Mom/Anne’s Blogs from when she came over Christmas - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 (by Mom/Anne)
Well, this is the last bit I'll be able to write about sunny, HOT, (temps of 41 C expected in Adelaide! That's 106 F!!!) beautiful Australia.

Since I last wrote, I have spent the day touring the outskirts of Sydney by ferry, foot and bus. We have met the parents of L & D's good friends here, who are visiting from Winder, GA (just past Chateau Elan) a couple of times. (One GNO which was a replacement for SALAD night...but not quite the same...) Anyway, Susan and I spent a day in Watson's point where as near as I can figure, one goes for the fish & chips and nothing else. We did have excellent F & C at Doyles, which is very famous here. After spending 3 minutes looking around the town (only because that was all the time it took to see it all!) we took a local bus to the Vaucluse House.

It's a beautiful home, now on 9 hectares (22.2 acres) that used to be 208 hec in the midst of a very populated beach community. It's really an oasis The house was built beginning in the 1820's by William Wentworth and his wife. He was a very influential lawyer in the mid1800's in Sydney, founding the first newspaper here, crossing the Blue Mts for the first time to open the development to the West, forming the U of Sydney, helping to write the constitution. He and his wife had 10 children, all of whom lived to adulthood, but the first two were born before they were married, so even though he was such a big wig (or is that Whig here?), they were never included in Colonial Society. This is so odd to me, given the Penal Colony thing, and all. Oh well, you know how those colonists are! Anyway, instead of building a home in Sydney they moved out to the burbs and developed Vaucluse House. It is beautifully restored with original wall and floor coverings, and the furnishings are all original to the house, or original pieces of the time. It was a wonderful way to see how the rich lived in Sydney in that time.

On Friday afternoon, L & I left for The Hunter Valley. The Hunter is one of the many wine regions in AU, and not the best known (that would be the Barossa) but it is only 2 hours away, and they have some fine wines (over 120 Wineries in the area) AND a Golden Door Spa, which we found on Sunday. We spent the day Sat at a number of the wineries tasting wine. We started at L & D's favorite called Piggs Peake. They only sell 4000 cases a year and none of it is exported. The grapes grown in the region are Shiraz and Semillion with a little bit of Viognier. The blends are very interesting and tasty. At Piggs Peake the vintner actually does the tastings, and so the education is as much fun as the drinking! When we were there he showed us the difference in the taste of their Shiraz when you change the amount of viognier from none to 3% to 6%. A noticeable difference even to someone with very little wine taste, like me! All in all, we figured we tasted a total of around 40 wines on Sat, and were still walking around to tell of it! The only other people I know in AU, were in The Hunter as well, so they invited us for a barbeque and some wonderful wines. The day ended the way it started...with wine! We had a ball.

Lindsey is very conscientious about drinking and driving because the speed limits are reviewed by cameras, and if you exceed the limit by more than 2%, that's right 2%, they send you a ticket in the mail! Also, they have random breath tests all the time. Sue & Janine were stopped in a cab (well, actually the cabbie was stopped) on their way home from GNO!

Love to y'all (that's American!)
Anne

Mom/Anne’s Blogs from when she came over Christmas - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 (by Mom/Anne)
Well, I just finished my brekky, (more Au to add to my vocab!), and Linds is off selling secure storage, and David is in the US (Orlando, or maybe on his way to Japan by now) so I'm here in Manly planning my day of sun and relaxation.

Since I last reported in, we have hiked, beached, sight-seen, shopped, wined (not WHINED) and dined.

Linds & I went to Sydney on Sat and took advantage of the couple of markets in the city. On weekends the city shuts down, and the only people there are tourists. We went to an area called "The Rocks" which is one of the oldest parts of the city, and was once inhabited by convicts, thieves, prostitutes, and in general the worst of the worst... In a country that was originally used as a Penal Colony by England from its discovery in 1770 until the early 1800's, that's really bad! The buildings have been preserved, and the area is now full of shops, galleries, restaurants, wine stores. (this is where L & D's favorite enoteca is located). It's a perfect tourist spot, and on w/e's they have the Rocks Markets, which is like a high class flea market. Lots of crafts, indigenous art, clothing, food. We had a ball, and actually came home with only one $5 purchase between us. A record, I'm sure!

On Monday I went to the beach, which is a couple of blocks away. You can really see what a resort town this is when you look at the number of people on the beach on a Monday morning! I didn't go swimming, though, because of the announcement of sightings of blue jellyfish, who sting with burrs, and all you can do is remove as many as you can, and then endure the pain for 40 min to an hour! Not very inviting, I would say.

Lindsey and I took the Manly Scenic Walkway from Manly to the Spit Bridge, somewhere between 8.2 and 10 K depending on which sign you look at. (They're not very concerned about accuracy here!). It is a beautiful hike on paths around the harbour and then up into the cliffs, all along the water. It is, however, listed as "hard" on the signposts, which I would say means VERY STRENUOUS! It was fun, and Linds may choose to do it again but I've been there, done that. We did finish off with a bus ride back to the 4 Pines beer bar, and undid all our good work with a couple of beers and a bowl of Chunks and aioli dipping sauce (that would be french fries with mayo, Hellooooo!!!)

Yesterday, I did Cultural Sydney on foot! I took the ferry into the city, and started at the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain, followed by the Art Gallery of New S Wales (their classical museum), the Museum of Contemporary Art, a walking tour of The Rocks, and ended the day with Linds at the Sydney Tower overlooking all the buildings I saw during the day. It was a great, but tiring day.

The Botanic gardens are beautiful, and even more fun because it's right in the middle of the city. Water is ever-present in Sydney and the area. The city is on Sydney Harbour, but very near to the mouth of the harbour, which goes on for miles! Many, many of the workers in the city arrive to work by ferry at the Circular Quay (pronounced Key) from various parts of the suburbs. Sydney is like a big city on holiday! It is very relaxed. In fact, many of the people on the ferry from Manly go into the city in bathing suits and cover ups! Linds says the city is not busy at all, compared to usual, because this is Summer holiday for Sydney. The city shut down the week before Chrissy (more Australian) and many of her customers and business associates are off until Jan 11, or 18! The kids are on school holiday until the 18th we think.

After we went to the Sydney Tower, L took me to a Sushi Train. Unless you see it, it's hard to imagine, but the Sushi man makes his plates, and puts them on a conveyor that does a continuous loop around the seating area. You pick the plate you want, and at the end, they charge you for the number of plates, which are color coded for price point. The idea probably came from Japan, since there are a huge number of Far Easterners here, but it is uniquely Australian, as far as I know.

Mom/Anne’s Blogs from when she came over Christmas - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 (by Mom/Anne)
It's New Year's Eve here, so we are planning a barbie with prawns and burgers, a perfect melding of No hemisphere & So hemisphere! The champagne is about to be opened so L & I can do our cooking thing. We know it's better with bubbly!

We went to the Opera house on Sunday, and wandered a bit around Sydney and had a wonderful afternoon and evening. The Opera House is constructed on concrete, and each of the "sails" was pre fabricated and erected on site in one piece. It's impossible to imaging what it was like to put each of them in place (18 in all!) The outside is spectacular, as you know, but the inside was a bit disappointing. It's one of the biggest Sydney attractions, so they do tours all day long there. So, our concert was in the Concert Hall, but we weren't able to get into the other performance spaces, including the Opera Hall. A big disappointment. The seats we had in the balcony were accessed by a wall of windows looking out over Sydney Harbour and the bridge. That made up for the inaccessibility of the rest of the spaces!

The acoustics are amazing, as I've heard said, and the concert was wonderful. One thing about the Aussies is that they don't take themselves too seriously. So, the Gala Concert was a mix of Broadway, popular tunes and light classical. The performers were all Australian, and very good. They included a Sousa march for the Americans in the audience, and of course, Waltzing Matilda! They finished with a wonderful arrangement of Amazing Grace (but not ALL the verses!)

After we went for a drink in the bar atop the Shangri La Hotel, and then to L & D's favourite (see, I'm learning some Australian already!!!) wine store. Wine Odyssey. It's a smaller version of the enoteca the Lichtefelds, Dements and Jim & I went to in Greve, IT. They serve only Australian wines, and some small tapas-style dishes. We tried a bunch of their wines, and decided we are going to open an enoteca in Atlanta when L & D return home! The atmosphere was very inviting, comfortable and relaxed. My favorite wine was a Pinot Gris/Viognier blend! Who knew!!!

On Tues, L & I went on a search for the perfect spot to watch the fire works over the Harbour bridge. Apparently, it's impossible to get home after the fireworks, because of the traffic and the random breath test set ups, so we have opted to stay in Manly. There is a spot called North Head where we can see the top of the bridge, that is apparently very popular. Only problem, it's about a 45 minute hike, and all of Manly goes there. So, we'll see whether we have the wherewithal to go, or we just settle for the Manly fireworks, and a glass of bubbly at L & D's apartment! I'll let you know how 2010 is when we get there, so if it's not too good, you'll have time to make other plans!

We also went to the Featherdale Zoo which is about an hour out of town. This is a smaller version of a zoo than the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, but you can hold and touch the animals (well, some of them, anyway). We saw a lot of the animals and birds that are indigenous to AU, petted the roos and koalas. It reminded me a lot of the Catskill Game Farm, but without the poop all over the ground! It was very clean.

One strange thing about Sydney is that all the Motorways (aka limited access highways) are toll roads. But, there are no toll booths. Instead, all drivers have to have a reader attached to their windshield which has a chip that is read by an overhead sensor, and the toll is automatically taken from your account! The toll at one place was $2.76! What???? The oddest thing here is that there is no penny in the AU currency, so anytime there is an odd charge like this one, they just round up!!!  Is this strange or what?

Well, Champagne calls and Lindsey is waiting for me to get the prawns ready. I'll be in touch with more interesting and useless information from Down Under.

Love to you all, and may 2010 be filled with only good things for all of us.

Mom/Anne’s Blogs from when she came over Christmas - Chapter 1

It occurred to me that I never posted any of the adventures we had with Mom/Anne when she was here over the holidays. We had such a nice visit with her I hate to not tell you all about it!

The snippets below are from a series of 4 emails that mom sent back to loved ones in the states describing her trip - I thought she described her stay so well, I thought I would plagiarize a bit ;) Thanks Mom!

Chapter 1 (by Mom/Anne)
G'day Mates!!

Manly is a charming town on the water. It's kind of like a cross between W. Europe and Northern Caribbean! The Corso is a cobbled pedestrian boulevard that feels alot like a small version of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. It's full of cafes, little shops and lots of people! The shops and cafes are all opened to the street, just like in Europe, and with a feeling we never seem to be able to pull off in the US. There is lots of sitting, drinking Cappuccino or beer, and chatting, chatting, chatting.

Last night we cooked a fabulous dinner of Australian Red Snapper (AU $34.99/ KG!!!! Hello??) and to get the necessary ingredients we stopped at the baker, the fish monger, the green grocer.... and then the bank, because we used all our money to buy it all! When Linds & David say it's a lot more expensive to live here they're not just whistling Waltzing Matilda! Anyway, we also found that there is no Latino influence in Manly. Not surprising, I suppose, but coming from Atlanta where everything is bilingual now, it's still a shock. Not only could we not find tomatillos for our recipe, they have never heard of them! Canned green chiles? I don't think so!

The beach is sandy, long and full of people, both locals and visitors. There is a walkway that's been built along the shoreline that is obviously a favorite spot for strolling, power walking, skate boarding and scootering. There are surfers and scuba divers aplenty. David says the diving isn't great here because the water isn't very clear, but it is only steps from their door, so that makes up for a lot! Some of the surfers use paddles to get around, instead of the power of the waves. They look for a spot that isn't too wavy, and then stand on their board and paddle away. Seems kind of a strange use of a surf board to me, but what do I know. All in all it feels a lot like a Caribbean island, with a European town attached!

We had a lovely Christmas together. Linds and I shared her kitchen without knocking each other over, although when David tried to help it did get a bit too crowded. It was great fun to cook together again. Their apartment is very warm and inviting, as you would expect. The guest room is perfect, and the dresser is empty, so there's plenty of room for your things if you come down under for weeks at a time…