Australian Impressions

 A few impressions of Australia.

Everywhere in Sydney you see dozens and dozens of electric bikes delivering food. Whether this developed during the pandemic, or had started much earlier, I do not know. There is a bike path below our apartment, and an electric bike food delivery passes by every few minutes.

It seems that in Sydney almost everybody has their mobile phone in their hands and a high proportion have their earbuds in. And there must be millions and millions of photos taken each day, perhaps driven by the tourist influx. The Asian tourists seem to photograph everything. In earlier years when we were here, a great many selfie-sticks were in evidence. They seem to have disappeared. Maybe the newer phones make it easier to take selfies.

I have never seen so many people--male and female--with tattoos. It is summer, of course, so much more flesh is bared, I suppose, than in the winter. Males seem to go in for whole arms and legs being covered, and necks, shoulders, backs.  Horrendous. I wonder what the psychology of this obsession is: it certainly does not enhance these men's appearance. And women, also, are very much into it, from teenage girls with small stars on their arms, to middle-aged and elderly women with their whole arms and shoulders tattooed. Yesterday I passed two tattoo parlors: in each chair in each parlor a woman was being tattooed.

And there is much female flesh on display. On the top, bare shoulders and very low-cut necklines, say about a third or a half .of the way down the breasts. And below, a great deal of thigh is typically exposed. My mother would never have let my sisters go out with such skimpy coverage...

The beaches are jam-packed. Yesterday we did a long walk that took us across three beaches to the north of Sydney and ended with us walking along behind a kilometer of a famous beach at Manly. Everywhere there was scarcely free sand between the sunbathers, the picnickers, the volley-ball players, and in the water huge crowds of swimmers in the areas that were safe to swim. And dozens of surfers way out waiting for the huge waves.

Steps...everywhere we take hike around the coast or walk through the city, there are steps and staircases All around the miles of shoreline in Sydney harbor, there are steep cliffs, steep ups and downs, and very often one's route requires going up and down steps. Even getting into the Opera House and getting to our seats, involved at least a hundred steps. The most infamous--and often on our route walking home--are the Macelhone steps. I think they are are 114 steps. I am fairly beat by the time I get to the top of them. Apparently they are considering putting in an elevator.

The cult of physical fitness is obvious...it's not just the multitude of male and female runners, but the number of gyms that you see.  Any long row of stores will have a couple of gyms and often a yoga place. And in the parks, lots of personal trainers at work with their clients. We have often seen runners training by running up and down the Macelhone steps.

And we often see two men walking together, with one of them leading a small dog on a leash. Apparently the neighborhood in which we are staying is much favored bt Sydney gays.