Footy and Art (not in the same day)

Bucolic Tasmania

Tasmanian Devil

We are glad to be back on dry land after our travels to Asia over the school holidays.  The trip gave us a tiny glimpse of the chaotic third world and how little we know about where most of the people in the world live.  Now that we are in the home stretch of our stay in Australia, we are racing to see and do all we can before we leave.  We have explored more of the big city and the quiet countryside, experienced the national sporting obsessions spied a real Tasmanian Devil.   

We miss our Skippy

The girls are enjoying being considered international students at Wesley College. Their friends love their American accents and the girls are picking up some Aussie lingo: "brekkie for breakfast, "heaps" for lots, and of course "g'day" and "no worries" which cover everything else. They have friends from all over the world: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore. India, Sudan, and Europe.  The international group has weekly outings for the Moms (which Jill loves) and events for the families where everyone brings food.  We bake peanut butter cookies—always a big hit.   

Footy Fans

The girls are engaged in sports again for the winter season.  Competitions are on Saturday mornings so the girls have school 6 days a week.  Audrey is on the cross country team and has run through many muddy paddocks (pastures) and billabongs (dry stream beds).  Nina is learning the popular girls' sport of "netball" which is like basketball with no backboard and no physical contact.  She has taken to it like a native.  The national sport though is much more aggressive than cross country with even more rules than netball; it is Australian Rules Football, aka “Footy.”  Despite our skepticism over the footy fervor, we’ve become fans.  We saw a game last week that had 100,000 people, young and old in the stadium, which is not uncommon.  The game is played outdoors on "ovals" nearly twice as long as football fields.  There is a lot of action (no time outs or commercial breaks) and the players have to be very fit to handle running the huge field and getting tackled without any padding.  The players are like movie stars.  Every family “barracks” * for their favorite team**. (*See Notes)

Footy may be a “culture” but it isn’t “Culture” so we had to head out of town for an art fix.  We heard about a new museum in Hobart,Tasmania that is both daring and "gorgeous"*** (See Note).  We couldn’t resist.  Tasmania is an overnight ferry ride from Melbourne or a 1 hour flight.Museum of Old and New Art, MONA, has gotten the attention of the art/museum world and has put Hobart on the map:  both very difficult achievements.   http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/2011/01/tasmania_museum_of_old_and_new_art The museum’s founder made his fortune in gambling—not a shocking profession given Tazzie’s history of sheltering thieves and convicts.  

Purgatory in rain, one of the random words at the subversive MONA

The museum is built into a limestone cliff and you descend into it like going into a cave or a mine shaft.  It was hard to go underground on a sunny day but it was another world once we were inside.  There are no labels on the art and no docents or guided tours: visitors get an I-Pod  loaded only with basic facts and random comments by the founder. The device picks up your location by GPS and keeps track of your opinions ("like"or "dislike"--very Facebook-ish).  It took us two days to see the whole museum; we lost perspective on the amazing range and sometimes shocking nature of the collection.  http://www.utne.com/Arts/Subversive-Tasmanian-Art-Museum-David-Walsh.aspx  We loved the entombed mummy you get to by walking into a water-filled cave (eerie), the digital LED images of random Google search terms projected through a 2-story waterfall (mesmerizing) and the room-sized simulated human digestive system that eats and poops at regular intervals (stinky!)  So this is what's on the FAR edge of the art world...

The huge remote radio telescope 

Hobart, Tasmania’s capital, was one of the first convict settlements in the early 1800’s.  We toured the old prison (“gaol”) and heard stories of the crimes that banished British reprobates to this remote land 42 degrees south of the equator.  Hobart is parallel to southern Argentina.  While on a drive through the countryside, we happened upon a huge (75 foot diameter) radio dish used to map supernovas and follow the movement of tectonic plates.  We felt like we were at the ends of the earth, which is a common feeling in parts of Australia!

  * To "barrack": one does not “root” for a team, at least not in public.
 ** We recognize Americans in their cars by the bumper sticker:  “I barrack for Barack”
*** "Gorgeous" in this context means fabulous but it can mean very nice (person) but not very attractive