easter weekend, superheroes, and royals.

We hope everyone had a great spring holiday celebration last week! Ben and I finally returned to Melbourne a few days before Easter, and even though we've been enjoying our travel opportunities, it's good to be home again. 

Australia isn't a super religious country, so we were surprised to discover that Good Friday is a much more significant public holiday than Easter. Almost everything is closed on Good Friday, including the grocery store, so it's a great day to stay in with family. And eat hot cross buns, apparently. I always thought "hot cross buns" was just a simple tune for schoolchildren to butcher with their plastic recorders - but they're a real thing, and it's very traditional to have these on Good Friday in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Canada. They are heavily advertised at groceries for the occasion, so we decided to take some home to enjoy. They taste like raisin bread.

"one a penny two a penny..."

Easter in Australia is mostly celebrated with egg hunting activities for children, pretty chocolate treats sold at stores, and public areas decorated with spring-themed adornments (which is weird, because we're now heading into the autumn season). The Easter bunny is kind of a sore subject around here, though. Ironically, rabbits - which are not a native animal - are a serious pest in Australia, doing a lot of damage to the land. It all started in 1859, when English settler Thomas Austin released 24 of his imported rabbits onto his private property for hunting purposes. Others followed suit, thinking that a few rabbits couldn't do much harm, but they underestimated their furry friends. The Australian climate was perfect for breeding all year round, and nothing could control the increasing numbers - a decade later, even trapping 2 million a year hardly made a dent in the overall population. Aussies have tried all sorts of methods for reducing rabbits (even releasing a virus in the 50's), but they still remain an invasive species to this day. 

In the late 70's, Australians began attempting to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby, an endangered Australian mammal - mostly to raise awareness about Australia's struggles with maintaining native wildlife. We haven't seen any chocolate Easter Bilbies, but I'm sure they're just as delicious.

Anyway, we're also heading into my favourite time of the year: superhero movie season! On a fun international note, one scene from Captain America: The Winter Soldier includes a list of pop culture references that Steve Rogers missed out on during his frozen hibernation. The list is different in each country, so we got to see a few fun Australian references (including "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo" and "Tim Tams"). And last week, we saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro - which hasn't even come out in the States yet! I feel soooo special. It was much better than the first of the reboot series, but still doesn't hold a candle to the original Spider-Man 2 movie (and I will reluctantly say that Andrew Garfield makes a better Spider-Man... BUT Tobey Maguire is a better Peter Parker, okay?).

Also, I'm way too excited for X-Men: Days of Future Past, and we just found out that our favourite Melbourne cinema is hosting the Australian premiere, which will be attended by THE Hugh Jackman himself..!! Ben thinks he'll be working out of town then, but I'm pretty sure this is something that I need to cross off my actual bucket list regardless. We'll see...

And finally, it's an exciting time to be down under, as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka Will and Kate) are currently wrapping up their official Royal Australian Tour! Unfortunately, Melbourne was not one of the lucky cities to welcome the royals, but every local news station has been frantically showing nonstop live footage of their daily activities (lots of hand-shaking, waving, stepping in and out of vehicles - very intense). I don't really keep up to date with the royal family, but it's fun to see how excited everyone is. And little Prince George, what an adorable baby!

CK