Travel

Paris is stunningly beautiful. Food practically spills out onto the road from all the patisseries and boulangeries and cafes and what have you. Like London, there are beautiful churches and buildings around every corner but the Parisians seem to have sorted the place out so that the most prominent civic monuments are given their rightful space (though I guess this all came at a cost to the lower classes when the various rulers decided to impose their "town planning" schemes on their subjects...). Even their centrepiece waterway is spared the riverfront developments and given a line of trees along its banks. From the time JPB and I arrived 'til our Saturday night at Eiffel Tower, we simply couldn't have seen any more beauty and splendour. Paris is truly magnifique!

But then Sunday arrived. Dimanche.

My first day in London was a Sunday and the place was alive. People were out taking full advantage of their city. In particular, all of the shops were open and packed with people. True, London was experiencing the kind of weather that even a Sydney-sider would consider to be superb, whereas Paris had turned gloomy and grey. But, in any other city, it would have been fine if we could find a decent place to spend some money.

At about lunch time we discovered that even the department store down the road (Bazar d'Hotel de Ville) was closed. What hope did we have? Only the crappiest shops pushing crap-arse multi-coloured Eiffel Tower models were doing business. We couldn't even get a decent croissant!

So JPB and I decided to ditch our shopping efforts and went off on a river cruise. Nice. By the end the rain had stopped, which allowed us to get out and take pictures. I guess I would have had a better time if I had gone to the toilet before the cruise, otherwise I wouldn't have spent the entire time busting to go to the loo and enjoyed the sights more. My bad, yes. After the cruise we found that the tickets entitled us to a discount at the Conciergerie, an old prison that housed about 4000 people in its history including Marie Antoinette. Besides the old clock (which is outside anyway and free for all to see) and the Hall of the Men-At-Arms, it is by far the CRAPPIEST tourist destination in Paris. Don't bother going, even with discount, it sucks.

Not happy with the way our day was turning out, we decided to quit the sight-seeing and headed down to the cinema. The Devil Wears Prada was showing at the Odeon on St Germain Boulevard so the pass the time 'til Seance we headed down to a pub for a beer each. SEVENTEEN EUROS LATER (not to mention the expresso that was four euros fifty a pop!) we headed back to the cinema only to find that the movie we wanted to see was Complet and there was a massive line to buy tickets for the NEXT session.

Unperturbed we headed across town (over the Ile de la Cite) to Beauborg only to find that the cinema there showed Version Francaise. Not only that but at that moment someone had fallen off the Centre Georges Pompidou (or jumped off, we weren't sure) and apparently died, and the police and ambulance were starting to gather. Pulling out our respective city guides we decided to catch the metro up to Opera and, after walking down the street in the wrong direction, finally found a session in English.

Really enjoyed the movie, BTW.

Had some pretty unremarkable French food and headed home, glad to have the dreaded Sunday firmly in the past. Except the next morning, JPB woke up and wasn't feeling very well.

The lesson is: Paris is great, except on Sundays when it really really sucks.

And lundi isn't much cop either!

But I do still love the place.

Tags: Paris, JPB, Sunday.

(This was written ages ago but it's not until now that I've had a chance to transfer it from my laptop to a computer at an internet cafe. More stories to come...)

These Northerners are quite proud of their city, aren’t they? The Manchester folk that spoke to us after our opening night at the Lowry were insistent that I check out the centre of town, after I had dared to suggest that I didn’t have the energy to be a tourist as London had tired me out. I didn’t need to see another old building or some slanting wall of glass or whatever. Besides, there was enough Modern going on around Salford Quays where we were staying and performing, with the colourful The Lowry and the oblique curves of Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum across the water. My favourites were the NV Buildings, apartments that seemed to be bending in the wind. But, apart from that, the Quays were as desolate as Homebush, not quite on the same scale but similarly dearth of any form of life. Planned to death. There’s a ghostly outlet mall and cinema complex, a few restaurants, but nothing that would actually sustain any kind of community.

Manchester was described to me as the “cradle of the Industrial Revolution” and, without the governmental and cultural significance that London had through its history, it looked very mediocre indeed. Old factory buildings are rarely architectural masterpieces. Part of my disappointment was that, being described as England’s second city, I was expecting a lot more. Melbourne is Australia’s second city. Los Angeles (or Chigago?) is America’s second city. Despite its significant contribution to the UK music scene, Manchester seems to define itself in terms of London, albeit in its staunch declaration that it is able to “look London in the eye and show it how it’s done” (or something like that, I forget how the quote goes). It’s a city that has an inferiority complex, that it’s constantly trying to prove itself. I only had a few hours on our last performance day to check out Manchester and places like Oldham Street (and, reportedly, Affleck Palace) showed some promise of an alternative, stand-alone identity from the long shadow of that great southern city. But further wanderings up through Arndale and Deansgate and Cathedral destroyed all that potential, covered it up with concrete, slabs of grass and your standard fare of high street fashion labels that you can get along London’s Oxford Street. I also came across the Urbis, which tried so very hard to convince me that, yes! Manchester is a vibrant and modern city. The more it tried, the less I was convinced. The music: yes. Everything else: no.

On the plus side, the Mancunians seem to be much friendlier than their World-City counterparts down south, and they were much more open to what we had to offer (well, the few people that did bother to turn up!). Also, to get some perspective on the matter, I guess I was mistaken in my assumption that the city was bigger that it is; for a city of less than half a million, I guess it’s doing pretty well for itself. And I do tend to reduce my evaluations of cities in terms of visual elements, the available shopping options, and quality of expresso.

Tags: Manchester

I haven't actually taken very many pictures of London. It's simply too spectacular and full of sights that there doesn't seem to be enough time to stand around and compose pictures. That and I didn't really want to exhaust myself being a tourist when there's a job to do. When I get back from Aldeburgh I can devote more of my energy sight-seeing.

Lloyd's has to be one of my favourite buildings on the planet. To me, this is just a blatant statement: "Money Factory". How appropriate. It's such an intriguing sight, especially down a street full of sandstone. That being said, London also has more than it's fair share of modern architecture (not to mention the Gherkin just around the corner) and the urban landscape seems to be in a constant state of renovation and construction.

St Paul's is also quite fascinating. It's on such a huge scale and yet it's so hidden by the surrounding buildings, it's one hundred plus metre dome playing peek-a-boo with the pedestrians.

The number of people here in London from Perth is intriguing (if not quite staggering) to the point where you could almost say that it's an unspoken rite-of-passage to pack your bags, one hand clutching your bit of paper from WAAPA, and head straight for the great English capital. And why not? Its a pretty exciting place and there's no shortage of the best dance in the world (I mean, hey, even Bangarra has performed here!)

Last night Bangarra opened Bush at Sadler's Wells and a handful of enthusiastic fellow alumni were in audience. As far as our performances go, it was possibly a bit too excited. It was our first performance for about a month after extensive cleaning and sensing the importance that comes with performing at this venue I was trying so hard to keep calm. "It's just another show." Am glad to get that first show out of the way now.

Other issues relating to peforming here at Sadler's:
- with the distinct lack of eucalyptus trees in England we had to order gum leaves from a florist! They were undoubtedly quite pretty but it would have been better if we got a few rough branches in with the bunch.
- the venue hosts ballet companies as well as contemporary, with the results being that their rosin covered tarquet made performing our show quite difficult. Who cares if the odd ballerina falls off their pointe, when we're unable to slide across the floor? Ban rosin, I say!
- and what's with London's distinct lack of decent air-conditioning? Ditto refridgeration: luke-warm coke is such a disappointment. And I'm not happy Jan about not being able to find decent coffee here either, you'd think that being such a large and diverse city there would be a few people able to do a decent latte without over-steaming the milk.

Besides that, London, you're brilliant! Brilliant!

I had reached the end of Oxford Street and decided to pull up some grass. People were lazing about in Hyde Park on a beautiful cloudless sunny Sunday afternoon. I was enjoying my first banana in months, tasty and only fifty pence...

It could have been a standard weekend outing except that I happened to be in LONDON.

This city is exciting in a way that a wannabe World City like Sydney can never be (at least not for at least a millennium). London positively reeks of cutting-edge contemporary and a sense of never-ending possibilities. It is so jam-packed with diversity as it haphazardly mixes oblique glass panels and towering shafts of steel with centuries-old buildings, languages from across the globe compete with the mother tongue. In a strange way it all starts to get a bit repetitive: there’s always going to be a beautiful historic building down that anonymous alley-way, or some memorial, or a tiny Square of grass where suits are jostling with the creatives and the stylish and the down-on-their-luck for sitting space. I’ve given up taking pictures because there is so much juxtaposition and contrasts in the one frame that capturing it all is becoming tedious. Its crazy, yes, but I’ve only got 512MB on my Memory Stick.

And with all this beauty and design, there is also the ugly and the dilapidated. Take the Kings Cross area, for instance; the quaint and stylish bars are no match for the cheap-and-nasty fast-food outlets and flat and faceless hotel chains (of which one of them we are staying!). Yesterday I headed down to the Barbican, which is a monstrous example of self-contained urban planning. A village of brutal and seemingly alienating concrete blocks and towers, it is tempered by hanging flower-gardens, water features and a dark-ages (?) church. Oh, and a renowned symphony orchestra and two galleries. It is one of these galleries that was the reason for this visit, it was exhibiting the changing vision of the Future City from the fifties to the present, showing various urban projects (completed or otherwise) that at times seemed to be as isolating as the building complex that houses it.

Last night was capped off accompanying a friend to a photo exhibition down Portobello Road in Notting Hill and a couple of glasses of wine at a pub.

(according to Arts On Tour NSW) A few statistics about the Clan/Spirit tour 2006:

• 6 states and territories (actually, 7: all but South Australia)
• 8 coach transfers
• 13 Taragos
• 14 venues (of all shapes and sizes)
• 22 performances (is that all?)
• 33 flights (how many frequent flyer points?)
• 66 days on the road (it seemed longer)
• 290 motel rooms (how many stars?)
• 300 cabcharges

And, tomorrow, it all comes to an end (but not before blowing a few more cabcharges!). Gathering, The Australian Ballet and the injury seemed like a long time ago. But with only (???) a UK tour in Sept/Oct, it seems like its all coming to an end for 2006 even though its only August. Its even strange when we've just picked up a new program which is starting to hit its stride here in Ballarat, and now we have to go back into rehearsal mode again.

Tonight we were at the historic Her Majesty's Theatre in Ballarat. It has a mean rake and, with so many stairs and corridors, it feels more like a rabbit warren. There has been sign of "tour fatigue" at this venue, not helped by the extra-large full moon yesterday, but it'll be good to spend an extended time at home.

Technorati Tags: Bangarra, Tour, clan, spirit, statistics, Ballarat, Victoria, Her Majesty's Theatre

Its not all sandstone in our second oldest city!

I didn't end up venturing far from the centre of town. On the morning of our departure I headed down to the Salamanca Markets to get two more balls of wool for my fluffy scarf; in the end my total spending from three visits to the Tasmanian Woollen Co was $52, which I guess isn't too bad considering the amount of wool I ended up with. The real bargain was the rather large hank of wool that still smells of sheep for $15. I don't know what I'm going to make out of it. There wasn't much happening at the markets but I guess everyone's still hibernating. My casual meandering meant that I got back to the hotel a bit late for our call to the airport; I don't know there must be something in the clean fresh air that slows you down...

But a few hours later and a couple of coffees at lb just off Chapel Street and I was back in big-city mode, impatiently power-walking past the big-label shoppers.

Tags: Hobart, Photos, Salamanca, wool.

It was a bitch getting to the airport. I had to drop my car off at PT's place again but had to pick stuff up along the way which took longer than expected. Made it with forty minutes to spare, not before witnessing the aftermath of an accident where a truck's trailer had toppled over. At the very least I made the flight, unlike some ;) but when we got to Hobart I realised that I had left my flexy bowl (tupperware) at home, my breakfast bowl. Bugger. Also left my razors at home, too.

Anyway, Hobart really is quite lovely. The people here have been so nice, recognising that we're Bangarra and wishing us luck (break a leg, which really isn't the most appropriate thing to say to a dancer but the sentiment was appreciated). Its not even that cold here; Canberra was worse. Anyway, on the first night I wandered down to Salamanca Place and Battery Point via the piers. There are some very cute looking shops, not least Tasmanian Woollen Co, but I also want to check out Astrolabe and Klektik. And the fairy lights on the trees are delightful. Oh how quaint! After wandering around taking random photos I stopped by Fish Frenzy to find some of the Bangarra mob finishing up dinner.

We had rehearsals at St Michael's Collegiate, a school well-decked out for the performing arts, before heading off to Theatre Royal for spacing. Australia's oldest working theatre, like the rest of the place it was small but oh so cute! Its a bit of a squeeze onstage but at the very least we're not flying rings, light boxes and sheets of corrugated iron in and out, and we're not stringing the place up with elastics and dancing under thick mats and balancing tins on our heads whilst chucking bags of flour across the stage...

Technorati Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Spirit, Hobart, Travel, Tasmania

Tomorrow will be our last performance of Clan and though we get a ten day breather, its not the end as we have to pick up another show and take that on tour.

Its a shame that its ending, though. Apparently Lismore was just about our best performance of the show, helped greatly by an extremely appreciative audience. Everything is running pretty smoothly and, because I've been swinging in and out of various roles, and because we've had short doses of the big smoke on this extensive tour, I'm not really sick of it yet. In fact, it has been quite eventful: I've recovered from an injury, launched this site, taken up crochet...

And there's still alot to look forward to: wine-tasting in Hobart, JPB and I's first year anniversary, and a tour to the UK with a possible first-time trip to Paris for our week break. Exciting!

I was enjoying a very late breakfast at the Cairns Art Gallery when behind me I heard that familiar vocal inflection that is the calling card of you run-of-the-mill poofter. It was no surprise; Cairns is by far the gayest place we've visited on this tour. Though Darwin, Canberra and Townsville also have gay venues (though, in Darwin's case, gay friendly, the local poofter bar being overrun by straights out for a more alternative night out when I went out) the gays here seem more visible, if not quite as out as Oxford Street. Not that I'm necessarily interested in a place just because of the visibility of its queens, it's just an observation.

A totally unrelated observation is that Cairns seems to be quite a body-conscious kind of place. There's more of a display of flesh and half-nakedness than other places that we've visited. And people here tend to scrub up better than your average Northern Australian Joe.

Anyway, on this totally lazy Sunday off, I got up at lunchtime, caught the bus to town and wandered around for a bit. It was overcast, a contrast to the traditional view of this place as a sunny tropical tourist town, but pleasantly mild. The tide was out and the bay was stripped back to reveal the muddy bog that it is. The prevalence of palm trees and a mountainous backdrop reminds me of Maui, the large hotel chains of the Esplanade are more like O'ahu though not quite as Honolulu chaotic. It is completely unlike its dusty fraternal twin Townsville just down the road, which I think I prefer more as a place to visit; Cairns is just a bit too tourist-oriented for me to like very much. Still, it's good enough for a few piccies!

Technorati Tags: Queensland, Cairns, Gay, Photos