Sydney--7th Best (in the world)

Sydney was just voted 7th best city in the world. That's in contrast to NYC, which came in at 56. Melbourne got the silver (voters must like the cold)--it's considered 2nd best in the world! For the record, Vancouver has been top ranked since 2007.

Are we getting a good deal or what? From 56th to 7th--not bad. If voters spent more time in the Northern Beaches, Sydney would come first.

Here are some heretofore unpublished photos of the world's 7th best city.

The Three Effs

Family, Friends, Finnegan--we miss you! We miss you very, very much! Philip asked us the other day what, besides the 3 effs, we miss the most about the US. Hmmm. It was food for thought. And speaking of food...

More than one of us misses a good old Brooklyn bagel. I miss good, quick, spicy Mexican food. Oh we can make it here for sure, but we're just not that good at it. Mind you, avocados here are perfection itself--never a bad one. I tend to skip making guacamole and just dig into the delicious green softness with a spoon.

Walking everywhere. More than one of us misses the fact that, in Brooklyn, we could walk just about everywhere we needed to go. Sure we walk a lot in Australia--mostly on the golden beaches under the blue, blue sky, next to the sparkling water. Ok, I digress. We cannot walk to the grocery store, to squash lessons, to work (oh right, we're working from home), to school...driving is a drag, let's face it.

PK misses skiing. We could probably hit the slopes in New Zealand before we go, but there's nothing like the Rockies--American, Canadian, various subsets of the Rockies in Utah--for powder, vertical, overall thrills. For the record, I'm happy to skip this year of skiing for beach walking (see above). Do I hear strains from the world's smallest violin?

Our own home. Our rented house here is to die for. It has spectacular views of the Pacific and Whale Beach. There's a pool, a two-car garage, lots of open and airy space. Sigh. But we do miss having the power to change a few things and make it our own. I still hear that violin playing.

Aspects of school. We do find ourselves missing the chaotic creativity, free-thinking, premium-on-intellectualism groove of St. Ann's. The schools here are much more rigid and structured--notebooks must be covered in polypropylene; each Times Table must be recited in under 10 seconds; students must form lines and wear uniforms, etc... But this year will be so beneficial for our kids to see other ways of learning, to live like Virgos, to be held responsible for mistakes. Pushing the margins when we're back at St. Ann's will mean so much more for having had to learn inside the margins.

Too bad I won't be blogging when we're back in Brooklyn. I fear my list of things we miss about Australia will be very long indeed--a sampling might include, oh, I don't know, robust female representation in politics, free health care, gorgeous weather, views of the Pacific, breaching humpbacks. I might even miss the school uniforms when we're back--just think of the money we've saved on clothes alone this year! And first and foremost, we have family and friends here in Australia we will miss terribly. But that's only two effs.

Here's to you, family, friends in the US and Australia. And here's to you, Finnegan (who, for the record, is happy frolicking in the Virginia hills with his cousin Buttons).

A note on the heat

As noted in the prior post, we've just suffered through some very hot weather. The inner west of Sydney had 7 days above 35C (95F). Other parts of the state were even hotter. We hit 44C on our trip to the Hunter. Most uncomfortable were the evenings - when the temperature doesn't drop at night, it makes things seem even worse. Sydney recorded its highest minimum ever - 28C. Its hard to sleep in that heat. The heat wave broke on Sunday with a southerly buster - the temperature dropped 15C in about an hour. That was a welcome relief.

The official word is that its not related to climate change...really? Really? It does seem awfully coincidental.

Wine with a Sting

One of the signature places to visit in NSW is the Hunter Valley. Its roughly a 2 hour drive from Sydney - and is one of Australia's premier wine growing districts. Sid & Philip headed up there this past weekend with Philip's sister & brother-in-law, Jillian and Mick (all 6 kids stayed with Joan, their grandmother). An added incentive - Sting playing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Hope Estate Vineyard (the "Symphonicity" tour). What a glorious night - a beautiful setting, Sting and the orchestra were in great form, a nice Estate provided hamper. OK, so it was also in the middle of a heat wave. 44 degrees Celcius that day (that's 111 F for those insisting on the imperial system)...Sydney had its highest minimum that night since records started. Sleeping without AC, was tough. But enough of that.

The venue, in the setting sun:


Sting himself (looking very buffed for his 59yrs [must be the tantric sex]):


With his symphony orchestra:


They even managed to close with a fireworks display (despite the total fire ban that day...due to the heat):


We met up with Mick's sister & brother-in-law & had a drink at a very funky bar at the Tempus Two vineyard:


The next day we hit some of the vineyards - first the tasting room of the Noyce Brothers (one of whom directed Salt, Dead Calm & other movies):


Lunch at the Wollombi pub, followed by more tasting at Undercliff:






The Hunter is a lovely place. Kind of like Napa, but more understated. They produce some of Australia's best wines - Semillons and Shiraz's in particular. And the countryside is lovely, again in a unique Australian way. Rolling hills, huge gum trees. Wollombi is interesting - it was where the "Great Northern Road" branched. This was a road constructed by convict chain gangs in the early 19th century (roughly 1820s-1830s), connecting Sydney with Newcastle and the Hunter, which then, as now, was an important coal mining site (as you can imagine, coal people & wine people sometimes conflict). To this day, a significant road from Sydney to the Hunter travels along the GNR, although the original cobblestones are mostly covered with bitumen.

Wine & Sting? Not a bad weekend.

Back to School

The children are back in school--yay! In the 35 weeks since we left New York, the kids have been in school a total of 10 of those 35 weeks. Folks, that's 25 weeks of kids for us, 24/7. Let the learnin' begin before the brains turn to fluff and we start imposing Tiger Mom tactics.

Jiminy Cricket!

Forget about the Ashes. The cricket series following the Ashes was the one to see--and we took in the penultimate match on Wednesday at the Sydney Cricket Ground: 8 hours of bat vs. ball, the Aussies vs. the Poms...classic!

In the 8 hours, we saw nearly 700 runs scored; Watson, Clarke, and Johnson each got half centuries, and there were some spectacular 6's and 4's (Watson alone had 8 fours). But best of all, the Aussies won! It came down to the last 4 balls, but Hastings got a "meaty" 4 to win. It's not a real Australian experience unless you get to see the Aussies beat the Poms in cricket. Been there, done that.

During those 8 hours in a small, hard plastic seat, I did ponder what else one could do with the time: fly from NYC to Rome; watch 4 feature films; get a good night's sleep; work a full day; drive from LA to San Fran; run 2 marathons. But then we would have missed the experience--early on the crowd was polite, applauding good batting by the opponent and cheering for British player Trott who scored a century. This is not the kind of behavior you'd witness in America. Later, however, when the crowd started to feel the 8 hours of drinking, the polite applause was replaced by chants of "you are a wanker."

That's more like it. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie--oi, oi, oi!

Melbourne & Aussie Open

Now that the tennis finals have been played, we can backpedal a bit to our 4 days in Melbourne last month. It was a three-fer: we got to see our friends Maya and Doug and their awesome children; we got to see a lot of tennis; and we got to see the lovely city of Melbourne.

As luck would have it, we found ourselves in the same hotel as most of the tennis players, so even on the first day, it was as exciting riding the elevator or hitting the breakfast buffet as being at Rod Laver Arena. Among our elevator companions were Mike Bryan (winner, men's doubles), Ni La (runner-up, women's singles), and Pat Cash (winner, '87 Wimbledon). Juan Monaco and his girlfriend were charmed by Emmett's antics, and Marin Cilic peered over at us dolefully as he carbed up for his big match with Nadal (which we saw). The staff gave us good goss on the players, raving about the manners and sweetness of Rafa and lamenting the sourness of Kuznetsova.

We took in some rather straightforward matches: Petkovic over Sharapova (Shazza!), the wily Wawrinka over Roddick (Andy, Andy, Andy), Nadal over Cilic, and some of Clijsters over Marakova (one of the rare losers with whom we shared an elevator).

Meanwhile, we had a stupendous bbq at Maya and Doug's one evening. The next night we enjoyed the tennis with them, sweating through the heat, but the following night PK and I crashed the tournament solo and almost froze. That's the beauty of Melbourne where you can get 4 seasons in one day.

One afternoon, we drove out to the Mornington Peninsula through vineyards and past beaches--very northern California vibe there, gorgeous and full of variety. As you can see, we went strawberry picking. All in all, an excellent trip.