Boston, St. Louis...and Madrid

We arrived in Boston Friday evening, to be met by Elisa at South Station. We went to her house in Somerville (right next to Cambridge…a short walk from Harvard University) and dumped off our stuff, and went out for dinner to catch up with her. On Saturday, we caught a train out to our friend Joni’s house, and had a wonderful meal and chat with her.

When we got back into town, we went up on top of the Prudential Building (55th floor) for a drink and a look at the view.

Sunday, after brunching with Elisa’s two welcoming and charming roommates, Rose and Suzelle, I spent the day writing a talk to be given the next day at UMASS Boston, while Elisa and Luis shopped and hung out. On Monday, we caught the T to the UMASS/J.F.K. stop

and caught the bus to the J.F.K. Museum and Library. Luis and I spent a good 3 hours there, wandering around the exhibits, listening to various speeches given by John F. Kennedy, seeing coverage of his life as a senator, the presidential race, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the civil rights unrest –with Bobby and J.F.K. in serious talk—and the Apollo space program. There was a moment of déjà vu when we heard news reports of people's fear of socialism when Kennedy speaks on the possibility of a Medicare program. Some things never change! The location of the museum, right on the bay, is delightful.

Anne enjoying the view while talking on the phone to Diana...in Pasadena!


Then we strolled over to UMASS Boston and met Elisa there. I gave a talk in one of her professor’s (Dr. Lilia Bartolome) classes on child literacy development, presenting Ned’s work on Portsmouth Reads, and some systemic functional linguistic related work on visual and verbal analyses of storybooks. The audience was very receptive, and I enjoyed the experience greatly. Afterwards we went back to Cambridge, out for a Japanese meal at the Ginger Exchange in Inman Square. I had one of the best rolls I’ve ever tried…a Scorpio, with eel and all sorts of other yummy tastes.

Then back to St. Louis for a couple of days of packing and saying goodbye to Tower Grove Park…then back to Spain! I was a lot busier in St. Louis than I ever expected I would be (things not done: a book review –due in September, so I’m ok—and the data thingy for SLU and a clean-up of my email in box) in meetings with people from various Departments, sessions with my PhD student, Katie, preparing a talk which I gave at SLU, and furthering the research through visits to the SLU and Washington University libraries. The whole purpose of the trip around the world has been to disconnet from the familiar, get new perspectives and really dunk myself fully into research, and all of that certainly has happened. I know see some clear lines of writing about first-year writing teaching, which I look forward to getting into in the days ahead.

Catching up

Even though I am now back in Spain when I post this, I had to finish my trip around the world…

Most of my time in St. Louis was spent between meeting people at the SLU St. Louis campus and doing more research. It was so gratifying to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while and to meet people I had corresponded with and never had a chance to meet in person. Conversations spent with my PhD advisee were also heady and fruitful. It was also edifying to have the chance to spend time browsing in two big university libraries, SLU and Washington University.

Then, Luis arrived in St. Louis on Thursday, April 15, and we had a few days there with Diana. We spent the time running/walking in Tower Grove Park, hanging out with Diana at SLU and out for meals, including a delightful balmy Sunday afternoon spent walking around St. Louis’s Central West End, an area with lots of small shops and cafes. We bought Diana (at her request) a Spanish cookbook in one of the bookshops (hmmmm…maybe next time we go, she’ll surprise us with a culinary delight!) and then spent a good hour sipping tea at an outdoor café, watching the world go by.

On Monday, Luis and I said goodbye to Diana (always so hard!) and flew off to Norfolk, Virginia, to spend a couple of nights staying with mom Shirley and visiting with my brother Ned. We really only had one full day there which was spent in anticipation of our coming trip, as we needed to shop for a pair of trousers for Luis (so he’d be able to have dinner at the country club a few days later) and me interviewing Ned about his work with the literacy program he created, Portsmouth Reads, so I would be able to present that work the following week at UMASS Boston. We also enjoyed dinner (steaks cooked on the grill, one of our favorite US treats!) with my Uncle Vincent (mom’s brother) and Aunt Antoinette. Then on Wednesday morning (April 21) we loaded up mom’s car, and Shirley, Ned, Luis and I headed off for Washington D.C. We had quite a rainy drive…just 3½ hours, so not so bad. We first stopped in Alexandria, just outside Washington D.C. on the Virginia side, to visit with our goddaughter Anne Marie Charboneau, and her little son Cole. We hadn’t seen Anne in years, not since Rockford days, so it was great catching up and seeing her little one-year old, a little blond cherub of a cutie, reeling around in his early days of walking.

Then we drove off to Potomac, also outside Washington, but on the Maryland side, where we met up with my sister Mary Ellen and her husband, Jack, just outside the door of my cousin Patty’s house. That started a wild evening of reconnecting with cousins from my dad’s side of the family. These are the cousins that I grew up with in Rockford, Illinois, with whom many hours were spent at family gatherings, especially at our grandparents house, where we would jump on beds (until someone came up to chastise us), put on plays, check out the attic (which we were convinced must have a secret door to another world somewhere), and generally revel in the delight that cousins offer – almost like brothers and sisters, but without the rivalries! We enjoyed one another’s company as much now as then, and the most frequent sound was laughter. We had the added pleasure of getting to know my cousin’s kids more, including Patty and Jerry’s son Christopher (many fond memories of them with their daughter Claire in both London and Madrid over the years…including a story Jerry would rather forget about spilled gazpacho and the rags used to clean it up just last summer) and Christopher’s soon bride-to-be Alexis.

Patty, Sue and Mary Ellen.

Luis giving advice to Christopher and Alexis

 Luis and Jerry (uh oh…)

 (from left to right: Patty, Sue, Sarah (birthday girl!), Joseph and Liz

 Luis and Jack enjoying Patty and Jerry’s backyard…)

The next morning we got up and went for a walk/run (really the springtime in the US is glorious), and the piled in the car to drive up to my Aunt JoAnne (dad’s sister) and Uncle Dale’s house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Now you can see Luismi’s nice trousers…needed for the delicious dinner we had at the Lancaster Country Club. Uncle Dale was right about the crabcakes, and I’m glad I ordered them!

The next morning (let’s see…this was now Friday, April 23), Jack and Mary Ellen dropped us off at the Lancaster train station, and off we chugged to Philadelphia. The scenery outside the train window was bucolic…we could see the Amish farmers with teams of horses pulling their plows, as they went about their work on the farm, with clotheslines stretched from tree to tree behind the farmhouses, full of long garments and aprons, flapping in the wind. When we got to the Philadelphia train station, we realized that we were in the opening scenes of Witness, the Harrison Ford film about a young boy who witnesses a murder in that very same train station. As we waited for the train that would take us up to Boston, we saw an elderly Amish couple emerge from one of the stairways, and we really felt like we were in the film.

Spring!

It's been a while (again) since I've posted...I went through a bit of a low this past week. I think it was maybe because of so much moving around. I needed time to catch up with myself!




Last weekend (March 25th) my friend from high school, Colleen, drove over from Kansas City and picked me up, and we headed up to Rockford, Illinois. We joined up with 4 other friends (some of whom I've known since I started elementary school) for a laugh-packed weekend at Trixie's house. At one pointed we ended up in the police station, with Linda and I flashing gang gestures while sitting chained to the wall. The explanation is simple: Trixie is married to the Chief of Police of Rockton, Illinois (a small town just north of Rockford) and he gave us a tour of the station.

There does seem to be somewhat of a water motif running through my travels. While most of the time was spent catching up while also reminiscing with my fabulous friends, I did have a few moments to myself in downtown Rockford, where I nostalgically took in the Rocford Trust Building, where my Dad worked for so many years, and I let the Rock River take my thoughts through my childhood and teen years in Rockford.






Almost a week later (after a couple of intense days meeting with people at the SLU campus here) I met up with Mary Sue in Mastadon Historic Site about half an hour south of St. Louis. It's a huge park, with creeks running through it and sites where the bones of mastadons and other historic animals were found in the 1800s. Of course most of the tusks and bones have disappeared, probably into a number of private collections (what are these private collectors like? Who can they brag too? It all seems really pointless to me to be able to nudge someone and say "Hey, wanna see my mastadon tusk?" It wouldn't impress me...). Still, the day was beautiful, and then we went on to Kimmswick, a small town with a number of restored buildings from the mid-19th century, when it was founded. It seems to survive on a relatively large number of quaint little antique and novelty shops, as well as cafes and restaurants. The best part of the very hot day (86 F, 30 C) was going over to the Anheuser estate right on the Mississippi River. The breeze was cool, and we stood and watched the swift river current, with its eddies and swirls, and understood Mark Twain's passion.




Saturday (April 3) Diana and I did some Easter egg coloring out at Chris's house in Illinois. We also did some shopping for Diana's first Easter dinner - they had invited friends over, so I watched her prepare a dessert. It seems from what she says that the dinner was quite a success (but she worries - is she getting old? - having people over for dinner!).

And this Easter Sunday morning, I got up and went for a walk in Tower Grove Park. If you've seen my previous blog from 2007 (http://anneinsaintlouis.blogspot.com/), you'll have seen my beloved park in summer, fall and winter, and now I'm experiencing Spring. Just a little over a week ago I didn't take any pictures because it was all too bland and dull...few leaves and brown grass. Now I wish I had for the "before" and "after" effect. It really does fill the soul to see the vibrant colors and to feel spring happening so resolutely. I'd never seen such trees covered all in white. They're called Bradford Pears, and they are not without controversy (whatever is?). While they are beautiful in the spring, and provide nice shade in the summer, apparently they are prone to falling apart in strong wind and storms (with the concomitant damage to cars and houses). They were introduced into the U.S. sometime during the last century from China. Whatever their drawbacks, they are beautiful to look at.

The other thing I did this Easter Sunday morning was to go to the Casino! JoAnn, the woman who owns the house where Diana lives, took me to a brunch that she had two invitations to. Needless to say, we did sample the slot machines on the way to and from the brunch...but I didn't do too well. I think I'll stick to the park from now on...

St. Louis, Louisville, St. Louis

Elisa is wondering if there isn't some kind of "Luis" motif going on here with the cities she's been visiting...she arrived in St. Louis on Monday, March 15, and then on Tuesday, March 16th the two of us drove off to Louisville, Kentucky. It might all seem in honor of her father, but that is all rather coincidental, of course. We went to Louisville to the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and had a great time. We loved our hotel, with its wonderful view of the Ohio River. The first night there, we ventured out to dinner, and discovered the superb Jeff Ruby's. We had no idea at the time that the restaurant's website claims "culinary entertainment", but Elisa exclaimed, as we were escorted to our table "This is just like Sex and the City!" It is a cool restaurant, and the food is delicious. We had been talking in the car about fried chicken (yes, Kentucky fried chicken) and being someone's favorite meal and all, well, I had to order chicken! And I was warned that they make their chicken fresh, and so it would take more than half an hour. As we were in no hurry, of course I was willing to wait. And it was delicious...roasted with lots of rosemary. Elisa loved the moment when I asked one of our young waiters (the one whose job was to ensure that we always had a good supply of ice water) where the ladies' room was. He held out his arm to escort me there, and off we marched, rather merrily, while I tossed a look to Elisa over my shoulder. Some friends were at the same conference and really wanted to go there the next night, and after much arm twisting, I agreed. This time Elisa and I tried the sushi, and were again delighted.

Our third night in Louisville we went to a bar in the hotel called 'Jockey Silk' which offers who knows how many different kinds of bourbon, and I discovered that I quite like the taste! It brings back many memories of my Dad indulging on a Saturday evening Manhatten when I was growing up. Louisville is a fun little city. They cordon off part if 4th Street (isn't it convenient that our hotel was at one end of 4th Street?) on special occasions and weekends to offer live music and general hanging out. We stopped there on Saint Patrick's day evening and I drank my first ever green beer. I was listening after we got back from Louisville to Paddy Maloney of 'The Chieftan's' fame being interviewed on my favorite NPR show 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' and he confirmed that St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is nothing like it is in the U.S. Green beer indeed!

I really did attend a conference in Louisville...and put my head up at exactly the right moment to see Sarah Kegley just about to enter a room to attend a talk. I managed to shout "Sarah!!!", and we chatted briefly, making plans to meet up that evening (the Friday). Sarah, Elisa and I went out for a meal and a lengthy and highly enjoyable chat. Elisa and I also did a bit of sightseeing in Louisville, including a wonderful "Kentucky Show" at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. I was all set to move to Kentucky after seeing it, what with the blue grass, beautiful horses, great music and friendly people. Louisville probably has too many parking garages sprinkled around its downtown area to attract, however (maybe the huge river makes it difficult to construct underground??). We did have a pleasant walk around, seeing the glassworks, the outside of the 'Louisville Slugger" factory, and various statues and buildings.

We drove back to St. Louis on Saturday - it is a very pleasant 4 hour drive through Indiana, Illinois and over the bridge to Missouri. Along the way are glimpses of an immense, flat and very fertile Illinois with its stretches of corn crops, more of the same in Indiana, although as Kentucky nears the land becomes very rolling and green, with some impressive bedrock hills.

Alas! Elisa went back to Boston on Sunday...we will be going there in April, so something to look forward to! In the meantime, I now enjoy St. Louis with Diana...visits to the library at SLU punctuated by lunches with her...and some shopping, like to buy her some shoes and me a pyjama. Yes, this weekend a friend is driving from Kansas City to St. Louis to pick me up, and we'll take off north for Rockford, Illinois for a reunion/pyjama party with young and very dear friends from elementary and high school. Looking forward to it!

San Diego, St. Louis, Atlanta...

I’m feeling somewhat like I was shipwrecked over the Pacific and washed up here in the U.S. Sydney now seems like a dream…did it really happen? I guess this blog is good evidence it did (but who is that woman in the hat???).

Well, I finally did fly out of Sydney on February 27th, after that 7 hour delay. So I left Sydney at 10 pm, and I arrived at 4 pm of that same day (I can’t figure out if that somehow means I got younger…though it certainly doesn’t feel like it!) and my friend Lisa picked me up and drove me to her place in Delmar, near San Diego. I arrived in California to rain, but that did not spoil the view as we were having dinner right on the beach in Delmar, and in fact probably enhanced the nighttime drama of the roiling waves.

Lisa had bought tickets for a wonderful whale-watching trip on the America, a replica of the very first America’s Cup winner for Sunday, so we were very glad to wake up to bright sunshine. Still, the captain of the America warned us that the trip could be a bit rough, given the previous day’s storm, and rescinded their usual “no seasickness” guarantee, offering anyone their money back or a ticket for a future date. We decided to go ahead, and it was well worth it. We proved to be pretty good sailors, and just enjoyed the beauty of the sea, and the excitement of spotting whales. (There’s that woman in the hat again!).











Honest, if you look hard you will see a whale’s back in this picture (it was difficult to look at the sudden spouts of water that would announce the presence of a whale, and get the camera ready for when one would plunge out of the water, while hanging onto a rope of a rocking boat trying to avoid dropping my camera into the middle of the Pacific).

I flew to St. Louis on Monday, March 1, arriving very late in the evening. I picked up a rental car, and drove off to Russell Blvd, the same house where Diana and I lived in 2007, and where Diana still is living. It was so good to see her! She looks great, and is doing very well in her job at Saint Louis University here in St. Louis. She had just returned from a trip to Miami for a college fair and high school visits. An added treat for her was a visit from her cousin John, who lives in Orlando, who brought her brownies from her Aunt Mary Ellen to help celebrate her 26th birthday.

I took off for Atlanta then on March 5th for the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference. The conference was great…seeing people I’ve met before, meeting new people, going to interesting talks, having interesting chats. I found Atlanta somewhat impersonal – the downtown area we were staying in is virtually empty at night. A telling sign that no one lives in the vicinity is the set of loudspeakers blasting music outside of a nearby restaurant (and I mean blasting!)in the late evening and into the night. On the last day, I went to see the Martin Luther King Jr. national historic site. We couldn’t get into his house, as the numbers on each tour are very limited, but still it felt inspiring to see where he lived as he was growing up with his family, and to see his tomb. The museum I found impressive perhaps not least because it celebrates the life of Coretta Scott King as much as it does MLK. Then we went off to see a totally different world: that of Margaret Mitchell – the house where she lived when she wrote Gone with the Wind. We had a most interesting tour guide who would inject comments such as “I can’t forgive her for marrying Red Upshaw. So any of y’all who are single remember this: never marry an alcoholic”. That evening, we had a drink on the 70th floor of the Westin Hotel, which is reportedly the tallest hotel in the western hemisphere. It has a revolving bar/restaurant on the 70th floor, a fact that is good to have in mind when you get way up there. I was standing there, looking out the floor to ceiling windows at a rather breathtaking nighttime Atlanta spread out way down below, and thinking “I’m feeling dizzy! And I haven’t even had a drink yet!” when I realized that we actually were moving.

I arrived back in St. Louis on Wednesday, and have been working on the paper for the Conference on College Composition and Communication, in Louisville this week. Elisa arrives tomorrow (Monday) (yipeee!!) and she'll be going with me to the conference. We leave Tuesday (16th) and will be driving there...we come back to St. Louis on Saturday. So, another trip and another city!

Goodbye!?!!

Another sensational week here in Sydney, and now it's time to go! I have been a bit lost in a void of impending displacement all week...places mean a lot to me, and for some reason, I easily fall in love with them ... especially the exploration stage. That's hard for someone who loves to travel so much; I don't find it easy to love and leave places.

I did make progress with research: sent off the book manuscript...hooray!!!!!!!!! and have my conference paper half written. I also had some good discussions with people about the work I'm doing, and feel that it is definitely on track.

I also spent some good time with Sydney:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010: I went to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at the MCA. Eliasson has a curious way of locating the spectator with his art, as sometimes you become part of the exhibit. There is one room of photographs hanging on the wall (row after row of related photographs, each framed separately, which reminded me of reading a comic books…how to read the spaces in between – what were the connections between each photograph?) which calls on the spectator to move around the room looking at the walls. But most of the other artwork puts the spectator straight into it, and plays with glass, mirrors and light in curious ways. One exhibit (in a dark room, with black walls, and one spotlight) even uses water, with fine mists spraying down from several nozzles in the ceiling, catching the light from the spotlight, causing fine gossamer threads of colors and rainbows to dance before your eyes, different depending on where you stand in relation to the water and the light. Another room is painted all yellow, and the very bright yellow light on the ceiling causes the people in the room to become the art, as everyone turns a sepia color, like an old photograph. I had a wonderful guide through the exhibit, Robert McMurtrie, who is a PhD student working on the semiotics of art, using a systemic functional linguistic perspective. The coffee and pastry at a French café in the Rocks topped off yet another sensational experience.

Thursday I took the bus down to Circular Quay and started the day with a walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The southeast pylon offers a lookout up top, plus an exhibit explaining its history. Sydneysiders are quite fond of their bridge, and not just because it gets them across the harbour. Almost anyone you talk to who tells you about the bridge mentions that it provided hope for so many as it was built during the Depression. When I got to the top of the pylon, I realized that I was glad to have waited until the end of my stay

to see Sydney from this vantage point because I new what I was looking at. OK, of course we all know this:
















But, if you look at this photograph, you can see way off to the left a green roof - right there is where East Balmain wharf is, where I walked to last Saturday! Curving off over to the right is part of the park I walked through. Had I gone up the top of the bridge pylon my first week, I never would have known that I would become intimately familiar with what I was seeing. Of course, you can't exactly see Norton St. in this photograph, but I know that I lived off over there amongst the trees and the buildings.









After walking over the bridge and back, I went off to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It is a wonderful gallery, with a breadth of quite a few 19th-20th century European (and Australian European) paintings and sculptures, alongside indigenous Australian art work. There was something almost bizarre about walking in and seeing the Aboriginal art work on hollow logs and tree bark juxtaposed with some medieval Italian religious art. I felt I had to get away from that, and walked into a room with a good number of pre-Raphaelites (always a favorite of mine since Birmingham days). It is a great gallery, with lots to see, and free to get into...so next time I come back I need to spend more time there.

And in the Botanic Garden, which is right next to the Art Gallery, and which is also free. The Garden is nestled in next to the city center and the harbour, providing interesting juxtapositions and glimpses of sparkling blue (the day ended up being quite sunny!).

How's this for a tangled web!

Then I hopped on a ferry and headed across the harbour for...of course! East Balmain, where I hopped on a bus and headed straight up to Norton Street.

The final treat was...Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Opera House. And it was! The sensuousness of the set and music was punctuated by intervals out on one of the high terraces of the Opera House, with a glass of chardonnay and a bright almost full moon, watching the lapping of the water in the harbour.

I am now here at the airport, with a 7 hour delay! I guess that's what I get for finding it hard to leave...

Sated senses

On Thursday, I did that wonderful walk I discovered earlier this week, but in reverse. I got up in the morning, and set off for Bicentennial Park, and then over to Glebe Point Road and up.

When I got to Bicentennial Park, I couldn't believe what I was seeing! A tree full of these wonderfully colored birds - vivid green, blue, red...if you look closely, you should find them in the tree. I discovered afterwards that they are called rainbow lorikeets.

Later that afternoon, I went to Paddy’s Market…like the Rastro, really, with lots of cheap junk being sold in stall after stall. I did buy a few things, of course, that claimed that they were made in Australia, and there to promote Aboriginal culture. Probably a ploy I fell for! I also went over to the train station where Elena and I had seen an Aboriginal artist selling her own art work, which we both liked. I bought a few pieces, and the artist, whose name is Tammie, gave me the stories behind them. Tammie also told me about her own life a bit, and how she was from a western Aboriginal group, the Gumbayngirr, who, she said, people didn’t pay so much attention to anymore because they were not a remote, recently found group, as they had been discovered way back when the Europeans came. Still, she said, they held on to some of their customs and ways of doing thing. She said that she had learned her language and her dreamtime stories, of the Gumbayngirr, from her grandmother, stories which she tells through her art work. She also told me about her grandmother’s language book, which had been promised to her as the only daughter of her grandmother’s only daughter. Yet her grandmother took her time passing it on to her until recently. Tammie said it was because she hadn’t had any children yet to pass the language book on, although she said that her grandmother had changed her mind because she feels that Tammie will soon (Tammie got goose bumps telling me this!). She showed me the book: a dictionary and grammar of her language. I found it wonderful to see how important a book of language is…how it can help hold the traditions in place, now that the language has been written down. And here is a young woman (she told me that she’s 34) who shows great reverence for her language and culture.

On Friday, I met a friend for lunch on Circular Quay. She took me to one of her favorite restaurants, and I can understand why. I sat there eating my crab cakes and rocket salad with a clear view of the Opera House sparkling in the sunshine across the bay. Saturday I woke up to another beautiful clear sunny day, so I got out my walking shoes and set off for Balmain. This time I knew what I was doing, so I walked directly to Leichhardt Park, and walked all along Iron Cove Creek and Bay, and emerged just a couple streets away from Darling St., which is the main drag in Balmain, full of shops, cafés, and beautiful old houses. I walked down to the East Balmain wharf, which has this great view of the Harbour Bridge. I thought about taking a ferry to Cockatoo Island, but I arrived at the wharf at around 10.30, and the Cockatoo Island ferry wasn't due in until 1.30! So I got on the bus and came back home, and did some work!

This (Sunday) morning (another clear day in paradise!), Elena and Richard picked me up and took me on a tour of some of the Sydney beaches (Bronte, Tamarama and Bondi). Then we headed off up north to a place called The Entrance - about 70 kilometers from Sydney. It is an incredibly beautiful drive. I never knew that when people said "bush" here they meant beautifully forested land. The countryside is thickly populated with trees, and everyone once in a while you catch a glimpse of a deep blue ocean on one side, and off on the other, the blue haze of the Blue Mountains. We drove up to this HUGE lake, Tuggerah Lake, right next to the ocean; it is so crystaline, placid and, well, ...huge! Then we drove on over the bridge of the channel which connects the lake to the ocean (called the Entrance) and parked and walked out over the sand to the ocean, with a beach that opens wide out to the sea, where we could see a line of ships way off on the horizon, carrying their cargo who knows where. I had to splash about a bit in the waves...the water was delightful! Then we drove over to Terrigal, a much more densely populated beach resort area, where we had a delicious lunch (stuffed mushrooms and porterhourse steak) at Le Chat Noir. I have to say that my senses were quite over-sated by the end of the day, as we had the beautiful drive back, too!

Lush weather

Friday-Saturday, Feb 12-13: So….37 degree temps during the day and water dumping out of the sky in the evening. Guess what that means? I woke up at 3 a.m. with a mosquito literally feasting on my arm. Seriously. We tussled (this was a good sized bug) and I won. Small victory after his (his? is the sex of a mosquito discernible?) many battles won. I counted 16 bites! I couldn’t help but think that there are lots of young folk all around here, and this mosquito chose my room to find a feast! I have since bought a spray, and pounce with it as soon as I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye.

Saturday, Feb 13: I thought I would walk to Balmain, an area north of Leichhardt (about 4-5 kilometers) located on a peninsula which juts out into Sydney Harbour. It is supposed to be wonderful: a cultural haven for writers, actors and artists, with great views, history trails, old homes…I haven’t seen it yet, as I took a wrong turning and ended up crossing Iron Cove (a bay on the Parramatta River, which is the main tributary of Sydney Harbour) into Drummoyne. Oops! This after walking and walking and walking in the rain. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I found the most wonderful bakery on Victoria Street in Drummoyne where I had the best Danish pastry I have ever had…with real cherries! and just the right amount of that hard white icing! and a much needed cup of coffee. I had thought about taking a bus back, but all of the busses would have taken me to Sydney city center, so feeling fortified, I decided to walk back. And it stopped raining, and I discovered Leichhardt Park! I was somewhat startled on entering to see a sign that said “Acute psychiatric hospital area. Please respect …” (can’t remember the rest of the sign). It is quite a good sized park, just about a kilometer and a half from “home” here, and with great views of Iron Cove Creek (creek? I’ve seen rivers much smaller than this, one that we all know in Madrid!) and Rodd Island, which was full of spectators watching the regattas. I was amazed to see how many regattas were taking place on a Saturday here, both on the bay and on the creek. Quite a sight. And I still have Balmain to explore now that I know how to get there!

Sunday, Feb 14: Elena and Richard picked me up at 9.30 a.m., and we drove up to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, to a place called Katoomba, which has the most incredible view of a valley…except Sunday it was all fogged in! Still, I got a distinct impression about the height of the bluff we were on, looking down into the white mass into what seemed like a bottomless pit. We could clearly see the Three Sisters, formed by three very tall formations of rock, standing side by side. We ate lunch at a place with an incredible view (in spite of the fog!) of the most amazing cable car I’ve ever seen. From where we were sitting, I could see across to another high cliff where there was this tiny tram car inching itself at a 60 degree angle down (down ? of course, there is a cable, but not visible from where I was sitting!).






How's this for clinging tenaciously?


Then, after lunch, we drove south east, towards Wollongong, and stopped at Austinmer Beach (hey, my first close-up view of a beach!) and from there we drove north along Lawrence Hargrave Dr. (he invented the box kite, and thus helped aviation along its way to where it is today). The drive is beautiful, especially the Sea Cliff Bridge, which is actually an off-shore part of the road, rather than a bridge. The original road hugged the cliff face, but falling rock caused too many accidents, so they built the road out over the sea. Then we drove onward towards Royal National Park, and stopped at a vantage point called Bald Hill. Again, the fog meant I had to use my imagination…and my hopes to return someday to see it in bright sunshine! When I got home, I googled it and found a picture
which shows that indeed the view offered extends all along the coast.






I haven’t seen any koalas or kangaroos (I’ve been told I have to go to the zoo for that), but Sunday I did see quite a few spectacular cockatoos!


Monday and Tuesday (Feb 15 and 16) were head down and work days. Though Tuesday I tried a new route home for U Sydney and hit gold in terms of highly pleasant walks. I walked all the way down Glebe Point Road, a road that begins just north of the U Sydney campus, and which goes all the way down to the harbour, angling northwest (the key part of that word being ‘west’, in which direction lies Leichhardt). I have to admit that Glebe Point Road might beat out Norton Street for interesting cafes and restaurants. Plus it runs almost right into Bicentennial Park, which I have now written about twice! So this wonderful road took me right down to this wonderful harbourside park, which then deposits me about 2.5 kilometers from Norton Street. And the walk through the residential streets from the park to ‘home’ really is delightful. The weather turned this week, cooler temps and the humidity has dropped. But all of the rain and heat last week have made for lush growth, and there is, in addition to a rich green color, the most incredible smell of honeysuckle everywhere. Added to that is the smell of barbecue (a favorite Australian way of cooking), making for a delightful walk home. Also, there are a couple of other smaller parks along the way…this is one of my favorites, with the huge tree right in the center of the pathway that cuts diagonally across the park.

Today I went over to Macquarie University (on the north side of the harbour) and gave a talk. It was delightful – everyone was so welcoming, and quite a bit of very fruitful discussion got going, which continued after over some food and coffee, and then continued some more on the train back to city center. All of this good stuff does help me to forget the mosquito bites up and down my arm!