Australia Day

Saturday was Australia Day, which marks the date in 1788 that the First Fleet arrived in Sydney to form the first penal colony. To a non-Australian, the celebration seems a bit arbitrary, since it doesn't mark when Australia was discovered, when it was founded as a nation, or any number of other significant dates. It simply marks the day when the ships arrived in harbor.
But once you experience it, it makes more sense: it seems to be a national holiday to simply celebrate being Australian. Think of all the themed-wear, traditional food, patriotic events, national pride, and general shenanigans of Independence Day and multiply by 10. That's Australia Day.

Australia Day also has a bit of controversy associated with it. Indigenous people call it Invasion Day, since it marks the day when their way of life was impacted for the worse. The modern Australia Day celebrations incorporate Aboriginal culture into festivities and focus on paying respect to Australia's native people, but there's still some disagreement about the merits of the holiday.

Controversy not-withstanding, Australians love this holiday! Most of them barbecue with family and friends, or bring picnics to the city to watch the harbor festivities. We decided to follow suite, packed a picnic, and headed down to the harbor to immerse ourselves in the day.

Before we headed out, we got our Australia gear on. It's not much compared to how everyone else looked, but we did what we could.

Croc Tobys wear flag tattoos on their chests

Lots of people were out picnicking with friends and family.

We quickly learned that on Australia Day, anything is considered fashionable, as long as it's got Australia color, and preferably the flag on it.

This lady was literally wearing an umbrella hat

Or you can just wear the flag itself.

If all this wasn't enough to see, there were hours of entertainment out on the harbor to take in.

The festivities started out with Ferrython, which is a race some of the ferries take part in. It ends under the  Harbor Bridge, so we had a great view.

This water-spraying boat leads the racing ferries into the harbor

It was hard to get a good picture of the racing ferries since there were so many other boats cruising alongside the race, but here are the lead ferries passing the Opera House.

 And a strong finish under the bridge!

In addition to the ferry race, there lots of boats decked out for the day.

There was also a lot going on in the air.

Helicopters towing the flag over the city

Flyovers by RAAF Hawks

The harbor festivities ended in the afternoon with a tall ships race - all the big, historic ships participated in a race that ended under the bridge.

It was a really fun day, and a great day for celebrating living in Australia!

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Work day Aussie style

This coming weekend is Australia Day. So at work on Friday, the experience team did a full day of Australian treats for the office.

The menu included:

- TimTams, lamingtons, and iced Vovos

- Tea

- Vegemite with crackers & toast

- Pavlova

- VB beer!

The day of eating started with a fun spread of Australian tea and sweets.

Iced Vovos are shortbread cookies with icing and raspberry fruit spread topped with coconut. Lamingtons are like a sponge cake with chocolate icing topped with coconut. I liked both of these!

And, of course, TimTams are about the most delicious sandwich cookie after Oreos.

There was also plenty of tea on hand to do TimTam slams.

Later in the day, there was a Vegemite buffet, along with instructions for how "enjoy" it.

 

Vegemite is straight up terrible. It tastes like salty dirt. I admire those people who can eat it for breakfast on toast. And that's actually quite a few of the people I work with.

The next treat of the day was pavlova in the afternoon. Pavlova is like a meringue dessert that you top with fruit and whipped cream. I thought I would like it, but disappointingly, it was not for me.

The McDonalds here (Maccas, as they're called), are doing a promotion for Australia Day. They are selling pavlova McFlurrys in the restaurants, so the ads around town say "Smash a pav today!" If you don't have all the background story on this slang - as we did not for a while - it is a pretty baffling slogan!

The last treat of the day was VB beer. As I think I mentioned in a post before, it's like the Bud Light of Australia. (And, by the way, no one drinks Fosters. I don't even think you can buy it in Australia.)

A cold, rough-tasting beer was the perfect way to close out the day and start off the Australia Day weekend!

 

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Crate update - Part 2

Do you remember this crate?

Sigh... we don't anymore!

We called for an update this morning. Luckily since we've been pretty persistent in staying in contact with our shipping company, they knew right away why I was calling. The news wasn't too good though. Since our shipment was small and getting "expressed," it got bumped to a later ship. Ummm what?

The result of this "express" shipment is that we'll now be getting our crate at the end of February. (Although, they were quick to amend that with "as long as there are no other delays.")
That makes almost exactly a 6-month journey for our crate (optimistically assuming it does arrive in February). So I thought I'd come up with a list of things that you can do with 6 months time...

You can walk across America.

You can make a start on walking from Perth to Sydney dressed as a Storm Trooper.

If our crate was a joey, it would be about to get kicked out of it's mother's pouch.

If there were two cockroaches in our crate when it left (God forbid), there will be 13,000 of them when we open it.

Imagine there's some furniture under these

If our crate was a senator, it would have passed one bill by this time. Maybe.

If we had out our crate on the Curiosity instead of a freight ship, it could be halfway to Mars.

And if our crate had started growing a beard on the day we shipped it, today it might look something like this masterpiece.

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A stroll through the QVB

On Monday lunchtime, I walked down to the Queen Victoria Building a couple blocks from work. The QVB is a building that was built in the 1860's and has been restored a few times over the years. The architecture and details of the building have been maintained, so even though the building is full of shops and cafes now, it's really beautiful.
The very center of the QVB has a beautiful dome that you can see from the central staircases.

Dome in the center of the building

The staircases themselves are tiled & swirly.

Lovely staircases

Lots of ornate stained glass.

There are two clocks in the building. This one is called The Great Australia Clock. There are scenes from Australia history and Australia landmarks on the clock. The rings on the clock rotate to indicate the time and date. It was completely fascinating.

The other clock is the Royal Clock. This clock has an English royals theme. It's not quite as cool as The Great Australia Clock, but it does trumpet on the hour, so that's pretty cool.

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Soccer Saturday

We went to another Sydney FC game on Saturday. It was a cool, overcast day and perfect for soccer! (It was so weird to be cold after burning up the day before.)
We caught the bus to the stadium. It was packed with fans...

Including us!

The crowd at the game wasn't too big, but everyone was excited to be there and had great energy!

T was really happy to be there too.

It was a good game, if not exactly an even match. Sydney won 7-1.

We had a great time!

Disregard T's face - he really is happy!

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