Blast/To Be A Blast
G’day guys.
Welcome to this episode of Aussie English.
I hope you guys have all been well.
It’s been a little while since I have specifically recorded one of these as a podcast episode.
So, hopefully the audio’s going to be a little bit better.
Until recently I’d been focusing a little bit, probably too much, on making videos and seeing how that would go with uploading them to YouTube, and it’s a very very long process.
But, hopefully you guys have been enjoying the different videos I’ve been uploading.
I’ve been doing a whole heap of Walking With Pete ones as well as expression ones and just other language learning tip videos.
So, if you haven’t checked them out yet definitely go over to YouTube and have a look.
In those videos, too, I’ve tried to include vocabulary for all the videos, specifically the vocab that I highlight and go over in the PDFs.
So, if you have any feedback for what you think of those videos and how I can improve them, or if you think they’re really good just let me know, because I always love hearing from you guys to sort of get an idea of what you’re enjoying and where to put my energy.
So, I always want to know where I can best put my energy in the podcast and create the best resources possible for you guys, particularly, these free ones that I give away to you guys that you can use at your leisure.
Anyway, today we’re going to go over the expression TO HAVE A BLAST or TO BE A BLAST.
TO HAVE A BLAST, TO BE A BLAST.
This one comes from Thibault, and he was talking to me on Facebook in the Facebook Members Group for the Aussie English Supporter Pack.
He was asking about what this expression meant.
So, I thought, “Oh, (it’s the) perfect chance to make an episode and upload it this week covering this expression.”
So, TO HAVE A BLAST or TO BE A BLAST.
We’ll go over the definition of the words in this expression first.
Obviously, you guys know TO HAVE, you know to possess, or TO BE when you are something.
I mean TO BE is a pretty hard one for me to define.
It’s such a basic verb.
So, they don’t really need defining.
But, A BLAST, A BLAST, it’s obviously a noun, and if you want to get really technical A BLAST is a destructive wave of highly compressed air that spreads outwards from an explosion.
So, I mean, most of the time I’m going to use this interchangeably with words like “an explosion”, “a bang”, “a boom”, when something goes off that’s A BLAST to me, A BLAST.
So, imagine you’ve got some dynamite, you light it, put it somewhere and it explodes.
You could say, “The explosion that went off, it was A BLAST.” or say you’ve got some C4.
You’re a soldier.
You’ve put it on a door somewhere because you’ve got to get inside, and you blow it up, and it goes off with A BLAST.
Or an atomic bomb, you know, imagine the Second World War when the atomic bombs went off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You could say that that was AN enormous BLAST, A huge BLAST.
So, TO HAVE A BLAST just means to have a great time, to have a lot of fun, or to enjoy doing something a lot.
And TO BE A BLAST is when a specific thing was great, was a lot of fun, was incredibly enjoyable.
So, it’s a pretty simple expression guys.
I’m sure you guys get it.
So, TO HAVE A BLAST is usually used to talk about something that a person has experienced, say, “I HAD A BLAST at the party last night.”
Whereas, TO BE A BLAST is usually used to talk about that something being a good experience.
So, “The party last night WAS A BLAST.”
So, there you go.
Three examples here of how you would use this expression.
1.
So, going off that one we just mentioned, a party.
Imagine that you’re at a birthday party.
You have an amazing time.
All your favourite friends and family members are there.
You get, you know, really drunk.
You eat a lot of great food.
You hear great music.
The next day someone could be asking you, “Oh, man, how was that party last night? I heard you got to see all your friends. You had your favourite drinks there. It was awesome food. I heard the entertainment, the music was amazing. What’d you think?” and you could say, “Oh! The party WAS A BLAST! The party WAS AN absolute BLAST. It was great. I enjoyed it. It was amazing.”
Or, you could say, “I HAD A BLAST at the party. I HAD AN absolute BLAST at the party. The party WAS A BLAST. I HAD A BLAST at the party.”
2.
A second example could be that you went on holiday to The Gold Coast.
So, for example, a lot of Melbournians and people from Victoria and in the south of Australia often go north for holidays.
So, we’ll go up the coast and enjoy better weather.
It tends to be a lot colder in the south and a lot more muggy and rainy than it is, say, in the north.
So, we go to The Gold Coast.
There’s lots of beautiful beaches there.
So, imagine you’ve gone on a holiday.
You’ve come back after two weeks away on The Gold Coast surfing, seeing heaps of people, going partying, whatever.
You come back.
You see your family and they see you all tanned and happy and like you’ve had a great time.
They might say, “Oh! How was the holiday? Was it good?” and you could say, “It WAS A BLAST.”
Or, they could say, “Did you have a good time?
Did you have a good time on your holiday?” and you could say, “Oh! Absolutely. I HAD A BLAST. The holiday WAS A BLAST. I HAD AN absolute BLAST on the holiday to The Gold Coast.”
3.
A third example, just to finish up here, could be that you have travelled to Australia from Brazil.
So, g’day to everyone from Brazil listening to this podcast.
You’re a Brazilian.
You’ve come over to Australia, and you’ve tried surfing for the first time in Australia.
Although, that would probably be a little weird for Brazilians, because Brazilians are known for surfing and beautiful beaches.
Anyway, that aside, imagine they have come to Australia for the first time.
They have gone surfing for the first time down at Bells Beach.
Bells Beach is a beach along The Great Ocean Road, or I think, just before The Great Ocean Road in Victoria here.
And this is where we have like the Rip Curl Pro Surfing Competition each year.
You’ll see people like Mick Fanning, he’s a famous Australian surfer, and American surfers like Kelly Slater, often competing there.
So, you’ve gone surfing down at Bells Beach for the first time.
You had an amazing time.
You thought it was absolutely incredible.
You didn’t get killed by any sharks.
You didn’t get hit by any other boards, or injured in any kind of way.
You got out of the water after an hour of surfing, you know, and it was absolutely incredible.
You could say, “I HAD A BLAST surfing. Surfing for the first time in Australia WAS AN absolute BLAST. It WAS A BLAST to come here to Australia to Bells Beach to go surfing. The whole thing WAS A BLAST. I HAD A BLAST. It was amazing.”
So, that’s pretty much it guys.
I’m sure by now you get the sense of this expression TO HAVE A BLAST, to have a good time, to really enjoy yourself, or for something TO BE A BLAST, for that thing to be really enjoyable, for it to have been incredibly good fun.
So, to finish up here we’ll do a little listen and repeat exercise guys.
So, just listen and repeat after me and try and mimic my accent perfectly if you’re after an Australian accent.
Otherwise, just copy what I’m saying based on the words that I’m saying and use the accent that you’re after whether it’s a British accent or an American accent.
But if you want to copy me here’s your chance to do it.
So, listen and repeat after me.
Listen and repeat:
I had a blast.
You had a blast.
He had a blast.
She had a blast.
We had a blast.
They had a blast.
It was a blast.
And so now I’ll do that at natural speed.
I had a blast.
You had a blast.
He had a blast.
She had a blast.
We had a blast.
They had a blast.
It was a blast.
So, that’s it for today’s episode guys.
If you haven’t already jumped over to the Facebook page make sure that you come over and say hello.
Give the page a thumbs up if you like what I’m doing and you’re enjoying Aussie English.
And always feel free to message me if you have any kinds of questions on there or just comment and be engaged.
I’m always trying to post things to get you guys engaged, to get you talking and to keep practicing your English.
Also, if you haven’t checked it out jump on the website at www.theaussieenglishpodcast.com and check out the free give away ebook and audio course that I have on there.
So, all you have to do is sign up for your email and you get access to my free ebook and audio course on An Introduction To Contractions In English Like A Native.
So, I teach you words like “Gonna”, “Wanna”, “Havta”, “Dunno”, “Doncha” and give you a bit of an introduction to contractions like a native.
How they do it as a native.
And one last little mention here guys, I have released the Aussie English Supporter Pack.
This’s been out for about a month now.
We’ve got quite a few people who’ve signed up and they seem to all be enjoying it.
So, the Aussie English Supporter Pack is premium transcripts for each one of these episodes.
So, I highlight all of the vocab that I go through in these episodes.
I also give you a lot of bonus exercises.
So, you get like a vocabulary list to fill out.
So, all of the highlighted words and difficult phrases in the text are all listed in a table for you to fill out.
I also give you audio and written substitution exercises, and I often go over phrasal verbs and other idioms and collocations that use prepositions, so other words that are commonly grouped together with prepositions.
I also give listening comprehension questions for each episode as well as language learning tips and tricks.
So, this’s also got a Facebook Members Group where you guys can jump across if you sign up, and we all work together to chat and tackle problems you might be having in English, and I just spend a lot more time there trying to engage with you guys.
So, if you want access to that group and you want access to these premium transcripts definitely check that out, and have a think about signing up.
You don’t have to, but it’s definitely something you can do if you want to take your English to the next level.
Anyway, guys, that’s enough from me.
I hope you guys have been enjoying these episodes, and I’ll chat to you soon.
All the best.
Not a Member yet?
Get bonus exercises when you upgrade to the premium transcripts
Today’s bonus exercises include:
- A glossary of all the vocab
- Lesson vocab exercises
- Listening comprehension exercises
- Phrasal verb Substitution exercises written & audio/oral
Check out these FREE example lessons!
GET INSTANT ACCESS!
-
WWP: My Language Learning Goals For 2017
In this Aussie English episode of Walking With Pete I talk to you guys about my language learning goals for 2017 and ask for your opinion after I run things by you all.
[sdm_download id=”1721″ fancy=”1″]
Hey guys. Welcome to this episode of Sitting With Pete, maybe we’ll call it, as I’m just chilling out here at the restaurant.
I had a meeting and (I) got to hang out with a lot of the other guys here at the restaurant. We had to do some training. So, it was sort of a training day where we had to sort of just go over the basics of having… I don’t even know how to explain it, but solving problems potentially with customers. So, any sorts of grievances or if someone gets the wrong meal or they don’t like something, you know, just going over the basics of what we have to do when dealing with customers and making sure that they’re all happy.
So, (I) did that for about an hour and a half with all the other waiters here and the managers as well, and I am now just hanging out for about half an hour until I start work later on tonight at about 6 O’clock.
And so, you can tell I’m speaking a little quieter because it’s actually quite quiet here. There’s no music playing and there’s people working downstairs. And, yeah, I thought, “Perfect time to make another video for you guys, touch base.”. And, TO TOUCH BASE means to get in touch with, to sort of keep up-to-date, to tell you about things, to see how you’re going. If I want to TOUCH BASE with my parents, for example, in general, it could just mean that I’m calling my parents up and saying, “How’ve you been? I just wanted TO TOUCH BASE with you. I wanted to see how you were.”. You can also use the phrase TO TOUCH BASE for wanting to see how something is, say, progressing. So, say, you are building a restaurant, and you’ve got plumbers and electricians and builders, carpenters coming over and doing bits and pieces, you could TOUCH BASE with all of them, you know, call them up. “What are you doing today? How’s this going? Is this progressing? Where are you at with this part of the project?”. So, it’s that idea of just communicating with someone to see where they are at, how they’re doing, seeing the progress of a project like that. You could BE TOUCHING BASE. Anyway, that’s one expression that I can just cheekily explain there for you.
So, I thought I would do this episode because I’m thinking of doing, or thinking of learning a new language next year just to change things up. So, to keep my language learning experience and progress sort of going. I felt like after I learnt French last year for an entire year, and really really enjoyed that, and I spent this year learning Portuguese, I thought it would be cool to kind of keep learning a new language each year and see how I can progress, see what sort of level I can get to, you know. I’m probably not going to get anywhere near, you know, really high level in fluency, but at the same time I’m going to obviously learn the basics, be able to communicate, and just immerse myself in the culture a little bit more than if I was to otherwise stick with English while I’m in Australia.
So, (my) thoughts for next year. Obviously, I speak French and I speak Portuguese and I speak English, I’m thinking of learning Icelandic though. And, Icelandic is a Scandinavian language. It’s the language that’s spoken in Icelandic, funnily enough. And, there’s several reasons why I want to learn Icelandic, and I thought I would go over those with you and see what you thought. One, I love the country geographically. The geology of the country’s amazing, the volcanos, the different parts of the scenery, mountains, beaches. Everything up there in the Northern Hemisphere right up near the North Pole, it just looks like an amazing place, an amazing country. Aside from that, I love what I know of the people and of the culture and of the history. The history as well, and the vikings, the Sagas, that has always really really interested me. And so, I’ve always been really fascinated with being able to read the Sagas potentially in the language in which they were written, which wasn’t Icelandic, but it was Old Norse. And the other aspect or the other part that I guess that I want to get to is the fact that Icelandic is a Scandinavian language like Swedish, Danish or Norwegian, however, it is very different from those three in that it is grammatically more complex and shares a lot of the grammar that Old Norse has or had once upon a time.
So, Old Norse is the language from which Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and a few other languages stem and, or originate from, but a lot the other languages, or at least, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, have all been simplified. So, their grammar has become more simplified, it’s not as difficult for foreigners to learn. Whereas, Icelandic still has incredibly different grammar with cases, with genders… I think with genders or at least with cases.
And so, it’s just more of a challenge. It’s more of an interesting challenge. Seeing as I speak English, obviously, and I’ve learnt two Romance languages, French and Portuguese, it’d be interesting to learn a Germanic language other than, obviously, one that I already speak (English). So, learning a Germanic language with incredibly different grammar. So, that is part of the reason why I want to learn Icelandic.
Other than that, I would like to learn Spanish. That would definitely be on the high priority list. The only thing is that I want my Portuguese to be at a very very high level before I go anywhere near Spanish. I don’t want to go anywhere near Spanish until my Portuguese is at very advanced level, because I feel like I would confuse the two languages very easily, because they’re so close to one another. If I was to suddenly start learning Spanish from a beginner’s level when my Portuguese was only at an intermediate level I feel like I would have the potential to really confuse myself with words, with grammar, with different nouns, you know. They may only slightly be different between the two languages, or they may be false friends where the same word is used but that means completely different things. So, I feel like I have to, at least for a few years, focus on levelling up Portuguese to a very high level until I feel like, “Ok, maybe now I can go near Spanish without worrying about confusing the two and CROSSING them OVER.”. So, TO CROSS OVER is obviously TO CROSS something like this and to get them confused in that figurative sense. TO CROSS the two things OVER, to confuse them.
So, yeah, I definitely want to see what do you guys think? Do you think it’s a good idea? Other than, I guess, the idea of starting to learn Icelandic on the 1st of January, ’cause I like starting languages at the moment on the very 1st of January and learning them all the way through until New Years as at least my primary focus for that one languages. I’d still keep doing Portuguese and I would still keep doing French on the side, and probably just more passively. Once it’s gotten to that point where I can read pretty well and listen pretty well that is what I would probably focus on more until I had the chance to be able to go to countries like Brazil or like France where I could potentially more fully immerse myself and then work on my speaking.
So, the option is, yeah, starting Icelandic on the 1st of January and showing you guys what I can achieve, I guess, in a year. So, doing these 1-minute daily episodes that I’ve been doing on Aussie English, and I’ll put a link below to the Instagram so that you guys can go and check out the ones that I’ve done in French and in Portuguese for the last week and a half. I think I’ve done about 9 episodes. I’m going to try and keep doing that every single day. And so, I would try and do that with Icelandic. And I guess this would be an interesting one because I’ve never met anyone from Iceland. So, this would be a language that I would be learning completely on my own with no help from natives at all. So, it would be interesting to see what I can achieve doing that.
The other option would be to just continue with French and Portuguese, and focus on those two together and level them up at the same time for another year. And so, yeah, those are my thoughts at the moment. I thought I would RUN this BY you guys. And TO RUN something BY someone is to sort of get your opinion, to tell you about it, to gauge what you think. If I run my idea by you guys it means that I tell you the idea and that I wait to hear what you think. TO RUN it BY you. So, I wanted TO RUN the idea of starting Icelandic next year BY you guys to see, what do you think? Is it a good idea? Is it a challenge? Maybe you think with that kind of language, “What’s the point?” It’s such a minuscule language with a very small population. Maybe I should focus more on learning another language that’s a lot more common. And maybe you’ll think, “You should just do Spanish! You’ll do it!”, you know, “It’s fine. You won’t confuse it with Portuguese.”. I want to hear what you guys think.
So, make sure you jump on Facebook, send me a message or a comment. Subscribe to this channel and also like it, and drop a comment below. Tell me what you think in a comment. Should I do Icelandic? What do you think I’ll be able to achieve in a year’s time? And, yeah, is there a language that you’re learning at the moment aside from English, and would you like to join me in the 1 minute per day challenge that I’m doing on Instagram? Where I just record and upload… excuse me. I record and upload a video once a day of one minute talking. Anyway, comment below and let me know what you guys think. See you later!
If you wish to support me and the many hours of hard work I put into The Aussie English Podcast then please consider donating a few dollars a month via Patreon! The more support I get, the more I can work on The Aussie English Podcast!
Check out all the other recent Walking With Pete episodes below!
-
AE 457 – WWP: Let’s Talk About Marriage in Australia, Because… I GOT ENGAGED!
Learn Australian English in this Walking with Pete episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I talk about marriage in Australia, because… I GOT ENGAGED!
Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes | Android | RSS
AE 457 – WWP: Let’s Talk About Marriage in Australia, because… I Got Engaged!
What is going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of Walking with Pete. I have just left the house, walking along the streets here, trying to stay off the main road this time so that the traffic noise isn’t too loud and distracting for you, guys.
But I’m heading off to the shops for my daily walk. Time to get some coffee, time to get out of the house and stretch my legs, get a bit of exercise, as usual. I’m probably almost out of breath trying to talk and walk as fast as I do. So, maybe I should slow down.
Anyway, today I have a pretty cool message for you guys, a pretty cool announcement, as you will have probably worked out or figured out from the title. I am now engaged. I’m engaged to be married. So, yeah, Kel and I got engaged a few days ago, and it wasn’t a very romantic engagement, because I think most people, in western society, have this idea in their head that the stereotypical engagement is that man goes away, buys a ring, an engagement ring, which tends to be a ring with a very big crystal, usually a diamond, on the ring, and then surprises the lady, usually with some kind of romantic outing. You know, you go to a restaurant or maybe you go sightseeing or to some beautiful location, you know, to a lake or in the mountains, to a beach, and then the man is usually expected to surprise the woman by getting down on one knee and presenting the ring and saying the phrase, “Will you marry me?”.
Anyway. That is not what happened. It was kind of a little bit lackluster. It wasn’t very… wasn’t an amazing story, but I thought I would share it with you guys anyway, because I’m sure you’re curious and I’m sure you’re interested in… some of you re probably interested in talking about, you know, engagements or weddings, and learning that kind of vocab and those kinds of expressions. So, it’s a good excuse for a Walking with Pete episode, obviously.
Alright, so what happened? So, Kel and I… Kel and I have a really really good relationship. We’re very open. We are very honest with one another. We talk pretty much every day about our feelings, about our plans, about our roles in the relationship, you know, it’s just each of us is an open book when it comes to discussing, you know, when we’re angry, when we’re upset, when we’re sad, when we’re happy, when we want things done differently, when someone’s irritated at the other person. We tend to be able to talk about these things deeply and then thoroughly pretty quickly if they if they arrive. You know, there isn’t a lot of resentment or anger or anything like that that builds up. And so, as a result of this, we also talk about what we want in the future with each other. And so, we had made dinner, (I) think we’d cooked up some pork sausages and were eating some rice and some veggies with that, sat down at the table and because we’re both in our 30s now, Kel’s 30 and I’m 31, we need to start worrying about having children, you know, it needs to be something that’s up for discussion, because the older you get, especially obviously if you’re a woman, the older you get the harder it can be to have children. And so, you kind of need to at least have a plan, right? Like, once you get to your 30s, you’ve got about 10-15 years left, and the chances of having difficulties significantly increase as you go through those years. And so, anyway, it’s been a topic, and it was funny because originally when Kel and I got together, she had come out of a relationship with someone else and they’d never planned to have kids, and Kel was very, “I don’t want children. I’m not… I don’t think I’d be a good mother.”. All of that sort of thought patterns in her head thinking about these things, and it was funny, within about three, four, definitely after six months, she had done a 180. She’d done a U-turn. She, had completely changed her mind and was definitely interested in having kids now. Probably, because I would bring it up quite a bit and berate her a little bit and talk about it quite a lot.
Anyway so, obviously the discussion would come up and once she had decided that she was like, “Yeah, okay, I’ll have kids eventually.”. Obviously, the next question is, “Well, when?”. And because Kel’s from Brazil, she’s not Australian, we have to figure out how that’s going to work, right? So, it’s a little more difficult if you just wing things, if you just improvise, you know, if we would have just potentially start trying to have a kid tomorrow. And so, we have to, as a result, try and sit down and discuss the timeline, discuss when we’re going to aim to have kids. Does she want to live in Australia? Does she want to be a permanent resident or a citizen in Australia?Does she want to travel? Does she want to see her family? Because all these things obviously have to be sorted out, especially, if you want to travel, if you want to go overseas, if we want to buy a house, if she wants to go and study, we have to work out our finances. So, me being somewhat of a pragmatist, someone who likes to have things organised and sort of sort it out before rushing into things, I mean… some things, right? I do rush into things from time to time. But me being that kind of personality, I would have these conversations with Kel pretty occasionally.
And okay. So, back to the story of getting engaged. We were sitting down at the table, talking about things as usual, and talking about her plan for children, and now she wants to have them as soon as possible effectively, which isn’t, you know, within weeks or months, but it’ll be in the next year and a half. And so, once we had sort of decided when that was going to happen, you know, in which month of which year, pretty much, we sort of had planned out when we were going to start trying, because we sort of, you know, don’t want to waste time, we want to get the ball moving, and we’re in Canberra at the moment, but we have to move back, or we don’t have to, but we want to move back after her contract is up at work. And so, we want to time the birth of the child be several months after her contract has ended.
And so, once we’d sort of figured that out we knew exactly which month to start in and that was when I was like, “Well, we should probably talk about marriage then too, right? Like, if we’ve decided in which month of which year we’re going to have kids or start having kids start trying to have children, then it probably makes sense to decide, do you want to get married? Do you not want to get married? When would you like to get married? What would you like to do when you get married? Do you want to save up a lot of money and buy a dress? Do you want to have a really huge wedding with a lot of people? Do you want your family from Brazil to come over to Australia? Do you want my family from Australia to go to Brazil? Where do you want to have the wedding? Do one of two of them?”.
And so, once those sort of questions started coming up, we were discussing it and we both agreed that it probably makes sense, for us at least, to get married. And then, as soon as that happened I said, “Well, I guess now it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. So, we might as well say were engaged, right? Are you my fiancée? Am I your fiancé? Are we engaged now?”. And she looked at me and was like, “I guess we are.”.
So, that was pretty much how it happened. That was pretty much how we got engaged. Very, very lackluster, not very romantic, but very pragmatic, very systematic, organized. But yeah, that’s how it happened.
But it is interesting. I guess, I want to talk a little bit about marriage in Australia and why what it’s like and why I’m going to get married to Kel, and how we planned to get married, I guess, so to give you guys a bit of an insight into what marriage is like in Australia.
Australia’s obviously, at least as far as I know, I think, I think it’s still, Christian majority. There’s probably a lot of atheists of which I’m definitely one. I mean, I’m an atheist in that I have no religion. I’m not really… I don’t practice any specific religion. So, for the most part, the stereotype of a wedding is a Christian wedding where you have… the woman gets a white dress, she has a white veil on, the groom wears a suit, usually a tuxedo, I think, usually, like a… can be different colors, but usually a dark coloured suit, and they will, I think, less and less often now, but back in the day, these… the couple would obviously get married in a church. If it’s a Christian marriage, you would usually get married in a church, which would involve the groom, and the groom’s party, the groomsmen, the other the other guys that are helping the groom on his day, the best man who is the prime and that helps the groom. And then, there’ll be a few other guys who are there for moral support in the small things. They tend to arrive earlier to their church, and they’re waiting there as the bride and the bride’s party, the bridesmaids and the maid of honour, the primary maid in the bride’s party, in the bridal party, will be bringing the bride to the church, and then she gets walked down the aisle to the groom by her father.
So, that’s sort of the traditional way. And then, you’ll have the… what would you call him? The priest? Or whoever the guy is at the church. You know, he’ll preside over the wedding, he’ll then, you know, say a few things, he’ll have the bride and groom say their vows, he’ll then say, “Do you take this woman to be your wife? Do you take this man to be your husband?”. And then, the… each of them will say, “I do. I do.”. And they have put rings on each other’s left hand, on the second finger, their wedding rings, by that point. And then, you’ll hear the expression, or the saying, “You may now kiss the bride.”. And then, everyone usually cheers. And that’s sort of standard western wedding.
But more and more these days, things are changing, because obviously Australia is becoming less and less of a religious country, like most western countries I feel, except for maybe the US, people now are using celebrants, which are not necessarily affiliated with any church in order to get married. So, they’ll use a celebrant to marry them. They will do it outdoors. They’ll do it at houses like families houses. They’ll set up ceremonies in certain places. There’s places you can go. Like, a friend’s wedding I went to last year was in the Dandenong Ranges and this is like a mountain range in Victoria where there’s all of these huge trees in these forests. It was really beautiful. It was outdoors. And they just had a, I guess, agnostic or atheist celebrant. Someone who’s not affiliated with any church who marries them. And so, that was a really good wedding, but that’s happening more and more and more.
So, I guess, coming back to Kel and I, and how we planned to get married, it’s probably going to be about as crazy, about as wild, about as romantic as the proposal, where I think we’re more interested in just seeing friends and having maybe a get together, some kind of party, and spending time with friends, and then just signing the papers and getting the rings, and that probably be it, a kind of, you know, small party with just friends and family, because to be honest, and I’m sure some of you guys probably understand that weddings can be frickin expensive, weddings can be really, really expensive. I’ve had friends who have had really wealthy families and their families end up spending, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on weddings. And I think Kel and I are both not really the kind of people who like spending a lot of money on things. We’re not very flashy. We don’t like showing off wealth or anything like that. Mostly because we don’t have any wealth.
But, so, I think we’re just keen to save as much money as possible through that kind of process or event of becoming married and spending the same, you know, time with friends and family, whether or not we spend a bit on food or something might be a different story. And I think part of the complexity there, or part of the reason we want to do that is too because our families are both on completely different continents. Obviously, Kel’s family is from Brazil and South America. My family is from Australia. And so, it would just be a nightmare or at least more complicated than it needs to be if each of us wanted to get our families together for a wedding or have a wedding with both of our families separately. Long story short, it would just costs a lot of money.
So, that is where we are currently at. So, we’re not sure when it’s going to be. We don’t know how it’s going to be, but it’ll probably be in the next year or so, I guess.
And so that’s the story, guys. That is the story. That is how I got engaged, and it’s funny, because it’s one of those situations where if you’d told me a year ago when I was single that this was going to be the way in which I would get engaged and then planned to get married, I would definitely not have believed.
Anyway so, I am getting close now to the cafe. I might go grab my coffee, guys. Thank you so much for hanging out. Thanks for listening. If you guys have an interesting story that you would like to share about how you got engaged or how you got married or even just about the different cultural practices of getting engaged or married in your country, then please, please let me know. Send me a message. Comment on this wherever you see it on the website, on Facebook, and let me know. So, you know, another excuse to use your English.
Anyway, that’s long enough, guys. I hope you have an amazing day. Get outside, do some exercise, and drink more coffee. And I’ll chat to you soon. See you, guys.
Complete this episode as a course when you enroll in
The Aussie English Classroom!
Each course is a comprehensive English lesson covering these areas:
