Yesterday afternoon Bob, Cyndi, and I went to see Fiji lose in the last moments to a boring Scotland team, which now advances to the quarterfinals, while the exciting Fiji side goes home. The game was fine, and the whole scene was something quite different from the American model, in subtle ways. A Scottish bagpipe band was playing outside the stadium when we arrived. Many men in kilts paraded by. It was a sunny afternoon and we had a good time, after driving up from Canberra, mostly on the highway, but through the countryside at times, so Cyndi could keep an eye out for birds and other wildlife.
After the game we drove on to Manly, a beach suburb of Sydney, across the harbour from the city, named for characteristics of the local indigenous people, according to the British colonists' way of seeing them. It's an ultimate spot for middleclass hedonists, modeled in some ways on the English, Brighton model, but with a much loser feel to it, thanks to the Australian attribute of presumption of being a fortunate people, given to sun and, judging by the style of the crowds milling about on the beach, wharf area, and esplanades, easily given to the pleasures of the flesh, much of which is constantly on view.
We walked over a short way to the cricket stadium, where the local city council had set up a huge video screen so the people of Manly, plus international visitors here for the Rugby World Cup, could watch the Ireland vs. Australia game. A sizable crowd was splayed all over the oval and in the stands, cheering the virtual. The mob consisted in good part of drunken rugby fans, tossing back cans of beer on sale there, and then leaving the cans wherever they stood. But another large proportion of the crowd was teenagers - on dates or in bunches. It must just be my age and rearing, but the sight of so many bared and/or tattooed belly buttons, backs, arms, and chests constantly surprises me. I presume it would horrify many of the young ladies' parents, too, if they saw what they went out in. Whatever...
We stopped on the way back, on the Corso, an esplanade through the middle of Manly, to admire the "flying foxes," a variety of fruit bat as large as seagulls, disporting on and about the fig trees, screeching at each other in objection to pilfered fruit, or stolen favorite boughs. They flew just overhead, but no-one other than us, and perhaps two other tourists, paid them any heed, at all. They come into Sydney suburbs each evening in huge flotillas from bushland not far away, moving through the air eerily soundless and light on trees, weighing down the branches almost to the ground.