Gosford and Adelaide
Feb. 21st, 2005 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljpliceaseThis is week two in Australia. Part of the time was spent in Adelaide, South Australia (SA) to visit my godmum Allison.
South Australia was the one Australian colony which never had convicts sent to it, and it was the last state to enter the Federation which is today's Australia. Most people in SA live in the coastal city of Adelaide, and not all that many people live even there either. It is large enough to be fairly classified as a city rather than a town though. Most of the buildings are in the "Federation" style, which means they were built around about the time when Australia became a Federation in 1901. Federation style means stone buildings, with intricate ironwork and tin roofs. This makes the architecture quite different from the rest of Australia. Some of the old stone buildings are really beautiful. I could have spent an entire week just going around photographing them from various angles.
Before I got to Adelaide, I spent a few days in Gosford with my mum and grandma.
The stuff that I have done this week:
Tuesday (15 February 2005)
Dad drove me half way and we meet my mother in the middle of Sydney somewhere at some anonymous post office. I drove part of the way home to my grandmother's house in Gosford. When you drive for the first time in a long while on the opposite side of the road than what you are used to, you have test the windshield wipers to see if they still work. You do it especially often when you are approaching a turn or intersection. I have no idea why this is.
After plumping down my baggage in the shack - when I am in Gosford I live in the shack behind my grandma's house - and put on my swimmers and headed out to Terrigal and... the beach. I finally made it to the beach. It was hot as hell just inland, but it was cool and breezy on the beach. The water was horribly cold at first but wonderful once you got used to it.
Back to grandma's house, and after a shower and a short respite we were off to dinner. I had a stake sandwich the works with chips (chips = french fries - or freedom fries if you are an idiot). That sandwich is toasted bread layered around:
Wednesday
Midweek was Aunty Rae's birthday. I have lots of Aunty so-and-sos and Uncle who-and-whats, but Aunty Rae is actually related to me by being my grandma's sister. Mum decided that she wanted to take Aunty Rae to The Lion King which is playing in Sydney at the moment. I dislike Disney, but I have to hand it to Julie Taymor the director/consume designer who also directed the movie Frida which was likewise an artistic expression rather than just crude entertainment. So yeah, I live an hour north of New York City and I went all the way to Sydney, Australia - the other side of the planet - to see The Lion King. Musicals are like the McDonalds of live entertainment. They look exactly the same no matter where you see them. For example, Les Miserablés in London uses the exact same set and costume design as Les Miserablés in NYC. I know this because, by fault of an accident of fate, I have seen both productions.
Mum showed me around Sydney University - the oldest university in Australia - while she was trying to get them to write the contracts correctly before signing. She had been in contract negotiations because she has been offered a prestigious Federation Fellowship which will allow her to work at Sydney Uni for 8 months and remain in Utah for the rest of the year. She did eventually sign when they re-wrote it exactly like she asked. Ever since she left the lab she has been operating from a position of strength in professional negotiations. Probably even for some time before that. She will be moving to Sydney and be ready to go in July. It's been 25 years sine the three of us left Australia (mum, dad and myself), and now she is coming back.
Tuesday there was a husband and wife in line in front of us in the supermarket. The husband was typically... um... "Australian male"... and quite rude/sexist by American standards in regard to his wife's intelligence. My grandfather was never anything like that, but it is otherwise quite common. Mum made the comment today that she would have to get used to being a woman in Australia. It's not quite like being a woman in America (which is still of course male dominated), but if anyone can hack it, it would be my mother; I told her this. She has a strength she has inherited from my grandmother that makes her a force to be reckoned with.
Thursday
Squeezed just about everything we could into Thursday morning before taking a shuttle back down to Kingsford Smith International in Sydney. I had the worst case of blocked ears that I can recall. As our plane was landing in Adelaide it was really painful. I couldn't hear out of my left ear for most of the evening. Allison came to pick us up at the airport. We had BBQed stake and a beetroot (beets stateside), a tomato, and another cheesy salad. It was all, like her home, very upscale. Allison is a headhunter for accountants and has done very well for herself. Her husband does something professional as well. Classic double professional income zero children family.
Friday
Monkey-ed around with e-mail related to The Future in the morning and so was late to breakfast which was in the market, which was fabulous. One shop had the hugest lamington [1] that I have ever seen in my life. There were stalls selling fruit, cheese, bread, fish, butcher, and everything else. It all looked wonderfully delicious. I sampled some cheeses at "The Stinky Cheese Shop", which was to die for.
Lunch was a posh meal at the café in the Art Museum. It has been observed that "The art in fine restaurants is on par with food in fine art museums." This meal was the exception to the inverse corollary (math nerd).
Then we went to an exhibit of portraits titled "Australian's in Hollywood". It was part of the same National Portrait Gallery series which I saw in Canberra. Overall, the quality of prints varied greatly. Most of the images were pretty blah, and since they really are just pictures of famous people they have very little redeeming value. The most striking images were taken by the same photographer and had obviously been printed from 6x6cm negs. Those were really quite good.
The architecture in this city is terrific. Adelaide, like my godmum herself, is well-to-do and many houses and businesses have been modernized without destroying the old time character and Federation architecture. We were going to go for a walk about the town and snap a few sample shots; unfortunately it was raining which made the prospect not very appetizing.
Saturday
More meals. Apparently the only hobby that Allison and Rob have is eating fine food and drinking fine wine. Breakfast was a very upscale porridge that I am sure even those who do not like porridge would enjoy. Then we went to The Jam Shop where Allison bought me a gift for my house. Nice Tasmanian wood box for storing something important... probably my passports. I'm not really sure why they call it The Jam Shop... they sell all kinds of upscale things, but no jam.
For lunch we went to the beach and dined at a Greek restaurant. Naturally Allison ordered too much food, and I was forced to drink more wine that what I really wanted to. Don't get me wrong... in the right environment I love a nice glass (or two or three...) of red wine, but this usually consists of a party with my friends, not hanging out with my mum and godmum.
Took some pictures of the beach, but it was pretty blah.
Allison and Rob were out late at a grownup party which was apparently so boring that I wasn't invited. Allison did a lot of complaining that she had to go. I was happy to stay home and catch up on things. I've been pretty "non-stop" since I left Canberra.
Sunday
Allison and Rob slept in until about 11am. Allison grudgingly admitted that the party wasn't as bad as expected. We went to the Barossa Valley for lunch. It was typically upscale. The hostess was a slender dark-haired girl named Sally with reddish purple highlights, and a sexy giggle and pleasant personality. It is funny, in a country where there is no tipping (salaries for jobs which are tipped in the US are high enough to make it unnecessary) you would think service would suffer, but in my experience just the opposite has been the case.
I had several glasses of wine forced down. The beef salad was excellent. I photographed a wonderful stone building in the town of Anganston. Went up to a lookout and took a photograph to make Allison feel good for about taking me to the lookout. Actually it was a nice view - but come on, hooray, I have a picture of something a gazillion people have already photographed before me. Went to a winery called Seppeltsfield which is apparently the oldest in the Barossa Valley; Rob was unimpressed with a white and the port that he sampled there, but purchased two other bottles of wine. It will likely go in his cellar which has a gazillion bottles of wine in it.
Thankfully we did not have a dinner. I had become rather meal-ed out. Apparently even Allison and Rob have their limits. When we got home and were having "munchies" outside, Rob opened a bottle of white for himself and Allison, and brought out a glass of red for me before I could even say no thanks. At that moment it really was the last thing that I wanted. I was already fighting a headache probably induced from dehydration.
Allison's friend Sharon came over for a visit. For some reason, I expected Sharon to be Allison's age, but she was much younger, probably about my age. Attractive, funny, and could do nothing but talk about herself. Every once and a while I would get an edge in wordwise, but then she'd be like "did you know Jenny is pregnant?" to Allison and off they would go gossiping about people I had never meet.
From time to time she would also stop complaining about guys long enough to say "men" in that tone of voice which denotes that all men are exactly the same (you know the one), as though I wasn't even there. It appears that she had just broken up with her boyfriend. Allison said "we don't have to watch Desperate Housewives [2], we have Sharon to entertain us."
Sharon aspires to become a fire fighter. I think mostly for all the free time, but also "to serve the community", as she says dutifully as though she is already in an interview for the job. Apparently there are only four females in the fire service in either Adelaide or South Australia (I forget which it was, although it could easily be both), and they are trying to recruit more. It is a difficult to get in though, as they do not lower the physical requirements just because you are a woman.
Before she took off I showed my portfolio to Allison, "Robbie" (as Sharon was calling him), and Sharon. They were all suitably impressed and I gave my card, which has my e-mail and website address, to Sharon. I'm not even sure why to be honest, but there it is.
Before going to sleep, I had an awful headache from being dehydrated and having too much wine in the day. I actually thought I might throw up, but thankfully after hugging the toilet for a few minutes, my stomach chose not to. Thank god, because that would have been embarrassing. I wish my mum had not told Allison that I drink (I had actually asked mum some months ago not to tell Allison that I had started drinking, but apparently she had forgotten). I like to drink occasionally - usually when I have my friends over for a party - but I don't enjoy having it forced down me for every meal of the day.
Monday (21 February 2005)
I was feeling mostly better by the time I woke up, and started the day by packing my bags. I walked around the block and snapped a few photographs of stone buildings while Allison was at work. Allison came home at 12 to take me to the airport. She was remarkably nonchalant about arriving only 30 before my flight was scheduled to leave and I felt like saying "for those of us who cannot afford to fly business class everywhere, don't get to stand in the "no waiting" line, and we really can't afford to miss our flights either" but I kept the comment to myself and the plane was late coming in so everything turned out OK.
On the shuttle back to Gosford, there was a country singer by the name of Felicity who had just been to Tamworth which is apparently the Nashville of Australia. When I got home grandma was here to greet me. There was a radio on with the Australian equivalent of Rush Limbaugh [3] in the Kitchen and a TV on in the living room. Some things never change.
Post Script
Not much else to report. Next week I have two trips into Sydney planned and maybe go swimming at Terrigal. I will keep all of you posted.
[1] A lamington is this Australian dessert, which is a brick of dry cake coated in chocolate and covered in unsweetened coconut. It is delicious and impossible to recreate accurately in the US because Americans only sell moist cake and sweetened coconut. The coconut shavings are also the wrong size in America. Despite this, last year for my Australia Day party I attempted to make a rude approximation on Australian Lamingtons. They are supposed to be perfectly cubical, but mine were... how do you say in English... um... not cubical. The important thing is that they taste good though, and they got eaten, so they must have been at least ok.
[2] This show was advertised on TV while Allison was watching it, and I explained to her that it was so good that "it could be on cable" and that in the way that TV works in the states now that is a good thing, because apparently all of the good new TV is on cable, rather than broadcast. At least that is what I heard on NPR, I have never actually seen the show, to know either way. I'm not planning on doing the experiment to find out for myself. I can mostly only talk about TV now in theory, as I have very little experience. Shows like sex in the city show up on broadcast TV in Australia along with the shows that are on broadcast TV in the states like Friends or whatever.
[3] My grandmother always votes for the Liberal party, which is Australia's conservative party.
South Australia was the one Australian colony which never had convicts sent to it, and it was the last state to enter the Federation which is today's Australia. Most people in SA live in the coastal city of Adelaide, and not all that many people live even there either. It is large enough to be fairly classified as a city rather than a town though. Most of the buildings are in the "Federation" style, which means they were built around about the time when Australia became a Federation in 1901. Federation style means stone buildings, with intricate ironwork and tin roofs. This makes the architecture quite different from the rest of Australia. Some of the old stone buildings are really beautiful. I could have spent an entire week just going around photographing them from various angles.
Before I got to Adelaide, I spent a few days in Gosford with my mum and grandma.
The stuff that I have done this week:
Tuesday (15 February 2005)
Dad drove me half way and we meet my mother in the middle of Sydney somewhere at some anonymous post office. I drove part of the way home to my grandmother's house in Gosford. When you drive for the first time in a long while on the opposite side of the road than what you are used to, you have test the windshield wipers to see if they still work. You do it especially often when you are approaching a turn or intersection. I have no idea why this is.
After plumping down my baggage in the shack - when I am in Gosford I live in the shack behind my grandma's house - and put on my swimmers and headed out to Terrigal and... the beach. I finally made it to the beach. It was hot as hell just inland, but it was cool and breezy on the beach. The water was horribly cold at first but wonderful once you got used to it.
Back to grandma's house, and after a shower and a short respite we were off to dinner. I had a stake sandwich the works with chips (chips = french fries - or freedom fries if you are an idiot). That sandwich is toasted bread layered around:
- a nice juicy stake
- beetroot (called beats stateside)
- fried egg
- lettuce and tomato
- pineapple
- onion
- cheese
Wednesday
Midweek was Aunty Rae's birthday. I have lots of Aunty so-and-sos and Uncle who-and-whats, but Aunty Rae is actually related to me by being my grandma's sister. Mum decided that she wanted to take Aunty Rae to The Lion King which is playing in Sydney at the moment. I dislike Disney, but I have to hand it to Julie Taymor the director/consume designer who also directed the movie Frida which was likewise an artistic expression rather than just crude entertainment. So yeah, I live an hour north of New York City and I went all the way to Sydney, Australia - the other side of the planet - to see The Lion King. Musicals are like the McDonalds of live entertainment. They look exactly the same no matter where you see them. For example, Les Miserablés in London uses the exact same set and costume design as Les Miserablés in NYC. I know this because, by fault of an accident of fate, I have seen both productions.
Mum showed me around Sydney University - the oldest university in Australia - while she was trying to get them to write the contracts correctly before signing. She had been in contract negotiations because she has been offered a prestigious Federation Fellowship which will allow her to work at Sydney Uni for 8 months and remain in Utah for the rest of the year. She did eventually sign when they re-wrote it exactly like she asked. Ever since she left the lab she has been operating from a position of strength in professional negotiations. Probably even for some time before that. She will be moving to Sydney and be ready to go in July. It's been 25 years sine the three of us left Australia (mum, dad and myself), and now she is coming back.
Tuesday there was a husband and wife in line in front of us in the supermarket. The husband was typically... um... "Australian male"... and quite rude/sexist by American standards in regard to his wife's intelligence. My grandfather was never anything like that, but it is otherwise quite common. Mum made the comment today that she would have to get used to being a woman in Australia. It's not quite like being a woman in America (which is still of course male dominated), but if anyone can hack it, it would be my mother; I told her this. She has a strength she has inherited from my grandmother that makes her a force to be reckoned with.
Thursday
Squeezed just about everything we could into Thursday morning before taking a shuttle back down to Kingsford Smith International in Sydney. I had the worst case of blocked ears that I can recall. As our plane was landing in Adelaide it was really painful. I couldn't hear out of my left ear for most of the evening. Allison came to pick us up at the airport. We had BBQed stake and a beetroot (beets stateside), a tomato, and another cheesy salad. It was all, like her home, very upscale. Allison is a headhunter for accountants and has done very well for herself. Her husband does something professional as well. Classic double professional income zero children family.
Friday
Monkey-ed around with e-mail related to The Future in the morning and so was late to breakfast which was in the market, which was fabulous. One shop had the hugest lamington [1] that I have ever seen in my life. There were stalls selling fruit, cheese, bread, fish, butcher, and everything else. It all looked wonderfully delicious. I sampled some cheeses at "The Stinky Cheese Shop", which was to die for.
Lunch was a posh meal at the café in the Art Museum. It has been observed that "The art in fine restaurants is on par with food in fine art museums." This meal was the exception to the inverse corollary (math nerd).
Then we went to an exhibit of portraits titled "Australian's in Hollywood". It was part of the same National Portrait Gallery series which I saw in Canberra. Overall, the quality of prints varied greatly. Most of the images were pretty blah, and since they really are just pictures of famous people they have very little redeeming value. The most striking images were taken by the same photographer and had obviously been printed from 6x6cm negs. Those were really quite good.
The architecture in this city is terrific. Adelaide, like my godmum herself, is well-to-do and many houses and businesses have been modernized without destroying the old time character and Federation architecture. We were going to go for a walk about the town and snap a few sample shots; unfortunately it was raining which made the prospect not very appetizing.
Saturday
More meals. Apparently the only hobby that Allison and Rob have is eating fine food and drinking fine wine. Breakfast was a very upscale porridge that I am sure even those who do not like porridge would enjoy. Then we went to The Jam Shop where Allison bought me a gift for my house. Nice Tasmanian wood box for storing something important... probably my passports. I'm not really sure why they call it The Jam Shop... they sell all kinds of upscale things, but no jam.
For lunch we went to the beach and dined at a Greek restaurant. Naturally Allison ordered too much food, and I was forced to drink more wine that what I really wanted to. Don't get me wrong... in the right environment I love a nice glass (or two or three...) of red wine, but this usually consists of a party with my friends, not hanging out with my mum and godmum.
Took some pictures of the beach, but it was pretty blah.
Allison and Rob were out late at a grownup party which was apparently so boring that I wasn't invited. Allison did a lot of complaining that she had to go. I was happy to stay home and catch up on things. I've been pretty "non-stop" since I left Canberra.
Sunday
Allison and Rob slept in until about 11am. Allison grudgingly admitted that the party wasn't as bad as expected. We went to the Barossa Valley for lunch. It was typically upscale. The hostess was a slender dark-haired girl named Sally with reddish purple highlights, and a sexy giggle and pleasant personality. It is funny, in a country where there is no tipping (salaries for jobs which are tipped in the US are high enough to make it unnecessary) you would think service would suffer, but in my experience just the opposite has been the case.
I had several glasses of wine forced down. The beef salad was excellent. I photographed a wonderful stone building in the town of Anganston. Went up to a lookout and took a photograph to make Allison feel good for about taking me to the lookout. Actually it was a nice view - but come on, hooray, I have a picture of something a gazillion people have already photographed before me. Went to a winery called Seppeltsfield which is apparently the oldest in the Barossa Valley; Rob was unimpressed with a white and the port that he sampled there, but purchased two other bottles of wine. It will likely go in his cellar which has a gazillion bottles of wine in it.
Thankfully we did not have a dinner. I had become rather meal-ed out. Apparently even Allison and Rob have their limits. When we got home and were having "munchies" outside, Rob opened a bottle of white for himself and Allison, and brought out a glass of red for me before I could even say no thanks. At that moment it really was the last thing that I wanted. I was already fighting a headache probably induced from dehydration.
Allison's friend Sharon came over for a visit. For some reason, I expected Sharon to be Allison's age, but she was much younger, probably about my age. Attractive, funny, and could do nothing but talk about herself. Every once and a while I would get an edge in wordwise, but then she'd be like "did you know Jenny is pregnant?" to Allison and off they would go gossiping about people I had never meet.
From time to time she would also stop complaining about guys long enough to say "men" in that tone of voice which denotes that all men are exactly the same (you know the one), as though I wasn't even there. It appears that she had just broken up with her boyfriend. Allison said "we don't have to watch Desperate Housewives [2], we have Sharon to entertain us."
Sharon aspires to become a fire fighter. I think mostly for all the free time, but also "to serve the community", as she says dutifully as though she is already in an interview for the job. Apparently there are only four females in the fire service in either Adelaide or South Australia (I forget which it was, although it could easily be both), and they are trying to recruit more. It is a difficult to get in though, as they do not lower the physical requirements just because you are a woman.
Before she took off I showed my portfolio to Allison, "Robbie" (as Sharon was calling him), and Sharon. They were all suitably impressed and I gave my card, which has my e-mail and website address, to Sharon. I'm not even sure why to be honest, but there it is.
Before going to sleep, I had an awful headache from being dehydrated and having too much wine in the day. I actually thought I might throw up, but thankfully after hugging the toilet for a few minutes, my stomach chose not to. Thank god, because that would have been embarrassing. I wish my mum had not told Allison that I drink (I had actually asked mum some months ago not to tell Allison that I had started drinking, but apparently she had forgotten). I like to drink occasionally - usually when I have my friends over for a party - but I don't enjoy having it forced down me for every meal of the day.
Monday (21 February 2005)
I was feeling mostly better by the time I woke up, and started the day by packing my bags. I walked around the block and snapped a few photographs of stone buildings while Allison was at work. Allison came home at 12 to take me to the airport. She was remarkably nonchalant about arriving only 30 before my flight was scheduled to leave and I felt like saying "for those of us who cannot afford to fly business class everywhere, don't get to stand in the "no waiting" line, and we really can't afford to miss our flights either" but I kept the comment to myself and the plane was late coming in so everything turned out OK.
On the shuttle back to Gosford, there was a country singer by the name of Felicity who had just been to Tamworth which is apparently the Nashville of Australia. When I got home grandma was here to greet me. There was a radio on with the Australian equivalent of Rush Limbaugh [3] in the Kitchen and a TV on in the living room. Some things never change.
Post Script
Not much else to report. Next week I have two trips into Sydney planned and maybe go swimming at Terrigal. I will keep all of you posted.
[1] A lamington is this Australian dessert, which is a brick of dry cake coated in chocolate and covered in unsweetened coconut. It is delicious and impossible to recreate accurately in the US because Americans only sell moist cake and sweetened coconut. The coconut shavings are also the wrong size in America. Despite this, last year for my Australia Day party I attempted to make a rude approximation on Australian Lamingtons. They are supposed to be perfectly cubical, but mine were... how do you say in English... um... not cubical. The important thing is that they taste good though, and they got eaten, so they must have been at least ok.
[2] This show was advertised on TV while Allison was watching it, and I explained to her that it was so good that "it could be on cable" and that in the way that TV works in the states now that is a good thing, because apparently all of the good new TV is on cable, rather than broadcast. At least that is what I heard on NPR, I have never actually seen the show, to know either way. I'm not planning on doing the experiment to find out for myself. I can mostly only talk about TV now in theory, as I have very little experience. Shows like sex in the city show up on broadcast TV in Australia along with the shows that are on broadcast TV in the states like Friends or whatever.
[3] My grandmother always votes for the Liberal party, which is Australia's conservative party.
