Hallowmericain

Halloween passed by without much fanfare, at least in my neck of the woods. The only minute signs I noticed of its presence were a few jack-o-lantern type pumpkins (as opposed to the Japanese or other pumpkins sold for eating) at the grocery store brought in especially for Halloween and a tiny little rack of costumes for tiny children at Target. People our age and younger (20s) seem to have Halloween parties with the full costumes and everything, but it’s mainly just another excuse to have a party, I think. We didn’t get any trick-or-treaters and I didn’t really expect to, but some co-workers in Gladstone got some, which was surprising! I guess it’s catching on a little. I don’t think it’ll ever reach the proportions of the States, though. Looking at all the photos of carved pumpkins and costumes of friends on Facebook probably triggered the most amount of homesickness I’ve had since I’ve been here, probably because Halloween is my favorite holiday.

But I did have a little something yesterday to keep my mind off of it. The 150th Melbourne Cup horse race took place. And it doesn't pass without a lot of fanfare. TV coverage is like watching a red carpet event with all the reporters commenting on the fashionistas and rich ladies’ fancy hats. It reeks of the British Empire, but with the slightly more casual bent of the Australians.

It’s apparently referred to as “the race that stops the nation’ because people stop everything (including working) to watch it. Which is exactly what happened at my workplace (well, my surrogate workplace, as I’m in Gladstone this week). Pizza and roast chicken was ordered in for lunch (why the combo, I have no idea, but it was Yum) and alcoholic beverages were served. Some of the ladies wore their versions of fancy hats, which were actually funny hats like viking horns and top hats. We gathered in the conference room where there’s a huge TV screen, ate food, and played silly games until the race started. There was a betting scheme where you throw in your dollar or two dollars, then you get a random horse assigned to you. I threw in and got ‘Americain,’ which was the one I had my eye on anyway because of the name. I found out later it’s an American bred horse, with a French jockey, owned by Australians. Very cool, and lucky for me, I thought. It truly was lucky for me, because Americain won! I won a whopping $25 but being the day before payday I had used my last $10 on lunch and bets, so I was pretty excited about the win… on my first Melbourne Cup, too. Not bad at all…