Do Nothing Saturday
Well, that’s not strictly speaking true. It’s been a day of house-cleaning.
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Cleaning up home after the Lismore Flood
I didn’t expect to see half a dozen people arriving at the door of our house in South Lismore today. I’m home helping clean up our family home which has been devastated by the record-breaking flood which saw water reach up to two metres inside the two-story house. We’re not alone, there are maybe 2,000 houses in Lismore which have seen similar devastation. Likely more.
Today’s volunteers included a couple from Byon Bay, a bloke from the Gold Coast, three young people who I learned were also from the Gold Coast, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. There were no airs and graces. No sense of “pity”. They were all wonderful people who happily did anything we needed help with. We were also joined by a bunch of Michelle’s colleagues, all nurses or working in the nursing area at Lismore Base Hospital.
They did everything from ripping up carpet, lino and floor tiles, to washing dishes and photographs. They were all happy to do some of the more physical work such as pulling down once-fashionable wall panelling. There were also people who came to our door with food, wraps, coffee, chocolate. The community response has been amazing.
Pat and Jack have lived in the house since 1969, and ripping up the carpet and lino provided me with a flashback to times past. There were four layers of lino/tiles in the kitchen, including some layers that might attract good prices in hipster furniture stores. There was also carpet and underlay that simply fell apart.
We’re not alone in this. There are probably thousands of homes in Lismore going through the same thing as us. And in other towns too.
Three Days in Stockholm
“What should we do in Stockholm?”, Damien asked me on the weekend. I was having a drink with him and Kristen, his fiance. They’re planning a trip to Europe in the early part of next year, including “three days in Stockholm”.
“Three days is not enough time to spend in Stockholm”, I told them. But I promised to offer some recommendations for good things to do, and places to stay, on a low budget. I’ve drawn mostly on my experiences from March last year when it was still quite cold, rather than my summer experiences from 2008 and this year.
If you have any further recommendations/ideas, please comment below.
SKANSTULL HOSTEL
I stayed at Skanstull Hostel in 2008 and briefly in 2010. It’s clean, well-run, good showers, though the kitchen is reasonably basic.
I’ve also stayed at The Clarion at Skanstull if you can afford a little bit of luxury.
SKY APARTMENTS
I stayed at Sky Apartments this year for three weeks and absolutely loved it.
BEST PRICES I’VE FOUND FOR ACCOMMODATION
http://www.booking.com/ is my favourite place to book. I’m not sure why, but it just works for me.
Eat loads in the morning and then have a dagens lunch and you’ll be pretty much right for meals.
There’s loads of stands around the streets where they sell kebabs (korv med brod) and grillad (sausages on buns) for just a few dollars.
If you’re looking for beer, go to the supermarket and buy lite-beer, which is about 3% so fine and pretty cheap.
http://www.jensens.se/ is also quite good/cheap in a “Sizzle” kind of way.
Stockholm Rooftop Walk
Boat Trip on The Ice
Saltsjobaden
Katarinahissen – it’s a viewing platform on Sodermalm (right above McDonalds near Slussen t-bana). The main lift doesn’t work anymore, so I suggest you go into the building where McDonalds is. You ask someone about the lift to Gondolen Restaurant/Bar. You catch the lift up, and then you take the stairs one more flight.
National Museum
Drottningholm is okay, not great, but grounds are wonderful
walking on the ice
Gamla Stan
Sodermalm
Djurgarden
Saltsjöbaden
MONDAY NIGHTS AT VICTORIA’S (KUNGSTRADGADEN)
You must do this. It’s very Swedish.
TICNET.SE
This is the major ticketing site in Sweden. The only show I can see co-inciding with your time there is Anna Ternheim is fantastic, but it looks like it’s sold out.
http://www.ticnet.se/event/Anna-Ternheim-biljetter/RIUS0130
THIS IS THE FREE EVENTS SITE FOR STOCKHOLM
Although it’s mostly in Swedish, there’s lots in English also.
Current exchange rate is about 6.5 to 7 SEK to AUD.
And remember – THREE DAYS IN STOCKHOLM IS NOT ENOUGH
Flying Home from Lismore
When it came time to fly back to Sydney, I was a little nervous. I had been charged for excess baggage on the way to Lismore, and I didn’t want to incur a similar charge on the way back.
I keep clothes and some other personal items at home in Lismore, so I only ever take the minimum carry-on of 7kg when flying home. However, I was a little cavalier in my packing this time around, and when I was approached in the queue, my bag weighed in at close to 9kg. I was forced to pay an extra $65.
I left a few of the items I had taken with me to Lismore at home, but even so, my bag still weighed 8kg. Carrying two laptops (one personal, one work) seemed to be the biggest issue.
So I packed the jacket I was planning to wear, with my Bluetooth speaker and computer cables in the pockets. I was still convinced that they were going to approach me in the queue again, but thankfully the plane was running late and was full, so there was little time to worry about what I was carrying.
It was lovely at the airport to run into some people who were also heading to Sydney for an exhibition at the NSW Parliament of 100 photographs taken in the weeks after last year’s Lismore floods.
In many country towns, there is no real sense of “six degrees of separation”; it’s generally only one degree of separation.
In chatting with one couple at the airport, we established that they were likely living in a house where one of my cousins lived back in the 70s. We also established that someone we mutually knew had recently started a new job, replacing someone who had recently moved to Sydney, and who was now working with my friend (also from Lismore) who was coming with me to the exhibition opening.
These country town conversations are never about what you do for a living, or where you went to school, they’re about where you’re from and who you know. “You’re from such and such town or street? Do you know such and such?” And quite often you do.
I arrived in Sydney safely and on time, and I was happy to have avoided another excess baggage charge. I was also glad to have had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones. It’s always nice to come home.
Chef, Dan Hong
“I live in Chinatown and so the places me and family eat are generally the Sussex Street Mall, and the Dixon Street Mall”, Dan Hong said, to the surprise of a lot of people attending tonight’s event at the Beresford Hotel. As the son of Angie Hong, a woman who was a pioneering Vietnamese chef in Australia, and as someone who has worked at places like Tetsuya (and now Mr Wong), I was surprised, and I think many others were too. But it shouldn’t come as too much surprise, as he also spoke about the joy he has with Monday night dinners with his mother, and in the experiences he has in visiting “street food” restaurants in Singapore. He spoke tonight about his particular excitement about food in Japan. He also spoke about his seeming failure at the Higher School Certificate, and how his first job, working at Long Grain, was something which was actually organised by his mother.
Cooking, it seems, was something he fell into. Though he said it was something he always enjoyed, as it was something he did as a child, as his mother was always working, and his father never cooked. Nonetheless, he spoke about the difficulty of managing long hours with a young family, contrasting that with when he worked as a chef where “seventy hours per week was nothing”.
“As a young chef you don’t really care what the customers want. You just cook really cool food for yourself”, he admitted. It wasn’t until he started working for Justin Hemmes (and probably having a young family) that he realised the importance of making a living, and gained the pleasure of seeing a full restaurant every night. That said, he noted, a restaurant he worked at “looked like everything was from St Vincent de Paul, but cost two million dollars to open”.
“It’s hard to find chefs now”, he said, “because everyone thinks of what it was like ten years ago when everyone was shouted at, yelled at”, echoing shades of Gordon Ramsay. “That still happens, but kitchens are changing”, he added. He quoted one chef he knew who said he would rather get 48 of “their best hours, rather than 65 of their average”. He also bemoaned the fact he didn’t have apprentices “because all the good ones are doing fine dining, or something less”
It was a fascinating evening, which I enjoyed very much. Cost? Nothing. Keep an eye out for these regular events at The Beresford in Surry Hills, announced through Eventbrite. Sadly, the next four are completely booked out. I understand why.
Chilly Night
It’s a chilly night in Sydney.
We’ve had a beautiful sunny day in Sydney, but with hardly any cloud around tonight, there’s been nothing to keep the warmth in.
I was actually hoping for a bit of cloud tonight to keep the warmth in, as tomorrow morning I’m going to be in Martin Place at an ungodly hour.
Tomorrow, every radio station breakfast show in Sydney is involved in a live broadcast from Martin Place. Well, if you exclude Kyle and Jackie O…
So we have t-shirts (and scarves) and everyone’s been told to wear a singlet or a black-skivvy (and being the ABC we should have no shortage of them) to keep us warm.
So it’s an early night to bed for me after a reasonably busy and interesting day.
The next few days are reasonably busy with work actually, so don’t expect much in the way of a “life update” until the weekend.