Thanksgiving came and went here yesterday without much fanfare. Just another work day. We had a ham dinner at the pub - which is the only place in town that serves food after 8PM. We'll probably have something a bit more traditional tonight (Friday) to go along with the U.S. holiday. 

But all eyes here are on the Australian election tomorrow. Kevin Rudd seems to have a strong lead. He's Labor Party or what those in the states would call a 'democrat'. The Liberal Party here is John Howard and would be what would be called a 'republican' in America. 

Howard has made some pretty bold moves in the last month, but 80% of it is pure financial bribery to get re-elected. Most people are genuinely tired of him. If he comes out on top, it's going to be expensive to make good on all the financial promises he  has made. His main argument for staying in power sounds reminiscent of Bush in 2004. Stay the course - you are a fool if you want to change horses in the middle of a stream.

Well, yes - valid point. But I personally think it's OK to jump off a horse in the middle of a stream if in fact you had no intention of being in the stream in the first place, and the durn fool horse just decided (against all better judgement) to go swimming in flood currents. 

We were warned not to expect much - that Halloween is an 'American' holiday that just isn't practiced here.

The numbers tell a different story.

As far as children are concerned, it was about 97% participation. We had 30-40 visitors at the door, which accounts for every kid in the neighborhood except for 1 girl across the street who didn't join in.

As far as adults are concerned, the participation rate was about half. Many folks had the TV on in the living room, but didn't come to the door. Couldn't be bothered. Of the half that participated, it was quite common of them to run out of lollies (candy). It's a new neighborhood, and they probably expected about a dozen kids, which is what we were told the youth population was a year ago.

Now I took a group of my daughter's friends around the block - six in all. Five had never done Halloween before. Upon knowing this fact, I didn't expect much, but there were kids in costume everywhere. It was quite funny that these girls were more concerned with their costumes and various wardrobe malfunctions than they were about getting to the next house. It took 45 minutes to get through one little cul-de-sac of about 10 houses, and almost an hour to get down the next side street. Obviously amateurs. We saw some teen-age boys that had it down - they came back around probably three times before we finally shooed them away at 9:30. I'm sure they covered the entire east side of town - because if I was their age, I would've been one of them.

So to say Halloween isn't really practiced here isn't entirely true. It has a solid foothold, and with such high children participation rates,  it's only a matter of time.