Sydney. Part III.

After waking at the very early time of 6:53 am, I rushed to open the blinds to see my amazing morning view. Because I am very particular, I requested the highest floor possible. Though I was given the highest floor possible, my view was that of the laneway situated behind the hotel. Irate at having to look at the other side of an Asian shopping complex, I dressed for my second and last day in this amazing city. However, my top had a dirty mark on it, and I had ruined my other one spilling very delicious choc-mint ice cream on it in Circular Quay the previous evening. This meant I had to wear the skirt I wore when I arrived. I was most displeased by how my day was fashioning itself.

I wandered down for breakfast, the quality of which in no way reflected the exorbitant price I paid for it. A bowl of coco-pops, a glass of orange juice and a serving of fruit later, I went back to bed until check-out time, just to get my money's worth. After a long and painful checking-out process where all manner of rude travellers pushed in front of me to check-out, I left the hotel. I gave many a well-deserved look of scorn and the hotel presented me with a complimentary bag-minding service for the trouble they caused me. This brightened my mood marginally. I decided that first stop was more coffee, so I returned to The Workshop because I knew it would not let me down. However, this time, I hoped that Attractive Barista on the Left wouldn't catch my eye, because I definitely did not want to be seen in the same skirt I was wearing the previous morning. Oh the shame of that!

It was time to do more sightseeing. I went straight to Government House in the Botanic Gardens but was greeted with a sign that read,

HOUSE CLOSED
NO PUBLIC ACCESS.

This was indeed a nuisance. However, it did give me ample time to check out the Rupert Bunny exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the Domain. Rupert Bunny was an Australian artist residing in Paris at the turn of the 20th Century who led a moderately successful and cosmopolitan lifestyle.From the early stages of the exhibit right to the end, one gets the impression that he never fully understood what he was painting. He fleetingly dabbles in several different styles, from traditional mythical scenes, impressionism, even something oddly resembling fauvism, but never quite successfully depicting anything convincingly. His work seemed so contrived (please don't point out that all artwork is essentially contrived, his just seemed, for want of a better word, phony), a feeling probably resulting from the fact he was merely a humble Australian living in Paris. It is of my opinion that he was living the lifestyle for the glitz and glamour, rather than for the satisfaction artists get from their art, through depicting the impression of a sunrise over a river perfectly, or the truth hidden behind a subject's eyes in a portrait. My belief that his works were artificial were confirmed, when on display was one of his notebooks. Within, he had quickly sketched the outline of a landscape, and used numbers in each mountain, with a key to the side for what colour paint would represent what number. He literally coloured-by-number, which is ten times worse than your standard colouring in. Had he actually worked en plein air like his contemporaries, he may have been able to capture the essence of a scene rather than something resembling a colouring-in book.

Yet this is not to say it was all bad. In fact, his portraits were rather good. They, like all good portraits, were honest in that they were able to depict some sort of truth about the subject. For instance, his close friend Dame Nellie Melba's singing was closer to unbridled warbling than singing, yet this is not to say she wasn't a very powerful person. Bunny's portrait shows her as strong and fierce, and a force to be reckoned with, which she probably was. Likewise, his works of women are sufficiently acceptable. His intention was most likely to depict the French belle époque, but instead has just painted women looking beautiful and perfectly subservient as they sit lost in thought, or feed swans, or nap in their finery, or put lipstick on after a bath, or smell roses, or lounge around with their friends asleep in the nude. They were definitely his depictions of the feminine ideal, for not one looks like the nagging homewrecker she probably was. Rupert Bunny was definitely a pompous chauvinist (ignoring the fact he had what looked to be a very beautiful and intelligent wife as seen in the numerous portraits he painted of her) who created bullshit at its finest.

Upon leaving the art gallery, I encountered the one highlight of the day. There was an installation outside the gallery by a Japanese artist, Tatzu Nishi whose work War and Peace and In Between used the two statues situated outside the gallery by Gilbert Bayes, The Offerings of War and The Offerings of Peace in a really interesting way. He surrounded the statues with two domestic environments, which was totally unexpected! If you want a word to adequately describe the sensation one gets as they enter the environment, it's AWESOME. Later, I tried to interpret the works; why the room with The Offerings of War happened to be a couple's bedroom, and what this could possibly symbolise, while The Offerings of Peace was a living room. But I didn't get very far in my interpretations because quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered. The sheer reaction of the viewer was reason enough for it to exist as 'art'.

From here, I rang my father to see what his opinion of Rupert Bunny was, and he appropriately said, "Oh who was he again... Wasn't he neither one thing or the other?" Yes Father. That was him, and it is responses like that which makes me proud to call you my father. On his ordering, I went to have coffee in Hyde Park because that's what we once did in 2005 and it was nice, so one would assume it would be nice again. Assume differently. I should've trusted my instincts, for any place with a name as pretentious as The Quattro is certain to be a failure. And it was. In fact, one of the Ts were missing in 'Quattro.' The over-zealous staff were decked out in their Segafredo finery, as was the entire restaurant. The freaking logo was everywhere, which only screams Crap as far as I'm concerned. I ordered a regular cappuccino and a serving of apple crumble with ice cream as I attempted to settle down to more Steppenwolf. Instead of Apple Crumble and Ice Cream I was given some form of (cold) strudled apple with icing sugar, and fresh cream which is not what I was after. Instead of a regular cappuccino, I was presented with some form of tepid dishwashing detergent with froth on top. This "coffee" was not coffee by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't even taste like a bad coffee for it did not, in any way, taste like coffee. The fact that it would've been no hotter that 50 degrees celsius at the most was just the icing on the cake. I would've demanded another, hotter, one with the hope that they would actually use coffee this time instead of cyanide, but three ladies had just shown up unnecessarily excited for their long-awaited reunion as they had not seen each other for - shock horror - one year. They were crying and laughing and crying some more and it made me throw up a little (or that may have been my "coffee" and "crumble") and I was out of there as soon as possible. It's a bit of a shame, with it's gorgeous sandstone building and position right on Hyde Park, The Quattro had an awful lot of potential.

I decided to find a better coffee shop, and thought fashionable Martin Place would help me. Instead, there were countless business men and women in their fine Italian suits but not much in the way of coffee. Eventually, I was walking past some shop that was called Vella Nero and even had the nerve to have a slogan which was, get this, Coffee couture... Seriously, what the fuck is that. Couture is a French word - note, not Italian - and it refers to sewing, in particular, high-end fashion. Now this café was run by three young very not French (or Italian) women who clearly did not know what they were talking about. Anyway, I decided to enter this unfathomably pretentious place in order to see whether their coffee was as good as they kept saying it was, and to experience this "coffee couture" bullshit. I ordered a felafel wrap which one of the three young not-French women very kindly toasted for me without my approval. The result was a mushy mess of chick peas in a hard casing I only ate half of because it was quite repulsive. I also ordered a regular latte. The coffee was not bad. But it was definitely not good either. It tasted like water, and sat half-full when I left. First impressions are very important, and it is clear that the three bogan women who run this place realise this. This is why my latte came out with copious amounts of superfluous and highly pretentious latte art. Latte art is not necessary for it does not suggest that the barista is accomplished and it certainly not does make the latte taste any better. This was very much the case for this coffee. It also had about 75 mm of froth which I think is definitely not enough. Fail latte.

Upon leaving, I noticed that all over the front window were articles about the awards for coffee these three intolerable ladies had won. For instance, in May 2008, they won a Gold Medal award at the Sydney Royal Show. This suggests that a) Sydney does not know what is required for a good coffee and the award was completely undeserved, or b) the award was deserved because their coffee was the best of a bad lot. Whichever way you look at it, it doesn't reflect very highly on Sydney's coffee 'culture.' In an interview regarding this unlikely win, the question is asked "There are so many coffee places in Sydney (Where??). What sets you apart?" to which one of the stupid sisters replies, "We're probably the only place in the CBD with an on-site roaster. Sydney really leads the way world-wide for coffee (HAHAHAHA!!) so people here know a good cup from a bad one. That's why our reputation has grown." If this place is the best in Sydney, I definitely would hate to see the worst.

After this disastrous day, I decided it was time to go home, four hours before my flight was due to leave. Leaving Sydney as I entered the steaming hot Central station, I thought that the city smelt like an old, filthy, obese woman without any teeth or deodorant on a 45 degree day, swimming in a pool of off milk. So with that smell attacking my face as I fled, I went to the airport to spend the next few hours partaking in my new favourite past time: watching planes take off and land.



Note: just because I played in an orchestra with you for several years, it does not make us friends. You were a second violin, I was a cello. We were in different circles. I don't even know your name. So just because we happen to be in the same stationary shop in the same interstate airport at the same time, it does not mean we need to talk about it. When we spotted each other on the escalator in Frankston the other day, we didn't talk. It was better like that.