Nouméa, New Caledonia!!

Three weeks of University holidays in Sydney + cold, rainy bad weather + no one in town but myself = last-minute travel plans to go away! A colleague at work in NYC recommended Nouméa and I couldn't have had more fun in three days.


Arrived early evening Thursday July 12 and stayed through Monday morning July 16. Get the Lonely Planet guidebook for New Caledonia if you plan on going. (I bought the Vanuatu & New Caledonia book since the country by itself isn't readily available by itself.)

More posts to follow with many many photos!

Rotary Presentations

Ambassadorial Scholars are required to make a number of presentations to clubs around the area during the year abroad and once we return to our home country. Here are some action shots from the presentations I've made so far –

Powerpoint at a Sydney Inner West lunch meeting, with what looks like a little dancing, too!



The guest speaker sits at the head table with the club President and other Board members - it's just good luck that it looks like the flags are coming out of my head. [Turramurra Rotary Club]



My attentive audience at Turramurra Rotary Club.



Each Rotary Club around the world has their own club banner to exchange with other Rotarians when receiving guests or traveling – my presentations typically end with a banner exchange when I accept the club's banner and they accept a banner produced by my Rotary District in Michigan/Ontario for the scholars. At the East Sydney Rotary Club, we had some trouble with the hand-off.



From left to right: Mira, President of Randwick Rotary Club, myself holding the Randwick banner, and Richard, Randwick Rotary member, holding the District 6330 scholar banner.

Random Photo #02

Sydney Olympic Park

Random Photo #01

Rooftop of Eva's Backpackers
Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia

Pittwater

On grey and rainy Sunday in June, I headed up to the Pittwater area for dinner and we stopped at the beach where you can imagine how lovely it is in the summer!


[left]


[right]

The family had several wild pets who stopped by for dinner, including the Kookaburra and the Possum - different to the North American Opossum.

Architecture on Architecture

If you happen to be in the market for a new coffee-table book, check out the newly published monograph of the architecture firm I work for in New York City!

The Amazon link is in my list of links to the right and the cover of the book is shown here.

Some of the projects the firm is especially known for: The New 42nd Street Studios (NYC), Chanel Headquarters 57th Street (NYC) and Saginaw Art Museum (Michigan).



Platt Byard Dovell White Architects
20 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010 USA
www.pbdw.com

Ode to Coffee

I think it's appropriate that there is an overwhelming presence of caffeine in this blog.

Campos – recently mentioned in the New York Times/Travel: The Remix; Coffee Down Under | Blame It On Roma – is probably the best cup of coffee in Sydney. And time will tell whether it's a good or bad thing that the place is across the street from where I live.


193 Missenden Road (off King Street)
Newtown (Sydney)