Carpe Via

The Easter Show! The Easter Show! I’ve been wanting to go to the Easter show since my very first April in Australia. What is the Easter Show, you ask? It’s like a Nation-sized county fair with the Olympic stadium grounds filled with livestock and rides and Aunt Bertha’s prize jams.

But alas, no one would go with me. “I’d rather chew off my right arm” was just one responses I got over the years. And so I gave up on my dream of ever going.

Until Stella called.

My lovely niece Stella who had also never been and who was just as excited to go. With our combined enthusiasm we even managed to talk my friend Nicole and her twins into joining us. We didn’t end up seeing much of them though since I soon found out that 5 year olds and 2 year olds have very different ideas of pace and fun (I discovered this through my natural sensitivity to the nuances of child communication -arm tugging).

After an hour long drive and several dollars to get in, the first thing Stella wanted to do was to play on the free equipment.

Eventually we did get around to the animals though. There was a cool path of paws printed on the ground that we could follow through the various displays -including cows, piggletts and sheep (lots and lots of sheep):

The beef industry had pictures we could colour in (yes, these are meat cuts):

And the egg industry had egg painting:

Then, after all the boring farm stuff, it was time for rides…

And FINALLY we headed towards the show bags. The infamous show bags. Apparently they started out many, many years ago as freebies from companies. You know, a few coupons mixed in with product samples. But then they grew and got better and better stuff until people were more than happy to pay for them. And now it is the grande finale of the Easter Show…

An entire building filled with every brand or cartoon character you can imagine, each with it’s own special themed plastic bag filled with various themed stuff.

And as you walk around, all that themed stuff is stuck to strips on the wall so that you can see exactly what you get in your plastic themed back for $18.

Stella chose a Care Bears bag with a Care Bears backpack, a Care Bears notepad, a Care Bears pink hat, a Care Bears pink watch and Care Bears hair bands. It was only then that the tugging stopped and we made our way towards the exits, exhausted and happy.

(Nicole and the boys on the bus ride home. With their Thomas the Tank Engine show bag full of Thomas the Tank Engine backpack, Thomas the Tank Engine puzzle, Thomas the Tank Engine hat…)

Yesterday was a national holiday in rememberence of the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915 which had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war but quickly became a stalemate that dragged on for eight months. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed and 25 April became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in war.

In past years we have attended the dawn services but this year we spent the morning in a suburb of Sydney called Auburn.

Auburn is primarily made up of Turk and Lebonese migrants and it’s like walking into another country. Except they have our currency. And Big W.

We had a great morning poking about the shops and eating really good Turkish food for lunch. And to make it even better, Tim & Lee Fay made us up a list of things we needed to find as we went:

Sumac:

Handlebar Mustaches:

(There were a few we found walking around too but I didn’t want to look like a tourist -any more than I already did)

Evil Eye:

No luck with the African food or the Eurovision song winner CD. But we did find a few things not on the list -including these brightly lit religious clocks (choose either a Virgin Mary or a Mosque!):

And just so you don’t think I’m being flippant, it felt like a very good way to remember the autrocities of war -by celebrating the peaceful co-existence that can also be achieved with time.