Watching the Winter Olympics on a summer day in Melbourne

Four years ago I wrote a very short post about how surreal it felt to be watching the Winter Olympics from Australia in the heat of the summer.

This year, four years later, it doesn't seem as surreal. I am a little more used to our upside down seasons. I don't see the snow covered mountains on the television and think that snowy mountains look like home. That's not what my home looks like anymore. Then, Australia was temporary and exotic and strange. Now, Australia is home, and the snowy mountains are more exotic. Although Home becomes a complicated thing when you speak with an accent and live a life that doesn't quite fit anywhere in the world.

But Olympics. I know a little more about figure skating this year than I did four years ago. I can't quite tell the difference between a loop and a lutz, but I can spot the difference between a double and a triple, if not a triple and a quad. I know if the leg is in the air with body sideways it is a camel spin, and if the support leg is deeply bent it is a sit spin. I sit on the couch and watch the fancy footwork and tell Jonathan that he should do that because it's Amazing! And he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Neither he nor I are really willing to put in the time to be an Olympic athlete.

On the television, the commentators' breath frosts and the snow flies around the athletes. In our living room, a breeze blows from the outside, whirling in seeds and dust. I hear the sound of a leaf blower, and I smell freshly cut grass. We turn off the television during the ski jumping, and I put on a light jacket as we walk up the boulevard to the White Night summer event in the city centre. Art and light and fireworks, and my jacket is actually a little too warm for a summer evening. We come back and the skeleton is on, women hurtling themselves face first down an icy track. Such a strange sport, I think as I change into summer pajamas, and open the window a little wider to let in the cool night air.

Australia has won fifteen medals in the Winter Olympics ever. For some perspective, Germany has already won seventeen medals just this year. Norway twenty-two. The Aussie announcers proudly point out that although our medal numbers look small, we are still the only country in the Southern Hemisphere to have received medals so far. And then the local athlete, who actually lives and trains in Park City Utah, comes on in an advertisement for Swiss multivitamins.

I take it back. Watching the Winter Olympics from Australia is still surreal.