Well yesterday Steve, Olivia Chris and myself went to go see one of the truly Australian games Aussie Rules Football, or just "Footy" as the Australians call it. It is a cross between Rugby, football, and ultimate fighting all played on a cricket field.
This has led to a very strange combination of rules for the game. The rules are as follows, there are no real rules. The only one I found was that head tackling was not considered proper and often a guy in a yellow jersey would stop play momentarily to allow the guy to get back up again. The goal was to kick the ball in between the 2 center posts for 6 points and if you missed and still got it between the 2 outside posts you got a point for trying (how considerate of them). Well there is one thing I have to admit this game is fast, the whistle never stops, and subs come and go on the fly. Even injured players get hauled off while game play continues, and water is run out to players at appropriate times when play is well away from that part of the field. The body contact is intense as well, but they take the hit and keep on pushing, there is none of this stupid diving that has become prominent in soccer. The game was a riot to watch and the special as it was the day before ANZAC day, the Australian national holiday celebrating the armed forces, the wins, the losses and the most importantly one of the biggest blunders of the fist world war, Gallipoli. Anzac day marks the day the Australians landed at Gallipoli in WW1 and got slaughtered because of British stupidity. It became know as the battle where "It was commonwealth men that landed at Gallipoli, but Australian blood that stained the sand". The game was special for another reason though it commemorates the loss of the battleship HMAS Sydney in WW2, it was sunk off the West Coast of Australia by a German torpedo boat, and all men were lost. So every year the Sydney Swans play the West coast Eagles for the Sydney memorial cup around ANZAC day. The game represents the meeting of east and west as the ship belonged to Sydney, but it was sunk off the west coast near Geraldton (We went to the memorial there). The trophy was delivered by the Navy helicopter from one of the ships sitting in harbor, and as it left it flew low over the stadium (something that was really cool) before heading off back towards the harbor. The game was as I mentioned before, and I wonder why other games aren't as fast as I was never bored, even though I didn't understand the rules. After the game we hung around and did jump shots, which when we looked at later look absolutely hilarious. This morning we ran downtown to watch the ANZAC day parade in the rain, but had to meet up with Steve and Olivia later as they had both slept in. The parade was cool, but I was disappointed that they never had any air force fly by's as it was after all a parade to honor past war veterans and the current arms forces. I do like though that they didn't pull out the tanks, or any equipment, they only had the men marching by, as indeed it was all about the men and women, not the equipment. After the parade we headed over to kings Cross where we had lunch and then hit the boomerang shop, which was unfortunately closed before heading over to the market and getting supper. We mostly just hung around for the day and had a good time. At one point we walked into Hyde Park and found some soldiers doing whip cracking and that was a riot as we spent the next hour trying to get them to crack. It was really fun, 
but even funner to watch as Steve kept hitting himself with the end of the whip. The key to making the whip snap is to make it change direction very fast, because when you do that the end of the whip actually breaks the speed barrier, making the crack sound. This is one of the reasons why it is so hard to whip that thing around as it scares the crap out of you. That and kept on getting pictures of Steve hopping around on one leg as you saw the whip leave a small welt on his legs. We all had fun and at the end sat in their old army jeep wearing ANZAC hats, really fun. 
We got back to the hostel and started celebrating ANZAC day and watching the Australians playing 2 up, which is a cool ANZAC tradition in which you gamble in the bars. This is how it works I call heads, and put 5 bucks down on the table, another guy across the room calls tales and puts his 5 bucks down. A third party flips a coin and winner gets the cash. I don't know the history behind this tradition, and nobody could tell me it's history, but it is the only time that you are allowed to gamble in the bar. We cooked supper to celebrate Olivia's last day here as she is leaving tomorrow morning and we had Kangaroo as kind of a joke to remember the last time she cooked. 
Anyway we are starting a drinking fest now, so I need to go now. Talk later.Days left in Australia 1.5
Days tell I get home 2.5
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