When I first came here I had a rainbow striped knitted purse with a few sequins. It wasn't a favorite, but it did managed to preserve my passport. When I was home in May I switched back to a long-time favorite, the pretty bright teal-with-flowers-and-a-few-beads purse. Its strap unfortunately broke while I was in DC, so my best friend gave me a slightly larger Old Navy purse that said "Costa Rica" convincingly enough that many people asked if it'd bought it there. (There are lovely perks to being perceived as immensely more well-traveled than you are.) It was big enough to carry my damaged teal purse, and inched me a step closer down the bag spectrum. It's still a good purse, but I recently realized that I was carrying not only a purse but also a small beach bag everywhere I went. Plus, it was navy blue and it's summer here now. It came time to buy a bag.
No, I traipsed last Saturday (which, for the record, hit something like 42 degrees Celcius, and was not weather meant for doing anything, much less strolling through the markets I'd carelessly decided to visit without checking the temperature) to Souvenir World, which sounds awfully tacky, but is actually the classiest souvenir place I've come across here. They have boomerangs and stuffed boxing kangaroos and frangipani lotion, but, unlike other shops, manage to put them on separate shelves. I went there because I knew they had bags.
I'm not saying they've got a good selection of bags (I believe its beige or tan), nor did the salespeople really know what I was talking about when I tried to explain what I was looking for. "It's kind of that style," I said, pointing to an over-the-shoulder beach bag, "but it says 'Sydney' and is, like, beige." I knew they had it because I'd bought one there as a present before, and had been in often enough to know they don't really change their wares, well, probably, ever. Finally one of the younger sales associates caught on and led me in a circle around the store until we found my precious bag near the back.
It worked just as well as I'd thought it would: it fit both my purse and my mini beach bag, though I have to say I was hard pressed to actually retrieve anything from the purse. Who really needs bus passes anyway?
The bag is necessary, though. I'm a bit anal about my purse to begin with -- what sort of person can honestly think of leaving home without Kleenex, Purell and Band-Aids, let alone a camera, deck of cards and eight colors of pens, just in case? -- but generally everything fits. Sydney adds a new dimension: sun.
Sunscreen SPF 45 or higher is obviously essential, yet I've added two things I've often seen others carry around, but never desired myself: sunglasses and water. Water isn't exactly light as a feather either, in case you haven't tried toting it lately.
Even then there's the salient lingering question regarding the off-chance of managing to leave work on time and finding myself with enough time to go to the beach. Naturally one must carry a swim suit. But where's the point of a swim suit if there's no towel? And the point of a towel with no book?
Then of course it will be later in the day, and one might need a small cardigan for warmth (though, of course, if one is running slightly short on space, one might fall back on the beach towel in desperate times). And, oh, yes, there's the mX the friendly kid managed to stuff in my hands at Museum station, plus the crumpled Magnum wrapper I couldn't throw out on the bus.
And so, you see, Sydney makes purses heavy. So heavy that they can be no longer purses, but ultimately evolve before your very eyes into bags -- big, bulging bags at that. I guess I don't really mind, but I do wish I had my teal flowered purse back. Even if it wouldn't fit that spare pair of shoes just in case I spend the night in Coogee.
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