A Tennessee Girl in Oz: April 2013

Christine sees every Saturday as a calendar hole just waiting to be filled with activities. At first I was baffled by this outlook. But as I've gotten to know the family I married into, I've learned that her need to be in constant activity motion on a day off is not a random and adorable/annoying trait unique to Tom and Nicki's eldest; it's both an inherited and a learned behavior.

At first, I called it a Burwinkle behavior. In fact, for a while I was convinced there was a shark somewhere in the Burwinkle family tree. Christine's family seemed convinced that if they stopped moving they'd die. Downtime at the Burwinkle house seemed to mean an endless string of activities that involved an egregious amount of walking, driving, flying, boating, or getting dragged behind another Burwinkle doing any of the above. Holly seemed to be an exception to the family rule, but only compared to her immediate family. While her tolerance for activities is well below her sister's and parents', it's still far above that of any Minton.

So when I met Christine's grandmother Shirley Burwinkle, I was expecting to meet the source of this trait, or at least an even more concentrated manifestation of the shark DNA. But Shirley seems far more balanced. Yes, you can find pictures of her in all sorts of exotic places, doing all sorts of exciting activities. But she's just as likely to spend a Saturday at home, maybe enjoying a ball game or three on TV. I liked her immediately. But she blew my theory. So either she'd burned herself out and reached a more mellow point over the years, or her husband Cal was the real culprit. The pictures, home movies, and stories about Cal supported the latter. Well, actually they supported both since Shirley was usually right there with him. So whether it was Shirley, Cal, or both, I felt sure that I knew the source of Christine's insatiable need for activities.

Secure in my belief that I had explained my small world, I went about my life with Christine with far too much confidence, pretty much begging for the universe to laugh at my arrogance. The next time I attended the Stevenson family Thanksgiving gathering, it did exactly that. I looked around at the jam -packed rooms and realized I had been ignoring something that was screaming right in both my ears...the Stevenson factor.

If you've never attended a Stevenson family gathering, you might not understand how big an oversight this was. To get a rough idea, find the biggest anthill you can, and kick it. Then hand each ant a plate and some silverware, tell them to form two lines, and sit back and watch the magic happen. Don't get me wrong, the Stevensons are every one loving, welcoming, incredibly positive people who genuinely care about everything going on in your life, but the decibel level at these functions rivals a sound check at a heavy metal concert. And I'm pretty sure that if you attached a little capacitor to each attendee that could convert excitement and motion into light, you'd be able to see these gatherings from space.

So I realized that when Tom and Nicki got together, they created a perfect storm of boundless activity energy. And I married it.

My world growing up was quite different from the one I married into, as you might have guessed. I formed my idea of a perfect Saturday at a very young age, and I just can't seem to shake it. The day starts with a cartoon or two (accompanied by some variation of a bacon, egg, and cheese pita...vegetarian these days) to get the imagination going. Then I just strap in and follow my imagination string of the day wherever it leads. It might take me no further than my couch and my game systems. Or it might spur me to spend half the day fashioning costume props out of household items just so I can be properly equipped to watch the corresponding movie in the evening. Or it might just keep me sitting still, staring off at nothing as I relive a favorite story or come up with a new one. But whatever the old imagination has in store for me, it surely does not involve a structured plan, and it never has anything to do with public transportation.

So, very long-winded story short, Christine and I see our weekend outings quite differently, and we decided to put our thoughts on the day to words separately, to let us, and you, see just how different our points of view are.

Here goes...

Christine always starts her activity blogs with an establishing shot, it seems. As we were standing on the train platform outside our apartment, I'm pretty sure she snapped one. So I did the same. I don't know what hers shows, but centered in mine, you can see our apartment building.

My last longing look at where Saturday-morning-Toby wanted to be.

Christine then surprised me with a video question about what we doing today. See her post to witness that train wreck. A minute or two later, I turned the tables. She handled it much more gracefully.

In her post, I'm sure Christine is giving a perfect step-by-step of where we went and what we did. Since I'm already by far too long-winded, I'll just give my take on each locale or event. If you haven't already done so, read her post first.

Christine snapped a photo of the light rail platform as soon as spotted it. Being a newbie, I started the day taking my photo cues from her. So I fired off a shot here too. I hope it's fascinating.

When we boarded the light rail, Christine was positively bubbly. Here's proof.

When we left the light rail and started toward the fish markets, the smell told us which way to go. Right about here...

...the smell was just strong enough to conjure up fond thoughts of a delicious seafood dinner.

By the time we got here...

...it smelled more like the ingredients for that seafood dinner were freshly washed up on the beach all around us, on a nice warm day. And by the time we got across the parking lot to the buildings you can see in the background, it smelled like we'd just emptied an aquarium that hadn't been cleaned in years and were wearing it around like a hat.

I'm not saying I wasn't having a good time, just that if I hadn't already been a vegetarian, the smell here might have made me one.

Smell issues aside, it was a cool place. Here's a random fish counter shot as evidence.

I was slightly more interested in all these cool cooking implements than I was in the fish counters though.

Christine, true to form, was interested in everything, including these cans. I really have no idea what she was shooting here. If you've read her post, please enlighten me. I really felt like such a blog newbie here.

When we tried to tackle event #2 (walking on the Anzac Bridge) we weren't sure which way to go to get up to it. I suggested we climb this tree and hop onto the highway ramp in hopes that the pedestrian walkway was nearby.

That idea was shot down.

When we finally mounted the bridge, I know I should have been admiring the splendor of the architectural wonder before us, but I tend to get distracted by random shiny things, like this sign.

Path narrows...so if you have a pile that need shoveling, best get to it.

While on the bridge, Christine snapped at least one picture of me walking. Weird. She thought I was doing the same in this shot, but I was really conducting some counter-surveillance on the guy behind her.

He'd been behind us for a couple of blocks before the bridge, and when he followed us onto the bridge, my alarms got too loud to ignore.

We took a breather so Christine could check our position and plan our route to the next stop. She stood right in the sun though. I stayed back in the shade. I feel like I was the smarter one here. I proved it by not saying anything of the sort.

The next few hours were light on photos from me. My energy started to flag a bit, and reaching into my pocket for my phone would have made me fall behind. I don't know if you've ever walked with Christine on activity day, but she hauls.

The highlight of this undocumented portion for me was easily Badde Manors and the amazing vegetarian brunch I devoured. Trust me, it was as beautiful as it was delicious.

Then we hit Glebe, which I really enjoyed. I know, I was surprised too. It was a great bohemian mix of unique eateries, eclectic markets, and terraces I'd love to live in...mainly due to their proximity to the eateries.

And random side note, it looks like people of all ages here really enjoy their chemical entertainment.

Never thought I'd see a sign warning of high babies and seniors, but I guess that's what life adventures are for, broadening the old horizons.

This sign was perhaps my favorite of the day.

Eating, swimming, and diving: no go. Falling down the steps: perfectly acceptable.

Again, I started to wear down a bit after this point. Christine, not so much. She was literally swinging around the poles of the light rail stand as we waited for our ride back home.

I was humbled. Christine had out-activitied me once again. But that's OK. Our last event of the day was slowed down to Toby speed. We picnicked here on Balmain where I had my choice of reading, writing, or just staring off at nothing.

Nicely done, Burwinkle.

Note from me: Sorry for the super long post... But this was an epic day!

Also, this day is going to feature a guest blogger in the form of Toby. He'll be putting up a separate post after mine, so you'll get the pleasure of hearing about our adventures from both perspectives. I suspect that if we left the names off each of our posts, you'd still be able to figure out who wrote each one. =)

Every year at Super Bowl time, T and I each pick one of the teams and bet against each other for our team to win. It adds a bit of excitement to a sporting event I might otherwise nap through. This year, the winner got to plan a day of fun and choose all the activities he/she wanted to do in the day. Luckily, I won! This Saturday was a sunny, Indian summer day that got up to around 80 degrees, so I cashed in my reward.

Here's Toby explaining the day. And how excited he is for it.

Here was my general plan for the day:

Take the train down to Central Station and catch the light rail
Take the light rail out to the Sydney Fish Market
Explore the fish markets and then walk to the Anzac Bridge
After the bridge, walk down to Glebe and eat at one of our favorite spots, Badde Manors
Walk down through Glebe and catch the light rail back to Central
Take the train home and evaluate energy levels and enthusiasm for additional activities

I added a little more in the afternoon, so we ended getting a lot of kilometers around Sydney under our belt during the day.

Light rail & the Sydney Fish Markets

Somehow it had slipped my awareness that Sydney has a light rail system until recently when I read something about it. Of course, since it was something new and unexperienced, I really wanted to go on it. I've also been wanting to go to the Sydney Fish Markets for a while. Because the light rail goes practically to the door of the fish markets, I decided these two things would go hand in hand.

The light rail only has a few selected stops. It's much more charming than the trains and buses, so I liked it immediately.

The light rail goes down by Chinatown and through Pyrmont, so we got to ride past places we've only walked through before. It was kind of nice to get to see it while sitting down.

Then we got to the fish markets. It was pretty quiet since it was early in the morning, but there was still plenty to see.

Inside the main building there were several big shops: most of them sold seafood, but there was also a bakery, a gourmet grocer, and a produce market.

Behind the markets was an eating area by the harbor and a fleet of fishing boats.

You can see the Anzac bridge in some of the pictures. As much as T might've hoped otherwise, this did not count as "seeing the bridge."

Anzac Bridge

For a while now, I've been wanting to go out and see this bridge. We can see it all the time from various points in the city, and I was under it when I went dragonboat racing. But it's not very convenient to get to by public transportation so it's been languishing on my To Do list for a while. I was pretty excited it finally happened!

Unlike the Harbor Bridge, bikes and pedestrians share a lane on the bridge. So we had to stay on our toes a little more. Also, there was work being done on the fence alongside the bridge, so we couldn't get a very good view over the side. But that's OK, because the view of the bridge itself was awesome.

Glebe

At this point, T had been hanging on a while to the promise of a brunch at Badde Manors, so it was time to head up to Glebe and get some food. It was about a 15 - 20 minute walk from the bridge. We got to see parts of the city we haven't seen before, so it went by really quickly.

Then it was breakfast time! We love Badde Manors because the food is delicious and it's all vegetarian! So it's a unique experience to open a menu and know we can choose anything we see. =)

A table full of happiness

After breakfast, it was time to make our way up through Glebe. There were markets on, as well as lots of quirky shops to check out.

Also, some cute pubs...

And flower shops....

And a bookshop that has something for everyone.

We also came across this compelling advertisement... There were pictures of furniture stapled to some boards in front of a demolished building, and written in chalk on the sidewalk was a message: "Sale Back Soon."

Rozelle Bay

We took Glebe Point Road all the way to the end - which meant we ended up down at Rozelle Bay. This also meant that we could see the Anzac Bridge (and where we started our day) from the other side. It was lovely & sunny, so lots of people were out on the boardwalk along the bay.