Suburban Strangeness

(A few days ago)

Miro meets me on the steps of Sydney’s town hall, near the sign asking for the steps to be kept clear at all times, presumably in case of an emergency convening of the council. I missed seeing Miro again in Adelaide where I left him a month ago. He had then intended to travel down to Melbourne after a week, but found work renovating the hostel he was staying in and found that he rather liked the place after all – price of pizzas notwithstanding.
I apologize for missing our rendezvous in Adelaide but Miro is unoffended, in fact he seems to be completely thrilled regardless – as though missing our meeting was almost as much fun as meeting up. He has never been in Sydney before, so I hike him down to the circular quay so that he can get an eyeful of Sydney’s two most famous institutions. Duly impressed, we search out a bottle shop for a six-pack of beers – our ticket, we presume, to a party which Michaela has invited us to, somewhere out in the suburbs.
Michaela was on the same train as Miro and I from Darwin to Alice Springs, and spent six weeks in the latter defying everyone’s expectations by having a very good time indeed. In fact whilst Miro and I were mooning around Adelaide and Melbourne respectively, we were both the recipients of text messages from Alice Springs in which Michaela reeled off all the activities which were going on (the annual camel racing cup, the beanie festival – celebrating diversity with knitted hats and even the boat race along the dried up Todd River.) I had ran into her already since returning to Sydney and after informing me that she had heard from Miro that he was planning on making his way across to the city in time for my birthday, she invited us both to a party at her friends house.
Outside the tube station, a car honks its horn and Michaela waves from behind the wheel and a casual glance is enough to raise questions immediately.
“Is this a fancy dress party?” I ask, hesitantly.
Michaela is dressed in red, gold and black. Long skirt, apron and a slightly sheepish expression.
“Sort of,” she admits. “We’re having Octoberfest.”
“But it’s July.”
“It’s Octoberfest in July.” She says.
Costumes aside, this is not quite as outrageous as might be expected. It transpires from a nostalgia of Northern hemisphere Christmas traditions for one thing: some Australian’s opt for a “Christmas in July” where the weather is more suited to large, rich roast dinners and puddings rather than the scorching summer days of December. From there, the logic states, it is only a short jump to celebrate other events and activities around the same date. Hence, Octoberfest-in-July and hence the reason that Miro and I are the only men in the party not to be wearing lederhosen – not something, I’m sure I do not need to add, that was particularly embarrassing, although I did feel a little ashamed that the beer we had brought was the local Sydney variety and not something a little more German.
The party itself has been in full swing since two o’clock, and Miro and I seem to have timed our arrival just in time to for the pork roast. Plates of meat and vegetables are passed around, and our Australian beers are replaced with German ones.
Of course, as the alcohol flows and the light dims, the theme of the party begins to sink into the background and it becomes simply another group of people enjoying themselves, only with the cheerful bonus of the hilarity of the costumes (and the occasional interruption of German drinking songs on the jukebox) to keep the good humour buoyant.
It’s all good clean fun, it’s just a little strange. Miro seems to be having a great time. I leave early, but I later learn that he manages to get himself a date to the International SexPo exhibition the following day, after which I can only assume the sight of a bunch of grown men in lederhosen throwing pork crackling at each other would probably become sadly passé.