Becky, to close...
Friday we awoke to pouring rain. We went down to the Harborside shops (three full floors of shopping and food - an amazing place in and of itself) where we bought a couple of umbrellas. We splashed our way to the end of the harbor and had a taste of home - Starbucks! It's the only place we've been where I recognized the nomenclature of the drinks! Sydney has quite a coffee culture, but I'm just figuring out how to order - lattes and mochas are pretty self explanatory, but regular old black drip coffee is nowhere to be found. The closest thing is a "long black" which is like an espresso with a bit more water in it. I'm learning to like a long black with a bit of milk in it, but it tasted good to have a cup of drip Pike Place.
We had about decided to take the monorail up to a theater and watch the latest Star Trek movie when the rain let up. The Sydney monorail is in it's last weekend of operation, so we decided (along with a whole lot of other people, it turned out) to be a part of history and take a ride. We got off right in the heart of downtown at about 3:00 PM. The country bumpkin in me returned as we wound our way toward Circular Quay past designer shops and through thousands of people crowded onto the sidewalks.
We went back into The Rocks in search of a museum we'd read about - Susannah's Place. It's a unique set of four "terrace" houses built by Irish immigrants in the 1800's. They were set to be torn down when the city was cleaning up the dilapidated homes of the poor and working classes after the plague struck Sydney in 1900. About 100 families have lived in these four homes over the course of their existence - the last couple moved out in the 1980's after it was decided that they would be preserved for their historical value. It made for a fascinating look back into the lives of every-day folks who worked hard, loved their families and lived and died in relative obscurity.
After a bit of poking about in shops we began the hike back up - literally and figuratively - George Street toward the City Center. The rush hour was in full flood as thousands of twenty- and thirty-somethings overflowed the sidewalks, many of them texting or talking on cell phones as they hurried somewhere. Remember that here people drive on the left?... the same rule generally, but not always, applies on the sidewalks whenever you meet someone head-on. We were often zigging when we should have zagged. But not everyone was in such a hurry as we passed several pubs that were jammed with young professionals loudly celebrating the end of the work week. It was a fascinating, colorful and noisy journey through the city canyons and crowds.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
On Our Own in the Big City
Becky continues...
On Thursday morning, Bob took us to a train station in a neighboring town and we traveled into the heart of Sydney. We arrived in the central station and navigated our way (with the help of several patient and friendly folks) to the correct light rail train and on to Darling Harbor.
Our hotel was right on the Harbor and the room on the 8th floor looked out at the water, boats, city, and Center Point Tower. We spent the afternoon walking around the harbor looking at shops, having lunch, and enjoying several hours at the National Maritime Museum. We toured a 1950's era Australian destroyer and a submarine! Most fascinating, however, is an ocean-going and very accurate replica of The Endeavor, Capt. Cook's ship. It's amazing to realize that this man who began sailing in the 1770's and over the course of his lifetime sailed around the world - including the Puget Sound - and "discovered" Australia for England.
Our intention that evening was to walk to over to the Sydney Harbor to go to the concert at the Opera House. However, after walking all those hours, we opted for a cab ride. As Dave said in his earlier post, we'd bought tickets to see an American (irony there, don't you think?) singer, Idina Menzel, perform with the Sydney Symphony. All we knew about her was that she'd performed on Broadway. We soon learned that she has a whole concert hall full of enthusiastic Australian fans, many of whom seemed to know the lyrics to her songs by heart! The symphony was directed by a beautiful young woman conductor! Ms. Menzel has a voice that more than filled the concert hall for two hours. She began the concert with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and ended with an encore of "There's a Place for Us." In between were songs from Rent and Wicked, plus a little Lady Gaga and Judy Collins (to name a few).
It was after 10:00 PM when the concert was over and when we spilled out of the Opera House with the throngs, we had to figure out where and how to hail a taxi. Remember - we live in Oak Harbor. That's not much preparation for being in a city of 5 million plus people, all of whom seem to know how to get the attention of a taxi. When we finally managed to get one to come to a screeching halt near where we were waving our arms, we jumped in and the maxim "time is money" became apparent. Let's just say the ride back to the hotel took a lot less time than did the ride to the concert! This guy was fearless (not a term I'd use to describe myself at the time) and skillful. Remember: as we're hurtling through the streets packed with taxis, buses, cars and people everywhere, this guy is driving on the "wrong" side of the street! By the way, as I was clutching the car door handle, Dave was grinning and admiring the driver's "skill." (From Dave... He really was good!.... quick, smooth and always under control... never wild, jerky, or erratic.)
On Thursday morning, Bob took us to a train station in a neighboring town and we traveled into the heart of Sydney. We arrived in the central station and navigated our way (with the help of several patient and friendly folks) to the correct light rail train and on to Darling Harbor.
Our hotel was right on the Harbor and the room on the 8th floor looked out at the water, boats, city, and Center Point Tower. We spent the afternoon walking around the harbor looking at shops, having lunch, and enjoying several hours at the National Maritime Museum. We toured a 1950's era Australian destroyer and a submarine! Most fascinating, however, is an ocean-going and very accurate replica of The Endeavor, Capt. Cook's ship. It's amazing to realize that this man who began sailing in the 1770's and over the course of his lifetime sailed around the world - including the Puget Sound - and "discovered" Australia for England.
Our intention that evening was to walk to over to the Sydney Harbor to go to the concert at the Opera House. However, after walking all those hours, we opted for a cab ride. As Dave said in his earlier post, we'd bought tickets to see an American (irony there, don't you think?) singer, Idina Menzel, perform with the Sydney Symphony. All we knew about her was that she'd performed on Broadway. We soon learned that she has a whole concert hall full of enthusiastic Australian fans, many of whom seemed to know the lyrics to her songs by heart! The symphony was directed by a beautiful young woman conductor! Ms. Menzel has a voice that more than filled the concert hall for two hours. She began the concert with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and ended with an encore of "There's a Place for Us." In between were songs from Rent and Wicked, plus a little Lady Gaga and Judy Collins (to name a few).
It was after 10:00 PM when the concert was over and when we spilled out of the Opera House with the throngs, we had to figure out where and how to hail a taxi. Remember - we live in Oak Harbor. That's not much preparation for being in a city of 5 million plus people, all of whom seem to know how to get the attention of a taxi. When we finally managed to get one to come to a screeching halt near where we were waving our arms, we jumped in and the maxim "time is money" became apparent. Let's just say the ride back to the hotel took a lot less time than did the ride to the concert! This guy was fearless (not a term I'd use to describe myself at the time) and skillful. Remember: as we're hurtling through the streets packed with taxis, buses, cars and people everywhere, this guy is driving on the "wrong" side of the street! By the way, as I was clutching the car door handle, Dave was grinning and admiring the driver's "skill." (From Dave... He really was good!.... quick, smooth and always under control... never wild, jerky, or erratic.)
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| Some views of Darling Harbor from our hotel window. Do you see the destroyer and the submarine at the far left? |
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| Three floors of shops and restaurants within the "Harborside" building in the foreground. |
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| There is a Starbucks tucked underneath the elevated street right at the end of the harbor! |
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| Ibis, anyone? |
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| A wonderful recreation of Cook's ship Endeavor. Really fun tour! |
Hanging with the Family
Saturday evening - June 29
Becky's turn...
My challenge is to condense 5 days' worth of new and fascinating experiences into an entry that is readable in a reasonable amount of time. Those of you who've ever read anything I've written (or heard me speak, for that matter) know that brevity has never been one of my strengths, so we'll break this into multiple posts.
Tuesday - we spent the day around here (Bob and Cheryl's) with family. It was Cheryl's day to have Cami, our 3-year-old great niece, which was heaps (one of my favorite Australian expressions) of fun. We also went to Rouse Hill, a mall which includes the grocery store where Cheryl shops. The absolute coolest thing about this mall is the parking lot - above the cars is a line of tiny lights. If there's a car in the space, the light is red; if the space is empty, the light is green. One can look down the row of cars, or across the lot, and immediately see where the empty spaces are. Brilliant!
Wednesday - Cheryl had to go to her clinic and see clients all day, so Bob took Dave and me on a ride through the countryside to lunch at a coffee shop along the Hawkesbury River. It was fun to see some of the country and learn more of the history of the area. That evening we (along with most of New South Wales) watched a major football game (rugby, that is) between New South Wales and a Queensland team. The "home" team was pretty much crushed, but it was fun to experience some of the local sports' fervor. And rugby is really fun to watch. Talk about a fast and furious game!
Becky's turn...
My challenge is to condense 5 days' worth of new and fascinating experiences into an entry that is readable in a reasonable amount of time. Those of you who've ever read anything I've written (or heard me speak, for that matter) know that brevity has never been one of my strengths, so we'll break this into multiple posts.
Tuesday - we spent the day around here (Bob and Cheryl's) with family. It was Cheryl's day to have Cami, our 3-year-old great niece, which was heaps (one of my favorite Australian expressions) of fun. We also went to Rouse Hill, a mall which includes the grocery store where Cheryl shops. The absolute coolest thing about this mall is the parking lot - above the cars is a line of tiny lights. If there's a car in the space, the light is red; if the space is empty, the light is green. One can look down the row of cars, or across the lot, and immediately see where the empty spaces are. Brilliant!
Wednesday - Cheryl had to go to her clinic and see clients all day, so Bob took Dave and me on a ride through the countryside to lunch at a coffee shop along the Hawkesbury River. It was fun to see some of the country and learn more of the history of the area. That evening we (along with most of New South Wales) watched a major football game (rugby, that is) between New South Wales and a Queensland team. The "home" team was pretty much crushed, but it was fun to experience some of the local sports' fervor. And rugby is really fun to watch. Talk about a fast and furious game!
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| A bit of the park along the Hawkesbury River. |
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| Galahs in the park. (Pronounced gah-lah') |
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Day One, more pics
From Dave...
I thought I'd post a few more pics from our first day in Sydney. (I've reduced the resolution of these images to allow faster downloads.) Enjoy...
I thought I'd post a few more pics from our first day in Sydney. (I've reduced the resolution of these images to allow faster downloads.) Enjoy...
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| Looking for service? |
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| The Garrison Church built for the military personnel who "accompanied" the shiploads of convicts to establish the very first settlement that became the eventual city of Sydney and spawned the nation of Australia. |
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| View along the street in front of the church - do you see the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge? |
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| Interior of The Garrison Church. |
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| Want to preach from this pulpit? ... become an Anglican! |
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| Lovely stained glass windows throughout the sanctuary. |
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| The Argyle Cut... imagine this without the bridge. Then imagine the convicts who toiled by hand to dig this passageway through a steep sandstone ridge to connect two parts of the harbor area. The Rocks area, where the first ships landed in 1788, is in the distance. |
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| Can you see all the pick marks in the stone? Hard, back-breaking work! |
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| Dave near the Opera House looking across at Sydney Harbor Bridge. |
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| Dave with the Opera House in the background. An amazing bit of architecture. |
Monday, June 24, 2013
Yesterday, Today, Whatever . . .
From Dave:
We arrived safely in Sydney at 6:20 am Monday, which would have been about 12:30 pm Sunday to our friends back at home in the US... I think. This date line math is so confusing... but not as confused as our internal clocks. We arrived back in the future to find it a rainy and somewhat cold winter day. Seems like such a short trip from the summer we left on Saturday at 8:00 am in Oak Harbor... or was it Sunday? Whatever...
Bob and Cheryl Andrews (Becky's sister) have a total immersion way of dealing with the jet-lag-time-change-date-line personal "clock" crisis. After about 30 hours of combined travel - with a few hours of semi-restful sleep on the plane - they picked us up at the Sydney airport early in the morning and kept us up and going the rest of the day! Of course, they had to get up pretty early so they saved eating breakfast until retrieving us. Then, it was off to Circular Quay in downtown Sydney and a walk from roughly the Opera House around that particular harbor - with views of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge - into an area called The Rocks, the location of the original settlement of people - mostly convicts (many poor) and a company of British soldiers sent to oversee them. There we found a quaint coffee shop for a bite of breakfast and a couple of hour's walk through the area learning more of the early history of the establishment of what is now the nation of Australia. Bob is a fount of information about his homeland.
About noon we arrived back at the Opera House. The cold and grey damp skies were yielding to sunshine and a welcome warmth that dried the streets and seats of the outdoor cafes opening for business. Becky and I scored a couple tickets to a Thursday evening performance of a Broadway singer, Idina Menzel, performing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra... box seats with a pretty good view, too! We'll be staying Thursday and Friday night in a nice hotel in nearby Darling Harbor.
But now it is off to Bob and Cheryl's home with a nice lunch and some more local shopping on the way.
Following a delicious dinner of homemade soup we enjoyed a noisy evening of conversation with nieces Becky and Marcie (with husband Geoff arriving late from parent conferences - yes, he's a teacher, too) and adorable and energetic grand-niece, Camilla. You'll have an opportunity to "meet" all these people in the pictures of our adventures, I'm sure.
It was a great first day in country, albeit interspersed with nodding off in the back seat of Bob's car as he was giving commentary on the lovely and interesting countryside on the way to their home. We finally "crashed" about 9:00 pm and slept soundly for the next ten hours!
Becky (the tired looking one), Cheryl and Bob... breakfast at a coffee shop in The Rocks area.
Yes, we are really here, Dor... uh... er... Becky!
We arrived safely in Sydney at 6:20 am Monday, which would have been about 12:30 pm Sunday to our friends back at home in the US... I think. This date line math is so confusing... but not as confused as our internal clocks. We arrived back in the future to find it a rainy and somewhat cold winter day. Seems like such a short trip from the summer we left on Saturday at 8:00 am in Oak Harbor... or was it Sunday? Whatever...
Bob and Cheryl Andrews (Becky's sister) have a total immersion way of dealing with the jet-lag-time-change-date-line personal "clock" crisis. After about 30 hours of combined travel - with a few hours of semi-restful sleep on the plane - they picked us up at the Sydney airport early in the morning and kept us up and going the rest of the day! Of course, they had to get up pretty early so they saved eating breakfast until retrieving us. Then, it was off to Circular Quay in downtown Sydney and a walk from roughly the Opera House around that particular harbor - with views of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge - into an area called The Rocks, the location of the original settlement of people - mostly convicts (many poor) and a company of British soldiers sent to oversee them. There we found a quaint coffee shop for a bite of breakfast and a couple of hour's walk through the area learning more of the early history of the establishment of what is now the nation of Australia. Bob is a fount of information about his homeland.
About noon we arrived back at the Opera House. The cold and grey damp skies were yielding to sunshine and a welcome warmth that dried the streets and seats of the outdoor cafes opening for business. Becky and I scored a couple tickets to a Thursday evening performance of a Broadway singer, Idina Menzel, performing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra... box seats with a pretty good view, too! We'll be staying Thursday and Friday night in a nice hotel in nearby Darling Harbor.
But now it is off to Bob and Cheryl's home with a nice lunch and some more local shopping on the way.
Following a delicious dinner of homemade soup we enjoyed a noisy evening of conversation with nieces Becky and Marcie (with husband Geoff arriving late from parent conferences - yes, he's a teacher, too) and adorable and energetic grand-niece, Camilla. You'll have an opportunity to "meet" all these people in the pictures of our adventures, I'm sure.
It was a great first day in country, albeit interspersed with nodding off in the back seat of Bob's car as he was giving commentary on the lovely and interesting countryside on the way to their home. We finally "crashed" about 9:00 pm and slept soundly for the next ten hours!
Becky (the tired looking one), Cheryl and Bob... breakfast at a coffee shop in The Rocks area.
Yes, we are really here, Dor... uh... er... Becky!
Saturday, June 22, 2013
LAX Outbound
From Becky...
Well, we've made it as far as LAX - not the most attractive airport I'm afraid. We're getting pretty familiar with terminal #3, however, since we arrived at about 2:30 PM and our flight to Sydney doesn't board until 9:25 PM. What we've learned so far: there are virtually no directional signs at LAX and we've seen only one map, but there are people in uniforms walking around (cleaning staff, people with clipboards doing who-knows-what, etc) who, fortunately, are very friendly and helpful. As a result, we made our way from terminal #6 where we landed to terminal #3 where the Virgin gates are located. What else have we learned? Starbucks is even more expensive here than at home, and the price goes up the closer one gets to the gate!
Reading, walking around, people-watching and feeling grateful for this amazing opportunity is filling the time nicely. I am getting a bit tired of being reminded by a disembodied voice that I need to stay attached to my baggage, however.
Until "tomorrow" in Australia...
Well, we've made it as far as LAX - not the most attractive airport I'm afraid. We're getting pretty familiar with terminal #3, however, since we arrived at about 2:30 PM and our flight to Sydney doesn't board until 9:25 PM. What we've learned so far: there are virtually no directional signs at LAX and we've seen only one map, but there are people in uniforms walking around (cleaning staff, people with clipboards doing who-knows-what, etc) who, fortunately, are very friendly and helpful. As a result, we made our way from terminal #6 where we landed to terminal #3 where the Virgin gates are located. What else have we learned? Starbucks is even more expensive here than at home, and the price goes up the closer one gets to the gate!
Reading, walking around, people-watching and feeling grateful for this amazing opportunity is filling the time nicely. I am getting a bit tired of being reminded by a disembodied voice that I need to stay attached to my baggage, however.
Until "tomorrow" in Australia...
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Pre-"launch"
From Dave: So, here we are on the very first page of our Australia trip. Don't worry... we are still a couple of days from "launch." Now is the time for washing clothes, locating all the bags, tags, electrical adapters, chargers, passports and meds... don't forget the meds!!! (We older folks do love our drugs... hehe.) We are staging everything in a "spare" room... the one where I work on old computers and income taxes, store stuff (we often call it the "throw room" as in, "Just throw it in there, Becky."), and even sleep the occasional guest(s) if we can find enough space to flatten out the futon.
With my retirement from full time active ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA we've had a fairly steady stream of guests. These last three months have been busy-building-to-exhaustion. Someone recently asked me if things were "winding down." Didn't happen. When the clock ran out I still had a couple more people I wanted to see once more. I guess when you're done, you're done. It is a good thing Becky and I scheduled a couple of days off-island to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary or I'd still be trying to squeeze things in. Those two days away were the deadline... end of work... period... drop-off-the-keys-and-close-the-door-behind-you time. Sad. Glad. Good. Bad. All the emotions one might expect and more. Great memories and friends... a life-time full.
Now we are looking ahead, hustling to pack and prep at the same time for good friends who are house-sitting for us. Much more to come . . .
Here's a pic of son, Joel, and daughter-in-law, Sarabeth, along with Becky overlooking a favorite spot on our island home. We had a great time together as they were here for my retirement festivities.
With my retirement from full time active ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA we've had a fairly steady stream of guests. These last three months have been busy-building-to-exhaustion. Someone recently asked me if things were "winding down." Didn't happen. When the clock ran out I still had a couple more people I wanted to see once more. I guess when you're done, you're done. It is a good thing Becky and I scheduled a couple of days off-island to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary or I'd still be trying to squeeze things in. Those two days away were the deadline... end of work... period... drop-off-the-keys-and-close-the-door-behind-you time. Sad. Glad. Good. Bad. All the emotions one might expect and more. Great memories and friends... a life-time full.
Now we are looking ahead, hustling to pack and prep at the same time for good friends who are house-sitting for us. Much more to come . . .
Here's a pic of son, Joel, and daughter-in-law, Sarabeth, along with Becky overlooking a favorite spot on our island home. We had a great time together as they were here for my retirement festivities.
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