Every year, a flood of visitors arrive in Queensland's capital city to experience the ten days of attractions taking place at the Brisbane Exhibition. Because Australians have nicknames for everything, this event is simply known as the Ekka. The highlight of the week is the public holiday that lands on the Wednesday, known as the "people's holiday." On this day, everyone at the uni gets the day off, so everyone gets dressed up and goes to the fairgrounds to see the ekka horse races. A holiday in the middle of the week and chance to get dressed up? I know, and it gets even better.
Because this is Australia, every event has a theme, and involves drinking. In this case, girls are dressed like they're going to an English tea party, complete with ridiculously outrageous hair accessories. Hats the size of dinner plates. So my day started off with 8 am mimosa and breakfast at a friend's, followed by a 9 am wine party at the local park. Everyone I passed on the streets was wearing tuxedos and cocktail dresses, and could not walk in a straight line. We arrived at the races by boat and the scene before me was spectacular. Picture Oktoberfest combined with Queen's homecoming and an open bar wedding, multiplied by a city's entire student population and you'll get the picture. By the time we got to the races at 11am, people were already throwing up in garbage bins. You'll notice that none of these pictures contain any evidence of actual horse racing. They were there though. Or so I was told..
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