A wonderful start to what I expect will be a wonderful trip: we saw my brother Lance and sister Victoria for lunch in San Francisco and then walked through the San Francisco Arboretum. I miss the blooming cactus in Tucson this time of year, but the flowers in San Francisco were spectacular! The weather was cool and damp, typical San Francisco. I miss it! But one can’t have everything and all in all I really like Tucson.
We are currently a little north and east of Brisbane, altitude about 10,200m, heading for a landing in Sydney at 0623. We’ve been flying for about12 ½ hours, ground speed is720km/h. We’ve travelled 10960km and will be late into SYD because we have a 162km headwind. (I have to start thinking in metric! And I have to try to remember how to convert liters/km to miles/gal.)
Lost my birthday by crossing the International Date Line. Oh, well. Randy has a younger wife!
I’ve had a few little problems to solve, like how do I charge an Australian cell phone (borrowed from Randy’s cousin) when you can’t buy an Australian-to-US plug converter? I learned that there are phone chargers that will plug into a USB port on my computer. Slick!
And how do I keep my computer running on the airplane when it only has a charge that lasts about 1 ½ hours? Airplanes have power ports; one just needs the specialized plug for it. It will do double duty by being able to charge the computer in a car. And we’ll be spending a lot of time in the car! On the left side of the road. After 2 ½ months of that, we’ll have trouble re-accommodating to driving on the right!
Arrived right on time at about 6:23, met by Ian Hill, Melinda’s friend and fiancé, and delivered to the Marriott where, wonder of wonders, our room was ready even thought it was only about 7:30 in the morning. Beautiful room overlooking the Sydney Harbor Bridge and on the Executive floor (meaning we get “free” breakfast and cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (presumably not at the same time). We have pretty quickly decided to stay an additional night at the Marriott and then we will stay one night with Melinda & Ian and then get on the train.
The morning and afternoon we spent on the Bondi Explorer bus just riding around the suburbs for an overview of the city suburbs including the duplex of Nicole Kidman, up for sale for $A6 million. And incidentally to have lunch at Doyle’s, the quintessential seafood restaurant in Sydney, right on the water at Watsons Bay.
The ferry to Mosman Bay, where Bob & Vee live, leaves from Circular Quay, about a 2 minute walk from our hotel. The weather had been quite fine until we left the hotel to walk to the ferry but the heavy rain held off until we got on the ferry and Bob met us so we had no real problems and after seeing Pauline, the rain stopped. Kind of Camelot! Pauline is still Pauline, even at 92. I think she is just existing, visited often by Bob & Vee and occasionally by Jilly and the rare (us) visitor.
We had dinner with Bob & Vee at Ripples, an absolutely great restaurant on the shore of the Sydney harbor, looking across at the city lights and right beneath the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s a BYO restaurant, a concept we don’t really have in the States except in a very few places. The charge to bring your wine is about $A6 and Bob & Vee brought a delightful Pinot. Great conversation, great wine, great views, what more could we ask?
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