Wednesday 31 January 2018

Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse. . . aka Urban Disappointment

Blood Moon Eclipse, Melbourne, Vic. AU. T. Lindley, 31 January 2018
We were so excited when we found out that we'd be in the southern hemisphere. . .in Melbourne, Victoria, no less. . .for the Full Moon (blood moon) lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018. That excitement  has become a sort of a cautionary tale, for better or worse.

Let me explain.

We live in a carriage house in back of a 130-year old residence on Park Street, across from The Royal Park, in Brunswick, Victoria. Brunswick is analogous to, say Chevy Chase, Maryland. It's the first suburb north of the city proper of Melbourne, as Chevy Chase is to D.C. Unlike the Maryland region, though, our place is completely surrounded by 3 to 5- story apartment buildings. The structure we live in is 2 stories tall, and the courtyard is small.

Long story short, we can't see the moon. Ever. We can barely see any stars. Ever.

Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely flat. Roomy, has a decent kitchen, a comfortable bed, a piano (for goodness sake!), and easily enough room on the patio for our two bicycles, Her Majesty and Samson. But we can't see the night sky. I know that seems a small complaint, but I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I was that we couldn't see the full moon replete with eclipse. I told John that this will be a requirement when/if we buy another home. He agrees. We did walk over to the Royal Park and have a look at the moon. It was actually quite cold (50'sF), so we couldn't stay for too long, and honestly, I was tired. So we saw the beautiful full moon, but not the eclipse, and not from our own space, and not for long.

Now. On one hand, I think we should all be modest in our space requirements. If the population continues to grow and grow and grow, we need to all be able to squeeze in. But honestly, this simply doesn't feel natural to me. Or healthy. We'll see if I get used to it. Or maybe, as inhabitants of this planet, we should make an honest effort to slow our reproduction? What an idea. Thanks to Mr. Lindley for posting this image on the internet.

Monday 29 January 2018

Rain, Bluster and Cooling. . . .

Last night was beyond sweet. After a long bit of very hot weather, a front came through, bringing wind, rain and cooler temperatures. The high today was around 20C (68F). It. Was. Wonderful. When the rain let up a bit, John and I decided to go for a walk in the Royal Park, across the street from our home here. There was still a light wind, and a little rain, so we brought our umbrellas. An aside: The umbrella, I think,is right up there with the bicycle in terms of being inventions that we, as a species, should be proud of.

Those of you from Boise will know that smell that the sagebrush covered foothills get after a long-overdue rain. The Eucalypts, like the ones pictured, get a very similar, though even more overwhelming smell after a rain. They are such remarkable trees. They have this exfoliating bark, reminiscent of Crepe Myrtles (in fact, the Eucalytpts are in the Myrtacea (Myrtle) family. According to Wikipedia, Australia has over 90 species of Eucalypts, and the ones in Royal Park are quite common. Still working on the exact species. The leaves are olive or willow-like, and below is an image of a branch that fell during the storm. Beautiful, isn't it?

So we had this lovely cool day, and I decided to spend it tooling around the area, looking for a yarn store and a clay studio.

Voila. Successful on both fronts, and the folks at both were wonderfully friendly. I can start at the clay studio any time (though I've yet to figure out how or if I'll bring any work home), and the yarn ladies invited me to join their knitting group on Saturdays and/or the local spinners group! All lovely. Here's an interesting thing about folks in Melbourne. I had initially though that people were quite stand-offish. Certainly, few make any eye contact, God forbid smile on the street. But here's the thing. As soon as you connect. . .be it a bartender, a shoe salesperson, a yarn lover or a potter, they are warm as toast. Honestly, I have been so welcomed in that situation. Just takes some patience and figuring-out.




Sunday 28 January 2018

Now. About that tree. . .



 I know you haven't all been hanging on every word of this blog, so I thought I'd include this image of the mystery tree down by the Melbourne Dockyards from my previous post on www.LouiseLeaps.wordpress.com. Such a conundrum. It had a certain familiarity about it At first I thought it was a Norfolk Island Pine, but the needles are scale-like. Then I remembered, from a decades old Plant ID class a plant called the Monkey Puzzle Tree. But that wasn't quite right, either. THEN, I realized that the Family for that tree probably was correct, and here's the oddest thing of all. I Remembered the Family name. Araucariaceae. How nuts is that?

I had asked folks, found it sadly unlabeled in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, searched books in the library, and finally I did the sensible thing. I went online. I've narrowed it down to Araucaria as a genus, and it is very likely either Araucaria columnarus, also called Cook's Pin.  However. The variation in morphology of the images on the web are sort of astonishing. Still.

I'm not sure why I'm so anxious to identify it. It is a remarkable life form, and my knowing or not knowing it's genus and species hardly matters. Ray Chambers, a long gone colleague from Penn State, once opened a book of her drawings by dedicating it to her parents. . .her Father who taught her the names of plants, and her mother, who taught her to love them, unnamed.

The orderly tiers of the branches do inspire wonder, don't they?

One last note: Below is the Monkey Puzzle tree, a close relative, and reason for me to feel slightly less daft than usual. Araucaria araucana.







27 January. Another hot day, and our first trip to the movie theater

And also some catching up. S, this is Melboune's equivalent of Freak Alley, though I don't think it's officially sanctioned like Freak Alley has become. Always a little disappointing to get permission, isn't it?
 To the left are our bicycles coming in from the rain on Australia Day. Mine is named Her Majesty, John's is Samson (the name printed on him, and also the shop we purchased them from). Her Majesty is cooler in a retro way, though Samson is much faster and lighter.

And M, since you asked, here's an image of our local library. . I spent a couple of hours there looking through books on local flora, but it's a pretty small collection. I'll need to go to the CBD to the central library for more in-depth information, I expect.  Oh! And they don't have "audio books" here. They have "talking books". So much more awesome.

As the title of this post suggests, we did brave the 41C (107F) weather yesterday to navigate via bus and streetcar (have I said how great the public transportation is?) to the Cinema Nova, what turned out to be a very chic, cool massive set of movie theaters. I mean "cool" in the temperature wayf AND the awesome way. Again. So hot. I have either become a serious heat weenie, or it is really miserably so here. Not always, but often enough. The theater was tres modern. There's a beautiful foyer where you can get no end of exquisite pastries. You can buy a dinner theater or just a theater ticket. We did the latter, and then had wine and a snack afterward in the on-site bar. We definitely want to try the dinner/movie bit on another trip.

As has happened several times, I am a little dismayed by the extent of American influence on the culture here. It feels like it's more responsibility than I'd like to have. I'd estimate that 15 of the 20 movies being shown were American. Many I could see at The Flicks in Boise. John wanted to go to an Australian film, which I was all for until I say the trailer, which looked too violent for my current state of mind. Sigh. We will see ot. I just have to have some time to gird my loins! By the way, we saw The Shape of Water. I can see what all the excitement is about. . . .






26 January. Australia Day

The site of the Harbor in downtown Melbourne is an inspiring one, of course, but the Australians are full of conflict regarding the day the correlates with our 4th of July, Australia Day. I had thought it was the day the Captain Cook discovered the existence of this continent (like our Columbus Day), and hence the angst about their historically bad treatment of the indigenous peoples. Just like the European Americans, right? We all have plenty to be embarrassed about. But it's different. Australia Day celebrates the day the First Fleet landed in Botany Bay (Sydney) to establish their first prison colony. Even more conflicting, right? Here's a link to what happened on that day in 2018:



The Aussies who want to change the day call it "Invasion Day". Not to put to fine a point on it.

Sometimes it seems that white people have no end to their bad behavior. John and I had been advised to avoid the CBD, and we did so. If you watch the video above, you'll see why we were glad we did. Instead, we explored, via bicycle, Royal Park. The afternoon got hot again (but only up to about 36F. . .about 100F), so we retired to our home here, and eventually got to see water. . . a good bit of it. . .fall from the sky from our view on our patio.

It was beautiful. We haven't heard that sound of a steady rainfall for hours, complete with thunder grumbling in the distance, for quite some time.

As for Australia Day, the experience is still steeping. Coincidentally (or maybe not so much), I picked up a book in a downtown bookstore called "Why I'm no longer talking White People about Race" , by Reni Eddo-Lodge. I've been trying, for a while now, to better articulate my feelings about this. This seemingly invisible privilege I've enjoyed my whole life. It's not that I haven't worked hard. . .maybe more than most. . or taken risks or even suffered. It's just that, in D's words, the way has been cleared to me. Often in ways that I couldn't even detect. It's hard to get one's head around, but as always, trying to grow. . .
 

Wednesday 24 January 2018

Things I love about Melbourne. . .

As a jam maker, I think this is such an amazing idea. Sugar for making jam. It already has the pectin added. And it's only slightly more expensive. It suggests that a bigger segment of the population is interested in making jam, right?

Aspects of our adjustment here have been difficult. Everything is So Much more expensive than we had expected, and then I succumbed to some stomach/perhaps food poisoning thing. Me, of the iron stomach. Good for building character, though right?

But there are also many many wonderful things about Melbourne, and I suspect Australia in general. So I thought I'd document some of them.

  • The transportation system. Trams are frequent and easy to use
  • The number of folks who ride their bicycles
  • The Melbourne Botanical Gardens 
  • The very public way they are addressing their celebration of Australia Day (more on that tomorrow, which IS Australia Day!)
  • Fresh bread and pastries everywhere
  • Pasties (meat and veg hand-pies). . I developed a love of these in the UK, and they're easy to find here, too.
  • Generous water for showers
  • Lots of public spaces
  • How things that are not-so-good for you (think cookies, soda) are sold in smaller quantities, and taxed, whereas food that is good for you is not taxed
  • The lack of obesity (see bullet above)
  • The Australian accent, in it's abundant variety!
  • The number of accents and languages you hear when walking down the street
  • The number of shades of flesh and brown skin colors seen everywhere
  • The weather, mostly. Except for a couple of 42C (107F) days, it's been beautiful. And like Boise, it reliably cools off at night
  • The kindness of people in shops and restaurants who wait on you.
  • The fact that waiters don't expect to be tipped, and that they receive a living wage.
  • A health care system for all citizens



Tuesday 23 January 2018

Bicycling still rocks when you're almost in your mid-x's. . .



 First, I'm so sorry about the change in blog address. It was a combination of my own stupidity (not realizing I had created a new wordpress identity, rather than merely changed my email address), and wordpress's lack of desire to help me. Ok. And be aware that you can NOT delete a wordpress account once created, even though it's easy to delete a blog. WTF?

It was, however,  a nice opportunity to change the title of the Blog. While it Is about "Academics Down Under", John has his own blog (https://boisestategreenguy.wordpress.com), and I really wouldn't want to presume to speak for him. Naturally.

Anyway! On to the very positive development of us getting our bicycles. Are they sweet, or what? While the whole riding-on-the-left-side is a little stressful, we're getting it. . J more so than I, since he's biking to work daily. Yesterday, on the way home, he noticed that there was a huge film crew set up in Royal Park. Our landlord, B, thinks that it's a shooting of Miss Fisher's Detective Agency. 

Between the bicycles and the tram, we're well set to explore the city. We plan to rent a car in mid-late February to drive The Great Ocean Road, which everyone from natives to friends who have visited here have said is a must-do. Yesterday afternoon we explored a bike path that runs north-south, taking it North, which has been a little under-explored, since the Central Business District (CBD) is South of us. So much to see and experience. ;I could only get sort of odd angles on this church without stepping into the street. Which is busy with bikes, cars and pedestrians. The number of bicycles, by the way, is astonishing. And when it's rush hour, Stay Out Of The Way. Most bicycle like it's an Olympic trial. They are fast, serious, and seemingly unstoppable. When we were riding home on the bike trail yesterday (off street, asphalt), there were literally dozens of bicyclists in spandex flying in the oncoming lane like bats out of hell. Very focused. I am TOTALLY the little old lady with the commuter-with-basket. Ha! They haven't met the other Louise-that-B---- yet.
 

Almost 2 years later. . .

26 June 2020 We found ourselves in the frenzied housing market of summer 2018 when we returned, so of course, we bought a house. After a...