January 26, Australia day, is the anniversary of ships arriving in Sydney carrying a load of Convicts.

This past weekend Andrew and I kept pretty busy. Saturday we bummed around a bit before going to see the WNBL Canberra Capitols play the Sydney Heat. I'm not too into basketball but by the end of the game I was on the edge of my seat cheering along with the rest of the crowd waiting to see if we would make it through the semi-finals. We won by two points in overtime, it was amazing! On the way out we decided that if they get a home game for the finals we'll be there.

Sunday we were going to go to the beach for the day but we got halfway there and saw that it was still so cloudy, I checked and it was going to be cloudy, slightly drizzly and only a little warm all day. We decided to head back instead of wasting our time driving down on a crappy day. Instead we spent the day relaxing at home watching movies.

Monday for pre-Australia day we went over to the Walkers for a bbq before heading to Parliament House lawn for Day 1 of Australia Day celebration. They announced Australian of the Year and had 6 or so bands play. We were pretty excited in a dorky way for Hailey Warner, she was runner up Australian Idol this year and Andrew and I were cheering for her during the competition.

I have to say that people give Americans crap all the time for being patriotic but we are nothing compared to an Aussie on Australia Day. Any day of the year you can walk into an Aussie bar anyhow and if you yell out "Aussie Aussie Aussie" the entire bar will answer you back with a resounding "Oi! Oi! Oi!". I have never seen such patriotism as I did as the celebrations Monday night. There were shirts (tee, tank, halter), hats (bucket, baseball, straw, jester, cowboy), stickers, tattoos, flip flops, sneakers, shorts, underwear, bras, bathing suits for me and women, towels, coolers, kuzzes, tents, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, buttons, coloured wigs, flags of all kinds, small flags, car flags, flags made into dresses, shirts, skirts, capes, really little flags, bunting, beach balls, balloons, blow up kangaroos, inflatable number 1 fingers, inflatable bats, umbrellas, and that's just what I can remember seeing last night. It's beyond absurd. And these are normal people, on 4th of July there are some people who go all out and will wear hats, shirts or something but this crowd was covered with it, our group was overflowing with Kate and her friends covered in flags of all kinds.

Andrew and Nathan relaxing before the show

Look at all the crazy Aussies

Andrew all Red Sox-ed out

It was a whole lot of fun to listen to all the music and just relax in the warmth for the evening. They even did a flyover with their equivalent of the Blue Angels, it was really cool to watch.

Tuesday for actual Australia Day we decided to sleep in before heading to Pine Island to swim for a few hours. The day was nice and relaxing, as most of our days are, swimming then down to the city to meet Dave for a drink before watching the massive amount of fireworks going on on the river.

Down at Pine Island

Good first Australia Day in Australia all around. The half week back at work was really slow and painful but completely worth it for last weekend.