Australian adventure
Mike Cuthbert Australian Blog #1
These entries were made episodically from March 2nd to March 24th and originated in and around Melbourne, Australia. Our holiday began on Labor Day weekend, the end of the end of Aussie summer. (By the way, if you want to sound authentic, it is not “awssy” but “ozzie” and the Aussies often refer to their country as “Oz.”) We were visiting family and friends but, as you will find when you go to Australia, making new friends is an activity you can plan on.
DAY ONE- March 2nd
Forty minutes late, we pull away from the Delta gate and my wife, Jen, sees our luggage sitting on a cart while we head to JFK for our Qantas connection. Pleas to get our bags back on the plane go unheeded. “You’ll get them at your destination,” we are told by a hapless flight attendant. “Do you have a clue as to what our destination is?” Blank stare. When told we are going to Australia and would like our luggage to accompany us, we are told our luggage “..will be in New York before you.” Since the next flight to JFK would get there at 6:09 and we were leaving on Qantas at 6:40, we expressed our scepticism. We were right and it was not until our second day in Australia that our bags arrived.
We always have a very flexible pool on when we will first hear an Aussie accent. 4:40 PM and it’s a girl from Brisbane with a growing infection from a New York-installed stud in her cheek. We did not visit with her.
Our first good omen: we got the exit row for the flight to LAX!! A wonderful flight with tons of movies Bad omen: I discover my digital camera screen won’t light up and the camera is more or less useless though I suspect it may be taking pictures without the screen working. I can’t afford to hope so plan on getting a new camera at duty-free along the way.
Watched “Romulus, My Father,” a prize-winning Aussie movie about an eastern European immigrant family. Eric Bana stars and it’s a sad, slow-paced movie. Listened to some Beethoven sonatas played by Australian Stephen Kovacevich. Excellent performances and a delightful break between movies. An extra treat was three unseen (by us) episodes of “Kath and Kim,” an outrageously Australian TV comedy that we fell in love with on our last visit three years ago. Laughed out loud but didn’t disturb my seat-mate, Harrison or “Harry.” He’s three and I’m worried. I shouldn’t be. Harry is a gem and alternately sleeps and watches TV, mostly “The Wiggles” the whole trip. Lovely little guy! His mother swears by “Gravel,” an anti-airsickness drug that also works to help kids sleep. It worked on Harry while I watched “The Assassination of Jesse James etc.,””The Heartbreak Kid,” “an awful teen movie with Seth Rogen as a cop and a start on “Two Days in Paris” with Julie Depuy. Fell asleep during that one so I can save it for the return trip as it looked kind of cute.
I have a good book to read, “The Commonwealth of Thieves,” by Thomas Keneally, an account of the founding of Australia under Arthur Phillip, but couldn’t focus. I think reading on planes, even over such long distances as we are covering, is very difficult and hard on aging eyes. There is lots of material to read about Australia before coming here and I always recommend at least one major book before you come here, just to get in the mood. NOT “The Thorn Birds!” I have others and will no doubt buy some Australian fiction when I get there. Book prices are outrageous in Australia, with paperbacks often going for A$30 or more, but many of them never make it to the States at all.
Book shops are in every neighbourhood—some are specialty stores for the fine arts, or Australiana or travel, but there are more book shops than tanning parlours, a welcome change from the States. (My spelling, by the way, of such words as “labour” and “parlour” is marked as an error by spell-checkers if written “labor” and “parlor.” Just so you don’t think I’m going native.
Next episode, landing in Melbourne, settling in and the calendar of events available for a tourist at this time of the year.
These entries were made episodically from March 2nd to March 24th and originated in and around Melbourne, Australia. Our holiday began on Labor Day weekend, the end of the end of Aussie summer. (By the way, if you want to sound authentic, it is not “awssy” but “ozzie” and the Aussies often refer to their country as “Oz.”) We were visiting family and friends but, as you will find when you go to Australia, making new friends is an activity you can plan on.
DAY ONE- March 2nd
Forty minutes late, we pull away from the Delta gate and my wife, Jen, sees our luggage sitting on a cart while we head to JFK for our Qantas connection. Pleas to get our bags back on the plane go unheeded. “You’ll get them at your destination,” we are told by a hapless flight attendant. “Do you have a clue as to what our destination is?” Blank stare. When told we are going to Australia and would like our luggage to accompany us, we are told our luggage “..will be in New York before you.” Since the next flight to JFK would get there at 6:09 and we were leaving on Qantas at 6:40, we expressed our scepticism. We were right and it was not until our second day in Australia that our bags arrived.
We always have a very flexible pool on when we will first hear an Aussie accent. 4:40 PM and it’s a girl from Brisbane with a growing infection from a New York-installed stud in her cheek. We did not visit with her.Our first good omen: we got the exit row for the flight to LAX!! A wonderful flight with tons of movies Bad omen: I discover my digital camera screen won’t light up and the camera is more or less useless though I suspect it may be taking pictures without the screen working. I can’t afford to hope so plan on getting a new camera at duty-free along the way.
Watched “Romulus, My Father,” a prize-winning Aussie movie about an eastern European immigrant family. Eric Bana stars and it’s a sad, slow-paced movie. Listened to some Beethoven sonatas played by Australian Stephen Kovacevich. Excellent performances and a delightful break between movies. An extra treat was three unseen (by us) episodes of “Kath and Kim,” an outrageously Australian TV comedy that we fell in love with on our last visit three years ago. Laughed out loud but didn’t disturb my seat-mate, Harrison or “Harry.” He’s three and I’m worried. I shouldn’t be. Harry is a gem and alternately sleeps and watches TV, mostly “The Wiggles” the whole trip. Lovely little guy! His mother swears by “Gravel,” an anti-airsickness drug that also works to help kids sleep. It worked on Harry while I watched “The Assassination of Jesse James etc.,””The Heartbreak Kid,” “an awful teen movie with Seth Rogen as a cop and a start on “Two Days in Paris” with Julie Depuy. Fell asleep during that one so I can save it for the return trip as it looked kind of cute.
I have a good book to read, “The Commonwealth of Thieves,” by Thomas Keneally, an account of the founding of Australia under Arthur Phillip, but couldn’t focus. I think reading on planes, even over such long distances as we are covering, is very difficult and hard on aging eyes. There is lots of material to read about Australia before coming here and I always recommend at least one major book before you come here, just to get in the mood. NOT “The Thorn Birds!” I have others and will no doubt buy some Australian fiction when I get there. Book prices are outrageous in Australia, with paperbacks often going for A$30 or more, but many of them never make it to the States at all.
Book shops are in every neighbourhood—some are specialty stores for the fine arts, or Australiana or travel, but there are more book shops than tanning parlours, a welcome change from the States. (My spelling, by the way, of such words as “labour” and “parlour” is marked as an error by spell-checkers if written “labor” and “parlor.” Just so you don’t think I’m going native.
Next episode, landing in Melbourne, settling in and the calendar of events available for a tourist at this time of the year.
posted by Mike Cuthbert at 3:45 PM
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