Eric of Arabia

I think I once calculated that the Sun's rays are about 6% more intense during Southern Hemisphere summer than Northern Hemisphere summer at sea level around noon because the Earth is closer to the Sun during Southern Hemisphere summer. It definitely feels like it, and we need to be very generous with the sunscreen.

You wouldn't know it from looking at "Eric of Arabia" though. He looks like he hasn't seen the Sun since 2003.

We hope everyone is having a nice holiday season. We miss everyone back in the U.S. We're going to enjoy some meals and cheer with with some friends in our neighborhood here in Melbourne on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Australia has already shut down for a few weeks for the holidays. They take time off more seriously here than in the States. Eric is locked out of his office, and so he needs to work from home or coffee shops. More big news is that Isabel has finished 5th grade, and it is summer break until the end of January. Isabel will get to start 6th grade twice in 2015!

Christmas is different here. There are not as many decorations, maybe because most of the Northern Hemisphere decor (e.g. snowmen, sleigh bells, icicles, etc) doesn't really make sense. It is also light until past 9, and so not many people bother putting up lights. We found this somewhat humorous Olivia Newton John video from the 60s when she was 17, where she sings about how Christmas is different "Down Under": www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvyp8gOHWKI  The best line is "The only snow we have is on our Christmas tree. The Southern Cross is not the northern star,"

School Function Bash

Isabel had a school Christmas concert on Wednesday night. On first glance, this looked like a normal school function like we have in the U.S. with kids going up grade by grade and singing old standards from Taylor Swift and Kyle Minogue, while the parents sit silently in their small metal chairs in anticipation of their child's turn in the spotlight, politely clapping while class upon class of other peoples' kids perform on stage.

But let's take a closer look, shall we? Maybe we should have known something was different when as we arrived, the school band was playing "Tequila." Here is one young woman enjoying the party and imbibing on school grounds(!).

After the main part of the performance, part of the after-hours entertainment involved several teachers getting up on stage and rocking out (sorry, my autofocus failed me here). A mosh pit formed in front of the stage that included students and several other teachers from the school. Maybe this calls for a suggestion to the Poudre Valley School District on how to run their evening school programs?

Local lore claims that grunge started in Melbourne and not Seattle. I'm not sure about that, but hey whatever. We actually have a third(!) school holiday gathering tomorrow night on the beach. This is to celebrate the end of the school year, which ends here in December. Isabel will be going into Grade 6 in January!

We continued our weekend activities by heading down to Bell's Beach, the famous surfing beach just south of Melbourne (Keanu Reeves eat your heart out!). In addition to fun and frolicking on the water, we were also on a mission to buy Isabel a swimsuit at one of the local surf clothing outlets (Quicksilver/Roxy were started here). We were not successful at this, but perversely we all bought new snowboarding/skiing coats on a 90 degree day.  They were insanely discounted at about 80% off.  Heather also wanted to buy some new ski pants, but she refused to try them on because it was too hot. We hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far.