On February 14th, I attended a performance of TURANDOT at the Sydney Opera House - what a thrill! I remember the controversy during the planning and building and now it's a modern icon with amazing acoustics. The staging was wonderful and although I am definitely not a Puccini fan, this was a dream come true - another in a long line when you think about it.
This ship is so big that it often has to dock rather far removed from the city in question - in this case, Brisbane. We docked across from the airport, had shuttle busses (as per usual) into town only this time, the ride took about 50 minutes. It gave us a chance to see the outskirts as well as the downtown - strip malls with beautiful flowering trees, lots of traffic but amazingly clean.
Downtown was busy, with the typical pedestrian zone (sound familiar?)and lots of traffic but no one seemed to be upset when the light turned red and no horn-honking. I glanced up one of the sky-scrapers and saw two window washers dangling from ropes about 30 stories up. Yikes!
What I had expected but had not seen except once were Aborigines. There was an adult male in a shop in Fremantle but none anywhere else. As an American, I expect a multi-cultural environment. My neighborhood was a mini-UN, divided only by which way we went to school: Catholic or public. But we were all shades, hues, last names and all played on the street or the school yard together.
So, I was interested to see some teenage Aborigines dancing on the street - any hip-hop group would be proud to have them. During a lull in their performance, I asked one where they had learned to dance - music videos to start but now they do their own routines and hope to take their "act" to the States to dance for JayZ or LL Cool J. I wished them the best of luck.
Then, I went to look for my perfume: "Y" from Yves St Laurent. It's not sold in the US and I had not been able to find it at any of the previous stops. That was before I met Sarah, a sales woman with the patience of a saint.
I knew the 2 products I wanted and she got them for me right away but I decided (no, I don't know why) that I needed a red lipstick. She tried about 10 different shades of red on me, patiently applying them with a brush she had to sterilize each time, then carefully removing them. In the end, I bought none of them but from her good cheer and sunny disposition, you might have thought that I had bought them all. I wish I could bottle her personality and sell it - I would have lots of money. But,I am already rich.
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