I left my apartment earlier than necessary to walk to the office. I thought it would take more time at the supermarket, but it didn’t and I was too early to get into the office. I sat on a bench outside waiting either for 8:30 or someone I knew who could let me in. If I was here any longer I would definitely need a swipe card, and a cell phone.
At 8:30, I made it upstairs and had an email from my client about doing lunch again. I waited for him downstairs but he never showed. I went back up and ate my lunch I brought (again not expecting it to work out with my client). Around 12:30 I called mom and dad but no one answered. I figured the number was showing up as unavailable so I left a long rambling message giving them time to pick up the phone but didn’t wait long enough. Mom texted me to say they were indeed home and I called back.
Just after lunch I emailed out the draft of the learning plan to the client, so I’ve accomplished what I came here to do.
Friday evening, I had hokkein noodles from Stir Crazy and ate at my apartment. I felt like I should go do something since I was in Sydney and all, but I wasn’t up for much. I settled for walking down by Luna Park to try some night shots of the bridge since I have a different camera and the tiny tripod this time. They didn’t turn out much better than any I took before. Either dark or blurry. I did take a video which looks very clear, so I need to figure out how to get the pictures to look like that.
I walked along down by Jeffreys St Wharf and then up through the park. It was really windy and pretty cool, even with my jacket and sweatshirt on. I did play a little with the self timer and took some cheesy pictures of myself, but the cold got to me and I went back upstairs.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Today is election day! The general consensus is it will be a hung Parliament when the counting is done. I’ve been studying up on Australian government so I can understand a little bit better.
I had lots of shopping to do but most places don’t open until 10:00. I waited until about 8:30, then walked across the bridge. I must blend in okay because the guard that stands in the middle of the bridge asked me if I knew where you could vote in Kirribilli. The weather was really great – bright and sunny and about 65 degrees in the sun.
When I got across to the Rocks, I stopped and got a donut at a café, then walked up to the Royal Botanic Gardens a bit. There tulips are starting to bloom, and there were quite a few flowers blooming. I was a little wigged out when I read there were eels in the pond. I went searching and found the heard of cockatoos I’ve met before. I walked along the water to Bennelong Point and around the Opera House. Once you come around that curve, the winds pick up massively and it was quite cold.
I did some souvenir shopping at the shops near the opera house, then headed to get a bus to Paddington Market. When I got there, I thought I knew right where the Wild Island coffee place was. Of course they weren’t there and I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I wasn’t able to get mom’s Blue Mountain coffee, or even anything similar.
I headed back to the Rocks Market to see if I could find some there but no luck. I did by myself a tiny kangaroo with a tinier joey and a Tasmanian devil. My next stop was Paddy’s Market via a bus up George Street, but I didn’t have much luck there, and the crowds were making me crazy. I walked down through Harbourside and ate lunch at McDonald’s there. I was browsing the stores when I realized that was one place I knew I could come back in the evening if I wanted to.
I decided the best transportation was the ferry back to Circular Quay. By this point I was carrying around a lot of stuff and since the ferry ride from Milson’s Point is only 5 minutes, I figured I’d hop off at Milson’s Point, drop off the stuff, then catch the next ferry in 30 minutes. I held up my end of the deal and was back down at the wharf in time, but of course the ferry was 45 minutes late. I never would have stopped there if I had known!
When I finally got back to Circular Quay, I bought myself a sweatshirt and made a last sweep through for souvenirs. Then I took the train to Coles to get something to make for dinner and headed back to watch election results. My feet were in some serious pain. I did wear my pedometer, but apparently it resets when it gets past 19,999 steps. I usually average about 2000 steps per mile, so that means I logged somewhere around 10 miles of walking!
Despite my studying the two-party preferred voting, I still had trouble understanding what I was hearing in the results. I did recognize Maxine McKew’s name, after she defeated John Howard (then prime minister) in 2007 to take his seat. She lost her seat this time around.
After dinner, I made my best attempt to get everything packed. I bought a few bulky things so even though I had eaten most of my food, I was leaving with way more volume than I came with. Due to trackwork on the airport line, buses were replacing trains to the airport, so I opted for a taxi. I booked my taxi online for the morning and went to bed with the news still predicting a hung Parliament.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
I woke up to the same news as the night before – no winner declared yet. I had booked my taxi to come at 7:30, thinking that would give me plenty of time. The taxi driver was even a bit early and after being carefully not to lock myself out of my apartment or the lobby, since I had to leave the keys behind, we were off for the airport.
We made good time until just before we reached the airport turnoff, where traffic ground to a halt. It ended up taking 20 minutes from that point, so the whole journey was nearly an hour, instead of about 20-25 minutes. It also cost me $80, which the taxi driver said was the highest fare he’d ever had to the airport. Lucky me. He was a little chatty, which was okay, but a lot of what he said I wasn’t sure how to respond to. He started talking about the war, and then drew a comparison between George W. and Hitler. Nice.
When I finally got to the airport, there were only two counters open for all the passengers checking in for the flight. It took forever to get up to the line. I never know what causes people to take so long at the counter, because I was there about two minutes. After waiting through Customs and security, I barely had time to get to the gate. I had hoped to do a little shopping as I still had about $30 AUD I didn’t want to take back, but I didn’t have enough time.
I did get my water bottles filled up this time. They actually recognize that people need to do this and the drinking fountains have special faucets (for lack of a better word) to fill the bottles. This time the plane was completely full, but I did have an aisle seat.
The flight going over is definitely easier, because it night and your body wants to sleep. This time it was 10:30 in the morning, and I wasn’t tired at all. I didn’t sleep the entire way, and pretty much ran out of movies and TV to watch by the time we landed in LA at 6:30 a.m.
My bag was meant to be checked all the way through, but you have to claim your bags to go through Customs. As I was waiting at the baggage carousel, I heard my name paged over the intercom. The lady who made the page was about ten feet from me so I went over to her. She said that my bag was not on the flight but was coming on a flight arriving at 9:30 a.m., after my flight to Denver. She said they had pulled it out for security reasons and it delayed it, but that it was cleared and on the next flight. I went ahead through Customs and out to the terminal.
I definitely picked the wrong security line because, from the time I had all my stuff in the bins waiting on the rollers until it actually went through was at least 15 minutes. They kept running the same bag through several times, and then they would just stare at the x-ray screen. Open the bag people! By this point I was getting really irritable and I was hot and hungry but managed to get through without angering any TSA personnel.
I grabbed a Cinnabon for breakfast (?) and then exchanged my remaining Australian dollars. I had given all the smaller coins to the UNICEF donation on the airplane, but I still had a few dollar coins. They wouldn’t exchange them so I made it home with three one dollar coins for next time. Better than the $47 I’ve had for the past three years.
I boarded my flight to Denver at 9:00. This flight was also full, and I think I might have slept for about 30 minutes or so. In Denver, I had about an hour between flights, and then took the polar bear plane (also packed) home to KC where dad was waiting.
When I went to the Frontier baggage office to explain, the lady kept telling me she had conflicting information on which flight my bag was on, that it was possibly on my flight. I didn’t see how that was possible since it hadn’t even landed in LA by the time I took off. Finally, after watching all the bags coming off the carousel, she took pity on me and went ahead and took the information to have the bag delivered. When she asked me when I last saw the bag and I said at the Sydney ticket counter, she asked why I hadn’t taken it through Customs, that they didn’t like it when you aren’t there to take the bags through yourself. Umm, yeah, then put it on the plane with me. I don’t like it when the bag isn’t there either! Of course I did almost wish this had happened on the way out so I didn’t have to haul it around Sydney all morning. That worked out well for us in Paris!
By the time dad and I got home without the luggage, it was about 5:00 p.m., or 8:00 a.m. Monday morning in Sydney, so I had officially been travelling for over 24 hours and awake for longer. It is 6:30 p.m. as I write this and I’m not sure whether to go to sleep or not now that I’ve been up so long. The luggage is supposed to be delivered tonight, and I’ll have to take the call and then sign for the bag.
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