Hot Day in Sydney

I’m back from my business trip to Sydney. I was lucky to stay centrally, in a hotel just opposite the Milsons Point train station. This means that from my room on the 11th floor I could see the water on each side of the strip of land called Milsons Point (last picture), and I had a glimpse at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House, too (on the side of the second picture). But being outside was even more rewarding: sunny, 30 Celsius, posh cafes and restaurants, and elegant houses built on the cliff and overlooking the water (picture). I do give Sydney credit for being more attractive than Melbourne, with warmer weather and more sunny days and waterways giving it a Venetian flavor. It’s just my opinion, and I stick to it. One striking thing about Sydney that I experienced in this trip was that cab drivers didn’t want to use the air conditioning unless I asked for it. Thirty degrees Celsius is 88F, and cars get hot quickly in the sun, but these drivers invariably (2 rides to the airport and 3 within the center) wanted to drive with the windows down even in the tunnels, with the excuse that they are well ventilated. I asked them to turn on the AC and charge me. And they did.

Blue Tree

Just when I thought that only small flowers could be blue, this is a blue tree posing for me from a garden around my home. By all means, I am endlessly amazed here by the variety of colors and I am sure my posts (pictures and words included) continue to reveal this feeling. This post is brief, as I am going on a two day trip to Sydney. I'll come back this week-end with more pictures and impressions.

Shopping in Melbourne

On a scale of 1 to 10, I think I’d get myself a 5 for shopping. I enjoy this activity somewhat, but most of the time I shop out of necessity. Don’t blame me for being boring or old fashioned, but I found out what shopping was when I was 24 years old, during my first visit outside Romania, in Paris. In Romania we had small stores with limited, very limited choices of any item, and one large general store, which seemed to be a bazaar with items from all the small stores gathered in one building. People shopped out of necessity, not for pleasure. My trip to Paris was short, yet, there I met the mall and the haute couture. My mouth never quite closed on that trip and I came home equally impressed with what I saw in the Louvre and the Printemps. The problem was that I left Romania with $20 for the entire month I spent in France with my friend Nicole, so I didn’t really do more than window shopping and gratefully accepted the gifts Nicole gave me. A year later I moved to the US. The shopping scene bent me over. I still remember the first trip to the mall in New Jersey and the first walk down Madison Avenue in New York. So in all these many, many years in the US I learnt to shop, I shopped sales and then new-season items. But the Romanian girl remained frugal while enjoying the dizzying number of choices, the fun of trying on “stuff” and browsing even late at night. The perfume, the music and the people, i.e., the atmosphere of shopping… mmm…. Well, so this is the hiatus. I arrive here in Melbourne and discover these things: very few sales (when was last time you saw a 5 or 10% sale in the US?), a lot fewer choices, and 9-5 opening time! Ok, except Thursday and Friday, when the stores close at 9PM. Except the liquor stores (called Bottle Shops here), which are open late every day… My manageable shopping pleasure and desire are now suffering in Melbourne, and I haven’t even discussed prices yet! So I am ending my post today with a nostalgic comment: overall, what I miss the most about the US and I cannot find here is “the” choices. Wait! Except for these tulips. When it comes to tulip color, you can see that choices are endless!

Yarra Valley

I haven’t written about this beautiful area North-East of Melbourne as I haven’t visited it in about a year and I wanted to share “fresh” pictures. Yarra is the main river in this area that also passes winding through Melbourne itself. The hills around the river outside the city create a perfect wine territory. In spring it looks less lush, but the energy of the budding vines equals the feeling of pleasure, at least in my case, which one normally gets in the summer, when thick green, parallel lines comb the hills from your feet to the horizon. We had yesterday our wedding anniversary lunch in a small café at the Yarrawood Winery. So many years after tying the knot on the 56th Floor of a Manhattan hotel, we got to sip wine in a candid, relaxed environment, much closer to the sea level, but happily remembering the small wedding at the “top of the world.” The hills of Yarra Valley are a busy backdrop for many weddings in Melbourne and the area, just like everywhere else from Toscana to Sonoma Valley. What is different here is the warm-blooded component. Galahs and cockatoos fly constantly over the vines, ducks and geese bathe in the ponds that actually serve to calm the thirst of many horses, cows and sheep. Rabbits zigzag around bushes and not far away kangaroos sometimes hop into sight, too. As usual, it's nature that impresses me the most in this far-away country...