Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was Halloween. It’s not a very big deal in Australia yet, but it seems that people are slowly starting to adopt it. (Although they’re a little confused on the details of what you’re supposed to do) I got asked a lot of questions:

Do you give the kids candy when they come to your door, or let them reach in and take it?

How late are they supposed to stay out?

How do you carve a pumpkin? The pumpkins over here are more like squash, so... you can’t really.

So far they’re treating it like a holiday for kids, with a big emphasis on trick-or-treating, no costume parties for grown ups the Saturday before, no gory movies, etc. I stole a few of my favorite brands out of the basket intended for the trick or treaters: Boost, Aero, Dream, and Cherry Ripe. Sadly no Reeses or Twix to be found!

Imported from the USA

Ben and Jerry's. Only $11.95 at the local IGA.

Canberra

This past weekend I decided to make a trip down to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Canberra was selected as the capital as a compromise between Melbourne and Sydney, who were both competing for the honour. I left straight after work on Friday, and couldn’t see much during the three hour drive down there since it was already dark by the time we got past the suburbs of Sydney. I woke up nice and early on Saturday morning to take a hop-on-hop-off bus tour that allowed me to select four attractions that I wanted to see.  I started off with the war memorial, which was incredible! There were different sections for each conflict involving Australia. I only had a little over an hour to look at the exhibits, and the amount of artefacts and information to absorb could easily have taken me twice that long. The outside of the memorial is incredibly peaceful, with a reflecting pool and eternal flame leading up to the domed building containing the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Wall adorned with poppies to commemorate people who have lost their lives:

The next stop was Floriade, which I thought would be an arboretum/botanical garden but turned out to be a carnival with a couple of sad, wilting flowerbeds. I basically just killed an hour here before I got picked up again to go see Parliament House. Here is a view from the front:

There were an impressive amount of portraits of various politicians and prime ministers on display. I think my favourite part was seeing the chambers where the House and Senate meet to pass bills. Unfortunately they weren’t in session since it was a Saturday:

The last stop on my trip was the Australian Museum. I was pretty tired by this point, so I did a quick walk through and sat in the cafe looking out over Lake Burley Griffin, an artificial lake in the middle of Canberra. It was named after Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion, two Americans who designed the city in the early 1900s. I could see the many similarities between Canberra and Washington D.C., and I’m sure that’s what the Burley Griffins had in mind during the design process. Overall, it was a very educational (and cheap) trip, but I could never see myself living there!

Long weekend and Grand Finals

Labour day is Monday so I'm enjoying my first paid holiday in my grown up job. It's a huge weekend in sport since there are two Grand Finals for the footy this weekend, with AFL (Australian Football League) today and NRL (National Rugby League) tomorrow. I mostly watch the NRL, since it is the more popular sport in New South Wales and AFL seems to be bigger in Victoria. Another reason I kinda prefer NRL is because it's more like American football and just makes sense to me: good old-fashioned dudes crashing into each other. AFL involves too much running, and they do this weird move where they give each other boosts WAY up into the air:

Anyways I'll probably skip the AFL final and go hang out with Hayden's sister who has no interest in it either, and save my energy for tomorrow when the Canterbury Bulldogs play the Melbourne Storm in Sydney. It should be a good game, and although I really like watching Billy Slater play during the regular season (he plays for the Storm), I still have to support Sydney and say Go The Bulldogs!

Cockatoo eating a cheeseburger?

Protests in Sydney

Last weekend a crowd of about 500 people swept through downtown Sydney protesting some You Tube video about the prophet Muhammad. The protests were focused in Hyde Park (right across the street from where I work) and Martin Place, where the US consulate is located. It ended up all over the news since it turned into a non-peaceful demonstration, with six police officers being injured and several people arrested. One of the more disturbing images to come out of the whole thing was of a child holding this sign while his mom took a photo:

Australians tend to be less delicate than Americans when talking about race issues, and this demonstration just renewed a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment. One of the main principles here (and one that I had to agree to in writing to get a visa) is that if a person is living in Australia, they should do their best to respect the country's values, and in this case I have to agree completely. If you want to enjoy your freedom of speech by demonstrating peacefully, then you should also respect the freedom of speech of some idiot (who isn't even Australian) to make a movie about your prophet. 

Part of what bums me out about the whole thing is that an anti-American demonstration has brought violence to Australia, a country that has managed to avoid a lot of drama so far. The US consulate even issued a warning to American citizens in Australia advising them to avoid the central business district this weekend and to not identify themselves as American for the time being. Fortunately it looks like not much is going on downtown this weekend!

Back in Australasia

It’s my first full week back in the office. After arriving back in Sydney at 8pm last Tuesday and making the extremely ill-advised decision to come into work Wednesday morning, I’m finally feeling back to normal.

It was really great catching up with everyone in Seattle. People in Sydney are nice but it just takes me a really long time to make friends, and getting together with friends I hadn’t seen in over a year was pretty effortless. By the end I was ready to come back, which reassured me a bit that I’m making the right decision.

I have to admit, the view from Cronulla beach made the decision all the more easy. I took my book down to the beach on Saturday, and even though it’s just now spring it’s already getting up to about 70 degrees, so the kiddies surf lessons were going in full force!