I wanted to write down the details of a vivid dream I just had, as I thought the experience might be of interest to other amputees.
In the dream, I was in a packed area of Sydney with my (deceased) mum and other family members. I decided to wander off from the group by myself for a bit. Pretty soon, I realised I was lost. A moment later I had that sinking feeling when you check your pocket and realise your phone isn’t there.
Trying to find the agreed landmark in the event we separate, I became lost in the crowd and ended up down at the wharves and boarded one of those classic Sydney ferries, partly just to get out of the crush of people. However, it was crowded on the boat also, and I struggled to get between the floors.
On the deck, I noticed a group of people who also had various disabilities. It wasn’t a formal introduction, more a shared glance of understanding that started a conversation. We became friends almost instantly. It was easy company; we didn’t have to explain our situations to each other, and I found I was genuinely enjoying myself despite still feeling a persistent, nagging worry about finding my mum.
Throughout all of this, the most remarkable part of the dream was my mobility. I was hopping on my single leg with a power and balance that felt completely natural. There was no fatigue or awkwardness, just a sense of effortless, athletic movement that was incredibly freeing.
Just by chance, I spotted my friend Kate with her son. The relief was huge. She saw the look on my face and immediately offered to help. “What’s wrong? Give me their numbers, I’ll call them right now,” she said. The frustration was immense when we both realised that, while she had her phone, she didn’t have their contact details saved.
The dream ended there, as the real-world need to get up and go to the bathroom woke me up.
I have dreams like this from time to time—sometimes I’m an amputee, sometimes not. This one stuck with me, though, because of how real every part of it felt: the sharp anxiety of being lost, the simple comfort of finding new friends, and that strange, wonderful feeling of athletic freedom. It was by far the most vivid and detailed one I’ve ever had.
“It’s my last day”, the bloke behind the counter said to me. “What?”, I asked half in disbelief, and half because he has quite a thick accent. The owner of the Surry Hills Charcoal Chicken Shop (or Charcoal Chic as it is at the moment, which is so incredibly “Surry Hills”), went on to explain that due to the difficult economic times he had been forced to close. When I asked if he was moving somewhere else, he was a little less forthcoming. I suspect he has nothing lined up.
For me, It’s personally sad because he has been in the shop for as long as I have been in Surry, probably longer. And he always has a smile, and he always remembers your name and your face and what you like to order. I’m a fan, in particular, of his roast potatoes which are always excellent.
Surry Hills Chicken Shop
The convenience store on the corner has also closed in the last few days. And we have a bunch of new “health” shops on the strip these days. So it looks like my end of Crown Street in Surry Hills is undergoing further change. Maybe it’s the first sign of the recession, or maybe it’s part of the evolution of the suburb that is ongoing?
Or maybe it’s the fact that I only called in for a soft-drink this time, and not one of their BBQ meal dinners?
I was on my way to a house-warming party for a colleague who has recently bought an apartment in Ashfield. Michael’s apartment is very funky. And as it’s a classic 60s/70s apartment block, he’s decorated accordingly with some terrific furniture he’s found on ebay. Much sought after furniture, it seems, as quite a few people were eyeing off the lounge chairs in his bedroom, and actively – jokingly – plotting their removal. “You don’t really need these chairs, do you Michael?” was one of the phrases I heard a few times.
The only other bits of excitement for the day included a morning pick-up by Damien of some software, and endless hours spent watching “Will & Grace”. There’s a Foxtel marathon on this weekend which I’m enjoying very much.
My two favourite foods in the world are tomato and cucumber. Combined in a salad with some cheese, and I’m in heaven. Any variation of meat from a pig comes a very close second, including pork and bacon. Even more so, when it’s my first time in the newly re-opened Cossie’s Cafe in Surry Hills. To welcome them back I had the bacon, baked beans and sour dough toast this morning, along with a mango frappe and a latte.
Cossie’s has been around in Surry Hills for as long as I’ve been living here (and probably long before that). As other, more “fashionable” cafes have come and gone, Cossie’s has been there with good reliable coffee and a good reliable breakfast. It’s never been as “fashionable” as the Bourke Street Bakery or Cafe Mint. The furnishings have always been a little daggy. And the clintele has never consisted of the younger, more fashionable crowd who would prefer to sit outside on a milk-crate looking gorgeous drinking a tiny coffee than inside at a table eating a big breakfast. But even so, I’ve loved going there for many years, because they’re friendly and their version of a Club Sandwich is particularly good.
“It’s nice to have you back” I said to the dread-locked bloke behind the counter. “It’s nice to be back”, he replied. As I read the papers, I enjoyed the food and the new surroundings. Gone are the older, scratched furnishings and faded walls, and in their place something familiar, but also a little more modern. You just know the next renovation won’t be for some time, but in the meantime, as a resident of Surry Hills, I welcome the upgrade.
Aside from that it’s been a day of doing little. It’s been warm. Really warm. Unseasonably warm. It was one of those days where you’re forced to choose between the cool of the indoors vs the breeze of the outdoors. At one point during the day I checked and it was 31 degrees. Even now, at night, it’s still up in the 20s. So after moaning that it was too cold and too wet for too long, summer has properly arrived.
Centrepoint Tower in Sydney
I did venture out for a while though, as I headed back into the city to resume my shopping trip from the other night. On my way I noticed there were still lots of people looking skywards at the newly renovated Centrepoint/Westfield. I swear, though, someone’s gonna get hit by a car as there were loads of people looking skywards in a daze, not really paying attention to life on terra-firma. Inside, it looks pretty good, though many shops remain un-opened. I don’t care much for fashion – obviously – though I hope there’ll be an H and M eventually. The only thing that took a while to find were the toilets. Thanks to my friends on Twitter I was eventually able to find them. Very posh!
I also noticed, as I wandered around the city many of the “works in progress” buildings seem to have come to completion. Suddenly, today, Sydney looked like less of a city under construction. Combined with the warm weather, it was a lovely sight.
That over, I went in search of the much desired USB tuner for digital radio and digital television for my computer/netbook. Although I’ve seen them online, finding them in real life is a little harder. In the end, I compromised and bought a TV-only tuner, one from Kaiser Baas (picked it up from Dick Smith) which I’m really happy with. On the box it says you need Windows, but it also indicates you can get Linux drivers from their website which I found. But best of all, a bit of research indicated I didn’t need them, as I found the USB worked straight out of the box with Kaffeine. I didn’t need the drivers and I didn’t need to run the Windows software with Wine. I am such a Linux evangelist these days!
There was a brief moment today when I thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew. As I looked around the street signs there wasn’t a single word I understood. Unlike other places I’ve visited in the last few years, I was beginning to feel I’d failed to do (what I thought) was adequate background research about the history and geography of the place. “Oh my goodness, I know more about Chinese history, language and culture than I know about Turkey”, I thought to myself, feeling somewhat ashamed. And so there I was standing on a street in Istanbul, not understanding a single word and struggling to remember those high school history lessons about the Ottoman Empire, my only cultural reference for the country I was in outside of the Turkish restaurants on Cleveland Street, near my home back in Sydney.
“You idiot”, I thought to myself as I reflected on the lack of control I was feeling about the situation. But as I headed back to my hotel room to there was a breakthrough moment. The turning point was when I saw the world “Serpil”. Serpil is the name of a woman I have worked with on-and-off over the last few years. I’m not sure if she was born in Turkey or not, but I know she comes from a Turkish heritage. And there, in front of my eyes was a shop named “Serpil”. I know it seems crazy, but it was enough to give me a “cultural footing” to take that one step further.
The shop called Serpil
I was also reminded of the advice I’ve received from a number of people over the years. “Always say yes, you’ll know when to say no”, a young colleague told me about travelling several years ago. “Always take that one step further. Always take that one left turn off the main street”, several other people have also told me. And so just when I was feeling somewhat bewildered about the lack of familiarity about my surroundings, there was a voice inside my head which said, “Don’t worry about being in control, don’t worry if you don’t know where you are, just go for the adventure”. For me, it was a moment of liberation, where I told myself to just go with the flow, to relax and to accept whatever the day would present.
Yes, I’d been told about The Blue Mosque. Yes, I’d been told about the hamas. Yes, I knew I had to go and get my bus ticket to travel to Çanakkale tomorrow. But did I have any idea about where they were and how to find them? The answer is no. So I came back to my hotel room and, using Google Maps, tried to get some sense of where I was, and what was nearby. Armed with this sense of control, I headed back out again.
Sherazade Mosque
The first “thing” I visited was the Sherazade mosque, not far from where I am staying. I’ve only been to a mosque once before, the Gallipoli Mosque back in Sydney. I feel almost ashamed to admit I only have a cursory knowledge of Islam. “What are all the lights about? Is there a ‘front’ to the church, like an alter?” were some of the questions going through my head.
The next “thing” I visited was the Grand Bazaar. I’m not one for shopping at the best of times, and so the endless stalls held little attraction for me. Instead, I looked to the roof and the interesting patterns instead.
“Things” don’t interest me all that much when I’m travelling. I’m far more interested in people. I’m more interested in the way people live. So, as I walked around I started to notice things like the way in which people were dressed. For example, I’d say there are more women wearing the full veil in Sydney than I saw on the streets of Istanbul today. I saw many more women colourfully dressed than I’d expected for a country where Islam is the dominant religion. I saw women dressed in what I guess I would call “traditional clothing”. I noticed the immense physical diversity of the population, reflecting the history of the place. I saw people who “looked” like they were from southern parts of the former USSR. I heard no English, and saw no apparently “Western” tourists, aside from at the explicitly “tourist” spots. I noticed smoking was still reasonably common.
Later in the afternoon, as I wandered around Taksim Square I began to feel that sense of bewilderment again. As part of my “Google Research” earlier in the day, I knew wanted to visit a bar called “Chianti”. I’m a great one for believing you can get to know a city by going to a bar, and hopefully by chatting with some locals. Although I had a map, and had written down the details about where the bar was, I didn’t really know where I was and how to get there. So I went to The Intercontinental (which I knew was closeby) where I figured they would be able to help with some directions. Unfortunately they weren’t much help, aside from telling me it was about a fifteen minute walk. Armed with that information, I caught a cab.
“What will you DO in there?’, the taxi-driver asked me, as we arrived in a rather “dodgy” looking part of town. It’s a question I chose to ignore because, frankly, I had no idea. But armed with the courage that comes from a glass of wine at a 5-star international hotel, I hopped out of the cab and made my way up the stars. The directions said it was on floors two and three. I climbed the steep stairs to the second floor and opened the dark,, heavy door.
Colourful clothing in Istanbul
Inside, in rather grim surroundings there were maybe a dozen people drinking and smoking. “This is my son”, I heard one of the men say, introducing him to a couple of German blokes. The soundtrack (as with the posters on the wall) was from 1990s heavy metal. Although the crowd was friendly, and I chatted briefly to some of them bloke, I never really felt like they were “my people”. After a while, I bid them goodbye, and decided I would head up one more floor.
As I made my way to the third floor (it was actually the second floor, I later discovered), I rang the bell and was welcomed by the barman. Over a couple of beers I sat, listened and enjoyed the company of half a dozen men in their thirties and forties. Of course I had no idea what was being said, and the English language skills of the patrons were very limited. But I liked the place. It had a nice vibe. I liked the way the barman offered bar snacks which went a little beyond what I’m normally served back in Sydney, including chopped up cucumber. I liked listening to Turkish pop music. I sat and wondered what the nearby bloke was doing as he wrote numbers on a sheet of paper. Lotto or a complex horse racing formula?
“I have to go now” I said to the barman, almost apologetically, after a couple of hours mentioning I was travelling tomorrow and needed to be up early. “I’ll be back later in the week”, I told him.
The day ended in a rather weird manner. As I made my way to my hotel I stopped for a moment to listen as a crooner at a nearby club sang a cover version of the Tom Jones classic, “Sex Bomb”. As I stopped, stood and recorded the music, a bloke came up to me and asked if I wanted my shoes cleaned. “No”, I told him, adding they were fine. A couple of seconds later, he threw some crap on them and told me, I assume, “Now, they need cleaning”.
Here’s the actual exchange as it occured, as I was happily recording the music…
It’s Monday night on my first day back at work and I’m exhausted. It’s almost like that feeling when you’ve finish high school or university and you get your first full-time job in the “real workforce” – as opposed to short-term summer work – and you come totally exhausted. I’ve had a great couple of weeks getting out of bed late, doing lunch, having afternoon naps, socialising and then being totally irresponsible about when I go to bed. But yeh, back at work, and I achieved a few things today which was good. But I really wouldn’t mind a few more days here and there.
Friday night was quite good fun as I went for dinner for the first time in several years at the Olympic Hotel at Moore Park. I remember having a beer there two or three years ago. I’m also pretty sure Damien, Colin and I had dinner there one night a few years ago, though my memory is pretty hazy about when and why, except that we all thought it was pretty good.
And so it was with some interest that I made a return visit to the Olympic Hotel with its new “Bistro Moore” under chef, Giovanni Spinazzola. The menu would best be described as “modern Italian”. All of the choices were excellent and I spent a good ten minutes reading the menu before I was finally able to make a choice. A warning, however, there’s not a lot to please the vegetarian in your party unless of course they’re the type of vegetarian who eats chicken and fish!
Although I was truly tempted, I decided against the apparetive which was a blood orange bellini. Instead, we went straight for the main course, for which I had the chargrilled veal rump with stuffed with thinly sliced porcini mushrooms, garlic and parsley which I thought was absolutely excellent. Tender, tasty, and just the right size (although I did feel my top button tighten ever so slightly).
Accompanying this was an excellent wine, a 1999 Temple Bruer Reserve Merlot from Langhorne Creek in South Australia. Highly recommended.
For desert I had the Almond Pannacotta which really topped off the meal. I also tasted some of the delicious Chocolate Pudding with Blood Orange accompaniment.
With two bottles of medium priced wine between four, this meal cost us around $75 per head. The only downside to the night was that the service was a little slow.
Also this weekend I was invited to ABBA fan, Cotton Ward’s place to watch the Channel 7 ABBA Special hosted by Dicko. Interestingly enough, we watched the show with four non-fans who I think found watching “Behind The Blonde” (a program about Agnetha’s seclusion, her stalker, etc) afterwards was more interesting.
Unfortunately we’ve had a run of these specials in Australia which are just cheap cut-ups of other specials incorporating some local personalities on the assumption that “ABBA lite” will appeal to a mainstream audience. The most successful of the recent programs was undoubtedly “The Winner Takes It All” which told the story, relatively speaking, of then and now with a degree of integrity.
Those with only a passing interest in ABBA, which is most of the potential television audience, don’t really care what David Koch or Lulu thinks of an ABBA song. They want to see a few old songs, have a reminisce and find out what Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida look like now. The formula’s not that tough, so why do Australian television stations get it so consistently wrong?
The only thing I got out of last night’s program was the thought that, after seeing Madonna perform her new ABBA inspired hit, Hung Up, there’d be a few sales in re-releasing Gimme, Gimme,
Gimme upon which it was based.
I’ve always been fascinated by discarded items, items left in the street for rubbish collection or for someone else to pick up and take home. This is especially the case with very personal items, such as suitcases. The suitcase I saw discarded on Wiltshire Lane, Surry Hills this afternoon, was a very old fashioned one.
In the era of backpacks and sturdier construction, this kind of suitcase is hardly ever seen in public anymore, especially not at airports. You might see them at the Country Platform, but never at Sydney Airport. It’s the kind of suitcase my mum used to store my sister’s wedding dresses. It’s the kind of suitcase that was often recycled from generation to generation, as a child moved out of home to get married, or moved away for travel or work.
Old Suitcase
It’s the grown up version of the “Globite Port” that I first took to school in the early 1970s. I wonder why they’ve thrown it out?
