Change In Plans

CREEPY BUT FAMOUS FACE

Greetings from Bondi Beach!

A Tallulah’s suggestion, we spent most of today at Sydney’s famous Luna Park.  It is an amusement park located in North Sydney, just at the end of the Harbour Bridge, set magnificently right next to the water.

Luna Park is old school.  It was first opened in 1935, transplanted en bloc from a park in Adelaide, after being chased out by that city’s residents.  Adelaide’s loss, I guess.  

In the intervening 73 years, Luna Park has been embroiled in countless lawsuits (primarily against nearby residents over noise and disruption), it has been in and out of bankruptcy a few times, and it has been closed for years on end.

Strange history for a pretty cool place.  Somehow the park does not seem to have embedded itself in the culture and fabric of the city.  Even today, a sunny Saturday in high summer, we basically had the place to ourselves. The city has some arrangement where it subsidizes any losses experienced by the private park operator.  My guess is that the taxpayers of Sydney write a check every year.

Tallulah is 104 centimeters tall, which made her exactly 2 centimeters too short for most of the big rides.  She generally hates when I call her “Shortulah,” or “Not-Very-Tall Ulah,” and I was careful to refrain from these nicknames today.  

She still had fun, I think, riding the littler-kid rides, and running around the “Coney Island” fun house with me.  The funhouse was a re-creation of what Sydneysiders had at Luna Park in 1935: 60-foot-high wooden slides that you rode while sitting in a burlap sack; a maze of mirrors; a Turkey Trot path where parts of the floor shimmy and shake underfoot; giant barrels, spinning in both directions, that you try to walk through.  Tallulah particularly liked riding the bumper cars, where she and I got to whomp her brother several times at high speeds.

Zola and I rode a series of nauseating, old-school “centripetal-force” and “hang upside down” rides.  Someone once told me that kids and adults experience these rides in different ways.  Some inner-ear development happens only during adolescence, and prior to that, kids are largely immune to motion-related dizziness and nausea.  Based on my observation today, this may be true.  ”Dad! That was awesome!  Let’s ride that one again!”

RIDING THE TANGO TRAIN

Overall, Luna Park was a win.  There was no waiting in line for rides, the kids had an absolute blast, it was nice being next to the harbor, and the whole adventure was inexpensive. Well, it would have been inexpensive if a traffic officer hadn’t been writing a huge parking ticket when we got back to the car, and if Zola hadn’t lost my sunglasses somewhere between “The Ranger” and “Big Splash.”  

We went to dinner down at the beach in the town of Coogee (pronounced with a hard ‘G’).  For the last few weeks, I have been entertaining myself and the kids while driving with an ongoing dialogue between fictitious Southern rednecks named Tinker and Buck.  Today I added a new character, Tinker’s friend Coogee.  Coogee just got fired from his job at the penitentiary, and was hoping that Tinker could get him on down the Piggly Wiggly.  India, being from Tennessee (and probably having dated someone named Tinker or Buck in high school) is not amused by any of this.

Quoting one of the guidebooks: “Sydney is a tart.  She dresses up fancy, and she likes to talk all about the opera house and the art museum.  On weekends, though, she likes to dance, knock back a bunch of drinks, and party.”  Based on the scene when we got back to Bondi Beach this evening, that seems like a pretty accurate description.  The streets and bars are packed, the music is tremendously loud, and beautiful,  young people seem to just be having fun.

After our week here, India and I agreed that we have never felt so old, so unfit, so unhip, and so … what’s the opposite of care free?.  And we feel this while we are living in the mobile Never Never Land bubble of the world-round trip.  Imagine how it would feel being here in the midst of my real life.

Bondi Beach may be the real Never Never Land.  It may also be the Paradise City that Axl Rose sings about.  

We have had a great time here.  

Tomorrow we are moving over to a new hotel in Manly, in the northern suburbs, and we are seeing some friends for a barbeque.  On Monday morning, we start the long coastal drive down to Melbourne, and we start exploring the rest of Australia.