Why do the call it "Cricket"???

One of my many memories of our trip to London and Scotland in 2006 was sitting in the hotel in Glasgow with very tired feet waiting for the Champions League Final between Arsenal and Barcelona to start. (That's soccer, or football, people!) Clarice and I were both exhausted, it was the last night in Scotland and we just wanted to rest so we decided to watch the game in our room. We had an hour before the match started and the only thing I could find on their 5 stations that was even mildly interesting was cricket.

Now, I'm a fan of almost any sport as long as I can understand the rules, and I generally pick things up pretty quickly. Cricket, however, stumped me. We watched for an hour and neither of us understood one thing that happened. The most we got was, "I think they are trying to know down the sticks with the ball." How profound.

When Paul and Amber came to the States for a year we became good friends through Clarice's work with Paul on their project. Paul played cricket all his life, only stopping to make the trip to the States. He played serious cricket for his local club and, I believe, still holds some records there. While they were in the States they introduced us to the surrealy sport of Rugby League and we drug them off to Purdue to see college football (among all the other things they did). In an year I never had a chance (or a reason) to ask him to explain cricket to me.

When we decided to undertake this adventure in Australia, Paul was determined to take us to a cricket match. The cricket season doesn't really start until December, being a summer sport, and on the first weekend of the year Paul and Amber took us to see the first day of the 5-day test match between #1 in the world Australia and #2 South Africa. (That's right, then entire contest would take 5 days)

Now, like I said, I'm up for almost anything once. My in-laws got me into ice fishing for crying out loud, but when Paul said, "Bring a book" and he was serious... I was aprehensive. The day went from 10:00 until 6:00 and when it was over Australia, even though they batted first, were still batting. BUT, I did learn the rules and even some of the strategies behind the game. What I didn't learn, no matter how many people I asked, why is it called cricket?

We had a good time, mostly watched the game (I didn't get much book reading done), enjoyed some great weather and had a good time with friends. Later in the week, after the 5-day Test, the same to sides played a few 20/20 matches where each side only gets 20 "overs". It is a version that is designed to be played in a couple of hours and generally resembles a "home run derby" in that, because it is so much shorter batters have to take more risks and swing for the fences (though there are no fences).

There is also a THIRD type of cricket called "One Day Cricket" where each side gets 50 "overs" to score as many runs as possible. Crazy. I'll never figure out how to follow cricket, but I have a fairly decent understanding now of how to watch cricket. I'd gladly go again, but I doubt any of you Americans would want to go with me. And we think baseball is slow! :-)

New Year's Eve 2009

Hey, it's only February 4th (Clarice's birthday by the way) and I'm just now getting to New Year's in Sydney. Suck it up, cupcake!

New Year's Eve (NYE) for us started very early. We had a 6:00AM flight out of Hobart and had to drop off the rental car first. While security in Australian airports is not quite as strict as in the States (it is getting there) we still needed to be at the airport about an hour before the flight, so we left the hotel at 4:30AM. If you know me at all, you know I cannot function without a shower, so that meant not a lot of sleep for me! ***sigh***

We made it back to Sydney, got the car out of airport hock and made it home with it still pretty early in the morning. Straight to bed... well Clarice unpacked first (this is her normal function, she could not sleep with dirty laundry in a suitcase and not in the hampers).

We were invited to spend NYE with Paul and Amber, our good friends who live in North Sydney. It is only a few blocks from their place to a nice spot along the harbour where we could watch the fireworks off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and elsewhere in the harbour. Since Sydney is a little bit bigger than Warsaw, we figured we were in for a treat.

One of the nice things Sydney does on NYE is "Family Fireworks". Somebody smart (probably a mother) said, "Hey my kids are awful NewYear's Day because they stay up all night just to see the fireworks. Maybe if we had an earlier fireworks we could put them to bed and save a lot of parents a ton of grief. Kind of like a late Christmas present." (I don't know if those were his/her exact words - I'm paraphrasing... well making it up, but you get the idea). Anyway, to appease all the little ones Sydney launches fireworks at 9:00PM as well! What a great idea, especially considering that it is summer here and people want to be outside and see fireworks. The entire early fireworks, though not off the bridge, was a very "4th of July" atmosphere with people playing loud music, munching grilled meats and generally having a good time. After walking down to the 9:00 fireworks, we trudged back up the hill to Paul and Amber's for some more refreshment before making the exact same walk back down just before midnight.

Another interesting thing about Sydney's NYE celebration is that they have a theme every year complete with a glowing symbol of that theme on the center of the bridge. This year's theme was "Creation" and the symbol was predominantly the Sun, but it changed shapes often during the fireworks before settling back into Sun form when they concluded.

The entire event was spectacular and easily the biggest fireworks display I have every seen live. The shot things off not only the harbour bridge, but all up and down the harbour mouth. The crummy video below, captured with Clarice's camera, so not even begin to do it justice.

This video is much better. I'm "borrowing" it from YouTube. It does get kind of loud.

We had a great time, and a special thanks to Paul and Amber for having us out! Definitely a NYE to remember! Hopefully 2009 goes that well all year long. So far... so good!

Tasmania Day 5

Our last day started just like the others - up bright an early. All we really had to do today was get to our hotel in Hobart, but we had plenty of little hikes to do throughout the day and one major stop at Lake St Clair.

The rain the day before had caused all of the creeks, streams, rivers, what-have-you to rise and waterfalls were stronger than normal. We hiked to several and got wet at all of them from the large sprays of water!

One quick hike we did completely spur of the moment (I saw a road sign) was a hike to the top of some dunes that had views of the Great Southern Ocean. It was similar, if a little smaller, than Warren Dunes in Northern Indiana, and incredibly windy.

About midday we made it to Lake St Clair. The Visitor's Center there is the bottom endpoint of the Overland Track - the 4-5 day hiking track that obscenely insane people book months in advance to attempt. We saw many hikers who had made the trek in the rain the last couple of days and we finishing up. They would drop their ragged packs, wipe their rain-wet hair out of their faces, pull off their hoods... and proceed to regale anyone who would listen about how wonderful their trek was and what an awesome experience they just had. Made me want to try it - but not in the rain. We did a couple of tracks in the park including one that led to a spot that supposedly had platypus most evenings. We saw nothing - it was a little after lunch - but had a good time none the less.

Clarice set the goal of being in Hobart by 6:00 so we could walk around the wharf again and go out to dinner. We arrived at the hotel at 5:58. Just admit it... I'm good! We dumped the stuff and headed back out almost immediately (potty stops don't count). What I had not realized when I was booking the hotels was the first week in January is Hobart's "Taste of Hobart Festival" and the conclusion of the 3 major sailboat races - the Sydney to Hobart, the Melbourne to Hobart, and for the less adventurous the Launceston to Hobart. All 3 start on Boxing Day (they day after Christmas for you Americans) and by the time we arrived on Dec. 30 everyone had arrived. We saw lots of sailboats ranging from things that looked like they needed a complete overhaul to the multi-million dollar Wild Oats and Scandia. The Sydney to Hobart is the biggest of the 3 and always sees the most entries. They have "Line Honors" for whichever boat makes it the fastest and "Overall Honors" for the fastest including handicap. Wild Oats won Line Honors for a record 4th consecutive year.

We went for pizza (and you're surprised why?) and wandered around the docks looking at all the boats, comparing which ones we would buy if we had unlimited funds and laughing at all of the drunk sailors - and there were a lot.

Nice vibrant rainbow.

Line Honors Winner - Wild Oats

All in all we loved Tasmania - though if we had to do it again we would pick a side and do it more indepth. We just didn't have enough time to do everything we really wanted to do and do it well. Maybe we'll go back!