Sculptures by the Sea

Great sculpture installation on the coastal walk by our house right now.  It attracts so many people from all over the city that we had to wait until a weekday evening before we dared to go down there.  Pretty cool stuff…

 

 

 

The Red Storm

before and after shot from smh.com.au.  More photos here.

Mars… apocalypse… Armageddon… those were just a few of the words people used to describe the scene experienced in Sydney on Wednesday.

I woke up at 6:00 AM, just after sunrise, and squinted through my sleepy eyes and saw nothing but orange.  Dark orange.  I’ve been lucky enough to witness a few spectacular sunrises since living in Sydney so i was ready to chalk this up as just an especially good one.  I rubbed my eyes.  No… this is really orange.  And i can’t even see across the street. Maybe the Santa Ana winds turned their sights Sydney?

Turns out a combination of strong nor’westerlies and dry riverbeds in the outback created a perfect storm of events that blew a maelstrom of red dust over the eastern seaboard, from Brisbane down to Sydney, and even as far as New Zealand.  Being the stubborn chap that i am, i ran to work anyway, sucking dust and fighting 80km wind gusts the whole way.  News reports said this was a once in a lifetime scenario, but everyone else seemed way more prepared than i – with most commuters wearing dust masks, scarves over their faces, and ski goggles.

Check out this YouTube video form Broken Hill, a small town in the outback which is apparently near the source of this storm (you can see why).

Despite being (or wanting to be) a modern and cosmopolitan city, it’s times like this that i’m reminded that Sydney is still an Australian city, and it only takes a strong wind to blow the Outback right back into town.

A Move to the Beach

We have just completed our first week in our new apartment, new neighborhood, and what feels like a new chapter for us here in Sydney. We now live by the beach in the eastern suburb of Bronte (pronounced “Bron-tee”).  The neighborhood has a “village” vibe in that the locals are active supporters of the cafes, neighborhood schools, shops and beach that make up the little community.  We are a 5 minute walk down to the water, and we are only a bus ride, walk, or run (as Galen does to and from work most days) into the heart of Sydney.

Our new apartment feels like a significant upgrade from our old place. The space is a bit larger and this place has loads more character. Best features are the amazing amount of light we get here, the view, the kitchen and the garden. Just off of our back deck is a raised bed garden with just the essentials- herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes, salad greens and a papaya tree!

There are aspects about our old, more urban neighborhood that we miss, like the proximity to the botanical gardens and downtown, our favorite coffee and gelato spots… but our new place takes the cake.  Waking up to the ocean view and a fresh breeze blowing in the window is hard to beat. We are ready for summer.

Check out pics of our new place.

Family Visit

Carol, Olivia and Parker arrived in Sydney on June 27 for a three week holiday. The moment I told Carol that Galen and I were headed to Sydney for 18-24 months, she confirmed they would make the trek to visit us. No small feat to organize all that goes into international travel for 3, but Carol made it happen without a hitch.

To the question many of our Sydney friends asked, “Where is your family staying white they are here?”, the answer was, “With us..”, to which we received mostly eyes widening and and rapid blinking (translate: “5 people in your small one bedroom apartment?! What..?“). Really people, no problem.

Our time together is best sectioned into three parts: Sydney, The Great Barrier Reef, and the Blue Mountains, with an auxillary 2 days in Jervis Bay (turns out his trip rounded out the authentic “Aussie experience” for Carol, more on that later).

Sydney

Great mix of of checking off the highlights with room for those everyday life activities which become much exciting with our little gang. For example, all 5 of us went for hair cuts. Not all on the same day, and of course not all at the same place. To say Galen and Parker’s experience was a stark contrast to us gals is a massive understatement. The guys were in and out of their barber shop in less than 30 minutes total, without having to utter a single discernible word (everything is done in grunts) and only $35 lighter. The female experience was, well, let’s just leave it at different. We also celebrated a 30th birthday, saw Harry Potter at the 3-D IMAX, cooked some good meals together, and made a few indulgent stops at our local favorite coffee shop and gellatoria.  Some of the more traditional “must see” sights checked off of the list were:

• Bondi Beach and the coastal walk to Clovelly
• Botanical gardens (a favorite)
• Manly Beach (Galen and Parker swam, Brr!, and their first fish ‘n chips)
• Walk across the Harbor Bridge
• Opera House (Carol and I attended a symphony production, front row seats)
• Taronga Zoo (can’t hold the koalas, but you can get very close to them!)
• Sydney Aquarium
• Australian Museum and Gallery of NSW

The Great Barrier Reef

Galen took care of that post. It was amazing.

Jervis Bay

“The kangaroo jumped into our car.” Carol and I practiced our statement as we made our way to return the rental car. That was the truth. Not 5 minutes into Carol’s madain voyage driving on the left side of the road, the kagaroo charged right into the side of our car. And it was the nice Aussie folks who were passing us when it happend who chuckled and told us that now we have had an authentic “Aussie experience.” Not the one we were hoping for, but we’ll take it. Thank God for excess reduction.

The run in with the ‘roo was the most unique action in Jervis Bay, but the whale watching, hiking/trail running, and beach combing was fun too.

Blue Mountains

Unfortunately Galen and I were stuck with work, but Carol, Liv and Park didn’t miss a beat as they hopped a train to the Blue Mountains for 3 days. The report back was two thumbs up. They checked things off the perverbial “list” there too; daily hikes, the Three Sisters, toured the Jenolan Caves, 1000 stairs climb (Park has the shirt to prove it). They cased the little town of Katoomba and unearthed the best hostel to stay in (flat screen TVs and backpackers don’t usually go together…), a local bee keeper/opal jewller to patron, and the tastiest bakery (after tasting the ginger pear cake Carol brought back, I agree wholheartedly). Liv and Park’s hiking endurance was impressive; they were motivated! Couldn’t miss the twinkle in Carol’s eye as she proposed destinations for the next family trip…Pacific Northwest, the Rockies…endless possibilities here, gang.

No pics of their Blue Mountain trip, but you can get an idea of the terain here.

More than once during the trip Liv turned to me and said, “I just can’t believe we are here with you in Australia!” My thoughts exactly. This family makes it happen. Great family, great trip. Here are all of our pics.

Luminous Sydney

There is a great festival going on in Sydney right now called Luminous Sydney. According the website, it’s “a festival of music, ideas, light and performance.”  The most obvious and dramatic aspect of the festival is the Lighting of the Sails. Each night from 5:30 to late -  both sides of the Opera House shells (or sails as they are sometimes called) are illuminated with colorful projections of light.  It’s pretty cool.  When i run home from work each night (yeah, i’ve been reduced to a run-commuter now), i run through Circular Quay (main ferry terminal adjacent to opera house) and around the Botanical Gardens with great views of the Opera House the whole time.  It’s really fun to see a different color pattern projected each night.

This weekend we joined our friends Jen and Michael to go to one of the shows of the Festival – Reggie Watts from Seattle.  I knew nothing of Reggie Watts before sitting down for the show… and he blew me away.  He is a one-man show creatively weaving together music, spoken word, and stand up improvisation.  He uses a little electronic mixer to record his own voice in real time to form multiple layers of a song – i.e bass and percussion – and then sings/raps over the top of it.  Really creative stuff.

Here are a few pics of the Lighting of the Sails and the Reggie Watts show.  Some of the pics were taken with our new camera.  I’ve had my eye on this one since December, but no camera shop in Australia could keep it in stock long enough to buy it.  I finally tracked one down and nabbed it – Panasonic LX3 with a brilliant Leica lense.  It rocks.

Room with a view

I’m still using the hand-me-down point n shoot camera my dad gave me (after my dslr camera got stolen with my car and my  point n shoot camera broke).  Despite its limitations, it has been invaluable in documenting some of our experiences here.  We love sitting out on our balcony in the evenings and watching the colors of the sky change behind the city and harbor.  Our favorite part is when the bats rise out of the botanical gardens (just after the sun goes down) and thousands of them swoop by our balcony on their way to their feeding grounds in Centennial Park.  Some of them are so close we could almost touch them.  The camera lense isn’t big enough to capture the bats during such low light conditions, so you’ll just have to imagine it in the photo above… it’s alsmost like a scene out of Batman.  Here’s a link to a YouTube video that gives you some indication…

Earth Hour

Normally things like Earth Hour sort of annoy me… it feels like a hype that people get excited about, participate in, pat themselves on the back for saving the world, then an hour later it’s over and everything goes back to normal.  But somehow this Earth Hour felt legitimate, or at least intriguing.  Maybe because it started here (in 2007) and subsequently has garnered an enormous amount of media attention with landmarks all around the world participating (Golden Gate Bridge, London Eye, Sears Tower, Eiffel Tower, Opera House, etc).

So we got some takeout, a glass of wine, and sat out on our balcony until 8:30 PM rolled around, at which time we switched off our balcony christmas tree lights and watched as the city went dark.  It was pretty cool.  The Opera House and Harbor Bridge, normally aglow in the night sky, eerily went dark, and the entire skyline slowly went a few notched dimmer.

The funny part is, the next day the entire city lost power when a substation blew out (yes, the entire city), and that was like 10 times darker than earth hour the night before.  Oh well… baby steps.

normal sydney sky

sydney sky during earth hour 2009

The Pool

I admire good recreational swimmers; I mean those who go to the pool not just to swim, but to “swim laps”. They are fluid and have a way of looking powerful without looking uncomfortable. No grunting, no contorted, beat-red, sweaty, miserable looking faces. Not these folks, they look as cool as cucumbers propelling their bodies as they stretch and pull their arms rhythmically through the water, periodically pivoting their heads to replenish their lungs. It is mesmerizing to watch.

Like many neighborhoods throughout Sydney, we have a public pool less than a 10-minute walk from our place. This is an 8 lane, 50 meter, salt water, lap pool overlooking Woolloomooloo Bay. Aside from the lively kiddie section, the pool is an amazingly quite place in the middle of city. With the Botanical Gardens to one side, harbor on the other, and open air above, there isn’t even the sound of traffic to contend with.

This pool also houses a small yoga studio where the classes are good, but the view is inspiring. There is also a small outdoor café that serves good brunch and a decent cappuccino (It’s no Toby’s… but it’s not bad). But again, it is the fantastic location that makes it such a desirable to place to have a post swim juice or coffee and browse the paper on a Sunday morning.

So although we mostly hang in the outer lanes (aka where the grannies and folks with broken arms inch along) our neighborhood pool inspires us to keep coming back and join in the fun of swimming laps.

Byron Bay

Every country has a few iconic places that manage to encapsulate the true essence of the country, or at least a slice of its people,  culture, or  attitude.  These are the places you refer to when saying “you haven’t been to X country until you’ve been to Y”.  (For example, I would say you haven’t truly been to the US until you’ve been to New York or Chicago, the deep south, southwest Utah and at least 2 or 3 national parks. Obviously totally subjective, but you get the idea.)

Well, we went to one of those places in Australia this weekend that we felt truly embodied the country we are living in… a little slice of australiana, if you will.  Byron Bay.  It’s a 1:20 flight north of Sydney on the east coast (hooray for $49 internet fare sales!) and is known as a surf haven.  At 28 degrees latitude it has a climate similar to say, south Florida, so the nights are balmy and the ocean is warm.  It’s a small town and the vibe is decidedly chill.  Lots of beat up old vans with surf boards, fish n chips shops, outdoor bars, and the dress de rigueur is board shorts, sunglasses and flip flops.. Super casual, friendly people, slow pace… it was great

The highlight was taking a surf lesson with a guy named Marco (i wonder if any surfers go by their real name?).  Happy to say we both got up a dozen or so times in our 2 hour lesson and are craving more. Let’s hear it for slow waves and long boards.

I think what we are starting to understand is that even though Sydney represents 1/5th of Australia’s population, it’s not necessarily a proportionate representation of the culture or attitude  (it feels rushed and fast paced here in Sydney, a bit of a rat race at times.)

So it was nice to experience a more easy-going, fun-loving slice of this country… with many more yet to come.

Movie with a View

Last night Galen, Buzz, and I went to the The Open Air Cinema. Every summer we have all enjoyed our respective home cities’ summer outdoor movies…each with a slightly different variation on the theme… San Francisco has “Film Night in the Park”, Chicago’s “Movies in the Park,” Boulder’s “Outdoor Cinema.” We all agree it is a great way to spend a summer evening, pack a picnic, share some wine, and eek out some play time in the last of the sunlight.  All that and then you still have a movie to watch.

This particular outdoor cinema is sort of on another level. Never mind the cost, and the difficulty obtaining tickets (two months of screenings sold out within a couple of hours), it is worth it. The event is held in The Royal Botanic Gardens, and the screen is IN the harbor. Yes, the big screen stands in the water with the Sydney skyline, Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop. Hey, if the movie is getting dull you just watch the fruit bats flying around or admire the view. It is hard to beat.

We knew we wanted to do this with Galen’s dad, so we made our movie choice based on his time with us, and were then pretty much locked into seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still. Our expectation were not high (Keanu Reeves…world coming to an end…), but it turned out to be a great choice for the venue (sci-fi remake of the 1951 classic).

Not to forget….the picnic. It was tasty: sweet potato salad, fresh zebra tomatoes with olive oil and basil, fresh fruit, and a Rose collected on our trip to New Zealand. Lindt was a sponsor, so we indulged in a couple of free Lindor truffles for dessert. Yum.