Eternal sunshine on my mind

Today, Australia, I am slightly disappointed in you.

Allow me to explain. I woke up this morning at 8 a.m. with every intention to plant my butt firmly on the beach before 10. It is often hard to tell what the weather is like from inside my room with the blinds drawn. I've found myself thinking it must be cloudy when in fact it's sunny and vice versa. Today it seemed cloudy from inside, which I thought was a good sign until I opened the door . . . and it really was cloudy in every direction.

Not one to lose hope easily, I ate breakfast, showered and read a book for awhile. It was still cloudy.

Time for Plan B: I grabbed my Sydney visitor guide and decided to see the Australian Museum, just a 15-minute walk from where I'm staying. I figured that if I did some hiding out deep inside a museum for a couple of hours that I would emerge back into a world of sunshine by lunch. And so here I sit in an Internet cafe at 3:35 p.m. and it still just as cloudy out there. It even rained around lunchtime, to add insult to injury.

You might think I'm making too big a deal out of the weather. It is just one day after all. It's not like there'll never be sunshine again. It just seems worse because all of yesterday was so incredibly bright and sunny . . . and I spent the whole day working inside. Each time I glanced out the window at the sunshine I comforted myself with the knowledge that I'd spend tomorrow on the beach. I even announced my intention to do so to several coworkers, several times over the course of the day.

My aversion toward rain and clouds runs deeper than just one day of beach-dreaming, of course. Having spent most of the last four years in Vancouver, Canada, rain and clouds were a big part of my life, particularly over the last two years when the weather has been even wetter than normal. And that is really saying something in Vancouver. It wasn't uncommon to face two-week periods of non-stop rain and cloud in winter. For that matter, it's not even that uncommon in spring or fall.

I now truly believe that every Vancouverite is entitled -- yes, entitled -- to a minimum of four weeks of solid sunshine for every year spent in the drizzle. The B.C. government should be mailing vouchers to every household advertising rock-bottom prices in Fort Lauderdale, Palm Springs, and Puerto Vallarta. Gordon Campbell should be handing out free sunlamps and Vitamin D to the common-folk. This would work miracles in improving the frame of mind and overall temperament of the average Vancouverite, which as it stands, is one of the frostiest, most reserved, and least enjoyable in all of Canada. (Sorry but it's true. Spend a week in sunny Saskatchewan and you'll soon agree.)

I spent a lot of my spare time in Vancouver wishing for sunshine and dreaming of sun-filled countries, like Australia, Mexico and the Bahamas. Perhaps foolishly, I thought that every day would be full of sun here in Sydney. Of course that isn't so (though I've heard that in other parts of the country it is nearly true).

On the bright side (pun intended), I got to see various stuffed marsupials at the Australian Museum, including kangaroos and wombats, and one hell of a gigantic saltwater crocodile, which by the way, is a creature you never, ever want to meet in the wild Down Under. It may be your last memory. Ever.

The museum also allowed me to memorize the sizes, shapes and colours of snakes and spiders that might seriously injure me if I should meet them on the forest floor. And did you know that there is something like 100 different types of cockroaches in Australia? I've already seen at least two or three in some of the hostels. Oh, and I saw a dead rat floating down in Woolloomooloo Bay last week while I was eating a hot dog. That was yummy.

OK, I have vented about the weather now and I feel better. I'm off to eat some watermelon. At least it will be a sunny summer day inside my mouth.