And honestly, the difference between the two couldn't have been more marked. Also, being at Glenelg on Australia Day reminded me of exactly why I don't go anywhere near Glenelg on Australia Day.
Part of the problem is that in my head it's not really Australia Day until Monday (actually, to be honest, it's never actually Australia Day in my head) which is when the public holiday is.
Which was my own fault for not actually booking the car in. But it's not like I have to do a ton of driving... so it will keep until next weekend.
I was also a little disappointed that the Bakers Delight we go to on Saturday didn't have any of the free mini Cheesymite Scrolls. Although I can't really complain too much, since we made out like bandits with free stuff today... we dropped into two other Bakers Delight stores and picked up two lots of Cheesymites, and two sets of random wandering product girlies gave us a pack of apple slices at Brighton and Roadies crackers at Glenelg, plus we got free aoli at lunch and the usual sample chocolate at Haighs.
So I'm not complaining too much.
You would think that bank staff would be used to seeing people rock up with a large amount of coins... but clearly not, because they always look surprised when I rock up with a bag whose weight is clearly disproportionate to it's contents.
And even more so once I start unloading the forty or more baggies full of coins.
After they'd counted out the money (actually, they just weigh it, then count the bags) and Ma asked for a yellow plastic pig money box (cute, although I don't know why they have a pig) and we headed down to Brighton to check out the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures.
Which perhaps wasn't as exciting as it sounds since the ages of the competitors fell into one of two camps... "too old to be interesting" (also known as "please stop tanning and wearing Speedos in public") and "kids".
Although there was some eye candy around.
But, er... yeah... sculptures... the reason we were there...
Which is both good and bad... good because it made the sculptures more attractive to photograph, but bad because due to it being kinda cloudy when we left my place, I didn't bother taking a hat and didn't bother changing into my shorts.
Both of these things would have made my day better. Especially the hat thing... since I think the top of my head is already sunburned from walking home, so my scalp is currently saturated with aloe vera After Sun Spray.
It sounds completely counter-intuitive, but with the telephoto lens I can stand way, way, way back from the sculptures and photograph around the people standing in the way much more easily than I can with a regular lens. And it has an awesomely shallow depth of field when I extend it out, so that always works well with sculptures.
Plus it helps with stalking the beachside hotnesses...
I still think that some of the placement of sculptures isn't quite right, and from a photography standpoint I wish they wouldn't even bother putting them around the surf club, since they're generally much harder to photograph.
We also managed to pick exactly the wrong time to check out the sculptures inside the surf club itself, since not only were there a bunch of other people doing the same thing at the time, but they were also presenting the prizes from the surf carnival.
I've been wanting to try the burgers from Relish'd (seriously guys, you need to make that URL on your window actually point to a website) since late last year... and since we were just down the road, it seemed like a good idea.
It turned out to be a pretty good plan before we even got our food because even though it was 12:30 or so when we got there, there was only one other person in the place.
Although it was as messy as hell too eat, and the burger did fall apart a little bit (I'm actually taking that as a good thing because it means that the patty isn't compacted to all hell or bound together with any extra ingredients), the whole thing was incredibly tasty. The bun is incredibly light and you don't feel like you're biting through a mattress to get to the burger.
And the chips... big fat, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, chips... mmmmm!
Even Ma said that they were the best chips she's had in a good long while, and she grew up in a fish and chip shop. So she knows good chips.
We will definitely be going back!
I don't know whether it says more about me or about Australia or about Australia Day specifically or about our relationship with the flag, but pretty much any time I see anybody wearing the flag, mostly as a cape, but any item of clothing really, I automatically assume that they're pretty much a bogan or else a little bit racist.
The same kind of goes for people who fly Australia flags on their car on Australia Day... the record today I think was four flags (one on each window).
Like I said though, that could just be me and the fact that I generally don't go anywhere that there is going to be a large number of people celebrating on Australia Day... and certainly not to somewhere as full on as Glenelg.
In fact, the last time I even mentioned what I did on Australia Day was in 2010, so I'm pretty sure I've just holed up in my apartment watching videos for the last couple of years.
And it seemed like every other person was carrying/laying on/in possession of a giant inflatable thong, which was complete weird and random until we worked out that it was for the Havaianas Thong Challenge.
Although as it turns out Glenelg only had 448 of them (whereas Cottesloe in Perth had 2093, which would have been a hell of a thing to see).
On the way we went past the McDonalds on Anzac Highway which had it's big sign changed to "Macca's", and I actually kinda like it... I know they're not permanently going to change the name on everything, but I love to see those big signs stay as "Macca's" all year round.
So that was my Australia Day... completely atypical, but enjoyable all the same.
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