Feb
17
2009

Sydney

The Juant Up And Down The East Coast Continues

(Add / View Comments) (0)PhotosTuesday, February 17, 2009 - 09:28:05 pm
(Posted Under: Travel, Operation Desert Rock)
Last night we got home at ahout 12:30, and didn't get to bed until after 1:30. Just to get back up at 3:30, to head back to Melbourne airport for our 6:00 flight to Sydney! <insert School Of Rock quote>.

Self check-in was an absolute blessing this morning. As was flying Virgin Blue in general. Having a Tiger experience this morning would have been a bit rough. Unlike Saturday, we had about enough time to grab some potato chips and munch them down as a hearty breakfast before boarding. We were back out on the tarmac, for the third time in the last three days. For something that seems rare to do, we've had no shortage of it. The flight was mostly a blur to me, it didn't take long to be passed out, only to be woken up again before long.

Flying in to Sydney was cool, because of the few times I've done it before (only twice previously), I'd never seen the harbor bridge (from memory anyway). This time I saw it from the air - it was impressive how small it looked. One of those iconic things you see your whole life, and then it looking not as big as you'd expect in real life.

Once getting off the plane we headed outside for a smoke, which was quite familiar from when I came to Sydney in 2004. By this stage, we were both in good spirits, but definitely feeling worse for wear. And just hoping that we'd both hold up well in the interview, given how sleep deprived we were. Yet at the same time, ready to rock. It's kind of a weird feeling. One second wanting to collapse, all the while excited and ready to grab life by the balls. Which became a theme for the whole morning.

After the nicotine hit, it was back into the airport to catch the train. Now, a train from the airport to the city is a good idea. An idea that Melbourne might want to think about. Right away we both commented on how much nicer the trains were in comparison to Melbourne too.

We jumped off at St. James station, and set out to find a supermarket which proved to be a bit of an adventure. Wandering around a foreign city, is different like that. I also noticed, right on exiting the train station how Sydney is a lot more British looking. In anycase, we found a Coles express, and in the process walking around passed the building where we had to go for the interview. With the knowledge of where that was, and the annoyance with the hustle and bustle of the city streets, we headed back to the park adjacent to St. James Station to re-coup.

On the way we'd passed Sydney Tower, which we headed over to to kill time until the interview at 11. It's something we wanted to do anyway, so that ability to do it when we had time to kill anyway was really good.

Photobox ImageDespite the weather being really crap, it was quite humid and waiting to go up the tower was fairly painful given the heat, and lack of sleep. After getting the tickets, and then an extremely long elevator trip we made it to the lookout. The bad weather made the viewing somewhat less enjoyable, but at the same time, it was an absolute godsent to have a place to sit, relax and check out paperwork. It was also good to get a sense of where everything was from up there.

As it got closer to 11, we headed back down and over to the consulate. The whole experience was vastly different than our experience at the consulate in Melbourne in November. Firstly, there was no scanning of barcode tags. And there was virtually no-one there, and hence not the two hour wait. Unfortunately I had to go back down to get cash as their credit card processing was not working, which proved to be quite an adventure getting back to the ground floor. On finally returning, it was a very short wait before the interview. Leading up, especially given the lack of sleep, we'd hoped that it was going to be a quick thing, but were all the same expecting an intense, long grilling. The ease of the process completely surpassed my 'best case' hopes. Literally about 3 questions before the clerk said 'Congratulations, your visa has been approved, welcome to the US!". Always being prepared to expect the worst, or a long drawn out process, I wasn't fully ready for that, especially not after only three casual questions, and the excitement combined with the feeling of "really?" was interesting. Which I guess is just natural, when you put so much time and effort into something, you're always expecting to have to do more even when the payoff is moments away.

All in all we were in and out in under 45 minutes, most of which was probably me going and getting cash. As we left and found a place to regroup the excitement and reality really started to hit. Certainly the excitement, which now was reaching notable levels for the first time in the whole process. Throughout the process, there is always the concern of getting everything that needs to be done done, worrying about if things don't work out - so much so, than in some weird way, to some degree that you loose some site of the reality in amongst all the effort to keep things on track. Finally, being granted what your shooting for, the excitement on why you were shooting for it can finally kick in!

After a good 10 or so minutes of reeling over everything, we decided to get to the hotel. We stopped past the train station, but inevitably decided to walk it, no doubt somewhat influenced by the renewed adrenaline we were now running on. Which is really saying something, given the busyness of our trip to Queensland, and still having had minimal sleep. We eventually made our way to the Botanical Gardens, through The Domain, and towards the hotel. Walking pretty much the extent of the Naval base at Wooloomaloo, we established we missed a turn off somewhere. At this point, it was time to accepts defeat. We'd already pushed it pretty far, and trying to push it any further was just taking it too far. So I set out on hailing down a taxi. $5 later we were outside our hotel - well worth every sent.

Since we had to pull the Sydney trip together in 2 weeks, we'd opted for Challis Lodge in Pots Point for both the location (close to the Opera House and Harbor Bridge), and price. We both new it wasn't going to be fancy, but we've stayed in "boutique" hotels before (Congress Hotel, Tuscon) and can "slum it". But not long after checking in, it became apparently that we're not really up for slumming it this much. [smile] If we'd had a room inside the old terrace style building, maybe it'd be okay (not that we saw those rooms, so who knows), but the rooms out the back weren't what we were expecting. For mine, it was comparable to a backpackers hostel, and if we'd wanted to stay at a backpackers, well that's what we'd have looked in to. After a bit of a recoup, which included me napping for an hour or two, we both decided that we deserved better than this, and that it was just wrong after our good news to not be staying somewhere comfortable.

On coming to this agreement, we headed around the corner to an internet cafe inside a Blockbuster to find another place to stay. Just walking down there the area convinced us more that it was time to get the hell out of dodge. Within half an hour we'd checked out, happily forgoing any refund, taken a taxi to George Street and were checking in to Breakfree On George. Which combined with everything we'd already paid made for a somewhat expensive 1 nights accommodation, but was without a doubt worth it.

After checking in and finally resting a bit, this time in comfort, I was ready to hit the town. After all, our plan had initially been to get the interview out of the way, and then spend the afternoon seeing the sights. It was getting on to 5pm and the afternoon thus far been spent on getting the first hotel, and then relocating here. Plus, it was time to eat.

We headed down to Darling Harbor, on foot, which for all extents and purposes wasn't that successful for either food nor sight seeing. However, it did mean that we got to see Darling Harbor, albeit against a rainy and miserable backdrop. After walking around the whole area, we made our way back, again on foot, in the hopes of finding some food and drink options. Before leaving I'd decided that I wanted pizza. We frustratingly walked most of the way without finding anything. It was kinda frustrating to me that in Surfer's we there were too many places that we wanted to eat and not enough time, here in Sydney nowhere we wanted to eat. Once back on George Street, Katie was convinced that it was going to be good to us. Half way back to the hotel we hit a Safeway, and on the next block, a Pizza Hut! Which was really like finding an oasis in a desert! Armed with Coke, chips and hot pizza we headed the remaining few blocks to our hotel. Ahh, everything was finally coming up Millhouse!

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