quicko: how long?!?!

I thought I'd reached my pinnacle of amazement with the length of Australian holidays ages ago.  Nope.  Set a huge new record tonight:  in casual conversation, an Australian mentioned she'd once gone traveling around the world on holiday (are you ready for this?) for three years.  Evidently she'd picked up the occasional odd job here and there, but aside from that, she didn't work for three years.  Seeing as we'd just met, I really couldn't ask "How the heck did you afford that?!  And if you could afford it, how the heck did you justify it?!"  The conversation then turned to Morocco (go figure).

photos: the races!

This afternoon Kiril and I went to the races at Randwick Racecourse.  We saw three races, though my highlight was two little girls coming up to me just to say, "you look so pretty!"  Aww, shucks.  Go ahead and make my day :)

 

quicko: you get what you ask for

Sometimes I have trouble coming up with things to blog about (you've noticed, huh?) and sometimes I'm genuinely interested in what other people notice as cultural differences.  A couple weeks ago though I took notes while an Australian rattled off everything he didn't like about Americans.  They've been sitting in my notebook waiting to get written about (defended?  ranted against?  ignored?) and it's time for me to get a new notebook and close this one up and they're still annoying me so here.  Hot potato.  You take his criticisms and run with them, I don't want them any more.

--Things seen as "too American" such as employees clapping joyously at the opening of a new store.
--Americans talk too highly of themselves in public.
--Americans are too patriotic.
--Americans think too highly of their armed forces.
--Americans have bad coffee.

See why I was so thrilled?

quicko: will holidays never cease

I have yet another installment in the "MAN Australians are ALWAYS traveling and don't even REALIZE it half the time!" series.  Ahem.

This is a true story. About a real friend of mine.  Who I am absolutely not making fun of.  Much.

I'll give it to you quick:  between now (March 1) and July (July!  2012!) this friend is going to:

--New Zealand (but it doesn't count because, well, it's just New Zealand)
--the U.K. (but it's kind of a family trip so it doesn't count)
--somewhere in southeast Asia (emergency family wedding, completely unplanned, certainly doesn't count)
--Bali (but for less than a week, so it obviously doesn't count)
--Cambodia (okay, maybe this one counts)

So, yeah, your math is the same as mine, right?  One holiday, hey?   In five months?  That's not bad, right?  One tiny trip to Cambodia.  That's not much.  Because Australians don't really travel that much.  In fact, they never get enough holidays.  And are atrociously overworked.  Which is why, frankly, I don't see why my friend hasn't started planning a PROPER holiday.  You know, a relaxing one of over ten days to a beautiful, seaside location without family members in a place that's not New Zealand.  Because otherwise it is so not a holiday.

quicko: hectic holidays, continued

So the other day I was talking to an Australian friend.

"I'm so tired," he moaned.  "I need a holiday."

"But didn't you just say you're going to Argentina for two weeks in February?" I asked.


"Yes," he said, as if explaining something very simple to someone rather slow.  "But that's not until February."

"And it's December now," I said.

"Exactly," he said.

"I see," I said.  "But didn't you just go to the Cook Islands a couple months ago?"

"That was only a week!" he explained, slowly again.  "That does not count as a holiday."

Thankfully I knew better than to mention his recent business trips to China, Sydney and Adelaide, as well as the upcoming one to Malaysia and Singapore.

The poor dear really is tired.  Unfortunately, I'm not nearly Australian enough to understand.

quicko: fair is foul

So now it's been gorgeous weather.  Beautiful.  Stunning.  Glorious, as my mother would say.  What are Sydneysiders doing?  Complaining.  "This weather!" they moan.  "Rainy one day, sunny the next."

"It's making me sick," the masses wail.

For goodness sake!  What more do you want?  It was raining (which, I might point out, you all did not like); now it's sunny.  Enjoy what you've got when you've got it!  Of course it's unpredictable -- it's the weather, for snowing out loud!  (Which it's not!)

rain, rain, go away

It's been raining a lot lately.  This is, for Australians, unacceptable.  It is unacceptable because this is Australia and everyone knows Bad Weather belongs in Miserable England and Nowhere Near Beautiful, Gorgeous, Sunny Australia.  Hence, it is very Out of Character for Beautiful, Gorgeous, Sunny Australia to be so grievously afflicted.

This out of characterization happens, incidentally, annually at this time of year, and biweekly the rest of the year, but Australians are blissfully aware of this, so please don't let the cat out of the bag for them.  I'm not sure they could take it in this weather.

Rain really doesn't bother me.  I've always liked it and found it calming, which anyone who knows me must surely think of as a remarkably good thing.  I also don't like umbrellas.  I find them big, bulky, pokey and terribly impractical.  Unless it is absolutely pouring ("bucketing down" would be the verb of choice in Australia) and I'm on my way to work or also freezing cold, I'd really rather be without.

Australians, however, do not view rain the same way I do.  They view it as tantamount to a personal insult.  Not only that, they view it as "miserable," "gross," and "disgusting" weather.  This I really don't get.  Okay, miserable I grant could be a frame of a mind, but gross and disgusting?  Have they really never before encountered, say, manure?  Roadkill?  Vegemite?  These items qualify as gross and disgusting.  They are dirty and carry nasty bacteria and could seriously harm you if ingested.  Rain is none of that.  Rain, on the contrary, cleans things.  It washes the city!  It's essential for farmers and growing things and all that, too, but overall it is clean.

Acid rain is a different story.  Acid rain is nasty and evil and bad.  I'd be upset to get drizzled on by it, too, but I have been in Sydney this week and there has been no acid rain here.  Not that you'd have known that by the reaction the real rain got, poor dear.  Rotten deal, really.

Sydneysiders grumble and complain and mope and whine when there's rain.  Everyone stays inside and parties are canceled left, right and center.  No one seems to care that the rain is nice, pleasant and beautiful, or even that next week it's going to be boiling hot and muggy and everyone would like nothing better than to jump in the nice, cool ocean which is really in very many ways remarkably similar in chemical composition to the precipitation which has lately been falling from the sky.

If it were 2-week-old snow we were talking about, that got pushed around a Wal-Mart parking lot ten times over and is looking muddy and brown and altogether worse for the wear, I'd understand.  But we're not.  We're talking clean, lovely, refreshing rain.

It's enough to make Australians pack up and take a clearly much-needed holiday to England.

quicko: 4 weeks of vacation

I think I've probably touched on this before, but it really deserves its own post:  Australians are automatically given 4 paid weeks of vacation per year if they have a full-time job.  FOUR weeks!  Right off the bat!  And once they've worked for a company for 10 years, they are given "long service leave" of 3 months.  THREE PAID MONTHS!!!

quicko: a gap year

This is perhaps more common in England, but Australians are also very familiar with the idea of a "gap year."  Americans, being hard-working individuals with immense college debt and two weeks of paid vacation, are not.  Basically, one's "gap year" is the time in which one travels abroad, makes a tremendous nuisance of oneself, works intermittently in backpackers, pubs or anywhere else connected to a spare couch, and, potentially, has an existential crisis.  It's all very exciting and grungy and memorable, if one was sober enough to remember it.

the tale of the tiara

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away, there lived a princess named Matty.   He was not a princess in the ordinary way of being the daughter of a king, but more in the Australian sort of way of thinking "holidays" were "hectic" endeavors.

Life, you see, was difficult for Princess Matty.  He had to go to work every morning and teach classes full of nothing but young, cosmopolitan females for hours on end before returning to a home-cooked meal prepared nightly at 6 pm by his loving mother.

It was enough to try the toughest of princesses.

Then one day, Princess Matty was requested to come to the aid of Princess Kim in the even farther away land of 500, which was, granted, a rather odd name for a kingdom.  (She had previously left his land on account of there not being room in it for more than one princess, though they managed to remain friends.  Hence, when 500 was invaded by the joint forces of Prince Laurie and Princess Sharon, Princess Matty rushed to the rescue of Princess Kim.)

A fierce battle raged.  A seven spades call toppled, closely followed by a seven hearts.  An open misere was dashed to pieces, followed by another seven spades and a gutsy eight clubs.  An eight no trumps collapsed and a misguided seven diamonds left the carnage falling fast and thick on both sides.  Things were looking bleak, particularly as the Force of Sleaze (as the antagonists were called) began to rise from the ashes and looked set to trump the Desk Buddies (as our protagonists were called) with an effective seven spades call followed by a devastingly winning seven hearts.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.

Suddenly Princess Kimmy had an idea!  The Tiara of Trump!  She ran to her secret tower, extricated it from the Bavarian beer girl/pirate costume and hurried back into the fray.

At first Princess Matty was reluctant to wear the Tiara of Trump, but with such devastation around him, he soon saw there was but little choice.  He donned the sacred heirloom and sallied once more valiantly forth into the shuffle.

There are times, it is said, when tides simply turn.  All is looking lost and then, out of nowhere, (insert superhero of choice here) shows up and saves the day.  So it was with Princess Matty and the Tiara of Trump.

First there was a victorious seven clubs, closely followed by twin seven diamonds.  The opposition countered with a seven clubs of their own, but it was too late.  Daringly Princess Matty threw out a wild eight hearts.  The Force of Sleaze fought back, hoping the Desk Buddies would bleed their own trump.  The Desk Buddies held their cards close to their chests, pulling in one, two, three tricks.  Sleaze stole a sly fourth with the left bower, but the Desk Buddies had it back at five, six, seven, eight.  At nine, Sleaze took control, leaving it down to what everyone sensed would be the last trick of the night.

Prince Laurie led a high spade, followed closely by Princess Kim's ace of diamonds, which did nothing productive, but looked mighty flashy.  Hot on the trail was Princess Sharon's (a gasp from the crowd here!) nine of hearts.  The on-lookers fell silent, all eyes on Princess Matty and the Tiara of Trump.  He held the card for an unblinking moment and then, in the full fury of a highly overwrought (not to mentioned overworked and overtaxed) princess, slashed the pile with the ten of hearts.  540-460, victory belonged to The Desk Buddies, who immediately pouted for a picture, then jumped up and down clapping and grinning crazedly for a full three minutes until the camera flash worked properly.

From then on, Princess Matty never took off the Tiara of Trump ever again, and they all lived happily ever after, except for the occasional hectic holiday in Euchre.  The end.

 

 "I'm comfortable with my sexuality and I can wear a tiara whenever I want."  --Princess Matty, when told he had won and was now allowed to remove the tiara because, really, Princess Kim kind of wanted it back.

quicko: pong

V., intransitive, to smell badly.

Also, n., a bad smell.

Definitions courtesy of Mr. Long, who happens to be up on rhymes of his last name, which also include bong and dong.

Furthermore, may it be duly noted that said Mr., er, Princess Long has recently had his first Real Holiday since the age of 5 wherein he did absolutely nothing.  Unlike all his previous months of Not Holiday wherein he visited other countries and took part in various forms of hecticness, thus rendering them Not Holidays.  Dear knows what they were, but they were most definitely Not Holidays.

quicko: working hard or ...

I've mentioned this before, but it just bears repeating -- and, I found back up in print!  Australians think they are the hardest working people on the planet because of one them started this myth once, and, gosh, YOU try and convince them otherwise.  Here's my latest proof though, straight from the erudite pages of mX:  "I slave away in my corporate noose for a ridiculous and un-Australian 50 to 60 hours a week."  (David De Vere)  Now, just look at that:  50 to 60 hours a weeks is "un-Australian"!  Funny, you'd think for the hardest working people on the planet it would be, frankly, a bit under par for the course.  (I think I'd call it average in America.)  But that's the beauty of it:  Australians work hard only between the hours of 9 and 5.  The rest of the time is hardly for working.

quicko: annual leave

Americans, you definitely want to be sitting down before progressing.  I have just learned something about Australia's "annual leave" (i.e., vacation days) and it absolutely floored me.  I suggest proceeding if and only if you are currently quite happy with your life and not at all prone to envy.

When Australians are on their vacation days, they get paid 17.5% more than when they're at work.

Seriously.  Based on how contracts are written, it's sometimes worked in slightly differently, but the concept is definitely there.  I've been told that the reason stems from ages past when workers would, as a general principle, work overtime regularly to make ends meet and the government realized they couldn't make up that overtime work while on holiday with just their normal hours accounted for -- so unions eventually forced it to incorporate the 17.5% into law and no government since could possibly revoke it.  Go figure.

quicko: holiday-stricken nation

My gosh, everyone, I have a grievous announcement to make:  Australia is a horrifically holiday-stricken nation.

It comes as a shock, I know, but I can attest firsthand.  You cannot know how many Australians have opened their overworked hearts to me and lamented how direly in need of a holiday they were.  The examples are countless, but they generally suffer from waiting approximately a year without a "proper" holiday.  (Weekend excursions as far as Bali do not count.)

Today, however, everyone having just returned to work after ten days off, I was amazed to hear the discussion begin so soon.  My co-worker, it transpires, has led a very egregious existence wherein no holiday light has shined.

"I haven't had a holiday in a year," he sighed, as I hastily scanned the room for smelling salts.

"Um, what about Christmas?" I asked.

Christmas did not count.  Neither, it transpired, did the week off (or was it two?) he'd had four months ago.  It was a hectic vacation, you see.  It had been well and truly a year since the poor soul had frolicked merrily on the shores of free time.

He's not alone, of course.  Somebody did a study that the Australians are the hardest working people on earth and the Australians, bless their hearts, believed them.  They live their 4-week-mandatory-vacation-a-year lives constantly in the agony of knowing someone -- the French, for example! -- are lazing their European lives away with twice the number of public holidays, and probably 6 weeks a year.

It's enough to make anyone need to sit down and sunbathe fast.

quicko: super

It's amazing how one innocuous little word can come loaded with entirely different set of connotations here. Take super.

We're not talking great, good, fantastic, fabulous, excellent anymore.

Oh, no. We're talking money, savings, government, 9%, retirement.

I don't mind super meaning "superannuation" half the time here, it's just that it always catches me off guard to hear it as a noun. (Yes, I know. Us language sorts are easily spooked.)

quicko: travel

In general, Australians seem to be much better traveled than Americans (then again, who doesn't?). But here I'm suddenly hearing about all sorts of exotic places as everyday vacation destinations: Fiji, Thailand, Bali, Vietnam. Even the occasional jaunt to Nepal or Malaysia. Japan, naturally. It's so cliche, though.

Yes, folks, we're near Asia, so to Asia we go. And Oceania. And suddenly my geography's gotten a whole lot better. I know where Samoa is.