Oh, the Cheek!

This rainbow lorikeet looks like he has something on his mind, doesn't he?

Turns out he wanted my unused sugar packet.

I was sitting in an outdoor café, completely absorbed in my writing, when a rainbow lorikeet landed on my table about three inches from my paper. He looked at me, looked at my cup, looked at me, looked at my cup, grabbed the sugar with his beak, and flew up to a tree branch.

Here he is sharing the sugar packet with a friend:

 The packets are dark brown, long, and slender like sticks, so it's a bit hard to see.

Apparently, one was not enough.

Cheeky, but beautiful!
Even the staff came out
to enjoy them.

Usually I see rainbow lorikeets partially hidden in trees, so I don't get to admire their backside.

Pastries!

In Sydney people are very serious about their patisseries or pastry shops. If we happen to mention to someone that we are going to a particular suburb or neighborhood, invariably they will tell us we have to go to such-and-such bakery. Happily, we often take their advice.

Watermelon and strawberry cake with rosewater cream from Black Star Bakery in Newtown.

I have never seen watermelon in a cake before, have you?

Opera at La Banette in Glebe.

This reminded me of Nice, France - the first place I ever had l'opera.

Passion de Pierre
at La Renaissance in The Rocks.

A pastry with passionfruit mousse and polka dots.
Who could resist that?

Chocolate éclair at Bakerman in Erskineville.
I think this was the most scrumptious éclair I've ever had.

Tart Tartin and a flat white from La Croix in Potts Point. Oo-la-la!
I don't think I've had one since Passez a Table in Nice, France.

We've savored every bite. Need I say more?

Seen This Morning

A sulfur-crested cockatoo on a wire. Just looking at this picture makes me happy. 

Rick and I dropped Sylvia off at school and then took the morning off and did a quick 6K walk from Bondi to Coogee. (I know it probably seems to you like we only take breaks, but we actually do write, etc. Rick even guest taught a class yesterday). We took our shoes off at Coogee.

Don't you love all these bands of color? Those storm clouds held off until almost the exact moment we had our shoes back on. Unbelievable timing! It's now pouring and is supposed to rain for days -- a good time to drink pots of tea and write. For us, this is such a magical place.

Luna Park

Two weeks ago we went to what turned out to be one of Sylvia's favorite places - Luna Park - a genuine old-fashioned amusement park. It was built in 1935 at the foot of the Sydney bridge, and some of the buildings are actually registered In the New South Wales state heritage register. In the front of this picture, you can see the ferry station. You can also see how close apartment buildings have been built to it!

Here's Rick and Sylvia about to enter.

                                                                                What do you think of those eyelashes?

Here's an example of some of the games you can play.

And here are the clowns in action:

Thank goodness we don't really look like that.

This funhouse is the oldest in the world.

                                                                                                              I loved its old figures and imagery:

Recognize this guy?

                                                                                                        The inside of the funhouse was covered with drawings like this.

And the "rides" were good old-fashioned fun.

Here's Sylvia running through the barrel roll.

This disk whirled around and the kids were gradually flung off by centrifugal force.

Those blurs coming down the slide are Rick and Sylvia.

In the Maze of Mirrors.

What could be better than a little "fairy floss" or cotton candy?

 Did I say "little"?

And because Luna Park is right on the harbor, here's our view as we ate our picnic lunch.

 Bye!

Australian British English

In true primary school fashion, Sylvia and I thought you would enjoy a quiz. (Answers are below the picture of the biscuits/cookies.)

A "popper" is:
     a. a little snack you pop in your mouth
     b. a juice box
     c. a firecracker

A "demisemiquaver" is:
     a. the quiver you get in your voice when you are nervous
     b. an arrow used in archery class
     c. a thirty-second note in music

A "kindy" is:
     a. someone in kindergarten
     b. someone who is kind
     c. a cool, windy breeze

A "brollie" is:
     a. fish broiled in olive oil
     b. an umbrella
     c. an old, well-loved baby doll

A "rubber" is:
     a. an eraser
     b. a rain coat
     c. a person who bumps into others in line

A "barbie" is:
     a. a Barbie doll
     b. a broken, sharp edge or point, usually of metal, plastic, or wood
     c. an excuse to eat lots of meat and get together with friends

Answers:
A popper is: b. a juice box.
A demisemiquaver is: c. a thirty-second note.
A kindy is: a. someone who is in kindergarten.
A brollie is: b. an umbrella.
A rubber is: a. an eraser
A barbie is: c. an excuse to eat lots of meat and get together with friends (or a barbecue).

Here's a couple of comparative paragraphs to show you how the language has many phrases that are slightly different than what we use in the States. Most are not particular to Australia, but are British English.



After crunch and sip, Sylvia did maths until recess when she decided to give it a go and play tip with some friends. They ran until they needed to take off their jumpers and get a drink from the bubbler. Sophia shared her chippies and threw the wrapper in the rubbish bin. Sylvia and Sophia decided they would ask their mums to exchange mobile numbers so they could ring each other up.

After a fruit and vegetable morning snack time, Sylvia did math until recess when she decided to try her best and play tag with some friends. They ran until they needed to take off their sweaters and get a drink from the water fountain. Sophia shared her chips and threw the wrapper in the garbage. Sylvia and Sophia decided they would ask their moms to exchange cell phone numbers so they could give each other a call.

Our local markets do not have "crumpets" as one of its main categories, but this one in Port Apollo (a little town west of Melbourne) did. We tried some warm, freshly baked crumpets from a café down the street. Yum!

Wild Dragons, Echidnas, and Dolphins!

Australian water dragons, that is:

He blends in well, doesn't he? 

And we were lucky enough to see a second one:

See that long tail? The water dragons we saw were about 2.5 feet long. You can learn all about them here.

On Easter Sunday (after an Anglican service that turned out to be more pop culture than high church) Rick, Sylvia, and I saw these water dragons when we were hiking around the North Head -- the northern peninsula separating the Sydney harbor area from the sea. To get there, we took a ferry, walked past Manly & Shelly beaches and then started walking on one of the trails.













Our huge thrill of the day was seeing an echidna, close up, in the wild busily eating ants.

Look at his quills. You can see the ones with broken tips are hollow. 

And later in the day we saw another echidna! A local we talked to was very surprised we'd seen any and said they're rare in the area. He also said they've become more generally threatened by domesticated dogs.

And here's the echidna in action:

I love watching him suck up those speedy - but not speedy enough! - ants.

At one point, we had a break a hole through the wall to keep following the path. Not really, but that's what it looks like, right? There was no information about what this wall was from, but we guessed it might have been from an old military building.

We also saw a rather large skink.

Skinks are lizards that we see everywhere -- in the garden or on the sidewalk zipping into a crevice as we approach. The ones we usually see are a couple inches long. This one was huge -- about eight inches.

Here's a link about skinks. (I think that's my new favorite rhyme. It sounds like it should be in a Dr. Seuss book).

This section of the trail went through an area that was regrowing after a fire.













And here's a grass tree:

   Isn't it an interesting looking plant?

The trail went by the Third Quarantine Cemetery which was established in 1881 for victims of smallpox. Also buried there are victims of the bubonic plague of 1900 and the 1918 influenza as well as some World War I servicemen. It's a beautiful spot.

We picnicked at a lookout spot with this view:

You can see the light house on the South Head, and you can get a sense of how enormous the cruise ships are that dock in Sydney. (We have fondly dubbed the very tall tower on the right "the marshmallow building" because it kind of looks like a marshmallow on a stick).

Here's the trail illuminated by the setting sun as we walked back to Manly:

 Check out the bark on that tree.

We had to walk by this monster with its gaping jaw-of-death. Quite the rock formation, isn't it?

More evening light.

And, as you can tell, I can finally upload videos again, so I'm including a clip from the dolphins that we saw in 

Shoal Bay. According to the captain of the ship, they like playing with the "pressure wave" at the front of the boat. If the captain hadn't told us that, I would have been afraid they would have been run over. The dolphins are literally right in front of the boat. Enjoy!