At the Races... well, not actually

So what do you get when you take the elegance of the Kentucky Derby and the abundant fanfare of the Super Bowl, and you stir them together in Australia?

You get the Melbourne Cup — "the race that stops a nation."

On the day of the Melbourne Cup, it is tradition to gather with friends, get dressed to the nines, and watch the race at some posh luncheon. Many people take the day off from work, and some companies are only open in the morning, but then hire a bus to take their employees to a pub or a hotel (the Aussie word for "casino") for lunch, drinks and to watch the race. In the U.S. this kind of event would be scheduled for a weekend, but not in Australia! Aussies enjoy their holidays. And the more holidays they have, the happier they are.

The horse race itself dates back to 1861, and being fashionable at the race was always a priority. After the centennial celebration, however, the Victoria Racing Club decided that they needed a way to attract more women to the race. So in 1962, they created the Fashions on the Field competition, and gave away prizes every year to the best-dressed women and to the woman wearing the most elegant hat. The prizes were impressive (the first year's grand prize was a Ford Falcon), and the competition started a media frenzy over the fashions worn to the race.

Over time, more and more people began to put their most fashionable foot forward on Race Day, whether they were in Melbourne or not. Naturally, you can't just sit at home alone to watch the race if you're wearing your finest attire. So, restaurants and hotels began selling tickets (anywhere from $50 to $250 p/p in Brisbane) to Race Day luncheons, complete with champagne and opportunities to bet on the race.

For my first Melbourne Cup, I decided to start small. A friend and I bought tickets to a luncheon at our kids' school. The luncheon was to be catered by the school's very talented chef, the wait staff would be high school students, and there would be a fashion show from a local boutique, as well as Year 11 and Prep ("kindergarten") students modeling fascinators that they made themselves. There was also going to be betting on the race, a raffle and a silent auction, with all proceeds going to a charity.

If you aren't sure what a fascinator is... it's a hair ornament that can range in size from a single flower to a small hat. The most infamous of these was probably the one worn by Princess Beatrice to William and Kate's wedding...

Even though the school's luncheon was to have only 80 attendees, I was still quite stressed about what to wear. I've always enjoyed experimenting with fashion, but fashion needed to take a backseat to comfort once kids entered the picture. (Sitting on the floor to play is not much fun in a pencil skirt and heels!) Also, I'm just not as cosmopolitan as the other school mums, many of whom are on their second or third international relocation. I'll admit; I was nervous about looking amateurish and out-dated in a room full of fashionistas.

I started shopping for the hat/fascinator first. And while I found one very reasonably priced that I loved, I decided to take the frugal route and wear a dress out of my closet rather than buy a new one. I added some bright pink shoes for a pop of color, and I painted my nails and lips to match. At the very last moment, I found a rose pin in my drawer that was the same shade of pink. I really liked the retro look I pulled together, but everything I read online about trends for this year's race said that I was WAY off base. Oh well! I did my best, and I stayed true to my own tastes.

After a couple weeks of trying to decipher the culture here — not sure whether racing fashion is super important and my "outdated" outfit would be a joke OR whether this whole fashion thing was a bunch of media hype and I would be overdressed for a school luncheon — yesterday was finally Race Day. It was a crazy morning. We had no hot water in the house. I spent a chunk of the morning heating water on the stove for the tub (so I could shave without goosebumps!), while simultaneously making numerous phone calls to get someone to fix the water heater. By the time I got the water heater issue squared away, I was running late. Driving there was a challenge. I took my car seat as low as it would go, so that I could drive without knocking over the hat that was precariously pinned into my hair. I laughed the whole way there at the thought of myself "low-ridin'" in my 1950s finest!

Once there, everything was fine. The lunch was delightful, and we were seated with some other mums we knew. We also had a few new faces at the table, and they were a riot! The fashion shows were lovely, and the Prep students were beyond adorable as they modeled the fascinators they made out of paper plates and rainbow-colored feathers.

There was no way for me to be in a group shot with that hat! I was either blocking someone or my face was hidden — hence my weird slouched pose.

My horse was in third place for the first two minutes of the race — not a good sign. In the end, he finished 20th (out of 22). At the end of the luncheon, they raffled off some lovely prizes, but I barely paid attention to the ticket numbers they called out. If there's such a thing as a person having more luck or less luck than another person, then I would be one of those with less luck. (Or all my luck went towards finding an amazing husband... and that's alright by me!!)

After the prizes were handed out, they announced it was time for the fashion awards. Huh?? No one said there would be fashion awards here too! I couldn't wait to see who would win. I enjoyed the luncheon and the lovely company immensely, and I want to attend again next year. A fashion competition sounds fun, so I needed to take mental notes about what it takes to win!

There were four prizes awarded — Best Male Attire, Most Elegant Fascinator, Most Creative Fascinator, and Best Overall Outfit. My friend Catherine (pictured above, third from the left) won Most Elegant Fascinator, for her beautiful fascinator made by a local milliner using pheasant feathers. I was so happy for her! I was also quite happy for the winner of Best Overall Outfit... she was awarded a lovely bottle of sparkling wine!

Do I? Or Don't I?

I'm not sure how much of a melting pot the US is anymore. Living in Ohio my whole life, it wasn't often that I'd run into people who had just arrived from another country. Sure, there were certain places around town where I would hear people with thick, new-to-America accents. But it was usually just the same 2 or 3 accents. My guess is that large coastal cities like New York, LA and Miami are still rich with a renewing supply of the world's citizens, but those places (for other reasons) have never enticed me to visit them. (Can you believe that I have been in 41 of the 50 states, but I've never even stepped foot in Florida?)

Anyway, our experience is that Australia is quite the melting pot. (For a short read on Australian population growth from immigration, follow this link.) Here in Brisbane, it is very difficult to find a person who was born and raised in Brisbane. Relatively speaking, even meeting a native Queenslander is a tad on the rare side. Although I have to admit that my experience is skewed because my kids go to a school that caters to expat children, and I attend a monthly luncheon for women who've recently relocated to Queensland. (Around the table are women from France, Germany, England, India, New Zealand, Denmark, Korea, South Africa — it's all so fascinating to me!) Still, when I'm out and about, if I hear an accent that I don't recognize, I love to ask where the person is from.

Some of the accents are immediately apparent to me, and there is no reason to ask from where the person originates. For example, there is a mother at school whose Scottish brogue is as lovely as her long, strawberry-blonde hair.

But there are other accents, more complicated accents, that drive me a bit bonkers. I'll listen closely and hear familiar tones, but I can't make it fit into just one country. Taking another example from school, there is one mom where I have tried for three months now to figure out her accent. Finally, I gave in and asked her this week. She was born in South Africa to parents who were newly moved there from Greece. They spoke Greek at home. But then she spent nearly 20 years living in England. She also admitted to me that she actually works on her accent when she moves, trying to adapt it to her new country.

Hybrid accents like that school mom's are something that we encounter quite often. There are Indian people who attended university in England. There are Japanese people who've lived and worked in Germany. I get to hear so many fascinating life stories with just six little words: "That accent... where are you from?"

One thing that surprised us when we moved here was the large variety of accents from Aussies. Which when you think about it, it shouldn't have been surprising at all. Australia is almost the same size as the US, and just think of all the different accents there — New York, Boston, New Orleans, Texas, South Carolina, Chicago, Minnesota, So Cal, etc.

The purple overlay is Australia. It usually looks smaller on a map, don't you think?

I'm not the only person here who's striking up conversations with strangers over their accents. I often get asked about my own accent. Half the time, however, people will take a guess as to where I'm from. And of those guesses, 9 out of 10 times the person will say, "Are you from Canada?"

Truth be told, this is not the first time in my life I've been mistaken for a Canadian. The first time was back in high school. A friend's mother was driving a group of us girls to a football game. This was to be the first of many football games that she chauffeured a van full of us girls to. She interrupted the teen-girl banter (which I'm sure was loud, giggly, and with everyone talking at once) to ask if I was from Canada. Canada? Me? Really? I was born and raised in the same city as she was, but to her I sounded Canadian.

This question puzzled me a great deal, until I realized that it was quite possible that I did sound Canadian. I watched A LOT of TV as a kid. Our neighborhood was a bit rough, so we didn't venture out often. One of my favorite shows, and I mean FAVORITE shows, was a ridiculous program on Nickelodeon called "You Can't Do That On Television." It was like Laugh-In for kids and pre-teens, it was purely stupid, and I sat and watched it every single time it was on. The show was produced in Canada, and all the actors had Canadian accents...

As Adrian can attest, I'm one who adopts an accent quickly. A dear friend of mine has a Minnesotan accent. She's not from Minnesota, but the accent became a part of her during college. She and I are like accent sponges — one of the many things that we have in common and that make me love her dearly. Well, Adrian knows, knows without asking, if I have spoken on the phone to this friend. The "you betcha" and the looong long-o's that escape my mouth for the rest of the evening are a dead giveaway.

So... do I sound Canadian or don't I? If this friend has kept her accent since college, perhaps my TV-induced Canadian accent has remained with me since the '80s. It's possible. And I've had so many people here ask me if I hail from Canada. Heck, I've even had a Canadian ask me if I'm Canadian!! I figured that's pretty conclusive evidence right there. I must still have a Canadian accent, eh?

Or... maybe not. This week I was having a conversation with a repair man at the house (Aussies would call him a "tradesman"), and he asked if I was Canadian. I explained that I'm from the States but that I get asked a lot if I'm Canadian. Rather than recount my childhood television-watching habits, I started to explain that I grew up right across the lake from Canada. Being British, he cut me off before I could finish my sentence — Brits have no tolerance for people rambling on about themselves. He interrupted me to say that he was pretty certain I was from the US, but didn't want to risk offending me because "Canadians get so offended when you ask if they're from the States."

Huh? Offended? Interesting... I'm going to have to pick the brains of the next Canadians I meet. I want to learn more about this.