Monday, October 3 2005

Trying to pick up the pieces after a rowdy weekend. Credit card receipts everywhere. I sensed a trend. I start fussing with my baggage that is jammed under my bed, hoping this exercise will make some sense of my existence. New roommates – a group of four Germans – come rolling in. I decide to go grocery shopping in the spirit of pacing my mad spending.

Kings Cross is on the East side of the city and a mere 20-minute walk to the Central Business District. It’s even closer to the Opera House and Circular Quay – a small touristy port where the ferries and cruise ships depart from. I walked up and down steep flights of stairs on my way to the city. Huge naval ships were parked along the shore. There was a military band playing with marching soldiers. I found this odd for a Monday morning. More steps brought me to the Royal Botanical Gardens. The park was filled with strange trees and bright flowers. Cranes and ducks waddled around in packs. Lots of runners and lounging readers. I found some shade and dozed for 30 minutes. I woke up and did not know where I was.

I made it to the Opera House and took long looks. I was trying to imprint what I was seeing onto my brain. I checked ticket times and asked questions – massive discounts for students. I wondered if I could take advantage of this. I moved onto the Rocks, which is the historic district of Sydney – where the first settlements were built. The neighborhood was built right into the sandstone. Old, awkward buildings all squeezed into winding roads. Out of obligation, I stopped into the Visitor’s Center and scooped up about 50 brochures. Through narrow streets to the Rocks Market. Outdoor musicians, celebrity face cartoonists, chocolates, fancy nuts and booths with every crappy souvenir you could ever want to purchase. And they all take Visa. These commerce traps revolt me and I scuttled through the madness like I was late for something. My destination was the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The gigantic suspension bridge that crosses the harbor and connects South and North Sydney is an engineering marvel. The bridge looks powerful – strong and enormous. It supports seven lanes of traffic. I walked across and went up the southeast tower to get some views and learned the history of its construction. Across the bridge was a great little neighborhood with sidewalk cafes and swank houses. I wandered the neighborhood. There was house music pouring out of a street level apartment and I peered in to see a girl rapidly cleaning her TV room. I zoned out and started walking into her apartment and barely caught myself and retreated before she was alerted to my presence and doused me with pepper spray. Another park under the bridge hosted my second nap of the day and I was finally nearing a state of coherence.

View from south-east tower of Sydney Harbour Bridge

Museum of Contemporary Art. Great bathroom facilities. And the art was real decent. I am still impressed the most by a piece of art that makes me say ‘wow, I could not have made that if I had a million years’. I try to lose myself in the ultra-simplistic pieces (the ones that have two streaks of paint and have a title like ‘confusion’) but I usually just start thinking about something that is going on in my life. Which could be the point. And some of the stuff just fell under the ‘weird for the sake of being weird’ category. I liked the silence and the sound of my own footsteps.

I went to the gym that night and I felt myself again. Went to a bar called the ‘Goldfish Bowl’. $3 pints and free pizza for backpackers. I have to give it to these hostels; they have cheap night options for residents and they promote a sense of camaraderie with your fellow travelers. It was a good sort of people. Europeans with months to kill and wayward travelers with all kinds of time on their hands. We didn’t talk about our careers or relationships or the future, which was fine by me. Everything centered on the moment.
I watched SportsCenter that night for the first time in 7 months. Now that was art.