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Published: December 7th 2007
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Monday 3rd December Up warly enough to get the last dregs of breakfast, then to pack up and check out... I'm all set for the Sydney Central YHA. Woken up with another sore throat which is not great, but install myself in front of the computer in the nearby 24 hour supermarket (aka corner shop), planning a big Travelblog update... The multi-image loader looks like it's going to work, then when I've put all the captions in it doesn't, so after trying again I go back to adding one-by-one. After the beautiful weather yesterday it's a bit of a shock to see someone wandering past with an umbrella and I realise that it's a complete downpour, so I stay a bit longer. Made a decision to fly to Melbourne on Thursday so can be there for Monday (Neighbours Night), and then have time to get round to Adelaide before Christmas!
Finally, about 2pm, feeling rather hungry, I head out onto the tram, spotting the Post Office on the way to the hostel. I think I finally got some food around 5pm as after getting my parcel through the Post Office system ('Seamail for this please', 'OK, airmail that will be
X, seamail will be X, which would you like?' 'as I said/wrote, seamail please', 'you do realise that it will take 2-3 months, madam', yes, it's not a problem!)... Have to use my passport to prove I'D every time - at least they're not going through everything like in Vietnam!
I spent the afternoon wandering around, getting an on-ground sense of the geography (those tear-off maps are always helpful), finding the Australian War Memorial, a fountain, King George Gardens - and a number of Christmas themed windows which still feel a bit wrong. I bought some cold & flu meds - needed my passport for that too... So next time you buy Day Nurse be thankful your every purchase isn't registered! Wandered in a few shops - found the major supermarket, then headed back to cook up Mary's recommended standby cous cous... With some veggies. As I finish there's an announcement that Monster's Inc is about to start in the cinema room, so decide to watch that before going to bed with a book... After having a quick look at the rooftop pool - must go in there at some point!
Tuesday 4th December Sleep in until about
1030... Get up when I hear the cleaner approaching. Really tiring this constant moving around. After taking advantage of an empty room to sort my stuff, I finally head out after lunch and walk back towards the Botanic Gardens, having a nice wander through there, getting caught in a rainstorm, then walking to the Opera House to find out if I can get on the tour. By this point it's 4pm, she says to come back for the 5pm tour, so I walk round to Mrs Macquerie's Chair which surely has to be a prime spot New Years Eve - both the Opera House and Bridge in view - recognisable from many postcards.
5pm, back at the Opera House, given headphones and told to 'follow me' by probably the most camp man I've seen in a while. We're ushered up the Fire Escape. It's quite an interesting tour, but most of what we see would be fully accessible to anyone with a ticket to an event... Except for the audio-visual bits projected on the walls which gave a lot of background into the small/inexpensive project which became such a design icon... And a very expensive/time-consuming one at that! Interesting,
but I'm still more interested in the big-picture opportunities (why do you think I'm always climbing things for overviews!).
Walk back through an area which has a number of old buildings, including those of the Colonial Secretary, the British Medical Association, Parliament Building, hospital, etc. Funniest thing is a plaque in the road which basically says 'we were going to build a building here but we didn't'... Unusually I didn't take a photo of it! Wandered back through the streets again, dipped into a nearby internet café ($2 hour) for an hour, got back to cook some more cous cous and chatted to a nice Canadian girl whilst we were cooking then a couple of hours afterwards. Finally needed to crash - still feeling a bit rough - so off to bed for a full night's sleep, I hope!
Wednesday 5th December Another bit of a late one, make it into the internet café to find an invitation to a conference at University Technology Sydney - fortunately it is this afternoon, not this morning so I decide to go, meantime catching up on plenty of internet things - even so far away and replying to few individual messages
things build up... I owe a few people photos - need fast/cheap places for those!
Make my way across Sydney easily enough - conference is only about 20 (slow) minutes away. Stephanie H Donald, who I expected to meet - she'd invited me, wasn't there by the time choice of 2 papers to be made - they were pre-circulated, but even though I read fast, not fast enough to read several pages in 3 minutes! First paper interesting as a tourist about the element of performance/truth in Aboriginal 'traditional dances', bush walks, etc... Having seen a few recently. Who has the 'real' Aborignal experience to offer and which have been marginalised. In the tea, Stephi came straight up to me then introduced me to lots of people (it was a staff workshop more than a conference, it seems), before going in for the second paper on 'Queer Eye for a Straight Guy'/Saddam... Unusual connection and some were struggling with it. After, half-hour to talk to people before they had a bit of a 'Goodbye Murray Pratt' party - he's off to Nottingham, so I joined the first 35 minutes of that.
Time was ticking away and I needed
to be back at the entrance of the hostel by 6 to meet Liesl, was a bit late, but so was she, so we were OK. We headed for the train... To Croydon! When you look at the trainlines half of them are English towns/cities! Bit of a walk from the station, but we get to Liesl's having chatted all the way back. She's rarely cooked before and was going for roast lamb/veggies. I helped peel, etc then Liesl lent me her laptop so I could sort out my Melbourne accommodation for tomorrow, and check out a couple of queries! About 9pm food was cooked, and it was delicious. By 1030 seemed to be a good time to head back - thankfully Liesl walked me back to the station and I jumped on another double-decker train (a bit too empty for my liking), and got back in time to crash into bed... With a quick bit of packing first!
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