The half time act in Eurovision can often be quite boring. Riverdance from Ireland set the standard, prompting a global phenomenon. When Norway came to host Eurovision in 2010, they were already behind the curve with “flashmobs”, but they did an awesome job “uniting Europe”. I wanted to be there with them.
As part of these “moments”, I’m sharing in the lead-up to Eurovision, I’ll be highlighting two other exemplary interval acts. Both of them are from Sweden. When it comes to half-time acts, the Scandis do it well!!
You know how some people go about their morning walk at break-net speed with a pair of headphones presumably blasting loud dance music into their ears?
Or maybe it’s a podcast of one of their favourite radio shows?
Or maybe it’s classical music or jazz?
Well, when I go for a morning walk I prefer silence. As I spend most of my life listening to the sound of people talk, I quite like the bird sounds, as well as the underlying rumble of traffic (I live in Surry Hills after all).
And for me, the morning walk is more of a stroll. My heart-beat hardly ever rises. So for me, it’s not about the exercise, it’s about the moments of silence, I guess.
I also love looking around the neighbourhood, as Surry Hills is a remarkable place.
There’s Beryl, the woman who lives mostly on the streets who I recently discovered was Stolen Generation. She was sitting on a bench on the park.
There was a group of men standing outside the methadone clinic on South Downling Street, waiting for it to open.
There was a group of men and women standing outside the Bourke Street Bakery, waiting for it to open. We all have our addictions, eh?
Over in Moore Park, the spring light was reflecting the overnight mist on the clover.
“I’ve got a spread-sheet listing accommodation, transportation and entertainment on a day to day basis”, I told Damien when we chatted online today. “I’m sure you have”, he replied. I think Damien thinks I tend to overplan things, whereas my friend Graeme thinks I underplan things. For example, I’m sure Graeme thinks I should have purchased thermal underwear by now, whereas I’m happy to wait until I get to Sweden to see if I need it, and then to purchase the right kind of thermal underwear for the climate. On the other hand, I’m happy that I’ve booked all but a few days accommodation (and have made good savings due to the advance notice), and have purchased tickets to a number of concerts and other activities I’m planning to attend. It’s odd, though, since Graeme tends to be a last minute-traveller, whereas I like to plan in advance. We all travel differently I guess.
Anyway, today I booked some more accommodation and plotted things out a bit more. Today I booked a hotel in Gävle, Hotell Gävle for two nights, co-inciding with the ABBA Tribute featuring Magnus Carlsson amongst others in nearby Sandviken. I haven’t actually worked out how I’m getting between Gävle and Sandviken, though there’s probably a bus or train or something. And I also booked a bed in a dormitory for a few days at same hostel I stayed eighteen months ago. It’s clean, well-located, and a good price.
So I’m clear now that I have only five days accommodation in Stockholm to think about. My head tells me I should probably just book into the same hostel but my heart tells me I should keep my options open in case I decide to do something different. So in summary, half my trip will be in budget (but nice) single rooms (barely able to swing a cat and half with shared facilities) and roughly half will be in hostels. There’s also a few days here and there in nice accommodation too.
I like balance. And I guess that’s why I like the Swedish word, “lagom”. Although I understand there’s no direct translation for the world in English, the essence of it is “just the right amount”.
Until last night, the two most memorable occasions in my life where I’ve eaten garlic bread have both related to restrictive alcohol laws.
Back in the 1980s, I recall, you had to have a meal to drink at a bar in Brisbane. It didn’t matter how much you drank (of course). But I vividly remember going to bars in Fortitude Valley (during my university years) where you were always handed a ticket for food as you entered clubs like The Beat and The Terminus. It was a quirk of the liquor licensing system. Often there was a simple curry, mostly though it was garlic bread. I suspect a fair few of the older people in those bars threw the tickets away, but as a university student, I can assure you, it was welcome sustenance.
Many years later, living in Sydney, I encountered something similar at the legendary late night bar, Barrons. Barrons, located in Kings Cross was a bar where you would go for a drink when everything else was closed. Famously, a friend who fell down the stairs in an alcoholic stupour, was once asked by one of the bouncers… “So are you coming in or leaving…?”
Like Brisbane in the 80s, Barrons had a “must eat” policy. Vividly I remember going through the farce of having to order a meal before you were allowed to go upstairs to have a drink. “What would you like to eat?”, they’d ask, for which the only answer was “Garlic Bread, thanks”. You then had to wait for the garlic bread to arrive before you could go upstairs. Being a little older (and probably having already eaten), the sustenance angle was no longer relevant, and so I remember waiting, making a token effort to eat the garlic bread, and then heading upstairs.
Let’s face it. Garlic bread is mostly pretty crap.
But last night I went out with friends and ate what was possibly the world’s greatest garlic bread at the Mad Pizza Bar on Crown Street. Admittedly we had enjoyed a few drinks earlier, and we were all quite hungry, but the garlic bread was incredibly tasty, and such a long way from everything else I’d eaten previously. The garlic was sweet (probably roasted) and so was the bread. The pizzas were okay. The garlic bread was amazing.
“Have you printed off your vaccination certificate?”, I asked a family member earlier in the week. He’s a tradie who has been living and working in New South Wales for several months, and has been staying with us for about the last four weeks.
Lately, the work he does has started to dry up, and he’s been starting to feel a little homesick, keen to see his closer family. This week he decided he would try to head home, to see if he could cross the tight border into Queensland.
A couple of weeks ago, he wasn’t planning to get a vaccination. Not because he’s not a anti-vaxxer (or at least I don’t think so), he said he felt he didn’t “need it”. But I urged him to get vaccinated, knowing it will become an increasingly important part of work and travel in the future.
I’d also been told by a friend (who lives in NSW, but has a business in Queensland), people seem to have more of a chance of getting through the border check quickly if they are able to show evidence of vaccination.
I even made the appointment for him at the nearby pharmacy in South Lismore. He’s back home tonight, and I hope it played a part in getting him successfully back home to Queensland.
We’ll miss him, as it’s been great to re-connect with him in a face-to-face sense. I think Jack, in particular, will miss him. I think he’s enjoyed having someone to talk about “mechanics and other manly stuff with”. I’m not very good at that kind of conversation.
As for me, I’ve been wondering if I should “risk it” and return home to Sydney, too. I’m also feeling a little homesick. This is now the longest period of time I’ve spent back in Lismore since I finished university at the end of 1986!
“Don’t you even dare think about returning to Sydney”, Pat has said to me on a couple of occasions this week. “It’s too dangerous down there”, she’s added.
Every day we sit and watch on television the 11am NSW COVID media conference and sigh, as there’s never much good news, despite the “positive spin” put on everything.
In the midst of the ever-increasing numbers we also have a bit of fun. Just before the press conference I’ll ask everyone to guess the number of new cases. There’s no “prize” per se, but it brings a moment of joy into a depressing story. On the day the figure passed 1,000 daily cases none of us came even close to guessing.
The advice of friends and colleagues is that I should stay here. “There’s no reason to come back”, they’ve all said.
And indeed, I have a lovely life here.
“I’ve got a lovely daily routine here”, I told colleagues on our weekly team hook-up today. “I’ll go for a walk down the street and grab a coffee. The woman who runs the coffee shop used to work with my niece. The brother of her grandson (who works with her) is best friends with the son of my niece. We all like to have a chat/gossip.”
Bowen’s Pie Shop
“And then I’ll pop in to the post office, the chemist, and the bakery, doing some odd jobs for my family. I’ll call in to the pie shop, too. That’s been owned by the Bowen Family since 1949, and I went to school with Tracey who now runs the shop. We have a chat, too”, I’ve told them.
All in all, what could take 15 minutes, sometmes turns into close to an hour.
The cake shop/bakery at South Lismore has some good “old school treats” on display.The apple cream turnovers are extraordinary!The other day I called in and said hello to the people at the new food truck, now located outside the old railway station. “Welcome to South Lismore”, I told them, only to discover they previously had a “bricks and mortar cafe just down the road at NORCO”.Food truck at the South Lismore Railway StationToday I called into the bottle shop, as I noticed there was already a lengthy queue developing, with cars going down the street, awaiting the entry to the drive through.
“How’s it going?, I asked the bloke behind the counter. “The same number of customers”, he told me. “It’s just that everyone is drinking a hell of a lot more”, he added.
As we entered Noma (Sydney) for lunch yesterday, there was a real sense of “showbiz”. As we were shown to our table, the four of us were greeted by probably twenty or thirty staff. “Hello, hello, welcome”. Having lived all my life in Australia, I often feel cynical about such displays of hospitality. Though such displays often feel contrived, this seemed to me very genuine. Over the next two and half to three hours, as we enjoyed our meals, and chatted with the staff, it became pretty obvious the staff were, too, lovers of fine food.
Though I’ve visited Copenhagen a few times, I’ve never been to Noma. Their seasons are always sold out weeks/months in advance. But I have read about Noma, and its reputation as a world class restaurant. In particular, I’ve been interested in the work done by the chef and co-owner, René Redzepi in re-inventing Nordic cuisine, and by his innovative use of unusual/interesting ingredients. When they announced a ten week season in Sydney, I was certainly interested, though not confident I’d be lucky enough to secure a seat/table. There are still 27,000 people (or something like that) on the waiting list. Thanks to the perseverance of Damien (running a couple of computers simultaneously) we were lucky enough to secure a table. And so yesterday, after months of anticipation, four of us sat down and enjoyed a remarkable lunch.
Porridge of golden and desert oak wattleseed with saltbush
From the opener (macadamia in a spanner crab broth) to the closer (a fresh take on bon bons), everything was a surprise and a delight. There were many highlights. For me, they included the “dumpling” of marron and magpie goose (eat it like a taco), the sea urchin with tomatoes and berries, and the marinated fresh fruit (which included teaming up watermelon with a very bitter native plum). There were thirteen courses in all, and absolutely no sense of “I’m still hungry, let’s get some Maccas on the way home”.
Abalone schnitzel and bush condimentsSeafood platter and crocodile fat.
Another particular highlight for me was the deep sea snow crab served in a sauce of egg yolk and fermented kangaroo. Though I’ve eaten crab all my life, I’ve never had crab like this before. The particular crab we were served lives in such deep waters that they’re actually white. There’s little/no lite where they live in waters off the continental shelf. We learned an awful lot about crab, actually, as we got chatting with a lovely family from Western Australia, who actually supplied the crab for the restaurant. “René came for dinner one night”, we were told, as we began to better understand how the team from Noma had spent several months/weeks/days traveling around Australia sourcing ingredients and then developing the uniquely Australian meals. “A world-class chef comes to your place for dinner. Pressure much? I joked.
That was one of the great things about the afternoon: the shared experience. After the meal, the opportunity to meet the family from WA made it all the more enjoyable, as they too share a love of food. Around the rest of the room, I noticed other people were similarly making friends.
Marinated fruits
I’ve been a little sick over the last week, and so chose not to have the matched wines (shock! horror!) but Damien, Kristen, and Glenn did, and they all said they were all very well-matched. They were also, I think, natural wines, meaning there were without preservatives. Though I do love wine, I equally enjoyed the meal, I think, without drinking.
As each meal was served the staff explained in detail (without too much detail) the meal, and seemed really happy to answer our many, many questions :) They definitely earned their keep :)
“I’ve tried to explain this to people at work, spending so much money on lunch but they just didn’t understand”, one of us said, “Noma”. For the last few months, I’ve been feeling lots of “Catholic Guilt” about this also. The “guilt” comes from the fact that I’m a working-class boy from a small country town in Australia. The money I spent on LUNCH would feed whole families in some parts of the world for weeks, if not months. In my own mind, I balanced it out because I do contribute a fair bit of money to a couple of charities that help people around the world.
But how do you explain spending so much money on lunch to your colleagues/ friends/ family who live equally “first world lifestyles”? According to my friend, you ask them how much money they’ve recently spent on a rock concert. Many people in Australia (and other “first world nations”) will routinely spend several hundred dollars on a ticket to a rock concert. Personally, I spent three or four hundred dollars to see Bette Midler and Liza Minelli. I know a few people who spent over seven hundred dollars to see Barbra Streisand. So my perspective on this is simple: it was like the greatest rock concert of all time (for food), and we got to meet and chat (at length) with the star.
