Nick Fryer

Category: Diary

  • Europe 11 – Under the Appenines 

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    Nick Fryer
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    Audio: Stazione Firenze SM Novella A last poke around Florence. Plans to get over the Arno to the Piazzale Michaelangelo foundered on the rocks of the Florentine bus system. After ten minutes sitting on a stationary bus, the driver arrived and said something in Italian which sounded dismissive, but then, it always does. Everyone who…

  • Europe 10 – You’ll Uffizi and You’ll Bloody Well Like It

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    Nick Fryer
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    Some more random observations on Florence and/or Italy: We live at Via della Scala 41. Like all civilised places, Florence numbers its streets so that all of the odd numbers are along one side and the even ones the other, and yes, I’m looking at you, Rome. However, our apartment block is right between Via…

  • Europe 9 – La Ricerca dei Giardini

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    Nick Fryer
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    Further observations about Florence: Trees are too good to waste on the poor. At a certain point today, the need for some sort of greenery got to us all, but especially Anna. The map suggested that a large garden – Il Giardino de Boboli – was to be found on the south side of the…

  • Europe 8 – But Mostly Couture

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    Nick Fryer
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    A harried morning getting on each other’s tits in Rome was followed by our first high speed train ride, the Frecciarossa, which was followed by a harried evening getting on each other’s tits in Florence. At one point Seb ran off into the crowd on the Ponte Vecchio, Anna ran off after him, and in…

  • Europe 7 – Cathedrals and Couture

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    Nick Fryer
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    Audio: Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City Right then, not going to spend another day deciding the queues are too long, so it was up at can, military precision, breakfast, street, bus, at St Peter’s Basilica only minutes after the target 0700h. Straight in, my fingers were twitching as they tried to obey the “no photography”…

  • Europe 6 – An Embarrassment of Basilicas

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    Nick Fryer
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    In the game CivCity Rome, one attempts to grow a Classical Roman settlement, striving to meet the needs of the electronically generated populace to keep them happy and thus breeding (or immigrating – the mechanism of increase is not clear: new people simply appear from behind the lunch shed. Ok, it’s breeding.) The ungrateful wretches…

  • East of Eden – Day 9 – Home

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    Nick Fryer
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    Up early, damn, still can’t find the missing key card for the hotel room. Come on, boys, come on, the bags are in the car, we need to be going. Driving, breakfast in Goulburn, driving, feeling drained. Pull over an hour short of the airport to splash water on face and take a cold &…

  • East of Eden – Day 8 – Questacon

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    Nick Fryer
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    I had plans: Questacon, Parliament House, the National Gallery if we had time. After breakfast in Tuggeranong, we made it to Questacon at about 10am. And that was the day. We left when it closed, at 5pm. We did not even stop for lunch. I couldn’t shift them. By 4pm I was sitting in the…

  • East of Eden – Day 7 – Walking, Walking

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    Nick Fryer
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    Not the best day, although I suspect that I feel it most. Into the city, and there have been changes in the 20 years since I was last here. The most obvious is the sprawling enclosed mall that now essentially comprises the eastern city centre. It’s clean, modern, has good toilets (not a trivial thing…

  • East of Eden – Day 6 – Cousins

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    Nick Fryer
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    I’m going to be brief today – it’s already tomorrow as I write. The day started with another breakfast meeting. We must be in Sydney. This time it’s Jill, my favourite cousin, with her daughter Rhianna and friend, Nadine. Rhianna, a thirteenish collection of acute angles when I saw her last, is now a poised…