I had a pretty simple plan today, all I had to do was waste enough time to not get to the airport too early. Being too early to the airport has some distinct disadvantages compared to just killing time before you get to the airport. For one, when you’re at the airport early, you are unable to check in so you’re stuck lugging your bags around. Two, it always seems like it would be better to be earlier than on time, just in case you can get checked in and get a window seat. Unfortunately check in never opens until three hours before the flight and then you’re stuck wandering the concourses trying to find something interesting to do. Trust me, usually less than an hour will do if you’re on your own. Third, you always end up falling back on technology to kill your extra time. The problem that you usually face is that a phone or computer needs to get charged at some point. This means that you end up sitting in some weird place in the airport with your computer plugged in to some out of the way plugin. You try to hide into the woodwork just because you’re not sure if it’s okay to suck up some free electricity, and finally you wonder if that figure out of the corner of your eye is coming to tell you to move along.

Guess what I’m doing right now. If you read the first paragraph then you know exactly what I’m doing. ☺ I got here more than six hours before my flight, three before I can officially check in and drop off my bags. I did take some time and check in online—the first time ever—and managed to get the last window seat on the plane. I was so surprised and thankful that I scored a window seat.

Today was a kind of fun day. It started with a quick run to Starbucks and then to the Sidney harbor. I’m not sure why I picked that location except it just seemed to be a normal starting place for a tourist. With pretty much the whole day free I decided to take a ferry to Cockatoo Island. I didn’t know anything about the island, and with a name like that who knows, maybe there are lots of cockatiels there. I was pleased when I got off the ferry to see that it was a museum of sorts. I guess the best comparison would be Alcatraz to San Francisco in that it is probably the same distance away and was used as a prison, among other things. It took about 2 hours to walk around the island and for the most part it was interesting. The island had been used for pretty much everything, from a prison to a shipyard. Most of the buildings that were left after the island was closed were straight out of the first part of the 20th century, big hangar type buildings with many of the lathes and winches that were used. I found no problem imagining what it must have been like to work there.

Probably the most interesting thing was that I got attacked by vicious man eating sea gulls, I guess because I got too close to their hatchlings. There was something about me that they didn’t like, and I couldn’t figure it out, but they would attack me and leave other wanderers alone. Maybe it was some sort of anti-American sentiment that drove them with such hate. At one point I wanted to walk down this path but I had been attacked earlier, and from my vantage point I could see there were too many sea gulls just sitting around, so I decided not to take the chance. That was until from behind some trees I see this guy walking around with his camera, the blood letting was going to be horrific once the gulls saw him, but he walked right along the path, that same path I just minutes before I had decided was going to be too dangerous for me. So cool, he walked on past with barely a squawk from the birds, so I thought it would be safe for me. As soon as I got close to the path the squawks started up, once I got on the path one very aggressive gull went at me. A few others took flight too, my guess they were the back up if I managed to get free of the first one. My defense was to grab for my hat. It had worked before that when I took my hat off, the gulls veered away from me. Anyway, I kept walking and managed to make it to freedom, but I didn’t take any more chances from then on.

My adventurism quenched for the day I went to find some place to buy a souvenir and get some lunch. The rest of the time was wandering around trying to walk slowly, trying to find something to occupy me for a few more minutes. I even went so far as to repack my backpacks, change clothes, and clean up a little. That brings me to where I am now, more than three hours early to the airport sitting on my backpack, computer plugged into an outlet under some phone booths, and trying to look as in

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Sydney right now. I left Adelaide yesterday almost exactly 24 hours ago and I feel like it too. It was a journey to say the least getting to where I am right now, and I’ve still got another 24 hours (clock time, but actual time is an extra 6) to go before I land in Dubai, and where I can finally relax.

Before we even boarded the bus in Adelaide we were running about 15 minutes late. I didn’t think it would be a big problem since I had somewhere around 30 minutes of a layover in Bendigo, where I change from a bus to a train. Soon my worst fears started to be realized. At each stop we started back up a little bit late until we were running a full thirty behind schedule. The bus driver realized the problem and made announcements about getting back to the bus on time, and generally just trying to make everyone understand what was at risk for most of us who were making the transfer at Bendigo. I was really starting to worry since I needed to make that train to get to Melbourne so I could catch another train to Sydney so I could get to the airport for my flight back to Dubai.

To put the situation in context try to imagine me counting every minute as if it were life and death. Every light we missed as we made our way to the station I was repeating in my head, “Run it. Run it!” So when we pulled into the bus station at Bendigo about 5 minutes late and I didn’t see any trains I thought the worst. I guess there was a delay down the line so the train wasn’t going to show up until 7 pm, a full two hours late. I guess the bus and train company are one in the same, so they hired a bus to make an express run to Melbourne. I showed up with about 20 minutes to spare for my train ride to Sydney.

Now that I’m here I’ve got about 12 hours before my flight to Dubai. It’s a long layover, but at least I’m familiar with the town so I think I should be able to kill the time effectively. I just wish that I had changed my clothes before I left my bags in storage. No worries, my “slept in hair” and wrinkled clothes will just be something for the locals to laugh at. If I’m lucky it will rain and that should tame my hair, and make everyone else’s clothes wrinkled. :)

I finally made it out of the hostel about 2 and most of the photos that I’ve posted in the last entry are ones that I took during my walk around the city, and to be honest there really isn’t too much to see. I asked the guy at the reception why it was so quiet, and he said it’s because of the holiday, today is January 1st. Whatever the reason it sure is dead around the city. When I went out later in the night I was taking photos instead of cool or interesting things in the city, but of how deserted it is. Whole streets without any cars for as far as you can see.

I did find the red light area, such as it is, and it was pretty much closed down for the night. The red light district was nothing more than a few strip clubs, and a few massage parlors. Even those businesses were closed there were a few restaurants that were open and had people eating, so it wasn’t completely closed down.

After talking to the people this morning I’ve been trying to figure out a way to summarize Australia in general, and Adelaide specifically. I know that it is completely wrong to rank on Adelaide when I haven’t really spent enough time here, but I think it’s fair to talk about Australia in general, at least if just to poke fun at them a little. What I came up with is, “The Stepford Country™” ☺ Got to trademark that.  Everything here is too right and too perfect for me to feel comfortable. There are rules for everything and many things seem to be controlled by taxes. I think there are many other reasons for it, but I won’t bore you trying to qualify my how I came up with it.

I’m leaving here tomorrow morning early, so although it’s only 9pm I’ve got go make sure that my bags are ready to go. My bus leaves at 725 so I’ll probably want to be at the station by at least 7, that means that I have to leave by 630, which means that I will have to wake up by at least 6, but probably it would be better by 530.