Adventures Abound

Brian “second dinner” Lindberg here

Hello again friends and a happy Thursday to you all. Actually it's only 12:01am on Thursday here but since for most of you it is only Wednesday and Thursday is only a distant future. So I would like to let you all know from the future that this Thursday will be a good one. At least the first few minutes of it anyways.

This last week was a good one with lots of adventuring and sightseeing and absorbing of this beautiful city. On Friday I revisited Citibank and got those mysterious fees squared away. Turns out they charged me $40 in overdraft fees for a $50 charge that I paid for after 1 day. I felt that $40 was a little extreme to pay for interest on $50 for one day. But thats how it goes I guess. After vowing never to return to citibank I spent the rest of the day exploring Sydney. I started by crossing the street to a huge mall which I had accidentally entered a few times before. It was pretty busy being a Friday afternoon and I had an excellent time people watching. I wandered into a hobby shop and looked at all the board games I wanted to play. I spied a little shop devoted to selling things with dogs on them. They had tshirts and mugs and umbrellas and everything you could think of adorned with pictures of any type of dog you want. I knew my pugloving family would exhaust their stores of pug memorabilia and I could only shake my head at the silly merchandise. There were a number of other souvenir shops that I wandered through, but mostly the mall was filled with jewelry and women's apparel stores much like the TO mall back home. My favorite part of the mall was the three story Christmas tree stuck right in the middle of it all. It was huge and so difficult to get good pictures of because it stuck up through holes in the floors just large enough for it to pass. I made my way to the bottom floor to see the monster of a Tannenbaum up close and maybe get a pic looking all way up its side and found you could walk right under this tree. Can't say that I have ever done that with a christmas tree before.

I wandered down to Darling Harbor after the mall. There were tons of cute little cafes and restaurants along the water that I approached just close enough to see the overpriced menu before I quickly scampered away in fear. The zoo and aquarium looked like fun but I decided there were plenty of other things to see in the harbor for free so I passed. The Chinese gardens were very relaxing with their fountains and rolling hills until I almost was run over by a Dilophosaurus driving a steam engine. Sculptures were also all over the place including this odd one of a sheep getting stuck in some sort of iron curtain maybe. I can't pinpoint the significance of this image but I can say that it caught my attention more than most sculptures do.

Finally I wandered over to the National Maritime Museum to learn all about ships and commerce and Navys. Similar to the Powerhouse Museum, I was not overly impressed by the displays. Most of the exhibits consisted of pictures of ships which I did not find to be too interesting. I did enjoy investigating one of the winners of the national Darwin Beer Can Regatta. Then I got to climb my way up something like 4 stories worth of stairs to the top of the Darling Harbor lighthouse. The stairway was so small and curvy I could understand why the museum people made a big deal of making me leave my backpack at the bottom of the structure. Upon reaching the top a tour guide old man was waiting for me and promptly asked me “how many steps?” I kicked myself for not having Taylor with me as he is known for counting steps and would have been able to reply immediately. I unfortunately had to content myself with counting the 63 steps only on my way backdown.

To finish off the afternoon I explored the Star City casino located near the harbor. I'm not a big casino person and didn't bother betting on anything but I had a great time wandering around watching other people win and lose their fortunes. I was impressed with the casino's huge fake rock structures and waterfalls that reminded me of my swimming pool back home. There was some sort of daily poker tournament going on so I stood around and watched a number of hands at a few tables. Trying to learn as much as I can so I can maybe beat Jesse a few more times and sound a little smarter when I play.

On Monday we went back out to Watsons Bay to explore some more. Last time I had explored the East Side of the South Head point and was never able to navigate my way to the actual point of South Head. So I tried my luck wandering around the West Side and eventually found my way to the point. From there it was really incredible to look around and see Manly straight ahead across the bay with Sydney and the harbor bridge to the left and the endless ocean to the right. I also stumbled on some tide pools and had a good time chasing crabs around trying to get good pictures of them. Turns out that there is also a nude beach called Lady Bay down near the end of South Head so I decided to stroll over there and see what I could see. Alas I was only fortunate enough to encounter a couple of old men hanging out. One was lying out on the rocks reading a book with all his clothing rolled up in a ball to be used as a pillow as he lounged. The other seemed to be having a marvelous time wading in the water up to his knees with only sunglasses and a baseball cap on. I thought that was a bit anticlimactic. If you are going to a nude beach and you aren't wearing any pants you might as well go all the way and lose the hat. It still got me thinking how wading in the water without clothing must be completely different from all the playing in the surf that I have ever done and now that I think back I am more and more intrigued and think I will have to go back there and try it sometime.

Tuesday I ran more errands and on Wednesday the four of us got up early (10am) to catch a matinée showing of the new Bond film down at the mall in Bondi Junction. I enjoyed the film for my $13.50. Pretty much exactly what I expect from a good Bond movie. The theater was pretty nice as well. Stadium seating with the cushiest seats I have seen in a theater in a long time. It wasn't at all crowded either which was a little surprising since Bond had only opened hear in Australia the night before. Also, Taylor heard rumors from other staff members at the hotel where he works that Daniel Craig was apparently staying this week for the premiere of the movie in Oz. I thought that was really cool after the four of us here have been so excited to see his movie for the last month or so. If Taylor ever gets a glimpse of 007 I will pass along the info. Another interesting piece about Aussie cinema is how they have assigned seating in the theaters. Our tickets came with seat numbers on them. It seemed bit unnecessary with the theater almost empty. Also the previews and commercials lasted incredibly long. The movie was listed at 11:10am yet the feature presentation didn't come on til 11:37. I wouldn't have minded so much except for in the 27minutes of advertising we saw about 3 movie previews and the rest were commercials for beers and anti-aging oils and who knows what else all sponsored by James Bond himself apparently. They also ran most of the commercials twice which didn't make much sense to me and mostly just made it worse that we had to sit through it all a second time. So next time we see a movie we will make sure to be fashionably late.

After the movie I wandered around the mall much like I did at the beginning of this post. The only noteworthy part of the experience was when a girl approached me as I was about to wander into a bookstore. She asked if I would like to get a haircut. In my head I had been preparing answers to most any other question she might have for me: “I don't know where the food court is in this maze of a mall” “Yes I am from Los Angeles as you can see from the Dodger shirt I am sporting” “Yes I can recommend an excellent nonfiction title from this establishment” “no I'm not Brady Quinn but I get that a lot” so it took me a second to respond and so she continued to explain to me that she worked at a haircutting place in the mall and was in training and needed a model for one of her lessons. I was flattered that she would pick me out of the crowd as someone that might be in search of a haircut and I admitted I was in fact interested in a free haircut. Unfortunately she explained that the lesson was not until 530pm and I decided to turn down the job as I didn't feel I could find enough stores in the mall to entertain me for the next 4 hours. I do regret the decision now though as I could use a good haircut and I did have a bookstore at my disposal with nothing else to do that afternoon.

So all in all it was a good week. I miss you all back home. I saw my rec league volleyball team ended up finishing first for the season and I am immensely proud. I do think that you guys could have maybe lost one game at least though after I left just to show that my being there made a difference, but you guys went on and dominated without me. Going undefeated without me will hurt my free agent value when I eventually return. The four of us are trying to cook up some plans for Thanksgiving here. I am desperately brainstorming the easiest traditional Thanksgiving dishes to prepare so I can contribute to our feast. It will be strange being the only ones observing the holiday in this strange land, but at least that makes it easier to get time off work. I don't know how it is almost Thanksgiving anyways with xmas trees sprouting up all around us too. Time is flying. Anyways, goodnight and continue to leave comments and send emails about how things are going back home.