Christmas time!

Christmas Time in Canberra

A typical Christmas in Canberra is very much like an Dutch Christmas, but warmer and there’s no snow (or rain), the food is different (seafood barbie!) and we’re supposed to go to the beach or the bush, wear thongs (not those; slippers are thongs here, maybe people wear both, but I’d rather not think about that), play cricket or host a backyard BBQ party. As it turns out, this whole Christmas in Summer thing is the biggest culture shock so far…

Christmas Checklist

Aside from Sinterklaas missing in action to kick off the festive season (would be interesting to see what they make of that part of Ducth culture here), first and foremost the temperature is just not right. It’s supposed to be miserably rainy and/or freezing and snowy and it’s supposed to get dark at 15:00 in the afternoon. Traffic should come to a national stand still with 950 km of traffic jams when 1 cm of snow falls, because nothing says winter like sitting in your car for 3 hours listening to Wham’s “Last Christmas” 15 times on 10 radio stations. The good thing about Canberra is that there’s not even 200 km of black topped roads and only 3 real radio stations (aptly named 104.7, Triple J and 106.4, because… why bother) so George and Mariah only can get so much airplay. I wanted to say we miss the A4, A13, A15, A16, A20 traffic jams and sigh nostalgically, but no. It is extremely funny though to hear the native motorists complain about the incredibly long commute of 20 minutes (OMG, my first world problem is such a drama) and the disturbing effect it has on their work life balance, quality of life and general happiness. Really? Just.Shut.Up. Some of my colleagues not only ride the bus every day (superhero points for that), but they do that for 60 minutes one-way. Suck on that prima donnas in your airco’d cars with no nose picking, sweaty/sticky and loud as hell people right there with you, while the buses passes you by on the bus lane, ha!

Canberra Rush Hour

Secondly, people should be complaining about the weather a lot more, slipping and sliding in the icy streets and walking around dressed for nuclear winter in thick coats, animal hides, long multi-coloured scarves and thick woolen caps in all sorts of mostly very silly designs. The summer dresses, fake snow, cheery Christmas music, bright Christmas lights you can only see after 21:30 at night and shorts in the office just don’t spell “It’s Christmas Time!”  Just so my position on shorts in the office is clear: it was wrong in the Netherlands, it will remain wrong in Oz, or anywhere else for that matter. Shorts are for sports (that’s why that rhymes) and…. what is wrong with you?! Will you die from heat stroke walking the whole 150 meters from your airco’d car to the airco’d office? Or is it that you can’t wait to display your hairy (or shaved, yikes) legs? I have to be there too, I cannot NOT look at it, stop harassing me!! And to make it even more clear, this is not sexist, if men want to wear appropriate length skirts, kilts or dresses to work, more power to you! Sorry, back to Christmas….

Dudes! No!! Just... just...F*ck it, never mind!

Third and final, where is Mariah Carey?! As a big fan of (tacky) music, I miss “All I want for Christmas”, “Driving home for Christmas”, “Last Christmas” and “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” seemingly playing on repeat for the whole month of December everywhere you go. Here they are very much absent, unless you count the muzak at shopping centres, which doesn’t count because who can really distinguish one song from another in elevator style?

 

Does that reindeer look depressed or is it just me?

Of course there are some striking similarities as well. First and foremost, there’s the Spirit of Christmas, of sharing a good time with family and friends. I believe that should not be limited to just a few days or one month a year, but Australians take it to the next level in a very nice “Hey as long as you’re here, join the party mate” sort of way, which is great if you’re still a bit new to the country and its customs. Then there’s the presents and the generosity of all those charity initiatives doing something for the less fortunate, which we do in the Netherlands, but nowhere near as committed and with such heart as I see happening around here. There seems to be a charity run, ball, cook out, toy collection Also, the focus on food and drink is the same, but where the Dutch have a good time and keep it rather subdued and small, the Aussie way of doing things seems to be; bigger=better, more =more and “Invite? Who needs an invite?!”

Well, it's a start right?

With our family and friends far away and no other social obligations just yet (we have no friends boohoo), we decided to do what we always do, go and see stuff. Our schedule for the next two weeks will be something like this:

24 December: Backyard BBQ for two (Yuum eats and I get to torch stuff, double win!)

25 December: Road trip to Wollongong (supposed to be pretty)

26 December: Cinema day (The Hobbit 3 and probably something else)

27 December: Road trip to Wagga-Wagga (not making that up, pics will follow)

29 December: Shark diving at Magic Point (no Gandalf, just grey nurses, pics will follow)

31 December: New Years Eve at Canberra City with Eskimo Joe (again, not making that up)

2 January: Melbourne shopping trip (yeah baby, Esprit store, new pretty shoes and sunglasses!)

I know, our lives suck soooo bad sometimes…

On that note, here’s a short update on our lives. I started Kung Fu here and then stopped again after 6 months, because it’s just not the same. After 1 year, I still miss the 3-4 times a week ass kicking. We’re thinking about taking up rock climbing now, because swimming with large predators is just not exciting enough. I still hate gardening and after almost 1 year in the house, that has not improved at all. So we’ll probably move in another 2 months to a house surrounded by concrete or bushland. We’ve done our bush fire readiness plan and everything because it’s that time of the year (did I mention it doesn’t feel quite like Christmas?) especially the question: decide if you will defend the house or run for safety, ehm, it’s a rental…bye! Alex came to visit and that was awesome from start to finish and Yuum went to Thailand to get her most expensive Luxembourg passport ever. (Spent $1200 to get a 10 EUR passport, so please don’t ask). The cats are fine still, but have changed roles. Pluis lives outside in the garden, mostly studying ants and eating bugs and Spike is getting old, sleeps, meows (but nowhere near as much as he used to) and keeps me company while I am gaming.

My kind of garden

Yuum is doing just fine at the National Disability Service, killed her probation period, got a nice pay rise, has everyone on the team puzzled how one person can be so organised and still so much fun and will do some additional projects because those 18 month targets she had, yeah, they’re sort of done and she’s bored. (Can I get a show of hands please for who did not see that coming?!). I have just finished the one project I was hired to do and have managed to not make a complete ass out of myself over the last 8 months with the ACT Government. Got some really good feedback from the boss and am now looking at changing the culture for our organisation of 800 peeps and support the move to the new building and change how we communicate and make us more popular and give us a new identity….I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard and had so much fun.

Did I get this memo?

I’ll try to post some more on our adventures in 2015, there should be some interesting things coming up and I’ll keep you up to date.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, be well and keep to the left

Yuum and Gil