Tuesday, April 20, 2004

posted by: copernicus on 4/20/2004 03:34:00 AM
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SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE Vol. 2 of 5 (please click on the text for pictures)
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February 14th, 2000. Valentine's Day

2nd day in Sydney. City is beautiful. Cleanest city I've ever seen. Art museums, street performers, beautiful harbor views. All kinds of foreigners, especially Asians. A lot of Asians.

walked all over downtown Sydney , along the harbors (Sydney, Darlinghurst , Circular Quay , pronounced 'key"), toured the Sydney Opera House then walked miles through Boddington (gay & lesbian district), King's Cross (hetero & Greenwich Villagesque by day - red light district by night) and Darlinghurst.
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February 16th, 2000. Hunter Valley, New South Wales.

yesterday took 1&1/2 hour cruise through Sydney Harbor. Spent evening in King's Cross (called The Cross by locals) drinking with a girl named Michele from Melbourne @ Bar 111. Felicity was the bartender. She is fully aware of American propagandism & bullshit patriotism. She hears British & American music on bar's jukebox all night. That's all Australians listen to. Offspring's "Pretty Fly For a White Guy." is currently the #1 song in Australia. How sad is that?

She recommends living in a district called Gleeb is Sydney, which is mostly artists & schools & museums. The general public is fully aware if the American invasion and are observers, not participants.
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Today I eagerly immersed myself in a new paradigm. Not only do Australians drive on the other side of the road, but the steering wheel is on the other side of the car. To add to the extremity of the imprint, I got into the car and started driving in rush hour in downtown Sydney. It took 1 hour to get out of Sydney, then another 1/2 hour to Koolanga Astronomical Observatory - which was of course closed. So on to Pokolbin in Hunter Valley.

This place is straight out of Stealing Beauty. Incredibly lush wine country - vineyards everywhere in mountains that are a warm, 2000-3000 Ft. version of the Appalachians. On the way here the land & bluffs & mountains looked just like the Ozark Mountains, which gradually changed to warm Appalachians.

85 degrees in the sun, 70 in the shade - all screen doors open, kookaburas cackling , locusts buzzing & I'd love to have a hammock right now. It really is Stealing Beauty in real life.

Waiting for the stars to come out. I can't wait to see entirely new constellations. Even the Moon will be different. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, we're facing a different section of the Moon, different craters and dark spots - and an entirely new night sky. No familiar constellations. We're staying at a 6 cabin housing-hotel type thing in Hunter Valley in the vineyard property. Sorry to repeat, but watch Stealing Beauty again to truly appreciate the beauty of this land.