Simple Sydney

I promise that there is a summary post to this Australian series, but before I get to that (ie let me procrastinate awhile) I need to discuss Sydney a bit. The first night we got to Sydney; we were staying in an apartment of the relative of a friend who had gone to Perth for Christmas (the relative not the friend, she disappears the next day) in a section of town called Newtown. So, there we were, a little tired and having just lost another hour due to the travel east, we got hungry. So, we did what most people do when they are hungry, we went out to eat. We did not even leave the actual block that the apartment is located on to go to a pretty amazing Thai restaurant.

The restaurant had two velvet rope lines inside: one for people with reservations and one for people without. I did not feel like calling them to set up a reservation just so we could switch lines, especially as there was very littlenobody in front of us, or in the other line. So we got sat when the restaurant got to us, which was pretty quick.

They sat us at a table with four seats. We were next to a table with two seats. At the same time that we were being sat by the restaurant staff, the two-top was also being sat; a man and a woman. The woman looked at me for a moment or two while we all were looking at the menus and then said quite audibly, “No WAY!” I looked up and there was a person who I knew from New York City, actually someone who knew all of us, except for the newest of us of course. It was really eerie actually running into someone I know on the other side of the world! Nice tone to start off the new city though.

We went to see the Opera house and the beautiful gardens at the harbor. We rode the land train around the grounds and snapped tons of photos of all the interesting stuff. We met other friends and their children for a day at the Taronga Zoo, and snapped more lovely photos. We went to the beaches at Bronte, Bondi and Coogee and of course snapped lovely photos and even swam in the ocean. We had a Chrismas Day dinner at the friends house with their lovely family. I watched the Boxing Day Cricket Match. TheBubster really enjoyed playing in the playground across the street from us, nearly every night.

We had a wonderful time in Sydney, TheWife just did not want to leave. I beleive that she is still a bit sad to have to return to the cold winter within which our home is enshrouded. The airplane rides were really quite undramatic, both kids are professional world travellers now and everything works out quite well. I think I am too. I went out with TheBubster to fetch milk and cereal this morning and we had to get dressed up to do so, instead of just throwing on a pair of thongs (flip-flops) and shorts to walk out the door we had to bundle up and trudge. Oh well, I do love me some winter and I am so looking forward to the incredible change to this country over the next four years, so it will be good to be home, in time….

 Technorati Tags: travel, Sydney, Australia, Cambridge, change

Fun in Adelaide

There’s a little microtrend in here. We go to visit people in a new city, and midway through the trip we go off to a holiday from our holiday. It’s sort of funny, we go through the whole packing process and taking even less of our stuff with us, and travel away for a couple of days. This time we went to Middleton which is on the coast. And we had a view like this for three or four days; I can’t be bothered with counting the days here.

After the trips are over, we go back to the little town or village where we are staying (oh come on! we lived in NYC for a decade nearly every place in the world is a little town comparatively speaking!!) and resume our little visiting lives. Mostly what we are doing is trying to grow our infant son, and keep our daughter, TheBubster, happy and entertained while observingvisiting friends. It’s a very relaxing process. I spend lots of time playing the didgiredoo, didjeridu, didgeridoo, you spell it how you like, watching cricket when I can and working out the assigments for my schoolwork. TheWife has lots of people crawling all over her needing things from her but it looks like we’ll live and well!

Tomorrow we head off for the final chapter in this adventure.

Technorati Tags: Adelaide, Middleton, South Australia

Skype (even for Linux)

The internet has brought about great changes in the way we communicate on this planet. If you haven’t heard by now, there is a service provided by Skype that allows for free phone calls worldwide via the internet. They even have a Linux client, supposedly my hone allows me to receive Skype on it as well, (my Skype account name is n8k99_ , don’t forget the underscore at the end there.)

To get Skype up and working, make sure you have a microphone and speakers or headphones (and a webcam if you like), then visit this page to download a client. On Ubuntu you save the file, then navigate to the directory you saved it in and right click on the file and install.

Once it is installed, setup an account and call away!

Technorati Tags: Skype, calls, Linux, Ubuntu

Good cricket

It was remarkable luck that we remembered that we had been advised to go see some cricket while in Adelaide. It was remarkable because there was a singe day match, the last cricket on the famous Adelaide Oval before the Christmas Break. So we just remembered it, and happened to time it right and went for the evening session.

Single day cricket is a shortened version of the game, I could not tell you the complete difference between full cricket match and single day, but it was certainly exciting to watch it live. I could not help mentally comparing it to baseball, after all our family has been to Fenway Park four times this year. The major difference that I noticed is that cricket is much more about finesse and delicate skill than baseball which is a game of powerful and aggressive clashes.

We managed to see the local team (Adelaide Redbacks) catch up and beat the visiting team (Tasmanian Tigers). There were some really exciting moments like when Klinger got his century or the three 6’s in a row during a late Power Play. Overall it was a nice night out for the family.

Technorati Tags: cricket, Adelaide, family

Onwards

So, today we jumped on a flight from Perth to Adelaide, which means I need to talk a bit about Perth.

It sucked.

Ok, that was harsh, but it was difficult and I imagine it was not all that bad for visiting an isolated mining town on the final edge of the Earth. It did have beautiful beaches after all. The rest of it was rougb about the edges which was completely the result of its economic position in the supply chain of raw materials; currently they are heading to China to build their infrastructure.

There were some really bright points, such as our three day visit to Rottnest Island, where TheBubster saw Quokkas and Peacocks in the evenings after spending the days on the beach and swimming over the reefs. Another bright point was the spending the last couple days with an old theatre director of TheWife’s. They were absolutely delightful to visit.

The rest of it, well, perhaps bits and pieces will come out in the future as I digest it more. That’s all for now, watch for new photos in a couple of days.

Technorati Tags: Perth, Rottnest, OzTrip08

Tags: OzTrip08, Perth, Rottnest