Our Top Two Favourite Quotes From Looking For Alibrandi (book)

‘Promise me you’ll never stop dreaming.’ – Jacob Coote, pg 239

‘Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.’ – Michael Andretti, pg 236

Looking For Alibrandi (book) – The Playlist

At Seventeen – Janis Ian

Crocodile Rock – Elton John

Blowin’ In The Wind – Bob Dylan

Peace Train – Cat Stevens

Vogue – Madonna

 

(Also posted on our playlists page).

Looking For Alibrandi (book) – The Places We Couldn’t Go.

As you would expect with a book that was written over 20 years ago, there were a few places we couldn’t visit and photograph due to them no longer being there (or perhaps they didn’t exist in the first place). The Sebel Town House (where the girls go to catch a glimpse of the celebrity, Trey Hancock) is actually a chain of hotels throughout Sydney. When I had finished my list and was googling locations, I discovered the one that is in LFA is no longer there. Harley’s cafe in Darling Harbour (the local after school hang-out for students of the inner city high schools) I couldn’t even find a mention of. This was a little disappointing, as we would’ve loved to go grab some lunch at Harley’s, but we weren’t too fazed, as we did have enough locations to keep us busy for the week.

– Rachel

Annette’s Tattoo

‘There’s nothing to look forward to any more if you don’t have dreams. Because dreams are goals and John might have run out of goals. So he died. But we’re alive and one day I want to own my own garage and you want to be a hot-shot barrister and it’s not going to happen today or tomorrow, it’s going to happen in years and it’s something to look forward to. Promise me you’ll never stop dreaming.’ – pg 239

I got this tattoo a year ago and I love it to pieces.  There are a lot of reasons why I chose this particular quote, starting with the fact that Melina Marchetta wrote it!  Secondly, I like having a tattoo from one of my favourite books, because when people ask me about it, not only does it give me a reason to segue into talk of Looking for Alibrandi, but I think its a good character descriptor. Like, “Hey, I’m Annette and I love books so much that I get quotes from them tattooed on me.”  Thirdly, I like what the quote represents.  I would describe myself as a fairly empathetic person (I cry when watching TV ads, for heaven’s sake) so I find it quite distressing to think about people not having anything to live for.  As a Youth Worker, I am also probably more exposed to this in my day to day life.  So I find this quote inspiring in itself, but when you look at the whole context, it gives it an even deeper meaning.  I know you should get tattoos for yourself, and I certainly did get this as a reminder to myself, but in a way I also got it in the hope that people may be curious and read it or ask me about it and it might help someone.  I do realise that I sound crazy, hoping that a tattoo will have some profound effect on someone else’s life, but you never know!

– Annette

5. The Manly Ferry – LFA (book)

‘I wagged school on Friday and went to Manly with Jacob Coote… He paid for my ferry ticket.’ – pg 149

Speaking of tickets, it took Rachel and I some time to work out what sort of ticket we needed because the system is a bit different in Melbourne (stupid Myki – Sydney has the right idea, keeping the paper tickets). When we eventually figured out what tickets we needed, we were good to go. We caught a train to Circular Quay and then the ferry to Manly. When it was time to go home and board the ferry, I couldn’t find my ticket and unfortunately had to buy another (the ticket was fairly pricey I might add). When we got back to Central station, Rachel went through the boom gates, turned around and there I was, stuck on the station side. I couldn’t find my new ticket. While Rachel laughed hysterically at me, I rummaged through my bag and then dumped the contents on the station floor. Eventually I found it… in my wallet…

– Annette

Watch this space, a follow up story to come!

4. Circular Quay – LFA (book)

‘Eight-thirty, Friday morning at Circular Quay.’ – pg 147

** Update 14/11/2012 8:10pm

Until we looked back on the photo, we had completely forgotten that it was taken at an opportune moment when two pigeons appear to be kissing on top of the sign.  We (well…Rachel) decided that we should call them Jacob and Josie (I agreed).  We felt it was appropriate.

– Annette

3. Redfern – LFA (book)

‘I’m in the book. Only Coote in Redfern.’ – pg 108

As we have mentioned before, parking in Sydney is a nightmare, so to manage this we developed the ‘drive-by’ photo technique (yes, we invented it and no-one has ever done it before). This photo is a perfect example as Rachel had seen the sign approaching and we happened to get a red light. Unfortunately, we weren’t close enough (neither of us own a Nikon, so no long lens for us). Rachel was shouting “a bit closer, a bit closer” whilst I slowly edged the car as close as I could to the one in front. The light went green and I started to drive, but Rachel hadn’t got the photo yet so she started shouting “slow down, slow down.” So with Rachel yelling and hanging out the car window trying to get a photo, I created a traffic hazard by rolling through a main intersection at 10kms an hour. Totally worth it!

– Annette

2. McDonald’s – LFA (book)

‘Another interesting thing that happened over the weekend was that I got a job at McDonald’s… Because it’s on Parramatta road, it always seems to be packed with people.’ – pgs 49 and 100

Not the most exciting of our photos, but it was necessary nonetheless. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t reveal what McDonald’s it is that Josie gets her part-time job at so we just picked one of the many on Parramatta road and went to get our photo. It was thrilling. And then we had lunch. Haha.

– Rachel

1. Martin Place – LFA (book)

‘Have A Say Day’ takes place every year at Martin Place, a walkway in the middle of the city where people sit and have lunch. It has a war memorial and ampitheatre and houses most of the major bank buildings as well as the General Post Office. It runs horizontally across three major streets.’  – pg 25

1. Martin Place – LFA (book)

‘Two days after Mama told me she’d met Michael Andretti, we had the annual ‘Have A Say Day’ at Martin Place.’ – pg 18

In order to give a brief rundown of our trip to Martin Place, I need to launch into a tirade of how much I dislike Sydney roads.  (I apologise if I offend anyone, but really… they’re terrible).

I did the driving in Sydney because we took my car and it was just easier that way.  I don’t particularly enjoy city traffic at the best of times, I especially don’t like it in a state that I don’t know.  I hate it even more when I am used to driving in a city that allows U-turns almost everywhere, you can right turn almost all the time, 1 way streets are limited, my GPS works and there are multi-level car parks everywhere.  For those of you who don’t know, Sydney is pretty much the exact opposite of this.  By the time we went to visit Martin Place (one of our last destinations) I was fed up with trying to parallel park, navigate a city with a GPS that kept spazzing out and not being able to get back to where I needed to after missing a turn.  So when I found a park I could just drive straight into, I went for it.  Unfortunately this meant almost an hour return walk from the car to our destination, but hey, it was a Melina Marchetta roadtrip, so we didn’t mind.  We planned on walking to a few other places, but the parking metre only allowed an hour so we had to go back to the car.  The frustrating part? Not only was there a decent amount of parking practically opposite Martin Place, but we drove right past it going to our next destination.  Apparently my journey planning is almost as bad as Sydney’s town planning!

I will end on a positive note; the ONE good thing about driving in Sydney?  It’s made driving in Melbourne seem so much easier.

*Please note that there will be much ragging on Sydney’s roads throughout this blog.

– Annette