Approaching Sydney.
The phone rang at 0600…how annoying. And we asked for it. What were we thinking? Oh, that’s right. We had a 6:30 shuttle to the airport. So off we went. To the Auckland airport which is a very modern and wonderful airport. As airports go.
We flew Air New Zealand “over the ditch” back to Sydney and I chose as my movie, A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers. OMG. It was funny all over again. Rayman watched Monte Carlo and was thrilled that he understood a french phrase. You go, Ray.
So, now it is time to talk about the difficulties of travel. We’re busy retracing our steps and reflection is in order. First, it is hell getting old. Losing things is particularly disruptive and we’re sure we’ve set a new record for things lost in one trip. First the charger for the iphone. We lost that in L.A. before even leaving the country. Second, there was the Kindle. Retrieved yes. But…the agony of not knowing it’s whereabouts detracted from, let’s say…the giant clam at the Great Barrier Reef. Then there was the jewelry. My jewelry (all costume) went missing and has not been found. In fact, the hotel is ignoring me. At their own peril which is pure bluster on my part since I hold out no hope of ever retrieving whatever I packed in the cloth envelop for use on our journey. Thank goodness I never took my earrings off or they, too, would be among the missing items. Then today I left my lavender light microfiber wrap at the hotel. Rayman and I never saw it and we checked the room twice. But it is not here in Sydney so off an email went to the hotel to ask them to return it to me though Rayman says I’ve had my monies worth but I’m determined to try to recapture it.
Auckland was cold and raining. Landing in Sydney we couldn’t believe the weather…warm and comfortable. So we took the train into the City and had lunch by the Opera House
and then bought an ice cream and jumped on a ferry. Didn’t even care where it went and apparently, no one else cared either. Ray bought tickets but he didn’t know for which ferry (confusion set in which leads us back to being old, although we do also have the convenience of blaming in on not understanding their accents)…so we just jumped on a ferry and rode it up an arm of the bay and back. Took about an hour. Below is one of the docks near the City.
Sydney is amazing. It has many arms and there are fabulous homes at water’s edge along the arms. Many have boat garages right on the water. Others have small harbors. Today we saw lots and lots of rowers.
Rowing is a big sport here and the rowers were out on the water plying their sport…mostly as teams with 6 or so on a very long boat with a motor boat going along side with someone with a megaphone badgering the rowers…opps, coaching the rowers. But that scene was interrupted by a bunch of screaming, shrieking kids on the nice relaxing ferry ride we took. One little girl who could barely walk kept running down the aisle screaming…big brother(about 4 yrs old) grabbing her and dragging her back to her mother. First time in our travels we ran into a parent that was entirely oblivious to the other passengers. We never saw that in France. Or AU until today. Rayman left the ferry with headache…me with a toothache. Man I hope it feels better tomorrow. I predict it will. With this red wine I’m drinking and the dark chocolate I’m eating…there is no pain evident as I write.
Look at the photo below and see if you can spot the bridge climbers on top of the bridge.
Shooting into sun didn’t do much for this photo. The fact that they let you walk across the top of the bridge is one way that they are different from us. No fear.
But I digress. My lower left molar has been bothering me…I’ve been applying Oragel but it hasn’t been too effective. So tonight when we returned from the city (we’re staying by the airport)…I had a gin and it’s been much better. If not better tomorrow, I’m looking for a dentist because I don’t want to be in pain on our 15 hour flight back to LAX. Rayman is fine.
Opps. Digression occurred back to back. You know, though, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. If we stayed in the city, the cost of a room might have been $300 a night. Parking extra. So we opted to stay near the airport but that necessitated buying tickets on CityRail and the ferry to move about. Coming and going they get you. Traveling is expensive. And it is hard to figure out what the best way to do things might be given all the variables. It will be nice to get home where we really, really know the variables. Variables make life hard if you don’t know them. But maybe I’m feeling this way because I’m tired of being a tourist. I want to be a resident!!
OMG. The Rangers and the Cardinals. This is all news to us and Rayman just tuned in to discover the World Series is on and these are the teams playing. We’ve been so absorbed with rugby…who knew? Well, I’m rooting for the Cardinals. I was in St. Louis once and the team wasn’t owned by Dubya…so I’ll root for them.
Okay, so I’m engaging in stream-of-consciousness tonight. Maybe it’s the gin. Another observation. I think men’s legs might be skinner where the leg meets the torso. This is because I ran out of undies and borrowed a pair from the Rayman and I felt like my circulation was hindered today. True confession. I didn’t bring enough undies and that’s all the further I’m going on that topic as it has been a topic of discussion on more than one occasion.
And finally…communications are difficult. They charge for wi-fi at almost every hotel. And it’s a sizable charge. This interferes with my staying in touch….although I’ve learned that the people that love me the most based on the numbers of emails I’ve received are Nordstrom, Groupon, Lamps Plus and Best Cigars. Most importantly it hinders my ability to post my blog. It’s not easy. The wi-fi situation reminds me of telephone call charges in hotels before cell phones became ubiquitous. If we had our phones on, 3g seems to be everywhere except the mountains of NZ. But we didn’t want to come home to a big, giant cell bill so we’ve kept the cell phone off and cursed wi-fi charges.
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