NDBT

I got a last bag of roasted chestnuts my last evening in Melbourne. Seriously delicious.

Yesterday took the bus from Melbourne to Sydney. The trip did not start auspiciously. The woman who sat next to me turned up her ipod so loud I could hear her ear cells dying. And this wasn’t rock or bad pop. No no; this was religious right music. You know the CDs that are advertised on TV that have been bought by like 40 million people you don’t know? CDs featuring “God loves my sports team more than yours, nyah, nyah” and “I’m gonna snuggle with Jesus tonight.”

I went to sleep to drown her out.

Luckily, when I woke for lunch she had toned it down, thank GOD (she actually was quite nice later on, turned out she was visiting from the Philippines for the Hillsong conference, which is some kind of big religious fest). We stopped at a place that had a giant statue of a ram (35 ft high, maybe?). Rest stops are so weird.  After lunch, the bus driver turned on some movies. We got the guardian (Watching Ashton Kutcher swimming was a good way to kill a couple of hours) and Mr and Mrs Smith (yay!). Most of the ride had pretty scenery; lots of gum trees. I assume we went through the Blue mountains to get to Sydney, but I never saw any mountains. Some hills, but that was it. We got into Sydney about 8pm. I’m staying at the Base backpackers on Kent. It’s pretty nice, if ungodly expensive (I think thats typical for all of Sydney). Good beds and showers, fluffy towels for rent, brilliant internet. Unfortunately no reading lights, but you can’t have it all.
I was awfully knackered from yesterday, so I slept in this morning (I’m not too worried; I was going to spend a week in Sydney, and that got pushed to 10 days for a cheaper flight). After lunch at the Dymocks cafe (Dymocks is like an Aussie version of Borders; I was hunting around for a copy of “The Act of Roger Murgatroyd,” which may be the most brilliant title ever, that was under 30$ – no luck), I wandered to the North end of Hyde park (pretty), and into the Domain and Royal Botanic gardens. Saw the Woolemi pine, which is super rare and special (they’re from the time of the dinosaurs and were thought to be extinct till like 15 years ago or something). The gardens were very lovely. And they had lots of Ibis, yellow and white cockatoos, and… more Flying Foxes!! I was able to get right under some. One of them stopped sleeping and watched me for a bit. They’re very cute. Turns out their wingspan can reach 1.5m and they can weigh up to 1kg. Big bats.

Walked out towards Mrs. Maquaries’ Pt, which is where you can get the postcard view of the Opera house and Bridge, but the sun was setting towards the opera house so I couldn’t get a good photo. As I was walking around, I ran into a couple I had met on the train; the one’s I went for drink with in Kalgoorlie. So we might get together later in the week. (small world, huh?) Then I went to the opera house. Looked into doing a tour (they have backstage tours, too – but those are really expensive. I remember getting to go backstage at the SF Memorial Opera house; Midsummers’ was on and I got to see Wall’s costume. It was very cool. (Who did Midsummers? Mendelssohn?))  Anyways, I managed to get a partial view ticket to this Saturday’s Barber of Seville. Should be fun. I might do the standard tour before hand, but they’re quite expensive. Maybe I’ll go see the opera and then decide if I still need a tour of the place.

Next I went to the Justice and Police museum, which was very cool. They had lots of artifacts; from old uniforms to an entire room that had been opened to the public about 100 years ago that featured guns and knives used in crimes. And lots of photos of criminals, from back when people thought the criminal class possessed physical elements that could be identified. Anyways, that was funny because one of them was the spitting image of Christian Bale in Empire of the sun. They also had the original 1880s courtroom, with the magistrates’ bench and reporters gallery, plus some old justice wigs. Finally, in one of the old cells they had a history of forensics in use in Oz, and they had the original evidence from two notorious cases on display. First was the case of the pyjama girl who was shot (they had skull x-rays showing the non-lethal bullet), had her head beaten, and was burned and dumped. They couldn’t identify her for years, so they put her in formaldehyde and put her on display at the college of surgeons for 10 years for the public to come and see if they could ID her. Anyways, they finally figured out the odontologists made a mistake and they figured it out.

The other case was a kidnapping (the first in Oz, in 1960 – does that not seem very late?), and the evidence on display included the blanket the boy was wrapped in and the scarf that was used to gag him. Anyways, on the blanket they found hairs from a Pomeranian, which led them to the culprits, who owned a Pom named Cherry. Cherry was hit by a car before the trial, so the police had Cherry stuffed by a taxidermist. And Cherry was on display!! I found it pretty amusing. They also had the first trained police dog stuffed and on display in another wing.

After the museum, I wandered around town a bit. Bought a mid-weight thermal on somewhat sale (Merino instead of silk- which they are quite big on here, since NZ makes a lot of merino stuff). Anyways, it doubles as a nice top as well as a warm base layer, so even though it was still a bit pricey, I thought it’d be a good investment. I’ll need another good shirt or two and some leggings (and new socks, I think), but I think I’ll wait on those till I get to New Zealand. Wandered around Chinatown. I thought I might go see a movie for the 4th, to be American, but all the big things that are opening in America are not opening here. Unless I want to go see transformers (no). (ooh – on the movie note: License to Wed is getting skewered by critics (the NY Times is particularly vicious). Sorry ’bout that, John Krasinski. Maybe next time? Must be hard to open opposite Joshua and Rescue Dawn)
Sydney has a monorail, which is pretty cool. It goes through the corner of a building at one point.  My guidebook calls Sydney “quite possibly the most beautiful city in the world”. I might go with the ‘possibly’. The harbor is incredibly lovely. I think I still like Melbourne better at this point (robbery aside). Sydney has lots of grand buildings (in red sandstone? Is there such a thing? I’m just guessing – knowing nothing about geology), but I really liked all of the 2 story buildings in Melbourne with the balconies and all of the wrought-iron scroll-work (ooh more wrought-iron! Turn the camera sideways!). Is that Victorian style? Whatever it is, I really like it. Plus I like Melbourne’s skyscraper’s better than Sydney’s so far.
Then again, I’ve only seen a bit of the city so far. Maybe I’ll end up liking Sydney better by the end of my stay.
I’m currently reading “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” by David Foster Wallace. It’s very brilliant. I haven’t liked every short story so far, but most of them are really great. Many of the stories are very funny (sometimes laugh out loud so), and some of the brief interviews are so hideous, I just… I don’t even know. Anyways – go read it.

Oh yeah, I’m gonna be in Sydney when Live Earth is going on. I wonder if it’ll be a big deal.

Oh! And! How can the Daily Show be on break when BUSH EXCUSES LIBBY FROM JAIL SERVICE??? (Also – if you are also super pissed about the supreme court’s 4 conservative decisions all at once, Jon Stewart can at least make you laugh about it. A bit.)
Here is a very interesting story on Jenna Bush’s upcoming book about AIDS and (*gasp*) using protection for sex before marriage (what a concept!): http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/07/first-look-jenn.html#more

I liked this article from popwatch: Define the word ‘geek,’ please  by Mandi Bierly

I think I still primarily use geek for academia; I refer to myself as a biology geek because I get far more excited about ecology than a normal person would, and I remind Kristl that she is a med-school geek any time she e-mails snippets she finds fascinating from her pathology textbooks. But, obviously, there’s a certain amount of pride in with the ribbing and self-deprecating. I also use it in the pop-culture sense, where it tends to be anyone who is a fan of non-mainstream entertainment (like a love of graphic novels, or when people love any band that isn’t on a major record label (music-geeks)). (Also – since HBO is pretty mainstream, I wouldn’t use geek for that). I think it crosses into negativity when someone has memorized the klingon dictionary or elvish, but even though I don’t understand such levels of geek-dom, I usually (try to) figure that those people are happy and have found their niches better than lots of other people. Right? Oh, and now I totally want to hear Ian McShane’s commentary on Deadwood.
Current music: Time won’t let me go – The Bravery, the Heinrich Maneuver – Interpol, Everything is Average Nowadays – Kaiser Chiefs, Back to Black – Amy Winehouse, Tell me where it hurts – Garbage

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 2:14 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.