Rainforests of Australia

Some things you don’t do until very late in life… I haven’t ridden a bicycle, walked through a rainforest and written a blog until I moved to Australia. I can add a few more things to this list, but I’d rather share with you my impression of the rainforests today. They abound in Australia, where they can be seen in many coastal areas from the South-East to the North-East, where rain is very generous. Besides the many types of trees, including oak, gum, and palm trees, there are ferns, and innumerable kinds of plants. But the multitude of greens is enhanced by the bright, humid mosses covering the trunk of most trees, the entire forest explodes into a rainbow with the blue, red and yellow fruit and the colorful fungi. Fungi in all shapes (cup, stick, umbrella, etc) and shades of beige, yellow, brown, or red ornate trees from the root to the crown, lying down dead or poking through the canopy with life. My picture captures just a small group of mushrooms clinging onto a live tree. Some of these fungi are luminescent and can be seen glowing in the dark, but most are poisonous. The rainforests also are never quiet during the day. I sometimes stop, close my eyes and listen to the mixing of sounds from water dripping and birds chirping. With little light penetrating to the bottom of the rainforest, the air is full of humidity and mystery, inviting one to visit again and again.

No worries!

(Note: I forgot to post this yesterday! Sorry to those who looked for my daily post) “No worries” is used by Aussies like "no problem!" in the US. However, I found a fundamental difference between the two sayings. I wonder what you think... I “reckon” that the meaning of "No problem" refers directly to the source. It lets you know that whatever you did was not an issue. On the other hand, "no worries" has to do with the effect or the impact of the problem. In other words, yes, it was a problem, but don't worry about it, "she'll be right!" Did I just say that??? Maybe, I am also becoming Aussie, but I think "no worries" marries into the "she'll be right" attitude of "I cannot be bothered, it will turn out fine!" Now about today's picture, what could I post for such a subject? I came up with the photo of a group of fruit bats or flying foxes that are hanging in a tree in the Northern Territory. I am not sure if they think this, but to me they definitely exhibit a "no worries" attitude!

(Dunny)

Just a quick post today, as the subject is not so hot: dunny is Aussie slang for outside toilet. I have never seen one in the US between 1992 and 2009, but as in countryside Romania, the dunny is still being used in remote places in Oz. I even found out from some friends that in the eighties, houses in Melbourne’s suburbs commonly had dunnies. The difference is that in Romania people dig a very very deep whole and don’t have a tank, just do their business in the whole. They do throw disinfectants though, which makes the stench get a hospital-like flavour, but in Oz, dunnies consist in a tank that is replaced and disposed of somewhere else. The job must be unpleasant, but the dunny’s hygiene is probably better. Done! More attractive post subject tomorrow. I confess the dunny in the picture is actually from Romania…

She'll be right!

It’s incredible how many hits one gets if they Google this phrase! The reason for this “popularity” is that Aussies use it and believe in it. Therefore, it characterizes their attitudes and gives the extreme laid-back flavour to the land Down Under. The actual meaning is “No worries, all will be fine in the end!” Indeed, when there is a problem, one would worry and want to solve it immediately, but here the attitude is a lot more mellow and people really “take it easy.” They think the problem will be solved anyway in the end, so why rush to solve it? I am not sure if this “insular” attitude is related to the fact that Australia is an island isolated from the rest of the world. And it is true that most disasters don’t reach this island, making people truly believe “she’ll be right.” Look at the world financial crisis of 2008. Not even that ever arrived in this remote place. From the smallest trouble to the biggest, “she’ll be right.” I find the phrase also derogatory towards women; see the use of “she” not “he,” as if any hardship or common nuisance is feminine. We went the other day for a walk in Wattle Park and Tiziano, who loves all bugs, opened a nest of leaves trying to figure out if it was the amazing construction of ants or spiders. As you see in the picture, it was a spider mother who was just trying to protect her brood. When we realized what we did, we felt sorry, but it was a sunny and really warm day, so I said “she’ll be right,” thinking that the spiderlings will not need protection for much longer and will be fine in the wide world after we opened their nest. I am not sure I was right, but my defaulting into the Aussie attitude scared me a little bit…

Arvo, Bluey and Cockie

I have waited for a very long time before talking about Australian English other than the rhotic aspect because it's so much to say, I am not sure where to start. There is the Aussie English to discuss, as well as the Aussie slang. The language shocks a foreigner, even Americans, with the word usage, word pronunciation, and the slang. If the choice of words is similar to that in British English, pronunciation is less related to most other kinds of English, and slang is simply endemic. I believe that “word usage” is in fact more complicated than I thought, and that may well be because I am 100% foreign and not entitled to comment on this subject. Yet, this is my blog, so I will express my erratic opinion and you may take it as you wish. The complication with word usage comes from the fact that definitions of words are slightly different between American and Aussie English. For example, what Americans call sidewalk is footpath in Oz, but if definitions or folklore explanations as to what these words define are different, I am not sure. Similarly, car boot vs trunk, reckon vs think, and capsicum vs pepper… Pronunciation is different in Aussie English from American and British English not only because the r is obliterated from the end of words and very often from the middle (iron vs i’on; car vs ca’; and September vs Septemba’), but also because the accent seems to be changed on purpose (ad’vertisement vs advertis’ment). Finally, the Aussie slang, and I could write hundreds of posts on this! Because I am about to finish this post though, I will write more on slang tomorrow. Here, I will only explain that afternoon in slang is arvo, bluey can mean red-head, bluebottle jellyfish, pack, traffic ticket, and others, and cockie means farmer, cockatoo, and cockroach. So today's picture is that of a cockie (sulphur-crested white cockatoo) I took one arvo last year!

Captain Cook's Cottage

This pretty piece of history is located in the Fitzroy Gardens, in the heart of Melbourne. The gardens are just another big park in the city, which make it a remarkably great place to live. Seriously! What is unique about parks in Oz is that they often attract more wildlife than any park I have ever seen in the US. I am sure it has to do with the fact that in general, US cities are more crowded and wildlife has been pushed far from them long ago. In the Fitzroy Gardens, flocks of yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly in at dusk to settle into the tall trees. They are easy to recognize due their size and the loud, cheerful calls. Anyway, Captain Cook's Cottage and garden are the historical highlight of the park although the Captain may never have lived in it. No kidding! It’s only by luck that the English cottage made it Down Under, a hundred or so years after Captain Cook! Yes, it’s the home of Cook’s parents in England and it was sold to in 1930s to the Australians, who deconstructed it brick by brick, packed it and shipped it to Melbourne. It was then erected in the Fitzroy Gardens and we are so happy to stroll now through its rooms and herb garden! This beats even American history museums…

Lada Cars

It seems that the series of unexpected encounters is continuing. Today we saw a Lada Niva, which is a Russian 4x4 made for the first time in the seventies. I had no idea that Lada was selling cars in Europe, Asia and even Australia, and I was even more surprised to see that this old Lada was still running. I am not sure how old was the model we saw (check the picture) today in the Wattle Park. The Lada cars available in Romania in the eighties were considered somewhat fancy cars, especially since they we not manufactured in the country. Yet, "lada" means box in Romanian, so I just thought of them as boxy Russian cars... To see them here, Down Under, it really means that the word is small and this continent is not that far away from the rest of the world.