Let me tell you there’s nothing quite as bizarre as watching a Canada-U.S. hockey game with Australian commentators. Ok, maybe there is, but it involves midgets, latex, and furry handcuffs. In all fairness they did telecast the recent epic hockey game here on free-to-air TV, and only resorted to Aussie commentary during audio difficulties. All I can say about that is that they were much more humorous than Pierre McGuire at times, especially since their ice hockey knowledge is about as extensive as a desert winter. Needless to say, the Olympics have garnered tons of television in Australia and have succeeded in actually making me somewhat miss winter in Canada. Outside of the obvious coverage of the Australian athletes, Canadians seem to receive the second most coverage here, with the descriptions surrounding how much Canadians love ice hockey being of particular amusement to me. The way the commentators describe it here, you would think every Canadian immediately went out in the backyard and shot themselves and their whole family after the loss to the United States. One major point of controversy here was when the host of the coverage made “gay/flamboyant” jokes about American figure skater Johnny Weir. The story ended up being picked up all over the world and led to a comical prime-time interview between the two where they kissed and made up (not literally, but they did discuss interior design!). Aside from all of this, the coverage of the games has been pretty good here, and allowed me to watch and beam proudly for my home nation from afar. GO CANADA!!!
Contrary to popular belief though (held by my girlfriend and family), I do other stuff besides watch sports all day. Some quick blurbs on some other stuff Leeanna and I have done recently…
Sunday, I took Leeanna to the Good Vibrations Music Festival (The Killers, Basement Jaxx, Busta Rhymes, Gossip, Kid Cudi, Naughty By Nature, Gym Class Heroes, Armand Van Helden, DJ Craze, Salt-N-Pepa, and many more) which was in the north end of the city at the Flemington race course. Tickets were priced atrociously at $150 a piece, but I felt it was a win-win when I bought them for the girlfriend for Valentine’s Day, as I also wanted to go and this presented me with a good excuse to shell out and buy the tickets with my hard-earned restaurant cash. Unlike in North America where touring large-scale music festivals are all but dead, all-day outdoor festivals still seem to draw large numbers here across the country. In the end, the weather ended up being perfect and because of the ridiculously long line-ups for alcoholic beverages, I ended up not drinking one drop of booze all day…that is until I came home! During the day, we spent most of our time at the second stage/Roots stage (there were five stages spread out over the park) and got to watch full sets from Kid Cudi, Gym Class Heroes and the legendary Busta Rhymes. They all put on good shows, and the audiences were fantastic. Also, we took in most of Naughty By Nature’s set as we stood in line for hot dogs, but they generally sucked balls. We made it over to the main stage for The Killers headlining set, which was ok, if not spectacular. They seemed to be a bit on the unenergetic side, which was understandable given that the lead singer’s mother had just passed away the week before (causing them to cancel half of their Australian tour). All-in-all though, it was a good time, and I can now say I’ve been to a big Aussie music festival, complete with large numbers of homosexuals and metrosexuals and people just generally dressed in some of the most bizarre fashions ever. Men here seem to be overly comfortable with each other in public and they all have a penchant for wearing slip-on shoes and other footwear that looks like it was purchased from the discount bin at Giant Tiger.
A couple of weeks ago, Leeanna and I also managed to get out of the city for the first time since we had moved here which was a very much welcomed reprieve. We rented a car for the day and drove a couple of hours out to Phillip Island. For those who aren’t in the know, Phillip Island is a world-renowned tourist attraction where hundreds of people sit in amphitheatre style seating every night along a beach and watch a bunch of penguins waddle ashore. Getting to the island proved to be the biggest adventure of all, as I got lost several times along the way (decided to save $10 and not rent a GPS), and turned our 1.5 hour journey there into a 3 hour tour. Believe me though, the false/craptacular directions all of the locals kept giving me did not help one bit. After finally making it to the island in the early afternoon, we had a full day to kill before the penguin parade at 9:00pm. First thing on the busy day’s agenda was to head over to the Nobbies Centre, which was basically a viewing area to see the sea lions lazing just off sure on the rocks. Wait, maybe they were seals. Either way, we were not able to really see much as the animals were not around, so Leeanna and I ended up just going for a stroll through the coastal rocks and eating some overpriced chips and chili sauce. Next on the agenda, we went over to a koala sanctuary where we were able to get pretty close to a bunch of koalas, wallabies and some other wildlife. There was a boardwalk constructed well off the ground that allowed to you get up close to the koalas in their natural habitat aka high up in the eucalyptus trees. As much as I wanted to steal one for a pet (even if they do poo while sleeping), I resisted and ended up just letting them be. Following that, we took a break from the wildlife and headed over to the chocolate factory/store. We got really hungry in a hurry, bought some overpriced local chocolate, and away we went! The last attraction to check off of our list was the Churchill Island Heritage Farm, which was slightly ridiculous. It was basically like a re-creation of a pioneer farm and small community. The farm did provide me with some amusement though, as they had a talking bird (obviously it had an Aussie accent) and a horse with a penis bigger than anything this side of an NBA locker room. We also took a long-ass walk around the island and were generally scared shitless by anything that flied or made a buzzing sound. What can I say; Leeanna and I are one with nature. After grabbing dinner in the town of Cowes (very cool, surfing/tourist town on the northern part of Phillip Island) we made our way over to the Penguin Parade. It was crazy busy and just seemed to be the most ridiculous animal attraction ever! Hundreds, if not thousands of people sit in this sort of concrete amphitheatre seating along the beach front and wait for these little penguins to march inland every night as the sun goes down. The penguins, slowly but surely emerge from the sea and make their way to their homes/sleeping quarters in the hills along the coast. It takes the penguins quite some time to complete this nightly journey as many of them constantly go in and out of the water (fear of birds eating them, as they are very small penguins) before making a mad dash to their hillside retreats. The whole thing seems quite comical, but is definitely something worth checking out if you’re in the Melbourne area. We were able to drive back to the city without getting lost, although it ended up taking me over an hour to find a gas station and then somewhere to park the rental car for the night before I took it back the next morning.
Last week, we also had the chance to take in an overpriced experience that they do all over Australia aptly titled “Movies In The Park” (we ended up seeing the Dan Aykroyd/John Belushi classic, “The Blues Brothers”). It’s a really unique set-up where they show movies in the Botanical Gardens six nights a week during the summer, complete with bats flying overhead by the hundreds and the city skyline in the background. It was pretty cool, as they allow you to bring your own booze and food onto the premesis. It’s rather pricey to get in though, as they charge you $17 per person to sit on the grass and another $7 per person for a beanbag chair (a requirement for comfort reasons). I almost never made it out alive though as halfway during the movie I got up to urinate. Seeing as how the bathrooms were a solid two minute walk away I decided I was just going to pollinate one of the local trees. Well it turns out there was a sizeable creature (guessing possum, maybe a giraffe) lurking nearby that decided to violently hiss at me before it ran within a foot of me and straight up the tree. I almost had a heart attack and definitely sprinkled a little urine onto my clothing (did not mention this to girlfriend afterwards!). Good times all around, even if I am forever scared to pee on a tree again!
Later in the week we went back to the Royal Botanical Gardens during the day to take in the scenery and walks. It was very beautiful and featured some interesting plant and tree life from around the world. They also had a very well laid out war memorial that was both appeasing on the eyes and informative. Luckily this time around no possums made any moves for my junk, so I returned home to my shoebox-in-the-sky unscathed, ready to tackle Melbourne yet again!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I Love Reading This Cuz! You crack me up - Laura
ReplyDelete