Ashes

Sunset (Blackberry photo)

We don't know if it has made news in the rest of the world, but the volcano in Chile has wreaked havoc with Australian flights.  We went through something similar in April, May and June of last year when we were in Europe.  We are very sympathetic to the crowds of people who are sleeping on the floor in airports all over Australia.

Australia is a very large country and flying is the way the most people get to other cities.  Brisbane to Sydney is about 1000km, Sydeny to Melbourne is about 950km and Melbourne to Adelaide is around 725km...those are all way too far to drive!  We are lucky that we didn't have flights booked because the airports in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide have been closed intermittently for the past 3 weeks.  The Brisbane airport, which is further north than the others, has been closed twice (just southbound flights), but only for a day each time.  We are a little concerned about how long these closures will last, since our previous experience showed that the disruptions can last for months!  We have a flight to Sydney in August and one to Cairns in September.  Hopefully the ashes just blow away and stop bothering us!  We are also a little worried that all of the extra particulate will mean another relentless rainy season and more floods.  The only upside that we can see is that the sunsets are an eery and intriguing yellow.

Solstice

We have had some trouble trying to explain to the Aussies in our office that the seasons in North America are based around the solstices and the equinae (equinoxes?).  Here in Brisbane there is very little seasonal change and the day light hours fluctuate by only about 2 hours from winter to summer.  As there is no daylight savings time here, the extra summer hours start at about 4:30 in the morning, but it is still dark by 7pm.  We get the craziest looks when we say that it stays light in Calgary until 10pm!

Bright winter sky

There is some "winter of discontent" monkey business going on in parliament here.  It is a year since Julia Gillard and her minions overthrew Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.  Julia Gillard then ran the party and the country for a couple of months until she was elected in August as Prime Minister.  For some unknown reason, there was a party planned to celebrate the coup and Kevin Rudd was actually invited!  People are actually a little surprised that he is being a bit of a sour-puss about the whole celebration and has decided not to attend the party.  Talk about the spectre at the feast!  We wonder if he was also expected to give a toast?  The one big difference that we have found between Canada and Australia is the "no-holds barred" approach to political debate.  There was recently a national outcry over a male member of parliament meowing at a female member of parliament during a televised debate.  According to the polls, Julia Gillard is in big trouble and there could be another election soon.  Given how hotly contested elections are here, we could be in for a very warm winter.

Winterfest!

Beleive it or not, there is a European-style Winter Festival in Brisbane, complete with an ice rink and tobogganning run.  The area in King George Square, in front of city hall, has been cordoned off.  The technical people who take care of these things spent about 10 days building a rink that is supposed to be able to stay frozen up to 25C.  It was "only" 22C today, but the parts of the ice that were in the sun were melting.  The ice is open air so any rain will wreak a bit of havoc.

Day-time skating in Brisbane

Questions about the outdoor skating rink in the tropics aside, this is a terrific idea and people here are really embracing it!  Ice time is booked by the hour and costs $20 for time plus another $7 for skate rental...so $27 for about 99% of the population who don't own their own skates!  There is an ice-hockey team on the Gold Coast (the Blue-Tongues) that are quite popluar, but skating is not a normal Australian past time.  It is great to see the line-ups of people waiting to get on the ice, or the kids on the tobogganing run.  All around King George Square there are warm-up huts with Chai Lattes and Gluhwein, German sausage huts and places to get some warm Hungarian goulash.  Since 15C is considered really cold here, these places will do a booming business in the evenings when the temp drops.

King George Square at night

There are many Canadians living in Brisbane, as we saw from the incredibly crowded Stanley Cup game 5 broadcast on Saturday morning.  We joined a friend who had made a reservation and the entire pub was packed with hockey fans.  Mostly the crowd was Canadians but many Aussies like the game for the pace and the big hits.  No takers on curling yet, but we'll get them next year!

Hockey Morning in Australia

There seems to be quite a large Canadian contingent in Brisbane, obviously nowhere near as large as the British, but definitely a good size.  Every hockey game of the playoffs has been shown at a pub called "The Pig and Whistle" on Eagle Street Pier, and as we found out, it is very popular with Canadians on gameday.  We decided that we should be true to our Canadian heritage and try to see at least one game, so with some work mates we headed to The Pig for game 2 of the Stanley Cup, which started at 10am on Sunday morning.  We thought it might be a gathering of 5 - 10 people, so we didn't get there until just before the game started.  Much to our surprise the place was packed and we were lucky to get a place to sit!

Enjoying the game with a drink...or two

Almost everyone there was wearing their hockey jerseys or some kind of Canada shirt.  There were people of all ages, singles, groups, couples and families.   There was at least one Australian, as we heard someone yell out, "Go Vancou-vah!" 

It was a great way to spend the morning and see the game, especially with the overtime goal.  And how did it look here when they scored?  Canadians are the same all over the world:



Scoooooooore!