The Aussie "Superbowl" is this weekend

The Australian equivalent of the American NFL Superbowl is being held this weekend in Melbourne. It is called "The AFL Grand Final" for the Australian Football League. The AFL is similar to the NFL, except for Australian Rules Football, or "Footy" as they call it here. This year the Perth AFL team "The West Coast Eagles" is playing against the Sydney AFL team "The Sydney Swans" for the Premier Cup, the top award.

Needless to say, Perth is pretty excited about this. Perth fans are doing everything they can to get to Melbourne this weekend to support their team. I heard that a round trip airfare on Qantas to Melbourne skyrocketed to over $1000 a seat after The Eagles won their last playoff game to get into The Grand Final.

I heard a story yesterday about a local Perth man who got 15 of his friends together and they each chipped in $1000 to charter a jet to take them to Melbourne, and it was still cheaper than flying commercially.

Most fans left yesterday, Thursday. The rest will leave today. It feels like a ghost town around here today. Tomorrow afternoon when the game is on, I expect there won't be anyone outside.