Cross Cultural Notes

“Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.”

-Beethoven

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”

-Einstein

 

 When people ask me where I live in Perth, I say the next block down from the Perth Concert Hall. It is a luxury to be able to walk to the symphony and only get a bit damp even in a down pour because it's so close (depending on the one street crossing traffic light). Every time I walk by to the train station or shops, a feel just a little more cultured.

I've now been to the opera house in Sydney, but Perth's Concert Hall is no shabby auditorium. Inside it is a beautiful space complete with fine dining and red carpet. 

Some day, I need to see someone use that organ!

The past two weeks the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. been putting on a Beethoven Festival, and Friday night I went to see the 6th, "Pastoral" and the 7th.

The whole symphony was great. I've spent most of my "music career" with amateur orchestras. After all, I am an amateur. Don't get me wrong, I use "amateur" with the highest regard and respect. I've always been impressed with them because A. almost everyone else is better than me and B. we only rehearse once a week and are all volunteers. Well, a professional symphony does sound a bit different. But it's the same music. The same symphonies, written hundreds of years ago, brought to life of the black and white sheet music by whoever is playing them. Hearing parts of the symphonies brought me back to the times when I have played them, with memorable melodies and conspicuous rests. As cheesy as it sounds, music really is the universal language (it even bridges the great Aussie-American divide). And even on the other side of the world, they still have the same orchestral quirks. 

The brass section still spends 75 percent of the time counting rests and trying to stay awake for their two entrances. Violins still break strings. There are still emotive flautists that if they moved just a little bit more would take out the whole woodwind section. And the oboe players still are fighting with their reeds.

Some of you may know that I play the oboe. The hautbois. Or as fellow double reeders have referred to it: hot boys and hobo. My oboe did not make it into my Perth-bound suitcase, which makes it a year since my lips have felt the tickle and buzz of the reed. That also makes it the longest period not playing since I was in 5th grade (which is a long time away from this oldie). I would never call myself an oboe player, or and oboist. I didn't major in music. I am terrible at music theory. And I never found myself practicing for two hours a day (or any day). In fact, I always thought the oboe sounded like a duck (Peter and the Wolf confirms this). Why didn't I play the guitar or violin? Way cooler (granted I do own both but am hopeless at progressing beyond a cats howl and three chords strum). You can't "jam" with an oboe. They aren't even in jazz bands. Not the coolest or sexiest instrument, plus over half the world doesn't know what an oboe (If you're one of them, listen to the beginning of the 7th).

Listening to Beethoven's 6th and 7th, I had an epiphany: "The oboe is beautiful". There is nothing like it, and I do actually like it." Maybe it was the skill and tone of Peter Facer, prinicpal oboist of WASO. Maybe it was the fact that I haven't played in ages. Maybe it was the glass of wine with dinner beforehand. Maybe things sound better down under. Who knows :) But I'll be excited to get my hands back on those silver keys, struggle to get a working reed, and squwak a little tune. 

WASO's 2015 calendar just arrived in the mail and they're playing Mozart's oboe concerto in C major next July. But I have a feeling I will be hearing from them before then.

Snip, Snip

Even mundane things can turn into adventures...

I can't say I've ever enjoyed going to the hairdresser. To me, it's on the same level as going to the doctor for a checkup or the dentist for a cleaning. It's something you have to do, is a little painful, requires awkward conversation, and happens once a year (twice if you're diligent). Thanks to having long hair for the majority of my teenage and adult life, getting a haircut once or twice a year is passable without looking like a homeless person or free spirit attempting dreadlocks. Besides, my hair spends the majority of it's time in a ponytail.

Oh look ponytails! How new and different!

 Growing up, I can only remember ever having two hairdressers: Dotti and Helen. And our whole family went to them. Helen probably knows more about me than some of my friends with regular updates from my mom. No frills, she does what I want and knows I don't need the gossip talk to keep me entertained.

But for several years, Connecticut has been an awful long way to go for a haircut. During college at Maryland, I got a hair cut once or twice a year when I was home for the holidays. Now, just like doctors and dentists, I have since chosen my hairdressers out of convenience and cost-effectiveness.

I'm so ambivalent about hairdressers, I even had no hesitation when my friends decided to not only cut but HIGHLIGHT my hair one long weekend. Because hey, how can you mess up a trim? And I could always get it fixed... (mind you that is the ONLY time to this day I've had my hair colored).

When my first year in South Carolina was up, I went to a "real" hair salon. I think I got a coupon thrown at me with some beads at the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was quite the overwhelming experience and the $50 bill seemed ridiculous to "I just need a simple trim" me. Plus, with my low maintenance approach to hair styling, I always feel like I'm being judged by the red-haired, mohawked stylist. Then I found Kenneth Schuler. It's a cosmetology school, and for $10, I could get a shampoo, cut, and blow dry. It was fantastic! No appointment necessary and the students were getting graded by their supervisors so were very cautious to detail. Sure it tool a little longer, but I could relax and know if I wanted two inches off, they would get the ruler out. Until that one time I got too relaxed. And with a little miscommunication, I ended up traumatized when my long hair became less than shoulder length. So since, then I've been a bit cautious.

 That's when this accidentally happened.

But my year of carefree hair maintenance is almost up. Which meant that it's time to not only find a new hairdresser. But find a new hairdresser in AUSTRALIA. What if they cut upside down? Do I have to tell them how many centimeters I want off instead of inches?

I started doing my research months ago. There seem to be barbershops and salons on every block in the CBD for consideration. Sometimes two. Australians do love their blondes (even if it's from a bottle).

  Men only. (So much easier to be a dude!)

Checking out prices in shop windows, I figured that if I went to any traditional salon, it'd set me back about $100. Extra if I wanted it styled/blow dried. It took me weeks to mentally prepare for that, but I've been in Perth for almost a year and the sticker shock is starting to lose it's razor edge, though still a blunt, painful edge.

Doing some "late night" grocery shopping, I walked by Salon Express above my local Wooly's. It was still open at 7 pm (A good sign!) and no appointments necessary. We had a winner.

One of the marketing tools for Salon Express is that they price everything up front, so there's no shock when you go to pay. And they price EVERYTHING.

They advertise for a Ladies Basic cut for $19.50.

• But since I haven't had regular maintenance on my very fancy "style", it was considered a "Restyle"- $35
• I had just been to the gym, and plus the only good part about getting a haircut is having someone else wash your hair, so I got shampoo-$10 (but it was WORTH it with a massaging chair and extra scalp massage).
• Since I was going to the highlight party of the year that evening, I figured I'd splurge for a blow-dry. Now a normal "short" blow dry is $20. A long blow dry is $32.50 (50 cents, really?). And apparently my hair is "extra long" despite having several centimeters chopped off.-$42.

Bringing the grand total to $87.50. Still under the $100 mark and without the added stress of calling to make an appointment (I hate the phone. Seriously, ask my mom). And my hair dresser, Emma, provided magazines, attempted to make small talk to see if I would bite, but mostly left me alone as she knows she'll probably never see me again (though she did ask, it's been awhile since you've had it trimmed hasn't it? I don't need your judgement!)

 Not very good Before & After pics. But it didn't get accidentally chopped off!

I will admit it. My healthy, shiny, soft, nice smelling hair was worth it. Maybe it won't be another year until I go back. But first I have to figure out the dentist...

Involuntary Revhead

One benefit of living in the city is that I get to know about all the events going on, whether I like it or not. I woke up on a normal quiet Sunday morning (there's less buses and traffic and stores don't open until 11) and I heard a very loud car engine growling. Some macho man showing off. Then another, and another. This was no ordinary show of testosterone.

I wandered around the corner to Langley Park and Riverside Drive. And what did I find?! It was a car show. Apparently the Targa West event has brought cars gathering all around the city, shutting down the streets, and revving their engines. Today was the historic sprint down Riverside Drive.

There were the traditional Rally Cars...

Your classic Jaguar...

The iconic Cadillac...

The manly Ford Mustangs...

And then a whole gaggle of Mazda Miata's, or at least what I thought were Miatas (they may be one of the few cars I can recognize). Apparently here they're called MX-5's or just plain Mazdas (rhymes with Taz not oz) or something like that. I'm sticking with Miata

But then there were the classic Australia Holdens (which are now actually owned by GM)...

Holden Commodores (which are going to be discontinued if they haven't been)

And Holden Toranas

But this wasn't just a look and see kinda car show. They put the pedal to the metal with cars racing every minute from 10 am to 1:30 pm.

On your mark, get set, go!

Some were more style than speed.

And some were fast!

It was a long way from Cruise Night at Ocean Beach and $2 Mini Golf, but wherever you go there are men (and some women) showing off their shiny metal cars. And while I'm no revhead (or Petrolhead in Aussie) some of them are pretty neat.

Seek Wisdom

There are 5 universities in Perth and they've been in the press a bit with their recent open days and teh new Good University rankings coming out. You'll note, like all things in Australia (European colonizers didn't arrive in this country until 1788), they're relatively new.

*Aussie translation: "uni" = university

University of Notre Dame 

(no, not the fighting Irish in in South Bend though they are linked)

A private Catholic uni down in Fremantle with 7,000 undergrads split between Freo and Broome. It became a uni in 1989.

Edith Cowan University

A university of 16,000 undergrads across the northern suburbs of Perth (and other few small campuses), it's the only uni in Australia named after a woman (the first woman to be elected into parliament). It prides itself on providing alternative entry into higher education since it's opening in 1982.

Murdoch University

Started in 1973, as Perth's second oldest uni, is in Perth's southern suburbs. It has about 16,000 undergraduates as well as a focus on research.

Curtin University 

(hopefully you've heard of this one)

It's the largest uni in Western Australia with close to 37,000 undergrads. It was established in 1986 and was originally Curtin University of Technology with a practical and growing research focus with the motto "Make Tomorrow Better".

University of Western Australia
(aka UWA)

The oldest uni in Western Australia and a member of the Group of Eight (hoity toity equivalent of the Ivy leagues in the US, but was only started in 1994). It's motto, in a traditional liberal education perspective, is "Seek Wisdom."

Because there is no high profile uni sport (and no mascots!), the rivalry between uni's is a bit more quietly academic and turns into "My engineers are better than your engineers" or "We got more research dollars last year". And because Western Australia is the national underdog competing for research grants with the powerhouses over east in Sydney and Melbourne, they do work together. We happen to be doing some research at UWA (if you remember) and I was over at their beautiful campus twice in the past week. Out of the pages of Harvard and Yale 101, it looks like a university should.

It's got its hallowed hallways (be it mostly outdoors as we are in Australia...

Old buildings with tributes to old, wise men...

 THe normal buildings you'd expect, with the added bonus of palm trees...

Big, old trees and racks of student bicycles...

And students playing a pick up game on the green (albeit the cricket ground)...

And like any good university (Maryland has its black squirrels, Carolina had its aggressive northern mockingbirds, and Curtin with its deformed Australian crow/ravens), UWA has its resident peacocks primarily residing in the Arts building

Those peacocks are fierce, but I'll take a terrapin or gamecock any day.

Mind the Gap

You may have come across this news story in the past week. Did you realize it happened in Perth? You know, the Australian city I've been living in the past 11 months?

If you missed it, here's a summary.

Man gets leg stuck in the gap between the train and the platform.

 How did his leg get all the way down in that little gap?

Passengers push the train for him to escape.

With all the tragedy and hate in the news recently, it's nice to see a story where strangers are helping their fellow man.

It also got me thinking, as Stirling station (where it happened), was my first destination to attempt navigating the trains in Perth. Equipped with my Smartrider (not a SmartTrip as I sometimes call it), I headed out into the windy, cold, rainy dusk. And I made it safefly to my final destination.

 

And in Stirling, there was a helpful little reminder.

 This is the train coming in to Stirling. Do you even see a gap to mind?

So it got me to thinking about the train stations in Perth. As a consumer of public transport, I frequent the rail system quite often. From the Justin Bieber fans with their mom to the footy fan filled sardine cans, to the drunken, barefoot man with his bike, I've see Perth's best on the trains. 

Out of approximately 69 stations on the Transperth train network, I've been to 25 of them. And that doesn't count the ones I've ridden by on my numerous bike rides, or that I tried to go to. Like the time Kyla was dropping me off at Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn, not Cock-burn fellow Gamecocks) but we couldn't find the entrance. Or the time I was supposed to meet Ashley at Burswood, and I thought I was supposed to be there an hour later (hence missed the train) and ran to catch what I hoped was the correct bus, only to find out she had accidentally taken the express station that didn't stop at Burswood.

If you come to Perth and have any fear of getting on the leg eating train, have no fear. Here's a sampling of some.

There are five lines, with Perth Station and Perth Underground (they're basically one connected station as the cental hub.

Perth Station

Perth Underground

 What gap?

Leederville

Home of trendy bars, and closest stop for all the men in suits going to work in West Perth.

City West

 Normally I cycle/walk past here, but I stopped on the train here to get my Western Australian driver's license (no test required!) on the way to Fremantle for an afternoon adventure.

West Leederville

Destination for all footy Eagles and Dockers headed to Patterson's Stadium.

Subiaco

Come to think of it, I only went in this station once, because on the return journey, it was closed for maintenance and we ended up walking back to the city.

Claremont Showgrounds

Only open for events, which basically means once a year for the Perth Show. Fairy floss anyone?

Cottesloe

Next stop, the beach!

 

McIver

 The closest station to me, and the only place I know where the "shortcut" pathway goes through Royal Perth hospital.

East Guildford

 A little country town not far from the city.

Midland

Final destination on the line.

Will I get to each stop by the end of my time here? Maybe I will, maybe I won't, but whichever stop I'm at, I'll be sure to mind the gap.

And if you're up for a trip with a few more kilometers, hop on the Indian Pacific. 

Final Destination Sydney.