What a bargain!

Usually if I need to buy beer or wine I make a trip to a shop called Dan Murphy's, because the prices there are slightly less shocking than most bottle shops in Sydney. This week they are running a special on Pabst Blue Ribbon that has left me feeling a wide range of emotions, from outrage to confusion to just plain amusement: only $52.90 for a case of 24 tall boys. Please note the average review for this beer is 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Mardi Gras

This past Saturday marked the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations. I work on Oxford Street, which is where the parade was held, and many of the shop owners were going all out in preparation. It seemed like everyone was selling glitter, metallic hot pants, beads and basically anything with a rainbow pattern. Last year the city painted the crosswalks in rainbow paint, but after some backlash about the safety (and cost) of doing that, this year they stayed their usual color. ANZ (one of the major banks here) managed to compensate for the loss by bedazzling several of their ATMs in the area, which they renamed ‘GAYtms’.

In the US I always thought of Mardi Gras as an opportunity for straight boys to go to New Orleans and get drunk, but the gay and lesbian community here have transformed it into a way to come celebrate together and bring attention to current events. This year there were several floats protesting Vladimir Putin’s homophobic laws, as well as a parody of the Australian Prime Minister’s border protection policies. I steered clear of Oxford Street this weekend, but I am celebrating Fat Tuesday with a bag of salt and vinegar chips. 

Hens Night

Last weekend I attended my first Australian bachelorette party (or “hens night” as they’re known here) for the fiancée of one of Hayden’s co-workers. I’ve seen hens parties out and about in the city before, and I’m always a bit shocked at the sheer number of girls in attendance; it seems like it’s more common here to invite every casual acquaintance and distant female relative rather than a small group of friends. I was getting picked up in Kogarah, a suburb a few kilometres down the road from my house in Sutherland, and when a neon pink bus pulled up there was no mistaking: this was my ride. As I got on board, I instantly noticed that every single girl had taken the “burlesque” theme to the extreme in corsets and fishnets, while I looked like a Victorian governess in comparison in my floral party dress. Shit. Luckily I don’t think anyone could see me too well due to the fog machine working overtime in the corner, and we continued down the Princes Highway to Darling Harbour for the booze cruise.

The boat ride lasted a few hours, with dinner served by shirtless “firemen” and “police officers”. A few of the girls were really nice, and we spent a bit of time up on the top deck watching the city go by while a couple of meters away some of the servers competed to see who could do the most push-ups during their dinner break. Not a bad way to pass the time on a Saturday!

Grand Canyon, USA

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since I got back to Australia. I’ve finally sorted through all of the photos from the trip, and thought I would write a bit about the Grand Canyon, which was definitely one of the highlights.

After spending a couple of days in Las Vegas, we hired a car and hit the road towards the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I was a little nervous without the GPS on my phone, and the directions I had gotten from the hotel lobby were VERY bare bones. As it turns out, you only have to take three roads to get there. There are vast stretches where the road forms a straight line for miles through the desert. We decided to skip the West Rim, where they have built a controversial see-through walkway over the canyon, and drove straight on towards the South Rim. The interstate runs parallel to Route 66 at several points, and after a couple hours of driving we stopped in the tiny town of Seligman, AZ to refuel and use the bathroom. The gas station borders the train tracks, and even though the landscape is very barren it’s really beautiful in its own way.

 Route 66 at Seligman

Seligman, AZ

All of the accommodation inside of the park was already booked, so we stayed in Tusayan, AZ just a couple of miles down the road. The sun was starting to go down and the temperature was falling fast, so instead of trying to go see the canyon we checked into The Grand Hotel and relaxed with a bite to eat. Every night in the restaurant they had some live music, and this night happened to be a banjo player doing Johnny Cash and other assorted country music covers. The decor was determinedly country western, with saddles substituting for bar stools and horseshoes nailed to almost every available surface, so I went along with the theme and had BBQ ribs for dinner. 

The evening entertainment at The Grand Hotel

We headed into the national park early the next morning. The weather was cold and sunny, and I was hoping that my gamble of coming during the winter to avoid the crowds would pay off. I had read that sometimes the entire canyon is filled with fog during the winter, but when I walked up to the edge I could see for miles. It’s almost unfathomable how huge it is, and without the summer crowds I was able to just look out on it all without having to push and shove. There was a dusting of snow in some of the shady areas, and I could just barely make out the Colorado River winding its way through the canyon.

We walked along the Canyon Rim Trail into the village, where there are several historic hotels and an old lookout post that now doubles as a gift shop. There are no plastic bottles sold within the park, so I bought myself a reusable water bottle as my only souvenir from this trip back home. We had a nice bite to eat at El Tovar before calling it a day and walking back to the car. I hope I can see the North Rim someday, and go during the summer to see if the reds and browns in the rocks are even more vivid. Even though it’s a bit of a pain to get to, I’m so happy I got to see the Grand Canyon at least once in my life.

 The moose at El Tovar was feeling festive

 The view from the tiny lounge where we had lunch

 El Tovar has a huge wraparound porch

Hello Possums!

I was heading out the door on my way to work yesterday when I spotted something up in the tree near our mailbox: my possum friend! I’ve previously seen him very casually strolling down the sidewalk in the middle of the day (possums are nocturnal, so I’m not really sure what’s going on there) and this time he was harassing the magpies who live in this tree. I’m pretty sure he has moved into the roof of my apartment building and comes out whenever he wants to forage for food that people leave behind. Lucky for me I’m on the ground floor so I don’t hear him scratching around up there, but if it really bothered me I could actually hire a trap from the city council and lure him in with apples. The only problem is you have to release them within 50 meters of where you caught them, and this guy seems to know his way around the neighborhood really well.

I used to always see possums dead on the road when I was teaching in North Bend, but those looked like giant rats – the ones here are adorable! I’m glad Australia has some cute animals to balance out all the cockroaches and huntsman spiders and sharks.

USA vs. Australia

Against all odds, the USA team made it to the quarter-finals of the Rugby League World Cup, where they faced off against the Australian team last Saturday at midnight. I stayed reaaaaaaaal quiet about this one, but remained cautiously hopeful in the days leading up to the game. I didn't even stay up to watch it, and I'm really glad I didn't because Australia (the Kangaroos) handed the United States (the Tomahawks) a 62-0 loss. On the plus side, a few of the American players may have impressed the Aussies enough to parlay their performance into a contract with some of the clubs down here.

A photo of the American fans from The Daily Telegraph.

Cicada Song

Now that the weather is getting hot the cicadas are making their way out of their underground burrows where they have spent the last couple of years as babies. Once they come up to the surface they molt, leaving behind creepy shells that I find in the shrubs outside of my apartment. They make a really powerful chirping sound, and somehow they know to all start up at exactly the same time to the point where it’s almost deafening to be outside. I kind of enjoy the sound, and they usually don’t keep it up for too long.  While I was reading out on the patio a bird chased one onto the brick, and kept swooping down at it from the trees. Cicadas are about the size of your thumb, and after a while this bird decided that he was a bit outmatched. The poor cicada stayed there motionless for probably an hour before deciding it was safe to fly off.

This morning as I left for the gym, I heard a really strange croaking noise, similar to a frog but not quite. I didn’t know what to make of it until I looked up and saw a magpie tearing into his breakfast; this particular cicada wasn’t as lucky. I’m probably being overly sensitive (do cicadas even feel pain?) but the sound really bothered me. Where were all his cicada buddies that were singing with him the other night, and couldn’t they have just swarmed that dumb magpie?