10/25/18 – Today is the big day! The countdown has been > 1 year and I am
ready to get this party started! It seems
like we have ben waiting forever! This trip is Steve’s graduation gift for obtaining
his doctorate degree and just like his degree – I am along for the ride- albeit
with much less proof-reading responsibility. 😊 We both worked today; I went in a 7am and
worked until 1pm – cramming meetings and
a file review into those hours – it was like squeezing blood from a
turnip! But he business helped the time
fly by and it was 1pm before I even realized it. Steve dropped me off that
morning and picked me up – we took the Element loaded up with suitcases. As the clock struck one pm, we were merging onto
the Interstate and headed towards the Nashville Airport. Traffic was smooth,
despite the ubiquitous left-land cruisers and we made good time, stopping in Jasper/South
Pittsburg for lunch at Krystal before the climb up Monteagle Mountain. The trees on the mountain were just beginning
to show their first blush of autumn color! Yellows, reds, russet-potato browns,
ochers and oranges. I do love fall! The
mountains and rolling hills of Tennessee are just a part of my soul. I suppose I want to click my heels and repat
after Dorothy “There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!” and I truly
mean it. I do not regret moving back to Tennessee
at all.
We made excellent time on I24 and even had time to stop and
check out the tile at Floor and Décor on our way. We parked our car at the Music City Sheraton hotel
– which is MUCH cheaper than paying long-term parking at the airport. We just missed
the airport shuttle, so we stood under the portico for about 30 minutes waiting
for the next one. We were joined by a
group of sales folks who had been attending a sales conference in Nashville and
we had a very pleasant ride chatting with a nice lady from New Jersey who was
on her way home. we finally made it to
the Nashville Airport and checked our 3 bags.
The black, the blue, and Bertha.
We walked straight thru security with no waiting and not even removing
our shoes thanks to TSA pre-check. One of the most painless check-ins ever. We found our gate and decided to wait a bit
further down a the end of the terminal so that it was less crowded and we had
access to charging plug-ins. We read and
rested for a bit over an hour and decided to walk and stretch our legs and see what
we wanted for dinner. We remembered the
Blue Coast Burrito and decided that was it! But it was in Terminal C, so we
walked from B to A to C and had our dinner at Blue Coast. I had a giant salad with chicken and black
beans and it was 4 times what I could finish.
Steve had a burrito and we both had happy tummies. W e walked some more
and made our way back to our gate to wait to board. One last call to my mom – Sophie wouldn’t listen
to me on the phone – I think she was made at me for leaving her at Granny’s
again.
We boarded the plane and wonder of wonders: Steve and I had the whole row to
ourselves! We enjoyed watching The
Incredibles 2 and I played some word games and read a bit. The 5 hour flight wasn’t awful and we landed
a few minutes early at LAX. We had to
take a shuttle bus to terminal 2 but thankfully no going back through security
like at JFK, so even though we had a tight turn-around time, we made it with
plenty of time to spare. Thanks to the
Mayor of Mexico City and his security detail, we had a few EXTRA minutes to
wait to board, but it was good to stand and stretch our legs – knowing that the
next 15 hours or so would be spent folded into an economy plane seat.
When we boarded, we were told it was a full flight but once
again, we ended up not having to be the middleman on the flight – even thought
Steve had to sit in the row in front of me.
It still worked out. I got a
window seat and he got the aisle. 15
hours seems daunting, and it really IS a very long time. I read for the first bit and then we were
served our meal. I had sesame ginger Thai
chicken salad, fruit, cheese, and crackers.
I saved my brownie – tucking it away in the goody bag to serve as a
snack for Steve later on. Brownies are
not my favorite. After I finished my
late night dinner, I took my PM meds and laid my head over on my travel pillow
and tried to sleep. I took out my
contacts and put on my slipper socks and tried my best to get comfortable,
which is no mean feat while sitting upright in a confined space. I was thankful that I didn’t require a
seatbelt extender – and I was especially thankful for the empty seat beside
me. I wiggled and squirmed for what felt
like hours and dozed off and on for what felt like minutes. I tried listening to classical music, but my
earbuds hurt my ears and after about an hour and a half of the “soothing”
classical music, I felt like I was trapped in an elevator – so I gave up on
that. I woke up just before the mid-flight snack was served – we were 7 hours
into the flight. I made my one trip to the tiny bathroom in the entire 15 hour
ordeal and then enjoyed a flakey pastry of some sort filled with meat and
cheese. It was actually pretty good –
even if it did come in a cardboard box. I
was also served a chilled banana in a draw sting bag and that was just refreshing!
I might have to consider chilling my bananas at home! I had a nice cup of diet coke and took 2 Motrin
because my back was killing me. Then I
watched the movie Ferdinand about the peaceful bull who loved flowers . I really enjoyed that (side note: should we
be at all concerned that all of my inflight entertainment came from the Sky-Kids
Collection? Nahhhh. That’s just who I am! 😊)
I dozed again after
the movie, catching a few brief naps between squirming and trying to stretch
and reposition myself in my seat. It was
too dark to try to read, so in between naps I played a few word games on my screen
console in my seat and then I decided to watch one more movie. I watched “Sing” which wasn’t what I was expecting,
but I did like it. reminded me of many
of the Muppet Movies with theme of “The Show must go on” with deep characters
and comic relief and modern music. As “Sing”
was ending, the stewardesses were gearing up for our arrival breakfast and I had
scrambled eggs (didn’t eat the mushy potatoes or sausage), a croissant and
fresh fruit and took my morning meds. I
had a strong cup of Starbucks Coffee and opened my window shade so the morning
light could help quickly reset my circadian rhythm and hopefully decrease my
jetlag. I’ve slept very little since Thursday
and now it’s Saturday morning and we have a full day and a half of exploring ahead
of us and we are on our final approach to land in Sydney! This vacation is about to begin in earnest!
We landed, deplaned, and made it through customs and
security in less than 30 minutes. We took
the train to central Station and we found out that the light rail trains were
down for maintenance for the whole weekend.
We ended up having to stand in a line for a bus with senior citizen
Asians and disillusioned and inconvenienced college aged kids who were accustomed
to a train every 4 minutes like clockwork
and were not used to waiting 25 minutes for a bus (or for anything,
really). Never the less, we hefted our
luggage onto the bus and 2 stops later, we were at our stop and all we had to
do was cross the train tracks, take the lift to floor 4, cross the car park, and
we arrived at our hotel: The Ovolo! It was just 9am, too early for check in, but
they allowed us to stow our luggage and provided a room for us to freshen
up. I took full advantage of the freshen-up
option – after 20 hours of airplane sweat, I felt grimy and gross. I washed off with the lovely ginger-spiced
soap and moisturized my parched skin with ginger and tangerine scented lotion
and applied some eye make up and I felt 100% better! They also provided us with a lovely service
of tea – pots of English Breakfast with tiny pitchers of milk, and a pottery
pot full of raw sugar. Hot, sweet milk
tea hit the spot! I had 3 cups and felt somewhat
revived. By the time we finished our
tea, the hotel lady told us that our room was ready and we could have an early check-in. we came up to our room, got the camera and readied
ourselves to go out and about to explore Darling Harbor.
The first hours or so was just lovely! We saw the Australian
Maritime Museum and the submarine and war ships, along with a fully rigged
sailboat and all the yachts and sailboats and the light house in the
harbor. There were colorful flags
flapping happily in the wind, sunlight twinkled and wined at us from the water
and the sights, sounds, and delicious smells from all the cafes that lined the walk
beckoned with enticing colorful sidewalk umbrellaed tables and barkers wishing
us “G’Day” from the entrances of every establishment. It was magical! We crossed the large bridge, lined with flags
that dissects the harbor and turned left to check out the area and see where
the cruise ships would be docked tomorrow.
We walked and walked and walked up and down hills and stairs – past quaint
shops and apartments and churches. We found
the wine store Steve had scouted out and bought 2 bottles to take on the cruise
with us. We saw the giant harbor bridge
and headed along the shoreline to the upscale shopping area called “The Rocks”
and then made our way down to the international cruise terminal where Splendor
of the Seas was docked. We walked along
the water for fabulous views of the Opera House and the Jacaranda trees were in
full bloom – scenting the park with a sweet aroma that mingled with the white
jasmine in a heady perfume. Birds of paradise
and other tropical plants and palms made the area feel lush and very beautiful. Heading back up from the park was almost 100%
up hill and it was a TRUDGE. Steve
forged ahead and would have to stop and wait for me to catch up. I was huffing and puffing and read faced and
out of breath with my legs on fire and a dull ache in my lower back from
sitting on the plan for 20 hours with no lumbar support. The entire trek back was just 100%
misery. Unmitigated misery. I had to stop and buy some water bottles and I
felt like my tongue was too big to fit into my mouth. My mouth felt like it had
bene lined with felt and my giant tongue was frothed up with some weird white
slimy film. I felt hot, chilled,
nauseated, and like I was very likely going to diet on the side walk. We slowly, painfully made our way back to the
harbor with me stopping every 10-15 minutes to spit out the white froth and
take a slug of water (which I am convinced was the only thing keeping me alive
at that point). It was noon and the sun
was overhead and beating down on me relentlessly.
It was time for lunch- maybe that would revive me? But the thought of foot made my nausea worse.
Steve had found a place on Trip Advisor before we left home – a place called “Betty’s
Burgers and Concrete” well, I felt like I’d already ingested concrete. I couldn’t have eaten a Betty’s Burger if force-fed. Turns out, concrete is another name for a
frozen custard- and that was all I thought i could tolerate. So steve ordered a Betty Burger and I had a
vanilla concrete and a diet coke. We sat
and ate and I calmed down and felt a little better after cooling my tummy with
concrete and caffeine from my cola. Then
we headed back to our hotel for a rest. We
both had showers followed by a short nap and we both woke up feeling more
human.
We took off again – this time heading out behind our hotel
to check out the fist market and find the place where we plan to have
breakfast. We walked down nice suburb
streets with iron picket fences and flowers and jacaranda and more jasmine
trees. We found the fish market, but
were sad to see that it closed at 3pm (it was almost 6pm now) we got to SMELL the fish market though! Ha-ha! That’s a special scent, no matter what city
you are in! We ended up back at Darling Harbor at the big Bridge and we cut
through the shopping mall - taking in
all the sights and sounds and smells of fudge shops, clothing stores, seafood
cafes and bars. We headed back toward where
we had lunch earlier and we passed Betty’s Burgers, headed out past the Chinese
friendship garden to find a Japanese café called Sushi Rio – the highest rated
sushi place – with a sushi-train as a bonus!
We were the only non-Asians patrons, letting us know that it was an excellent
authentic choice! Steve had 3 plates of sushi and I had 2 plates and it was fun
to eat with chip sticks and watch the food roll by on the conveyor belt. We decided
to forgo a drink with dinner, as our hotel has a free mini-bar with beer, wine,
water, and soda, juice, coffee, milk, and tea – as well as a “Loot-Bag” full of
snacks.
We wanted to stay out and see the Harbor after dark, but we
were both soooo tired! We found a park
bench and people-watched for a long while.
Some folks were dressed up for Halloween. Some dressed to the nines for the theater ,
some dressed casually for a night of walking in the park, and some were even
dressed for a night at the club, maybe twiring around a pole? (!) we were able
to hold out until almost 8pm when the sun went down and the lights came
up. We got to see the ferris wheel all
lit up and the lights on the highrise buildings and hotels around the
harbor. Sydney at night does NOT
disappoint! We had an early bedtime –
coming back to the room for beers and snacks and we were both asleep before we
even turned off the TV. We both slept
very well and slept away the jet lag! Tomorrow
is another day!
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