Sunday, May 30, 2010

A different view (part II)

I maintain that living in Sydney during the winter is boring.

This is a city that is made for warmer temperatures.

Through the gloom of the rain and the lack of sunshine, it can sometimes be easy to forget that Sydney is a beautiful city.

During this time of the year, Sydney now plays host to the "Vivid Festival". A reasonably new event, this festival changes the city at night through an enormous light show.

It's amazing to see familiar sights under a completely different perspective.

I particularly liked the constant change of the lighting.


Seeing the Opera House in the multi coloured light reminded me of the importance of seeing things in a different light (sorry for the pun).

Lately I've been feeling bored and uninterested in my surroundings. I've become increasingly blasé towards the daily grind, ignoring the sights around me.

It's not the right attitude to have.

There's always something to see, and there's always something amazing to catch your eye.

If all it takes it is for a slight change to make the mundane interesting again, then maybe it was never uninteresting to begin with.


The lights have brought me a new appreciation of Sydney. The city is and remains stunning.

The lights make it seem as though it is glowing and alive.

And now, it's even filled with new and wonderful creatures to share the experience with.

All I had to do was open my eyes to it.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A different view

Sydney is a strange city.

Many people don't realise that the city of Sydney itself isn't actually that big.

Now don't get me wrong, there are still lots of people here as there's a population of more than 4 million. However, it is hardly the bustling, non-stop metropolis you would expect. Instead, much of the population lives in the huge suburban mass that sprawls out from the city centre.

I found myself in a strange part of town.

Instead of being the middle of the city (where I work) or in and around the high rises, I actually found myself at the very southern part of where the city ends and where the suburbs start.

Standing on the roof of a building, I was able to look North through the centre of Sydney, a far less well known view.

From this angle, there's far less glamour and excitement to this place.

It's amazing how a simple change in perspective can completely alter how you see a place.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Classy as ever

Is there anything that's classier than a moving a mattress on a the roof of a car?

If there is, I'm yet to discover it.

And if you've found that you don't have enough rope to hold the mattress to the roof, isn't it just as acceptable for the four guys in the car to reach their hands out the window and hold on tight?

No safety issues whatsoever....

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Not in any way weird

.... and as you can see here, Andy is modelling the latest in winter snake fashions....

People have pets. Lots of people have pets.

A snake isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of pets.

But, as part of moving into the apartment, compatibility with the house pet was necessary.

A snake as a pet is surprisingly easy to adapt to. It really has to be one of the lowest maintenance pets that a person can own (I'm not including a pet rock in my analysis). There's minimal feeding, cleaning, costs, time or energy that is actually needed. In fact, you can pretty much ignore the thing for the 3 weeks between the feedings and it would be fine.

I was personally relatively nonchalant to the prospects of living under the same roof as a snake, but from what I have learnt in the last year, that's the not the same response of all people.

In the space of less than 12 months, I have seen people screaming, people instinctively jumping away and I have even seen one person run screaming at the top of their lungs out of the room when the snake was brought out of its enclosure.

But again, as you can clearly see, that's not the reaction that I have to the house pet....

It's relatively harmless (I hope) and up close she is genuinely a beautiful and amazing animal. Her skin is something to be marveled at and usually elicits comments from me directed at my housemates about how great a belt or pair of shoes she would make (only in jest of course).

There are times that I'm made to jump though.

Those instances usually involve the surprise of Andy or Josh holding the house pet behind my head just before I turn around so that I find myself face to face and inches away from a hissing snake's head..... lovely.

Or they could just hide the pet in my bed.....