A friend and I went on a walk this morning, hosted by the Friends of Waverley Cemetery, which was excellent. We were the only two on the tour, so it was very personalised, and our guide, who was passionately interested in history, even helped find the grave of one of my ancestors.
Awesome waterfront views, also.
Although a number of friends argued I should have just caught the train between London and Paris, I’m glad I flew. Although the weather was shitty when I left London, things improved pretty quickly, and I was lucky enough to have great views of the White Cliffs of Dover, and then flying into CDG Airport, to see the French countryside. Luckily, I’d secured the front-row seat on the Easyjet Flight from Luton.
If there was one unfortunate thing about being met at the airport by my friend David, it was the long wait for my luggage. As the front-seat holder, and as an Australian citizen, I joined the queue for Customs quickly, and was ushered through in a matter of minutes. My luggage took considerably longer. For at least 15 fifteen minutes, David and I were left looking at each other through a large window, communicating only through sign language and text messages. Until finally, we met.
And how great it was to see him. He visited Australia four years ago, and since then we’ve continued to communicate through email and online chat. “You have a voice”, I said to him, at one point, commenting on how odd it felt to see and speak with him face-to-face instead of via the internet.
Over the next few hours, David came me a crash-course in how to use the metro (I think he did a great job as I’ve had no problems getting around today), showed me to my hostel, gave me loads of tourist tips, and took me out for dinner.
Dinner was excellent by the way, and the waiter was cute (an added bonus). And although he obviously communicated extensively with David in French, he made me feel very welcome by communicating in English, and I think appreciated some of the efforts I made with my school boy French.
After dinner, I was absolutely bloody exhausted, and came straight back to the hostel and went to sleep. The room I’m staying is large, has excellent views, and the beds are very comfortable. Unfortunately, I’ve scored the top-bunk which isn’t all that much fun for a bloke of my age. The room was also a little stuffy, as everyone had already closed the windows and curtains. They obviously like to sleep in the dark, whereas I’m a soft-light, windows open kinda guy myself.
After breakfast this morning, I went on one of those “Free Walking Tours”, run by the same company which ran the one I went on in Berlin. Personally, I don’t think the guide we had this time was as good as the one in Berlin, even though he was an Aussie, and a nice bloke as well. Nonetheless, we got to visit all of the major tourist sites, and were given some advice along the way for further independent exploration.
I can scarcely believe how beautiful Paris is. And not just the buildings, but the people too. Going into shops, for example, the people have all been very friendly. I’ve asked for directions and have been treated very well. The whole vibe of the place is so incredibly warm and open. Oh, and the French men are so good looking! If there was to be a contest between London and Paris, at the moment Paris wins.
I’ll be the first to admit I can sometimes be a little bit socially awkward. In a group of four or five people I’m fine, but in a large room I am often the “wall flower” who finds it difficult to meet people and to make conversation. Thus, I’ve felt slightly apprehensive about my plans to attend the International ABBA Day, held annually at Roosendaal, a small town in The Netherlands. Even though I’ve “known” a lot of the people attending for many years through the internet, the idea of meeting them in real life for the first time (and new people on top of that) has been messing with my head a little, I’ll admit.
Thank goodness for Trent. He’s an Australian who has been living in Ireland for several years, and who I’ve known for fifteen years or so. He’s much more social than I am. Much better at meeting people. He was the first person who told me he was going to Roosendaal. For him, it was the first time in several years. One by one, other people who I’ve met in real life previously, including Marco (from The Netherlands), and Tony (from Sweden) also mentioned they would be attending.
On top of that, I met people last night I’ve met previously (mostly in Australia), such as Jurgen and Jason. I was also surprised but excited to see my friend David (who I spent some time travelling with a few years ago), and others. And over breakfast this morning, I met Pascale for the first time.
Thankfully, the trepidation I’d anticipated about being a “wall-flower” in the midst of a group of people for twenty or thirty years (or more) who had known each other very well for a long, long time quickly disappeared. A few drinks helped also.
Last night started with a large-ish group dinner at a local restaurant/pub called “The Captain Cook”. “Oh my goodness, we’re going to a pub called The Captain Cook”, I said to Trent. “You understand the significance of this to Australians?”, he said to our English residing companion as we walked down the street. I had the mixed grill which was good. The waiters at the restaurant were very friendly and the service was good. “I have family in Australia”, the waiter told me when I presented my Australian credit card. When I mentioned there were lots of people with Dutch heritage in Australia he told me they were actually Croatian. “We have a lot of them, too”, I told him.
After dinner we headed to a nearby pub where an ABBA Quiz Night and Disco was to be held. At first there was only a handful of people. By the end of the night, the place was packed to the rafters, and the dance floor (basically the whole pub) was never empty. At one point I wondered what the regular inhabitants of the bar thought of us taking over their pub for the night. There was a group of guys, in particular, who I noticed who couldn’t quite believe their eyes. They were literally slack-jawed as they looked around the room at the group of a couple of hundred people dancing to ABBA and ABBA-related music, including some reasonably obscure stuff. Yes, of course they played “Dancing Queen”, but they also played lots of B-sides, rarities and remixes. I’m sometimes a little critical about ABBA gatherings which only seem to play the “obscure stuff” (as if it’s a badge of honour to being considered a “real fan”), but I thought Jason who had programmed the evening got the balance right.
The slack-jawed guys didn’t stay long, but they seemed to enjoy their time there. I have a theory half of them were thinking, “hey there’s lots of lovely ladies here tonight”, while the other half were thinking their dreams had all come true – that Roosendaal had a gay bar at last! It would be churlish not to admit there’s a lot of gay men involved in ABBA fandom. But it would also be wrong to say it was some big gay dance party last night. There’s lots of straight men and women involved in ABBA fandom also. The great thing about last night was that our individual differences didn’t matter. It was all about just having a great time, enjoying the music together.
It wasn’t a late night, I kept myself “nice”, and I had a great time dancing and chatting with some new faces, as well as people I’ve known both in real life, and via the net, for many years now.
To get to the bathroom at The Flinders Inn, you need to grab a key from behind the counter, go out the door, and walk a few metres down the street.
The walk is worth it, though, as the bathroom tiles are gorgeous. They were the source of much discussion over dinner, as we tried to remember how long burnt orange was in fashion for. And even though it’s quite some time since that was the case, we all agreed it it was a great colour at the time, and that this modern take, bathroom tile wise, was absolutely gorgeous.
We all agreed the food was excellent also, by the way. For the main, I had the most sublime pork belly with a cauliflower puree and caramelised apples. And for desert, two of us enjoyed the chocolate gateau, cinnamon bavarois with lavender salt. The addition of the lavender salt had both of us raving. I’m not sure what the others had, as I was too involved in my own meal :) The French-style menu is full of wonderful things like goats cheese, duck leg confit, and so on.
Located next door to the Captain Cook Hotel – hello Scott, hello Mark – on Flinders Street, the entrance to the Flinders Inn is rather unimposing. In fact, as I turned the handle to open the front door, I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t entering someone’s house. Perhaps because I had my back to the other patrons – only a few people on a wet night – I also never felt like it was unnecessarily noisy or crowded, even though it’s quite small.
Overall it was a lovely setting for my friend Colin’s birthday, and a place I will definitely return to at some point.
It was a lovely way to spend the end of my day which was, otherwise, a little stressful. I’ve got a fair bit on my plate at the moment, and, by the end of the day I was sick to death of listening to people talk, which is a bit of an occupational hazard for the industry in which I work :)
In the hour or so I had at home between work and dinner, I sat in absolute silence. On Twitter, I engaged, though, in a silent conversation with a colleague who also agreed there’s nothing quite like the bliss of those first five minutes of absolute silence when you arrive home at the end of the day.
As we left the restaurant I noticed in the mirror I’d spent the entire day with my buttons done up incorrectly. “Why didn’t any of you tell me?”, I asked my friends to a non-plussed smile in reply.
On the way home tonight, I spotted another campaign poster for the federal election. As I noted yesterday, campaign posters for candidates in the seat of Sydney are few and far on the ground so far, although strictly speaking this wasn’t one for Sydney as it was a poster in support of Lee Rhiannon’s Senate-bid for the Greens.
As I sit and contemplate my calendar for the rest of the week, and going into next week, I’ve got a bit of a blank canvas. In fact, there’s nothing planned until the end of next week.
Work-wise things will continue to be busy. In the midst of it all, I’m attending a couple of talks by some really interesting people – Jay Rosen and Genevieve Bell – which I’m anticipating as I’m sure they’re going to be absolutely fascinating and mind expanding.
I don’t know why, but I was really tired most of the day.
Well actually I do know why. It’s because I had a visitor for the weekend.
And while I would normally spend some of the weekend resting up, this weekend it was all go, go, go…
It’s not a good look, is it, when you find yourself yawning in the lift at work first thing on a Monday morning.
Still, I didn’t feel so bad, as I heard someone in the lift say to another… “Oh God, I wish I was still in bed”.
Mondays are like that, eh?
Nonetheless, I achieved a fair bit throughout the day, and don’t feel like I was entirely a waste of tax-payer’s money :)
I also managed to go out for lunch, which has been my “New Years Resolution” since arriving back from Europe. In fact, I’ve been quite good at maintaining this routine. Mostly, I just go out by myself, finding a quiet spot to eat a delicious meal and to de-stress and relax somewhat. I’ve found it’s also been a good time to resolve an approach to some of those “discussions” you often need to have. Today’s lunch, by the way was a noodle beef dish.
And since arriving home from work, I’ve made a brief visit to the supermarket for a few bits in pieces, and I’ve also spent some time working on a new website.
As I’ve mentioned previously here, I’m part of a small group of art collectors called, “Hawkesbury One”.
Put simply, we each contribute an amount of money each year with which we collectively purchase art works. The works are then shared and rotated amongst us for six months at a time. It’s a very democratic structure, as we all contribute exactly the same amount of money, and all have an equal say in the art works we purchase.
Although we’ve had a very basic website (linked to the Yahoo Group we communicate via) for several years, we resolved this weekend to beef up the website, to document the collection more clearly, and to offer some advice for other people who might like to do something similar.
If you have any thoughts on the site, and what other information might be useful, please have a look at Hawkesbury One – Draft.
“We have cronuts”, the guys at my local coffee shop excitedly told me this morning. Of course I had to try one of them. Twelve hours later, it was still a mistake.
What is a cronut?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut
Cronut is the brand name of a croissant-doughnut pastry sold by Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City, conceived by chef Dominique Ansel. The pastry is made by frying a laminated dough in grape seed oil, which is then sugared, filled, and glazed. The name is a registered trademark of Ansel’s bakery.The Boston Globe described the Cronut as a “food portmanteau”.In December of 2013, TIME Magazine named Ansel’s pastry as one of the “25 Best Inventions” of 2013.
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A few years ago our walk from Bondi to Coogee was much delayed by having to walk through the cemetery and spending time reading gravestones.
Our guide told us he’d been walking through the cemetery for twenty years and still discovers something different and unusual and interesting each week
Great photos James!
Also – shorts weather? You’re braver than I!
We’re bred tough in the country.
A fantastic location to spend eternity…….