Sydney

Sydney Oct 24th, 70 degrees, overcast...

The Observatory Hotel is outstanding even though the front rooms look on to row houses and the back rooms on a semi industrial harbor. It is just above the "historic" and kicky area called THE ROCKS...it is small, Orient Express. I am not sure what Ellison did to gild my lilly but when I arrived I had an instant welcome from the manager, the GENERAL manager and since then every soul in the hotel is calling me by name.

My large room is elegant...truly elegant which happens so rarely today....lovely touches:

hot cocoa to make with milk and a heater like the one in my flat......two lavatories, 4 different soaps, a heavenly bed, the usual VCR and CD player, HDTV, wonderful bar with one dish bar foods. Last night I had a world class Nasi Goreng which means I am not compelled to go into their grand looking restaurant and don't have to dress the part. Terrific concierge.

Sydney has changed beyond ALMOST all recognition....it is smoother, more urbane, definitely more built up......I did two tours today to reorient myself....the lush suburbs on the inner harbor going away from downtown. Bondi (the water is too chilly but lots of surfers in wetsuits).....the tours are those round robin-step on step off things.....one for the guts of the city (1 1/2 hours) and the other to the Gap (2 1/2 hours) with intelligent narratives. I fly to Canberra tomorrow to spend the day with Andrew and Jennie Schuller, (old friends from Oxford), and am delighted because Andrew is going to do the full tour of the planned city done by an American early in the last century... a sop to both Stydney and Melbourne who each wanted to be the national capital.

As visual and rather sensual as Sydney is, I think I vastly prefer Melbourne and I am trying to sort out my thoughts...why? Despite seeing a couple of terrific Australian films I still feel as though I am dropping off the planet down here....and despite fabulously improved levels of cooking everything else seems just a little provincial as though the poshy shops here are full of the spring merchandise which didn't sell in the northern hemisphere during OUR spring...but perhaps I am being cynical.