The Voyage of Spectacle

The 3:00 a.m. reveille to make our 6:10 a.m. flight out of Auckland put a fairly serious damper on the day, but we tried to make the most of it.  We arrived at the Intercontinental Rialto around 9:00 a.m. to find our room ready, and quite comfortable, so we hit the town.  The hotel is right in the thick of Melbourne in the CBD (Central Business District).  As such, we simply exited the hotel, picked a direction, and just started walking. 

Our first order of business was to purchase a cellular phone since we will be in Australia and New Zealand for the next 7 or 8 months.  So, we hit the local Vodafone branch and explained our situation:  temporary plan, cheap phone, international calls, etc.  As is usually the case here in Australia … no worries, mate.  The whole process took maybe 10 minutes.  We were surprised that no contract is required, and then that much more surprised to find no mailing address is required.   

After some window shopping and a little café society, we went to lunch at a tapas restaurant called MoVida which was absolutely fabulous … beef cheek, Wagyu beef and exotic mushrooms, croquette, anchovies, and all kinds of great dishes.  This delicious meal and a bottle of wine prompted a sluggish walk back to the hotel for a big nap.

We lounged and napped for several hours, and then got ready for our dinner with Keenan’s parents.  Who’s Keenan, and why are you going out with his parents, you ask?  Some back story is required.  Awhile back, we were investigating several visa issues regarding multiple entries and exits from Australia.  Our plan is to fly to Australia once (for our Melbourne, Perth, Indian Pacific Railroad, Adelaide, Sydney trip), sail to Australia with the boat (spending at least 4 to 5 months sailing up the east coast), and fly to and from the United States in May of 2009 for Andy’s brother’s wedding.  As such, our visa situation could be quite confusing so while we were in Los Angeles this time, we headed to the Australian Consulate to talk to them in person. 

Unfortunately, after driving all the way over to west L.A., the Australian Consulate no longer consults on immigration and visa issues.  They gave us a 1-800 number of a visa specialist in Montreal, so we sat down in the lobby to give them a call. 

As I asked a million questions and gathered the necessary information, Andy started chatting with two Australian guys from Melbourne who were hanging out in the Consulate office.  He learned that they were traveling the world, and one had lost his passport while in San Diego.  The whole situation was turning into quite the logistical nightmare.  The Consulate wanted official copies of his and his mother’s birth certificate, and of course, it was the New Year’s Day holidays in Australia.  The rest of their group had already moved on to Las Vegas, and their next several stops to South America were already in jeopardy.  They looked bummed and bewildered.  The minute I saw Andy walk over to them, I knew we would be taking them under our wing. 

So we packed up their stuff, got Keenan a new passport picture (curiously, for Australian passport purposes, you are not allowed to smile), and headed off to Los Feliz for some Yuca’s burritos.  I phoned Andy’s mom on the down-low and dropped a subtle hint that we should take care of these guys and put them up for the night.  She immediately agreed. 

We then proceeded to have a lovely evening.  Keenan and Jimmy caught up on Internet stuff, chatted on the phone with their parents, made the necessary arrangements for the delivery of Keenan’s birth certificate, etc.  In the interest of a home-cooked meal of comfort food, Astrid made a trough of baked rigatoni and chicken parmesan which was delicious.  We sat down to watch Oregon beat up on Oklahoma State in the Holiday Bowl, drank some beers, played with the dog, and talked about sports and life.  Very fun, indeed.  Andy and I blew up the air mattresses and tucked them in.

Andy drove them back to the Australian Consulate the next morning so they could finish up the passport reissuing process and catch their ride to Las Vegas.  We exchanged contact information, but we know from a lot of experience of meeting people around the world, promises to stay in touch don’t always materialize.  But several days later, we received emails from Jimmy’s father and both of Keenan’s parents thanking us profusely for looking after them, saying that our actions prove the kindness of humanity, and showering us with social invitations upon our arrival in Melbourne.  We really appreciated their kind words, and we wanted to meet them since we enjoyed their sons’ company so much.

And so, back to our first day in Melbourne … Keenan’s parents, John and Loretta, picked us up at the hotel at 7:00 p.m.  We went to a lovely restaurant called La Luna in the Melbourne neighborhood of Carlton, and proceeded to have a perfectly lovely evening.  Andy had the porterhouse, John had the sausage, and Loretta and I both had the sizzling pork.  And we all had plenty o’ delicious wine and laughing!  Just as we suspected, John and Loretta are super-fun and interesting people. 

But all good things must come to an end … except daytime in Melbourne during the summer evidently.  Sunset is after 9:00 p.m. and it’s completely screwing up my body clock.

 The alarm went off and we were all really dragging.  That little tease of sleep wasn’t totally satisfying, but after a caffeinated beverage, a slightly less intense adrenalin-high kicked in to assist us through this day.  We moved the boat over to Rushcutters Bay to the D’Albora Marina.  Once we arrived and tied to the dock, I suddenly became obsessed with bathing … a hot shower was my mission in life.  So we packed up the shower bag and headed up to the office to get the key to the facilities when the quarantine guy showed up.  He delivered a minor admonishment for leaving the boat without clearing quarantine, and I didn’t care.  I said something to the effect of:  “I haven’t showered in over 9 days so I need you to clear me and my person immediately because I am going to the shower right now.” 

Andy stayed with the quarantine guy as he looked for potential dangers, organic material, and introduced species.  His services cost AUS $416 making this the most expensive check-in process we’ve ever experienced.  He indicated that a good chunk of the charge was overtime to come on a Sunday.  We could’ve avoided overtime rates by staying on the boat until Monday morning, but that just wasn’t in the cards.  And he did take out all of the garbage in a fancy trash bag with official “Danger” and “Quarantine” stencils on it.  Whatever.  I didn’t care as I was luxuriating in a hot shower! 

Icebergs at Bondi Beach

As it turns out, Andy’s close friend from Mizzou was visiting Sydney on business travel from Bangkok, where he now lives and works.  As we pulled into the marina, Jason was waiting for us with hot flat whites and wow that was the most delicious coffee I’ve ever had!  After we cleaned up a little, we jumped in a cab and headed over to Icebergs, the famous restaurant with sweeping views of Bondi Beach.  We had a fabulous lunch with plenty of wine, and experienced the same “land sickness” episodes that we usually experience at our first onshore meal.  I started to relax a little, but I still felt like I was running pretty high on adrenalin.

After lunch, the boys went to check out the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia which is right next door to our marina.  The CYCA sponsors the annual Sydney to Hobart race which is both famous and infamous.  Since we had just crossed the Tasman, we were feeling a special affinity towards those brave enough to take on sailing in those latitudes!  Additionally, tenants at D’Albora Rushcutters are welcome to the private bar and restaurant so I’m sure we’ll be taking advantage of that in the future!  I, on the other hand, went for a relaxing lay down with my book.

Soon it was time to get up and eat again!  There’s so much great stuff to do in Sydney, and with Ryan on his last day, and Jason in town to visit, we were eager to get to it! 

We hopped in a taxi and went to an area called The Rocks which is right on the Bay and across from the Opera House and Harbor Bridge.  It’s a very cool part of town with all sorts of outdoor bars and restaurants and people milling around, so we decided to sit down and have an adult beverage.  We happened to be there during the Luminous Festival, and Sydneysiders were treated to huge, high-powered light shows with the Opera House as the canvas.  It was absolutely stunning and mesmerizing. 

Finished with cocktail hour, we headed to dinner at Quay, which is considered one of the very best restaurants in Australia.  It’s perfectly located also across from the Opera House so our viewing of the light show continued all evening.  The food was amazing, the wine was exquisite, and the company was fabulous … a truly magical night and a far cry from fighting the elements in the Tasman Sea!

On Monday, our new BFFs, Nick and Jacquelyne had just come back from Nick’s brother’s graduation festivities in Perth, and so we invited them out for a fancy dinner to say thanks for taking such great care of us and being such great friends to us.  We had a lovely dinner at Universal with the usual cocktails, wine, hysterical laughing, and cutting up that has become typical of our get-togethers. 

Universal is a relatively new and highly esteemed restaurant that offers smaller dishes … not smaller as in there are 10 courses so each course needs to be small, but three “too-small-to-be-shared” courses plus dessert is recommended.  The food borders on “experimental” and as such, some courses were better than others.  My biggest criticism is that the restaurant feels a little too hip for its own good.  It’s very modern and minimalist with orange ambient light and house music, but the funniest affectation was the description of the menu.  Since you choose several smaller-sized courses, there are no appetizers and secondis and mains per se.  Instead, as was explained to us, the dishes are ordered sequentially based on “palate weight.” 

Now, Andy, in particular, and Andy and I together, have eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world.  Andy reads about food, wine, chefs, gastronomy, new techniques, and restaurants very often.  Both Nick and Jacqueline are very foody people, and are quite plugged into the Sydney restaurant culture.  None of us has ever heard of “palate weight” before.  I found it to be needlessly poncy, but excellent fodder for endless jokes.

In any event, good fun was had by all!  Unfortunately, Nick had to go to work the next day, so he had, ahem, significantly less fun that the rest of us!  As such, Nick and Andy made plans for some male bonding for tonight, so I probably won’t be seeing much of Andy tomorrow!

I must say, though, that pub culture and mate’s night out are two of my favorite parts of Australian life.  I simply love that adult men in Australia regularly go out to the pub with their male friends.  Mate’s night out sometimes revolves around sports, but not always.  Mostly, they just talk and enjoy catching up over a pint.  The female significant others are not jealous or threatened by it, and they have their own friends and schedules.  Children understand that adults have lives of their own, and that the world does not revolve around their rearing and their schedules.  No one feels pangs of Puritanical guilt that they should instead be checking items off of their to-do list in their busy busy busy lives.  They are simply enjoying a beer and more importantly, nurturing interpersonal relationships, and everything else can wait.  American men could learn from this practice.

About a week ago, we had dinner at a fantastic restaurant called Billy Kwong.  Billy Kwong is not an actual person, but the first name of one owner and the surname of the other owner.  Kylie Kwong is a celebrity chef in Australia specializing in Asian fusion cuisine, and she was there that evening standing in front of the semi-exposed kitchen at the service pass-through expediting orders.  The food was outstanding.  As we left, Andy waved and gave an effusive thumbs-up towards her, and she gracefully stepped to one side and gestured a bow to the uniformed chefs in the kitchen.  So incredibly classy. 

Anyway, Billy Kwong’s is quite a small restaurant, and as such, the tables are small and very close together.  In these types of scenarios, I always know that we’ll be making new friends since Andy just can’t not talk to the other tables … he’s very outgoing, he can’t help himself!  So, we met a lovely couple … Chris and Angela who live in Dubai and are visiting family in Sydney.  Suffice it to say, they are engaging people with very interesting and unusual life histories, and we got on like a house afire.  We had dinner together last week at a restaurant called Buzo, which was very fun because of good company but less successful for the cuisine.

Chris and Angela invited us for Yum Cha and after a delicious and super fun lunch, we decided to play hooky from boat preparations and take a drive to the northern beaches and Broken Bay.  We were especially interested in seeing Broken Bay since we had already decided to skip it by boat and head straight for Newcastle.  Those suburbs of Sydney are very beautiful, and the car tour turned into pitchers of beer by the water, and grill-it-yourself steak dinner and wine.  We didn’t get much done today, and we’ll probably delay our departure by one day at least, but who cares.

After our nap yesterday, we realized that the Newcastle Knights were playing the Canberra Raiders in rugby league that evening, and we felt pretty good and recovered enough from the passage to go out.  Andy bought tickets online, and we set off.

First, we went to the Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club for an adult beverage.  It’s a very nice place, and chock full of local boaters.  Andy and I were eavesdropping on the conversation going on at the table behind us.  They were in a heated discussion about the Gold Coast and how it is culture-free.  We hear this a lot, and of course, the same criticisms are frequently made about the United States.  And I think it’s all pretty harsh.  I mean think about it … places like Sydney and Los Angeles are just never going to be Rome or Istanbul, but that doesn’t mean that they’re culture-free. 

In a way, Australia has a much better excuse than the United States.  Captain Cook and the Endeavor landed in 1770, but the First Fleet didn’t arrive until 1788, and that was for the penal colony.  Plus, Australia is far more remote than the U.S., especially by the standards of early days.  And, exploration and travel across Australia was far harsher than the experiences of American settlers moving west.  To this day, large parts of Australia are still uninhabitable even with technological advances. 

Newcastle Knights Super Fan -- and much warmer rugby league spectator!

My point is that I think Australia has evolved into a very distinct culture given its youth as a society and its many geographical and topographical challenges.  As we further eavesdropped, one guy tried to make the point that China has no real culture either, just a long-standing civilization.  I still haven’t figured out what that craziness actually meant or what it has to do with Gold Coast, but I thought it was pretty amusing.      

We then went next door to have a bite at the local restaurant which happens to be one of the best in Newcastle, and it was really good.  We hopped into a taxi and headed out to the ground.  I immediately realized that I was going to be too cold, so we swung by the team shop and I instantly became a Newcastle Knights super fan by double bill-boarding with hat and scarf.  After a convincing Knights victory, we cabbed it home, had dessert and decaf at the local, and went to bed.  Tomorrow we’ll rent a car and head out to the Hunter Valley wine country.