Tele time

So, I have to admit, we’ve been watching a fair bit of television, or tele (pronounced tell-e) as they call it here. Our granny flat has a TV, and although it only gets about 4 channels, they’re actually fairly decent. And, we can’t help but watch the Olympics. That’s one of the great things about Aussie television—they show a lot of high-profile events on free broadcast channels.

It is a new experience, however, watching the Olympics from a different country. Of course they focus more on the athletes from Australia, but it seems like they are perhaps a little bit obsessed with the nationality of the athletes. We really noticed it yesterday during the 1000m speed skating final. The woman who won the race was born in Australia, but has lived in Canada for many years, and was racing for Canada. However, several times during the race, the Australian television announcer would say things like, “It doesn’t matter where you’ve gone, it only matters where you come from, and she’s from Australia.” It was a little bit goofy, but I suppose when you’ve only won four gold medals in the winter Olympics, you’re happy to have whatever connection to an Olympic gold medalist that you can get.

As many of you perhaps know, Australian Torah Bright did win a gold medal in the snowboard half-pipe, and the whole country is just thrilled. In fact, her face is going to be put on a stamp. The newscaster this morning said, “I reckon that’s the only way her competitors will be able to lick ‘er.” Oh gosh. In a strange sort of way, I feel a little bit bad for the US gold medalists—I’m sure they’re overjoyed to win a gold medal, but most of them probably will never have the same kind of fame and attention that Australian gold medalists receive. Unless you’re a superstar like Michael Phelps or Shaun White, I suppose.

Speaking of Shaun White, we felt quite proud of ourselves the other night when we were listening to them interview the flying tuh-mah-toe (not toe-may-toe). He said that the Australians called him ‘blueie’. We were trying to figure out how he got that nickname, and then we remembered that they like to give people nicknames that are the opposite of whatever obvious physical characteristics they may have. For example, if you were really small, they would call you jumbo. For red heads, they often call them ‘blue’ because I guess blue is the opposite of red. Anyways, we are fairly confident that this is where Shaun White’s Australian nickname comes from, and figuring it out made us feel like we’re starting to pick up on some Australian-isms.

One Australian thing we’ll perhaps never get used to, or tired of, are their commercials. There is one commercial in particular that I just can’t believe they air on TV. The ad is for diapers with extra carrying capacity for “poo explosions, or number threes, as we politely like to call them”. Are you serious? Poo explosions? Number threes? On TV? Anyways, it always gives me a good chuckle.

The other show that we’ve actually started to watch weekly is My Kitchen Rules, which is a cooking competition between couples from the different states. There’s probably some equivalent in the US, but I don’t watch these sorts of shows at home. I’m not too sure why we’re watching this one here—it’s got the same dramatic judging, with contestants nearly avoiding catastrophe at every turn. Yet, somehow, we’re enjoying the show. The best part is when the contestants from South Australia (that’s the state we’re living in) go shopping. They always go to the Central Market in Adelaide, and that’s where we do a lot of our shopping. It’s fun to see them picking out food from the same stalls we do—of course the food they make looks way tastier than ours.

Speaking of TV, the Olympics are now on again, and so I’m heading back to watch Torah Bright’s gold winning run for the 57th time. The funniest part is the Australian snowboard commentator. When he yells, if you’re just listening, you’re sure that the athlete has just messed up royally. But, in fact, he just yells, “Ohhhhhhh” after every jump, and then says things like, “Torah Bright has gone smack!” We’re not sure what that means precisely, but we’re hoping we’ll have a chance to go smack while we’re here. In the meantime, Dave keeps hoping that they’ll show biathlon or cross-country skiing, but since there are probably only 3 cross-country skiers in all of Australia, chances aren’t great. Besides, why would you show another sport when you can show Torah Bright’s big back side alley-oop inverted flip 15 times in a row?