The Angel's game

The Angel's Game is a prequel to 2001's The Shadow of the Wind by Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Like The Shadow of the Wind, it was translated into English by Lucia Graves, daughter of the poet Robert Graves, and published in 2009

A stunning literary thriller in the tradition of Umberto Eco, probably the best book I have read for a very long time. Carlos Ruiz Zafón has this amazing story telling talent that mixes philosophy with beautiful scenery paintings and mystique with even elements of crime story telling.

Conrad Hilton Rangali in the Maldives

This is our fourth visit to this paradise in the Maldives: 

Last time, before traveling to Australia, a bit more than two years ago, I had the pleasure of diving with big Manta rays, this time we had the pleasure of snorkeling with a juvenile Whale Shark – impressive creature!

Diving at Rangali is always amazing, crystal clear water and an abundance of colourful marine creatures. On one dive I even experienced a large school of large batfish circulating us as divers to play with our air bubbles. They actually came up so close that I could have touched them – obviously not afraid of divers – that really felt great.

The Conrad Hilton Rangali is as good as ever, that is infrastructure wise it is possibly even better, but it has become too pricy, thus I don’t feel I get the same value for my money as earlier as I cannot have a meal and a glass of wine for less than 100 dollars - and when I started to perceive a bottle of wine as cheap when they charge 100 dollars then even my mind has started to be infected. Also, we see more of meal packages being offered, like BBQ on the beach where you pay like 300 dollars to eat and drink cheap wine as much as you like – that suits Homer Simpson, not us!

When we came here the first time in 2006 we observed small electric golf cart vehicles that they used to transport luggage to the villas as well as stuff between restaurants - and they offered elderly and handicapped people to be transported - since then, for every visit, we have observed some doubling of the use of this means of transport - and now it is the exception if it transports elderly and/or handicapped, now it is mostly young people that does not bother to walk the few steps between their  villas and the restaurants- appalling!

To Conrad Hilton’s credit is that they have been even more successful in hiring and training local staff, it has become scares to find any services not being supplied by Maldivians, that’s great!

When we came here the first time in 2006, the resort stated in their brochures that the resort was not very suitable for children – now they have abandoned this constraint or warning and is now encouraging families with even small children, however, again to their credit, they have built a quiet zone for adults who don’t fancy mixing with families with small children. 

Also what is different is that there are many more Asian tourists, particularly young Japanese and Chinese honeymoon couples, thus the diversity has increased at the cost of having a specific profile, and thus it is no longer obvious whom they are targeting as their customers!? Probably not me!?

Exit Australia

Its not with great happiness I am leaving Australia and Sydney after two great years, however looking back gives me some great memories of an amazing country and one of the greatest cities in the world:

In many ways Australia and Sydney is an Island and in some context it may be to its disadvantage like enormous distances to all its neighbouring countries as well as being in a “void” time zone not shared by any of its close historical and cultural partners like Europe or the US. So, what is so great with Australia and Sydney? Its climate and beaches seems quite obvious, but in addition its very friendly people – Sydney and probably the whole continent is populated with as polite and friendly people that you could only find in Europe 50 years ago… Next is of course its diverse biology in the sense that Australia have a very unique population of birds, animals and insects – if you find anything you know from your home country, it has probably been imported or migrated (cockroaches) – no need to mention all the harm the early migrants did to the wild life in Australia by bringing rabbits, foxes, etc etc, just for “fun”…

Back to Sydney, where else would you today find a city metropolis with clean and free (no charges) public toilets? And they are everywhere in the city!  Sounds like a minuscule detail – trust me it isn’t – wherever you travel it’s a challenge to find clean public toilets, let alone free service, however not in Sydney!

As for a cultural city, Sydney has a lot to offer (more than Melbourne ;-)), not only the iconic opera, but “open air” opera in the park and at the sea front, likewise summer open air cinemas, concerts, short film festivals etc – all outdoor:

And this is in addition to all what happens in the theaters and concert halls – and not to forget the winter light festival “Vivid Sydney” which is a unique light festival using the opera building sails as well as buildings in the rocks to display innovative light shows:

As for culture I of course need to mention all the wine festivals, there is one almost every month and most of them outdoor in a park or at Manly beach:

 
While living in Australia and Sydney, we have had the pleasure of exploring most of NSW and the East coast up to Cairns and its world oldest rainforest as well as into the amazing Uluru at the heart of Australia:

When we left we thus took the opportunity of exploring some of the Australian West coast, specifically from Perth and down to Margaret river, yet another different geography and climate zone different from the East coast, but of course being three time zones to the west, no wonder it would be different – and by itself very beautiful:

 

Project Rameau@Sydney Theater

At Sydney Theater, once again I got to enjoy Richard Tognetti and the ACO, but this time the music did not get the full attention simply because the Dancers from the Sydney Dance Theater really blow my mind and positively 'distracted' my attention from the music to these amazing dancers and their amazing performance matching the music perfect individually, in pairs or the whole group on the stage. Each dancer has a body control, grace, beauty and flexibility that really go beyond your imagination - I find it hard to believe that anything can be better than this!

The amazing storyteller

I have just finished my second Carlos Ruiz Zafon book!  I read his The Shadow of the Wind, beautifully translated into English from Spanish a few years ago, the book made a strong impression, specifically due to the way he use the language but indeed also I loved his characters and their stories:

Actually, I did not expect to read a second book of Carlos Ruiz Zafon as I did not expect anything would be able to match The Shadow of the Wind, but now I have done so; I have just completed The Prisoner of Heaven which turned out to be a continuation of the The Shadow of the Wind and unbelievably but true, it was even more exciting and as lovely as The Shadow of the Wind - thus highly recommendable reading - I almost could not lay it down once I got into his fantastic story from his beloved Barcelona:

ACO and Beethoven 9th

Yet again I have had the pleasure of enjoying the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and its Director, Conductor and Lead Violin, Richard Tognetti:

 

As an introduction, we got a piece of Brahms (Geistliches Lied, Op.30) and a fantastic sensitive piece of Beethoven (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.112) with text by none other than Goethe ! 

An amazing and fantastic piece of music mellowed in the hands of Richard Tognetti and his fantastic ACO musicians with the help of the very talented Choir of Clare College from Cambridge.

But this was just an introduction,  never the less worth the whole ticket:

 - but that was before we had heard the performance of the 9th- I have never ever heard anything more beautiful - most of us are very much familiar by the bits and pieces of the 9th that are played over-and-over again - but this entire 65 minutes was the most exquisite pleasure for my ears and mind I have ever experienced - the entire concert hall was filled with the breadth and depth of the music that I have never experienced before - I could actually hear each instrument and almost each person in the big choir - simply beautiful and such a wonderful 65 minutes that I would have been able to turn around and go for another round at any time!!

More on Sydney

Australia and particularly Sydney is fascinating given the diversity of its society. After all, in less than three hundred years ago this 'city' and country was 'invaded' by convicts from the UK.

Since then this society has expanded its amazing infrastructure, culture, democracy, independence and diversity many times over into today's prospering and amazing good living society and city well known for each beaches, Opera and Sydney Harbour bridge:

 Last year Australia conducted its 16th census (which includes both Marianne and my self :-) and there are some very interesting reading:

Only 60% of Sydneysiders are born in Australia (Nationwide it is 70%)
3.5% are born in England
3.4% are born in China - thus the Chinese are the third biggest immigrants to Sydney as opposed to New Zealand if you view it Nation wide.

Only 60% of Sydneysiders speaks English at home (Nationwide it is 77%)
4.1 % speaks Arabic
3% speaks only Mandarin at home (nationwide the third group is Italian)

I have many times over made comments about the low number of churches in Sydney - and here comes the evidences which actually indicates that there are more Christians in Sydney than nationwide in Australia, but still, viewed as a western society, number of Christians are low:

28.3% are Catholics
16.1% are Anglican
17.6% has NO religion, but this is actually lower than nationwide which is 22.3%