On Friday, I walked into work in the rain. When I arrived, my building was locked shut for the Good Friday holiday. This was not a surprise to me. I had been warned. I took out my key card for access into the building. The surprise was that my key card didn't work. I know that in January it was set up to have access into the building, but I haven't ever tried to enter before on evenings or weekends. So maybe it was never set up correctly. In any case, it did not work.
I used the weak wireless signal that came through the windows to send emails to cancel my meetings with students in the US. Then walked home again. In the rain.
Just like on New Years Day, the city was shut down. Actually, maybe it was even more shut down than on New Years Day. The major grocery stores were all closed. The Melbourne Central mall across from the State Library of Victoria had one of its major entrances completely shut off. You could still get into the mall, and the train station in its basement, but only through the approved entrance that sent you in diagonally and around. Traffic was about as quiet as I have heard here, with trams gliding quietly around the empty streets on a Sunday schedule. The gates of the Botanic gardens were open, but the ANZAC Memorial was shut.
There was a gathering of people at a central church, with prayers and singing. But mostly people seemed to be away.
If Good Friday is such an important holiday, you ask, then can you imagine Easter?
On Easter, the grocery stores are open again. Yesterday, Jonathan and I walked past a museum which prominently announced it was open every day of the year except Christmas and Good Friday. So it's open again on Easter. Apparently Good Friday is a bigger holiday. That kind of makes sense, given that Easter is always on a Sunday. If you are going to have a holiday, make sure you get work off for it.
How does one celebrate Easter in Australia? At our church, announcements were advertising an Autumn Easter Dance for the young singles. The stores have been full of foil wrapped chocolate eggs. In spite of the fact that they are trying to kill rabbits to extinction in Australia[*footnote], the chocolate rabbit seems to be a staple of the day. And giant dressed up psycho rabbits appear in advertising photos.
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| (Easter bunny for hire, from http://www.dreamscape.net.au/entertainers/easter-bunny/) |
Jonathan announced after church that he was the only kid in his class who didn't start the day with an egg hunt. We spent the morning saying farewell to Marcus and Dawn, Tim's friends who have been visiting us in Melbourne since Wednesday. We had the chocolate, waiting in the fridge for Easter, but we didn't hide it before church. After church, Jonathan created his own egg hunt around our apartment. He's the kind of guy who would rather hide the eggs than find them anyway, at this point.
And that sums up our holiday. Hopefully. The university is still closed today, Easter Monday, so I still can't get in. I'll be working from home. Also, this is the last day of Jonathan's two-week fall break. So he'll be doing a few chores with me to get ready to go back to school tomorrow. And my fingers are crossed that everything will be back to normal tomorrow.
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[*footnote] While walking around Sydney, we spotted cut up carrots in a few places on our path. And near those carrots was a sign saying the carrots, untainted, were part of a rabbit elimination plan. Presumably, the rabbits get used to finding carrots in particular places, and regularly feed on them. In a few weeks, untainted carrots will be replaced with ones that are ... ? coated with? ... a deadly rabbit virus. Then the rabbits will eat the carrots, be infected with the disease, and all die. No more evil rabbits in Sydney. Germ warfare.
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