Thanks for the memories.

My final two days in Australia have been washed out, but no matter.  This has been a great trip, filled with amazing, unforgettable experiences.

A "Big Day" in Adelaide

Squint and you can see The Killers onstage

After a day of tennis in Melbourne, I flew to Adelaide in South Australia for "Big Day Out," a yearly touring music festival.  Although much of the crowd was there to see the headlining Red Hot Chili Peppers, there was a good mix of musical acts catering to various tastes.  There were two main stages for the big acts, and smaller stages for the newer groups and hip hop acts.

When I arrived, American bluesman Gary Clark Jr. was already onstage.

The crowd sang along with Vampire Weekend.  

I headed inside and checked out Donald Glover a.k.a. Childish Gambino (the name alone is brilliant).  Who knew that an actor on Community would turn out to be a respectable rapper?  

I headed back outside to the main stages to hear my favorite band of the show, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, fronted by the terrific Karen O.

Lesser bands need to bow down!  Here's their song Zero:

I went back inside and saw B.o.B. and backup dancers.

The crowd loved Crystal Castles, who did their set in silhouette with backlighting and strobe lights.

  

The night ended with Red Hot Chili Peppers.  

Next up, back to Sydney!

The Australian Open: Tennis Time!

I love tennis.  It was the first sport I learned to play (thanks dad!) and even though my dreams of playing competitively ended in junior high, I love watching matches and hitting the court when I get a chance.  Getting to the Australian Open has been a goal of mine for a long time.  But first, I had to make my way from Sydney to Melbourne









Just after we landed in Melbourne, our plane passed by an Airbus A380 with the Qantas livery.  It's the largest passenger airliner in the world, and my inner nerd would love to take a flight in this giant plane.

After I settled into my hotel, I woke up early the next morning and caught a taxi to Melbourne Park, the complex housing the Australian Open and other sports venues.  Melbourne Park is situated on the other side of the Yarra River, which cuts through Melbourne.  Historically, winners of the Australian Open jump into the river to celebrate.

The two main stadiums are Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena.  Between them are food stands, activities for kids, shops, and practice courts.

Before I went into Rod Laver Arena, I checked out the practice courts.  They provide a great opportunity for the general public to get up close to the players.

 I saw new sensation Sloane Stephens, who beat Serena Williams in yesterday's quarterfinals.

I also saw Maria Sharapova, who is taller and more athletic in person than her frilly Nike outfits would suggest.












Here's Li Na (my early pick as a possible winner), hitting against her husband, with her coach Carlos Rodriguez watching in the background.

A wheelchair player was practicing groundstrokes on one of the outer courts

Here's Nadia Petrova preparing for her mixed doubles match.  I think she's one of the best players to have never won a slam in singles.  

It was a very hot morning in Melbourne, so the misting machines were a welcome sight. 

I made my way into Rod Laver Arena.  It's a smaller, more intimate space than Arthur Ashe stadium (the main show court at the US Open)  All of the seats have good, unobstructed views of the court.  The pricing of the seats is based on distance to the court and whether there is shade -- the stadium has a retractable roof, which helps cool the stadium on sunny days.

Rod Laver Arena, as seen from my seat

The first scheduled match was a men's doubles  semifinal match.  American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won in three sets.  Great job guys!  They did their traditional chest bump at the end.











Next up was Li Na and Maria Sharapova.  Maria had been demolishing her earlier opponents (including a resurgent Venus Williams).  But Li Na had Maria on the run with terrific flat groundstrokes.  Li Na has a history of choking under pressure, but not today.  Here's match point:

The Chinese fans boisterously waved flags in support of Li Na.














Next up was the number one seed, Victoria Azarenka, versus Sloane Stephens.  Before the match started, I spotted in the players' box Redfoo from LMFAO (Azarenka's boyfriend).   He's the guy in yellow with the giant afro and glasses.

Who is Redfoo, you might ask?  You've seen him before.  He's behind this catchy foolishness:

As I suspected would happen, Azarenka overpowered Stephens -- it seemed like Stephens wasn't ready for the moment.  Stephens is obviously talented -- she has a great ability to construct points -- but she was unable to capitalize on chances to win points in the first set and lost it 6-1.    But in the second set, she started putting more pressure on Azarenka.  She even saved 5 match points at 5-3.  Azarenka tthen took a very suspicious medical timeout -- it didn't look like anything was wrong with her.  I think it's poor sportsmanship to take a medical timeout just to make the nervous, less experienced player sweat it out.  Azarenka broke Stephens serve in the next game to win the match.  Azarenka's a terrific player, but she abused the rules in my opinion.






After the match, I headed back down to the practice courts, where I saw Spaniard David Ferrer preparing for his match against Novak Djokovic.



It was a great day of tennis all around!

Crossfit and Commerce

In my hasty packing effort, I failed to pack enough workout clothes.  No problem -- Sydney's CBD (the central business district) has great shopping.  After hitting up the local Adidas store yesterday, I walked by the Reserve Bank of Australia.  It has a small museum with an exhibition about Australia's currency.  Since I can't walk past a museum without going in, I checked it out.  It's easy to forget that Australia is a very young country -- the various British colonies didn't unite until 1901.  During the pre-federal period, the colonies used a mix of foreign currencies, promissory notes, and paper money issues by individual banks.



Australia began printing its own national currency in 1913. Between the period of the 1950 through the 1970s, Australia moved from pounds and shillings to a decimal system of dollars and cents.  America wins again!  Australian currency went through many design changes, and now its a colorful polymer-based paper designed to thwart counterfeiters.  There are little windows in the bills, which are pretty nifty.

Afterwards I walked by Occupy Sydney, which has a small stand nearby.  I guess their priorities are a bit different than their Wall Street brethren.

After some more exploring, I finished my day off at a restaurant called Sailor Thai, where I enjoyed a delicious salmon dish.  It was minty and very spicy -- both refreshing and sinus clearing.

The next day, I took a taxi into the depths of Sydney for an introductory crossfit class at Crossfit Sydney.  Several of my friends have joined the crossfit craze, so I wanted to see what the fuss was for myself.  After a basic movement lesson, Andrew, the owner, kicked my butt in 12 minutes with three rounds of push ups, sit ups, and three different types of squats.  I was left a sweaty mess.

Time for a nap.

Totally random observation of Australian television -- all during the Australian Open, the local sports channel has been showing a sports bra commercial.  Am I really juvenile for finding this incredibly humorous?

Art and Nightclubbing

Listen to a little Grace Jones as you read this post...

I love museums, so I woke up early to check out Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.  The museum featured an exhibition of the works of sculptor Anish Kapoor.  The big mirror in the front of the building is one of Kapoor's pieces.

Although I love many works of modern art, I often find them difficult to appreciate, particularly when I'm unsure of the message the artist is attempting to convey.  I think Kapoor is less devoted to pieces as work to be admired (e.g., a bust or statue); instead he is ostensibly more interested in the relationship of the viewer to space the space he or she inhabits, and the art helps the viewer appreciate the space.  Hence, much of Kapoor's work uses mirrors or are oversized.

The museum is a great space to display art.  There are four levels, with a cafe and a restaurant for hungry visitors.  In addition to the Kapoor exhibit, there were pieces by Australian, European, American, and African artists.

After I left the museum, I wandered around nearby Circular Quay and encountered an Aboriginal man playing a didgeridoo:  

Afterwards, I popped into a tasty Indian Restaurant, India Quay, for some chicken vindaloo.  Sydney has a great restaurant scene.  I checked out the local movie theater and watched an afternoon showing of "Life of Pi".

After going for a run and some dinner, I walked to Oxford Street, about 25 minutes from my hotel by foot.  Oxford Street is one of the main nightlife areas in the city.  I ended up dancing until 5:00 am.  I'm intent on seeing all of the Sydney, including its nightlife.  But I was feeling a bit rough the next morning!

On Sunday, Sydney slows down.  The tourist areas still have lots of traffic though, so I checked out the Sydney Tower, one of the city's main attractions.  It is over 300 meters tall and it provides some terrific panoramic views.

Blue Mountains

In contrast to yesterday's free-form sightseeing, today I took a guided tour of the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney.  A tour bus picked me up at 7:30 am.  After our group was gathered, we made our way to the Featherdale Wildlife Park in the Sydney suburbs.

WTF?

On our way there, we saw "Rubber Duck" in Darling Harbor by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.  According to our guide, Hofman's intention was only to make people smile.  It worked.  I chuckled when I saw the giant rubber duck.

The major appeal of the Featherdale Wildlife Park is the ability to interact with koalas and kangaroos.  The koalas were way more interested in munching eucalyptus leaves than hanging out with the human visitors.

I do admire their devotion to sleep.


















A black-necked stork gave me the evil eye.

The kangaroos were very friendly (food handouts foster good behavior).

After seeing the dingoes (which are wild dogs), all my thoughts went to Seinfeld:

Emus!














A hungry croc.












After checking out the wildlife, we drove to the Blue Mountains.  The mountains were formed from eroded sandstone.

The most famous rock formations in the area are the Three Sisters.  According to Aboriginal legend, three sisters named Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo, who were turned to stone by a tribal elder to protect them after they were captured by a rival tribe.  The elder was killed, but no one knew how to change them back.  Too bad for them...

We took a couple of tram rides down to the forest floor below.















We explored the forest floor.  The trees provided a welcome respite from the summer sun and heat.

I made friends with tourists from France and Argentina.  Communication was a bit of a challenge.

Before leaving the Blue Mountain area, we stopped in town.  One of my grandmothers would have appreciated the local teapot museum.  A museum devoted to teapots! 

The town is also quite proud of its candy store.  The Jelly Belly flavored soda caught my eye, out of disgust.  Jellybean flavored soda?  My sweet toothed sister will hate me for not bringing her back some.

We drove past Olympic Park and the Olympic Stadium.  It's a terrific venue for sport, and the Australian government had maintained the facilities well, which is fitting, since Sydney residents are devoted to sport and fitness.

 Our tour bus dropped us off at a ferry terminal for a boat ride back to Sydney

See how the other half lives -- we were able to spy on the fancy homes overlooking the water.  Cate Blanchett lives around here:

After a long day, back to the hotel for a good night of rest.