Melbourne Cup-Australia unofficial public holiday
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2004
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15
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Trip End
Aug 31, 2007
Sydney - Everywhere in Australia , it's the same !,
Australia
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Melbourne Cup Day is Australia's most famous Tuesday. At 3.00pm AEST, on the first Tuesday in November, Australians everywhere stop for one of the world's most famous horse races - the Melbourne Cup.
It is a day when the nation stops whatever it's doing to listen to the race call, or watch the race on TV. Even those who don't usually bet, try their luck with a small wager or entry into a 'sweep'. A sweep is a lottery in which each ticket-holder is matched with a randomly drawn horse and prize money is paid out to the first three places plus a 'consolation prize' for the horse that runs last
Horce race
.Well from a waitress point of view, I have to admit that it was really good fun. Our restaurant on Darling Harbour was booked out for the occasion even if the menu was a set menu at 75$ ! At 12.00am the first customers started to arrive and I discovered that all the ladies were wearing hats. The outfit were actually very impressing. Couples most of the time were wearing matching-colors outfits. Some hats were very original and the lady who won the contest of the most original hat was wearing a hat with a piece of cheese shape, funny thing.
The gentlemen also had their contest as there was the most-beautiful-tie contest as well. No need to say that it wasn't a common day but more a funny day at work where people can pretend once a year that they are wealthy and very posh !
As I already mentioned above at 3.00pm, the entire Australia froze for a 4 minute-horse race (as everybody has bet) and in the restaurant even the staff stopped serving, the kitchen came out and we all stopped working to watch the race. People started to shout the name of their horses and the favorites didn't really make it this year.
We had a glass of champagne after that and went back to work. Customers got very drunk, drinking in the sun from 12.00am until almost 6.00pm.
My first Melbourne cup was a good experience !
C.
PS: As Caro said above, the day was a big event. We didn't dress up because we left our cocktail dresses in London anyway but we celebrated it as well... A night at the Star Bar with Paul, Brian, Isabelle just arrived from France and Radec, let's say that one of us had way too much wine and got a bit sick! ha ha ha
