It was an eventful week last week in Australia (and the world I suppose). Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day which is the "race that stops a nation" I believe they say. It’s another horse race, the culminating event of the spring carnival and it’s a public holiday in the state of Victoria (where Melbourne is) and in other parts of the country businesses close down and people generally take the day off. So everyone dispersed from work mid-morning…lots of people went to the big track in Sydney where they were having a huge event and watching the race on giant screens, but I decided I'd had enough horse racing recently and wasn't particularly in the mood for a boozy Tuesday afternoon. I just find it interesting how into horse racing everyone here is!
Wednesday was of course the day of the U.S. election down here. Results started coming in around 11am and we had the tvs in our office on cnn all day. I don't think anyone really did much work because everyone was so into the election. In our department of 80 or so people, I'd guess there would have been maybe 5 or 6 that weren't backing Obama (telling about what the rest of the world thinks even if the U.S. is pretty evenly split). It was so exciting to see the outcome and I thought Obama's speech was incredibly powerful and moving. I met up with a few of my American friends in the afternoon and we did a little celebrating…it was a great afternoon!
Saturday Michelle abandoned me by flying back to the U.S. for almost 6 weeks. It was very sad having her leave, but I've been doing the best I can to cope. I've decided the best way to not let myself fall into a depression is be as social as I can (which often is not my first instinct, haha). So Saturday night I had a couple drinks with a friend from work who almost convinced me to stay out for a big night which would have been disastrous because I had to get up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning.
Sunday we had a big golf day/BBQ for work…we drove down to this country club in the "southern highlands" about 2 hours south/southwest of Sydney. I had to get up before 6am which was painful, but it was a great day so was worth it. Golfing was extremely fun and we played an "ambrose" style of scoring which means you're playing with a partner and you each hit from the same spot and take the best shot out of the two of you (and then both hit from that spot again). The format meant that when I was able to hit some decent shots it was good but all the times I was wide left or wide right or in the drink or whatever, my partner was able to carry the team (and thankfully my partner was a very good golfer). I played better than I expected and it was a gorgeous course and great day so was really fun. Makes me want to play golf every once in a while. After golfing we went to Mike's farmhouse (Mike is my boss) for the BBQ. He has a ton of land in the southern highlands and they raise horses (he stays in Sydney during the week and is only down there on weekends). A bunch of others from work who didn't golf met up and we had a great time…nice change of scenery from the city just being out in the middle of nowhere pretty much under the blue sky and sun with some food and grog. Overall it was a fantastic Sunday.
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