Anzac Day

This past Thursday was ANZAC Day in Australia. For the weeks leading up to the public holiday (yep, another one!) all anyone was talking about was how FUN the day was, and how it usually was a last send off for summer.

It certainly stood out as a great day for a number of reasons, but if I had to break my day into three parts it would be:

1. Getting up at the crack way before the crack of dawn

2. Witnessing a bar falling silent for 5 minutes

3. Playing "Two Up"

1. Getting up insanely early--

ANZAC Day is a day of remembrance-- it commemorates the first major military action for Australia and has grown to be a day of remembrance for all Australian and New Zealand troops who have died in various battles. One of the ways people show their support is by attending a "dawn service" -- or in my instance, a pre-dawn service.

My alarm went off at 3:30 (mind you, on a day off from work this is probably about the last thing I want to have happen) and I sleepily dragged on some comfy pants and a sweatshirt and was out the door by 3:50. I live downhill from a popular party area in Sydney and forgot that I'd be traipsing through a few streets of people still going strong. Not sure how much remembering they were doing.

The service itself started at 4:30 and it was PACKED. It's pretty incredible to see all of the people, young and old, who were willing to leave their warm beds to come out for a service. The service itself was fairly basic- some prayers, a reminder for why people gather, and laying wreaths to commemorate the troops. The coolest part of the service, though, was when the organizers shut all of the lights off for a moment of silence. Before the lights came back on a trumpeter played Reveille. Equal parts creepy and cool!

In my head I thought the service would be concluding as the sun came up, but as it turns out this service ended at 5:30 and I was back in bed by sunrise. I did see friends' pictures of a service on the beach where the sun DID come up at the end of the service and I think I'll give that a go next year.

2. Witnessing a bar fall silent for 5 minutes--

The other part of ANZAC day is, not surprisingly, drinking. The Australians will use any excuse to put a beverage in hand and most bars open at 8 am on ANZAC day. My friend Ryan and I started a bit later than that, opting for an average beverage instead of an early morning one.

While we were at the bar we suddenly noticed that we were the only ones talking. Wide-eyed, we looked around at the people throwing dirty glances our way and quickly shut our mouths. Well, mine remained open in shock because you could hear a pin drop in the place.

Why? There's a huge AFL game played on each ANZAC day, and before the game starts they do a quick remembrance ceremony/singing of the national anthem- and the entire bar was quiet for the full five minutes that it took. I'm not sure I'll ever witness anything else having the power to shut down an entire bar, and honestly felt more goosebumps after that experience than at the dawn service!

3. Playing Two Up--

The only day of the year that Two Up is legal is on ANZAC Day. No one has been able to tell me why it's the only day you can legally play the game, but I'm guessing it may be because the government hasn't been able to find a way to monetize the game?

It's really quite simple-- it's just a coin flipping game, where two coins have to land on either heads or tails to produce a winner.

Before the "spinner" gets to work, the betting takes place. This was REALLY fun-- if you want to play heads, you take your money and thump your head screaming "heads" until someone screaming "tails" in the bar takes you up on your offer. The person going for heads holds the money, the coins get flipped and either the money gets pocketed or handed back to the tails person.

I ended up in a pretty big bar at Bondi, and the Two Up scene was pretty intense-- imagine the same atmosphere as a heated playground fight, with everyone jockeying to see the action and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's like. My friends and I managed to shimmy our way up to the side of the ring so we could see all of the action, and it was super easy to get sucked in.

Before I went I told myself I'd play a couple of times, with a $5 bill, just to see what it was like. I quickly figured out that no one was playing with anything less than a $20, which made me nervous. Even though Two Up is a game of chance, it's also the only gambling game where you've got just as much chance as winning as you do losing.

I picked heads for the duration and held on for the ride-- eventually I was up $160. Unfortunately that's when I got cocky and decided to push my luck and promptly lost two games in a row. I called it a day after that, and it's the first time (and probably the last!) that I can say I've left the bar with more than I came in with.

Two Up is only legal from about midday to 6 pm, and because this was a big bar the cops showed up promptly at 6 to make sure everyone had finished playing!

What a great day!

Light Beer?

A couple of weeks ago, I got in some pretty serious trouble.

I brought light beer to a weekend away.

I'd been instructed to bring some beer for drinking games, so I did what I thought any normal, logical person would do-- I picked a light beer. I wouldn't consider myself an above average drinker or anything, but I know my way around a flip cup table pretty well. If there's one thing I learned the difficult way in college it's this: guzzling a heavy beer not only slows down your flips but makes for a pretty terrible morning after.

I'd been excited to even see a light beer in the liquor store. I'm slowing learning how to drink beer but as my general preference was "as watery or fruity as possible" in the States I'd thought I'd struck gold. I was all smiles as I walked out, thinking I'd finally found Natty Light's ozzie counterpart.

It went over like a ton of bricks. As it turns out, "light" beer in America and "light" beer in Australia don't exactly mean the same things.

Compare a Bud Heavy and a Bud Light: roughly 5% alcohol to just under 4% alcohol (although some sites said 5% to 4.2%).



*Source: Buzzfeed.com

Not really a big enough difference in my opinion to matter-- it's more about taste preference and the perception that light beer is better for you.

In Australia, that's not quite the case. There's a lot of different types of beers, with "light" being code word for "very pansy" and "worthless."

It was an honest mistake, right? How was I supposed to know there was a difference?

Let me tell you something, though. You bring beer with half the alcohol content of a normal beer and you'll leave the party with half the number of friends you started with. Very awkward.

Half the alcohol seems pretty silly to me and I'd agree pretty worthless, but I'm told some people choose to drink light beer if they want to have a few and still be ok to drive later in the night. I'd say the other option would be to nurse an actual beer or two throughout the night, but I'm guessing it's an excuse to look like you're throwing back with the rest of the crew?

I didn't live the light beer down for the rest of the weekend, especially because after we'd figured out it was the only thing left to drink (ironically we'd used the real beer for drinking games) the only liquor store was already closed for the evening. They didn't even thank me for the absence of a hangover the next morning!!!

There's also "mid" strength beer, which falls somewhere between pansy and acceptable on the range of cool factor. At a Billy Joel concert last night it was the only option at the stadium-- I guess the promoters didn't want to risk all of the middle aged people getting wild and crazy on a Sunday night.

Lesson learned: go for the real stuff, at least in Australia.

What's Next?

I have a bit of fitness ADD- I get super devoted to one thing and then get bored and decide to do something else.

After the huge letdown of the Brisbane Half I debated a couple of options:

1. Keep running and train for either the Sydney half in May (hilly, so this was quickly nixed) or the Gold Coast half marathon in July (supposed to be flat)-- debating the Gold Coast run, but after each half I go through a "but I don't want to run more than 2 miles at a time" phase

2. Join CrossFit (sadly, the closest box I could find for Sydney is fairly out of the way from my apartment/work)

3. Join a Triathlon team (still debating this, but I'm pretty out of swimming shape and don't have a bike here, so it'd kind of be just the running aspect and then it's back at number 1)

Or the winner:

4. Suck it up and get a personal trainer.

My pockets are going to hurt, and hopefully my biceps/glutes/abs/etc as well, but I'm excited about the idea of someone pushing me a bit. I don't really like spin classes, can't keep up in Zumba and am tired of fighting for space in Body Pump (seriously, they pack people in like sardines!) so I'm somewhat grasping at straws for how to vary the workout plan.

The plan is to try to do 2-3 sessions with a trainer (depending on the $ aspect of things), a run or two and at least one yoga session thrown in for good measure.

I can't give up running completely, so I did sign up for the Mini-Moss 10k in early June. If not for friends doing it, I would avoid running the "most challenging streets" in Mossman as the website says. Definitely doing this as a fun run only!

Here's to a new fitness routine!


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