The Russian Revolution

To fully enjoy this commentary, you really need to check out the links that I dutifully added.

When I saw this commercial, I knew I was going to have fun cheering for the Australian winter Olympic team (all 60 of them). The news coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics, via an Aussie lens, has been interesting and amusing. To say their is a hint of Aussie nationalism would be an understatement. Yes, I know the US also focuses on it's own athletes, but to give them credit, they have a lot of athletes across multipl sports that have a high probability of winning. Even winning gold. Australia is a sporting nation no doubt. They have a total of 468 medals at the Summer Olympics, with a total of 138 gold medals. However, it doesn't really snow in Australia. Or get below freezing. Australia didn't win it's first winter medal until 1994 and it's first gold in 2002. It has a total of 5 gold medals and 12 total.

And who knew the ultimate Australian food could make it's way to the Olympics?

That's Chumpy carrying the flag.

 

The personal biography backstories were great. I learned all about the Australian Olympic team surfing on waves and skiing down sand dunes (and moving to Austria and Switzerland). There's the snowboarding queen, Torah Bright, speed skater Daniel Grieg (who tripped in the first 3 seconds of his race), Greta Small (the 18 year old alpine skiier competing in all 5 events and DNF from the one I watched), Jana Pitmann (the first Australian woman to compete in both the winter and summer games), and the snowboarding "power" trio of Chumpy, Cam Bolton, and Kent Callister (none of which came home with a medal. Watching these bios, I wsa sure they were all going to win gold!

My favorite coverage of the Olympics was Roy and HG. They are Australian sports commentators, with their own unique humor, who took on Sochi in their "Russian Revolution". (They are the reason this blog is coming after the Olympics have finished, because I was hoping a few more of their clips would show up.)

This clip is poor quality, but it will give you a little taste of the boys talking about the winter sports.

And here's a little gist of their commentary previewing the closing ceremony.

And because these clips don't accurately represent the ridiculousness, here's a clip from the the first ever Australian to win a winter Olympic gold medal at the Salt Lake Olympics that you have to watch :) I think it perfectly represents the Australian attitude towards the winter Olympics.

I don't know if I'll still be here when the summer Olympics hit Rio, but I'm know the Aussies will be much more successful there. And that if I'm here, I will be watching a lot of swimming. Because, hey, Australians are decent swimmers.There's actually water here they can train in.

It's not UConn but it'll do

I wouldn't say I'm a big sports fan. I'm a spectator. I watch sports to appreciate the skill, strength, endurance, and sometimes the rare display of what is humanly possible.

The one sport I have come close to being a fan is basketball. I was born and bred in Connecticut, home of the UConn huskies. As the cold, snowy days of February drag on, watching basketball on CPTV or trudging across the ice covered streets of Storrs to Gampel Pavillion is nirvana.  And while most people cheer for Jim Calhoun and his boys (or cheered in past tense), the Howie house has always been a UConn ladies' house. Connecticut is probably one of only two states that give a hoot about women's basketball. It could be the only sport both my Mom AND Dad follow. And by follow, I mean post the schedule on the fridge, watch every game, and yell at the refs or the players when they (as in the refs and players) are having a tough night. Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Svetlana Abrosimova, and Maya Moore are the sporting heroes of my world.

 

But I do try to diversify. Maryland and Duke basketball games were some of the most exciting sporting events I've been too. Thousands of fans and students crammed into the Comcast Center in black, red, yellow and white cheering very inappropriate things, rushing the court after a close win, and then rushing the streets of Route 1 only to be corralled by police on horseback and rubber bullets. We Terps don't mess around.

 

And the Lady Terrapins won the national championship. We rioted then too (But I couldn't be completely excited, as that meant UConn had to lose). I went to a couple basketball games at South Carolina, but let's just say that one of the football players plays for the basketball season in the off season. With Dawn Staley at the helm, the women are on the rise, but it's a long way from the blue and white dynasty.

The last basketball game I went to was the Connecticut Sun, a WNBA game. Living 10 minutes from the homecourt  my parents frequent their games (may also be because they have a lot of ex-huskies playing) and when I'm home, I'm lucky enough for them to take me along.

So when I had the opportunity to go see Perth's professional basketball team, the Wildcats, play, I jumped at it (similar to the way I used to jump for the tip off on the courts of Ledyard High, not very high but full of enthusiasm). Basketball is my quintessential American sport, invented by James Naismith in , MA, where I drive by the Basketball Hall of Fame every time I visit my sister. Springfield. So Friday night, I went to the basketball. Turns out, it was a lot like the Sun games I went to last (although I'm sure the Sun played more defense).

The Wildcats are at the top of the league and play in the big brand new Perth Arena. It was a pretty vast sea of red for a non-native sporting event. And they tried to make it as American as they could from the lights and music to the cheerleaders and boys in morph suits (that's for you Will Douthit!).

I was confused by the cheerleaders, as the Wilcats' color is red and they were in purple. But don't let me get onto a rant about cheerleaders... One thing that was quite obvious, if not a bit politically incorrect, was the high proportion of white players. Ok, almost ALL white players. Except two guys on the Perth team. Turns out that Australian teams get 2 imports, everyone else has to be Australian. In the words of a friend, "If you don't get two big Americans, you've wasted your imports." Glad to see Americans held in such high esteem.

The actual basketball was typical of men's ball. All showmanship and no defense. But that's what "fans" like, no? We did win. And while college teams across the US start getting anxious for March Madness (which people haven't even heard of over here), I got to experience a little piece of my favorite American sport down under.

Festival of the Dazed and Confused

Perth Festival runs from February 7th to March 1st. This is not to be confused with the Fringe Festival which I've already written about, although they are very similar, and everyone thinks they're the same thing anyways. Basically, it's a bunch of art performances and exhibitions throughout the city. These past two Saturdays, I took advantage and went to two picnic-worthy performances out on my "lawn", aka the park on the other side of my block.

The first was Veles e Vents. Based on that name, I (or anyone) didn't know what to expect. It was advertised as "Festival Spectacular" that would set the skyline alight for three nights to open the festival. Cool. Perth knows how to do fireworks, so it must be cool. (All these fireworks are despite the complete fire/open flame ban and bushfires all over this place. I don't get it.) Amanda and I got our Japanese food, set up our picnic, and got ready to figure out what Veles e Vents was all about. Forty-five minutes later, eyes wide, mouths open, we looked at each other after the final firework, and still didn't know what it was about.

Summary: People put together a sailing ship to foreign music with something that sounds like a bagpipe but is not. These weird sea monster-y things dance across the "stage". A storm or some other type of catastrophe and turns the ship into a steam boat or something industrial revolution-y. There's this weird worm thing that dances around on the boat. Darth Vader appears as a light projection on one of the nearby apartment buildings (and remains there for the rest of the show). One of the people has some struggle (I'm pretty sure he hangs himself), and then rides across the "stage" on some flaming creature. All of this is punctuated with pretty neat fireworks.

Looking at the website, it was some type of environmental message, but that missed me. The kids all around us seemed to really like it though.

The second was Opera in the park. Despite having played many orchestral pieces from operas, I have never actually seen one live. As part of the festival, the West Australian Opera and West Australian Symphony Orchestra put on Pucinni's Tosca. Even though it was in Italian, there were clearly visible subtitles that helped us to avoid the catastrophe of the previous show: befuddlement. We packed our picnic and wine and headed to the park over an hour early, only to find it was already packed (I must say with a slightly older demographic than Veles e Vents, but still plenty of children roaming around.)

 

Summary: Artist paints a picture of a woman who is NOT his lover. His lover, Tosca, gets jealous. They sing and make up. Artist decides to help an escaped criminal. Evil cop plays on Tosca's jealousy to try and find the prisoner. Tosca's jealousy disappears, and after she sells herself to the Evil Cop to save her Artist (through a fake execution), she stabs the Evil Cop. The fake execution turns out to be real, so she commits suicide as well. Everyone ends up dead.

It sounds a lot better in Italian.

After two fairly cultural weekends, I think I may be ready for a modern romantic comedy. Although I hear there are these Mermaids in a tank that tell jokes I may need to check out before the festival is over...

Aussie-isms

 

Someone I just met asked me, "When do you want to catch up?" My immediate thought was, we just met, we have nothing to catch up about. We can "meet up" or "get together", but we have no past that needs to be caught up. Yes, it makes sense when Kyla has a catch up (yes it is a noun and a verb) with her friends she only sees every few weeks. 

But it got me thinking about those little Aussie-isms that have started to creep into my vocabulary (no Mom, I"m not getting an accent), and those that I refuse to say out loud because they a) don't make sense b) don't sound as cool without an Aussie accent or c) I feel like I'm trying to be an imposter saying them. Mostly Australians just shorten everything, but there are some peculiar phrases woven throughout common day speech. I'm sure I've missed some and will keep learning as I go, so expect another list in the future.

Aussie-isms I've found myself saying:

• How ya going?
• Take the stairs instead of the lift
• Waiting in the queue=everyone's vocabulary could use more words that start with q
• Bottle shop or bottle-o= even in the states we had different names depending on your region
• I'm taking holiday= yes of course I am!
• Bogan=because who doesn't need another word for a redneck
• Toilet=not just the porcelain bowl, but a general term for the restroom or bathroom, it just seems a bit more direct to me
• Partner=girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, fiance (not with the same-sex conotation it has in other places as we discussed today during lunch)
• Ruck up=as in "Ruck up to rowing" or "Whoever rucks up" 
• Reckon=I think I've started this one almost regularly, "How'd you reckon it went?"
• Fortnight=every two weeks, I'd probably heard it before, but when they told me I would be paid every fortnight, I had to look it up
• Uni=university, one of those shortened words that gets thrown around a lot where I work

Aussie-isms that make me feel like an imposter:

• Biscuit (or bickie)=this is a cookie, all types of cookies. I had a big discussion trying to explain what a biscuit (as in the southern buttermilk kind) was. I would bake them to bring them in, but they're best when they're warm and I don't want to make a bad impression of the buttery deliciousness. 
• Good on ya=equivalent of well done, especially used in sporting matches. I've started to think this one in my head
• Arvo=people use this one A LOT, "What you doing this arvo?" "I'll get that to you this arvo"
• Ta= or thanks this was my first exposure to aussie-isms, when my boss signed his email. But people say it as well. 
•  Ute=truck, like a pick up truck or SUV
• Take a sickie= a sick day
• Mozzie=mosquito
• Thongs=a rather common word for flipflops, but you know the other meaning
• Bitumen=pavement, I used this in a game of "I spy" with a Brit and a Swiss. They didn't get it.
• And they really do use mate and barbie (but you don't put shrimp on it, they're prawns)
• Esky=cooler, you know, the things you pack your drinks in, like an eskimo
• I refuse to say the cities Melbourne and Cairns. For get the "r", It's Mel-bin and Cans.
• Windscreen, boot and bonnet=parts of a car, you can probably figure out which ones
• Cuppa=a cup of coffee or tea, they drink a lot of that around here

Aussie-isms that don't make sense:

• Push bike=this is just a regular bicycle
• Fair dinkum= this makes no sense
• We're watching the tennis, or the cricket= why is there a "the" in front of all sporting events?
• Snag=sausage, I don't get it, there's no "n" is sausage 
• Stickybeak=apparently someone who is nosy, someone actually used this to me
• Capsicum and aubergine=pepper (like a green or red pepper) and eggplant, yes I know they use them in other parts of the world too, but when I go to self-checkout at Wooly's (Woolworth's) with my green pepper, I don't look under "C"
• Ez or Ezza=the shortened would be nickname for Erin, yeah I won't be answering to that one :)

If you're interested in some Perth-isms, check this video out (I apologize for the title). I'm told by a local it's pretty accurate :) But you may not get most of it until you come to visit me!

And don't even get me started on the spelling! Favorite is autocorrected to favourite, color to colour (but I want to know why the Color Run wasn't the Colour Run when it came to Perth...) and behavior to behaviour depending if I'm at my computer at work, my laptop at home, or on my phone. I don't even know which I type now, it always seems to be wrong. I guess I should just get used to those little red squiggly lines.

PS sorry for the lack of fun photos. 
PPS Thanks for everyone who left a comment on the last blog! And those who didn't, tsk tsk...

Nearly Lost Moments

This post requires reader participation.

Currently in Perth, the Fringe Festival is on. It's a bunch of art exhibitions, comedy shows, performances, etc around town. (Not to be confused with the Perth Festival which starts this weekend).

I wasn't motivated to search the program, find a show I awnted to go to, find out where it was, so I decided to wander around and go to the "exhibit" at the State Library. It was TINY, but it got me thinking...

 It was "The Library of Nearly Lost Things". They had random things. Typewriters, old letters, old card catalog cards.

  

Mom, you'd like this globe!

And guests could leave their own moment to remember. Some were funny, some were serious. Some were recent and some were from 10 years ago.

So it got me thinking about all of my nearly lost moments. The random pictures I haven't included in my blog, and the Perth-fect Ponderings I haven't thought were "big enough" to share. So here's just a few of them. Some of you may have seen some of these on Facebook or in emails. Consider yourself the lucky few.

Taking the ferry across the river as part of my commute on the first day I attempted to run to work with my backpack (I took the ferry the first time to make it a little shorter in case the whole backpack thing didn't work out so well. Now I run over the bridge.)

 The aha moment when I realized the best way to ride my bicycle through the rotary on campus.

 Reading books about Russians freezing during World War II while in the sunshine.

Copperhead road on the radio and Hootie and the Blowfish blasting form a car driving by.

My first fresh fig.

Kids playing in the water or adults playing basketball in the center of the city.

Eating dinner at 10:00 pm, when it was still 95 degrees, because the "men" couldn't get the barbecue to light (despite the complete fire ban and bushfires burning across the state).

When all hope was lost, that I was lost, an omen of hope that I was found.

Trying Honeycomb ice cream for the first time. And the second.. And every time...

The little girl playing chess in Freo

 

Stumbling upon kite surfing mecca at Point Walter while once again semi-lost on a bike ride.

 

Sunsets on the ride home.

 

Now the important part! Please post your nearly lost moments to immortalize them in digital history.

Big or small, what do you want to remember from today or this week?

(post it here or leave it on Facebook)

The Superbowl in Australia

Clearly, there is not much of a "Superbowl" in Australia.