More June celebrations!

On the 14th, I had a wonderfully lazy and heart-stoppingly perfect birthday celebration complete with presents, a pavlova cake and eggs benedict at one of the many Rathdowne cafes. Showered with thoughtful cards, a local designer book bag and my very own i-Pod I felt lucky and truly spoiled.

On the 18th we hosted about 20 of our new found friends for a "shout' of thanks at the Great Northern Hotel. We bought a round and nibblies for everyone and enjoyed bringing together all of the people we have met through the kids' school as well as the surrounding neigbourhood. More people came and stayed longer than we expected and we were so happy to offer a more proper goodbye to some of the very kind and friendly folk we can now call friends.

The 20th was Colin's family birthday and we finally managed to follow up on a promise of taking the boys to Melbourne's version of Coney Island - Luna Park. We hit it early and often and despite a few touch and go moments on the swinging boat for Lint, there were no major nausea incidents. The bumper cars, ghost train and the ancient wooden roller coaster that still has the brakeman standing in the middle of the cars(!) were highlights. After the park I dragged the family over to walk the historic St. Kilda Pier for our daily dose of - cultcha! A hot chocolate in the great cafe at the tip of the pier warmed our chilled bones and the tram ride home was a quick and quiet affair as we dosed our way back up Lygon.

And finally, on the 21st, we celebrated Father's Day. It is not actually Father's Day in Australia (that happens in September) but the family was nice enough to give me a Hawthorn Hawks t-shirt and, even better, we played nine holes of golf together as a family! Hooray! What a neat experience. We had the course to ourselves which allowed Al to swing away as much as he wanted while the rest of us played a little more by the rules. Colin's swing is amazing and with the right sized clubs he could be an excellent golfer. Lint hit the ball well all day long and I was my usual inconsistent self.

Just four more days and ways we continue to build some incredible Melbourne memories.

A final ramble about place and perspective

As a footnote to my earlier blog about belonging to a place, I wanted to offer Rex Murphy’s take on the matter. Recently he voiced some profoundly poignant words in an editorial about Michael Ignatieff and his 30 year absence. As always, Mr. Murphy has found a way to say it far more elegantly than I ever could. He writes:

Idle moments teach and mould us in their way even more than crises. We grow into our real knowledge of a place and a people through the thousand unmarked interactions of the everyday and the commonplace. The sense of belonging is an accumulation of ordinary experiences not marked as they pass. Who we are with and where we are with them is very much who we are.

There is a kind of knowledge about a people and a country that depends on continuity of encounter that is more a reflex of sensibility than an acquisition. Being away so long, does he (Ignatieff) have that reflex? For it is a knowledge that cannot be strapped on - to be acquired, it must be lived. Knowledge is second-hand, meaning is experienced. Living shared experience is the absolute DNA of full citizenship.

I like so much of this. The notion of being shaped by the “everyday”. The idea that continuity has something to do with knowing and understanding – perhaps fully. The brilliant point that “meaning is experienced” and knowledge often comes to us “second-hand”. These very quotable and apt observations on the subject of citizenship not only bring Ignatieff’s qualifications into a vague sort of question, but they also make more sense of our experiences in this year abroad.

And if I admit to agreeing with Rex’s ideas, as I do, then I would also have to admit that though we are more comfortable now in Australia than we were two, three or even six months ago, we are still only scratching the surface in terms of accumulating our local “DNA”. It’s not enough to share one season, one event, one game. In order to really know a culture or understand a people you need to live and breathe the many and various ebbs and flows of life over a much longer period of time.

Interestingly, an editorial in today’s local paper makes this same observation in relation to the recent accusations of racism directed at pockets within Australian society. The article documents the Australian “whites only” immigration policy that in its own proper historical context represents so much more than what is at first glance an outrageous and extremist piece of public policy. Without context and a connection to why this policy originally existed and its relatively laudable intentions, then I would never be able to understand the current state of society with anything more than complete contempt. But we need to know what we do not know so that we do not believe the first, the superficial, or the one most repeated to be the only version of the truth; a trap into which any temporary resident might fall.

We are now citizen enough to know that Australia is more than an Opera House, a big red rock or the Wiggles. We have seen enough and read enough to know why things are the way they are, right now, but we continue to lack the base, the foundation of a deeper understanding, because as Rex has said, those are the things that cannot simply be “strapped on”. Alas, we are leaving now and that knowledge has not been nor can it be acquired, tucked safely into a carry on. We know what we know; no more, no less. To know more might take a lifetime. Or at least thirty years.

Still More Catching Up

The other week Colin practiced with a local footy team. A couple of his friends play on the Clifton Hill club and one of the boy's fathers coaches the team, so after a little bit of prodding from yours truly he went for it and I went along for the ride. Of course, it happened to be one of the coldest and wettest nights of the winter so far, but he was game and did very well. He has really taken to the game as we've mentioned before and despite not having played nearly as much as the other kids, has a natural understanding of what needs to happen on the field. Combine that with the daily rigours of belting the ball around the playground at recess and lunch and he fits right in. On this night he even had an ex-AFL player helping to coach the side. In spite of all of this, he decided not to try it again, though he continues to enjoy playing on the courts of tennis and basketball.

Both Colin and Alex have had school assemblies recently and both have played a starring role. At each assembly kids from various classes are recognized with merit awards for doing something notable in class and both boys helped to hand out these awards. In Alex's case he got to do it with one of his best friends and he did it very well! In Colin's class, he also had a chance to dress up and present part of his unit on public speaking. He was way cool in trench coat and sunglasses and did his drama teaching father proud with a fine performance.

Last Friday was a curriculum or PD day so we took the opportunity to return to Melbourne's version of the Science Centre where they had just opened a Star Wars exhibit. Fortunately, a friend of ours offered to drive, (his son and Alex are good friends in the same class) and so we headed out over the West Gate Bridge to Spotswood and a rendezvous with Yoda and Darth.

The place was beyond packed and it felt like they had already started to suck the oxygen out within minutes of our arrival. After letting the boys run wild for awhile, it was finally our turn to tour the exhibit which turned out to be quite cool. Along with seeing real or replica versions of the costumes and props used in the various movies, there were a lot of opportunities to apply the technology to real learning. The boys played with a programmable robot while the rest of us wandered amidst the C3PO and Chewbacca models and when it was all over we miraculously avoided parting with cash in the grossly over-priced gift store.

On Saturday, we joined two families for an extremely generous farewell dinner at a local Italian restaurant - that was not La Porchetta. Linton has become quite good mates and running partners with the two moms and their kids are or have been in Colin's and Alex's classes at school. As a small gesture toward their friendship and kindness, Lint gave both women running tops from Canada's own Lululemon. While the adults enjoyed several lovely bottles of BYO wine over nice conversation, the six kids present were engaged in a high stakes round of Nintendo. It was perhaps not what we did as kids when out on the town with mom and dad, but then again, we managed to stay at the restaurant for three hours, enjoying the company of new friends and for that I am truly thankful for a little help from our electronic friends. More importantly, I am thankful for the warm gesture. Realizing we have made friends with people who care about us and who seem sad to see us leave is a very comforting feeling. They like us, they really like us!

The Trouble with "Near" and "Far"

My favourite character from Sesame Street is Grover. I don’t know if it’s his gangly blue frame or his grovelly voice or just some of the fun and funky things he says and does but he’s my fave – although Bert is a close second and Elmo just ruined everything. Maybe Grover’s best skit is his very simple demonstration of near and far. In it, he runs up to the camera saying “This is near” and then turns and runs into the distance turning to the camera saying “And this is far” and then repeats the whole thing. I love it for its simplicity and Grover’s manic, earnest and ever-tiring need to get us all to physically understand the difference and the distance between the two.

Why do I bring up Grover? Well, recently Linton and I have noticed a strange sort of disconnect between our own lives here (near) and the lives of those living back home (far). One of the things that I think is going on is that – at least from this highly egocentric point of view – when you embark on a major life adventure such as ours, you tend to think that by the very virtue of its uniqueness, you will remain top-of-mind for people back home. In point of fact, I think the opposite occurs. While we think our news, dates and travels are of the utmost importance, we forget that to everyone else back home, who have busy lives with their own news, dates and travels, we are in fact – by virtue of some sort of abstract distance-time-continuum – people without portfolio. There is quite simply something about being “far” away that makes one less real or relevant than when “near”.

We were talking about this over coffee the other day while we reflected on the fact that many people we have told about our return dates have, a few weeks later, asked two or three more times about our return dates! We laughed that maybe it was just us – the slackers with all the time on our hands being able to worry about mundane things like return dates, buying shoelaces or a second cousin’s birthday. Or maybe Lint’s super-planner genes were infecting us both and while we knew what we would be doing on the third Tuesday in July, we were surprised to hear that others back home did not. Or maybe, quite simply, our emails aren’t quite as gripping a read as we thought.

Whatever the reason, and it’s really not all that important, we’ve noticed that for some people despite the explosion and complete immersion of the digital age – with Skype and all its buddies – some people still seem only able to connect with another person when that person is standing in the same room (or in the case of Grover – “Near”). Otherwise, the few thousand kilometers and several days of travel time create a barrier between the person and the reality of the life living far away that prevents events, dates, and experiences from actually existing in the present. In some ways as Linton has said, it’s almost as if some people are saying “I won’t bother connecting ‘til their back because, who knows they may choose to stay! When they’re back and officially within touch of my own reality, then I will re-connect."

This is no rant. Without a doubt we are guilty of the same sort of priority-by-proximity thinking and I’m sure it sounds like my insecurities are getting the better of me, but I still think there is something about distance that changes relationship and which technology cannot yet capture or provide for some people. Certainly, the virtual hug of Skype and the primitive phone call with a clear connection and no delay are wonders of the modern world, but what still can’t be removed is all that space or "far-ness" in Grover parlance. What it ultimately means is that we are all as significant to the day-to-day reality of a distant loved one as the weather in Siberia or a civil war in Turkmenistan because, like an infinite number of other things going on around the world that we have no hope in having any effect on (thankfully in many cases) - the lives of the far away "Grovers" are completely out of touch of our hands.

This might also sound a lot like sour grapes. After all, didn’t we pick up stakes and move down under to try on a new life – with new friends, experiences, etc? Why then would we be so concerned about the prospect of not being "on the radar" back home? Well, I’m not. I don’t think. I just think it’s interesting that distance seems to create a void or a barrier or a delay between people that I don’t think exists to the same degree when you live just around the corner…

Maybe Grover had it right all along. Near and far are very different and they take some effort to bridge. When you’re near and in another person’s tv screen or face you are by default in their life, too; whereas, when you’re “far” it’s very hard to reach out and connect with people because there’s a tonne of space and a few billion other people in between. We are just now beginning our own run back to "near", and that impending reality is leaving us, like Grover, breathless.

June 8-9 Canberra - Part 2

Day 2 saw us up early - before most of Canberra had even thought about church - and with a bowl of Cheerios in our bellies we were out onto the open roads in search of the National Museum of Australia. Another brilliantly free venue, this amazing feat of modern day architecture was a wonder to behold. Built in 2006 (I think) on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, the museum's numerous galleries are designed to tell the continent's story from any number of fascinating angles. The Aboriginal story, Linton's favourite part, is told in rich detail with many, many artifacts effectively and ingenously displayed. In fact, that was the thing about the museum that really impressed me - the thought and layout of the incredible displays. From an exhibit chronicling the experiences of Australia's earliest immigrants to a computer program that allows kids to build 3-D houses of the future to Phar Lap's actual heart (yuck!) we wandered aimlessly through the maze of information, happy to get lost in the lively history of it all. Most of the time we were just able to keep track of the kids as they raced wide-eyed to the next cool encounter.

In spite of a minor coffee debacle on our way out, we were effectively "stoked' by the day's first experience and bundled into the car eager for our next stop - the National Dinosaur Museum. Unfortunately, it was a major let down, at least for this jaded and self-appointed dinosaur expert. Feeling more like Hal and Edna's dinosaur emporium rather than a real museum, this tired and rather stale venue left me feeling "dirty". It was one of those experiences that you absolutely know is a complete and total rip off, happily preying on the dumb tourists with kids who almost don't have a choice. Beautifully, the kids don't see that or feel that, and for Alex at least it was still "pretty good". I did my best to remain interested though the cheesy couches with the drapes thrown over them and the dim cafeteria with its broken down pinball machines made me feel like I was paying to hangout in someone's rec room.

Moving on, we crossed the street to experience our first miniature village and though this too, was the utmost in hokey - it was a better form of hokey. The kids loved checking out the miniature buildings and pressing the countless buttons. Though I was still dealing with my lingering contempt for the dinosaur display, their enthusiasm for this simple novelty attraction was infectious and once again, I was shown up by my kids in terms of finding the positives to life and tourist attractions. If I can just shut off my own very adult and unrealitstically low tolerance for those things that are not, at first blush, appealing to me - then the world could be a far more fun and fascinating place. I'm not sure why I can't get that through my ever thickening head.

With the relative success of the miniature village fresh in our collective of heads, and with the hour still relatively young, I was intent on subjecting everyone to one more attraction - the National War Memorial. I had heard that this was a not-to-be-missed feature of any self-respecting Canberra visit and we were not disappointed. The place is huge and everything about it is done with the utmost respect and detail. Australia has a enormous place in its history and its heart for its "diggers" and things like ANZAC day and Gallipoli continue to resonate in the lives of all Australians. They are immensely proud of their contributions to any number of conflicts around the world and this museum does that sacrifice proud. There had to have been 40 or 50 of the most compelling and detailed diaoramas re-telling the stories behind all of the major battles of which the Aussies were a part.

There was a particuarly well done area for kids with re-creations of trenches and submarines and even a full scale helicopter. The kids, along with a few hundred other kids, had a fabulous time checking radar, steering the sub, looking "over the top" and playing soldier. I guess that sounds a bit strange but it felt like a safe place to start our guys thinking about what will eventually be a much more difficult conversation. And speaking of difficult conversations, I had one with one of the volunteers in the exhibit who first of all mistook me for an American and made some disparaging comment about the Yanks' lack of effort in WWI. Then, when I pointed out that the Canadians were in the trenches 2 years before the Aussies even got there, he continued to try and jam his Australian version of the facts down my throat. I wasn't up for the challenge and didn't see much point in arguing with a patriotic volunteer, but I did leave feeling that somehow his pride was getting in the way of the facts. Indeed, there have been a few moments like this one when it felt like Australians were too desperate to distinguish themselves as being both unique and competitive on the world's stage. Then again, like a good Canadian, I cringe at the first whiff of any type of nationalistic fervour. Maybe I should have taken him on...

Anyway, we were pleasantly pooped after the Memorial and headed back to our hotel for a little "chillaxin'", a pasta dinner and a touch of room service. After a nice homey meal, I was feeling content and at peace with our trip, even though Colin was kicking my butt at Trivial Pursuit. We had finally seen enough artifacts and institutions to feel like we actually knew something about this great land and our imminent departure could now occur with few regrets. And yet, though it will only be home for a few more days, the fact that I have gained a greater appreciation for the country as whole and a home may in fact, make leaving that much more bittersweet. And that's a good thing!

June 6-7 Canberra - Part 1

About five hours into our return trip from Canberra, I said something to the kids about being only two hours from home. It was part of my lame attempt to stave off their growing boredom (mine, too) and to keep things in the back seat "positive". Their reaction to my update was as desired, but I was also taken by their seeming enthusiasm for the notion of coming home. Many times over the course of this year, I have often caught myself when I said the word home, wondering if it needed a clarifier like our "Melbourne home" or our "home away from home". However, most of the time and this time included, the reference to home was accepted without question or correction - we were heading to our home (in Melbourne) and that was good enough for them. Of course, recently the talk has centered more on our other home, our "real" home, and that topic has also generated all kinds of enthusiastic discussion. Yet I wonder, when it comes right down to it, if the notion of home merely applies to that place where you most often sleep, eat, live and by a strange sort of "squatter's rights" scenario, one's home becomes the place where you've done the most living, most recently...Regardless, we are about to be moving homes again and the anticipation is enough to make even me ask, "Are we there yet?"

Our trip to Canberra, was by design, an attempt to keep our minds and bodies in the present and in that and many other respects it was a roaring success. The drive was long - about 650kms or 7 hours, but there was little traffic and with Nintendo's fully charged and a planned lunch stop at Rotten Ronny's - we might have gone a lot further had our bladders not also been full. It was otherwise uneventful and even though we were armed with the best directions Mapquest could muster, there were really only three turns necessary before we were drving down mainstreet Canberra.

As Australia's eighth largest city and the largest inland city in the country, Canberra is an interesting study in urban planning. Built in 1913, the city was planned by an American and chosen as a capital in order to quell the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. The city is laid out in a spoke and wheel pattern as opposed to a grid system and is known as the "bush capital" due to its many gardens and parks. It is quite a beautiful city and is home to many, many national galleries, museums and memorials and we were there to enjoy as many as time would allow.

Our hotel was conveniently located on Northbourne Ave on the "northside" of the city and a short walk to all the action. Due to the long drive we "chilled" at the hotel with a swim in the shoebox of a pool and then went downtown looking for grub. We had been putting off eating at this chain called the Hogs Breath Cafe due to its tacky ads and tackier food - but with hunger high and energy low we finally gave in...we should have held out. Slow is not the word for the kitchen and it took an hour to get things like fish and chips and a salad. With the exception of an equally grim meal in Lorne, this might have ranked as the worst meal in Oz!

Next morning we were up and at'tem and off to our first stop - the Australian Institute of Sport. A huge federally funded campus, the Institute selects and trains Australia's best and brightest sports talents in an effort to win more Olympic medals and bring more athletic glory to this sports mad nation. We had a great tour guide who was half Canadian - his mother is from Edmonton - and we were impressed with the nine year old gymnasts vaulting through space and the 17 million dollar swimming pool. We were also aghast at a typo on one of the displays that suggested an Australian skier had won her bronze medal at the Olympics in Albertville, Canada! We felt somewhat vindicated by the fact that we might not win as many medals as the Aussies, but at least we know where the Olympics were held. Sheesh!

Then we were off downtown to the southside of the city and across beautiful Lake Burley Griffin. The strangely modern and striking parliament buildings stand as a beacon from whatever vantage point you take in the city and we had a wonderful view of them as we made the turn for Questacon - Canberra's answer to the Ontario Science Centre. Alex was beside himself with excitement as this was the place he had been looking forward to for several weeks. Built as a stand alone science centre, the building is new and very modern and does not have the 1970s hangover that lingers throughout Toronto's centre.

Our first stop, after the requisite dinosaur exhibit, was an area known as the Sideshow which had among other cool things, a 6.7 metre free fall that gives one the impression they are - falling 6.7 metres straight down. Needless to say the parents were not in, but the kids gamely strapped on the jumpsuits and headed for the high bar. After a moment or two of hesitation Colin plummeted safely back to earth, but when it was Allie's turn, common sense got the better of him and he bailed. Frankly, I was amazed he even climbed the stairs and after a few tears of fear, he was able to shake it off and enjoy himself immensely. The rest of the time was spent learning how not to be eaten by crocs, experiencing a "real" earthquake, and riding a virtual roller coaster. This place would rate highly on both boys' Rate-the-Weekend review.

Dinner on this night would be Chinese, as it always is when we are trying to avoid battered or fried. The place was packed and I think they had good food but the combination of Alex being in a bit of a funk and my lame ordering and all we could think about was bed. It was a fun first day in Canberra and we settled into a rental movie that night, comfortable in the knowledge that tomorrow's attractions looked to be equally cool and many were for freeeeeeeeee....! (Sorry, inside family joke - unless you've seen the movie Bedtime Stories)

Coughing our way to Canberra

Tomorrow we're off to the nation's capital - Canberra in the ACT(Australian Capital Territory) for our final Australian adventure. For one or two mad minutes we toyed with the idea of blasting back up to the Gold Coast for a little more glorious beach time, but the decadence metre was off the charts on that one and so we are staying a little closer to home - a mere 8 hour drive - and seeing a place that gets mixed reviews from all we ask. Some say it's as boring as watching paint dry on a cricket pitch, others have said it can be a great town, and surprisingly still others have never been. We are quite happy for the diversion in these final, rather slow days in Oz, and the more I think about it, the more fitting it seems to be ending our Aussie adventure with a trip to the place which might be best able to teach us the most.

I wonder why we don't have a similar capital area in Canada like Washington, D.C. or the ACT. Such an extra state or province, might have gone a long way toward getting rid of the some of the self-serving regionalism that so often plagues our politics. Or maybe not. The folks in Victoria have it in for their neighbours up in New South Wales, much the same way the BC Nation would like to think Ontario deserves everything it does not get. Regional squabbling would seem to be alive and well wherever you go and speaking of going places - with this trip and our fly through Perth on the way home, we will have visited all 8 states in the country. Something few Australians have done and something of which I am bizarrely proud. Also makes me want to knock off Nunavut and the Northwest Territory in order to complete a similar sweep at home.

Anyway, as I said, this trip is coming at a good time. I am officially finished my Masters program with a few marks yet to come in, and we are in full pack up mode around the house. The weather has turned damp and grey, a sort of late October feeling without the frost, and everyone it seems has a sniffle a wheeze or a hack. Swine flu has this country gripped with fear and Victoria seems to be taking the brunt of it. The regional bickering has even managed to find its way into this debate with Sydney-siders avoiding Melbourne in droves thinking we are all living with the plague. Bizarre stuff and all things which are making us increasingly itchy to get out of here for a few days.

Indeed, the swine flu and a recent and very unfortunate spate of violence against Indian students, are two more moments in this city's present day history that are teaching us so much about what it means to live in this distant island nation. As we have already experienced, they are rightly vigilent about virulent strains of anything entering their country and you don't have to have had a beagle sniff your crotch to know that. Though we can't speak for the rest of the world, and maybe we've been conditioned by SARS to have a little bit more of a que sera sera attitude, the Australians (or maybe it's just the media) are freaking out about swine flu, even in the face of local and worldwide statistics that don't support such enthusiasm. Of course the authorities need to do or to be seen doing all the right things, but I am still waiting for someone to report the fact that it's not really killing anyone, any more than any other flu, or the drunken brawls in the CBD on any given Saturday night.

The Indian attacks are for me, as an outsider, a far more troubling reality because they are coming very close to killing people and the symptoms of the disease have been born right here in Melbourne. Every city has its racial tensions and no city is immune to violence between ethnic groups, but for some reason there is a loose lawlessness pervading the dark corners of this city that continues to ruin its reputation. The drunken all hours brawling in the downtown core, the bikers (bikies) with their daylight hits, the underworld and mob influence that simmers behind the political lines, and these recent random muggings all lend an air of intolerance that stands in stark contrast to the artistic and athletic centre-of-the-world that Melbourne certainly is. There has been no explanation for why Indians and why so many attacks lately, but for this amateur sociologist the recent assaults may stem from a combination of worsening economy, isolationist tradition, and a city that is reaching its breaking point in terms of cultural assimilation.

And so we have loaded up our coughs and kleenex, eager to beat a retreat from the troubles that have added some weight to recent grey, May days. It's a long way to go, but we four are excited. Partly because the travel has become a favourite part of the adventure and we feel the need to "stretch our legs", but also because in Canberra we see an opportunity to shed new light on a country that continues to astound and amaze with every passing day.