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Ten and a Half Hours in NSW
Monday. At my office, the crazy Serbian account manager calls me. One of our clients is having kittens. She wants me to fly up and look at their setup. I say how about next Monday.
Later. Next Monday isn't soon enough. I suggest Wednesday. She says yes.
Book some tickets. Get into a discussion about how the heck to get there. Last time I was in Sydney, we took a cab from the airport out to the middle of friggin' nowhere. We look at a map. The place I have to be is at least twice as far away. They suggest a hire car. I protest I've never driven in Sydney. They tell me to stop being such a big girls blouse. A car is hired.
Tuesday night. Go to bed at around 9PM.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schnitzelrug doesn't quite understand that one of her Humans needs to sleep, plays with various toys. Sleep fitfully, it's hot and I'm nervous.
2AM, some local fuckchop buzzes my door. I'd ignore it, except I'm expecting a cab. Thought they might have got there three hours early. Realise with a piss-poor delight that I can sleep for a whole two more hours.
4.30AM, three alarms go off next to my head. Trust me, I needed them. Jump into the shower. Almost pass out from weariness whilst showering. Get dressed in the clothes I thoughtfully laid out the night before. Realize I have close to ten minutes before the cab arrives. Kissevildoom_bunny a bit.
Fuck me! AM (also known as 5AM), I wander down to the gate with my two bags. A corporate cab (I'm a socialist I swear) is waiting for me. I hop in. The sun has yet to rise.
Have a surprisingly interesting conversation with the cab driver about driving in the city. He refuses to on his own time, takes the train. We talk about all the short cuts taxi drivers know, and how everyone else seems to know them now.
Arrive at the airport in plenty of time. Check in. Delighted to discover I've been given seat 8A, a window seat. This is still novel enough to be exciting. Realise I'm on a Virgin flight. If I want breakfast in the air, I'll have to pay for it. Make my way through the security screening. The most interesting item I have on me isn't the laptop bag full of wires and other mysterious electronic stuff, nor my Crumpler commuter bag covered in lefty badges - it's my umbrella. I have to open it up to show 'em that it's just a shutty umbrella.
Pick up a greasy cheese and ham croissant, and something called a Thorpedo bar. Food eaten when traveling has no calories, I remind myself.
Wait for the plane. Look at the other planes as we taxi across the airport. Recall the 9/11 report I've just been reading, and try and the remember the types of planes involved. Decide this is a morbid line of thinking and think about something else.
I think we lift off a few minutes late. Watch the sun rise.
I take pictures from the window (did I mention this is still novel for me?) The Japanese couple in the other two seats sleep the whole way up. Try and sleep with my head against the cabin wall. The plane hums against my head. Notice that these new planes are a lot quieter than the early model.
We fly over clouds for ages coming into Sydney. Finally break through - which was beautiful - and I briefly glimpse the opera house and the coat hanger as we bank in to land. I don't feel like I've been to Sydney if I don't see at least one of these buildings.
Get off the plane decidedly hungry. Grab a quick snack which I wash down with diet coke. I don't usually drink caffeine let alone coke, but these are exceptional times. Watch four airport cops drink coffee.
Make my way to the rental car counter. Once the guy finds my order - he thinks my name is "Jo Hansen" - and after I realise he's not saying "Lexus", he's talking about insurance excess, he gives me the papers. My car is in C10. I wander over and, as I've noted from more experience travelers, I check the car for odd dents. If they're there before I get in, they're not my problem. Not that the front tires are getting a bit damn bald around the edges. Decide it's not raining, and hop in. Get minimal directions from the dude on the way out. Find a burnt CD in the stereo. Pop it out, put on my sun glasses, and start driving in Sydney!
Turns out the highway I need straddles the airport - literally. There's one road that wraps around it, I just had to head out the front gate, and drive around the airport. I leave the rental bay at 8.15. At 8.30 I pass under the third runway and finally leave the airport.
Sydney loves their tunnels. I drive a good five kilometres on one that is barely two lanes wide. The other lane is occupied with several large loud trucks. The air is thick with exhaust. Tasty. Keep noticing all the cars with out of state plates, when I realise I'm in their state, not the other way around.
Turn up the Snog CD till the car (some kind of Hyundai) is thumping. Stay on the highway for ages, stopping only briefly to pay a toll at a toll booth - how quaint. Don't see a stop light for at least 40 minutes. Start to worry that I've missed a turn off. Decide that if the next turn off doesn't say the name of the town I'm after, I'm going to pull over and look at a map. Miraculously, it's the one I'm after. I hang a hard left, and head out into the hinterland.
Every second building along the main road seems to be a church. And the place looks like another suburb, I figure people who can't afford Sydney are moving out this way. Find a turn off that looks like the right town. Pull over in the carpark of a shopping mall. Pull out the map. By some miracle, I'm maybe 200 metres from where I need to be. In fact, the library was the other side of the mall. Pulled out again, find a building with the word "Library" in seven foot high letters, figure this must be the place.
Spend the day playing with their setup. Realize pretty quickly that everything is working fine - just that my company is demanding more from the hardware than it is capable of. Discover that modern libraries have drink machines in the reading area. Unheard of!
Have a sumptuous Subway sandwich in the Mall for lunch. Note that this mall looks exactly the same as every other mall I've ever visited. It even has the same people in it.
Run out of things to diagnose around 3.30PM. Decide to take my leave. Consider trying to contact one of my relatives or friends from Sydney, or indeed the people I know who could be up for work. Decide instead to head to the airport and see if I can get on an earlier flight.
Blast back down the highway, listening to a mix CD I made, decide that I have very good taste in music to mix. Make another loop around the airport - the other way this time, so I'd completed a whole circuit of the place this day.
Drop off the car. Mention the bald tires to the guy. He recons they've got another five thousand kilometres on them. Go figure.
Find the Virgin counter. Miraculously I'm in the right terminal. I'm in time to make the 5.15 flight, but it turns out my "flexible" fair is in fact some kind of class B fair, so there aren't any seats on said flight. Unless I cough up another $40, but since work is paying for this, I'll be buggered if I'm going to pay for it! There are flights leaving at 5.14, 5.45 and 6pm. I'm on the 6pm, I could've gotten the 5.45, but didn't see the point.
Checked in. Picked my seat this time - 27F, window seat behind the wing.
Picked up a not bad Chai from a place on the concourse.
Go through security. Decant my wallet, keys, change and watch. Then the laptop and an RFID reader into a tray. Put that and my two bags through the Xray machine. Walk through the metal detectors. Have to go back and put my shoes through as well. All while carrying a chai. Comment to the guy ahead of me that next we'll be stripping down to our underwear.
Find a branch of my favourite food joint in the food court. Grab some food. Go wait at gate 36. My plane is coming from Rockhampton, it lands and disgorges passengers before we're allowed on board. People sitting aft of the wing have to walk out on the tarmac and take the stairs into the back of the plane. My choice of seat turns out to be a stroke of genius. I have the whole row to myself.
Sydney is overcast, but we climb through the clouds and into brilliant sunlight.
A flock of annoying makeup artists (or possibly hairdressers) get into the row in front of me, and have a painfully inane conversation. I spend $2.50 on a pair of headphones for the in-flight "entertainment" system so I won't have to listen to them. Find a shitty comedy channel, then setting on the Classical channel, which wasn't bad if you don't mind symphonic dances.
Cough up another $3 for a cup of shitty airline tea.
Push the "stewardess" button for the first time in my entire life... To ask for some sugar...
We fly over very brown countryside. And so many reservoirs which are half full and showing huge areas of mud.
Land in Melbourne around 7.30PM and hop into a cab. Have a shower at home, and then go out to a comedy gig (hey, slowing down is for wimps.) Realise I haven't really had dinner, so I feast on the thoughtfully provided nibblies. Eventually I get home and sleep.
Later. Next Monday isn't soon enough. I suggest Wednesday. She says yes.
Book some tickets. Get into a discussion about how the heck to get there. Last time I was in Sydney, we took a cab from the airport out to the middle of friggin' nowhere. We look at a map. The place I have to be is at least twice as far away. They suggest a hire car. I protest I've never driven in Sydney. They tell me to stop being such a big girls blouse. A car is hired.
Tuesday night. Go to bed at around 9PM.
schnitzelrug doesn't quite understand that one of her Humans needs to sleep, plays with various toys. Sleep fitfully, it's hot and I'm nervous.2AM, some local fuckchop buzzes my door. I'd ignore it, except I'm expecting a cab. Thought they might have got there three hours early. Realise with a piss-poor delight that I can sleep for a whole two more hours.
4.30AM, three alarms go off next to my head. Trust me, I needed them. Jump into the shower. Almost pass out from weariness whilst showering. Get dressed in the clothes I thoughtfully laid out the night before. Realize I have close to ten minutes before the cab arrives. Kiss
evildoom_bunny a bit.Fuck me! AM (also known as 5AM), I wander down to the gate with my two bags. A corporate cab (I'm a socialist I swear) is waiting for me. I hop in. The sun has yet to rise.
Have a surprisingly interesting conversation with the cab driver about driving in the city. He refuses to on his own time, takes the train. We talk about all the short cuts taxi drivers know, and how everyone else seems to know them now.
Arrive at the airport in plenty of time. Check in. Delighted to discover I've been given seat 8A, a window seat. This is still novel enough to be exciting. Realise I'm on a Virgin flight. If I want breakfast in the air, I'll have to pay for it. Make my way through the security screening. The most interesting item I have on me isn't the laptop bag full of wires and other mysterious electronic stuff, nor my Crumpler commuter bag covered in lefty badges - it's my umbrella. I have to open it up to show 'em that it's just a shutty umbrella.
Pick up a greasy cheese and ham croissant, and something called a Thorpedo bar. Food eaten when traveling has no calories, I remind myself.
Wait for the plane. Look at the other planes as we taxi across the airport. Recall the 9/11 report I've just been reading, and try and the remember the types of planes involved. Decide this is a morbid line of thinking and think about something else.
I think we lift off a few minutes late. Watch the sun rise.
I take pictures from the window (did I mention this is still novel for me?) The Japanese couple in the other two seats sleep the whole way up. Try and sleep with my head against the cabin wall. The plane hums against my head. Notice that these new planes are a lot quieter than the early model.
We fly over clouds for ages coming into Sydney. Finally break through - which was beautiful - and I briefly glimpse the opera house and the coat hanger as we bank in to land. I don't feel like I've been to Sydney if I don't see at least one of these buildings.
Get off the plane decidedly hungry. Grab a quick snack which I wash down with diet coke. I don't usually drink caffeine let alone coke, but these are exceptional times. Watch four airport cops drink coffee.
Make my way to the rental car counter. Once the guy finds my order - he thinks my name is "Jo Hansen" - and after I realise he's not saying "Lexus", he's talking about insurance excess, he gives me the papers. My car is in C10. I wander over and, as I've noted from more experience travelers, I check the car for odd dents. If they're there before I get in, they're not my problem. Not that the front tires are getting a bit damn bald around the edges. Decide it's not raining, and hop in. Get minimal directions from the dude on the way out. Find a burnt CD in the stereo. Pop it out, put on my sun glasses, and start driving in Sydney!
Turns out the highway I need straddles the airport - literally. There's one road that wraps around it, I just had to head out the front gate, and drive around the airport. I leave the rental bay at 8.15. At 8.30 I pass under the third runway and finally leave the airport.
Sydney loves their tunnels. I drive a good five kilometres on one that is barely two lanes wide. The other lane is occupied with several large loud trucks. The air is thick with exhaust. Tasty. Keep noticing all the cars with out of state plates, when I realise I'm in their state, not the other way around.
Turn up the Snog CD till the car (some kind of Hyundai) is thumping. Stay on the highway for ages, stopping only briefly to pay a toll at a toll booth - how quaint. Don't see a stop light for at least 40 minutes. Start to worry that I've missed a turn off. Decide that if the next turn off doesn't say the name of the town I'm after, I'm going to pull over and look at a map. Miraculously, it's the one I'm after. I hang a hard left, and head out into the hinterland.
Every second building along the main road seems to be a church. And the place looks like another suburb, I figure people who can't afford Sydney are moving out this way. Find a turn off that looks like the right town. Pull over in the carpark of a shopping mall. Pull out the map. By some miracle, I'm maybe 200 metres from where I need to be. In fact, the library was the other side of the mall. Pulled out again, find a building with the word "Library" in seven foot high letters, figure this must be the place.
Spend the day playing with their setup. Realize pretty quickly that everything is working fine - just that my company is demanding more from the hardware than it is capable of. Discover that modern libraries have drink machines in the reading area. Unheard of!
Have a sumptuous Subway sandwich in the Mall for lunch. Note that this mall looks exactly the same as every other mall I've ever visited. It even has the same people in it.
Run out of things to diagnose around 3.30PM. Decide to take my leave. Consider trying to contact one of my relatives or friends from Sydney, or indeed the people I know who could be up for work. Decide instead to head to the airport and see if I can get on an earlier flight.
Blast back down the highway, listening to a mix CD I made, decide that I have very good taste in music to mix. Make another loop around the airport - the other way this time, so I'd completed a whole circuit of the place this day.
Drop off the car. Mention the bald tires to the guy. He recons they've got another five thousand kilometres on them. Go figure.
Find the Virgin counter. Miraculously I'm in the right terminal. I'm in time to make the 5.15 flight, but it turns out my "flexible" fair is in fact some kind of class B fair, so there aren't any seats on said flight. Unless I cough up another $40, but since work is paying for this, I'll be buggered if I'm going to pay for it! There are flights leaving at 5.14, 5.45 and 6pm. I'm on the 6pm, I could've gotten the 5.45, but didn't see the point.
Checked in. Picked my seat this time - 27F, window seat behind the wing.
Picked up a not bad Chai from a place on the concourse.
Go through security. Decant my wallet, keys, change and watch. Then the laptop and an RFID reader into a tray. Put that and my two bags through the Xray machine. Walk through the metal detectors. Have to go back and put my shoes through as well. All while carrying a chai. Comment to the guy ahead of me that next we'll be stripping down to our underwear.
Find a branch of my favourite food joint in the food court. Grab some food. Go wait at gate 36. My plane is coming from Rockhampton, it lands and disgorges passengers before we're allowed on board. People sitting aft of the wing have to walk out on the tarmac and take the stairs into the back of the plane. My choice of seat turns out to be a stroke of genius. I have the whole row to myself.
Sydney is overcast, but we climb through the clouds and into brilliant sunlight.
A flock of annoying makeup artists (or possibly hairdressers) get into the row in front of me, and have a painfully inane conversation. I spend $2.50 on a pair of headphones for the in-flight "entertainment" system so I won't have to listen to them. Find a shitty comedy channel, then setting on the Classical channel, which wasn't bad if you don't mind symphonic dances.
Cough up another $3 for a cup of shitty airline tea.
Push the "stewardess" button for the first time in my entire life... To ask for some sugar...
We fly over very brown countryside. And so many reservoirs which are half full and showing huge areas of mud.
Land in Melbourne around 7.30PM and hop into a cab. Have a shower at home, and then go out to a comedy gig (hey, slowing down is for wimps.) Realise I haven't really had dinner, so I feast on the thoughtfully provided nibblies. Eventually I get home and sleep.
Re: You don't have to guess it...
Tell them is is a mighty safe city, especially out in the east where you are (I think...) I should know, I grew up in North Balwyn, which was dull as dogshit and nothin' ever happened there!
How did we meet? Oh, I think you were talking about busking on
Movings hard and not cheap...
Wow! They told you not to give out your name or your picture??? Freaky. I'm not a parent in this day and age (apart from the kitten, which hardly counts :-) so maybe that makes sense. On the other hand, I know a number of 14 year olds who suffer no such restrictions...
BTW, this thread is getting way out of hand. Send me an email :-)
Re: You don't have to guess it...
And I'm too dependent.
I don't know anyone else who's not allowed to give out their name and picture (except for my brother, of course), but hey, I kind of have to listen to my parents. Sucks~
I'll email you if you tell me which email address to use. :)
Re: You don't have to guess it...
Was it mock the stupid? Oh, that's right. Now THERE's a busy community!
I have a number of teenage friends and relatives who have some restrictions on what they're allowed to do online, but not that bad! My little second cousin has a (hideously ugly) myspace page for example which has his name and his photo on it...
Ok, since you don't seem to be a spammer, email me at: paul [at] maxcelcat DOT com :-)
You could also chat to me...