Australiana Weekend

Last weekend, I had my first proper Aussie experience: two nights of Paul Kelly--Australia's most famous singer/songwriter--followed by a Saturday afternoon at Bondi Beach, and finally, a scorching Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch Australia smash England in the one-day match. By Sunday night, I was exhausted, but thoroughly satisfied with these eventful days. I might even say that after last weekend, I began to drop that awful feeling of being a tourist, and I acquired an element of the true Aussie.

A few months ago, during one of our many online chats, Dan surprised me with the news that we had tickets to the first two nights of Paul Kelly's A to Z Shows at Sydney's City Recital Hall. The A to Z shows would consist of 100 of Paul's best songs in alphabetical order four nights in a row (25 songs each night). We were booked for Thursday and Friday night, meaning we would be listening to the first half of the alphabet, A to L. I was all for Dan's decision to see the first half of the alphabet, since I'd get to hear some of my favourite tunes, like Bradman, Before Too Long, How to Make Gravy, From Little Things Big Things Grow, Careless and a few others. If you like good music, then by all means, look up Paul Kelly and listen to his music. He's a great story teller with a folky style and a melodic voice. He's sort of a mix between Bob Dylan and Jimmy Buffet...if that's even possible.

In any case, I met Dan at the train station on Thursday afternoon just after he finished work, and we rode into Sydney for an evening on the town. The show was to begin at 7:30, but we figured a local band would be opening for Paul, since he's a big supporter of aspiring musicians. We decided on dinner in Chinatown and made our way to Market City for an array of culinary options of the Asian variety. We both had delicious Singaporean laksas--mine with prawns and veggies and Dan's with beef. The time was getting closer to 7:30, so we headed towards the venue, both full of hot curry.

We arrived at the City Recital Hall at about a quarter to eight and were extremely surprised to see not a single concert-goer at the front entrance. We wondered if we had the right venue on the right night, since there was no one in sight. As we crept into the venue, we heard the faint strumming of a guitar accompanied by Paul's unmistakable voice. "Oh shit," I thought, "it's already begun!" So we rushed to our section and waited until the song ended, before the usher could open the doors and point us to our seats. Paul was already onto the letter B by the time we got there, but I was happy to hear that we didn't miss too much. As soon as we sat down on the second level directly in front of the musician, he began to play one of my favourites: Before Too Long. Dan held my hand as we spent the night listening to songs beginning with the letters A through E. Paul ended his 25 songs with Everything's Turning to White--a sad story with a somber melody--but he treated the crowd with two upbeat encores. We left the venue both appeased and excited, anticipating the songs of the following evening. We stopped for a pint at a rooftop pub and enjoyed the balmy summer evening. We even squeezed a kebab in at the end of the night! Finally, we caught one of the last trains back to Penrith, only to do the same thing the very next night.

On Friday evening, we got into Sydney a bit later than we had hoped...but this time, we were determined to be in our seats on schedule. So instead of strolling around for an hour searching for the best place to grab dinner, we chose a Malaysian restaurant within 5 minutes walking distance of the venue. Another awesome dinner. You will never go hungry in this city, especially if you have an affinity for Asian cuisine. Within 20 minutes, we scarfed down a Rendang beef curry and a black bean and chili beef stir fry. Then, we marched ourselves to the City Recital Hall and plonked down in our seats with 5 minutes to spare. I enjoyed Friday's show even better than Thursday's, discovering a few more songs to add to my Paul Kelly library. Again, he played 25 songs with two encores, filling the gaps with jokes, tales of his past and what inspired him to write certain songs. And as I left the venue--although I had spent the last two evenings listening to about 5 hours of Paul Kelly's music--I secretly wished I could go back the next two nights for more. He's a great artist on record, and an even better one live.

Now, Dan and I had big plans for the rest of the weekend, including flat inspections on Saturday morning and the cricket all day Sunday. We drove into Sydney early Saturday morning, hoping to find our new home for the next year. We saw a few places that were lovely...and some that were not-so-lovely. But what astonished me the most is how many people we were competing against for our dream accommodations. At each inspection, there were a minimum of 15 applicants, all eyeing the others to survey the competition. At one place in Surry Hills just off Oxford Street (the crème de la crème of locations), there were at least 60 other people filing in and out of this tiny one bedroom flat! "This must be a joke," I thought...but no one was laughing.

So after a nightmare of a morning, Dan suggested we spend the rest of the day doing something much more gratifying. He drove us to Bondi Beach to take part in a typical Sydney summer afternoon, where a plethora of folks were doing the same. We walked down to the surf and catching a waft of the discernible scent of sunscreen, I found myself surrounded by tanned and toned bodies in bikinis. At Bondi, the sand is white and fine and the water is warm and blue. On a day like this, everywhere you look there are people of all different shapes and colours and from all different walks of life. It is arguably the most famous beach in the world, proven by the many tourists approaching the Bondi Beach lifeguards every 10 minutes for a photo op. We spent about 45 minutes body surfing the rough waves and getting a bit of exercise. At about 5, our beach day was coming to an end, and we made our way back to Sydney for dinner and drinks with Dan's sister, Louise, and her boyfriend, Karl. Again, we opted for Asian, and this time it was Korean BBQ. You'd think I'd have been sick of Asian by then...

Sunday morning and it was time to prepare for the cricket. An Aussie once said to me, "Cricket is noble sport played by gentlemen with a rich history and an even richer tradition." I had never been to a cricket match, so I really didn't know what to expect...except that Aussies are serious about their cricket! I knew it would be taking place over the course of the day, but I could not actually grasp the idea that I'd be sitting in the same seat for eight hours watching a sport that I could hardly understand. Cricket is a quirky sport with an infinite list of rules and regulations. For example, if the batsman hits a six (equivalent to a home run in baseball), the lucky fan in the crowd who catches the ball cannot keep it. He/she has to give the ball back, because in cricket, you use the same ball for almost the entire match. Also, no two cricket grounds are identical. They vary in size, firmness of the pitch and typical weather conditions--all factors that are likely to affect the end result of the match. I've started to pick up a few things after Dan has lured me into watching one too many cricket matches on the telly, but you'll understand when I say that I wasn't expecting to follow along the entire eight hours.

Thankfully, in addition to our front-row seats, there were a few factors to consider that would make this day much more exciting for me. The first was the delectable Mediterranean-themed picnic we brought along with us. We had all the bits and pieces you could imagine--crisps, pita bread, hummus, eggplant dip, persian feta, kalamata olives, parsley, cherry tomatoes, pepperoni and pomegranate juice. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the couple sitting next to us as we revealed each new tasty snack throughout the course of the day. Their pears, ham sandwiches and weak beers looked pathetic compared to our feast. The array of goodies we munched on definitely made the day go by more pleasurably.

Secondly, the crowd at the cricket--Aussies and Barmy Army alike--added cheery entertainment to the day. One would think that only old men in high-waisted trousers and sun-blocking hats watch cricket. But on the contrary, this crowd was filled with a huge variety of spectators--families with young children, die hard fans of the sport, drunks and occasionally, the old man with the high-waisted trousers. Among the crowd, you could see fans in costume, adorning the colours of their respective countries. There were spectators wearing helmets carved out of watermelons. There were Australian and English flags flying high in each section of the circular ground. And at times, the activities going on amongst the crowd gained more attention than the teams playing cricket.

For instance, every now and then, a group of rowdy fans would start up a Mexican Wave (in America, we know it as "the wave"). Since the cricket ground is circular, this wave can go around quite a few times, before the participants get tired of standing up and throwing their hands in the air. The funniest part about this wave is that it will often drop off at the Members' Stand, as these exclusive spectators are much too posh to participate in such a crude performance. Usually, the crowd boos those who don't participate, and the wave continues with the adjacent stand in a perfectly timed fashion. For a visual, click on the following link and try to listen for the boo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiD5cSmGsXU.

The Mexican Wave is not the only peculiar spectacle that goes on amongst the crowd at the cricket. There is also the infamous snake, which consists of as many empty plastic beer cups as one can find, all stacked together to make a long snakelike figure. Usually, a group of young tipsy fans will collect the cups and reveal the snake only when they think it can't get any bigger. This is followed by a huge roar of applause from the crowd, which can prove to be a huge distraction from the cricket. Then, more and more groups reveal their snakes, as the crowd watches eagerly to see if the next one can get any bigger. Held up by several people, the biggest one I remember seeing could have easily been ten feet long. The security guards were hardly supporters of these amazing formations, so a few snake-makers were ejected from the stadium. I found the guards to be overreacting, since the snake-makers were just having a bit of fun. But then again, is losing your seat at the cricket worth a possible spot on TV and an applause from over 30,000 spectators? I daresay it is.

Finally, a cricket-crowd activity I came face-to-face with was the flying beach ball. Throughout the day, people in the crowd were blowing up beach balls and passing them through the stadium. As gravity would have it, a beach ball would end up on the ground from time to time, in which case, a security guard would revoke it and pop it for everyone to see. This didn't stop the crowd from producing endless amounts of beach balls. But the beach ball that topped them all was the one belonging to the couple sitting next to us. Blown up to its full capacity, this beach ball was as tall as an eight-year-old and as round as Kirstie Alley. The lad of the couple was campaigning to everyone around us to participate in blowing up this massive monstrosity. When he approached Dan and I, we said no thanks, thinking about how many different types of spit had touched the mouthpiece. We think we heard him grumble something about 7 courses of lunch and calling yourself a true Australian. I didn't care, because I was not Australian, I was happily full and I would still have front-row seats to the launch of this enormous beach ball.

At this point, the crowd was getting quite restless, and every five minutes, another rowdy spectator was being ejected or a beach ball was being revoked. Just before our ball was fully blown up, two security guards approached the lad, threatening to kick him out, or at the very least to pop his ball. After much effort from the local crowd to stray these security guards away from the path leading to the beach ball, they caught sight of the thing. To all of our amazement, they grinned and reconciled to turn around and let us continue our mission. This was the only time I heard the crowd cheer for the security guards.

After about an hour and a half of blowing up the biggest beach ball I have ever seen, the lad was ready to toss it in the air, careful not to have it land on the pitch. He launched it into the crowd and the next two minutes were filled with ooohs and aaahs, as we all struggled to keep the ball going. No one within a 100 meter radius was watching the cricket. And sadly, by the third minute, the beach ball was thrown in the wrong direction and had fallen down a staircase. It was short lived, but it was exciting...just one of the many activities that kept the long day entertaining and captivating.

And as the day drew to an end, to my dismay, Australia was gaining on England. Not before long, we all knew who would take the win that day. As we shuffled out of the stadium minutes after Australia earned their victory, I had to admit to myself that I had a great time at the cricket. Eight hours didn't seem so long, and I would even consider going to another match...that is, as long as it's not a 5-day test match.

So, I've passed the test. I've spent a weekend like a true Aussie. And I think it's safe to say that I could get used to this...