Good Friday

So Australians love Easter. And by love Easter I mean they really go all out for it – they get Good Friday AND Easter Monday off! What the h, America?! Because ANZAC Day originally fell on Monday, they extended the break so that Tuesday is also a day off… so that means a five day weekend. Yup. Five days!!!!!! Something like that definitely deserves six exclamation marks. When does that ever happen in America? I mean besides Spring Break, which is really only for kids. Even Thanksgiving you only get four days off if you’re lucky. What a travesty. The only thing holding me back from moving to Oz is that they don’t really celebrate Halloween, and that’s just something I can’t tolerate.

Ah yes, I’m not sure if I have explained what ANZAC Day is yet. Basically it’s to commemorate when the Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed in Galliopli (25 April 1915), but really it’s more to commemorate anyone who has served Australia/New Zealand in the military. By the way, ANZAC = Australian and New Zealand Army Corp. The soldiers here are called “diggers” because of something about them being gold diggers or something. I’ll google it and get back to you.

Still there? Good. Apparently no one knows where it comes from but I guess it could be one of two choices: (1) Many had worked in the goldfields before the war or (2) There’s lots of digging in trenches.

Back to the story at hand… Apparently on ANZAC Day there is a form of gambling called Two-Up that is only legal on ANZAC Day, so I’m excited to see this in action. I guess it’s nothing more than a coin toss sort of game, so I’m not really sure why it’s illegal. Must have been causing issues with the general populace.

Anyway, “The Grandparents” (as I affectionately call my host family) always have a big family lunch/dinner with their extended family on Good Friday, and I got invited because it would probably seem a little rude to not invite someone who is plan-less and living with you at the moment. Their son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren actually live next door, so all of us (plus the other set of grandparents) all got together and ate outside. It was really nice and it made me sort of wish I had extended family living that close as a kid (something else to take to my psychiatrist, Mom and Dad… just kidding!). It’s funny, too, because it seems like a lot of Aussies regularly take holidays to the States (mostly California or NYC), while I don’t think I know anyone who has gone to Oz for the sole purpose of a vacation. I wonder how they afford it. I learned that a lot of Canadians apparently visit Oz. In general, though, Aussies seem to be much more relaxed about working and taking holidays than Americans – a trait I admire.

At one point the very Australian father-in-law, after pouring me a VB asked if I wanted any lemonade (aka Sprite) in it, to which I said yes. “Well it’s in the fridge,” he then responded with a smirk. While I debated if he was joking or not, someone else added: “Ah, the typical Australian bloke’s chivalry at work!” He actually did go get it for me but I thought it was pretty funny nonetheless. And as an aside, I have heard that the Aussie women liked the American soldiers because they were nice (they actually listened to the women), but mostly because they were richer than the Aussie men! So maybe our natural charm was only part of the equation? It’s actually funny to hear some of the old timer’s accounts of Americans/WWII from a different perspective than American.

And I’ve got myself two dates lined up! One is with a bartender I met for a mere nanosecond last week who apparently liked me so much that he tried to call my host family to ask me to go out with him (he didn’t get my number). I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to go out with him but my host grandma said, “Well Kelli, you’re only here for a short while so you know nothing’s going to come of it, so you might as well go and have some fun. Plus he tried all he could to get in touch with you.” So I did end up giving him my number… I guess he’s going to call me after he “thinks of something I haven’t done already”. Not sure what he’ll come up with but I hope it’s creative!

The other is the blind date type of situation where the dad wanted his son to take me out because I’m all alone here, despite the son never having met me. I can tell that the son's not too excited about it. We’re supposed to meet up tomorrow but I haven’t heard any details from him – hopefully I actually DO hear from him (and with enough time to prepare). He was funny because he wanted my last name, “because of facebook” (he also gave me his last name) and I told him I didn’t have facebook but “don’t worry, I’m only moderately unattractive.”

Soo… supposing I go out with these last two blokes, that’ll make four guys in a month! Not too bad, I suppose. And three of them will be Australian, and only one forced to go by his dad! Cheers!