Tag Archives: australia

How to Speak Australian Part III: When in doubt shorten it

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This is a short story about a uni student who got caught out in the rain while it was pretty full on.  He’d forgotten his brally so he rocked up to an op shop but he lucked out (as in, there weren’t any).  So he warmed up with a hot cuppa and a bikkie before heading out to see the new doco about vejjos.  Then he had to run to meet up with his friends Baz, Gaz, Jez, Sus and Ads for a bit of sport.  Afterwards they drank the all the beers in Baz’s eski while they chatted about the footy.  After having such a good arvo he knew tomoz was going to be a great day.

I should have been there

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Amongst all the things that I’ve gone out of my way to experience since moving to Australia, there are no shortage of events that I just missed.  One was Spencer Tunick snapping photos of over 5000 nude volunteers on the steps of the Opera House.  Gabe definitely would have attended had we known about it ahead of time.   In fact, many of his coworkers were surprised to see him at work that morning.  Luckily, I did catch what was perhaps the best part of the event.  It was a particularly chilly morning and when the shoot was done, I watched from my window as all the volunteers went racing back to where they had left their clothes on the lawn of the botanic gardens.

I did participate in Earth Hour, but was away from my own apartment so I couldn’t watch as the city center went dark.  I was actually looking forward to seeing how the birthplace of the tradition would celebrate it, especially since Time Square gave such a pathetic showing last year.  I guess it will take another blackout of the entire eastern seaboard to put out all the blinking lights on 42nd Street.

This past weekend I just barely missed the homecoming of Jessica Watson the youngest person to (unofficially) sail solo around the world.  Of course, I wouldn’t have missed that had she shown up on time.  Dang teenagers.  At first I felt a sense of guilt at missing these odd, unique and occasionally historic events occurring right outside my window, then I thought about all the things I probably missed seeing every day of my life until now.

I never once saw the New Years Eve ball drop in Time Square.  I’m of the school of thought that real New Yorkers know it’s too crowded, too cold and too touristy.  We’d all rather be drinking indoors.  I never went ice skating at Rockafeller Center.  You want how much for 45 minutes?  My gracefulness belongs on cheaper ice.  And even though we made a yearly tradition of watching the parade balloons getting inflated the night before, there was no way in hell I was getting up at the crack of dawn to actually watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But my life is not lacking.  Something interesting probably happens in every city in the world every single day.  I won’t let the drive to experience the goings on in this lovely city die, but I won’t drive myself crazy trying to catch every event that might just happen to cruise by my window.  For every event I miss a spontaneous fireworks show occurs.  There was a lovely one just a few hours ago.  Someone must have been really happy it was Monday.

Australia on my Subconscious

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I, like a lot of people, tend to see repeated imagery in my dreams.  What little mothering instincts I have, manifest themselves in my dreams as me having to rescue small helpless animals from perilous situations.  The obsessively organized part of my brain forces me to dream about packing items for a trip, while having difficulties finding the right bag for as many items as I need.  And don’t even get my started on the types of dreams I have when I need to pee.  Luckily, I’ve never found a public restrooms quite that bad in real life.

Most often, I dream about having to get somewhere while facing certain architectural obstacles on my journey.  They usually are, pools of water that have to be swum through or skirted around, tiny doors that I have to squeeze through, and endless staircases that I have to climb up and down, often taking me to the wrong floor which forces me to have to turn around and start all over again.  Living in Australia has officially added another obstacle to my subconscious, slumbering journeys; giant spider webs.

Now, stretching across the staircases and hovering in the center of those tiny doors are elaborate tangles of spider web.  Just like in real life, my fear is not of a deadly spider, since I know even the bulbous ones in my dream are harmless, but of getting sticky threads of web, several times the strength of it’s equivalent thickness of steel, splayed across my face.  As if climbing up and down often uneven staircases wasn’t exhausting enough, I now have to limbo under those barely visible walls at ever other turn.  Thank you Australia, that’s just what I needed.