A nice long bit of verbiage

     We've had the usual struggles to find working WiFi, have read your comments and appreciate them deeply, and will try to respond on an occasional basis.  Now for a warning.  The following is an exceedingly long posting of our first day.  Read it at your own peril.  I promise that most of the following posts will probably be shorter, as at least for the past two days since a lot less has happened.

Thursday, 9/6

First Day

     This really feels like the first day of retirement. The stress of the past few weeks of finishing and renting the house in Columbus, filing the 2011 income tax returns, closing down our home and taking care of all the logistic and financial aspects of being away for seven months, getting together everything we need for the trip and fitting it into one carry on and one checked bag each , and saying our goodbyes to our family and friends seems like a blur now, and felt like one as we lived it.

     Spending twenty five hours in planes and airports getting to Australia was purgative to erasing that stress. When we stepped out of the airport at Sydney this morning, we were welcomed by perfect weather, which seemed appropriate (Sydney, like Fort Collins Colorado is known for having 300 days of sun a year).

Ride to our hostel

     The shuttle ride to our hostel served as a quick tour of the city. From the airport in a southern suburb we rode up through the central city to drop off a woman and her elderly mother at a B&B near the harbor. Passing the historic area with stone parliament, hospital and cathedral, we circled through the Royal Botanical Gardens, followed the coast a short ways, then drove into Kings Cross, a lively area of two story row houses with red tile roofs and wrought iron bannisters on upper floor porches, backpacker/hipster pubs and bars, small ethnic restaurants, strip clubs, hostels and hotels, shops, its fair share of mumbling and gesticulating lost souls, all along the curving streets and alleys more expected in a 1000 year old European city than a 200 year old new world outpost.

Our hostel on Orwell Street in Kings Cross

Banks, phones, but no phone banks

     'Refreshed' from our luxurious sleeping accommodations courtesy of Air New Zealand we decided not to nap and instead get down to business. After checking into the hostel, we went to a nearby Commonwealth Bank branch, had a nice chat with one of the aforementioned lost souls in the lobby about the wonderfulness of the new clock mounted on the wall, and had a meeting with the friendly branch manager about the advantages of setting up an account with them (how about 5.5% interest on a savings account, haven't seen rates like that in a long time). He also ran us through the bureaucratic steps of buying, registering and insuring a vehicle.

     By then it was lunch time and I bought three tasty hand food items from an Indian restaurant, which we took to a tiny park dominated by a large strangler fig tree and populated by pigeons and black headed ibises, all begging for food.

     Next we walked to a small tobacco/mobile phone shop to investigate our communication options. The young Chinese clerk with horned rim glasses and shaved head was patient with us as we learned about SIM cards, cell phones, the myriad phone plans, mobile broadband devices for our computer, and the new Australian law requiring all cigarette packages (at $14 a pack) to display hideous images of gangrenous feet, tracheal tubes, and decayed lungs. We skipped the cigarettes and ended up buying a phone with a simple calling plan. Our phone number is 04 9801 0623. We may go back and buy the 'bongle', which will allow our computer to directly connect to the internet, saving us the time and trials of finding Wi-Fi.

Walking tour of the city

     Our day continued with a long walk to the city center to compare banks' exchanges rates for cashing traveler's checks, but with the 4 o'clock closing time managed to visit only one. However, that did get us started on a nice impromptu walking tour of Sydney. The city center is much like any big North American city, skyscrapers, buses, heavy sidewalk and street traffic (safety rule – walk on the left, look to the right when crossing the street, everyone is going along on the wrong side). Unlike our cities however nearly everyone is light skinned, either European or Asian. I saw only a handful of black people and one old Aboriginal woman in the five hours we walked.

     We walked through a park on an Eucalyptus lined sidewalk to the yellow stoned cathedral, then past the historic area of the old Parliament, hospital, and barracks built of similar hued stone.              

     Bordering the east of the downtown are the Royal Botanical Gardens. Strolling through the gardens we looked at the exotic trees, bushes and flowers and listened to parrots and other strange birds calling in the trees. Since it's still winter here the sun was setting by 6:30 and by the seven o'clock park closing time it was nearly dark. The Sydney Opera House is at the north end of the garden. We walked up the steps to admire the white sail/clam shell architecture of the Opera House and to look out over the harbor, bridge, and Sydney nighttime skyline. There were many people strolling along the quay, eating at the waterside cafe at the base of the Opera House. Heading back to our hostel we walked through the part of the city that the had the nicest restaurants and hotels, and the sort of travelers that can afford an evening at the opera, $70 dinners, and expensive Mercedes Benzes.

Sydney Opera House at Dusk

End of the first day

     By then, while it was only eight o'clock we were foot sore, tired and hungry. We got back to Kings Cross and stopped in at a liquor store to buy beer. For a country famous for hearty beer drinkers we were amazed at the prices. A normal six pack costs around $15, the cheapest available was $40 for a case of 24. On the other hand, wine was priced about the same as in the US. We bought a 2 liter box of Cabernet Savignon and went back to the Indian restaurant for takeout dinners. Back at the hostel we ate curry among the controlled chaos of young people drinking and cooking and eating. By 9 we were in bed.