Yesterday we had a tour for our Australian culture class with Mark, the program director and teacher of that class. On our way over to meet the group, Lindsay, Chris, Alex, Hanna, Justina and I stopped by Taste Orange in Martin Place (the place where they filmed the Matrix and many other movies. to make it look American they clear it out and bring in yellow taxis) So basically there was this street festival with different wine tasting tables and we went for the free wine. My favorite was actually the pear cider. Delicious. There were also free apples which turned out to be heavenly and I wish I had taken more than one.
Taste Orange
On our tour we started at Hyde Park Barracks and learned about the convicts who came over and their living conditions. Apparently the youngest person there was a 9 year old boy. Poor kid. And they convinced young women to come over as free people to make a "good life" for themselves. Guess they had no idea that no life existed yet in Sydney but hey it worked, and there was certainly no shortage of jobs. I wonder if they got paid in rum the same way the convicts did.
The museum was obsessed with rats. It turns out that the reason so much was preserved was because convicts would put their stuff in the floorboards to keep it safe since there was nowhere to store any personal items, but the rats lived there so they would steal everything, and the convicts then blamed each other and got into fights but never found their stuff. Anyway so lots of stuff was lost down there but between the floorboards is perfect for preserving things since wind and rain don't get in and it's a pretty constant temperature, so the museum basically owes its existence to these rats and they do a good job of recognizing that with pictures and weird rat stuff in the gift shop.
Convict clothing
Last night I went out with Rachel, Pam, Tim (Pam's boyfriend who is also studying in Sydney) and his friends to karaoke on King St. Sydney has 2 King Streets, one to each direction of us. Unfortunately we took a bus to the wrong one, and couldn't find a bus the other way, so we ended up cabbing. Oops. However, when we finally got there, I'd say we did the Spice Girls proud.
Then this morning Hanna, Justina, Belinda, and Julie got an early start and went to Cockatoo Island! It's the 18th Biennale of Sydney, which is apparently done worldwide and it's an every other year thing (hence the name) and international artists show their work. The theme is "all our relations" which has to do with relationships between different cultures and between people and the world. So at Cockatoo Island, which was a prison and now is a museum about the convicts who began Sydney, they had some of the art set up. We started trying to go on a free tour but it was pretty boring so we gave up and just wandered, a much better plan. There were some really awesome exhibits. One kinda weird one was you walk into a small room, with all these signs about no photography and please be quiet, and inside the walls were white and in the middle there was a sort of teepee hanging from the ceiling down to the floor and it was all white (it sort of looked like one of those curtains that princesses in movies have hanging over/around their bed), but it was a confusing string like material. Then inside on the floor sat a beautiful Asian woman with long straight black hair wearing a white dress and surrounded by the same material as the curtain. She didn't look up once as she cut paper. She cut it in the shape of the paper, in tiny strips, around and around but generally not breaking it at the end, instead turning the scissors and continuing around the corner. It was impressive how straight she could cut cuz she kept up for quite a long time. Anyway after seeing that I realized that's what the teepee was made out of! (with some strings for support of course) After reading about her, she cuts as she thinks about the day, and apparently if something bothers her she tends to cut more quickly and if a thought is over then she cuts off that piece and starts a new strand. It was sort of oddly fascinating. Most of the other art wasn't that confusing but was still very interesting. And the ferry was fun! (Especially the free one on the ride back- I'm a huge fan of free things)
Justina and Belinda on the windy ferry ride
Belinda in artwork
Hanna in art
The sign says "Bookings Here. 2:30-3:00. Animals only, Pairs preferred"
Justina
So as I'm sitting here writing this my roommate Kate and I are sitting in our common area and outside the window on a building across the way there's a cockatoo holding onto the brick and sticking its head into a little vent like thing and screaming. We think there must be something in there he wants. Oh and now he's gone so maybe he got it! Or gave up. Who knows. Do cockatoos eat small animals?
No comments:
Post a Comment