Wednesday 25 February 2015

Schumann Concert at the Sydney Opera House

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Two Monday's ago I went to a classical concert at the Sydney Opera House. It was my very first classical concert and with the student rush tickets, it was only $15 which I thought was reasonable. Of course, the seats weren't great (the very first row) however it is a classical concert after all.

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Lemon, lime and bitters is my standard drink.

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I wasn't familiar with Schumann's symphony 3 and 4 however they were pretty good (I did listen to them a few times before the concert). I much preferred No. 4. However, Jorg Widmann's piece was. Different. Here is a listen. It sounded like a dying cat being run over by a steam roller. Multiple times.
Tuesday 17 February 2015

Film Photography

At any given point in time, I will always have at least 3 rolls of undeveloped film. Right now I have 3 rolls and two unfinished rolls in two cameras. The upside is that when I do receive the shots back, it's almost like a time capsule because they can be anywhere from 3 weeks to over a year old. I recently developed two of my disposable cameras. Oh my. These were cameras I had purchased at the Reject Shop for $5 each and perhaps it was just the ones I bought (although I did buy them at different times), but they are horrible. Super grainy (past the point of being even remotely nice) and a crazy amount of light leaks. Crazy amount. Nonetheless, it is still quite cool and I am still in love with film photography. That being said, I think I will go back to purchasing decent film for my cameras (maybe after I finish my 8 rolls of BW film though....).

These are the best 6 shots that I had developed.

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This makes me a little sad as I think it would have been so much nicer without that horribly obnoxious light leak.

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Monday 9 February 2015

Switzerland Part 2

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9th - 13th January 2015
For the remainder of my time in Switzerland, I visited Bern and Geneva. Spoiler alert, I wasn't a big fan of either city. Perhaps it was because my mind wasn't really into visiting those places or because I didn't think either one would trump the experiences from the previous days. A self fulfilling prophecy in a way I suppose. Like everything in Switzerland, the train from Zurich to Bern (and Bern to Geneva) was expensive. We bought each ticket at 25 CHF (35 AUD) per person for a 2 hour train journey and that was already on a supersaver sale. I was only in Bern for one day (arrived late in the evening and had a train to Geneva the following day at 7pm) and it was more than enough time for Bern. A hostel bed was around $40 AUD a night in a dorm and it was an ~interesting~ experience. Ergo the entire room just smelled of feet. Yum.

When I was on exchange, there was a Swiss guy who was from Bern and he believed that it was the most beautiful place in the entire world. I have to disagree. Whilst it was pretty, it definitely isn't near the top of my list. One of the good things about Switzerland is that if you stay at a hotel/hostel, you are provided with a free transport card for the duration of your stay. And that is how we ended up at Gellert Hill (which requires a funicular ride to get to the top and would otherwise have been ridiculously expensive).

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It must have been the river that ran around the city, but it reminded me a lot of Columbus, Georgia. Although architecturally it was completely different.

A funny story. When we caught the train from Bern to Geneva, we got off at the airport train station instead of one in the centre of the city as originally planned since it was closer to our hotel. However, I didn't do enough research and it didn't cross my mind that highways/ motorways don't exactly have pedestrian crossings. Naturally, the train station was on one side of the highway and our hotel was on the other side. Apparently I'm a little reckless and I did consider crossing the 6 lane highway. But we didn't.  A twenty minute walk later (including a 200m stretch in practically pitch black parkland) and we made it the hotel. Thankfully.

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The only reason for visiting Geneva was for CERN and I am not a science person by any means and found the guided tour so. incredibly. boring. It was also weird to suddenly be hearing French again (since the other places in Switzerland spoke Swiss-German).

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Overall Thoughts
Switzerland was even prettier than what I had imagined. It was also shockingly expensive and I am from Sydney, a very expensive place to live in. But also, the Swiss Franc is doing amazingly well.  For the duration of our trip in Switzerland, we didn't eat hot food since we were just eating out of the supermarket. Migros was really nice and the salads and pastries, although expensive (similar to food court prices), were super super tasty and of quite good quality! It's hard for me to comment on Switzerland as a whole, because it included both amazing moments and also quite horrible moments too.

Would I re-visit?
Yes. But only in the warmer months for hiking.