Lire la traduction en français
I think we would fit right in New Orleans. Mind you, there’s no streetcar actually named Desire around here, but trams are the main way we get around Melbourne. And just like Blanche Dubois who has always depended on the kindness of strangers, so have we. I can tell you right now, we feel very blessed by those chance encounters we have made recently.
Since sleeping on park benches wasn’t up to our standards of living, we have finally accepted the generous invitation made by Katie, Cecilia’s sister, to come and live with her and her small family on the seventh floor of an urban tower overlooking the Melbourne zoo. Two days ago we barely knew her, and now we are sharing living space with her 10-month-old kids, teaching them how to say trendy Portuguese words and showing them that goldfish and Tibetan prayer bowls can be an excellent source of fun.
This week, we also got our urban groove on and FINALLY went out to see Ron Mueck’s expo at the NGV. A couple of years ago, while in Edinburgh, we had missed it and had opted for a free event instead. Ever since, we have had this tinge of regret of having passed up on a wonderful opportunity for the sake of a couple of bucks. This time, seeing as it was presented in Mueck’s home town and being a special event with musicians and all, we couldn’t miss it. It was really worth it to see the work of a genius sculptor and the voice of Ludo in Labyrinth.
As I mentioned earlier, trams are the main source of transportation in Melbourne. They are abundant, fast and fairly cheap. In fact, they are so cheap that you don’t even have to pay to ride them. I don’t know who came up with the payment system, but I can assure you that it was designed for failure. You hop on, make your way to a little machine and put your money in exchange for a ticket. That ticket serves no purpose. You just hold on to it as proof of payment. But proof to whom you might ask? The tram driver doesn’t care, the other passengers don’t care. In fact, 90% of the time, NOBODY cares if you pay the fare or not. Only once in a while, about once a month, commando style officers storm the streetcar in a surprise inspection and hand out fines to whoever has not paid for that particular trip; fines that can easily be avoided by talking to them in a broken down, Québécois riddled English, feigning ignorance of common law. Not that we have ever done it… officially…
And as further proof that you can always count on the kindness of strangers, we have just been invited into the home of yet another small family willing to take us in out of pure generosity. A chance encounter at a local event turns into yet another adventure. Magic.
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Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Oh Yeah! By the way, we’re moving out!
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So this is our last week at Cecilia’s. She is moving to Japan in two days and so we’re forced to choose a card box under a viaduct as a means of permanent residence. At least, this is what seems to be the most likely to happen to us in a near future. You see, since a simple suggestion to start packing two weeks in advance was pushed aside by a pink lace ornate hand in favour of photo shoots and interior design, we are now helping her to move out, night and day, leaving us very little to no time to look for our own place to live in when our stay is over. Oh well, we’ve seen worse… But not that often.
Cecilia’s house is filled with two very distinctive things: boxes and Japanese girls. For the latter, Easter celebration is chiefly strange. They can’t seem to be able to grasp the subtle link between Jesus, our Saviour and a giant bunny hiding chocolate eggs to the children’s delight. So it was an immense pleasure for us to enlighten them, paraphrasing various Gospels in the process. With a little bit of luck, the good Lord might suddenly have won two new Nihon warriors in His crusade against humanity. An interesting fact: Since all Australian hen eggs are brown, this greatly limits Easter eggs decoration process (or as we would call them during our briefing session: Christian Grenades).
Being so close to the Orient made me realize something interesting, at least, it seemed interesting to me. It seems that the more, let’s say, yellowish skin tone of Asian people confuses the “Auto-White Balance” function of my camera. When some of them are in a picture composition, all colours seem to be altered and require a lot more adjustments in postproduction. As if the Chromatic Recognition software was different in North America compared to the land of the Rising Sun. Strange. Meaningful to a certain extent… But mostly strange.
I was really hoping this week to announce that we were able to plan a dinner with the famous Pauly Shore, who is in town for a few days on a stand-up comedy tour. It is with great regret that I announce he has not answered my numerous e-mails and preferred the security of a dark and humid hotel room to our warm company. So we had to go with Plan B to share our dinner with Elliot Goblet, nationally recognized stand-up comedian. We’re talking about a man having totally absurd humour, and a really nice guy. Look at these ancient-looking recordings and make up your own mind about him, as long as it’s the same as ours. Otherwise, go make it elsewhere. From this meeting, Stephanie got new stockings portraying the stand-up comedian. Who can top that?
Oh, by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANÇOIS! We are 50 only once! (Or so Krishna would have us believe... –Er– No, or is it the other way around?).
See HER view
See His and Hers Photos
See His and Hers Videos
So this is our last week at Cecilia’s. She is moving to Japan in two days and so we’re forced to choose a card box under a viaduct as a means of permanent residence. At least, this is what seems to be the most likely to happen to us in a near future. You see, since a simple suggestion to start packing two weeks in advance was pushed aside by a pink lace ornate hand in favour of photo shoots and interior design, we are now helping her to move out, night and day, leaving us very little to no time to look for our own place to live in when our stay is over. Oh well, we’ve seen worse… But not that often.
Cecilia’s house is filled with two very distinctive things: boxes and Japanese girls. For the latter, Easter celebration is chiefly strange. They can’t seem to be able to grasp the subtle link between Jesus, our Saviour and a giant bunny hiding chocolate eggs to the children’s delight. So it was an immense pleasure for us to enlighten them, paraphrasing various Gospels in the process. With a little bit of luck, the good Lord might suddenly have won two new Nihon warriors in His crusade against humanity. An interesting fact: Since all Australian hen eggs are brown, this greatly limits Easter eggs decoration process (or as we would call them during our briefing session: Christian Grenades).
Being so close to the Orient made me realize something interesting, at least, it seemed interesting to me. It seems that the more, let’s say, yellowish skin tone of Asian people confuses the “Auto-White Balance” function of my camera. When some of them are in a picture composition, all colours seem to be altered and require a lot more adjustments in postproduction. As if the Chromatic Recognition software was different in North America compared to the land of the Rising Sun. Strange. Meaningful to a certain extent… But mostly strange.
I was really hoping this week to announce that we were able to plan a dinner with the famous Pauly Shore, who is in town for a few days on a stand-up comedy tour. It is with great regret that I announce he has not answered my numerous e-mails and preferred the security of a dark and humid hotel room to our warm company. So we had to go with Plan B to share our dinner with Elliot Goblet, nationally recognized stand-up comedian. We’re talking about a man having totally absurd humour, and a really nice guy. Look at these ancient-looking recordings and make up your own mind about him, as long as it’s the same as ours. Otherwise, go make it elsewhere. From this meeting, Stephanie got new stockings portraying the stand-up comedian. Who can top that?
Oh, by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANÇOIS! We are 50 only once! (Or so Krishna would have us believe... –Er– No, or is it the other way around?).
See HER view
See His and Hers Photos
See His and Hers Videos
Monday, April 5, 2010
Melbourne in the fast lane
Lire la traduction Française
Well that was some transition. After months and months of living the slow life, it seems that our routine day to day living has just kicked into high gear. It’s amazing how the human being can adapt so quickly. Seven days later and we feel like our lives have always been that busy.
So in a week (just one week!), here is what we’ve experienced:
We found this really great house in which to live for a while. We help out a wonderful permaculture teacher sort out her life before her big move to Japan in three weeks. In exchange, we get a nice bed in the attic, some seriously delicious food, some free Japanese lessons and a really good friend. Oh and the house seems to be the hub for all the cat traffic in Northern Melbourne. There’s always a new one to be pet!
Through Cecilia, we got the chance to have dinner with Edward de Bono, PhD in creativity, millionaire collector of remote islands and the originator of the expression “lateral thinking”. Quite impressive to many, but to us with only our brief encounter, he will remain an old dude who enjoys the company of young ladies and who likes word games in which he is surprisingly uncreative. Nice chap though.
We learned that in Melbourne, it is common practice for people to hire out furniture for $ 400 a week. Add that up as you like, but that comes up to $ 10,000 in 6 months. We are seriously thinking about just buying some random couches to rent out and live like kings without working ever again.
We live with this wonderful Japanese girl who teaches us new words and expressions every night. She also teaches us traditional customs like calligraphy and which meals not to order in Chinatown. She does nothing to alleviate stereotypes we might have of her people though, going as far as taking a photograph of a photograph instead of asking us to send her the .jpeg by email. But that’s why we love her.
Having finally a decent and constant Internet connection, we got lost in Google street view, seeing where Tamami lives and works in Tokyo and showing her all the beautiful murals of Sherbrooke. To our big surprise, when we showed her where I worked downtown, we saw Francis, Raphael and Dominic, three of my coworkers taking a break outside while the Google van took those pictures. Get back to work you slackers! We’re not paying you to sit around in the sun!
We also met this hippy chick who suggested we do like her and find a nice house in the suburbs in which to live. And by nice house, she meant one owned by rich businessmen who do not actually live there and where you just have to cross a couple of wires to get free power, free gas and free telephone. She’s been staying at the same place that way for the past two years. Her advice: live comfortably, but always be ready to run like the devil if the cops do finally turn up.
So all of that in one single week. No wonder we’re a bit tired these days. But it’s a welcome change of pace, and Melbourne really is a wonderful town. I think we’re going to fit in just fine.
See HER view
See His and Hers Photos
Well that was some transition. After months and months of living the slow life, it seems that our routine day to day living has just kicked into high gear. It’s amazing how the human being can adapt so quickly. Seven days later and we feel like our lives have always been that busy.
So in a week (just one week!), here is what we’ve experienced:
We found this really great house in which to live for a while. We help out a wonderful permaculture teacher sort out her life before her big move to Japan in three weeks. In exchange, we get a nice bed in the attic, some seriously delicious food, some free Japanese lessons and a really good friend. Oh and the house seems to be the hub for all the cat traffic in Northern Melbourne. There’s always a new one to be pet!
Through Cecilia, we got the chance to have dinner with Edward de Bono, PhD in creativity, millionaire collector of remote islands and the originator of the expression “lateral thinking”. Quite impressive to many, but to us with only our brief encounter, he will remain an old dude who enjoys the company of young ladies and who likes word games in which he is surprisingly uncreative. Nice chap though.
We learned that in Melbourne, it is common practice for people to hire out furniture for $ 400 a week. Add that up as you like, but that comes up to $ 10,000 in 6 months. We are seriously thinking about just buying some random couches to rent out and live like kings without working ever again.
We live with this wonderful Japanese girl who teaches us new words and expressions every night. She also teaches us traditional customs like calligraphy and which meals not to order in Chinatown. She does nothing to alleviate stereotypes we might have of her people though, going as far as taking a photograph of a photograph instead of asking us to send her the .jpeg by email. But that’s why we love her.
Having finally a decent and constant Internet connection, we got lost in Google street view, seeing where Tamami lives and works in Tokyo and showing her all the beautiful murals of Sherbrooke. To our big surprise, when we showed her where I worked downtown, we saw Francis, Raphael and Dominic, three of my coworkers taking a break outside while the Google van took those pictures. Get back to work you slackers! We’re not paying you to sit around in the sun!
We also met this hippy chick who suggested we do like her and find a nice house in the suburbs in which to live. And by nice house, she meant one owned by rich businessmen who do not actually live there and where you just have to cross a couple of wires to get free power, free gas and free telephone. She’s been staying at the same place that way for the past two years. Her advice: live comfortably, but always be ready to run like the devil if the cops do finally turn up.
So all of that in one single week. No wonder we’re a bit tired these days. But it’s a welcome change of pace, and Melbourne really is a wonderful town. I think we’re going to fit in just fine.
See HER view
See His and Hers Photos
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