We're planning to go to Australia this year.
By planning I mean we bought Qantas tickets and have already put down money for accommodations.
I'm so overly excited...to the point of being obsessive.
I also have a lot of anxiety about the whole thing.
I'm always a bit nervous about traveling, but I think maybe this time the nervousness is more intense.
And I'm feeling horribly superstitious. That's why I keep saying things like we're planning to go to Australia rather than we're going to Australia.
It's also one of the reasons I cut back from blogging. I fear talking about it too much will jinx me, and it's hard to talk about Australia without talking about the trip.
I worry that the trip isn't going to happen. Or it will happen, but it won't be as good as the 2007 and 2009 ones.
I want it to be fantastic...close to perfect.
But what if my desire for perfection makes me too uptight and I fail to have fun? Or what if I drive Tim and Jack nuts, so much that they end up hating the holiday and hating Australia?
I'm anxious about posting this.
Will I be jinxing myself?
Or am I close to being mentally deranged and posting this is a step in my recovery?
Anyway.....
Yesterday I was thinking of time.
I thought about how I wished the time leading up to our trip would go by super fast. (I want to be in Australia NOW).
I want the time on the airplane to go by even faster.
Then I want our time in Australia to go by extremely slow. I want our few weeks there to feel like a lifetime.
Well...uh...I mean in a good way. I don't want us stuck out in the bush somewhere—hot and thirsty, feeling like each torturous minute is an hour. That would suck.
By planning I mean we bought Qantas tickets and have already put down money for accommodations.
I'm so overly excited...to the point of being obsessive.
I also have a lot of anxiety about the whole thing.
I'm always a bit nervous about traveling, but I think maybe this time the nervousness is more intense.
And I'm feeling horribly superstitious. That's why I keep saying things like we're planning to go to Australia rather than we're going to Australia.
It's also one of the reasons I cut back from blogging. I fear talking about it too much will jinx me, and it's hard to talk about Australia without talking about the trip.
I worry that the trip isn't going to happen. Or it will happen, but it won't be as good as the 2007 and 2009 ones.
I want it to be fantastic...close to perfect.
But what if my desire for perfection makes me too uptight and I fail to have fun? Or what if I drive Tim and Jack nuts, so much that they end up hating the holiday and hating Australia?
I'm anxious about posting this.
Will I be jinxing myself?
Or am I close to being mentally deranged and posting this is a step in my recovery?
Anyway.....
Yesterday I was thinking of time.
I thought about how I wished the time leading up to our trip would go by super fast. (I want to be in Australia NOW).
I want the time on the airplane to go by even faster.
Then I want our time in Australia to go by extremely slow. I want our few weeks there to feel like a lifetime.
Well...uh...I mean in a good way. I don't want us stuck out in the bush somewhere—hot and thirsty, feeling like each torturous minute is an hour. That would suck.
This is how busy I am with those horrid fires (all gone now yay)...that I didn't even know you had started blogging again and you sneakily didn't tell me in our emails! :-) But YAY! You're here! In you're also going to literally be here soon!
ReplyDeleteI'm nervous too. I'm so so anxiety ridden that you will hate Melbourne. That it won't meet your expectations and you will have spent all of this money to come here and you've listened to myself and probably others tell you great things about Melbourne and you'll go "So this is it?" It's not Sydney. It doesn't have the same drawcards that Sydney does. But I love it all the same. I hope the fires haven't spoilt our other plans. I don't think they will. It's going to be a dry Autumn I believe but it will be cooler than what you are used to especially on our holiday so bring some warm clothes. I can lend you some if you don't have enough :-) Or Molly and I can take you to some great Op Shops to buy some!
Sometimes experiences can't be categorized as 'better' or 'worse' - they're just different. And surely, if you're not having a good time doing one thing, you could switch to another???
ReplyDeleteYour friend (above) sounds almost apologetic about Melbourne - but why does it have to be compared to Sydney? Wherever you go, there'll be fabulous experiences waiting for you, so just go with it and enjoy!!!
not apologetic at all as I love my hometown. I just know and appreciate Dina's love for Sydney and also her desire for the trip to be perfect :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to respond to both of you at once.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I agree with Tracey. She loves Melbourne. But she's a good friend and knows me well. She understands my excessive and (maybe pathological) love for Sydney.
I met an Aussie recently...from Melbourne. She helped me put things in perspective. Sydney is a place for tourist attractions. There's these big highlighted "must see" places.
She said Melbourne is more about wandering the streets...going to cafes and looking at shops.
When she said that, Melbourne reminded me of NYC. And we LOVE it there. NYC has tourist attractions, but our fun comes from wandering. We actually usually skip the tourist attractions.
As for having fun and not having fun. I don't think it's about what we're doing. For me, it's usually about weather, health, moods...whether people are getting along or not.
Are we laughing? Are we being silly? Are we having major bonding moments?
If we're fighting, not feeling well, crabby, anxious, uptight, etc...then we will be having less fun.
Of course every trip is going to include some bad moments. I just don't want them to outnumber the happy times.
Tracey,
ReplyDeleteWe'll bring some warm clothes. I probably won't bring enough, so awesome of you to offer the borrowing of your clothes.
I'm SO excited about op shops.
I already searched for some on Google Maps.
Do you have any favorites?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSydney, 5th March 2013
ReplyDeleteI found your blog today and read several entries, as I became curious about your "little obsession" for Australia. I understand your desire to live in another country. I was born in Brazil and lived there until I graduated from university. Then I followed my teenager's dream and went to France for my postgraduate degree. Soon after I became engaged to a German and moved to Germany. After nearly 5 years there, we moved to Australia.
It has been a wonderful experience for me to live in such different places, speak different languages, learn and integrate in different cultures. It has been my experience that, when someone really opens up to the new experiences, there is never regret… In my case, I love Australia. And I love Germany and when I'm there I let myself immerse in the food, the culture and the language. And I do the some in Italy and in Brazil. Unfortunately, I haven't been in France for a long time.
And if we speak about Australia, I'm sure you could have moved here and love it. As for being disappointed with Melbourne? Never! It's a delightful city. And I can say that without any qualms, as I live in Sydney.
When you go to Melbourne, as you are keen in the series Offspring, consider a tour of the locations. I've done that last July and it was great. (I'm currently preparing a complete list of locations and should post it soon.)
Best luck with your trip.
DeniseKS SYD,
ReplyDeleteIt's awesome that you've lived in four different countries!
Are you planning to add any more to your list? Or do you plan to stay in Australia?
I totally agree about immersing ourselves in a culture.
Please tell me when you've posted the list of Offspring locations. I'd love to see that!
PART1
ReplyDeleteHi Dina,
To keep feeding your "little obsession" with Australia, I have a few suggestions of TV series for you to watch:
1. Mother and Son - with Ruth Cracknell and Garry McDonald (who plays Nina biological father in Offspring). The series ran quite a while back, but for me, who was still new to Australia and Australia's humour at that time, it was a great introduction. It's very clever comedy, based in real life - not forced jokes. The characters are well developed and very, very Australian.
2. Sea Change - with Sigrid Thornton, finished in 2000. Well written, with a good mixture of comedy and drama and with a great ensemble of actors. Again, the characters are very Australian and for that alone it's worth viewing.
3. A Moody Christmas - The first series (6 episodes) ran in November/ December last year. More comedy than drama, it depicts a dysfunctional and very Australian family. There will be a second series in 2013.
4. House Husbands - First series in 2012, the second is underway. It's about Australian family life, where the husbands look after the kids.
5. Redfern Now - Also from 2012, it's played and set in the Redfern suburb of Sydney (which has a large concentration of Aborigines). It's more serious and dark drama, not everyone's cup of tea. The script and the stories are rich and I loved it. A second series is underway.
6. Puberty Blues - (not to be confused with the 1981 film) The 1st series ran in 2012 (after Offspring series 3 finished). Same producers (John Edwards and Imogen Banks) and cinematographer (John Brawley) from Offspring. It's about two teenage friends coming of age in the 70's (in the Sydney's beach suburb of Cronulla). The series was shot in location, in Cronulla and the cinematography is great. It includes some actors you already know, such as Claudia Karvan and Daniel Wyllie. Last month, the series won the prize for best Australian TV drama of 2012 (AACTA awards, equivalent to the Emmy awards)
7. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - 1st series in 2012, second underway. It's set in the 1920's Melbourne. Very glamorous (in a way unusual to Australia), it resembles British productions.
As you can see, 2012 was a fantastic year in Australian TV drama. We have excellent writers, who seem to be able to create scripts closer to real world scenarios, where tragedy, drama and comedy can happen all in a single day. I find such productions make for more interesting watch than the ones created around an artificial separation of comedy or drama. And that is another thing I love about Offspring - our world is less than perfect: it's confusing, tragic, funny and sometimes we make big mistakes and do things we wouldn't do if we had time to think before hand. And we end up in places and situations we never wanted to be (like Patrick, who end up causing Nina to break-up with him).
Some people here in Australia complain that the same "old" actors keep appearing in new TV series, but I think is mainly a case of people who worked together before, wanting to work together again - this was the case in the selection of Matthew Le Nevez to play Patrick in Offspring - he had previously worked with John Edwards and with Asher Keddie - http://www.localsmile.com.au/Ipswich/Profile/CityWest/Blog/BeingPatrickfromOffspring). And what is wrong with good actors being cast in new roles?
continues in PART 2
PART2
ReplyDeleteHi again,
Back to programs worth watching, I like to mention a few more:
1. The Gruen Transfer (focussing on advertising) and its spinoff The Gruen Planet (focussing on corporations' and government' media strategies). It comprises of a panel of clever and knowledge advertisers, who present and discuss silly, ridiculous and sometimes really stupid things that surround us.
2. The Chaser and The Chaser's War on Everything - a satirical and often irreverent program; the group of participants play pranks with everyone, including top level politicians and breached security at important places several times, which has created them several problems with the law and repeated appearance at courts.
3. And if you watch Q&A, you may also want to watch Insight, with Jenny Brockle (http://www.sbs.com.au/insight/about). It's a current affair program, which brings a selected audience (such as experts on a particular field, government officers and people affected by a particular problem) together to discuss important, topic or controversial issues.
And not to leave Australian films completely out of the list, I'll cite just one: The Saphires - a jewel of a film about a group of Aborigine singers that entertained the soldiers during the Vietnam war. The main singer (Jessica Mauboy) was a runner-up on Australian Idol in 2006. Last month, it won the award for the best Australian movie of 2012.
I hope you have the opportunity to watch some of those. I'm curious to hear what you think.
Note: I'll keep you informed about my post with Offspring locations.
Bye
DeniseKS SYD,
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot of suggestions!
I've seen many episodes of Mother and Son. I might have seen the whole series. I can't remember. But I did love it.
I've seen some of the Chasers and clips from the Gruen Transfer. I saw some of the commercials. They're a lot of fun.
I saw two episodes of Puberty Blues, but didn't enjoy it. It's not my cup of tea.
I've heard of House Husbands and the Redfern show.
Sea Change and A Moody Christmas are completely new to me.
I'll look out for them!
The Sapphires has been fairly big news in terms of Australian film...so yes, of course I've heard of it. I haven't seen it yet though.