Australia Day!

So, I guess I better fill you in on Australia Day (a.k.a. "The Day of Mourning" to the Aborigines. Guess it depends on your perspective.) before more time gets away from me. I'll set the stage with the weather to start. It was the hottest and most humid day we've had since being here. But don't fear! I stayed hydrated and sunscreened for the duration of our day. (I've yet to be sun burned actually. Knock on wood.)

To begin our morning, we headed to the Queensland governor's estate, where we toured her home and got to meet her. Bagpipers marched past blaring patriotic tunes and the Army band set the mood with classics like "Come Fly with Me." The highlights included the ponds covered in lily pads and the dining room in which each place setting cost an astonishing $28,000! Though parts of her home are beautiful, it was a bit stuffy for my taste. There were countless portraits of British royalty including signed photos from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. I was surprised be the strong reverence for the British monarchy. Observing the excesses of the royal family is sickening to be honest. Let's just say I wouldn't call myself a monarchist. Although it was interesting to know that even post-independence, Australia still has such a tie to England.

From there we went to South Bank where all the action was- the barbies, the beach, the market place displaying tourist nick-knacks and cheap jewelry (both of which I indulged in), dance and musical performances, and innumerable crowds. Australia, being concerned with sun health has an entire corporation devoted to just that called SunCorp. They were handing out free sunscreen all day! My two roommates and I tooled around for a few hours, bought a smoothie and headed home to get out of the heat. We made our way back with four of our guys friends to South Bank for the fireworks. To give you an idea- think of a finale for the show's entire duration set to snip-its of music with no real synchronicity with the explosions. The bar is set high growing up at Disneyland, I guess. Although, they did have a couple of my favorite fireworks and the colors reflected and glittered on the windows of the downtown skyline. Beautiful! We then headed to dinner at a swanky restaurant with poor service, due to the fact that there's no tipping here. Unfortunate for the waiter and the customer. But it was really fun to be in the city for a nice dinner!
Being pretty tuckered out from the heat, we headed home to relax. It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful day.