Strolling in Melbourne

Walking through  towns streets is for me the best way to get the feel of any place. I had an opportunity to get to know a little bit of Melbourne that way. It was a very attractive little bit.

What made the biggest impression on me? Perhaps the graffiti lane. Provocative and artistic. Shabby, dirty place covered by street art and messages for the passers by. We all need to share what is important to us or even things that are not particularly important. Talented people create their art that stays with us sometimes for ages. This is sharing of the highest rank. This does not mean that the rest of us can not find other, more pedestrian ways. Bloggers, including me, do it by writing their thoughts and observations. Creators of graffiti do it by painting and when this is not enough they add a written comment. Such is the Melbourne lane. One can walk and ponder.

Then, my Parisian associations made me notice The Prince’s Bridge in a particular way. To me the bridge is similar to The Pont Alexander III. Both are ornate and extravagant bridges build in about the same time, at the end of the XIX century. I was surprised to find out that the Melbourne bridge was erected earlier than its Parisian, more splendid sibling. Both bridges are named after rulers of a foreign country. The Princes Bridge is named after Edward, Prince of Wales who became King of England, Edward VII and the Parisian bridge is named after Tsar Alexander III of Russia.

           

Paris

Melbourne

My French associations continued as The Princes Bridge leads to The Art Centre that looks very much like the Eiffel Tower to me. Since my time in Paris was a very happy one, opening my eyes to so many new things, thoughts and emotions, I liked Melbourne even more for triggering off such memories.

                                       

My very favourite bridges are Pont Neuf in Paris and The Sydney Harbour Bridge. But this is another story perhaps.

Memories are perhaps a function of age or an eventful, busy life. It happens more and more frequently that I notice things taking me back some years. Like this billboard.

In my banking and IT past I worked on banks integration, IT systems integration. Two fantastic projects: Challenge Bank and Bank of Melbourne integrations with Westpac. The best projects I worked on, managed to perfect precision, like if we were to send a rocket to the moon. Daily checkpoints, scrubbing sub projects to ensure error free implementation. Coordination between sub projects had to be spotless. They were very competitive projects but I remember them also for a great camaraderie of the top management team. I loved the adrenaline rush and sense of achievement that the projects brought together with later aftermath of negative health impact. But this is perhaps another story to tell some time.  Anyhow, when I saw the Bank of Melbourne sign, my heart jumped a bit.

The modern architecture does not make such a big impression on me as the old one but there are exceptions like this one. I like it.

I also liked trees dressed in sweaters. Is it so much colder in Melbourne than in Sydney? I have knitted few things in my life but never directly on a model. I wonder how it was done and would have liked to see it.

I am sure that there a few more things to see in Melbourne, like more of the Botanical Gardens than I had already seen and things I even do not know exist. Looks like I may make another trip there one day.

Three and a half days in Melbourne – Day 1

It has been some time ago since my recent visit in Melbourne. It was in February, more than one month ago. Long time ago I intended to write my impressions or observations, I should perhaps say, but time passed and I somehow have not done it yet. Now is the time.

I have heard from many people that Melbourne has a European feel, but I never got an answer to my question – how so? After the recent visit there I am not able to answer the question myself even if I would agree with the statement that the city has a European character.  Wide pavements, trams, some vegetation greener than in Sydney… That is not that much, really. Must be more but I can not put my finger on it. It would be great if I could get some comments on the subject.

It was rather eventful three and a half days. Meeting friends I have not seen for quite some time, experiencing inner city living, Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei exhibition, Botanical Gardens, tea at Hopetoun Tea Rooms, dinner at Pomodoro Sardo Restaurant, walks in the city, graffiti lane, taste of Moroccan tagine, simple and totally Chinese lunch at the Melbourne China town... It was all fantastic.

I rather like Melbourne SkyBus service, so convenient and even not expensive. I was greeted at the city terminal by a long time no see Polish friend. We had a nice light lunch in an old fashioned (in a good way) pub/restaurant. I forgot the name, but if I am in Melbourne again, I am sure I will find the place. It has this Art Deco look, the look of solidity I have been lately positively responding to. When the lunch and a quick catch-up were done I was collected by another friend and my host for the next few days.

The place of my Melbourne friends is in the middle of the city. Modern, spacious, newly and beautifully renovated apartment on the fifteenth floor with views on the Parliament House and the St Patrick's Cathedral towers. Great place, city living at its best. In the distant past I have lived in the very centre of Warsaw and then Paris, but all my years in Australia I have lived in leafy suburbs, so I forgot how it is to step into a hustle and bustle the second you close your home door behind you. Living in the centre of a big town where so many things are happening and are available hit me by its convenience and proximity of culture and entertainment. It was just a stroll to The Arts Centre, hundreds of restaurants and coffee places and other attractions. I am an art gallery junkie, so I took the first opportunity to see the very popular with Melbournians exhibition – Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei. I never was very keen on Andy Warhol’s art, too Marilyn Monroe for me. I did not know Ai Weiwei’s art at all, but an art exhibition is an art exhibition, so I went to check out. It was a great experience, no Italian art, but art nevertheless and I liked Ai Weiwei work a lot. He is now on my radar and I will look out for his exhibitions. Since I like Chinese porcelain and Blanc de Chine is my second favourite after blue and white, I was particularly attracted to the big White Flowers composition. 

                 

                                    

I also liked the bike with flowers and walking through the various balloon rooms. This maybe was not exactly scary but I hesitated a little before entering the floating composition. Kids had plenty of squeaking fun there.

I said that there was no Italian art on display, but I found the place with exhibition of Alchemy of a Colour with colour blue as its focus and there I found Florentine pottery! I was totally happy.

Starting the post I did not expect that I will be writing it in installments, but it looks  that my Melbourne visit was packed with interesting and memorable events. So, I will continue.

In a sad mood

I am in a strange mood today. Down in the dumps, as one of my old friends used to say. Maybe it is because it is eventually raining and the temperature dropped to the rather unpleasant levels. A quick change came almost overnight. I should welcome the change and I do, but for now it helps me to justify not the best mood I am in.

Coincidently this afternoon I caught an old interview of Kerry O’Brien with Clive James. So very depressing.  Clive James who in the past put me in a good mood, uplifted my spirits and made me laugh - today he brought my spirit so far down that I have problem to shake it off. He suffers two terminal illnesses and talks about it candidly. His tries to stay his own old upbeat self, I saw as a considerable effort. This saddened me a lot and the sadness lingers on.

So many books, wonderful.

                                     

I was always a reader and considered books the way to learn about life. Was I possibly misguided? In my first months in Australia I thought that it would be good to read something Australian to prepare me for what’s ahead.  Unreliable Memoirs were my choice of Australian education. I think it was a great choice, I really loved the book. I thought that if the natives have such sense of humour as Clive James, they are really OK and I will be fine in this country. This proved a correct assumption.

At the beginning I had great problems to understand what Australians were saying. The language seemed to be somewhat funny, with a lot of question marks implied and it was spoken sooo fast. I really got depressed listening to broadcasts of horse races. I could not understand a word! At that time I did not know that most of Australians did not understand that either, unless they knew names of the horses in a particular race. It was a puzzling time and I was learning to love the country.

Back to Unreliable Memoirs. Such a great book! So funny! I remember my 343 bus rides from Double Bay to IBM offices in Rosebery balancing with the book in hand, briefcase held between my feet, handbag on my shoulder and laughing out loud from time to time. I must have really read the book in the first two or three months since my arrival to the new country as it was only a very short time we were renting the flat in Double Bay before we moved to St Ives. Boy, there were the times!

This a new better version of 343 than the one i traveled in 1979

                                

Then Clive James was on television with his Japanese stories. My sense of humour was not all that well aligned with that and I lost interest.

Many years have passed between reading Unreliable Memoirs and finding Cultural Amnesia. I bought the book somewhere in Paddington few years ago, my Mosman suburb is not too good in this type of literature.  I was surprised that Clive James wrote so many essays about Polish people of culture, science and politics. I read the Polish parts, but I have lost the book in my life travels before I read it all. Now, that Clive James appeared on my radar again it is time to get another copy.

Thank you, Clive James, for paining my first literary pictures of Australia. Thank you also for showing me four Poles from a new perspective.

Who is right?

Poland, the country I re-learned to love and learned to be proud of is rapidly changing. It worries me a lot. People sympathies are polarized. Some support the new government some dislike it. There is a lot of hatred in people against the others waiting to erupt. One may say that views are formed by listening to the wrong radio and reading wrong newspapers. The question that I started to ask myself – is there here a right and wrong at all? The philosophical weight of this question is overwhelming and I do not intend to try to answer it.

There are two things that brought me to this point of reflection. Recently, I met a Polish person, who I do not know well. We have met each other two or three times visiting an old friend of mine. In the first contacts, the lady was nice and we seemed to have similar background and things in common. We had not touched political subjects until very recently and then I realized that our views belong to two opposing ends of the political spectrum. My first reaction was a surprise that a nice person may think that way. I knew that more than half of Polish population does not think the same way as I do, but I thought…maybe I did not think at all? Now I do and I am confused. Who says I am right? There are so many things that I am not aware of, there are so many lies on both sides and I may be totally blinded by my preconceived ideas. Or is it her who is wrong? Or maybe we both are wrong?

There is a lot of talk about hate being expressed by supporters of the current government. And I hate that! This is the point; I carry hate in me as well. In the recent conversation with the lady she asked a rhetorical question: but who reads such rubbish newspapers??? My answer was – I do.  This felt like a point for me in our talk which was fast becoming a verbal duel.

I do not like behaviour of the current president and in the conversation I used an unpleasant derogatory word to describe him. After reflection, I classified it s a negative point for me. This time I was an unkind attacker in spite of me disapproving of similar behaviour by the other side.

I listened to a very talented, passionate and controversial Polish singer Maria Peszek. Her new song Modern Holocaust gives a metaphor for hatred - guns under beds of peaceful people. Hatred kills and sometimes this is not only a metaphor. Since I write my blog in English there is little point to include a song in Polish, it will not move my potential readers as it moved me. After a little fight with myself, I decided to indulge myself by including it anyhow. The song is full of foul language, and is sung in a rather delicate voice by a forty year old woman who is really a girl. This is a protest song, protest against hatred and its consequences, a powerful warning for Poles. It made me reflect, look at myself and gave me a personal warning.

                                                 

Wow, that was a serious one. 

And I will continue in the same, serious  vein after reading the article recommended by Ramana. It is a great article, very well rounded and I would recommend it to my readers.

 It has been difficult for me to realize that I must be a part of “the elite that is cut off from reality” like Civic Platform, the party I have been supporting. Having read the article, and getting the message of need to remove the hardship suffered by the big part of Polish population loud and clear, I am still against ruling the country by hatred and revenge.  There are parts of the article related to miners and shipyard workers that are moving and my whole being protests against it, but the economical changes age going through the world and there is no way to stop it. Professions disappear as there is no need for certain work any more, or the work is outsourced to other countries. Gdansk shipyard was not able to meet the current economical standards, so people lost jobs. There is no demand on Polish coal, so the miners lost jobs. This is very sad or even tragic, but promising status quo is irresponsible and untrue. Solutions need to be different.

I agree that Civic Platform committed many sins in the eight years of ruling the country. I am one of the people who are disillusioned and disappointed. Yet, many of my fellow Poles do not even realize what they could lose by having voted the new government into power.

I definitely broadened my perspective in the recent days, and sadly I do not see any solution.  Will a new good wind of change come in?

Bridge Obsession

Since the February bridge holiday, my interest in the game increased significantly. I started to play intermediate bridge and this means that I was invited to play in the room where people play bridge without a social chit chat. It suits me as silence is necessary to really concentrate and I need that to be able to recall rules and conventions I should know and remember. This is not all that easy for me, at least not yet. I came across the statement that I like very much "One of the reasons bridge continues to fascinate players all over the world is that, in order to become even sort of good at it, you have to be willing to be bad at it for a long time".

This knowledge provides me with a great excuse and encouragement when I make mistakes, and I do make them plenty. Now I know that I am on my way to play well as I am willing to play badly. Only for some time, I hope.

My Monday partner, who invited me to play with her, is a very kind lady and a good player.  She points out my mistakes from time to time and since she is doing it nicely and constructively I do not get upset about it. I just learn.

This morning I woke up realizing that I had been dreaming about the last Monday memorable bidding. I must have been re-calculating the game points just before I woke up. In reality we played slam in hearts and I was bidding it! It was a simple bidding really, we had great cards and  almost all other players landed up in a slam contract. For me, however, it was the first time to lead an auction that finished with a slam. As I could not share my emotions until the game was over (I took all tricks – grand slam), my adrenaline was going up and up in silence. When we finished I said quietly – I almost got a heart attack. Partners laughed in a friendly way. They perhaps have not played for a while with such an honest novice.

                                           

Even if it was quite an achievement for me, I understood that it was not a maximum result. We got only 20%. We should have really played grand slam in No Trumps. This would bring the maximum points with our hands. The situation must have been stored in my subconscious and in my dream I was calculating points to figure out optimal biding. My partner first bid was 1NT and this means 15 to 17 points. I had 16 points so I asked for aces. My partner had two of them and this was enough for my poor heart, so I finished the bidding with slam in hearts.  All up, there are 40 honour points so as far as I knew we were missing 9. In my dream I was trying to figure out where the missing 9 points should have been. This is kind of crazy, but great at the same time. Now when somebody asks me about my passion, I can say without hesitation – bridge!