It puts the lotion on its skin

It rained all night, leaving the air outside smelling fresh and delightful (like Febreeze without the chafing and the burning).  If they could bottle the intoxicating green smell of Australia, I’d bathe in it.

It’s the little things in life that make me happy; like watching the flowers I planted last Sunday grow.  I get really excited for this sort of thing.

Really excited.

Probably TOO excited.

Because my first batch responded so well, I decided to try my hand at some sage, sweet mini peppers (squee!), a philodendron and an ivy cutting I yoinked from campus.  I really just want a puppy.

In completely unrelated news, Viagra will turn you into a “sex monster”, a delightfully spicy article from Bitch, a beautifully argued post from Neuroanthropology (part one & part two) and just for you Mark, give Palin a break? TeH interwebs = yummy.

There is nothing sexier then a man who knows his way around a kitchen.

Speaking of yum, I tore through Hannibal Rising (shut up) last Friday afternoon after spending hours reading journal articles at the library.  It served its purpose as a quick, mindless read but got me thinking again about the appeal of Hannibal Lecter.

I’ll admit it.  I had a huge crush on the fictional Lecter in high school (what does that say about me?

Wait, don’t answer that) and I even composed an original piece about him for the forensics team of which I was a member.  Ahhhh, young love.

Well, maybe there's one thing that is sexier.

(See also: Christian Bale in American Psycho.)

There are innumerable web-sites that deal with all manner of “Lecterphillia” including sites that cater exclusively to adult-themed Hannibal material.  People are out there and they love this stuff.  Why?  What makes Hannibal Lecter so damn hot?

NPR’s All Things Considered (god how I miss thee) touches briefly on the subject, and a quick Google search didn’t yield much in the way of “academically sound” literature. Granted, I didn’t get very far into said search (“Oh, deleted scene?  Hannibal licking steering wheel?  Oh errrmm…”) and I don’t think my travel blog is the appropriate venue for this discussion, BUT – it is interesting none the less.

At any rate, stay tuned for more photos of my growing house plants as my social life degenerates into nothingness.

Sydney

Today marked the first day that I wasn’t walking around totally confused, so I decided to make a little day trip to Sydney proper and check out what there was to see.

Wyoming Building

There may or may not have been a tattoo shop on the agenda…

My little suburb of Marsfield is $15.00, a bus, a train and 45 minutes to an hour from Sydney’s Central Station.  Central Station is the largest train station in Australia, serving as the main hub of suburban, interstate and intercity exchange. The station dumps outgoing passengers into the heart of Sydney:

Tall buildings are pretty much the balls

"Gloves. Corsets. Costumes." Glorious.

From Central Station it’s a 20 minute walk north to Hyde Park. Hyde Park was once the playing and sports field for all manner of characters in the early days of the colony. Today, it serves as a green little bit of joy between the towering skyscrapers of the Sydney Business district.

Hyde Park

Artemis - my favourite.

Hyde Park is also home to the Art-Deco Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) War Memorial with well-known sculpture by Rayner Hoff.  Interestingly enough, there was some considerable controversy over the statue’s nudity – said to be the only statue in war memorial history to showcase male genitalia (gasp!).

Memorial with reflection pool

Detail of memorial wall

Hoff's Sacrifice

Continuing north you cant help but notice St. Mary’s Cathedral – made recently famous by this year’s World Youth Day and the Pope’s public apology for the molestation of children in Australia.

Soaring spires

Don’t worry – there’s not going to be some scathing generalization regarding Christianity made here.  Yet.

Now, I’m not a religious person by any means, but I certainly can appreciate the human ingenuity and craftsmanship that goes into cathedral architecture.  Granted, anything with sweeping architecture reminiscent of wings makes me giddy.

Potentially offensive aside: It would have been really neat to find a Benedict XVI dashboard bobble head in the gift shop.  I even mouthed along to the Lord’s Prayer while I took covert pictures during mass!  (Going.  To.  Hell.)  Moving on:

Sultry, isn't it?

To the north of St. Mary’s you’ll find the Hyde Park Barracks Museum, a fascinating tour through was was the original convict barracks in the 1800’s, housing men sent to the colony as laborers.  Since then the building has been used for a number of public purposes including immigration (“A place for the friendless female”) and asylum. Recently converted into a museum, it is still under some archaeological study.  This month featured a rather large exhibit on the convict hulks – huge retired war-ships used as floating prisons for Britain’s overflowing convicts.  Granted, stealing a horse might cost you 14 years of hard labor in a colony.  I had no idea these ships even existed (I told you, *a rock*) and it was a really neat exhibit.  I totally tried on the ankle irons.  I was also profoundly amused at the depiction of a convict on the exhibit hand out – not because I found it inaccurate, but because I thought the guy was smoking hot.

Maybe it's the jaunty little cap.

Quick non-offensive aside: You can see a clock there at the top of the building with the name “Macquarie” on it. You’ll see this name all around Sydney and New South Wales. Why? Thank Major-General Lachlan Macquarie (and for all of you stickler linguists out there; “Lachlan MacGuaire”) the first and defining governor of New South Wales in the early 1800’s, credited for a crucial hand in shaping Australian society as it is today. My university takes its name from his as well as Macquarie lighthouse, Australia’s first, which is also part of the university crest.

Barracks - note the name on the clock

20 minutes north of Hyde Park brings you to the the Palace and the Royal Botanic Gardens.  The gardens are huge, sprawling and offer a very good view of the harbour and Sydney skyline.

Downtown Sydney (represent!)

The gardens have been around since 1816 and take up 30 hectares of space at Farm Cove and Sydney Harbour (or something like that – I’m still a off on the geography of the harbour proper).  I was astounded by the scope of the place and haven’t seen that much green since the Butchart gardens of Canada.  Also, it’s free to get in and this makes for a happy Dirt Warrior.  I found it amusing that the large “domain” surrounding the Royal Gardens proper once served as a “buffer zone” from the convict rabble for the higher-ups who lived there in the 1800’s.  The scoundrals!

The gardens also house a very unique (for these desert bred eyes) animal – the grey-faced flying fox.  I thought they were wonderfully adorable and spent some considerable time arguing with myself about the pros and cons of taking one home with me.

Adorable. And possibly riddled with incurable disease.

Now, I want you all to hitch up your britches because now I’m going to release the big guns.

Wait for it…

Wait...

Wait for it…

Wait...

Sydney Opera House!

OPERA HOUSE!!!!111!!one!!!1

And Harbour Bridge

So ended my day of fun and frolic in Sydney.  I hope you all enjoyed it with me!