Sunday, April 4 (04/04/04)

340 Days of Sunshine, But Not Today

This morning, we wake to drizzling rain, the kind that lasts all day. We question Sydney's claim to 340 days of sunshine per year. What are the odds that we would encounter one of the 25 rainy/cloudy days? Unless one moment of sun counts that day amongst the 340 days of sunshine. We are hung over to match the weather.

Gene and I have breakfast at a cafe in Circular Quay, Rossini's, a cafe we walked by a number of times and one we should have walked by again. We are stared down by a greasy, pony-tailed, chain-smoking, smelly man. He challenges the waiter who requests payment in advance for his cappuccino. We are thankful the man leaves before our food arrives.

Gene spotted a Lonsdale London shop from our cab last night. Today I feel oriented enough in Sydney to find the shop by train. The Sydney City Rail makes only a few stops in the city, unlike the New York subway that stops every eight or ten blocks.

We get off the train at the Museum stop in Hyde Park, turning down Oxford Street at its origination point. The Lonsdale shop isn't open yet, so we duck the drizzle in another cafe. It is a gay cafe, but no one seems bothered by our presence, so we stay. The hangover kicks in and I feel deaf and crabby. After shopping Lonsdale, we return to the hotel for a nap.

Glebe

Brian, Nigel and Young Hae pick us up to go to Glebe, near the University of Sydney. The area is full of shops, second-hand bookstores and Indian and Thai restaurants. Brian chooses a place recommended by his daughter. At first, it looks a little suspect. We sit on a tiny balcony separated from the tiny balcony of the restaurant next door. The food is awesome and makes up for the lack of decor.

Monday, April 5

Secondhand books

I get up early and have a good workout, but no swimming this morning. I watch a woman swim laps across the pool. It seems effortless to her.

Brian takes us to a Laundrette where we wash some sock, undies and t-shirts. We are in Newtown. Brian leads us to a series of secondhand stores. Gene finds a Graham Chapman book he had been searching for. I buy Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald, second edition, 1920.

We meet Nigel and Young Hae back in Glebe at a Korean restaurant. We have Mandoo appetizers. We talk about the worst pop songs of all time. Everyone has Gary Puckett & The Union Gap's "Woman" stuck in their minds now. We get caught in a thundershower before we head back to the hotel.

Soup Plus

We see Dr John checking into the Marriott. Or more accurately,  Gene sees him and reports this back to Nigel, Young Hae and me having pre-dinner cocktails in the hotel lobby bar.

We see a jazz band called Rhino Factory at Soup Plus. Rhino Factory is a big band in the swing tradition. A dozen or more members cram into a tiny stage just as our party of eight crams into a long wooden table. The band features a vocalist and a bassoon player.

Order cafeteria-style food. We sit too far away to talk with Adele's friends, Jacque and a short-haired woman whose name I never catch. Nigel and Young Hae are exhausted from shopping all day.

Goodbye, Nigel & Young Hae

With a 7:30 am flight the next morning, Nigel and Young Hae leave early and we are happy to leave too. Big hugs goodbye and promises to meet in Tokyo, New York or somewhere in the world next year or the year after.

Returning to the hotel, we have a nightcap at the bar, now our pattern. Bo, the bartender, recognizes us as soon as we sit down. An American woman chats with us. She is a sculptress living in Venice Beach and is scouting to emigrate to New Zealand.

I am mistrustful of how people represent themselves at hotel bars. Sculptress or not, the woman is funny and has good stories about human bones and saving her son's umbilical cord. Bo tells us that Dr John had been at the bar earlier. Laurie the Sculptress is a big fan of the doctor and wants tickets for Wednesday night's show.

I start talking to the educational software salesman next to me. Gene gets my attention singing "Evil" in his Howlin' Wolf voice. We close the bar.

Tuesday, April 6

Blue Mountains

Brian calls around 8 a.m. Today I wouldn't mind more sleep. We agree to meet in an hour to drive to the Blue Mountains.

Despite my initial lack of enthusiasm, it is a good day. However, Gene twists his ankle badly. The drive from town takes an hour and a half or more. Midway, we stop at an antique shop and I am taken with the chenille blankets. The first real stop is a lookout point at Wentworth Falls. We start off to see the Falls, posted as a 20-minute return walk.  

As soon as I comment on the unevenness of the wooden stairs, Gene goes down. We hobble with him back up the stairs and Brian pulls the car around. We drive into the town of Leura and I pick out a mud drum at the “Stairway to Kevin” shop as a feel-better gift to Gene.

With a bottle of iced tea on his swollen ankle, Gene, Brian and I drive to Katoomba, the major tourist town in the Blue Mountains. We buy Advil, a squeeze-and-shake ice pack, and a sticky Ace-like bandage. We perform first aid on a sidewalk bench outside a walk-in Medical Clinic.

After a garlic-mushroom-on toast lunch at the Blue Cafe, we drive on, riding around Echo Point and going to the Scenic Railroad, purportedly the steepest railroad in the world. The train car forces us the lie back with our knees on the padded bar in front of us and our necks resting on the padded bar behind us. We look up into a plastic covered fencing.

There is nothing scenic about the short, steep ride. We walk on the wooden boardwalk through the rainforest where the Katoomba Coal Mines used to be. We return to the base via the Scenic Cable Car, more worthy of its name than the Scenic Rail.

Sirens

A final stop at the Norman Lindsay Gallery Shop and Bushwalk. Norman Lindsay was an artist in the early 1900s. He is the subject of the movie “Sirens". The movie is about his relationship with the community and their reaction to his orgiastic parties. We skip the gallery but instead walk through the sculpture garden.

Bird Watching

Brian points out the laughing call of the Kookaburra. I remember the song from grade school:

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh,
Gay (?!) your life must be."

We track a beautiful blue-and-red bird. Brian has a keen interest in birdwatching. He shares a lot of information on Australian nature and birds. It is peaceful and relaxing to walk through the chirping garden. I can't help but be reminded how far from New York we are.

Dr John

"Phillipe's Foote"  Gene is nagging me to write this down, a name of a bar-restaurant in The Rocks. Phillip's Foote, m-m-m goode!

Dinner at Alfredo's, the other establishment in the alley by our hotel. Besides being next door to The Basement where Dr John is playing, it is in short hobbling distance for Gene.

Our Dr John tickets are standing room. The don't overpack the place but we can't see a thing, so we don't try. We take a spot at the bar and let everyone else vie for a standing spot with a sight-line to the stage. Adele and Brian are at a table in the front, but we don't see them the entire night.

Though Dr John sounds fabulous, we don't stay for the entire performance. The constant activity has caught up with me and I can barely focus. My vodka-cran gets watered down on the bar. Gene tries The Basement's Drink of the Week:  flaming bourbon, agitated with cinnamon, doused with a Kahlua and orange cream mixture.

Wednesday, April 7

Sydney Tower

We have our first quiet day today. I am still burned out and Gene's ankle has turned purple. After an email session and breakfast across the street at LeQuay, we hobble back to the room after searching for another icepack at a nearby chemist. We nap for most of the afternoon, refuse maid service and watch CNN International. Late afternoon, we rouse ourselves and take a cab to the Sydney Tower in the Centrepoint Mall. We fork over $22 each to take the lift to the top.

The view from the observatory is stupendous even though it is cloudy and closing in on sunset. I realize how big and built up Sydney is. It truly is the New York of the Southern Hemisphere. All the bays and harbours make for a lot of desirable land. The people of Sydney are much more homogenous than New Yorkers.

Sydney Tower Part II is called Sky Tour, a multimedia presentation incorporating 3-D panoramas portraying the varieties of life in Australia:  outback, rainforest and city. Our seats become a ride: we are strapped in and a film simulates various moving aspects of Australian life as our seats bump around.

Nearby is the Arthouse Hotel Bar:  combination bar, restaurant, gallery, another bar, hotel and another bar. We eat in their Dome Restaurant. It rivals Cafe Sydney as the best meal so far. We walk through the other bars, but don't stay for a drink. We stroll up George Street and stop at a discount bookstore. Gene finds Stoned a memoir by Andrew Loog Oldman, the manager of The Rolling Stones.

We seek out the Mercantile Hotel, the place that eluded us last week. A band starts playing right after we arrive at the quaint Irish pub. The band is good, a mix of traditional Irish and more contemporary music. The three musicians play multiple instruments, including electric bagpipes, an instrument even Gene has never seen before.

The Rocks is the neighborhood that suits us most.

Thursday, April 8

Luna park

We take the ferry to Luna Park to meet Brian and his nephews. On Milson's Point last trip to Sydney, we shot several rolls of film of the shut-down, fenced off Luna Park. Now the park is rebuilt and open.

Luna Park isn't completely finished, nor it is crowded on a weekday morning. We ride the Tango-something, a ride that is called The Himalaya in 1970s Ocean City, Maryland. I think the ride won't be so bad; I remember it being really fun when I was sixteen.  The ride starts backwards and goes really fast, seems like you can get whiplash. Gene agrees and thinks The Tango is much faster than similar rides in the States.

We never find Brian and nephews; we think they must have left already because we exhaust Luna Park in a half hour.

Bats in the Gardens

We walk through The Botanic Gardens (excuse me, The Royal Botanic Gardens) to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to the Man Ray exhibit.

We see bats flying around hanging upside down in the trees. Looks like classic vampire bats to me, all leathery and gross. Gene is right, they are fruit bats, if the posted sign is to be believed. What are fruit bats? Are they as innocuous as fruit flies? What are flying foxes?

We enjoy the Man Ray exhibit, especially his short films, which were similar to, but more interesting than Warhol films. May Ray was quite experimental--I love Mr. and Mrs. Woodenhead. The portraits of Pablo Picasso and Marcel DuChamp as well as those of his lovers were amazing.

We have a couple of glasses of wine at The Wine Bar, then head into The Rocks. We eat at an open-air Italian place, great atmosphere. There is a two-piece band, a harp and a guitar player playing traditional Italian music.

Friday, April 9, Good Friday

Hannan Print

Good Friday is second to Christmas Day in holiday importance in Sydney. Nearly all businesses are closed. We eat breakfast in a crummy cafe in The Rocks.

Brian brings his nephews, Eugene and Marcel, to our hotel for a swim. Eugene is a graceful swimmer. Eugene and Marcel live in Milford, New Zealand and they are the only kids in their town, schooled by correspondence.

We go to Hannan Print where Brian works. He gives us a tour of the pressroom and bindery. They have an M1000, a Sunday M2000 and two other presses. Hannan is one of the two major printers in Australia. We see the latest issue of Time on the binding line, another Jesus cover just in time for Easter.

The five of us stroll somewhere beyond North Sydney. It takes awhile to find a place to park, but there are few people where we are walking. Middle Road National Park, or something like that. There are big cement cylinders in the ground designed for guns in WWII to defend Sydney. There are cement underground quarters and jail space, used mainly by kids to drink beer.

Gene and I stop to eat at Lowenbrau in The Rocks. He orders bratwurst and a liter of dark Wheat beer. It is the biggest mug I've ever seen. People at the other tables stare at the mug.

Finally on our last full day in Sydney, we indulge in souvenir shopping. Cheap trinkets cost two or three times what they would in the States. It isn't much fun because of the prices. We will stay in tonight. We are ready to go home.

Saturday, April 10

Going Home

Adele surprises us in the hotel lobby this morning. We aren't expecting her to accompany Brian in taking us to the airport. She looks bright and summery in a yellow-flowered skirt and orange tank top. She pulls off the orange eye shadow where most women would not. Her look contrasts with my traveling clothes:  beige sweatpants with a red plaid fleece jacket.

Gene and I are not so lucky on the Sydney to LA flight. Gene looks at the child-to-adult ration in the gate area and predicts we will have a child kicking the back of our seats for 12 hours. I am annoyed at his pessimism.

An hour later, three little boys are in the row behind us—bang, bang, banging away. Since 12 hours is an intolerable amount of time for that behavior, I turn around and nicely explain how we can feel every kick. A couple of hours later, I turn around and say, knock it off. Their mother, sitting in the row behind them (so she doesn't get kicked?), asks if there is a problem. She apologizes, but also says, they're just little kids, which negates the apology.

As an added discomfort, we sit by the galley. Gene gets a hundred butts in his face as passengers hover to make requests of the flight attendants. The whole planeload of people are restless on the afternoon flight. Gene and I watch four movies and don't sleep at all.

We sleep three of the six hours to New York, tucked away in a darkened bulkhead row. We walk into our apartment at 10 p.m. and go out for Thai and beers, glad to be home.