A Trip to Oz: Sydney Walk-About

July 12th - Boy are my legs tired, what a deliciously busy day. Phil walked us around Sydney. We began this forced march along a boardwalk next to the harbor. We walked past Russell Crowe's apartment overlooking the harbor. It is clear most Aussie's find Crowe a bit of an insufferable asshole. Phil is not a stranger to this attitude, having worked with him early in his career. Phil did tell us a story going around acting circles in Australia about Crowe dating an Australian production assistant, and him calling out, "Go, Russell, Go" as dirty talk while participating in the horizontal tango. Whether it is true or not isn't as important as believing it could be true.

A trip to Circular Quay (pronounced key) and true fish and chips from a seaside stand. We people watched as the World Youth Day pilgrims paraded by. World Youth Day (thankfully happening the day after we leave) has taken over Sydney. This is a celebration started by Pope John Paul and continued by Pope Benedict. Catholic youth from all over the world were invited to this huge gathering and 600,000 additional people were expected to be in Sydney.

Interesting controversy surrounding this is that the Australian government passed a law, rather quickly and pretty hush-hush, that a person "annoying" a pilgrim (i.e. inappropriate comments, t-shirts, protests) could be fined or arrested if refusing to stop when asked by the police. Hmmmm...(I'm quick to add the Australian courts are now considering whether this law is...well, legal).

We went to the Rocks and enjoyed a show by employees of "Sticky". This lolli company makes round shaped hard candies with names of companies or people as part of the candy. It was amazing to see, as the candy makers started with molten sugar and developed these over the course of an hour into a lolli with a bride's name and groom's name (+ heart) embedded. The lead on this project (Alan) gave us the end piece, a ball about 4 kilos heavy. He was appreciative of the fact that we were so interested in the process that we stayed the whole time. Although this process took real talent and all of us were genuinely interested, I think it dawned on his coworkers (Celine and Lily) that really all of us just found Alan irresistibly dreamy, in a "Candyman" kinda way. We bought lots at that shop!

We walked through the botanical gardens and viewed the flying foxes (wow, bats, bats, everywhere bats). A quick walk through the New South Wales art museum. Currently museums and galleries are celebrating the Biennial, an art retrospective featuring primarily modern art. Pretty cool.