Posts about Australia (RSS, JSON)

11AM — Received a text from my dentist:

We have decided to help you access your SUPER to pay for Dental Implant Treatment. We take care of the whole process. We have a few $75 consults including all the X-rays, open with one of our top dentists this month.

For context, SUPER is the Australian abbreviation for superannuation. This unsolicited message from a health practitioner suggesting to use money from my retirement fund to pay for basic services shows how years of short-sighted policy by a series of blatantly incompetent governments have hollowed out the country’s health-care system. How about, instead of asking people to dip into their retirement money, we tax rich people so a dentist visit can be paid for from Medicare? Just a thought.

2PM — I never followed tennis. After all, it’s just two, sometimes four, humans whacking a yellow fur ball back and forth. But seeing it in person, close to the court, with the players playing the ball at up to 200km/h, that’s different. The game is much faster than on TV. If I tried to return one serve, the ball would smack the racquet out of my hand.

Equally impressive are the ball-kid squads. You don’t realise on TV how much they work during a game. The groups function like a machine; collecting balls, and getting them across to the other end of the court so the ball can be handed out to players. All without speaking a single word, they just look at each other and nod.

3PM — I first visited Sydney ten years ago when I spent a lot of time in or close to the city centre. I went to posh bars with rude bouncers and moronic bar keepers who correct your pronunciation of drinks. It’s Tooheys not Tootheys; there’s not extra “T”. The city beaches were full of fake-tanned women and men on steroids, arriving and leaving and beefed-up convertibles, blasting Eurodance hits from three years ago. All very plastic, superficial and pretentious, a southern-hemisphere Miami.

I went back to Sydney after Christmas. I stayed north of the bay this time, an area that is suburban but lively. Yellow sand beaches where children learn to surf, beautiful rock pools where seniors swim laps with graceful technique. The pine trees lend the are a northern-Californian vibe.

The walk from Bradleys Head via Chowder Bay and Middle Head to Balmoral leads through dense canopy. Oftentimes all you hear are birds. It’s so green you easily forget you’re only twenty minutes away from the bustling city, if it wasn’t for the spectacular views of Sydney’s harbour and the never-ending supply of million-dollar homes so big you start to question your life choices.

Kandinsky and Louise Bourgeois at the Art Gallery NSW were worth visiting but not impressive. Kandinsky, whose time teaching at the Bauhaus made him a local hero where I grew up so we covered his work ad nauseam. I had seen a lot of his work before, except his later stuff, which could easily pass a contemporary graphic design. And Bourgeois is just not my jam, way too conceptual.

I’ve changed my mind. Sydney is nice. It has things to do for adults. It has leafy neighbourhoods with nice pubs. It has functioning public transport. Even in suburban neighbourhoods there’s frequent bus service. There is live on the street during the day.

Melbourne on the other hand feels more and more like Berlin. A place that is popular with the young and hip, lauded for its art scene and sprawling creativity. But its streets outside the inner city are deserted between 5am and 10pm. It’s a place that very desperately tries to be a city, but it’s really just a small town that is only big because of its sprawling bland suburbia.

5PM — As I walk down the street with a six pack of beer in one hand, I pass a gentleman from the working class who utters from his balcony: “A six pack? Fair dinkum.” I believe I have been accepted into this tribe.

5PM — The days are long, warm, and bright. Very bright. Australia has one of the harshest sunlights on this earth. Take a photo during a sunny day, and you’ll get no shadows, no contrast, just glaring shades of white.

The Christmas season in Europe is dark but well-lit, cold and sometimes miserable but also cheerful. You want to jitter in the cold, holding on to a mug of mulled wine, and then later cosy up in a pub and eat a hearty roast. You’re looking forward to Christmas to spend the time at your parent’s warm house and eat Goose.

This year, the first of 42, I won’t experience any of this. And, boy, it’s different. It feels wrong. It’s hot outside. How are you supposed to get into the festive spirit when you’re wearing shorts? The fairy lights outside the houses in the neighbourhood do nothing. There is no darkness. The Christmas tree by the life-savers club, the candy canes on Princes Bridge, the oversized koala wearing a Santa hat—nothing feels right.

It’s summer here. Christmas is supposed to be in winter. I miss home.

3PM — This was one of the strangest games of football I’ve seen. The game wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either. Australia scored early and then focussed on defending. Ecuador was the better team, with better individual players; they created many chances and either missed the goal or were denied by Gauci, Australia’s promising keeper.

The game took place at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium, a modern and soul-less arena built primarily for Cricket and AFL games. A football pitch is much smaller than one for Cricket, so anywhere in the stadium, you’re at least 30 meters away from the action. The stadium was only half full and the roof was closed to reduce noise outside the ground. It felt like you’re sitting in the main hall of a big convention centre on a Friday of a big conference when half of the attendees are already on their way home. The atmosphere was eerie, disconnected from the game; most people were chatting to their friends instead of watching.

8PM — Even if you’re not eligible to vote in Australia, there’s enough reason to get up bright and early on a Saturday and head to the polling station: Democracy sausages.

Small stalls selling bacon-and-egg buns for breakfast or sausages later in the day are a familiar sight outside Australian polling stations. Just as the canvassing volunteers and their last-ditch attempts to convince voters with rehearsed statements like „I stand for integrity politics, “ whatever that means.

The proceeds of the sausage sales go to the institution hosting the elections, often local schools. Or so; I hope that’s where the money goes, and not towards the teacher‘s end-of-year party. Voting is compulsory in Australia, so there’s a good chance to prop up the funds for the school‘s art department.

Nobody knows precisely when the beloved tradition started. There have been sightings of election-day bake sales as early as the 1930s, although the popularity and omnipresence of democracy sausages are a recent phenomenon, amplified, of course, through social media. Today a crowd-sourced map shows where there’s a sizzle going, what they serve, and when. And the bake sales are coming back too.

The bacon-and-egg bun from Edithvale Primary School was a good, solid 4 out of 5; would vote again.

2PM — No cricket was played last night at the Melbourne Cricket Ground after two days of torrential downpours. They could have and should have played, though, said the gentleman sitting behind me in the stands about 100 meters away from the wicket. According to his expert opinion, the pitch was good to go.