October 19th: DRIVING TO TOWN AND THEN SOME

There is, of course, a line for the taxi and we're routed to a very friendly cab driver with a station wagon. He talks with a raid fire sing-song Bangladeshi accent and recites a tale regarding finding someone's mobile left in his cab for which the owner's offered him $500 when it's returned. He didn't say whether or not he'd be accepting the reward, but only that he'd be returning it promptly. The whole business of his extreme honesty is called into question at the hotel where he soaks us for $50 American plus a nice tip. I was too tired to ask the pertinent question at the airport: "how much for the trip to St. George Street?" So we're here. Our hotel is small but adequate with a very friendly staff and it's called the Pensione so it must be charming. Note: It's been refurbished and has a great shower. Good one. We leave our luggage until our room is readied and set off in search of a tour of Sydney Harbour. Gosh I love those AAA Guide Books - small enough to take in a purse and they have proven invaluable. The Harbour turns out to be much easier to access than Australian cash which we need even to get on the bus. Damn Versatel. Challenge of the day: Figuring out the money and the bus and where our hotel is located once we've left it. Everyone is happy to help us even to the point of making change for us on the bus when they aren't supposed to. We take the bus to Circular Quay where we've opted for a wee harbour cruise. We instantly see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Both are very beautiful. Neither is enormous, but are right-sized for the location. The cruise is lovely, the narration informative, and the weather quite wonderful. Sitting in the sun, my eyes close a few times while we're returning to the dock. In the resting state, I'm dreaming of lying down. (My mother always claimed that babies need to lie down to stretch themselves and that they could grow quite desparate if denied. I understand it.) En route home, we know we need correct change for the bus, so we purchase a postcard, here and a drink there, still holding out the money for them to take what they need. Later we see that the denomination is prominently displayed on one side of the coin although the smallest coin is $2 and another very large one is 25 cents. Sydney has provided a beautiful and perfect day with throngs of people who are all pretty pleasant. Lots of ethnicities, languages and cultures seem to converge on this spot. Reminds me of Key West meets Santa Monica but with really poorly dressed people. I can't quite figure out why there is literally no one who looks put together and why so many people are in hot and clingly polyester. Eh gads, I feel the hot flash rising. Ron and I fit right in to the less than fashion conscious crowd. A treat not to worry about appearances, really. When I speak to the shopkeepers, I have to repeat myself and ask them to repeat themselves, quite often. I read in my guidebook that the often rapid-fire speech and endless but entertaining colloquialisms are all part of "Strine" - that would be Australian English to you, mates. It's fun once you get into the rhythm of it but when it's fast, it's furious! So we enjoyed the cruise boat which was lightly peopled and just right after the crowds at the airports. And being on the water was bliss. Grabbed a snack en route home since we got off the bus prematurely. Like I mentioned, we couldn't exactly remember where our hotel was. The bonus was passing by a Starbucks and scoring a cup of java, as sister Linda would say. Not up to standards, mate, but it was still pretty tasty. For dinner, we walked down to Darling Harbour and found the ubiquitous Subway place. Lovely area with a Chinese Garden that I would have liked to visit, but it was closed. We got back to hotel and were in bed by 7:30 P.M. since we were out of gas and wanted to be fresh for our exciting Syndey Harbour Bridge walk the next day. It's all good in Australia!