To live a hundred lives...: 2008

Thursday, December 25, 2008

P&O CRUISE - Pacific Islands / TOWARDS THE ISLANDS

The time came to go for the long - expected cruise to Pacific Islands.
We packed all our staff and embarked.

Our ship, Pacific Dawn was as massive as a teen storey building. On the board there were over 2000 passengers. The capitain was Italian and every day at 12pm his voice was resounding in each cabin, to wake up those who partied too much... :)

"Good afternoon, this is captain speaking from the bridge..." :D

We left Sydney and cloudy sky behind...

The ship was like a compact floating city - consisting of hotels, pubs, bars, swimming pools, SPAs, fitness centres, restaurants and lounges. Every day when on the sea there were different activities, theme nights and performances.

In the evenings everyone could meet in The Dome - I won't lie saying that after the cruise Kings of Leon's Sex on Fire will be a true reminder of these brilliant 11 days :)

Pawel vs. Zuza - struggling with the wind, but the play was good.

We couldn't refrain from hitting the karaoke nights - although we missed the karaoke contest.. :)

"Killing me softly..."

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Museum of Sydney 05/11/2008

I decided to behave like a real tourist on my days off from work and started with the Museum of Sydney, the latest Museum in the city, designed by Richard Johnson. It was built on the site of first Australia's Government House in 1788 as a home and office for the colony’s Governor, Arthur Phillip.

Edge of the Trees in front of the museum symbolizes the first encounter between the Cadigal people (native Australians) and the First Fleet which brought british colonisers.

There were plenty of old pictures and city plans, from the times before the city flourished and totally changed. Very interactive, with plenty of remains of old things, photographs, models of the First Fleet Ships and videos plus temporary exhibitions: Lost Gardens showing Sydney's gardening heritage and Swinging Sydney, by David Mist, british photographer who witnessed the changes in lifestyle of late 1960s Sydney.

Searching for a perfect, harmoious shape for the Sydney Opera House, which is not white at all ! It is covered with thousands of light green triangular tiles !

According to the information provided by the Museum, Sydney's population increased ninefold within last hundred years, from 0,5 mln to 4,5 mln people. Not suprisingly half a million is Asians and 1/3 of the Sydney's population was born overseas !
Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people suffered similarily to native Americans. Museum brings that back, reminding who was here first.

The quotation that caught my attention:

"There were only two classes of persons in New South Wales - those who had been convicted and those who ought to have been so".

The wall of imported things: most of the things, unnknown to aboriginal people were brought to Australia from many different countries by immigrants.
Observing Sydney, I see that it was created out of the best of different countries, that's why it is so rich in culture and many different tastes.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sydney at night

Last series of snapshots from Sydney - I promise next post will be from some other place :) (not to tell too much... from very nice cruise to pacific islands).

Beg a pardon for the quality of pictures - since my camera is very confused wether it will take picture or not, I have to use my mobile phone as a main camera ;)

darling harbour