Halloween Aussie Style

Australians don't really celebrate Halloween.  Some do, but as a country, Halloween is not a widely celebrated holiday and has only gained popularity in the past few years.  So what are the Americans to do?

#1. Jack-o-lanterns - There aren't many jack-o-lantern type pumpkins sold in the stores here, so I bought a nice, round watermelon to carve.  This was actually a better idea than I thought.  I wasn't gagging over the removal and smell of the pumpkin guts and we have lovely fruit to eat. It was a much easier item to carve too! An extra bonus was Dracula looks a little bloody thanks to the red flesh.

#2.  Costumes - There are very few costumes in very few stores. Fortunately, the girls' school had a free-dress day on the 31st with the theme of "beauty and the geek." Voila!  I have one Beauty and one Geek made almost entirely of things they had in the closets.

#3. Candy - ....or lollies as they're called here are sold in tiny bags.  Unfortunately for me we don't have a Costco (however one will be built by the fall of 2014), so there are no ginormous bags of mixed goodness.

 

#4. Trick-or-treating -  This Halloween tradition is getting more and more popular and on some streets in some neighborhoods there are balloons that are passed out with a note explaining the event.  If you are going to pass out candy, all you have to do is blow up the balloon and put it on your mailbox.  This didn't happen on our street.  I purchased some candy and for the first time ever we did not have one trick-or-treater. Maybe we will have to pass out notes to our street next year.

#5.  October Weather - Now that we are headed toward summer, it is getting quite warm and muggy here.  It is really hard to get in the holiday spirit without the hay bales and falling leaves.  Since pumpkin lattes aren't in the cards (and they are not even sold here) I thought would make a delicious watermelon-lime slushy with all of the watermelon we scooped out of our dracu-lantern.  Mmmmmm....it was quite tasty! 

Because I didn't know if any neighbors would be equipped with candy for door-to-door visits, I took Anna and Ashleigh across town to the Bulimba Hocus-Pocus Halloween festival to meet up with some friends.

 A little fairy floss (aka cotton candy), some lollies, and what seemed like hundreds of kids in costume made it feel more like Halloween.

River Fire

In September Brisbane hosts a month long arts festival and on its closing night they put on a fireworks event known as Riverfire.  We really had no idea what we were in for, since many of the locals I asked haven't ever braved the crowds to see it first hand, but at the last minute we were invited to an apartment on the 47th floor of a downtown building and hoped for the best.

The afternoon kicked off with Super Hornet fighter jets doing fly-bys and SRH Tigers and Blackhawk helicopters putting on aerial displays.  Both were quite impressive, but the jets flying through downtown were awesome and LOUD.

The location of the main viewing point and festivities was on the other side of the river and our view was partially blocked by buildings, so I was a bit worried.  However, the fireworks were shot from multiple points on the river, the Story Bridge, and the tops of many buildings so it seemed like no matter where I looked I saw the show.

I guess I also need to tell you that this was my first attempt to properly photograph fireworks and I know I didn't get it right.  However I tried to adjust my settings during the show and it was either this or all black, so I went with it.

 

 

The show went on and on. I can't even imagine how many fireworks were set off that night.

 

 

 

 

It was a spectacular fireworks show and fun crowd!  Looking forward to it again next year!