Nice... Rocky beach but strange and interesting people abound...
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Two gentlemen in Verona
On route to the opera on a warm Saturday evening... So warm that people were passing out at regular intervals. I'm assuming it was the heat not the quality of the Zeffirelli production of Carmen...
Lake Garda
After all that fresh air and walking in the mountains, it was good to chill out for a few days around Lake Garda at Limone and Riva.
The town of Riva was also an excellent place for catching the semi-finals. There were loads of Germans watching it and they reacted very well to not making it in the finals. It was very civilised...
Up to Col Rodella and Back
Not content with one walk in the Dolomites, the following day we caught a lift from Campitello up to Col Rodella (in the top right), around those mountains (to the left) and back down. It was lovely and green and along the way there were cows, a marmot and a few gravel roads to slide along... While it could take up to four hours to walk it, we kept at a brisk pace and did it in three and a half hours, including stopping for half an hour at a refuge for a hot lunch...
Veneto and the Dolomites
There is nothing like some fresh mountain air during a warm summer... After spending a few warm days in Venice, we headed for the mountains for a few days where these sort of views abounded... The Tre Cime di Lavaredo was a mostly safe walk with spectacular views. Only once did I feel impending death due to the instability of the ground and my ability to stay upright on it... Could be that clumsy gene I have...
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Gothenburg Sunsets
Gothenburg with its open spaces, parks, canals, harbour, trams and dramatic sunsets is a sensible way to spend a weekend. If it isn't up there in the liveability stakes it sure should be. Wandering the streets or sitting in the parks just seemed so calming... And curiously quiet for a city of around 500,000 people...
The locals look like they are straight from some catalogue for successful living... Well dressed, gorgeous and tanned. And oddly mostly hairless... Many made the advantage of the warm weather and endless sun by stripping down to the bare essentials and nobody was complaining... Of course this is a university town too so the fountain of youth was probably in greater abundance than normal...The only drawback is flying Ryannair... Endless delays, dirty planes and irritating announcements every fifteen minutes flogging their dish of the day, (it was macaroni... there was no mention of cheese which made me wonder if you wanted it with that it would be a few extra pounds...) come as standard with their flight service... Still it is only a short flight and probably worth that brief irritation...
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Friday, January 01, 2010
Meat-o-rama
No trip to Australia is complete without a barbecue with dead animal and sausages cooked on a giant grill outdoors in the fresh air and sun and humidity.... Even if the meat tastes better... (and this could be construed as heresy) in Europe... It might have something to do with the cattle being happier when they aren't in a drought...
Still a fitting farewell to oz... Especially when the meat is medium-rare...
Friday, December 25, 2009
Scenes from Brisbane Real Estate Boards
There is a trend in Brisbane to post pictures of estate agents on the billboards... They might do better business with paper bags on their heads but go on... Give Charmaine a call... She will give you a huge reduction apparently...
Love on a tree trunk...
They have funny ideas about proposing marriage in Brisbane... Or at least they did five years ago...
Anatomy of a pineapple tart
Down on the Gold Coast these things sell out... They are pastry base, a tiny amount of pineapple, butter cream and industrial strength icing.
Guarenteed to give you Type II diabetes... Maybe surfer dudes burn it off but the rest of the people on the coast certainly don't...
Thursday, December 17, 2009
I'm on vacation...
Well it looks pretty if you like that sun, surf, sand and blue skies. Our family used to holiday near Coolangatta (which was the location for the film Muriel's Wedding)...
For those of you not enjoying the summer, you can take solace in the fact that the Gold Coast is still full of bogans (chavs) and has no nightlife once the sun goes down (unless you call nightlife throwing yourself or falling off off your balcony).
Serving up in Brisbane
Strange things they put on pizza in Brisbane... Particularly on the Southbank...
Monday, December 14, 2009
The $4 coffee
Brisbane people love their coffee and nowadays every 100 metres there seems to be a coffee shop, hole in the wall, coffee cart selling the stuff. But this is perhaps a sign of the (inflated) times in Newstead Brisbane: a takeaway flat white (that's a less milky latte) for $4. There were slightly larger sizes for more. In any currency that was a tad expensive, particularly when it wasn't that hot and the beans were a bit odd. If coffee is any measure of the state of the economy, things are getting a little crazy here...
Still the cardboard cup it came in was lovely so I thought I'd make the most of my purchase with some flattering photographs of it before it was thrown in the garbage.
Concert: Spirit of Christmas
Friday evening I ventured to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre to see their Christmas concert Spirit of Christmas... It features a cast of thousands... Well at least the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and four local choirs along with local celebrities and a reverend (to remind everyone about Jesus). Ten years ago I last performed in one of the choirs so I was keen to see what had changed. Well QPAC is obviously keeping up with tradition (and being frugal) as very little of the show had changed. In fact I could have got up and sung along with them as I knew most of the arrangements. One new addition was an African Noel that had the giant massed choir moving and swaying... I was surprised to see that many of the old timers still could move it. They could teach the LGMC a thing or two... It was a pity there wasn't more of the choirs given I understand they had them practicing every night of the week just for three songs and bit of colour behind the singalong carols...
Highlight of the evening however was when singer / host / minor celebPeter Cousens asked a young boy on stage if he could go back and sit with his father, to which he replied he didn't have one. This was met with howls of laughter from the audience. We were a cruel lot. I gather that for the Saturday shows he was a little more careful with his words lest any more orphans came up on stage to sing Christmas carols. I hope they managed to fix the sound as well as the "QPAC amplification" sounded like everything had a pillow over it... The strings weren't that bad surely that they needed to be muffled? Still it was an enjoyable enough concert...
It was the first time I had seen the venue since its renovation, and one can only wait another twenty five years for the return of the coral coloured seats. Ok sure they were relics of the eighties, but so is this building and horses for courses. The brighter scheme didn't work for me (and it didn't seem to work for the lighting guys who weren't particularly adept with the LED lighting moods). The foyers with their chocolate carpets and steel mesh bits already are embarrassment and hardly an improvement for congestion either...
Highlight of the evening however was when singer / host / minor celebPeter Cousens asked a young boy on stage if he could go back and sit with his father, to which he replied he didn't have one. This was met with howls of laughter from the audience. We were a cruel lot. I gather that for the Saturday shows he was a little more careful with his words lest any more orphans came up on stage to sing Christmas carols. I hope they managed to fix the sound as well as the "QPAC amplification" sounded like everything had a pillow over it... The strings weren't that bad surely that they needed to be muffled? Still it was an enjoyable enough concert...
It was the first time I had seen the venue since its renovation, and one can only wait another twenty five years for the return of the coral coloured seats. Ok sure they were relics of the eighties, but so is this building and horses for courses. The brighter scheme didn't work for me (and it didn't seem to work for the lighting guys who weren't particularly adept with the LED lighting moods). The foyers with their chocolate carpets and steel mesh bits already are embarrassment and hardly an improvement for congestion either...
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