Picture Post!
Various photos that I've been meaning to post for ages:
Sydney harbour and that bridge everyone's always talking about. I have to admit, the first time I saw Circular Quay by day, on the City Circle train when I didn't realise we would pass the Quay and I could see it from the train, it took my breath away. Even now whenever I go there I have to smile and give thanks that I live here. It's such a gorgeous sight. As is...
The Opera House. I have yet to see any opera here, but I did see an STC play in one of the smaller theatres.
This is the view from my living room on a sunny day when I'm slouching on the couch. I love the high rises, because I'm a tragic city girl.
The Quadrangle at my university. I adore the building's neo-Gothic faux-medieval design. However, for every pretty building on campus, there is an equal and opposite ugly building...
Like this one, the main library. The smooth integration of old and new has not been a primary concern of the university's architects over the years.
I'm also a beach girl, despite loathing the sun and not being game to swim because if there's not sharks or stingers, then the water itself will get you. This is Manly back in April. I was wearing a jumper and freezing. I am a tropical girl.
A saltwater crocodile at the Sydney Aquarium. It's a girl, because she'd laid some eggs. Salties will kill you. :D
Dugong! The aquarium has two. Absolutely beautiful, and we spent hours watching them.
A sleeping koala at Wildlife World. This is when I began to ponder the evolutionary survival of the koala. They are big, heavy, and spend all their time sleeping or eating. It's a nice life, but are koalas truly necessary to anything except the Australian tourism industry? Only in this isolated country could such a wacky animal evolve. Anyway, let me remind all non-Aussies: please don't call it a koala bear, because it's not a bear at all.
Obligatory kangaroo shot.
A cassowary, which can kill you with its big toe like a velociraptor. Uh, maybe. There seems to be a lot of rumours about this but not many documented deaths.
A wombat! It was digging, which was rad. I wonder if the staff have to go and fill in wombat holes every night so that the whole enclosure isn't just full of burrows? Now, wombats are quite strong and have a big plate of cartilage in their butt, so while they probably can't kill you they could do some serious damage if provoked. In 1898 Louis de Rougemont described clouds of flying wombats rising above the Aussie terrain at sunset, but he was a dirty liar.
This is a giant squid!! So cool. I saw it at the Melbourne Museum. I have always been interested in giant squid and was excited to see one in the flesh -- so to speak.
Phar Lap, a beauty of a horse. It's difficult to explain the importance of Phar Lap as an Australian icon. Even I -- who loathes sports, never had a horse phase, and distrusts excessive patriotism -- can't escape it. I remember learning about Phar Lap in one of the little reading books at school, and I think the characters in a Robin Klein novel go to see him in the museum (the one where the girls hate each other -- The Enemies, I think). So Phar Lap's awesomeness was drilled into me from a very early age, even though the horse died in 1932. Australia: where sporting legends never ever die.
Also at the Melbourne Museum: CSIRAC, Australia's first computer and the fourth computer in the world. I loved seeing this, and the recreation of the setup around it. The simulated LEDs made it look alive, even though I know it is not. Can you imagine how it would have felt to work with a computer for the first time? How could you not think of it as alive, given the lights and the electrical hum and the punching of tape?
Sydney harbour and that bridge everyone's always talking about. I have to admit, the first time I saw Circular Quay by day, on the City Circle train when I didn't realise we would pass the Quay and I could see it from the train, it took my breath away. Even now whenever I go there I have to smile and give thanks that I live here. It's such a gorgeous sight. As is...
The Opera House. I have yet to see any opera here, but I did see an STC play in one of the smaller theatres.
This is the view from my living room on a sunny day when I'm slouching on the couch. I love the high rises, because I'm a tragic city girl.
The Quadrangle at my university. I adore the building's neo-Gothic faux-medieval design. However, for every pretty building on campus, there is an equal and opposite ugly building...
Like this one, the main library. The smooth integration of old and new has not been a primary concern of the university's architects over the years.
I'm also a beach girl, despite loathing the sun and not being game to swim because if there's not sharks or stingers, then the water itself will get you. This is Manly back in April. I was wearing a jumper and freezing. I am a tropical girl.
A saltwater crocodile at the Sydney Aquarium. It's a girl, because she'd laid some eggs. Salties will kill you. :D
Dugong! The aquarium has two. Absolutely beautiful, and we spent hours watching them.
A sleeping koala at Wildlife World. This is when I began to ponder the evolutionary survival of the koala. They are big, heavy, and spend all their time sleeping or eating. It's a nice life, but are koalas truly necessary to anything except the Australian tourism industry? Only in this isolated country could such a wacky animal evolve. Anyway, let me remind all non-Aussies: please don't call it a koala bear, because it's not a bear at all.
Obligatory kangaroo shot.
A cassowary, which can kill you with its big toe like a velociraptor. Uh, maybe. There seems to be a lot of rumours about this but not many documented deaths.
A wombat! It was digging, which was rad. I wonder if the staff have to go and fill in wombat holes every night so that the whole enclosure isn't just full of burrows? Now, wombats are quite strong and have a big plate of cartilage in their butt, so while they probably can't kill you they could do some serious damage if provoked. In 1898 Louis de Rougemont described clouds of flying wombats rising above the Aussie terrain at sunset, but he was a dirty liar.
This is a giant squid!! So cool. I saw it at the Melbourne Museum. I have always been interested in giant squid and was excited to see one in the flesh -- so to speak.
Phar Lap, a beauty of a horse. It's difficult to explain the importance of Phar Lap as an Australian icon. Even I -- who loathes sports, never had a horse phase, and distrusts excessive patriotism -- can't escape it. I remember learning about Phar Lap in one of the little reading books at school, and I think the characters in a Robin Klein novel go to see him in the museum (the one where the girls hate each other -- The Enemies, I think). So Phar Lap's awesomeness was drilled into me from a very early age, even though the horse died in 1932. Australia: where sporting legends never ever die.
Also at the Melbourne Museum: CSIRAC, Australia's first computer and the fourth computer in the world. I loved seeing this, and the recreation of the setup around it. The simulated LEDs made it look alive, even though I know it is not. Can you imagine how it would have felt to work with a computer for the first time? How could you not think of it as alive, given the lights and the electrical hum and the punching of tape?