'...the other side of the sphere'

Coming back here via California partially prepares you for a return to Australia. California has a fair smattering of eucalypts and other Australian natives. Bottlebrushes flower there at the same time as they do here. But Australian natives do not form part of the general flow in the US, and though Los Angeles, hot as it is, may have plantings of Tasmanian Blue Gums, nowhere did I see Angophora costatas (Sydney Red Gums, in the background here). Angophorae costatae (if that's the plural) and scalloped sandstone - that is definitely a Sydney look.

We met a children's book editor from New York on the plane. She was coming to Sydney for her fourth visit. We asked her what she would be doing? Visiting an old friend of course, but going to see some shows, and shopping... Shopping? A New Yorker comes to Sydney to shop? Yes, she said and when asked to elaborate said Australia has great magazines. It hadn't occurred to us.

It is nice to find the familiar made newly-familiar, nice to hear anew Australian accents (or should Oi say Austrayan?), even nice to see pests like Indian Mynahs (pests in Australia) on a fence.

Finding plenty there - a return to Oakland

Gertrude Stein, who lived in Oakland in the late 19th century, once famously said 'There is no there there.'
Actually I reckon there is plenty there. And we have enjoyed the past few days wandering from Piedmont Avenue to the Lions Pool in Fruitvale, three gullies over. We have enjoyed learning from plaques along the way about the Chochenyo or Huichiuss Indians who once camped at the corner of Trestle Glen and Lakeshore Avenues, availing themselves of plentiful food at the head of what is now Lake Merritt. We have seen with our own eyes the truism that Oakland has almost equal proportions Hispanic, African-American, Asian and Caucasian in its population (the Oakland-East Bay Symphony recognises this in programs for Persian New Year, Chinese New Year...) We have enjoyed the glimpse of perhaps grander days as we walked past the great old Dream Palace cinemas, which in old black-and-white photographs have trolley cars trundling past them. This:

and this:

and Thomas Pflueger's wonderful old example of Depression-era fancy, The Paramount.

The whole Bay area is exciting though. People talk about San Francisco's 'eclecticism'. I think it engenders a touching whimsy, particularly say, in the Mission District where you see spectacular murals on garage doors, walls and back gates.

Not far from here are beautiful old Victorian homes, built in the 1880s, which were not dynamited, as were the buildings in this area of Valencia, to halt the fires following the 1906 earthquake. Perhaps because 'newer', these buildings have not been kid-gloved as old buildings but treated almost as blank canvasses for wonderful flights of imagination. They're just as much tributes to human artfulness and charm as faithful preservation, as in this side wall of a women's health centre,

painted by

which treats the theme of women's health to a particularly vivid epic sweep.

The whole Bay area is a series of micro-climates we were told yesterday. We had a vivid experience of it as we emerged from overcast fogginess on the east side

to sunny streetscenes not very many minutes later.

The variety and extremes may be something Bay dwellers mention in passing, but they must contribute to San Francisco's excitement greatly.