Vegemighty!, travel plans, Oz culture

[Tabouli]

Megan:
> I recall my experience with Vegemite tasting like cavier.

Tasting like caviar??  The humble Vegemite never knew such grandeur!  Well, you may not have liked it (even eaten properly), but hey, I'm sure it was flattered by your comparison!

Rita:
> Luke, you left out MY reason: I read and loved those books (Prydain) in 
childhood, but don't remember them well enough to discuss them.<

Hear hear.  All I can rustle up from the dark vaults of childhood memory is the title "Taran Wanderer" and something about a pig... (though mind you, my feeling is that I don't tend to do things by halves, and I really can't afford to have another list where I'm as energetic as this... I'll never get anything done!)

Hospitable and welcoming Rita:
> Hooray! If you come to Los Angeles & aren't allergic to cats & dirt, you
can crash here (one-half mile (i.e. 5 blocks) from famous Venice Beach).

I am very touched and grateful, and feel that Rita deserves at least a family size jar of Vegemite just for the offer!  (I'll sophisticate those American palates yet).  Yes, I do intend to make LA my point of entry into the States, and yes, after what I fear is probably an 18 hour flight from Melbourne it would be wonderful to be welcomed into the haven of the Catlady rather than stagger bleary and disoriented out of the airport in search of a cheap hotel to sleep off the worst of my jetlag.  There is only one problem... dirt and clutter are my native habitat (as a glance around my flat would demonstrate), but alas and alack, I am also violently allergic to cats! (I did mention this on-list once...)  It's very depressing.  I'm pretty fond of animals in general, but cats make me sneeze and itch and swell up.

There are, of course, measures which can be taken.  I've been a house guest at places with cats before, and so long as I have a thoroughly defelinated room to sleep in and don't pat them (which I occasionally do, in the hope that one day my allergy will miraculously disappear) or sit on surfaces where they've been shedding, I can cope, so long as I'm out of the house most of the time.  I've never tried the anti-histamine tablets and eye-drops option: might be worth a try.

I'll talk about this some more with Rita off-list, but if any listmembers have some magical cure for an allergy to cats (preferably permanent, but temporary would do for a start), feel free to let me know!

The Californian Catherine:
> Let us know what the touring plans will be.  If you make it as far as 
northern California, it would be fun to meet you.<

OK.  It really depends on how much money I manage to scrape together.  All recommendations from wise Americans about where I should go welcome!

So far (she says, mustering her somewhat vague knowledge of US geography), my budget plan is to land in LA in mid to late June or so, and spend maybe a week and a half in California, visiting Rita (I'll sort out this cat business yet) in LA, an old friend in Paolo Alto (sp?), taking a look around San Francisco (of which I have good reports) and hopefully making a trip north to visit Catherine!  (very interested to have a look at these medieval furnishings and things, and small seaside town sounds nice).

After that, I'll probably fly out of San Fran to St Louis for the conference (starts on the 29th), and then head east.  I'd like to sneak a look at the South, but may not have the money; I'll definitely drop in on NYC, though (more lovely HPFGU people to meet!).  Then hopefully up to Montreal to try out my French on the Canadians (always been curious about Montreal), and if I can, I'll slip in an LM Montgomery pigrimage to PEI.  Unless I strike it rich, I'll probably have to fly home from Montreal.

The Grand Santa-Claus-Drops-A-Sack-Of-Money-Down-My-Chimney option would cover more of the States and go elsewhere afterward.  A nibble of nature would be nice (Yellowstone?  Grand Canyon? My Friend Flicka pilgrimage to Wyoming to go horse-riding?), with maybe a detour via Minnesota, or the other way to Virginia.  I'd then hoist my sack over my shoulder and fly out of Montreal to Dublin (I've had this inexplicable Irish craving for the last couple of years), London (plus perhaps Cornwall), Berlin and Geneva, then home via Bangkok.  (is that sleigh bells I hear?)

On the subject of money, good news!  At least potentially.  My lovable American mentor who got me onto the conference CC'ed me this email to the organisers which waxes positively orchestral with 500 voice choir about my training skills, then whips out an entire string section to play accompanying tragic odes to my poverty ("she is just starting her career as an international consultant"...!) in an effort to convince them to give me a lavish grant to cover at least my airfare, registration fee and living expenses for the duration of the conference.  Here's hoping.  If they do this, I might have a real chance of doing the lavish round the world version, instead of the three weeks in the US budget version...

Oh yes, and good to hear that Celtic belt buckles are flourishing in California... (unsophisticated in palate, perhaps, but definitely beating Australia in the belt buckle department.  I've been keeping an eye out for years over here!) I'll see when I get there!

Christian:
> I suspect the significance of ANZAC for the Australians and New 
Zealanders lies not in the outcome of the campaign there.  As I 
recall, it was the first time that New Zealand and Australia were 
involved in any war of any noticeable scale, and they were involved 
in large numbers; large enough to be felt in the homelands<

Oh, no doubt, but it still made a wonderful way of introducing the tall poppy sundrome and Australian cultural cringe to my audience!  And it *is* very Australian.  We're typically a cynical people, with a well-known aversion to anything which could be remotely construed as self-promotion or pretension.  I'm endlessly amused when I see Russell Crowe out of context in America.  He's just too Australian to play the movie star properly!  Which reminds me: I once recommended the film "Proof" on-list, the one about the blind photographer.  Just thought I'd mention that this stars both Russell Crowe and Hugo Weaving (AKA Elrond) in their younger days!

storm:
> Funny ppl, anglo Australians, at once idolizing the English and 
dispizing them as wussy-poms. 

I devoted quite a bit of workshop time to exploring strange dualities like this in the Australian people.  Australians are both proud and ashamed of their lack of "class", as defined by the British.  On one hand there's a lot of bravado, much deliberation rejection of "refinement" (a friend of mine was subjected to jeers at her wankiness from her entire family for using the word "ajar"!), and authority figures, a lot of "we're rough around the edges and proud of it".  On the other, there's this terrible fear that maybe those snobbish Poms are right... maybe we are low-class and unrefined, and this is a bad thing.  You hear Australians holding forth deprecatingly on everything from their politicians to their home-made cars (buy this car: it's Fully Imported!), but let any foreigner even hint that there's anything wrong with Australia and they get very defensive indeed!  A lot of the Australian population still see a Southern English RP accent as the height of correctness and class, and look down on broad Australian accents (though less so among the young) as ugly and "bad English".

I taped examples off a few radio stations to illustrate this difference: the highbrow ABC classical broadcast had a pseudo-English accented presenter pontificating about opera; the Aussie Rules football broadcast used simple words in the broadest of Ocker accents, and had ad breaks where they sneered at people who've "been to a university".  The trendy educated young things' station had this young woman with a distinct Australian accent but sarcastically using a lot of flowery phrases and long words, as if to mock their pretension.

Tabouli (who had great fun with those workshops...)


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