Caniculares

The dog days of summer are truly upon us in Australia. Temperatures have been soaring across the country but relief is in sight. However, because of the heat certain horse races have been abandoned and if that happens, you know it's pretty serious. Australians love to gamble and only the most serious of events will prove to be impediments.

If you've ever wondered why the hottest days of summer are called the "dog days", the story goes something like this. The expression "dog days" is a literal translation of the Latin word "caniculares". In ancient times the star Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens and the constellation Canis Major (Big Dog), hence its name the "Dog Star", would be seen just before sunrise in mid-summer. These were, in the ancient Mediterranean, the hottest days of the year and even the name "Sirius" means "Scorcher". The arrival of the Dog Star just before sunrise heralded the onset of these hot days, hence the "dog days of summer". With the passing of the millennia, Sirius no longer rises just before sunrise in summer so the term does not apply to modern times but the expression has held. The Ukrainian/Russian word for holidays, "kanikuly" (kah-NEE-koo-lyh), is a transliteration of the Latin.

This week has been very hot indeed and temperatures in Canberra soared to 40C today and will do so again tomorrow. In Melbourne, the mercury topped off at 47C which I believe is a record. In Victoria (VIC) it's the hottest it's been in 100 years in terms of consecutive days above 40C while South Australia (SA) has seen its hottest summer since records started in 1855. It's not easy working in these temperatures at all, let alone in front of a pizza oven. Speaking of which, there hasn't been much business over the last few weekends at Cafe Pronto, which can probably be attributed to the heat. Today, for instance, I made a total of 2 pizzas and we closed the restaurant at 20:00. The heat will break soon though as a cool trough is expected to roar into the area in the next few days bringing temperatures back into the mid-20s. I am sort of glad at these high temperatures because I really want to experience the brutal Australian summer and it looks like I got what I wished for.

The story at ACTTAB is a little different and I've been quite busy in the last week, getting some 5 shifts in, where 3 is the norm. Today was particularly busy at the City Centre location, but I'll say why a little further on. On Friday, I was at the racecourse again and luckily I was placed in the public lounge. This meant that I got to see the races and stay cool as the air conditioning was on at full bore; others in other areas weren't so lucky. While on this subject, a few days before while biking to work at the Dickson location, I spotted and picked up a $50 note on the sidewalk. I hope it's an omen of good fortune.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but I'll put a quick note in now that I've been observing my old neighbourhood via the City of Ottawa's traffic webcams. In an instant I can be looking at the corner of Walkley and Conroy and seeing all that magnificent snow. For a brief moment, I imagine that I can travel through to the other side.

On Monday I sat down to watch the Superbowl live. Fenner Hall subscribes to the sports package on TV and so I continued my tradition of watching Superbowls live; I've watched every one since 1991. I was cheering for the Arizona Cardinals because they had never won it before, they were the underdog, my uncle lives in Tucson and the punter is a former AFL player for the Geelong Cats. I watched intently, even making myself some nachos, and I could not believe their bad luck. I had to leave for work at halftime but ACTTAB also had it on their TV. Arizona almost pulled off a stunning victory but were outdone by the Steelers. It's a shame, but that's the way it goes in sports, I guess, and it was an exciting game.

On Tuesday, having some time off, I biked to the National Museum of Australia (NMA) to have a look. It's quite a modern building sitting on a peninsula in Lake Burley Griffin and it is fairly new. The great thing is that the permanent exhibitions are free but temporary ones do require a ticket purchase. The current exhibition on tour was one about Charles Darwin, since I think its 200 years since he was born. The cost was $8.00 so I took the opportunity to visit it. The NMA reminds me a bit of the Museum of Civilization back home in its content. It was the usual Australiana through the centuries with a particular emphasis on indigenous Australians. There was even a rotating theater like the one in the Sydney Tower. The exhibits were interesting but nothing out of the ordinary.

The Charles Darwin exhibit was quite interesting too; it's on loan from the American Natural History Museum, I think. It detailed Darwin's life and his observations which led, after some 20 years, to the publication of The Origin of Species; my brother brought a copy with him to read in Australia. There was also explanations of evolution and how it works and how all species are related. As a side note, Darwin never did use the term "survival of the fittest" anywhere in the Origin of Species as that term was coined by another scientist. Also, that book never said that humans were descended from apes except as a passing reference, but everyone latched on to that idea. Finally, it wasn't even Darwin's most commercially successful book. One he published about worms fared much better. I will mention one last misconception some people have about human evolution and that is that we are descended from apes, which is not factually accurate. Apes, humans and all other primates descend from a common ancestor. It's like you and an older sibling. You are not descended from your older sibling, but from a common parent. I think that's the best way to describe it.

I mentioned that the City Centre ACTTAB was particularly busy today and that was because of the start of the Multicultural Festival. It's also the reason why Cafe Pronto was so dead today as well. The heat could not deter hundreds of people from sampling cuisine from various tents in Garema Place set up to showcase Canberra's ethnic diversity. Somehow, "cosmopolitan" has become an adjective that cities relish to have and take as a compliment. I went out, in the fantastic heat, and had some Dutch pancakes with a funny name. They are small and covered with apple, cinnamon and ice cream; you can have them covered with a few other things if you want. The official opening was today and it goes for a week, I think; I can't wait to sink my teeth into cuisine from half the world.

Quietly, and almost unnoticed by me, another anniversary passed. 02:00 on February 5th marked 1 year since I left home; I left Ottawa at 10:00 February 4th. It's been more than 365 days since I've been in Canada and it doesn't look like I'll be going any time soon. It's a strange, but comforting, feeling that I can't really explain. I wonder how long it will be before I get back to Canada? But then, I'm in no rush.