All The Comforts of Home

When my new roommate Fiona saw that, in my photographic frenzy my first day in Sydney, I had even taken a picture of the toilet, she was at least a little mortified. So I thought it would only be appropriate to use this as the first image of my inaugural post from Australia.

Aside from embarrassing my roommate, this isn't an altogether inappropriate image with which to introduce my first impressions of Australia (and particularly Sydney): it's clean, modern, and has a healthy respect for environmental conservation (but more about Australian flushing technology later). It also illustrates a bit of the luck I've had in landing here so far away from home-- a swank apartment in a really nice neighborhood with my own room and, holy of holies, my very own bathroom.

What more could a girl want?

The trip was downright easy, given the near full day of travel (and the mysterious loss of an entire Saturday somewhere over the ocean). In spite of a full flight, I scored an otherwise empty row of three seats on the 14-hour leg between San Francisco and Sydney. An hour or two in, someone from the middle moved in to the aisle seat but given the length of my legs I figured two seats would suit me just fine.

The highlights of my first Qantas flight?

1-- Actual food, for which I did not have to pay, including a palatable dinner, snack pack during the middle of the flight, and a nice hot breakfast in the morning.

2--A personal TV screen that allowed me to not only indulge in movies I might not get (or want) to see at home (most memorably Music and Lyrics this time around; Shooter was so awful I actually turned it off, and ran out of time to see the thus-far-very good Australian movie Jindabyne), but also watch my progress across much of the known world.



3-- My first introduction to the wonderful, if cryptic, world of Australian visual displays-- here in the form of a safety guide for the Qantas 747 we were on-- to wit:

• during certain portions of the flight (takeoff, landing), a number of electronic items may not be used, including laptops and music players.
  
  
• in contrast, under no circumstances should a Furby ever be allowed on board an aircraft. I think we can all guess why.

On arrival in Balmain, the suburb of Sydney where I'll be spending the winter, Fiona informed me that I was to stay awake for the rest of the day. This was the best prescription for beating jet lag, and coincidentally led to a whirlwind tour of the beautiful, if soggy, Sydney.

My first view of the city (aside from the less than picturesque streets I had traveled on the taxi ride over) was across Darling Harbor, from the Balmain East ferry stop, at the end of our main street, to a clear view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.



Grey and rainy, but still impressive.

From here we headed off to Centennial Park, a huge park that includes a horse track, football stadium, mall and Fox Studios (where they actually do some filming), took in a substandard Leonardo da Vinci machines exhibition, and had the best chorizo rolls ever. This was followed by an evening ride out to Bondi Beach, one of Sydney's more famous (and backpacker-infested) beaches. Despite the intermittent rain, stormy skies and angry waves (or perhaps because of them) the surfers were out in respectable numbers. We made it just in time to catch a very pretty post-storm sunset.



And here is my first view of an Australian rainbow-- though certainly not my last. Apparently this is the wettest weather New South Wales has seen in many years (just our luck) and I've spotted one pretty much every day of my first week here.



Not a bad way to end a first day, wouldn't you agree? I made it until 8pm (with a lot of effort) and then, having had plenty to fill my head (and camera) for one day, it was off to bed for me.