Tuesday, August 15, 2006

On the Beach


Not literally, unfortunately, commitments have kept me in the city. However, I was thinking of the movie of the same name and especially the final scenes where the streets of Sidney are uncannily empty.

Most of the people here in the neighbourhood have fled the city for the nearest beaches or else to visit family in their village of origin, leaving the place with a very eerie feel. Today everyone is celebrating The feast of the Assumption, at least that what I think it is in English, which is also a national holiday.

Even here in the centre there is a strange absence of crowds. It is almost as if someone has dropped a weird variation on the neutron bomb which has wiped out the local population, leaving behind just tourists.

In the past the city was like this for the whole of August, virtually every shop, cafe, bar etc, shut up and the owners and employees went off to the beach for the best part of the month. The only people left were parties of bemused foreign tourists wandering around aimlessly trying to figure out where everyone had disappeared to.

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