Monthly Archives: July 2009

Keep Watching the Skies

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Even thought the east coast has seen it’s fair share of seasonal crossings (days that push 60 degrees in December, snow in April) and LA seems to be constantly stuck in a state of spring, this winter in Sydney has been, by far, the most confusing of my life.

To being with, weather reporting lacks a certain sense of specificity.  I know I could stand to have a better grasp of Celsius, but even though I’ve never understood why barometric pressure was so important, it never prevented me from getting the gist weather reports in the states.  And instead of offering additional information like UV ratings and pollen counts, Australian news programs opt to show a map of the entire country, accompanied by a series of wavy lines and numbers, which I think indicates wind speed or pressure or bunny rabbit density, I’m really not sure.  And I don’t understand why they are compelled to put up the entire map, when doing the local news.  Even the weather channel, a channel dedicated to worldwide reporting, knows how to zoom into specific cities.  You would think that with the overwhelming majority of Australia’s population parked in six major cities, they would do the same thing here.

Perhaps the most confusing practice in both television weather reporting, and the only slightly more helpful website, is the use of a term that I think should be banned from all proper reporting . . . fine.  Fine is a relative term.  Fine to one person might not be fine to another.  So unless there is a scale related to temperature, cloud cover, humidity and all other things weather related, with tick marks indicating when one might use the term fine as opposed to crappy, I think they ought to stick with sunny or cloudy.  The terminology only gets worse on a rainy day.  I have yet to figure out the difference between a shower or two, a chance shower or two, a few showers, coastal showers (almost all of the dang city is coast) and chance showers, mostly fine.  Although I will give them a certain credit for trying.  In a city where the cloud cover moves faster than the public transportation, and it rains in full sunlight, it can’t be too easy to predict what might happen next.  Like a saltwater croc, the weather just sneaks up on you.

The lack of heating systems in most buildings, also does not help the day to day confusion.  Relentless sunlight will heat the bedroom to boiling during the day, while the wind getting sucked in through the kitchen window chills my coffee before I’ve even added the milk.  And even though you can dress to stay plenty warm during the colder nights, if you sit still long enough, your fingers turn blue and the tip of your nose feels like a snowy mountain peak.  To all my friends who knit, consider inventing some finger only gloves and nose cozies.  You could make a fortune out here.

But for the most part, I really can’t complain.  It’s far from freezing rain pelting me in the face, deceptively deep puddles of sludge that remain on certain street corners until June, and being forced to wear the same pair of salt stained boots for two weeks straight.  And the swiftly changing conditions here become a sort of theater of the sky.  The rainbows are intensely vibrant, often set against deep gray clouds that sweep in and obscure them behind a vail of distant rain.  The water in the harbor changes color with the sky, going from a vivid sapphire blue to a placid mercury gray.  And the fluffy flock of clouds turn a cotton candy pink at sunset.  So I’ll enjoy all these “fine” days while they last, before it’s as dry as a “nun’s nasty” or a “dead dingo’s donger” outside.

Sydney Sunset

The Australian Museum – Good old fashioned fun

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Welcome

Yup, that pretty much sums up Australia.  Welcome.  Come on in and enjoy yourself . . . oh and something might eat you before you leave, but no worries mate.

The Australian Museum is a nice little piece of Sydney history, that maintains that message very consistently.  Just like the Zoo, it’s a very friendly place to get to know the local animals.  Of course, all the ones at the museum are stuffed, with the exception of a few sea creatures (I’ve actually never seen a cuttlefish in person before) some ugly spiders, one bored looking blue tongue lizard, and one itty bitty freshwater crocodile (they’re cute when they’re small).

The idea of being surrounded by stiffly posed, glass eyed creatures, that probably ate their last bits of eucalyptus thirty years ago, sounds morbid, but it’s actually quite fun.  Now I know that the grey headed flying foxes that I see leaving the botanic gardens in droves each night, have the softest of fluff on their heads, and that echidnas are quite spiny indeed.  And even though a great deal of the animals are safely stowed in display cases, including a few that seem to have seen better days since their visit to the taxidermist, there are no shortage of Australia’s more iconic animals primed for petting on each floor.  The surplus have been turned into a creative series of displays where the rats chase each other through the backyard BBQ, and the magpies dive bomb unsuspecting bikers.  According to the wall text, it’s common to use ice cream containers with eyes drawn on them as fake targets, to prevent being blinded in a magpie attack.  I’m not sure I’ll go as far as wearing an ice cream container, but I will walk cautiously during their nesting season.

Although smaller than some of it’s American counterparts (lacking the space for both the massive T-rex skeleton and the life sized humpback whale, this natural history museum opts for a whale skeleton as a compromise) it is a great place to learn about the many creatures that are, and have always been, unique to Australia.  Did you know about the Diprotodon Optatum, the largest marsupial that ever lived?  And somehow all my previous explorations into natural history, in both museums and books, never taught me about zooids or that sandworms could have legs.

But perhaps the most important thing you learn during a trip to the Australian Museum, is that everything, from the most unassuming shell washed up on the beach, to a tick practically invisible when first born, can kill you.  That may be obvious when you’re looking at a saltwater crocodile, a reptile so large that it might consider a full grown human no more than a hearty meal.  But no one would suspect that the tiny blue ringed octopus, that could fit in the palm of your hand, could also paralyze every function of your body, to the point where you would need constant CPR until its poison worked its way out of your system (a mere twenty four hours later).  I think Bill Bryson said it best when he wrote, “It’s a tough country.”

So once again, I find myself grateful for my humble abode, but today that’s because of it’s lack of a spider filled back yard and distance from crocodile friendly shoreline.  I have until early summer to prepare myself to get into the water.  In the meantime, I’ll buy the large container of ice cream, just in case.  It’s a good thing I like ice cream.

Check this flickr set for more fun photos.

Eat your heart out Macys

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I just finished watching a fireworks display in the harbor.  This is the third I have been able to see from my apartment window since I moved here.  Keep in mind, I’ve lived here one month.  The first display was during a music festival in Darling Harbor, so it all made sense once I figured it out.  The second was inexplicably short and surreptitious hidden behind the buildings in the CBD.  Nonetheless it was large and, therefore, most likely legitimate.

I have no idea why this one happened either, but it was loud, colorful, sparkly and spectacular.  The Sydney Ferries continued their timely service, although traveling  practically underneath the embers.  And the bats flew calmly through the night air, seemingly undisturbed.  I listened for applause after the booming stopped, and heard none.  I looked at the walkways along the harbor through my binoculars, and saw no usually large crowd.  And I just did a quick google search, and saw no mention of fireworks for today’s date.  Apparently this is how we celebrate Thursday.

As I watched the display, wondering if a local fireworks maker had just had one massive going out of business sale, I remembered another time in my life when I suffered for a similar feeling of “will someone please explain”.  I was studying in Florence at the time.  My friends and I were walking the familiar route home from one of our favorite bars, when we encountered a massive group of people walking the opposite direction.  They were carrying torches,  waving signs and being lead by a line of drummers in colorful outfits.  We stepped aside into a narrow side street watching, perplexed, as the group filed past like the Pamplona bulls.  Fueled by curiosity and rum shots, we decided to follow them.

We hopped behind them, trying to read the signs, and despite several of us being pretty good with Italian (a skill that I have long since lost touch with) we couldn’t make out the cryptic messages.  Eventually the crowd flowed into the Piazza Della Signoria where the drummers, a few torch bearers, and one angry looking fellow, filed up onto the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, and took position next to David.  There had already been at least one union strike while we were living there, so we prepared for this to be another angry group waiting to have their say.

The speech went on for a few minutes, a few loud boisterous cheers were shared across the piazza, and the drummers egged them on a few times before we put it all together.  It was a soccer rally.  Fiorentina had lost a major match, and their fans were gathering in a show of solidarity.  Their team may had lost, but their fan’s spirits had not been crushed.  They were loudly declaring their support and already claiming a victory for next season.  And as we watched the speech I could tell we were all thinking the same thing; If this is what the Florentines do when Fiorentina loses, what happens when they win?

So if Sydneysiders use fireworks on every occasion of note, and even those not so notable, even in the middle of the week, even in the middle of winter, then how crazy do they go on New Years Eve?