Settling in at the Shakespeare

19 June 2013

We've settled into our room at the Shakespeare Hotel - THIS is the kind of room I was meant to stay in.  What can I say - I don't necessarily need posh, although posh is lovely.  I do, however, need pretty.  And clean.  And comfortable.  But pretty is way up on my list!

Turns out the hotel and pub were built in 1879 - so my "1880-ish" was, to use a British or Aussie phrase, spot on.

The rooms were recently renovated to look something like they might have in 1880-ish - and each room is different and unique.  Here's the link, if you want to see more about the hotel, pub, menu, etc.:  http://www.shakespearehotel.com.au

 
Yes, we have a chaise in our room.  Our own private chaise.  Or fainting couch, as it may have been known.  But since I have never fainted in my life, I think it'll just be a chaise.

And here are photos of our room, the coffee or tea center outside in the hall, the lounge down a flight of stairs.  (I brought the orchids I had purchased to try and brighten up our other place - the dirty dusty grubby room painted in taupe, with a beige ceiling, and black sheets, and taupe blanket.  You can see why the rose, brass, crystal, and black have totally cheered me up!)

This place is full of character.  As well as characters.  All it needs is a library full of books, and a blazing fire to chase away the chill of winter.  And maybe a cat or two to curl up next to us while we read.  On the chaise.  Drinking tea.  The place has that kind of feel - Merrie Olde Englande in the colonies, something like an inn or old manor house.  Lovely and comfortable.  With a few dead animal heads on the walls, between gilt-framed mirrors and faded paintings of someone's relatives and the occasional Italianate painting of pink and white people and cherubs.
 
It's still in Surry Hills, but closer to the library (for free internet), Messina's gelato (which several people have told us is the best gelato in Sydney), and is only a few blocks from the Central Station where we catch trains and trams to the city center and beaches and beyond.

I have to say it is so nice to be somewhere clean and normal.  And pretty.  With a warm, inviting ambience.  

Anyway - I tried to find a Shakespearean sonnet or soliloquy that applied to finding one's room (beyond "A Room of One's Own") - but nothing fit.

 
So I will close with quotation that seems apt, short though it be.  (I told you, Shakespearean language is contagious!) 


We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest (4.1.168-170)

The Shakespeare Hotel

19 June 2013

I try to stay upbeat and positive.  I'm congenitally cheery.  Even Pollyanna-ish.  I can find a bright side in most things.  And I try not to complain.

This blog isn't going to be like that.

Let me start by saying that we're moving to new accommodations, once again.  This is part of rolling luggager life, and we've become good at it.  But this time, it isn't because we're heading to a new city, or that the place we're in is unavailable.

No, this time we're moving because the place we're in is unacceptable.

First, almost everyone in the house smokes.  In the house.  Even though the listing was posted as NO smoking.  And anyone who knows me knows that we wouldn't have looked at a place had we known that smoking was allowed.

Then there's the fact that we were asked to come early, the guy didn't bother to tell us this was a different house down the road and around the corner, and that he didn't have a key for us.  One of the guys in the house gave us his key later on.  Turns out most of the guys in the house don't have keys - so the house is left open 24/7.  Whether anyone is home or not.  Luckily, I had a small luggage lock in my stuff, and we've kept our room locked.  But we also accidentally locked someone out of the house, before we found out that the house was left open.

And, well, it's a mess.  Filthy.  Dust mice that are morphing into dust gorillas.  Missing panes of glass in the bathroom window (which is an issue when the temperature is about 40 F outside - yes, maybe 5 C).  Makeshift rooms to cram in a few more beds.  Moldy shower stall.  Filthy bathroom floor that somehow is always wet, because there isn't a bath mat.  Grubby dirty filthy hallways. 

Gross.

The guys living here are sweethearts, they've been friendly and helpful, and they're equally fed up with the owner.  Who lives here, in this filth, but he's in Thailand right now.  We're in his room.  Equally dirty.

Anyway, I contacted the place we booked through, www.airbnb.com.  I explained that the main issue was the smoking, because I have asthma.  BIG props to them - they cancelled our reservation, and are crediting our card with the amount.  THAT is customer care!  But alas, it's very last minute to find a place in our price range within the city limits, so we haven't been able to find another bnb place.

So we're taking the same money that we'd have paid here for 2 weeks, and moving to a nice hotel, above an old authentic 1880-ish pub, at a special weekly rate (because it's slow season for hotels).  We found it on our walk to the train station yesterday, so it's in the neighborhood.  One of the last in the city, and touted as one of the few of a dieing breed of pubs.  Complete with $12 meals, gorgeous woodwork, and newly renovated rooms in the style of 1880-ish.  Our room has a brass bed, a fainting lounge, a wardrobe (well, armoire to us, but wardrobe or just robe in Aussie) - beautiful, warm, inviting, CLEAN!   

I'm looking forward to this.  

Raising a pint with the boys, and all that.

Well, okay, so I don't drink beer.  But I'm sure we'll spend some time in the pub in the evening, so Richard can eat his bangers and mash (sausages on mashed potatoes with gravy - yes, this is British food) and I can have a Thai beef salad or something.

It should be cozy.  And I'll take some photos of our lovely room.

And who knows, maybe it will elevate my language skills.  (Wouldn't you love to be able to speak Shakespearean English????)

Darling Harbour

18 June 2013

Today we headed to Darling Harbour - that's really the name, Darling Harbour.  This is an inlet on the larger Sydney Harbour, sort of west of the main part of Sydney and Harbour Bridge.


We walked to the Central train station, took the train to Circular Quay, and there boarded the ferry for Darling Harbour - all on the same ticket, which is just wonderful, the public transportation system here is great.

Our ferry (this is the New South Wales transportation system logo, the lotus blossom) went under the Harbour Bridge, giving great views of the crazed tourists climbing the bridge - as well as a dizzying and disorienting trip under the bridge and out the other side. 

We first stopped at Luna Park - cousin to the Luna Park in Melbourne, which I believe is older.  The moon face entrance in Melbourne is more sinister and ominous - this moon face is decidedly friendlier, although it is, for some reason, flanked by twin Chrysler buildings.  No idea why. 

And of course there were interesting views of the bridge and the Opera House, totally different from the other side.

We ferried on and stopped at a few places, then finally arrived at Darling Harbour. 

And found that the trash cans are somewhat reminiscent of the Opera House!  I don't know if the trash can designer meant to do that, or if this is just a new cover to keep rain out - but it certainly looks in keeping with the design of the Opera House!

So - in the Darling Harbour neighbourhood, there are a variety of tourist activities.  The main one I was interested in was the Wildlife Sydney Zoo - we walked in to enquire about prices and such.  Right in their entry way was an enclosure with a four foot or so glass wall, all kinds of vegetation, a few trees in the center, and a peacefully sleeping koala snuggled up in the tree, just a big round ball of grey fur.   

I knew this was the place for me!

Turns out they have a Koala Breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays - it was a bit late in the day to spend the money to go in, and the koala brekkie sounded wonderful - imagine getting to the zoo about 7 AM and sitting eating brekkie while the koalas climb back into their trees and go back to sleep for the day!

The lady was very nice and told us that while she couldn't give us the senior concession price, we could go online and book the tickets and pay a bit that way. 

So that's our plan.



And of course, I had to pose with the giant koala photo outside!   Because it turns out there are laws in much of Australia prohibiting people from holding koalas - so that won't happen here.  (And they have the same law in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin - no koala holding.  But we've been told I can hold a koala at the zoo in Brisbane, Queensland.  I hope.)

Anyway, we wandered around Darling Harbour for a bit, and crossed from one side to the other, on a huge pedestrian bridge, so wide it hardly seems like a bridge at all but more like a boulevard.  Complete with watchtowers, and a monorail going by overhead.

We walked around the shopping center, but, well, we don't buy much of anything.  

More walking, a late lunch, and by mid afternoon we had the brilliant idea of going to the casino.  I know, it sounds as if we spend half our time playing slot machines across Australia - but we've found that pubs are great places for home cooking at good prices, and also are great places to meet people and just chat.

Plus the poker machines (pokies) are regulated here - and, by law, must pay out something like 80-85% of the intake.  That means that over the course of a day or a week, every (any?) pokie will pay out $80-$85 for every $100 people put into any given machine.  Pretty good odds.  Some machines are linked to various jackpots.  Almost every pub or bar has a house jackpot.  (I can't tell you how thrilling it is to have the picture go blue, come back with the video of the "machine," and suddenly there's $100 you didn't put into the machine!!!!  Wowza!)

Anyway, so with odds like that, we'll play $20 or so, and 90% of the time make a profit.  Some days more, some days a little, every so often take a loss.  But, over time, we've found that we usually win, and can pay for a few splurges with the pokies.  (And no, we aren't like the people we see who pump $50 bills into a machine.  We have personal limits, we stick to them, we take out any appreciable amount rather than play it down - in other words, we have fun, make a little, and don't go crazy.)

And I have a few machines who just seem friendlier than others.  

So we went to the casino.  I explained to my machine that I was trying to get money to take Richard and myself to the Koala Breakfast.  First machine quadrupled my funds.  Next machine, no.  Third machine, no.  (We're talking $5 into the machine here - can you tell I'm a really conservative gambler?)  Fourth machine - I won a mini jackpot.  Then I won the free games (which pay extra).  Then I had several rows of racing and roaring tigers.  Voila, I had enough money to pay for one (MY) koala breakfast.

Back to our neighbourhood pub to see a bit of the football game (qualifying rounds for the World Cup, Australia was playing Iraq, the pub was packed - plus they raffle off trays of meat on Tuesday nights - don't ask, we didn't invest in a tray of questionable meat - and so the place was doubly packed).  Anyway, I visited my very friendly Lakota machine (with Indian chiefs and tomahawks and eagles, buffalo, and wolves, complete with wonderful graphics and animation).  I explained how much money I needed to take Richard to the Koala Brekkie.  (Yes, I talk to my machines.)  Of course, this is my very friendly favorite machine who did, indeed, pay me through free games and transforming animals and double lines of eagles - and I made enough for Richard to be my date.  I thanked the machine with a big hug (I always hug winning machines, it seems to make them pay me more), and we headed home.

Exciting times, huh?

So after the weekend I'll be able to report on our Koala Brekkie.   I'm guessing scrambled eggs with eucalyptus oil, crumpets or toast with koala pictures stamped on, maybe pancakes to look like koalas - I'll take photos!   

Sydney Culture/Cultcha

17 June 2013

We've been getting some Sydney culture (pronounced cultcha, because, as with most British and colonial accents, the ending R sound is lost somewhere in the universe).  A play, a museum, a try for the zoo.

We saw Shakespeare's "Antony & Cleopatra" in Newtown, the artsy neighborhood - it was a cooperative effort by several theatre companies, and was extremely well done.  It took a while to get used to the Aussie accented Shakespearean English, but after a while our ears acclimated and we were able to follow.  The  dialogue was traditional, the dress modern, the set and props minimalist.  (White dividers, two chairs, a rolling tea caddy.  A few knives, a sword, a machete.  Oh, and a briefcase for the adders.)  Antony and Cleopatra were excellent, there were a few interesting additions (a pas-de-deux between two actors as they discussed some unseen actions), and all in all it was very enjoyable.  Of course, being a Shakespearean history, half the actors were dead by the end of the play.  Hollywood it wasn't.

Today we tried to go to the zoo.  We actually got on the ferry, and were heading out to the zoo (which is on the opposite side of Sydney Harbour from the central business district) - then we thought to ask what the cost was to go to the zoo.  Price was well beyond what either of us were willing to pay for a zoo.  (Put it this way - it was double the price of the Adelaide Zoo.  It was almost double the price of the Singapore Zoo including the Night Zoo.  Price was crazy.  Might be wonderful, but we just weren't willing to pay that much for a zoo.)

So it was a pretty day, we enjoyed the rest of the ride, got off the ferry at the zoo, immediately got back on, and went back to the CBD.  What can I say, it was a lovely day for a ferry trip!  

On the way over, I started chatting with an adorable and very funny little boy who had the most gorgeous curly hair - he looked absolutely cherubic.  Chatted a bit with the parents, too.  I told the boy I wanted to have hair just like him - he told me he could cut his off and I'd need a lot of glue to stick it on my head.  Anyway, turns out the family is from Perth and travelling, on their way to the US - including Seattle.  I said I used to live north of Seattle, in Bellingham.  Turns out her best friend went to college in Bellingham, met a guy, got married, lived there for a while.  (Now divorced and back in Perth.)  But wow - just one of those "it's a small small world" coincidences!)

Okay, hopefully this lines up with the close up of the bridge - you see how the flags are blowing in the wind?  How windy that is?  Yup, you see it.  And you see those little bumps below the flags, gathered around the flagpole, standing on the bridge?  Those are people.  People who paid to walk up to the top of the bridge, on a windy day, and look at the view.  People who are wearing all kinds of safety harnesses so they don't get blown off the bridge.  Or fall.  Or something.  
Richard and I discussed how much money we would need before we'd be willing to go on this bridge climb.  I'm thinking $10,000 might do it.  No less.

I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art -  http://www.mca.com.au.  Amazing place.  This is what they did for their Vivid Sydney lighting - imagine your local museum doing that!  Wow, huh?

One of the featured exhibits was photographs, or cinematographs, by Jeff Wall.  He calls his photos
cinematographs because they tell a story that is encapsulated in that one image, one moment in time caught and memorialized.  And most of his images are actually transparencies shown on huge light boxes, so that the entire piece is maybe 5 x 8 feet or so (or 1.6 x 2.2 meters) - which of course gives each image even more luminosity.  They were amazing!  

I particularly liked this piece, "A Sudden Gust of Wind" (after Hokusai) - it's whimsical, narrative, and the trail of paper and leaves is just wonderful!  I also liked this detail from an artist at work - I loved that his materials include Crayola crayons (the 64-stick box no less) and a roll of toilet paper.  Just another moment of whimsy, caught forever.

There was also a wonderful piece by Robert Owen, called "Sunrise."  This piece is different in every museum in which is is shown, because it's an installation - not that it is a piece that travels there and is installed.  No, each time "Sunrise" is shown it is PAINTED on the actual wall of the museum.  And, depending on the size of the wall, the blocks of color might be contracted or stretched, to fit the dimensions of the wall.  The actual proportions is always be the same - but the actual sizes will differ each time.  (The artist usually will oversee the painting of this piece at each installation, although sometimes an artist will send directions and specifications, and not even attend.  Just X size of ABC color blue, then Y size of EFG pink.  Can you imagine being the people doing the measuring and painting???)


The artist is using the blocks of color to simulate folded paper, so that this is his interpretation of a sunrise rendered in origami, except in paint.  Confusing, I know.  But if you squint, you can kind of see what he was getting at - sea, land, sky, sun coming up, sky and sea changing color from the sun, clouds pink - only, everything is rectangular.  Cubist.  Something.  Conceptual art is kind of weird, but, well, also fun.  Especially if you don't take it too seriously.  

Also, this is the first time this piece has been attempted on two walls, going around the corner of a room.  So it's not only unique, but a new and innovative interpretation of a piece that is constantly changing.  

Another piece I really liked was by Rebecca Baumann - I finally remembered to take photos of the names of the artists!  (Oh, and most of these photos are from online.  The museum is okay with people taking photos, as long as they turn off the flash.  My little camera doesn't do well with close ups and no flash - so I just found some photos online and voila, here they are for your viewing pleasure and to brighten up the blog.)


Anyway - this is called "Automated Colour Field."  Another abstract kind of colour.  And, also, constantly changing - but not from location to location.  No, nothing like that.  

This is comprised of 100 mini flip-signs that are pieces of colored material (coverstock? plastic?) on little timed flip-clocks - so every few seconds or minutes, the color flips.  Of course, all the timers are set differently, so everything doesn't flip at once.  No, one or two here, a few there - with a quiet little click as a page flips and comes down, and sometimes a new color is exposed.

The whole is constantly changing, evolving, morphing from a quiet cubist landscape to a sparkling garden to a cityscape.  Or maybe a patchwork quilt of paper blown by Jeff Halls sudden gust of wind and changing again.  Different every minute, different each time, never to repeat itself.  

Sort of paint chips with ADHD.

And hypnotic in their own strange way.

Okay, just one last artist.  Because this one was really special.  Wangechi Mutu (pronounced Wang-EH-shee MOO-too) is a Kenyan-born, Brooklyn-based artist.  She works in collage, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation.  And the Museum of Contemporary Art had several of her installations.

One was a room with mini-volcanoes scattered around the room, made of packing tape - I have no idea how they stayed upright.  The "lava" on top of each volcano was fake hair - as in the hair used for extensions.  (Hair is a major issue in African/African-American/African-Caribbean culture - women spend hours having their hair done, or doing their hair - that African hair isn't the wash-and-dry kind of hair much of the time.  So the hair extensions were a major symbol in this installation.)   

The volcanoes continued around the edge of the room and up the walls, creating a unique landscape, with a few trees, and a giant collage of a moon - made of ceramic pieces, fur, and found objects.  The wall was "decorated" with gashes and fur - seeds flying from the trees and landing in the mountains.  Weird and other-worldly and gorgeous in its expanse and meaning.

Another room was filled with a tree (made of felted blankets or pads) hung with, well, calabashes?  Home-made soccer balls the way children make them in Africa.  Wadded up plastic bags tied with twine.  Again, a massive and involved installation with layers of symbolism and meaning, but also just aesthetically beautiful to behold.

Anyway, you can tell I enjoyed the museum.  It was a huge building full of some interesting, some not-so-interesting items.  (I didn't even get started on the Aboriginal artwork!)

Amazing place, and definitely go here if you are in Sydney!

Other than that, well, we're just enjoying city life, in Sydney!

One last little funny bit - Richard took me to this wonderful gelato place - people in this area swear it's THE  BEST  GELATO  EVER.  (It was very good!)  Anyway, they rotate new flavours - today, one of the featured flavours was called High Tea - yup, Earl Grey flavoured gelato with bits of shortbread cookie in it!  How funny is that?  Of course I tasted it - not really great - the tiramisu gelato I went with was much much better!

Still Sydney

13 June 2013

Wow, I can't believe it's been an entire week since I last posted!  Time flies, all that.  We're having fun just living in Sydney for now, and doing the normal city things - enjoying the lights of Vivid Sydney and experiencing the crowds; walking and exploring neighbourhoods; sampling various cuisines; chatting with people in cafés and coffee shops and pubs; even running into some of those people in other places.  We almost are starting to have friends in Sydney!


At the same time, we haven't really done anything in particular, like visit a museum or go siteseeing.  We're enjoying just absorbing Sydney as a place to be, a way of life.

We've moved to a new house, new neighborhood - as much as we enjoyed Alexandria and the artists' studio, the person whose room we rented via airbnb was returning, and we had to leave.  We're now in Surry Hills, a bit closer to the city center, in an old terrace house (what in England would be called an attached house, or in NYC might be a brownstone except that it's really cement or plaster) - the long narrow houses that are attached on both sides to other houses, have two or three storeys, and go back a long ways to a tiny back yard.  Our room is small but we have a king bed, which is wonderful!  The house - well, it's kind of a boarding house full of young men who are here on working visas.  Several Irish guys, a Brit or two, one young man from France - and the owner (whose room we're in) is off to holiday in Thailand.  Not the cleanest place, but hey, as my mom would say, you get what you pay for - and the price is cheap.  So we're making do.

The neighborhood, though, is great - part trendy, part ethnic, with small shops and little pubs and restaurants.  The neighborhood pub has great meals for $10 as long as you buy a drink - how can you go wrong with that?  (Soda or juice works as a drink.)  Plus they have new pokies, one of which is confusing but very friendly.  (As in, it pays out well.)  Someone we chatted with described Surry Hills as funky but a bit posh - I'd probably call it up-and-coming trendy.  Our taxi driver said the suits have moved in, so it won't be as funky and will be more expensive soon - but it currently is a transition neighbourhood, and we're enjoying it. 

So, the photos.  We've discovered a fabulous bakery just around the corner and up a few blocks.  Kürtosh - http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/70/1695828/restaurant/Sydney/Kurtosh-Surry-Hills - it's more than a bakery, it's also a café with lovely blue and white tiles and fabulous tea and coffee to go with the pastries and cakes.  And the cakes - oh, the cakes!  As my friends and family know, I love to bake, and one of the things I bake is sour cream coffee cake.  (Known in my family as Vivian Yeagle's coffee cake, because my mother got the recipe from this neighbour, back in the 1960s.)  Richard grew up with the same exact recipe, except his mother doubled the recipe and often left out the walnuts and added chocolate chips.  Anyway, this is a fabulous cake - rich, moist, dense, with that ribbon of melted brown sugar and cinnamon and walnut gooey-ness in the middle - well, Kürtosh has TWO ribbons of gooey melty brown sugar/cinnamon in the middle of the cake, rather than putting the second layer on top!!!!!!  OMG, double gooey melty sugar - how can you go wrong with that??? 



PLUS - they have plates of tastes all across the counter - barrel cake, cinnamon pull-aparts, rugelach, blondies that are really half-brownie-half-blondie layers, the Vivian Yeagle cake - and you can taste each and every one!!!!!!!!!  And then, when you finally, FINALLY, decide which item you'd like, they cut and weigh each piece - so if you want a small piece of cake, that's what you ask for.  If you want the hungry man piece of cake that Richard always wants, well, you can get that too!

How can you go wrong with free samples and varied sizes of cake?

We've been in the neighbourhood two days.  We've been to Kürtosh twice.  I've told Richard we need to do this maybe once a day - not more.  (He laughed.)

And the people were nice about me taking photos of their gorgeous treats, which taste amazing!

Just a little sidebar:  today, we talked to a young woman from New Zealand who was reading Huxley's "Brave New World" in Spanish - the title being "Un Mundo Feliz" which we all agreed was quite a strange translation.  Although maybe the title in Spanish reflects the utopian aspect of the society portrayed.  Not sure.  Just odd.

Anyway, we've also been enjoying the availability of movies in the city (and the senior prices) - and there are the mainstream movies like "Place Beyond the Pines" (which we both enjoyed, although we both had criticisms of the filming and acting).  We also are enjoying more obscure movies like "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," set mostly in Pakistan, which portrayed a non-Western point of view of the world, and which we both felt had more of a message about the futility of violence than the movie critics we've read subsequently.

One rainy afternoon, Richard went to see "The Great Gatsby" which he enjoyed for a variety of reasons, although he reports that the movie fell short of the book, and that the story in many ways doesn't lend itself to film.  I saw "Happiness Never Comes Alone," a delightful romantic comedy, or comedic romance, set mostly in Paris (with bits in New York) - it really was a wonderful movie, exploring love and relationships between two adults (as opposed to young adults, as most movies tend to be).  Plus the male protagonist is a French Jewish guy, with a bubbe who makes blintzes for him and calls him "Pipsely" - so I could relate, despite the language and subtitles.  Anyway, if you see the movie playing near you, take your sweetie and go see it - really a funny and fun film.  (Another sidebar - the female lead is played by Sophie Marceau, who is NOT the daughter of famous mime Marcel Marceah; the male lead, Gad Elmaleh, IS the son of a mime!  But from Morocco, of all places.  Mimes in Morocco?)

In between rain, movies, pokies, and bakeries, we've managed to book a camper van from late June to mid August.  We'll head up along the coast to warmer weather and the Great Barrier Reef, and plan to snorkel, dive, enjoy the beaches and the sun.  And explore one more dream area of Australia.  So there should be some fun adventure up ahead, and we're both looking forward to that.  (It'll be the two-berth camper, nothing like our Mighty Whitey that we had in NZ.)  

We're also working on where to go in mid-August, when we need to leave Australia again.  Not sure if we want to return to Australia, or move on.  There's so much world to see.  So we're looking at all the Pacific islands, as long as we're in the general vicinity.  We'll figure something out before August.

Anyway, that's the update.  Nothing new and exciting.  Movies, urban life, and probably more pastry than we need.