Rich Gossweiler's Trip To Australia

My Trip to Australia
RICH GOSSWEILER
26 OCTOBER - 9 NOVEMBER, 2005

THE CATCH PHRASE USED PREDOMINANTLY BY AUSTRALIANS IS "No worries." This means everything from "You're welcome" to "I accept your apology for breaking my surfboard." I heard it everywhere and yet found myself sticking with the sure-fire American idioms "Cool!" and "Huh?"

Day 1
My trip began around 11:00pm on the 26th of October, departing from the San Jose California Airport. After a short hop to LAX, I was climbing aboard a Qantas 747 BigAssAirplane.

Having flown American domestic for so long, I completely forgot what it was like to get creature comforts while inside a plane. In addition to reasonable leg room and a folding tray that worked, I also received little gifts along the way. They gave me free alcohol and a little tooth brush and some alcohol and a cool eye-cover thingy and some socks and some alcohol and other stuff I don't remember anymore.

The flight was about 14 hours long, of which I slept through half of it and did airline yoga for the other half. As we approached Sydney Australia, I took some cool pictures:

Once in Sydney I went through customs, then caught a designated bus to my hotel. Well, a hotel. I discovered that the bus driver only likes the central city Holiday Inn and not the one actually printed on the driving voucher. So I caught another bus to the right hotel and cursed myself for tipping the first driver.

After checking into my room, I admired the lovely view from my window:

I quickly learned that my well-honed instincts and finely developed skills for crossing the street were of no use in Australia. Cars there have a tendancy to come from the other direction. This seems to be a big enough problem that they spray paint the crosswalks with directions that say "Look To Your Right" along with a helpful arrow. Seems if this is such a problem, they'd fix the backwards traffic instead.

My hotel was in a fantastic location right near the bridge and the Opera House. Here is a panorama shot from the roof:

Having set up my Sydney base camp (the Holiday Inn is a very nice place there and I strongly recommend it), I decided to venture forth. I slathered on the SPF 30+, got a wide-brimmed hat and began exploring the city. Basically I checked out the Opera House, the parks and watched all the tourists. Silly tourists. Can't even cross the road.

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