Wednesday 23 March 2011

And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums.

In this "listening-to-myself" period of life that I'm having I think I have recognized an inner, secret and hidden desire to play drums.



I really don't know when it all started but it wasn't that I woke up one day deciding I wanted to play drums. Or maybe yes. It was when I began to play the air drums in the street while listening the music in my iPod, something that we all have done some time so maybe not. Perhaps because every time that I'm in a life concert I try to search for the best point of view to the drummer and keep looking his or her arms and legs. No, I really don't know what is making me to want play drums. It could be because of the It might get loud documentary that I watched one more time recently where the almighty (just kidding) Jack White* describes how he pulled out the furniture in his room when he was a teenager in order to fill it with drums so he had to sleep on the floor.



Whatever the reasons, yesterday I went into a drums store and didn't try to make as If was looking for something, loosing time or playing here and there as I have been doing the last weeks so now everyone there know my face. I went into the store and simply said to the seller: "I want to play drums". He only smiled at me, understanding and as he was saying "finally, girl!", and took me to a garage where there are some soundproof rooms full of drums and introduced me to Milan, the garage guard and drum teacher at the same place and time. "Maybe I'm the worse student ever", I said. "Or maybe you become the best drummer of history", he replied.

Well the fact is that, it made me feel comfortable the he was even more enthusiastic than me because I was afraid they could think I was a weirdo (actually I would love that, who am I trying to lie here)

Anyway, although this story might sound promising and who knows where it will end, it won't be able to start until I find a job. Something that I'm still sorting out but I can feel it coming to an end soon (yes, I have to keep that attitude).

I'll let you know how it goes! ;)


*You all know that I deeply admire Jack White and most of the things that he does (I want to be cautious). I know he is normal and just a mortal but I find everything related to him really inspiring to me.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Golden Plains #5 - update!


My Golden Plains experience has been amazing.

And not only because of the supernatural atmosphere in Meredith and their compost loos, the Hare Krishna feast plate for 10 dollars only or the veggie burgers in the left side of the stage... but specially because of the wonderful people I shared the Festival with, friends from the diving cruise in the Great Barrier Reef and their friends that ended up being my friends too! As a big family with babies included, a couple brought their 6 months old baby Louis, a prospective musician and heart-breaker (drummer?, bass player?), we set our tents and got ready to enjoy a weekend of music all together, taking off our shoes with every band we really liked and waving them in the air. Yes, this is the way the audience shows their like and it seems that it's a kind of communication that only works in the Golden Plains Festival, not in any other even the Meredith Music Festival that has been running for 20 years now and that takes place in the same venue around Christmas time every year.

It always have moved me to see how people from different backgrounds, countries (with their own accents), works, etc. can agree in music, the international and the emotional language beyond all border...


That's why I want to thank everybody for a unique musical experience and specially to Pete Keogh and Dan Fuller, who came to rescue me from my Nash experience sleeping surrounded by flying bugs of all kinds and that help me to recover from the drama of the hypothetical and eventual loss of my passport. Special thanks too to my favorite chica from the Festival, Julie (Super) Spice, who let me use her spare tent, chair, sleeping bag, beer holder, her cooler and her car as wardrobe... what a real lady! thank you so much!



Bands
- Os Mutantes: not for me, although I enjoyed for a few minutes.
- The Hold Steady: this band from Minesota, where part of my friends are (again Dan and Ben, son of the right hand), didn't get me into the move but also it was fun at the beginning until I started found them a bit "lyrics-full". Some of you already know what I think about this kind of "music": if you have that much to speak, then write a book... :) - no hurt feelings please!
- Joanna Newsom: I missed her!
- Belle & Sebastian: front row, girls from college all around me, screaming, crying, pushing... and me in the middle, still and cold. Mmmm no, they didn't get me either.
- Best Coast: fun, fun, fun, fun!! New dance moves inventions with Kristy and Phil.
- Architecture In Helsinki: who knew they were from Melbourne? I didn't! They played late at night and I was feeling quite exhausted but every time I tried to go back to my tent, they kept pushing me back to the crowd and making me dance with any of their big songs or just with a cover going back to the 80ies of I've been thinking about you by Londonbeat.
- Wavves: missed them
- Hawkwind: missed them
- Jamie Lidell: OMG, he rocked! he was my big band handsome man, yeah.
- The Clean: missed them
- The Middle East: great band! hope to catch them again soon since they are a big and good Aussi product... not as Vegemite, I'm afraid! "We’re from Townsville, Australia and we play music" I'm Ilu from Spain. Nice to love the music you play and it would be a pleasure to see you grow and grow!
- Boy & Bear: nice too
- Mount Kimbie: missed them
- Airbourne: oooooh ho ho ho, McKeefe forgot for a couple of seconds to use his voice of hell and it made me feel that he was a human being but apart from that... excellent!
- Robert Forster: missed him
- Pulled Apart By Horses: between the veggie burger I was eating and the band, I prefer the burguer... not my kind!
- The Besnard Lakes: rocked me!
- Cosmic Psychos: I think they were fine...
- Justin Townes Earle: missed them
- Wildbirds & Peacedrums: OMG, reminded me somehow to Florence + the Machine, but with no machine at all, just drums and other percussion instruments such as xylophones!! very good one. Shoes off!
- Imelda May (again and always!): excuse me. Imelda you were the Queen of Hearts in the Festival. All shoes off for her and her band!
- Bamboo Musik DJs: missed them
- Graveyard Train: really good, we all are gonna die. Let's live the moment. Shoes off!
- Brain Children: no idea... missed them
- World's End Press: oh, no! it looks I missed a lot of bands :(!!
- J-Wow feat. MC Kalaf (Buraka Som Sistema DJ/MC set):
bit tiring, kuduru was all that I could hear from my tent in a very "cold cold night".
- Magic Kids: missed
- Sonny & The Sunsets: missed


Thursday 10 March 2011

Golden Plains #5



Thanks to my wonderful wonderful friends back home -Carmetta, Alby and Marta- I'm now packing my things for a weekend of music and booze in Melbourne... well, around.

I have the ticket and the "surprise factor", I have a sleeping bed bag... and I have a bunch of good reasons just to let me go.

It would be from Saturday 12th to Monday 14th and the bands playing are:


More about the Festival when I'm back.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Things to do and see in Sydney for free

Here it goes a list of the things that are free in Sydney for tourist and locals. I have done already some of them and will be writing about them shortly. Others should wait a bit more:

1.- NSW Art Gallery
2.- Museum of Contemporary Arts
3.- Royal Botanical Gardens
4.- Bus 555, circular service from Central Station to Circular Quay
5.- Rocks Discovery Museum
6.- Museum of Australian Currency Notes
7.- Custom House
8.- Fish Market
9.- Paddy's Market
10.- White Rabbit Gallery
11.- Australia National Maritime Museum
12.- The Mint
13.- Government House
14.- Parliament House
15.- Sydney Observatory
16.- State Library
17.- Manly Art Gallery
18.- Manly Scenic Walkway
19.- Coastal walk from Bondi to Cogee

Monday 7 March 2011

Say Something!


And most of the sydneysiders did. That was the slogan for Mardi Gras 2011 in Sydney and they got a real response not only in the social media but in real life as I could see in the parade held on Saturday, 5th March. Children, seniors, fire fighters, police, ambulance and bus drivers, tradies, skaters, people from sport, life guards, politicians, surfers and any other sector of the Australian life you can imagine were there showing their support to gay and lesbian community, being proud of taking part of it or coming out for the first time.


Although the route of the parade was not as long as I expected to be, it was concentrated in a way I couldn't guess. Energy, happiness, pride, glitter and feathers, made Oxford St. shiver from Hyde Park to Taylors Square even though the rain joined the ride sometimes.

As counter part, the crowd gathered along Oxford St. made difficult to see and enjoy the parade to those who were a bit late. Besides many people bought steps to see the parade from above and place them in the front row, making it impossible to see to the people placed behind. On the other hand, the rubbish in the street took a huge effort from the cleaning services of the city and the taxi drivers had to deal with customers more impulsive than usual.

But these all seemed small concessions that everyone could manage with after experiencing a real explosion of joy and passion, with all those shouts echoing in the air ("I can't even think straight", "I love cocks, deal with it", "at the end is all about love", "don't be sad, be gay"), that ended up with a macro party in the streets of Sydney until the sun arose.

Friday 4 March 2011

Sydney, the city to be... for now!

Time flies: it has been already a week since I first landed in Sydney and I haven't found the time to write about the city. Here it goes!



I had planned to go to Melbourne from Cairns, where I went diving for a couple of days and experienced their backpackers ambient. My planned included try trying to find a place in Melbourne and, occasionally, something to study and a job. Yes, I know: I live in Wonderland. With the exception that I like to call it Lolly Pop Land. In that diving trip, I had the chance of meeting people that either had been in both cities or where from one of them. All their comments made me feel somehow that I'm more a Melbourne person and that if I was going to end up there anyway, why not visiting Sydney first? And that's how I finally bought my ticket to Sydney!

Since the first contact with this city, that I can tell it was in the airplane from Cairns with all the Sydnesiders on board, I started to understand that maybe Sydney deserved a chance... and as soon as I went out from the airport and got lost almost intentionally in the bus coming to my hostel, I knew it.

The couple from Nice who welcomed me in my room just reassure my thoughts. "We love it!", they said at once. "That's why we are looking for a flat now".

I left my things in the room and went for a walk. The air I could felt in my face once I had get rid of my heavy backpack and could focus and other thing that finding my hostel, reminded me of Madrid "but with beaches" and I thought "from Sydney to the heaven, for sure!" (my World is so small... sorry for all my judgments, preconceptions and set phrases!)

Paddington Area and it's Saturday markets with live music, Surry Hills and its bars, Chinatown and its cheap menus full of noodles and vegan dishes, The Rocks, Tamarama Beach, the ferries, the free Museums (Contemporary and Art Gallery NSW at least), the wines that you can take with you to a cinema showroom, the good mood of the people, the second hand bookstores in every corner, some of them cafés, the sport people jogging and exercising in every park, the libraries and very nice buses drivers... maybe Melbourne has it all and more, but I'm not in a rush and I want to discover this country little by little.


Second hand bookstore + café in Oxford Street.



Taylors Square, where Oxford St link Darlinghurt, Surry Hills and Paddington Neighborhoods. This is the center of the gay area, look at the signs!

From now, I want to stay here and when my second visa allows it.. who knows! A farm near Melbourne followed by a bit of excitement in the city looks inspiring to me.


And it was!





Photos from the Manly to Spit Bridge Scenic Walkway (10km) and the Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk (2.5km). I did both in the same day. Now I have a fever.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Westpac Bank

- "Is this a Chinese bank?
- No, but as this branch is in the middle of the China Town, we wanted to make things easier for the people living around.
- I was wondering because of all the signs and brochures.
- Oh well! you should have seen this when we celebrated the Chinese New Years!"

The reason behind I choose this bank to open my account is:
- their good relation with the potential customer.
- their sincerity when explaining a product: they don't doubt when explaining the conditions and fees of an account, they speak your language even you don't speak quite well theirs.
- the empathy with the consultants, they work in other jobs in order to save enough to travel so they don't feel the company they are working in as if they owe their lives to a bloody bank that is above every mortal.
- they don't charge for any fee during the first 6 months and after that, you can avoid paying the fee by transferring some money and you can take it back to where it was at the beginning... tricky!!
- No fees on credit cards (MasterCard, I've never had one) or banking online.

And basically this is all! I have my account what means cash for daily life. First little step accomplished.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

"Si l'amour porte des ailes, N'est-ce pas pour voltiger?"

God Will Provide. That's the expression that most fits my mood these days. "God" can be substituted for any other word you like the most "destiny", "fate", "will", "I","Jack White", "Baloo from the Jungle Book", etc.

With no job and no flat yet, there's a lot to do but loosing the temper and on the other hand what's the But things move to their own rate and tomorrow I will be looking a couple of flats at least. Also, I'm experiencing the rare sensation of having nothing to do but think, which it's supposed to be good. Yes, it is. Thinking about my destiny, about where I'm going and what kind of way of life I wan to join. And for every of them I need a bank account so let's start for the beginning and resolve thing one by one!

Three days ago I wanted to go to the movies in Chauvel Cinema so I bought my ticket in advance for Certified Copy, with Juliette Binoche on it and everything. With the shadow of a comment from my Canadian diving buddy, Claudia, who told me she find that French people speak too much to say too little, I was luckily enough to get a glass of white wine with me to the showroom. This made me spent the last minutes before the show discussing with the girl on the bar if it was a good match with the pop corns so I had to rush to the door before they turned off the lights (there's nothing I hate most that going into a showroom with the lights off and my hands full!). The result: I didn't go into the showroom I was supposed to go and instead I watched "The Rules of the Game" by Jean Renoir (1939). And the white wine made the rest. The film, or the wine, made me feel that everything happens for a reason. And this is just one of the rules of the game.


(Min. 4.26, s'il vous plaît)

I came to see an old French film and now I feel that Paris, all the French stuff and I made peace finally (old memories from a broke up).

After all, instead of as a problem, I'm starting to look at my no job situation as a big opportunity. At least for now.

I want also to say hi and thank you to all my followers for your patience! I hope that the better my English gets, the less dull this blog will be. I'm working on it. Janine, Isa "Plas", Gema, Isahac, Centeno but specially to my dearest French girls here: Nolu and Julie: that comment about French people... je suis desolée and I trust it cannot be true. Perhaps is that in Canada, people don't appreciate the beauty of the real French language ;) Well, I do and I can stand hours listening to it! and much better if we all share some good white wine!