ANZAC Day

Today was ANZAC Day here in Australia. I am sure that those of you who are avid fans of the History Channel know about this day, but I am not a good student of history or military campaigns, and thus I had never heard about it.

The Australian Government's Cultural and Recreation Portal explains the meaning of the day:

On 25 April every year, Australians commemorate ANZAC Day. It commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The date, 25 April, was officially named ANZAC Day in 1916. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, the word ANZAC meant someone who fought at Gallipoli and later it came to mean any Australian or New Zealander who fought or served in the First World War. During the Second World War, ANZAC Day became a day on which the lives of all Australians lost in war time were remembered. The spirit of ANZAC recognises the qualities of courage, mateship and sacrifice which were demonstrated at the Gallipoli landing.

The kids did not have school, and many commemoration services were held at dawn across the country. Rick, who has a patriotic streak that seems to rise above his home country, had hoped to make one of these commemoration services, but it was pouring at 5AM, which held him off. But the Sydney ANZAC parade was shown on TV (we were struck by how so many people turned out to watch so many veterans interspersed with a few bands march in the rain- no floats, no silly Shriners, nothing to distract from the solemness of the occasion) and a very moving dawn service was broadcast from Gallipoli, Turkey.

This day seems to be much more ingrained in the national identity here than Memorial Day or Veterans' Day are in the US. Children can tell you the meaning of the day, and it seems that most people, young and old, observe it with great respect.

If you are interested in learning more about ANZAC Day, you can visit this website:

http://www.culture.gov.au/articles/anzac/

So, school has started back up into Term 2 and the weather is getting chillier and rainier. Now it feels like mid-October. We were really missing the wonderful fireplaces we had in our Cheshire home today!

Anne

Easter in Australia

Well, we have now experienced our first “major” holiday that both the US and Australia celebrate, and all in all, we have not suffered too much homesickness. Perhaps that because the weather is not insanely different, as it will be at Christmas. Or, perhaps it’s because my parents are visiting, and that takes the sting out of missing family (Rick, of course, has a slightly different perspective on that issue). Or maybe it’s because candy is candy (or lollies, as the case may be), and chocolate is chocolate, and the Easter Bunny delivers in Australia as well.

That said, there are definitely observations to be shared about the way that the holiday is celebrated. Here in New South Wales, Easter is the start of a two-week break between school terms. So, the end of the week was rather festive in the schools. Erin’s school held an Easter Basket Parade on Thursday, where the kids and their assorted family members assembled and watched the older and younger classes pair up and parade with baskets they had decorated together, listened to the school bands and choirs perform, and watched awards being given. Erin even had a part as a “multicultural” first year student, and read about the Christian tradition of Easter Sunday celebrating Christ’s resurrection (her teacher claimed that she didn’t have any part in the chance fact that a minister’s daughter was reading that!) After the assembly, there was a sausage sizzle, and the kids were permitted to leave school early to start the holiday weekend.

Mom and I attended an Easter Hat parade at the primary school closest to Claire’s preschool. The preschool had been invited to join the kids who paraded with buddies to show off all sorts of crazy hats that they had made. The preschoolers paraded in bunny hats they had made and loved it.

For a vast majority, Good Friday seems to signal a time to begin holidays and family outings to beaches and outdoor venues, much like Labor Day at the end of the summer in the U.S. A big draw here in the Sydney area is the Royal Easter Show, which is a like the Big E in Massachusetts, or a New England country fair on steroids. Both Friday and Monday are public holidays, and all stores, even the grocery stores, are entirely closed on Friday and Sunday.

The biggest difference we have noticed is the way Easter was celebrated at church. There were traditional Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, and of course, Easter Sunday. On Sunday, though, save for a slight uptick in celebratory mood, and the serving of yummy hot cross buns at morning tea, it was not much different than a regular Sunday. The children were not dressed in bright new spring dresses and white shoes, or little bow ties and new pants, lilies did not cover the front of the church, and the pews did not overflow with the addition of twice-a-year churchgoers. But Rick did preach a humdinger of a sermon, and we enjoyed our traditional Easter ham dinner, with a short bushwalk afterwards, so all is well that ends well!

For my part, I made my first Pavlova, a uniquely Australian dessert made with meringue, whipped cream and fruit. My first meringue was a disaster, as I put it in at 250 degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit and it blew up and burned, but once I got my temperatures right, I think I did ok!

We wish all of you a very blessed Easter, and for those of you in the US, enjoy the coming of spring!

Anne

Erin addresses the crowd

Check out the beautiful flowers in our Easter Garden!

Sunday at church

Pavlova meringue #1- temperature conversion disaster

I can't make the picture center, but here is Pavlova #2!

Polling Day

Today is Polling Day for state elections in New South Wales. I thought I'd just share a few thoughts as an American observing the voting process here.

First of all, voting is compulsory here in Australia. Australia is the only English-speaking country to have made voting compulsory in both federal and state elections. My understanding is that you can be fined if you don't vote. This means that voter turnout is around 95%! To an American who is bombarded with reports and complaints about the apathetic American electorate at voting time, that is just mind-boggling. I think America has something to learn here.

A little side note on compulsory voting: aborigines are not required to vote, but if they register, they must vote. Intriquing. I'd be interested to read some legislative history on that.

Secondly, voting is on Saturday. Is that brilliant or what? No half days for schools because their cafeterias are being used. For 9-5 workers, no trying to figure out how to make it to the polling place. What I saw last time we were here and this morning when I was out for an early run was older people, families with small children, young people, all walking to the different polling places (schools, community centers, etc.) to vote. And there were reasonable lines of people waiting.

In addition, community groups and schools take advantage of the polling to have bake sales (cake stalls), barbecues/sausage sizzles, book sales, plant sales, etc. That promotes a much more festive/community atmosphere, it seems.

Of course, we don't get to vote. But I was enlisted to bake something for the cake stall through the school. My lesson learned in that regard? Cadbury brownie mix produces fewer brownies, uses a smaller "slice pan", and the girls weren't too keen on the taste. Poor souls who buy my brownies. Back to baking from scratch!

Anne

Our Family Weekend

This weekend was Rick's first "family weekend"- one of 5 weekends off a year. This is in addition to the vacation time that Rick receives. This is a typical benefit for a Uniting Church minister, and one that we are going to treasure- we are impressed with the acknowledgement of the need for weekend family time. Rick and I swore to each other back in the States when we were in the midst of our moving upheaval that we wouldn't go traveling for a good long time after we were settled here. Fortunately, there is so much for us to explore nearby!

On Saturday we went to Sydney's Taronga Zoo, and despite some rain in the afternoon, had one of the best zoo visits we've had in a long time. The animals were active and visible and the kids really enjoyed them. The chimps were their all time favorites and left Claire with the hiccups off and on through the evening with all of her laughing. You can see a few pictures of the zoo below. In particular, check out the view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge behind the giraffes. Absolutely breathtaking!

On Sunday, we ended up going to our church, as the kids absolutely did not want to miss the Sunday childrens' morning program. But Rick did get to enjoy sitting with his family, and managed not to get caught up in work. After church, while much of Sydney was downtown celebrating the Sydney Harbour Bridge's 75th birthday (they actually closed the bridge from 4:30am to 11pm!), we chose to go to a local "show", which is what we would call a country fair in New England. The kids had great fun on the rides, and got to get up close and personal with lots of farm animals. They had the typical fair fare- hotdogs, corndogs, fairy floss (cotton candy), but we were intriqued to also find Turkish and Thai- not a usual find at a New England country fair. It was strange to see squash and pumpkins on display in the judging as we are nearing Easter, a time when we are usually contemplating spring things like crocuses, new white sandals and the impending warm spring weather to melt the snow.

Below are a few pics from the zoo. Click on the link below to see more pics of the weekend in a Picasa Web Album.
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/annedacey/MarchFamilyWeekend02/photo#5043187205899189650
Love, Anne

Whale Beach

On Saturday, we finally took our first family excursion to one of Sydney's Northern Beaches, Whale Beach. In the almost 7 weeks that we have been here, the family has not ventured more than a couple miles radius from the house, as we have been so intent on trying to just settle ourselves (and the pool has been great for cooling off). But the childrens' call of adventure could wait no longer, so we took an afternoon to enjoy ourselves and ended with a nice picnic dinner on the beach before we had to get home so Dad could do his Saturday night's preparation for work the next day. It's been a scorcher of a weekend, so the beach Saturday, and the pool today on Sunday was most welcome!

Anne

We finally have a 2d car!

Which reminds me that we haven't told you about the first. For those who are interested, that is.

Having sold our Hondas to new loving homes (we enjoy envisioning my dear friend Tonya's family of 5 taking family outings in the Odyssey minivan), we have now entered the world of Toyota devotees. As part of Rick's compensation package, the church leased us a white Toyota Avensis (similar vehicle pictured above), aka, a peoplemover. Isn't that a great name? It seems to be Australia's answer to the minivan. It is not as roomy as our Odyssey, but then, Australian roads were not built for the honkin' monster cars of the US. The lanes and parking spots are definitely narrower. And quite honestly, it suits us just fine, although luggage room will be tight for trips. It seats 7, which we were looking for in anticipation of visitors (hint, hint). And, true to form, I have already given it a nice scrape along the front fender when I took too sharp a turn out of the garage.

We tried to arrive with no preconceived notions of what we would need in a 2d car, although we presumed it would be something that would get Rick to and from work (the church is about 10 minutes away). After over a month with one car (thank you, dear friends, for loaners and rides), we eventually arrived at the conclusion that we should buy a used car.

Kudos go to Rick. Determined to get the best value he could, despite the fact that he really had no spare time, he attended a car auction with his fellow minister Kent, spent hours pouring through online car sales sites, and used several nights to go look at cars. Mind you, this is a guy who hasn't bought a used car since high school and basically can open the hood and tell you if there is a motor in there. But he finally found a white 1997 Toyota Corolla SECA (similar to the one pictured below). It has no frills (when is the last time you had to roll up your windows yourself?), but has low mileage (kilometerage?) and it seems that Corollas can last forever (right Gwen and Karen?)

Are you sensing a theme with color (or lack thereof?) It seems that there are many more white cars on the road here than in the US. We presume that is because the sun is so hot, and white deflects the sun best.


Our apologies for taking so long to post. Settling in has taken so much time, and then the computer was unable to retrieve our pictures, and then there was marital miscommunication about who is responsible for the next blog (phew, got that one worked out). Anyhow, we hope to, within a few more days, give you some thoughts on shopping in Australia, as well as introduce you to some of the wildlife in our yard (yes Lynn, there will be spiders).


Anne

Starting School

So, primary school started this week. What a different experience! On the bureaucratic side, we knew before we got here that, as temporary visa holders we would have to pay for Erin to go to public school (much unlike America, where everyone is eligible for public school, as far as I know), but we had applied for a fee waiver and after some last-minute phone calls and conversations with perhaps one of the more helpful bureaucracies I've ever come across, Erin was ok'd for enrollment about 15 minutes before she was to report to school for the first day. So Rick and I madly dashed about, me packing a lunch, Rick ironing her dress (and he will attest that those pleats are a bit tricky!), and getting her in gear after she had spent the first few hours of her day expecting that she would be going shopping with mum and siblings all day. She was super eager to go.

Let's talk about those darling black shoes for a moment. I was clueless- what's a school shoe? But all the shoe stores here have them. They come in laceup or velcro and can get pretty pricey (about US $80 for an expensive pair). A friend was good enough to bring me along on her 6-year old's shopping excursion, as I hadn't a clue and wanted to make sure that my little Year 1 student would fit in with a "cool"
shoe (if there is such a thing in school shoes). It was quite emotionally stressful to consider, although, in retrospect, I realize that it's just the learning curve that had me so frazzled. How hard can it be to purchase a black shoe?

And the uniform. Aside from the dress (I'm trying to work with two, at about US $45 each) we had to invest in white socks, a hat, a sports day uniform (white polo shirt, black sports skirt), a school "jumper"- aka sweatshirt/sweater, and in a few months, a plaid school skirt, gray tights and a long sleeve polo shirt. It certainly eliminates the need for lots of everyday wear. And I love being on the school grounds with all of these kids milling about in their uniforms- it can be quite a challenge to tell them apart when they are all properly wearing their hats!

School seems to get off to slow start at the beginning of the year. The children spent the first few days with their old teachers, while the school finalized enrollment numbers, found out how many teachers they were eligible for, and put everyone in place. Yesterday, Erin found out who her teacher is and who is in her class. She will be enrolled in a Year 2/1 composite class (here, the emphasis is on COM when saying the word, and I have to think hard before I open my mouth and sound like a silly yank- which I do anyhow), where they teach both years in the same classroom (hopefully this will enable her to keep reading at the levels she achieved in her first few months in Connecticut).

She reports that they eat lunch outside on benches in the shade, and they also have, in the early mid-morning "fruito" (Aussies love adding "o" to the end of things), when they can step outside and have a piece of fruit, and then a later morning tea (snack). There is no hot lunch, and at this school, no canteen, where some schools sell food items. No more "chicken patties on a bun," Erin's number one hot lunch choice! In fact, so far, she's just had ham sandwiches on some special sweet American bread a friend picked up for us (she doesn't like the fact that Australian bread is not sweet)- she can't bring peanut butter because it's a PB free school, and she doesn't like the cheese here, so I'm working hard to identify new staples for her school lunch diet!

I have to leave in a few moments to walk to pick her up- another switch. No big yellow school buses. I love the feeling as all of the parents and caregivers (carers here) converge on the school, by foot, with strollers and various siblings hanging on. We all gather around on the school grounds outside of the different blocks where their classrooms are, and meet the kids coming straight out of the classrooms. A very small neighborhood feel.

Anne