Finding Down Under Up Here

Australia Week arrives in LA with stars, fanfare, wine, and a bevy of g'days

What out-glamorizes Los Angeles? Not much, truly (LA would never likely admit to anything grander and more glittery than itself).

But Australia has a way of winning over even the most hardcore of local LA boosters. It, too, has some world-famous beaches, like us, and sunshine, like us, and famous all-over movie stars, like us, and a fairly laid-back attitude, like us, and a healthy tourism industry, like us, and a strange, multi-layered architectural wonder of a performing arts venue, like us, and kangaroos, like us.

Okay, granted, our kangaroos live at the zoo. (But we'd love to see one randomly hopping around, like, Laurel Canyon.)

There's a starry simpatico, is what we're saying, so when G'Day USA -- Australia Week -- lands on our fair shores for a fortnight every January, we greet the land like a welcome cousin.

Australia Week, which serves to promote and spotlight foods, industries, wines, people, and entertainment of an Oz-focused nature, is on from Wednesday, Jan. 9 through Tuesday, Jan. 22.

Highlights include a blacktie gala -- hello: Hugh Jackman, Paul Hogan, and Olivia Newton-John -- and other tourism-centric events. The San Francisco G'Day has a happening devoted to, wait for it, wine. (We do love coming across wintertime wine events that go by the name "It's Summer Down Under." Indeed it is, and the Australia wine industry is robust.)

For more information on what's happening where, g'day yourself over to the Australia Week site.

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