Hello there,
It currently feels like 20°F outside, and I'm having trouble remembering the last time I spent a day at the beach. Yesterday I went outside for an errand and realized it was the first time I'd left my building in five days. Quarantine!
Watch
Awhile back when my days were spent poring through endlessly grim things, I made an effort after work hours to watch shows that transported me somewhere else. And for some reason I got really into Australian shows on Netflix, slowly working my way through a whole chunk of the catalogue. I'm not really sure why, but there's an allure of a place that is not entirely foreign but very, very far away. And the accents are fun.
Some of the shows were not really very good so I'd rather not recommend them, but here are a few of interest:
Glitch is basically an Australian version of The Returned (if you haven't seen that one, I recommend the French version). Parts of it are pretty creepy but the premise is interesting and the scenes in the outback are beautiful.
The Letdown is like an Australian version of Workin’ Moms. You don't need to be a mom to find either show entertaining.
Bondi Rescue, which used to be on Netflix but now I guess you have to pay for on demand, is a pretty dumb reality show about lifeguards at Australia's most famous beach who spend a lot of time yelling at beachgoers and occasionally saving people from drowning. It has a really pleasant dulling effect on the mind.
Also, one of my all-time favorite Australian shows is Please Like Me, on Hulu. It is an incredibly sweet show with a very small, absolutely delightful cast that made me cry a lot. (I realized later I should have put it on this list.)
Read
Following the Australian theme, The Women in Black is a quick, light read (the cotton candy of books, if you will) about women who work at a Sydney department store in the 1950s. This blurb from the publisher's page sums it up nicely: “The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” If you like the book, there's also a movie version which used to be on Netflix and is now available on demand. (Netflix, would you please stop removing your Australian content?)
Follow
The Australia account on Instagram, run by the country's tourism bureau, is one of the most amazing accounts on the platform, truly. It's filled with photos of spectacular landscapes and adorable animals, and produces the most urgent travel FOMO.
Through that account, I eventually followed similar accounts, including Rottnest Island, Heron Island, Quokka Daily, and the Kangaroo Sanctuary to get even more amazing landscapes and cute creatures.
Do
I really do not miss commuting, but it's weird to transition your day from working to not working when you're in the same place and the sun goes down relatively early. One thing I've tried doing is a little hors d'oeuvres time after I'm finished working for the day, which usually is just cheese and crackers or veggies and dip. It's a nice little indulgence and a way to transition from work.
Until next week,
Rachel