Footy Fever

Sydney celebrates as Hawthorn is defeated.

On Saturday, we watched the AFL Grand Final over at Adam and Emily's place with some friends. This is Australia's version of the Super Bowl. You may remember last year's post about the game, when Meatloaf performed (and was terrible). If not, you can find it here. Anyway, this year an Australian band called The Temper Trap performed, so there was no Meatloaf drama. The Hawthorn Hawks played against the Sydney Swans this year. Our friends Kristy and Nigel are big Hawk fans, so we were kind of cheering for Hawthorn, but the Swans were originally based in South Melbourne, so we were okay with the fact that Sydney won by ten points in the end. It was a great game, and we ate the mandatory meat pies, drank some sangria, and had a yummy BBQ.

Oh yeah, and remember how I said each team has its own song? Well, check out the Sydney Swans song...

Did they steal Notre Dame's fight song or what?! (Skip to the 50 second mark of the video.)

Go Swans...Go Irish...whatever...Melbourne is done with its footy fever for another season!

Our Lives Lately

What have we been up to lately? Well, perhaps a few grainy phone pictures can fill you in...

We went to a footy game at the MCG a couple of weeks ago with some friends. The Hawthorn Hawks won, so our friend Nigel was happy. Interestingly, each footy team has a theme song, and most of them are Aussie words sung to the tune of classic American songs. Hawthorn's song is to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy," so I had that in my head all night. St Kilda, since they are the Saints, uses "When the Saints Go Marching In."

We've been trying to eat healthier food lately. Living close to the South Melbourne Market makes this a lot easier, and we go there at least once a week to stock up on fresh produce. We also got a juicer, so we've been throwing all sorts of things in that. It's about the only way you'll get me to eat vegetables! Beetroots are hugely popular here in Australia, and when you make juice from them, it's very very red (as seen above).

And sometimes we've been "bad" and haven't followed our healthy eating plan. For example, on Friday, I didn't get a call for work, and Zack's still sort of on the bench (between projects), so we spent the afternoon in the CBD wandering down Degraves Street. We hung out at a cafe, people-watched, ate some sushi, and splurged on these yummy tiny (salted caramel and raspberry white chocolate flavored) cupcakes.

We've actually been getting some Springtime weather lately (hooray!), so we've been walking to Albert Park on some evenings and on the weekends to throw the frisbee, kick the soccer ball, and/or hit some golf balls at the driving range. Zack is finally making use of the golf clubs he brought from the other side of the world!

So that's a taste of what's been going on in our lives lately. How about yours?

Cricket with Kris and Kevin

Kris was my roommate in Farley Hall during my freshman year at Notre Dame, and in August, she married a guy named Kevin. I couldn't make it to their wedding, but they took a delayed honeymoon to Australia! After visiting the Great Barrier Reef and before heading to Sydney and then New Zealand, they stopped over in Melbourne for a few days. We didn't have the greatest of weather over the weekend, but we made the best of it.

One thing we did was go to a cricket match at the MCG on Friday night. Australia was playing Sri Lanka. The match started at 2:30pm, but we just went for a few hours in the evening. We must have looked like total dorks reading the rules of the game on Wikipedia on our phones while watching the game, but once we understood it a bit, cricket was much more fun to watch! The main thing I didn't know is that there are two batsmen at one time, and they score points by running back and forth between the wickets after hitting the ball. I won't go into all of the other rules; if you really care, check out this link.

Only certain sections of the stadium were full, but there are apparently tons of people from Sri Lanka living in Melbourne, because there were lots of spirited fans cheering for the Sri Lankan team! Australia ended up winning in the end, but only by 15 runs (which is not a lot). Check out the picture above with Gatorade guys on segways!

Kris and Kevin in front of Flinders Street Station on a cloudy Friday night.

On Saturday after a nice breakfast at a cafe, I took Kris and Kevin around the city on the free city circle tram, with a stop at the Queen Victoria Market. They enjoyed the ever-interesting meat hall (tongues, cheeks, livers, etc.), some souvenir shopping, and a few yummy macaroons. Unfortunately, it rained all day! In the evening, we played some euchre at our place before heading to the Fitzroy area and Brunswick Street for drinks and dinner. Good times! It was awesome to finally catch a cricket game and show an old college pal around my new home. Happy honeymoon Kris and Kevin!

A Win at the Footy

On Saturday night, we went to another footy game at the MCG. You may remember the entry about the first game we went to with Heath and Isabelle. This time, we saw the St Kilda Saints battle the Carlton Blues with our friends Alena and Todd (from Chicago). The stadium was a lot more crowded this time, probably because it was a night game and the last one of the regular season. Playoffs start next week. The Blues are in 5th place, and the Saints are in 6th.

I was excited to finally get to wear my St Kilda gear. You don't get many chances to wear socks like these! Alena bought a scarf outside the stadium (she's a Blues fan), so we both looked like true fans. We met up with Todd and Alena before the game for some drinks and food and then headed to "the G" for the start. Yes, I enjoyed another meat pie during the game! Carlton led for the first half, and Zack and I were gearing up for another St Kilda loss. We even had a bet going with Todd and Alena: if the Blues won, we had to buy them drinks and vice versa with the Saints. St Kilda stepped it up in the second half and ended up winning by twenty points! Woohoo-free drinks for us!

Todd and Alena

Us-duh!

A fun night at the footy!

Federation Square Fun

A major icon in Melbourne is Flinders Street Station, which is actually a train station near Federation Square, one of the main gathering spaces in the city.  Lots of tourists congregate around here, and in the mornings/evenings, it's full of commuters.  Basically, it's busy.

This is the area where Oprah spoke when she was in Melbourne.  Some people think these buildings are really ugly, but I think they're kind of cool.  In one, you find the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).  The other has the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), which I haven't visited yet.  There are always various events going on in this area, and a lot of folks just hang out in the space outside just eating lunch or people-watching.

Across the street is St. Paul's Cathedral.  It's very beautiful inside too.  Across the Yarra River, you can also see the Arts Centre Spire.

If you walk down the river a little bit, you come to this Ferris wheel.  In the background, you can see the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) where we saw the footy game.  On the streets surrounding Federation Square and Flinders Street Station, there are all sorts of restaurants, souvenir shops, specialty stores, and even an Ugg store!  There are several more pictures on my Shutterfly website, so check them out if you're interested.  I had a fun afternoon last week exploring this iconic part of the city!  

Footy Fun

If you're going to live in Melbourne, you have to learn about the game of footy.  This is also known as Australian Rules Football or "Aussie Rules," and it's a big deal around here.  Nearly every area/suburb of town has its own team, and they play other teams on the weekends (there's even Monday night footy) throughout the Fall leading up to the AFL (Australian Football League) championship.  The best place to watch a game is at the MCG, which is the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  This stadium holds nearly 100,000 people, and it's huge.  We went to a game there this afternoon with our friends Heath and Isabelle (Heath is the one who has helped Zack start road biking), and we cheered on our St. Kilda Saints.

I'm not going to go into all of the details of the game, but think of a combination of American football (without pads!) and rugby and soccer played on a circle/oval field with special rules.  You get six points for getting the ball through the tall center posts, and one for getting it through the outer ones.  It's a pretty rough and high-scoring game, and it's lots of fun to watch.  St. Kilda's colors are red, white, and black, and the Saints don't win very often.  They are kind of like the Chicago Cubs-people love them, but they don't always do so well.  Scarves with your team colors are the popular things to wear.  We'll need to update our wardrobe soon!

One of the highlights of the game for me was finally getting to try a meat pie.  Nachos are not the norm here...people order meat pies and sausage rolls and chips (fries) as game-time snacks!  Meat pies are especially popular at footy games.  I know it sounds disgusting, but it was actually really good.  It's kind of like a pot pie with gravy and meat inside.  And it was warm, which was nice, because the Autumn weather is a bit chilly.  Especially as we were walking into the stadium, it really felt like we were going into a Denver Broncos game with the fans all bundled up in their gear, the public transportation all full, and everyone headed to the same place on a Fall day.

I also liked the colorful phrases that Aussies would shout to express their feelings during the game, including, but not limited to:  "It's bloody hopeless!"-in reference to St. Kilda's chances of winning; "Go back to Sydney!"-toward a certain player I guess; "Lose the rubber guts!"-meaning don't be a chicken I suppose; "Rubbish!"-directed at the referees; and "You're alright boys!"-after a goal.  I had a good chuckle at some of these.

St. Kilda had a great first quarter, but they ended up losing to the Hawthorn Hawks 69-99.  As the game neared the finish, more and more seagulls gathered above the stands and even down near (and on) the field.  It was like they knew that once the game ended, they would have plenty of snacks leftover in the seats!  We were sad to see the Saints lose, but our first footy game at the MCG was a lot of fun!