A sunny christmas, cricket and bacon eggs on the ”barbie”

You tend to do things when you are travelling that, even though you probably had ample opportunity at home to, you somehow never got around to doing before. and so it was that I attended more live sports events in Perth than I had ever experienced before in my lifetime (my experience equating to a local football match in Perth, Scotland, between Livingston and Dundee United..), the major difference being that both of the sports events were iconic Australian sporting games. One other thing they both had in common with each other, and me, was that I truly didn’t know the first thing about the rules of the game, and therefore also when I was asking a really…stupid…question.

First and foremost – cricket season was in mid swing by the time I reached Perth, and the sport in general has such a following that in addition to several day test matches, there are also one day matches, and one of the most recent inclusions – twenty20 cricket. The latter is meant to be more fast paced and much shorter in length. 3 hours seems almost nothing compared to full day or 3 day matches! Bridie and her friend Rob took me along to experience the cricket, and support the Western Australian Retravision Warriors as they played Queensland.

The game was in the evening, and the stadium and the floodlights all lit up so that my first impression was very uncricket-like, based only on my preconception that all cricket matches are played in the heat of the day, with excessive amounts of suncream and white apparell. The players in 20twenty matches instead play in colourful uniforms and baseball caps, and the sprawling lawns I had imagined were replaced by an oval stadium set-up with two areas of grass on each side.

I would try my best to explain the rules of cricket, but in all honesty it is still a mystery to me, and even though you are fairly close to the action in Perth oval, I still had huge difficulty even seeing where the ball founds its way to after every bowl, and resorted to the screens dotted around the oval which would inform me in big flashing terms whether a four or a six had been hit. The scoreboard was already citing numbers such as 5/160, and I got totally confused at how 4s and 6s could reach these proportions, eventually asking a question which received complete silence, and the sarcastic disbelieving reply, ¨you did not just ask that question did you…¨. I shouldn’t really be surprised at the response, as I had just stupidly asked very loudly, ¨how many points do you get for a 6??¨…

My second live sports event was one I had been hoping to catch while in Australia – an Australian Football League (AFL) game. Just catching the first matches from the NAB cup, I went to see the football team Bridie supports, the West Coast Eagles, play Collingwood. The game was not quite as tense or exciting as I had hoped, but I had also only every seen the final and Semi-final previously. What I hadn’t witnessed before, however, was the friendly rivalry which was prominently vocal not just throughout the stadium itself, but also as we walked along the streets of Subi (suburb of Subiaco) on the evening of the game. Jovial boos and hisses, intermixed with the odd comment about a player or team was unavoidable as I walked alongside Bridie with her Eagles jersey on, and another in our group wearing the black and white striped colours of Collingwood. The funniest comment thrown out was when we passed someone on the street, wearing Collingwood colours and carrying a West Coast Eagles bag in his hand (obviously waiting for his other, Eagles, half to return). He was subjected to the disapproving and pointed remark of, ¨mate, that is not a good look¨..

I cannot leave my last thoughts of Perth without telling you briefly of my hot Australian Christmas, my first (warm) outdoor Hogmanay street party, and a typical Australia day celebration. Christmas, by far, was an overwhelmingly homesick time for me. as much as I tried, and my fabulous hosts Bev and Adrian made the day full of delicious food and hospitality, I think my friends Hannah and Ruth also shared the feeling that something was missing. Everything is so upside down in an Aussie Christmas, from the sun beating down to missing the Queens speech, and most of all having none of the familiar faces around you, that it was almost a relief to wake up to Boxing day, and much easier to convince yourself it is just a sunny summer day.

Hogmanay wasn’t quite so unusual for me, as I had spent the previous New Years events with Ruth and Hannah as well in Scotland. We decided not to spend extensive amounts of money getting into Jam-packed clubs that we would be tied to for the whole night, and opted for the free Northbridge street party, and making full use of our right to ´byob´ (bring your own bottle) to one of the restaurants in the area. And so it came to pass that I seemed to be carrying four bottles of wine in my bag, with Ruth, Hannah and Claudia beside me, and we spent a huge amount of New Years Eve enjoying an extensive curry buffet meal and making video footage of our ´5 year wish/plan´. With rather full stomachs, we then waddled through the streets where a few stages had been set up with live bands playing. We chose a catchy swing band and boogied away on the street with the other merrymakers until the midnight bells.

Australia day fell on a Monday this year, which meant a long weekend off work for everyone. I was told that a typical Australia day involved beer and barbecues, and mine wasn’t any different. We started the day off in the unit with bacon and eggs on the ‘barbie’, and in the early evening to one of Bridie’s friends´ apartments, which very luckily had an amazing view over kings park. More beer and barbecues were consumed here, followed by a wander to kings park at night to watch the massive skyworks fireworks display over the foreshore. They were even timed and matched to music from the past 3 decades, which at one point got incredibly cheesy when they shouted out ´come on people of Perth, hold up your torches and mobile phones in the air and think about the people you have loved and lost´..

Before I knew it I was leaving Perth, and on the infamous Indian Pacific train to Sydney. I was waved off from the platform by Claudia, Bridie and Rob, in a fairly surreal emotional way, with 3 days on the train to look forward to, to reflect on my time in Perth, the anticipation of seeing Sydney again, and preparing to say goodbye to Australia not long afterwards.