My Last Days in Australia

This is long overdue, but I finally got over my lazy ass to post about my last few days in Sydney. It was a mix of some very dull moments and some very interesting ones. I guess there are basically three very interesting things to talk about from these last few days in Sydney: first and shortest of all, if you are ever in Sydney and are a fan of chocolate (specifically, Lindt chocolate!!) go to Darling Harbour and look for the Lindt Café!!!! It's in one of the most pleasant spots in Sydney (Darling Harbour), and the chocolate is, of course, amazing!!! You can actually have a Lindt-chocolate Milkshake (not at all overpriced, by the way), and I'll tell you it's the best chocolate milkshake I've ever had. They also have all sorts of other delicious chocolaty things worth a try, by do not forget to try the milkshake!!!! I wish I'd taken a photo... :-(

The second thing worth mentioning was the Powerhouse Museum. It's supposed to be "The Hippest Museum in Sydney" and, even though I haven't been to any other, my guess is that it is. It's a pretty unusual museum with expos on fashion, music, Aussie history, science... whatever you want, they probably do it!! It's pretty cool, albeit a bit too busy; I saw expos on the history of design, australian music, history of the steam engine, evolution of artificial inteligence and success stories of aussie "inventiveness". All of them pretty cool, even with a layman's introduction to the Turing Test (which was pretty surprising, pic on the right)... they even had an expo on Lady Di, but it cost something like $4 to get in and I already had my share for the day...

The third, and coolest of all, was the walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach, two of the three big Sydney beaches (the third being Manli, which I'd already been to the first time around). If you're ever in Sydney, drop anything else for this walk!!! (well, maybe not the Opera House and Circular Quay area, but you know what I mean...) It's awesome!!!! It's a pretty long walk, though... and after a certain point you kinda get sick of it, it all gets a little repetitive... so, if you're not up for the whole mileage of the walk, just do the first half, it's definitely the better half!!! Bondi is a pretty nice beach, even if a little touristy and crowded... too many surfists!!!! Right next to the beach, at the very beginning of the scenic walk, there's one of the coolest pools ever, basically in the ocean (hopefully you can get it from the photos!!). Pretty cool, hey???
Basically the walk is a pathway right by the ocean. Maybe the photos will give you a good idea of what I mean. Well, just don't miss it.

What I Read in Oz

Tou de volta em casa, então vou voltar a postar em inglês...

I'm back home! After a wonderful month in Australia (hopefully you've seen the photos), I'm back in Campinas and eager to post about the books I read while I was there. Well, I don't know about you guys but I need a book when I'm traveling: there's just so many different situations when you feel like reading something good that I'm sure I'll be constantly regretting it if I don't bring any good book with me. With that in mind, I bought a book before leaving Brasil: Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I'd tried Joyce before (Finnegan's Wake, if you are curious), with very little success. But, I don't know why, I thought this would be easier. Well, it sure is easier, but not quite easy enough. The thing is, a good travel-book has to be "easy-reading" too, in the sense that it shouldn't require too much concentration to get through: definitely I'd made a bad choice this time. Consequently, my first couple of weeks in Australia were pretty much bookless. When I got to Adelaide though, I got a pretty cool gift from my dear hostess, a book called Down Under, by Bill Bryson. Bryson has one of the best jobs ever: he basically goes on a trip and then writes a book about it. And he is a pretty good writer too, very funny, very enticing. He also does his homework pretty well, talking a lot about Australia's history, fairly superficial but interesting opinions/analysis of its current situation, some unusual (but really interesting) destinations. It's the perfect companion for a guy who is backpacking through Australia and I wished I'd bought it before I went; I might've changed some of my plans based on his experiences: I think I'd probably put visiting the Outback higher up on my priority list. I quite enjoyed the book, and may even buy some of his other books, just gotta figure out what's my next destination.... :-)
By the time I was flying back here, I'd almost finished the book so I knew that I'd need something to get me through the endless flight back home. So, everything kinda fell into place when I was walking around Sydney, the day before my flight, and I wandered into this cheap bookstore after seeing Slam, the new book by Nick Hornby on the window. Nick Hornby, for those that don't know it yet, is one of my favorite author's, having written such gems as High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch and A Long Way Down. I just had to buy it.
First of all, a word of warning is in place: this is a book about a teenager written for teenagers. Even though its topic is pretty serious (teenage pregnancy), I am, by no means, its target audience. Having said that, I found it a pretty enjoyable harmless reading; it's not brilliant and it's not up to the standard of his previous books (always keeping in mind, I'm not the intended audience here). I don't know if it's already been too long since I was a teenager, but Sam is a really annoyingly silly, Tony Hawk-crazed, very "teenagy" guy, whereas Alicia is this centered, well-balanced, unbelievably pretty girl. He is in fact so childish that you just get pissed off most of the time reading the book (since its told from his perspective, knowing what he thinks sometimes is just irritating). But it is a pretty interesting book about a pretty rough subject, with intricate , well-developed characters (Sam and Alicia, for example, change quite a lot throughout the book). And it feels quite realistic too. It was an enjoyable book overall, just below his previous work because of the whole "teenage-book" thing.

Written to the sound of A.C. Newman, Badly Drawn Boy, Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley...