The lady sitting next to me on the plane apologised to me a lot. She apologised when she realised the air stewardessman had given her two arrival cards as one was for me. She apologised when I left my seat to go to the toilet and went into really hardcore apology mode when I came [...]
I’m at Sydney airport playing the fun game where I get to find out which keys on the internet kiosk’s keyboard are sticky and remember to hit them harder as I type. (At least it’s not covered in beer like the one next door). I’m all tired and operating totally on traveller autopilot. Earlier today [...]
The Virgin Megastore on George Street had “BMX Bandits” on DVD for $15. Excellent. I went to the Museum of Sydney this morning. It’s small but interesting and makes much of its location on the site of the first governors house. There was a special exhibit about Jorn Utzen, the fellow to designed the Sydney [...]
After a brief visit to the Wollongong art gallery (complete with an impressive selection of indigenous art), I had to leave the ‘Gong and return my rental car to Sydney. I should note that I <3 that rental Toyota and would happily keep it and continue driving around Australia, were it not for lack of [...]
On Tuesday morning I went to this place whose name I can nae remember, but it’s the national film and sound archive [i.e. The National Film and Sound Archive - how hard was that to remember? - Future Robyn]. There were two exhibition halls. One had a history of Australian film/radio/music/television. My personal highlight was [...]
Yesterday I went to the Australian Museum. It’s a lot like Te Papa in that rather than just displaying items, it attempts to tell stories. It also reminded me of Te Papa because it seems that finally New Zealand and Australia have been around long enough to have some history and stories to tell of [...]
Canberra is interesting, it’s unusual, it’s different. 100 years ago Canberra didn’t exist. It was sheep farms. Then, to stop bickering between Sydney and Melbourne over who was cool enough to be the capital city, the government decided to pick this spot of land about equidistant between the two and declared the sheep farms to [...]
I didn’t get much sleep last night, but that’s ok. I woke up, took the train to Circular Quay, bought a gelato and wandered around down to the Opera House and then back. It was a lovely, warm, sunny New Zealand summer’s day. Oh, wait. Circular Quay isn’t in New Zealand. It’s in, uh, Sydney. [...]
I did a “take one for the team” kind of special shift involving starting later, finisher later and typing more about the Pope, the Catholic church and God than I previous had ever typed in my life. It was hugely satisfying. I am now going to unf into bed and sleeeep.
I’ve noticed lately that the word obviously is used a lot. Someone will be talking about something and they’ll insert ‘obviously’ before they describe it, as if it’s so painfully obvious that they shouldn’t really have to mention it at all, but, you know, there might be one or two people out there who have [...]