And now for another episode of "Stuff That May Be Mildly Interesting To Certain Individuals"...
So Cyrus has returned home from New Zealand. Tanya took all the photos on her camera so we don't have any of the pictures of their trip (besides their departure photo below) but I'll be posting some of those when we receive them. By way of a general recap: they enjoyed seeing New Zealand, they enjoyed spending time with Tanya's family and friends and they enjoyed travelling together.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the significant differences between Australia and North America (aka "The Civilized World") is the sporting culture. In Canada and the US the major sports are Football, Baseball, Basketball and, particularly in God's Country, Hockey. All of these sports exist in Australia but none of them are among what makes up the sporting culture here. Instead, the most popular sports, in order from most popular to least (by my estimation) are:
1) Australia Rules Football (or Footy as it's known). This is a sport I actually enjoy watching. It is non-stop action, it's hard hitting, it requires a number of different skills and it can get quite competitive and emotional. One of the games I watched they calculated that one player ended up running 17km during the match. That would be hard enough besides the fact he also had to kick, pass, tackle, leap and all the other odd things they do. I guess my point is that I have some respect for Footy players. That is with one notable exception: the hair. There is a trend, which is particularly hot in Footy at the moment, which is a mullet type of haircut. It's bloody awful. Some players choose not to wear the mullet. Instead many of those players have a haircut like a banker and a beard cut Grizzly Adams. So, the entire Footy match is like watching a chaotic convention of 80's pop stars battling it out with laid-off Goldman Sachs employees.
2) Cricket. This is a very popular sport, particularly at the national level and it also doubles as a cure for insomnia. How anyone can manage to sit through 3 hours of, what is essentially, watching a couple of dozen men stand around a grass field is beyond me. And of course, there's the longer version which can take several days. I've tried to watch it and give it a chance, I really have, but beyond being eye-gougingly boring (I know that's not a real word), the game has more rules than there are blades of grass on the fields. I'm fairly certain that they just end up making up most of the rules as they go since the majority of the audience has either fallen asleep or passed away from old age and wouldn't notice.
3) Rugby. Rugby is a very international sport and is quite popular in many countries. It is really the foundation for both American Football (or "Gridiron" as it's known here) and Footy. In Australia they have two distinct rugby leagues. One is known as the "Rugby League" (original, I know) and the other as "Rugby Union". There are some minor differences between the two but make no mistake: they are equally boring. Recently I had a chance to go to a Rugby League match in our clients box at the stadium. The match tested the Western Force based out of Perth versus the Brisbane Reds based out of Adelaide. No, in fact they are actually based out of Brisbane. I was just making sure you're paying attention. A touchdown in Rugby is worth 6 points and an extra point is worth one. A field goal is worth 3 points. So, you can imagine the excitement of the game with a final score of 11-11 (each team had a touchdown, missed extra point and two field goals). Here I am below during the "action".
Actually, I enjoyed the atmosphere, for the most part, even though the game was pretty slow. I think the wine helped...and the beer. It's the first real Australia sporting event any of us have been to so far.
4) After those three I'd say that soccer (not "football" to the chagrin of millions of POMs here) and basketball are at around the same level of popularity. Which is to say you can't really make much of a living here playing those sports and anybody that has elite level talent in soccer or basketball are likely not playing professionally in Australia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This past Monday we officially put the third of our three children into braces. Keva got fitted with the little money traps and she's doing fine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this part of the planet it is Sunday and Mothers Day. So, happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment