Happy Australia Day!
Today we have a public holiday to celebrate the arrival of the First Fleet to Botany Bay (Sydney). Some people call it Invasion Day. Go Australia!
Today, many a fellow countryman (or woman. Or person) will fire up the barbie, throw on a snag and listen to the Triple J hottest 100. There will also be beer drinking. And according to a google image search, people may also paint flags on their faces, or possible use flags as beach towels. People will drive around in utes with little Australia flags sticking off the bumper.
This person has their geography a little wrong. I could point out what's wrong, but I think that would defeat the purpose. I'll say this: everything. Except the desert bit. Although, I think they wrote 'dessert', which, I admit, would make Australia fairly epicly awesome.
Apparently these are real questions asked by real people and responded to on a tourism website for Australia.
I'm not sure if I believe it, but I sure hope that's true.
These are only a few from a list I've unashamedly ripped off.
Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad
tracks? ( Sweden )
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.
Q: Which direction is North in Australia ? ( USA )
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and
we'll send the rest of the directions.
Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its
name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. ( USA )
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum
trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare
them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.
Anyway, enough of that silliness.
In all seriousness, Australia, for me, has never felt like home. Say that to any Aussie though and they'll drop their jaw and gasp, like this is Eden, and why would anyone want to leave, ever? In fact, my ex almost said this exact thing when I tried to convince him of the awesomeness that is overseas travel, shortly after I bought my ticket to Europe without consulting him (whoops). To which he replied; But why would I need to leave? We have everything here.
And I said: um, what about different cultures, and foods, and languages, and people!
He goes: We have plenty of different cultures! I could travel around Australia and see different cultures!
And I think I actually replied: Um, you could see like, bogans, and maybe some aborigines. Maybe some bogan aborigines. And that's it.
Evidently I went to Europe, came home and broke up with him, so I guess I won that argument.
Anyway, my point being, this place has never been home. I've always wanted more. I never knew what, or why, but I did. And maybe I still don't know, not 100%. Because I love Europe. I love so much about it. And I loved BC- Canada. I loved the mountains, and the people of the west coast. You know, in Melbourne, if you tell someone you don't like Australia and don't want to live here, once they get past the shock & horror of the fact, if you tell them you'd like to go to Canada, that suddenly makes it ok. They say: "Well, Vancouver and Melbourne are very similar".
Vancouver city - we miss you!
All that being said, since Nic has been here, and we've started our little family, have our own place (not to say I didn't have a house with my ex, we did, but the feeling persisted) and are really thinking about where we'll live in the future, the more I think it could be ok to stay here, for a little while. At least, I don't have that tugging in my hear that begs me to leave and go somewhere better. I'm content for now.
We'll move, eventually, the summers are too hot here and there aren't enough mountains or awesome animals to keep me interested (anyone from overseas, yes, we have Australian animals, but I've grown up with them and they're boring. I like squirrels. Go figure). I want to learn a new culture, and have a new home town, a new state/province to get to know. I want to be able to buy things cheap sometimes, even if that means a road-trip into the USA.
But for now, here we are. And for now, here we're staying. For however long it ends up being.
On the drive to Whistler, and the spectacular mountains we fell in love with.
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