Between 34 and 48 degrees north

I love all things 34 degrees south. I grew up in the gorgeous Cape of Good Hope, traveled and danced the tango in Buenos Aires and have lived in Sydney for a decade. I love and have written about these three cities - they have different attractions but I am at home in each of them. I am convinced that if I traveled the 34 degree south line around the world I would find many other places to feel at home in.

I've recently discovered that I'm rather partial to the 38 to 44 degree North part of the world too. Well, at least those parts of Italy and Spain. Cinque Terra, the 'five lands' - the villages that run along the Ligurian coast in Italy - is gobsmackingly beautiful. Every view is a postcard perfect, and the small towns just ooze with Mediterranean charm. No sooner had we discovered the gelato coloured buildings and the men who walk their dogs and sing in operatic voices, the extraordinary architecture that allows the houses to cling to one another in a tumble of old dwellings threatening to fall into the Mediterranean, than it was time to leave and embark on a new journey of villages.

We headed for Valencia, to a the tiny town of Benirrama, the first of 8 pobles (pueblos) in the dry, mountainous cherry-rich Vale de Gallineri. We paid the scammy car hire place the quoted $49 for a week of car hire plus the gazillion dollars for insurance, and headed up impossible winding, narrow roads, on the right hand side in a manual car. Jethro and Francis reminded me helpfully (and regularly, in unison) to 'drive on the right, look to the left'. A useful reminder at dusk in the mountains in unfamiliar territory. I silently thanked my lucky stars that Francis and I travel well together as we negotiated traffic circles that the sat nav didn't recognise and I clutched the steering wheel, white knuckled.

The east of Spain is littered with buildings that have been started in a time of optimism and left in a time of financial difficulty. The massive river in Valencia last flowed many years ago, so the seene is somewhat apocalyptic with stony dry mountains,  silhouettes of half finished buildings and prostitutes standing on the highway as the trucks race by. We could hardly have been prepared for the stark beauty of route of the 8 Pueblos of the Vall de Gallineri (the Gallineri Valley). On the other side of a series of tunnels, ringed by majestic mountains are the ancient villages, created in part by religious zealots and barons of the 12th to 18th centuries. Their charm probably equals the cruelty of the local wars of the time, but their beauty has endured. They have a certain romantic charm that visitors like us can't resist.

Like the Cinque Terra, these 8 villages are built with an architectural genious that allows them to last through the ages and serve the various generations that have farmed there. Benirrama, where we were lucky enough to stay, is the first of the 8 villages and was named after the family Rrama of Arabic descent. Beni means 'son of' and most of the villages in the area are Beni-something. Some are hard to pronounce, and the similarities in names makes the already difficult task of remembering where you've been on holiday well nigh impossible - names like Beniali, Benissiva, Beniaia and Benitaia then La Carroja and Al Patro. After a few days of driving and eating in these villages - the Menu Del Dia in some of the establishments is worth a visit to this area - we found the last name we came across hilarious. It was Benimarfull, which became known to us as Beni-mouthful.

In the Vall de Gaillineri May is the season of Cervasas (cherries). Everywhere we went we were offered cherries - plump, deep red and overflowing texture and juice. The boughs on the trees were heavy with cherries and driving the narrow mountain roads we could reach out of the windows and pick them as we drove, spitting the pips as far as we could - something the locals do as a sport. The giving of cherries in the Val de Gallineri is a sign of hospitality, of warmth, and of abundance. Neighbours pop in with plates of cherries. Bars offer cherries as you walk in. And most meals end with a big plate of cherries proudly offered from the tree of the gift-bearer.

We city folk were not so good at working out what the green things were on the trees - there were olive trees and bean trees and green-thing trees which turned out to be the tastiest apricots when they ripened. Most backyards had lemon trees groaning with lemons. We rescued the lemons that had fallen in our back yard and made lemonade and lemon preserve.

There, in the mountains, our little family went about our business with not much contact with anyone. The next week was quite different - a heavily discounted Mediterranean cruise that took us to Rome, Naples, Barcelona, Marseilles, Savona and back to Rome. A great experience being on a floating home that drops you at the door of each place you want to explore.

All this time between 38 and 44 degrees north has been exceptional, and even though I am a committed 24 degrees south person, I know we'll be back. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Nine years in Australia

Jethro's take on his mummy: he took this 28th October 2013

Nine years ago, to the day, I arrived in Australia. It was a profound feeling. I was 41, and my life was starting over.

I remember Francis meeting me at the airport and feeling particularly awkward. I remember thinking that nothing could make him understand what was going on inside me, and that I wasn't going to try to explain. I was just going to get on with it.

I noticed that so many people leaving South Africa were running from something, and I wasn't. I was going TO something. I was going to a new life with a man I had met in Spain, learning Spanish. I was seriously starting again. Life was changing:
- from being single to being part of a couple
- from being well known to completely unknown.
 - from a life of dance and consulting to a life of little dance and no permission to work.
 - from years of experience to not being recognised for any experience.

I had left my home with four bedrooms plus a flat for a shared room in a shared unit. I had left being a landlady for being a partner of a renter. I had left a huge circle of family and friends and colleagues for a country where I knew one person well, two more people quite well, and about ten people vaguely. I had left the mountain and sea for the suburbs.
Instead of a house filled with belongings I had just one suitcase with my clothes and my cutlery (!). Instead of a car I was on foot.

Yes this was still 34 degrees South. Just not Cape Town. It was Sydney.

Some of this was apparent on the first day, and some only became apparent over time. Slowly but surely it sank in that I'd really taken this enormous step at 41. It was my sister-in-law's birthday and I wasn't there to celebrate it. Today, nine years later, it's her birthday again and I'm not there to celebrate it. But I am celebrating, instead, a nine-year journey to date.

I woke this morning thinking about the highlight of each year:
2004: Discovering the tango, flamenco, latino dance and music scene in Sydney and my first New Year's Eve fireworks over the Bridge and Opera House
2005:  A five day trip, alone and camping, to the heart-stopping beauty of New Zealand's South Island; buying our home in Heighway Avenue in Ashfield and joining Sing Australia
2006: Our wedding; visitors throughout that year from South Africa
2007: Being allowed to work. Restarting Making Things Work. Dancing Tango at Darling Harbour. 
2008: Magical trip to Europe with Francis
2009: Jethro was born. Becoming a mum at 46. Starting to work with social enterprises in earnest.
2010: Jethro's baby naming ceremony. Becoming an Ausralian Citizen. Taking Jethro to South Africa to meet the family.
2011: Marjorie's visit to Sydney; An African drumming course
2012: Moving to Oatley to the green and the blue of nature once again
2013: Marjorie in Sydney again. Embarking on the Key Person of Influence course and restarting my work as Beyond Win-Win.

And then, of course, there have been the annual highlights - Jewish high festivals on the North Short and the Eastern Suburbs, re-acquainting with cousins I knew as a child in South Africa, annual Christmas celebrations (the street party in Heighway Avenue, the Mother's Group party and the Chilean-Iranian-South African-Australian party each year), Chinese New Year and all the diversity type celebrations in Sydney. And lots, lots more.

Today I am celebrating a long journey that, in the scheme of things, is only just starting. It's amazing, though, that I've lived in Australian almost one fifth of my life. Just one more year and it will be a decade. Hah.

 

 

 

 

10 things you need to know if you move from Cape Town to Sydney

 Sydney is a pretty city, with the best food in the world from many nationalities. People live at peace with one another, even though they often stick to those they know and are not that welcoming of outsiders. You'll be safe here, but you have to work hard to fit in. Even though both cities are 34 degrees south, they are quite different. A bit of local knowledge might help. 

1. There is no mountain
And with that, no way of knowing which way you are facing. Amazing what you can discern from shadows if you work hard at it. You need to work out what season you are in, take into account the time of day, and then vaguely work out if the sun is north east or north west. It's not Table Mountain, but it works.

2. Flies like the inside of your mouth
Not only does Cape Town have very few flies, when they do appear, they like food. Not Sydney flies. They like the inside of your mouth. I know because I have eaten a fair few. Not on purpose, of course. What's good to know is that the Sydney flies are sluggish. My brother (yes, the famous Zapiro), used to pride himself in being the only person who could catch a fly on our kitchen table by grabbing it from behind. I kid you not. Sydney flies - hey - they move so slowly you hardly have to work to squash them. Go right ahead, I say.

3. Don't say "it was a thumbsuck"
In Cape Town if you are estimating something, it's a thumbsuck. You put your thumb in your mouth, pull it out quickly, make a popping noise and everyone knows you just guestimated the answer. Here, there's a strange look of disgust that crosses people's faces when you do that. I won't go into it. Just don't do it.

4. Don't say "holding thumbs"
Refer to number 3 above. I don't have to go into detail, but the same look crosses Sydneysiders' faces when you say "hold thumbs for me". In Cape Town, it means the same as "cross fingers" for me. Believe me - just ask people to cross fingers. You'll have a far better response!

5. Save hard to use public transport
Because the Rand is so abysmal next to the Aussie Dollar, there have to be some money tips in a blogpost like this. There's nothing more demoralising realising that your whole week's budget has been used on public transport. It's expensive in Sydney. I mean really expensive. In 2013 it costs $10 (or R100) to get a return to the city at peak times. Travel after 9am. Buy travel tens when you can (busses, ferries). And get an Opal Card as soon as you can. They are being phased in - but where you have occasion to be somewhere for less than an hour you are charged only one leg of a return journey. You can, for instance, travel to Town Hall, have a 50 minute meeting, and get back on the return train and you'll only be charged one way. In some cities there are free busses. Use them. Better still, walk.

6. Most great performers at festivals also have a free performances
Check it out. It's worthwhile. People pay $100's of dollars to see great performers (that's 1000's of Rands) when you can often catch them in free venues. Do your research

7. Check out and compare mobile plans
Talk about doing your research - work hard at finding a mobile plan that offers unlimited text and voice calls and a lot of data. It's the best investment you'll make. You can find all the cheap deals - and there are cheap deals for everything (almost).

8. Use 131500
This is a great get-everywhere-planner. You can dial it and speak to a real person or you can go to www.131500.com.au and feel completely cool about finding your way to anywhere. Times, modes of transport - it's all there.

9. Don't be demanding
South African have a reputation in Sydney for being incredibly pushy, entitled and just plain rude. There's a reason for this. We are. As a rule. We are too direct for most people living in Sydney. We are spoilt either because we were privileged in South Africa and have learnt to expect people to be there for our every whim, or we are demanding because we weren't privileged but we know what it is to have to ask for things to happen. By all means stick to your guns when expecting good service (not a high point in Sydney) or expecting people to be welcoming or whatever other reasonable expectation you have. But watch your body language and your way of speaking to people - there is a very strong "entitled-South-African-detector" in many Sydneysiders. The most frequent back-handed compliment I have received in Australia is "You're South African - and you're nice? How come?"

10. Hang out at the Opera House and surrounds
Sydney is known as being "up itself" - that's Australian for being too big for it's boots - in many ways. But the Opera House, and the harbour - they are just magic. Hang around at dawn, hang around in the middle of the day, hang around at night. Enjoy the Botanic Gardens and the fruit bats. Enjoy the fantastic walls that are shaped as benches. They're made to enjoy so enjoy them.  Specially at the Opera Bar. Yes, a drink could cost the same as a day's earnings - but hey - you only live once. And you can always consider how crazy some people are that they are paying $1000 for a bottle of bubbly - yep, that's R10,000 and enough to feed a village in Africa for a very, very long time. Yes, the contrast is crazy. It's First World, Third World stuff. And it never goes away (why do you think I work with social enterprise and creating beyond win-win solutions... that's another story).

Oh, and one more thing. People who live in Sydney are called Sydneysiders. Just good to know.

Oatley - a hidden jewel

The south west of Sydney is a funny area - somehow it has managed to escape regional stereotyping. In so doing people don't know what to think about it - if they, in fact, know it exists.
Unlike other areas of Sydney - the Eastern Suburbs of rich beach babes, backpackers and Jewish South Africans, the North Shore with "old money", the West as the melting pot of Sydney, the Inner-west with the bohemian inner-city types, or "the Shire" which has a host of connotations, not least of which is it's dubious association with the recent TV program - Oatley and surrounds is just, well, Oatley and surrounds. It's sorta the St George area (what's that?), or the area West of the airport, kinda, or as I like to think of it is it the area "just short of the Shire". The other side of the river.



The St George River with the Como bridge. Como far side.

Stats of Sydney seldom focus on this as a region. Few declarations are made about the area. And certainly not many people outside of here even know where it is. Mention Hurstville and you might get a glimmer of knowledge, or  "I've seen that in passing when traveling south", but other than that Oatley is just Oatley. People who live here love to say "it's one of those suburbs you don't happen upon - you don't go there unless you intend to go there". They are referring to the strange square that one has to drive to get across King Georges Road (left, left and left) along Maher and Hillcrest roads or the other main entrance to the suburb which is a tiny "one-car-bridge" on Boundary Road. The rest of the suburb is bordered by the river. And that's the thing. The St George River is just everywhere here. You have to know where to look as the houses are built so that you can't really see the river from most of the suburb, but every few days we discover another hidden gem on the Georges River.







Oatley Park, view across the river beach to Como bridge

Our house has river glimpses from a few of the windows and balconies. Less glimpses than we had when we moved in as the neighbours' trees have gone crazy in the rain and taken over the view. This means we have to go out and seek the view (thanks Lauren Norval for once telling me to buy without a view so one is motivated to go and seek it - damn right!). And if one seeks in Oatley, one finds. The Ripple Park. The Pleasure Grounds. The Steamroller Park. And, as we like to call it, Our Forest. There are numerous waterside parks and walkways, the best known being Oatley Park which is 45 hectares of pristine Australian forest and bushland with the Steamroller Park dead centre and a little castle down near the swimming beach. Walkers and cyclists know the footpath across the  the Como rail bridge to the Como Pleasure grounds and Marina. Hiring a boat heading upriver is a surprising and wonderful pleasure just 30 mins by train from the centre of Sydney. I look forward to showing all my friends and colleagues the wonders of this gorgeous non-area. The hidden jewel.



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We wish you a Multi-Cultural Christmas

There's a whole lot to be said about living in the inner-west in Sydney. It's an incredible melting pot of cultures, and with that, opportunities. Every cuisine imaginable, every kind of music, clubs and social groups of many nationalities and neighbourhoods offering the opportunity to meet people from every corner of the globe.

Francis and I have made it our business to immerse ourselves in as many different kinds of opportunity as we can absorb into the time available. We love the Addison St market in Marrickville with it's Casa Latina where the latin american community meet and dance and play and sing on a Sunday. We enjoy the Gladstone Pub, also in Marrickville, where our friend Mary-Jane Field has introduced us to the Bolivian community who spontaneously celebrate their music by jamming together on some Saturday nights. We follow our friends Marlene and Faramarz around, watching their festival productions of the Chilean national dance, the Cueca, and have even learnt it (at a time when I was about five months pregnant!). We frequent the  Camelot Lounge, a club run by a chap called Yarron from Port Elizabeth who is known for his amazing band, Monsieur Camembert. I don't think there are many places in the world with more camels under one roof - big ones, small ones, pictures of camels, even flying camels - or more stairs to reach a club! One of my best evenings there was a Yiddish night which I attended with Marjorie, the woman who was my nanny when I was a child in South Africa. I think she knew more of the culture than some of the Jewish people there.

This Christmas has been, as usual, a multi-cultural one. The annual Heighway Avenue Street party was, as usual, filled with foods from many nations, games for the children, and great music and even some dance in the middle of the closed street. As anyone who has visited us at our home knows, within ten doors of where we live are representatives of New Zealand, China, Australia, Pakistan, India, South Africa (Durban), the Phillipines, Mauritius, Ireland, Lebanon, Poland... the list goes on. The kids are like a troop this time of year - dashing through the street on bicycles, jumping on one another's trampolines, dropping off hand-me-down clothes.

Christmas Eve was our annual meeting-of-cultures in Baulkham Hills - yes, out of the inner-west - with our Chilean, Iranian, Chinese and Australian friends. It's always an outrageous evening of foods from our various cultures and a wild game of giving and stealing Christmas presents. And over the last two years the addition of the new generation, Jethro at 2 and Kian at 6 months, has added new flavour.

To top it, yesterday was Christmas in Ashfield with Francis' parents - something we often do at Christmas. 

While almost everything is closed, the Ashfield shops remain open with up to 20 Asian Eateries doing business as usual. This year we took a friend of mine's niece, Kristin from Germany. She has been backpacking and had been staying with us earlier in the year with her friend, Judy. They house-sat our home while we were traveling. After a fruit-picking stint up north, she and Judy moved in with Nikki-next-door to couch-surf. Over the season two more friends have joined them - one from Germany and one from Sweden. So we invited them to share Christmas. Another adventure in sharing stories of different cultures, and what we all usually do at Christmas. They turned up, all clean and shiny in their party frocks and joined us for dumplings, and later for fruit and other delicacies at home.

It's been another year of enjoying all that Sydney has to offer. A highlight was West African drumming with Saul of Soul Drumming. Brooke dragged me along, and I've taken to it like a duck to water. There's discipline and fun, and the body percussion (see picture) works well when your hands need a break from beating those drums. The pictures are of the performance on our last night, in Newtown. Four of Saul's groups came together to drum - about 50 of us in all - and Jethro was pretty taken with it all. At two, he is now "drumming like mummy" at every opportunity. Long may he have the opportunity to glean from Sydney all that Francis and I have been lucky to have in the inner-west in our seven years here.