Last Monday, we had the day off to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's birthday. It is a holiday here, even though her birthday is actually in April. In fact, her birthday isn't even celebrated as a holiday in England; it's simply "observed" there, on a Saturday. But, in Australia the Queen is not to be forgotten...
As most of you know, something like 90% of Australians are of white European descent. The British sent boatloads of criminals to Australia in the 1700's. They (the British) are considered the "founding fathers" here (although the Aboriginals already inhabited the land.) "God Save the King/Queen" was sung as the National anthem until 1984. Queen Elizabeth is pictured on the $5 bill. Although the Prime Minister is recognized as Australia's dude in charge, the leader of the Commonwealth is actually appointed by the Queen herself.
Ok. Enough of politics. I put in these pictures of the money because I want you to see what is in my wallet (at least until Matt discovers I have cash, and swipes it.) The coins above are pictured much smaller than actual size. I can tell you that my purse is like 90 lbs because of these coins! And, I can't just toss the coins aside because, well, they add up to a lot of money!
I try to use up my coins by paying them to the kids for chores. So, their wallets are fat and heavy too. Except Zach. Zach's money is always spent before he earns it--he has a bit of a "habit" at school. I recently learned that he goes to the canteen (snack bar) for a TNT (sour popsicle) at morning tea AND lunch. He figured out how to do this all on his own. It's no easy task. It took me and Aubrye a couple of weeks to get up the courage to try ordering from the canteen--you have to place your order before school, with exact change, extensively labeled on a brown paper bag. Apparently the ladies didn't require this of Zach for his TNT...
Well, anyway, I have no point.
We were mostly glad to have the Queen's Birthday off so we could all recover from a rampant weekend somach flu. Blah.
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2 comments:
I love this post!
A glimpse at how life is the same there, yet different..
the one thing I remember about living in another country with different currency was how the "jingle" sound of the coins, in your pocket or in your coin purse, sounds very different from that of American coins. I could easily tell a pocket full of Thai coins from those of US coins just by the jingle.
and, way to go Zach! Jed has mastered the self-snack bar buying at Jack's baseball games this year. Its fun to watch from afar.
It's so good to hear news from down under again. As time goes on, I am missing it more and more! It's hot and humid in Texas, and we're thinking of you. Thinking of AUS a lot this week because for some reason, the toll tag we signed up for was apparently a visitor toll tag for ONLY the M7, not for all the toll roads like the guy I talked to when I called Roam told me. So we got a notice from Thrifty that we were being charged $35 per violation (and we had something like 60) for non-payment of tolls. It's been a few crazy nights of calling every toll road in AUS trying to sort this out. Grrr.
So think of me when you drive on the Lane Cove Tunnel!! Missing you.
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