Sad.Sigh Down Under - Parts 1, 2 and 3
Yay! Blogging from afar! (G - we need a Sad.Sigh Abroad category.)
11.15.08 - NYC, Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
But first, a small tangent. So, prior to my departure from JFK to SYD, I’d received a text message from my Magic Phone Panel telling me that they were disbanding the panel immediately, and that my phone service would be shut off on November 20th and that I would have to switch my service to an account of my own name, or be faced with account termination. (I love when they use such mean, forceful language. It makes me feel like I’m being abused, and I like that.) So, Friday night at 11:30pm, as I’m sexing up my boyf, (in this case, sexing up = watching Ugly Betty), I get another text message and e-mail with instructions on how to switch my account over. I was relieved at this, as I thought they weren’t going to get it to me in time before I left for the wonders of Down Under, (I promise this will be the 8th to last time that I use the phrase ‘Down Under’). However, it turns out that, because I tried calling on Saturday, and my account was solely handled by AT&T’s Small Business Unit, I couldn’t get anyone to make the switch for me. I tried their main number, I tried the number that was supplied to me by Magic Phone Panel, Inc., I tried a corporate store, I tried the main Transfer of Service line. All to no avail. Perhaps it’s time for me to try switching to a different provider? The stupid fucking lowdown is that I’m going to have to stupid fucking do the whole transfer from Australia, and negotiate the dumass time differential, which is complicated for me, because I’m dumb. Feel sorry for me. Tangent done.
I get to JFK at around 4:20pm, far earlier than I’d expected it would take, but the LIRR was quite speedy. The only problem with the LIRR to Jamaica is that it’s often stopping at Jamaica on its way to the further reaches of Long Island. Thus, I was in a car with, literally 12 Long Island Tween girls and their tired TIRED mothers. There were so many obnoxious accents, so much screaming, and giggling that the guy with the open container (40 of Bud) sitting next to me actually had to shush them. (Much to my delight.) As I texted my brother and Brett this information, the responses that came back to me were: ‘Glurg. They’re probably coming from the open house that I just hosted at work.’ (From Brett, who works at a fashion college in midtown) and ‘Fabulous. Watch, they’ll be seated next to you on the plane.’ (from Vince, who’s a jerk).
At the airport, there were rain delays, more rain delays, some cute Australian babies who kept touching EVERYTHING, and some more rain delays. On that middle point, one thing I’ve noticed from the moment I got to the Qantas gate, is that Australian parents, while keeping a strict eye on their kids, generally let them wander all over and let strange adults pat, tickle and generally bat at their children. Vice versa, strange Australian adults generally let other people’s strange kids come over to them and lay their sticky paws on their knees/luggage/sandwiches and generally smile whilst they do so.
11.16.08 - QF 108 - Over the rest of the South Pacific.
You know, for a 22.5 hour travel experience, it wasn’t that bad. I slept for a good amount of time, (thanks, XANAX!), didn’t have smelly/gross/gropey people sitting next to me, and managed to watch 2 hit movies! (That didn’t really warrant the bold, but, whatever.)
Note to self: Get a ridiculous-looking neck pillow thingy. Will save lives in the future.
It turns out that Qantas is the best airline EVER. I know we’ve all seen the huge advertising push that the Australian government/marketing consortium has been flooding our airwaves with, but it’s something to be believed! Case in point - one of the first pictures I took, (pics will have to come later, when I learn how to upload on these weird computers, {everything’s backwards and upside down?!}, but I will pingback to appropriate posts. Get excited!), was of my first meal on QF108. (I had 3 meals total over the 22.5 hours. Plus a snack. No booze, unfortch. Couldn’t afford it.) The meal was braised beef with mashed potatoes, new potatoes, peas, a couscous salad, some sort of raspberry crumb cake, and… Tillamook Cheddar? Regardless, the point was that the whole meal, while quite tasty, came wrapped in the red tinfolk of communism. I lookded down at the tray before me and marveled that everything was so cute and… vaguely Maoist. Ah… the Eastern Hemisphere.
Did I mention I love XANAX? I don’t think I have.
11.17.08 - Sydney, CBD, Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour
Gross, slimy & greasy, I step off the plane in my glorious arrival to Sydney. To top off my ‘unusual’ condition, Sydney was on one if its 20 cloudy days of the year. (The 2nd half of today is shaping up to be much the same… go figure. 340 days of sun a year, and I have to come on the one week it rains. Sigh.)
I then head on the eerily clean and quiet subway system to Central station, where I’ve been told by my friend Jamie (she’s the one who’s been here for the last 3 months, and plans to stay another 9; she’s been blogging about it here) our hostel is located. Dearie me, did I forget to check where I was actually going, because I literally got on the train and thought to myself, ‘Gee. I hope this hostel is close to the train, because I’m in a city that I’ve never been, I have no small change to make a phone call, and I don’t even know what the exact name of the hostel is.’ Well, it turns out that the hostel is a well-known chain, and the hostel was only a half-block down from the train, and any Aussie rube on the street would have been able to point me the correct direction, anyway. Well… maybe not any Aussie rube in this neighborhood, because this hostel is located on the border of the CBD - Central Business District and… you guessed it… CHINATOWN! Thanks Jamie. Thanks for that.
But… it turns out there are a stunning amount of Asians in this city. It’s quite multi-culti, actually, with Asians being the largest minority. Unsurprising lack of Jews, for those of you who are interested.
During the day, we had lunch at a Wagamama, boring, I know, but it was easy, and Jamie got to eat something that wasn’t toast for the first time in what I imagine was months but was probably about a week. We then walked up George Street to the Circular Quay, also known as the wharfs (wharves?) at Sydney Harbor. We walked around, (it was kind of like SF meets Miami, very pretty, blah blah blah-Aussie cakes), and went and saw this weird building. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it… it’s pretty obscure. Also quite pretty, but it was more glorious today when the sun was out (more on that in the next post).
The hostel that we’re staying at is one of the nicest that I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. They have nice showers, nice private-stall bathrooms, working lights and lockers in the rooms, and a glorious GLORIOUS kitchen. In the afternoon, we went upstairs to the roof deck/pool area (!!!) and partook on the weekly $5 (AUD) Kangaroo Barbeque and Free Beer. I’m not kidding about this. Barbequed Kangaroo meat (delicious) free beer (something called Titan - it was not particularly delicious) for $5 Australian (about $3.50 USD). Plus - the hostel isn’t completely filled with teenagers, although we had a mystery roommate who we never officially met… he was DEFINITELY a teenager… had empty Smirnoff bottles surrounding his bunk, and spoke very angry Spanish in his sleep.
After dinner, we headed down to Scubar, which is basically in the lobby of our hostel. In the Rough Guide that Jamie’s friend Rachel (visiting from Jersey City ) had, the bar was listed as ‘Not a place that you’re likely to meet ANY locals, but definitely a hotspot for the interantional crowd!’. Meaning… teenagers. But, it was quite fun. There were hermit crab races, and $7.50 jugs (what they call pitchers) of something called VB, which was like a tastier version of PBR. They also had something vile called ‘Snakebite’ that was basically grenadine mixed with some IPA, and made me want to vom just looking at it. I then went upstairs at approximately 9:30pm, having made it almost to my goal of 10pm. I was very pleased with myself. Oldieness included.
Glurg! I just realized that I’ve been blogging for an hour, and have racked up some nice internets charges. (Don’t worry - the charges weren’t solely used on you, Sad.Sigh readers.) I’ll make sure to post every couple of days from here on out, and pictures will come when I have time, but suffice it to say, I’m still finding good amounts of Sad to Sigh about.
Peace!
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