Deeleea and Miss Lisa’s Big Day Out

I thought our international readers may wish to get an inside look at Australia Day, as celebrated by Miss Lisa and me down at the Sydney waterfront …

We spent the afternoon together down at the Rocks the foundation stone of Sydney City. Man alive, what a place to observe people if that’s your thing!!! It is a beautiful place to hang out … great shops… great cafes… great atmosphere…So this is what went on down there… (hang on… the Harry Connick Jr post will come next…)

We arrived at Wynyard by train and walked up George Street towards the Rocks and were visually assailed by large numbers of young blokes wearing green and gold and Aussie (pronounced Ozzy) flags. Every other person had little Aussie Flag tattoos or paper Aussie flags, made popular at the 2000 Olympics and generally the whole Circular Quay/Rocks populace were out to have a good time and wear their Aussie hearts on their sleeves.

The drinking Establishments were overflowing with beer and beer drinkers, the noise getting louder as the afternoon wore on. Talk about Cockatoos!!!!

It was “Country Day” at the Rocks which was amusing if you can bear Country Music for a whole day … every street corner had a different performer with various degrees of depresso lyrics and nasal twang… Nice… If you like that sort of thing…

Miss Lisa and I made a couple of purchases, Mint choc chip ice cream for me, and coffee for her from Santos which could have sparked some early fireworks when they neglected to inform punters that “they don’t serve takeaway coffee on weekends and public holidays” bad form… at least bad form for not making a point of noting it on their signage… We queued for 25 mins to find this out… and of course, they relented and served Miss Lisa her coffee… I think it was the look on her face (I could see it from behind her) that made them relent… talk about fireworks potential!!!

After some shop browsing we went to the MCA for a look round at what makes for Modern Art these days. Now, Miss Lisa is an interesting choice to visit this kind of exhibition, being a bit of a classicist, but it was an entertaining 40 minutes as we checked out the works of Bridget Riley and Lee Bul. I think her [Miss Lisa’s] most astute of observations was the one that went something like “Oooh very Ikea” … I am sure Bridget would be so thrilled to be compared in such a way … It’s a great museum… and greater because it’s free… Just gotta love govt and big business support of the arts… It may in fact, be all that T*lstra is good for…

After our my legs had started to fail… (walking is so overrated) we decided it was time to dine … and what better place to eat than City Extra that most quintessential of Sydney eateries… 24 hour a day cuisine … I felt later, as though I should have had pie and chips (it was Australia Day after all), instead of fish and chips for dinner. Still the food was good and the people observation opportunities were numerous as every kind of person walked past us at Circular Quay.

Anyway… this is the first time I have really marked Australia Day with the rest of the general populace. Last year we had an Australia Day dinner at my place with all the usual suspects (Surf, Tez, Kaff, Skeet et al) where we had an Australia Day quiz … but we didn’t even drink beer… This year was much more traditionally celebrated and I feel all the more closer to my Aussie compatriats than I did before …

Last year I had planned for this Australia Day to be the day I take the pledge but the Aussies are safe for another round as I can’t yet justify spending $120 for the opportunity to vote and to spend another $120.00 to get another passport…

Anyway, Waitangi Day is just around the corner so look out for another shamelessly patriotic post from this Kiwi girl. I have to say, the Australians are much better at celebrating their “day of national pride” than the Kiwis are… Of course, the usual suspects may be invited round so I can redress the balance next weekend…