1-Jul-2005
We had a nice flight to Sydney ... this is one of the few flights we've been on during the day with relatively nice weather so here are some photos of our approach to the airport in Sydney.
There has been a drought in the area as evidenced by the sand that can be seen along the reservoir. The rain from yesterday helped a bit, but not enough to make a difference in the long term.
Kathy and Robert found a place to make the transparencies for Kathy's talk on Sunday and both of us went to the Rowany (the local SCA group) dance practice to meet folks, including quite a few who traveled from the states.
2-July-2005
Kathy and I got up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel. A short walk to the University of Sydney and we were ready for our classes for the day. Around 100 people are attending the event from places such as Boston, Pittsburgh (that's us), Chicago, Seattle, Dallas and Toronto.
We spent the day and afternoon attending classes on various dance and music topics, followed by the Silver Rondel Ball in the evening. Here are some pictures from the ball.
Towards the end of the evening, Their Majesties of Lochac, held a short court, where Elsbeth and Alaric (Kathy
& Robert) made a presentation of Gode Cookys that we had brought with us on our journey. The funniest part occured when we thanked Their Majesties border guards for allowing us to make this presentation, not realizing that His Majesty works for the Australian Customs Service, and Her Majesty used to work there as well!
The cookys were then distributed to the populace for their consumption and dancing resumed shortly afterwords. After helping to reset the hall for the following morning, we finally got back to the hotel around 12:30am. Time to get some sleep so we can do the same thing tomorrow :-).
3-July-2005
Another day at the symposium had some very funny moments. The first occurred during a jam session where Robert had borrowed a bass recorder that used a bocal (they call it a "crook" here). In the middle of the piece we were playing the bocal slipped out of the recorder and dropped on the floor. Robert (and some of the other musicians, broke down laughing!).
The big highlight of the classes was playing Susato's Battle Pavane with all buzzy instruments. I've never seen so many krumhorns before! We had a complete consort (and then some) all the way from soprano to bass! Really cool!
After dinner at a local pub, we returned to the hall for the evening dancing. Only 11:45pm tonight ... we can sleep in :-).
4-July-2005 Happy Independence Day!!!!
At the time we woke up this morning it was the 4th of July here in Sydney but not yet back in Pittsburgh. Today was another day of classes and dancing, with the decision on where the next Known World Dance & Music Symposium will be decided by a galliard competition! And the winner is ... the Kingdom of An Tir (Seattle Area).
Kathy and I are doing a quick tour of the Sydney Harbor tomorrow morning before we go to pick up the car for our trip to Tomakin.
5-July-2005
Kathy and I took the train down to Circular Quay to catch a harbor ferry for a quick tour of Sydney before we headed off to Tomakin for a couple of days. It was nice and sunny and we got to see the Opera House as well as some tall ships that were moored on the bay. The ferry ride took about 25 minutes and had several stops along the way.
After our ride we caught the train back to our hotel and headed out to the airport to pick up our car. More tomorrow from Tomakin.
Editor's Note: When we arrived at Circular Quay to purchase our ferry ticket, we found out that they would be out of service from 10am to 12pm due to a union meeting that was occurring that day. We had to change which ferry we were going to take as we needed to be back to check out of the hotel and didn't want to be stranded for a couple of hours! We got the last ferry to Darling Harbor before they stopped so it all worked out.
