An Australian art lesson.

“OK, you can go now mum.” It’s like music to my ears quite honestly. Settling into preschool has been slow and sometimes I forget that Hamish is still young and needs a little patience on my behalf. There are some things that he is just so capable of and has learnt from his older brother and I sometimes forget he’s still young and still needs a helping hand with things.

Last week I went with him and 21 other little people on a school excursion to a local art gallery. We got to see some Sidney Nolan pictures and it really is a great little gallery full of pictures of bushrangers and Australian animals and landscapes. Now my child has been fortunate enough to take in some very famous paintings while on our adventures, but I count seeing these Sidney Nolan pictures as just as exciting and captivating.

It is also interesting seeing Hamish interact and learn about Australian culture and folklore. He has no idea what a bushranger is. His teacher had talked to them in their classroom the day before about the pictures they would see and who Ned Kelly was. She had explained to them about policemen and gaols. And Hamish in his little wordly understanding tells the class that he’s been to Alcatraz! Well the other kids had no idea what that was, but the teachers were impressed.

In the museum they sat the children down and the presenter looks at different painting and talks about shapes, characters, landscapes and animals. The very famous Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is brought up in the talk and Hamish put his hand up with a question. “Is Ned Kelly a good or bad guy?” I almost fall of my chair when he asks this question. And you can see the surprise on the presenter and teachers faces too. I guess it’s a question you would expect from older kids, not a preschooler. She tells him “that is a tough question” and puts it back on the kids – “Hand up if you think he’s good. Hands up if you think he’s bad”. Hamish is still undecided and I think I might have to go to the library and borrow some Ned Kelly books for him to get a better understanding of why Australians revere a “bad guy” as a hero or “good guy”.

A day of art viewing.

I have a question!!

Dressing up like the painting.

Making landscapes with shapes.

Can bushrangers see very well with their helmets? Look though the mask.

Collage making.

Print design to turn through the press.

Painting with water colours over the top of crayon.

After that the kids sit on a mat and eat their morning tea. There is a garbage bin in the middle for them to put their wrappers in when they are finished. Hamish has not cottoned onto what to do and his teacher explains to go and put his rubbish in the bin. He gives her a puzzled look, “Wait, what did you say?”, he says in his little American accent. I knew that at this point, if I had said to go put it in the trash, he would have instantly known what to do!

The afternoon they spent in a little art studio out the back creating different types of paintings, collages and prints. It kept us all busy as there was plenty of name writing, supply refreshing and art gathering to be done. Such a well organised little program with the kids, I can recommend checking out the Canberra Museum and Art gallery if you are a Canberran.

Today brings no words, just some new Australian history and art learnt over the past couple of weeks.

Now Boarding.

So we are now home and finally back in our house. But I could not very well leave out the pictures of us in transit. Might I say that none of our flights were straight forward. We had delays for every single leg of our journey. But the kids are so conditioned to travel that they just went with whatever was happening. Thankgod for the invention of the iPad and Nintendo DS.

Sleeping in airport lounges, diverts to other airport, overbooked flights, even a 1.30am boarding was all a part of the shenanigans of getting home and now seems like a distant memory.

Asleep in the Qantas Lounge.

It was 1.30am before our flight border and Hamish was still awake.

It did not take long for him to fall asleep once we were in air

Must keep eyes open to play video games.

Our first meal back in Australia was a meat pie with sauce at Sydney airport. Just brilliant. And I will always have a special place in my heart now for the Pie Face Company with their smiley meat pies. Hamish and Dylan opted for Hungry Jacks and unfortunately Dylan’s meal did not settle too well before hopping on the ‘bug smasher’ back to Canberra. Lets just say that the poor flight attendants rostered on that plane all day would’ve been happy come end of shift time.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks settling back, I’m not going to sugar coat it. We miss the lifestyle and every day conveniences that America had to offer. Fletch and I are really careful about not whinging too much as we don’t want to come off as “those” people with  the attitude that America is supreme. It is so often the perception that the rest of the world has and I guess the only way to legitimately explain it is by saying that there is a certain standard and quality of living that, (and not for all,) but certainly for us, was affordable and comfortable. There is a level of customer service and quality that is expected in everyday life and to have high standards means a profitable outcome for businesses and consumers who expect top products.

So I can buy clothing that is robust and will withstand constantly being put through a dryer. Clotheslines do not exist and I very rarely ironed. A life with less chores – nothing wrong with that! I can eat at a restaurant and have a doting waiter because on their $7 per hour minimum wage they need a good tip just to survive – a win for both of us. I can buy something and it’s sturdy, will work and not break or crap out after 6 months. It’s just different and I will never be judgmental in that respect again. Our house here needs work and insulation – so cold and we need to do a cull again. I have come back to a household full of things that we have held onto since our days of university group share houses and miss match bits and pieces and I do not know why we’ve hung onto them for so long.

So what have I loved and been excited about coming back to? Driving on the right side of the road again. I don’t have to think about it. It comes natural and the lack of cars and traffic in Canberra still surprises me. I love finding a lot of the meats and foods in our grocery store again, though I am so so SO bad at bringing my own bags now! I was so good at bring my own in America and I was definitely in the minority over there. You’d think paying for plastic bags here would encourage me but I am just out of routine. The coffee shop culture. I love going and sitting in a cafe again and having a real coffee. And all the lovely familiar faces of friends and family. Such a joy of all joys seeing you all again. If I could somehow make Ausmerica a reality and have you all with me while living over there, then life would be apples or maybe apple pie, for my new American readers and friends.

Today brings no words and a sudden urge for apple pie or apple slice from the local bakery.

Jails, hippies and hobo pants.

We had booked tickets to see Alcatraz while we were in San Fransisco. We’d been advised that you need to book a tour in advance and so we had tickets ready to go for when we were visiting. You hop on a ferry which whisks you away to the island. It is considered to be a National Park and so everything on the island is protected, even rocks and feathers.

It is really well organized actually. You walk up to the top where the jail is and they give you an audio guide which you then walk around with on a self guided tour. It’s set out really well and easy to follow and it talks about all the infamous characters such as The Birdman, Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.

There were Rangers that gave talks about the various characters and day to day life when the federal penitentiary was in operation. There were commentary on some of the crazy events and sieges that took place. Surprisingly it held the boys attention quite well. Dylan followed the audio tour around the whole way. Hamish got a little bored after a while but he just took off the headphones and because everyone was listening to the audio, no one could really hear is crazy incessant self-chatter and singing. (Actually quite suitable for the place I might say.) He had all the hits going – Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog. What can I say, he’s a little Elvis crazy.

A family of birds nesting in the jail gardens

The Library

Listening to our audio guides.

Our last day in San Franciso we went to the Haight-Ashbury district, a part of the city known for it’s hippie and underground culture. Artists and musicians such as Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin had been known to live in this part of town. There’s lots of second hand shops and tye-dye clothes, funky street art and music stores. I bought a pair of cheese cloth hippy pants and Dylan thinks that I look like a hobo in them. There are no shortage of Homeless around around I might add. I guess it is the dark side of the drug and hippy culture. We saw lots of homeless people in the park as we were walking to find the children’s park and I was at the point of giving up and turning back but luckily we found it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was a lovely little park too and the boys really enjoyed playing in it for a couple of hours, climbing and swinging. The afternoon we spent at the Natural Science Museum. It was a lovely new building with lots of animals and this indoor dome full of fish and wildlife. There were some great art galleries there too but we didn’t really want to push our luck with the boys. They did so well and so we were really careful about not going into overload. So am I allowed to wear my hobo pants out in public? Well of course not if Dylan has his way. We’ll see come summer time.

Today brings no words and no hobo pants. Maybe I’ll wear them up to school when it gets warmer just to see his reaction!

Scientific life.

In my life I have seen many science centers and museums. San Francisco has one of the best in the world, and so there was no way we would be avoiding it.
The Exploratorium is down by the wharf area. It has all these little activity stations gathered around a big warehouse space and you just roll through and play/learn. It’s not over sciencey (is that a word? Is now), it really is about experimenting and seeing how things work. It has all of us engaged using really simple stuff like playing in sand and making slinkys go on escalators at different speeds.

The weird and wonderful art design

Sand designs on a rotating table

Science of skate boarding

And after a long day of playing we went to something called The Rainforest Cafe. It’s this ornately decorated rainforest jungle full of animals and rivers and you sit amongst the canopy complete with freaking out gorillas, vocal lions and ruckusing elephants and a storm that rolls in every ten minutes. It starts to grate after the first twenty minutes but the boys thought it was fantastic. Just keep those cocktails coming!

Watch out for the giant boa!

Today brings no words, just a little science museum fatigue and three very happy science nerds.

First impressions.

Our last stop on the Fletcher holiday itinerary is San Fransisco. At this stage we’d already spent two weeks on the road and it floated by quickly and easily. This stage of the trip has it in our heads that it’s the end so psychologically it is also difficult. Packing up, moving the boys and trying to excite them about coming home, when truth be told we are all a little sad.
We arrive into SF very early and decide to take one of those double decker buses around the city to get our bearings. There is such a mixture of things going on here. The residential, commercial, business and entertainment districts all kind of lie on top of each other, spread over these steep hills that seem to roll on forever. It’s a large city and so the tour was a great first activity.

Hold onto your hats!

Our bus went over the Golden Gate Bridge which was so exciting. It was also really cold and foggy, with the sea breeze wisping gusting over us on the open top of the bus. It was so bad going back that it even woke up Hamish, who had of course, fallen asleep just before we got onto it.
We hopped off down by the wharf where there’s a couple of big entertainment areas, boardwalks and cafés. Our purpose for getting off there is to find the Ghirardelli chocolate cafe. It’s milkshakes and Sundaes all round. We invest in some California hoodies. I love the California state flag with the California Republic bear and my beloved hoodie was never taken off. I did not realise it was going to be so cold for July!

Chocolate awesomeness.

Out comes the jeans and cargos. I was tempted to get a new pair of jeans from the Levi’s store. Levi’s was founded in SF and the store has a really nice boutique style to it and nice jeans worth paying $100 for and not just the standards 501’s which you can pick up for about $20 in a clearance sale. I had to pinch myself the first time I saw the price of jeans over here. Let’s just say I’ll never need another pair until we come back to visit!
It’s really multicultural and there is plenty of good places to eat. To hear different languages and accents (lots of Aussies) all around us again is refreshing, more like walking around Sydney or Melbourne. Yes first impressions of the city are sweeeeeet!

So good!

Today brings no words, and a promise to stay away from the chocolate place or I won’t fit into my jeans by the time I get back to Australia!