Australia Day

Today was Australia day. It is the day the country celebrates itself. Locals have compared it to the 4th of July except that to us foreigners it is hard to see the comparison. The forth is to celebrate the Declaration of Independence. It has a purpose other than to say hey we like our country so much that we want a whole day to celebrate it. I don't mean to take away from their holiday I am just saying I don't really see the connection. I should google it and get the whole story. I'll let you know what I find.

Anyway we spent AU day doing some fun things to learn more about AU and enjoy ourselves. We went to Hyde park and it was packed with people. we took a tour of the war memorial there which is a beautiful art deco style building. There are statues carved all around the building depicting men and a few women serving in WWI in their different capacities. On the inside when you look up at the ceiling there is a star for every soldier,serving from AU, who died in the war. It is amazing. It is Definately worth the free tour to learn about the building and a few tidbits about service men and women from AU. In AU and NZ they celebrate ANZAC day and although I knew that it was like our memorial day I didn't know that it stood for AU and NZ soldiers. I thought it was just a kiwi thing until we were enlightened by the retired soldier who gave us our tour. Who by the was was actually a decorated Kiwi not AU soldier. An Aussie stopped him and asked for the meaning of his stripes and pins because he didn't recognize them.

After this we walked through the rest of Hyde park and looked at all the people and trees and activities. There was a food stand where a bunch of Italian women were hand rolling homemade gnocchi and cooking and selling it with a meat or plain sauce. Garrett is a big lover of gnocchi and so he ordered a plate to share with everyone as part of our lunch. It was really good. Nothing like the dense gnocchi I am used to though. It was light and soft and almost fluffy I think. I liked it a lot. One of the older women making it fell in love with Ethne, who was watching her, and she pulled off a bunch of the dough and gave it to her. She said she has a granddaughter Ethne's age who loves to eat the dough when she makes it. Ethne wasn't wild about the taste and neither was Ezra but Enoch liked it that way.

Next we walked to the AU Museum and it was 1/2 price in honor of the day. I was excited because they had two exhibits I really wanted to see. One of them was the wildlife photography competition winners. It was wonderful. I loved looking at all the photos and reading the stories behind them. These people are crazy and often do things to endanger their lives to get the photos that will win. They are patient often waiting for hours to get just the right shot. One photo was a split shot of a polar bear and it didn't look real. By split shot I mean that the head of the polar bear was above the water and the rest was under the water. The photographer was in the water with the bear and was close enough that the bear reached out and touched the camera before turning and swimming away. SCARY!!!

Several photographers were charged by wild animals in different countries. One by a rare white rhino :)

Another exhibit was an AU Aboriginal Art Exhibit. Each painting has a photo of the artist by it and a description of what the simbolisim in the painting is. All of the paintings were about the land and more importantly water locations in the land. They use a lot of dots and lines and circles. Very basic shapes and very bright colors. There were a few I wished I could buy but none of them were for sale :) I do intend to find myself a nice painting before I leave here though :) there are lots of art galleries in Sydney. I hope you are ready to go with me Camilla cause its you and me taking on the city.
We saw the car show and the kids tents and activities. We were given free hats, crayons, coloring pages, AU flags etc...it was a day for collecting junk that I didn't want and didn't want being brought into my home. That kind of stuff is useless and just makes a mess, but more on that later :)

When we finished at the museum we went looking for some food but all the venders were shutting down and going home. But something wild happened while we we're walking around. We were standing by a closing booth and this guy walked by me on my right side. Enoch was standing right in front of me facing forward so his back was to me. The guy who walked by did a double take at Enoch and then kind of moved to the side keeping his eye on him. It made me a little uncomfortable and I unconsciously put my hands on Enoch's shoulders. The girl that this guy was with did the same thing when she walked by Enoch as well. They walked over to the left of us and sat quietly talking to each other. I leaned over and whispered in Garrett's ear that they were staring at Enoch. Garrett said "they were probably just looking at Ethne.". I said no they we're deffinately staring at Enoch. He then said "well he must look like someone they know". That seemed reasonable but still weird that they were hanging out next to us and whispering. After a couple minutes the guy walked up to us and said "I see your son is wearing a BYU shirt. My wife and I went to BYU..." AH!! If I had remembered he was wearing that shirt I would have known why they were staring. We have met a lot of LDS people in different places from my kids or others wearing BYU gear :)
Anyway they are from the USA. They moved here a few months ago from NY and they are here indefinitely. They are looking for a place to live and could end up in our ward OR we could never see them again. We should have thought to exchange info with them :( they seemed like fun people.
I told them what had transpired between myself and Garrett when I noticed them looking at Enoch and we had a good laugh. Lol

We ended up talking for quite a while before parting ways. They told us that the $2.50 all day bus tickets on Sundays also extend to using the train or the ferry even. So for 2.50$ each we can go see beautiful beaches and parks and have picnics any Sunday we are free :) unfortunately church is at 1pm so that doesn't make for much time to go see anything. I wish we had church at 9 am.

So after that we walked to our bus stop and rode home to enjoy some dinner and put the kids to bed. What a fun and full day. It was the day after my birthday too which was nice because G had the whole day off and we spent time together as a family.