Uhorkova Sezona in Sydney

Well, here we go. Where do we start? I guess first of all by acknowledging prudent SME editorship by allowing an English or let me be more specific, an Australian language blog on their website. I am not sure if this is the only one, either way, it came as a surprise to me, but then again perhaps it shouldn’t have. Australia is a place of interest for Europeans including Slovaks for whom it has become a popular tourist destination. And it is even more now with the Koruna reaching its old time high against the aussie dollar. Slovak language can be heard on the streets of Sydney city, on the beaches, in Blue Mountains, in the outback, around attractions and in many Sydney restaurants. I don’t mean Slovak restaurants, because there aren’t any in Sydney, but Slovak waiters can be seen in German , Hungarian and even an Egyptian restaurant in the suburbs which only had one waiter – Peter from Bratislava. Most of them are students who do the right thing, see the world, experience different cultures before they settle, start family and become slaves of routine.

Písmo: A^- | A⁺

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(zdroj: starzl)

Weare now in the middle of summer, its our “uhorkova sezona” – children are onschool holidays, families take vacations, businesses close or reduce workinghours and us, the plebs, take advantage of all above to enjoy long sunny daysand spend them outdoors as much as we can. So far this summer hasn’t been crash hot, in Sydney I mean. We’ve only recently started having warm and sunnydays, humid too, but it really hasn’t felt like summer yet. Even Christmas which is traditionallycelebrated on the beach was mainly indoors because of rain and coolertemperatures. Festive season worked outwell last year, with Christmas Eve falling on Sunday and then Christmas day onMonday followed by another public holiday called Boxing day, whichtraditionally is big party day, when family having to see all the familymembers during Christmas, attention is turned to best friends at Boxingday. On that day, Sydneysiders enjoy thestart of an iconic Sydney to Hobartyacht race and a start of Melbournetest match on cricket which usually attracts 80,000+ spectators – and that isonly the first day of a 5 day match. Forus here, cricket means summer and whether it is the 5-day match or a 1-daymatch or the crazy 2-hour game, they all attract packed stadiums and are a goodreason to have a BBQ with best mates.

Sydney is beautiful during thistime, with so many of people out of town, the place is relaxed and happy no matterwhat weather is given to us. When itshot, we go to any of the number of beaches that dot Sydney’s coastline, whenit’s a bit milder we visit the city and its tourist attractions like DarlingHarbour or to one of the thousands of parks to have a beer, bbq and watchchildren play cricket and talk about anything – manly sport and celebrities butnever politics – Australians are just not interested in political reality, whywould they be – both major political parties are similar despite one beingsocialist and the other one pro-business. Australians are so apathetic to politicians that voting is compulsoryand there is still a large number of people who just could not be bothered toturn up to vote.

Therelaxed mood of Sydneylasts for another couple of weeks until the end of January, which is when citywakes up and becomes itself again – a fast moving, overcrowded, traffic-jammedrat-race. But that is a different month,end of school holidays, end of cricket season and end of Sydney’s “uhorkova sezona”.