Kicking off the Antipodal Vacay June 20, 2007

The first moment of our trip was stepping out of my parents’ home in Mountain Lakes with our wheel-y luggage and walking towards the bus stop on the Boulevard.  This bus would take us to Port Authority in NYC where we would catch a bus to JFK airport.  We were already exhausted after spending the last week moving Tim into our apartment in NYC (he just graduated from business school at Dartmouth in NH, where he had been living for the last 2 years) and preparing it to be subletted on Craigslist.  I was sick, caught Tim’s URI.  So before we even started, we were TIRED. 

Somehow, it was amazing that walking out the front door was the first step to seeing kangeroos.  Australia was the winner among many destinations which we had considered-Poland, Ireland, Maine, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea.  So after months of deliberating, then weeks of anticipation, and 0 days planning, we were off.  All we knew was that we were flying into Sydney on the 20^th and flying out 3 weeks later.   Vague plans included a couple of days in Sydney, a camping trip on Fraser Island, a scuba trip in the Great Barrier Reef, visiting my cousin in New Zealand.  I was also pushing for warmer climates; it is currently winter in Australia and we had heard some passing news on NPR that Sydney and all of New South Wales, the southeastern coast, were experiencing flooding and cyclones.  Didn’t look into it much, but I was sure this was going to be Salobrena – Part Deux.  Salobrena will forever in my mind represent a misguided vacation, a vacation version of the real world.  Take 7 people who either don’t know or like each other, 2 of them ex-military/CIA,  put them in a house with no heat, in the middle of what is supposed to be a cool March of 60 and 70 degree weather but is actually a very wet (worst rains in 50 years) and cold 40s,  take away 1 rental car, add the Spanish language barrier and one stinky pizza and you have Salobrena, Spring break 2006. One lesson I learned was weather, weather, weather. 

I also considered my warm climate locations more exotic.  As Tim put it, my biggest problem with Australia was so many white people.  It’s true.  After 30 hours of travel, 24 of which were at 600miles/hr, I expected to be a bit disappointed to see people who look like me, newspapers in English discussing Desperate Housewives, and winter. 

Indonesia-Bali, Sumatra, Java not only sounded delicious, but would also be more interesting. 

I got vetoed.  We barely had enough time to do Australia, much less Australia, NZ, and Indonesia.  It was true, we needed at least 6 months for everything we needed to do. We decided to spend however long we felt like in the tropical Northeast “sunny coast” and as long as I saw Kangeroos, Koalas, some Aborigines and Maori, I was happy. 

So we were off. 

On the bus ride, I started reading about corporate interest in reducing global warming, the topic of the first of the many Economists I brought.  Tim was reading about New Zealand, I felt a bit guilty for not being more in the moment and picked up Bill Bryson’s Sunburnt Country. 

The ride was over soon and before I led us to the subway to take the E train to the whatever to the whatever, Tim proposed we check to see if there are shuttles to JFK.  In my cynical, Bellevue-jaded way, I responded, “that would make too much sense.” He was right and off in comfort, we rode out to JFK.  At JFK we waited an hour or so.  Flew to San Fran, waited 30 min, and were off on our 15 hr flight to Sydney.  At this point, we had been traveling for 10 hours already.  Surprisingly, the flight was quite bearable.  A couple of movies, some Economists, Sunburnt Country, sleep, Economist, food, sleep, food, bathroom and we arrived.  We were a bit disappointed when we landed. 

It looked cold and gray.  It was raining.  We queued up at the Taxi stand and were picked up by a Ghanian driver in a nice leather-seated car, being driven on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car.  At some point, it occurred to us that only island nations stayed with the original “wrong side of the road/car” driving- England, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia….  Probably because you can’t drive to it.  They are automotively isolated and hence can do what they want.  Ghana is in the commonwealth, along with Australia, India, South Africa, and recently readmitted Pakistan.  Which doesn’t seem to be of much significance except for the existence of the Commonwealth Games which include Anglo sports such as cricket and whatever else these ex-colonies enjoy.  Apparently, this is a global event of much anticipation. 

The driver had left Ghana in 1979 as had most of his family.  Coming to Australia was fairly easy, he stated.  Based on some point system in which the more points the better, you got 75 points just for speaking English and some other amount for being from a commonwealth member.  If you made it to a 100 points, you could be an Australian.  According to his estimate, there are about 200,000 Ghanians in Sydney. Seemed like a pretty unassuming endeavor but actually immigrating to Australia has historically been nearly impossible.  Separated by 15,000 miles from its motherland, England, it took 4 months for the initial convicts, military and family, navy, etc to make to the sunburnt coast (amazing on this voyage was that only one dude was no associated with any of that, the only civilian…I would pay to find out what the hell he was thinking).  For the next couple hundred years, other than being lured by a gold rush that occurred approximately the same time as the one in California, not many people wanted to come to Australia.  Definitely no non-whites were allowed.  It wasn’t until after WWII when Australia realized that it needed to increase its population if it were to survive that they expanded their pedigree (England had abandoned Australia to fend for itself against the Japanese after losing Burma and Singapore and pulling out of the Far East).  The zeal for immigration meant more Italians and Greeks and the White Australia immigration policy lasted until the 70s.  It was apparently this time that the Ghanians were welcomed. 

 The Ghanian and Tim talked Socceroo, my new favorite word.  What is known all over the world as football is called soccer here, as in the States, and the national team is the Socceroos (maybe like ‘roos..the short for kangeroos? just a guess).  I am always impressed when Tim corrects foreigners on the details of this sport.  In this instance, he corrected the driver about the outcome of a Ghana-US game (although the US lost, we had gotten a goal, a point of disagreement until the driver conceded).  It reminded me of a conversation Tim had in Aruba with a Dutch guy from a small town in the Netherlands.  Tim educated him, much to his surprise, on the history, stats, challenges and hopes of his local small town soccer team, unheard of by many Dutch. 

Then the topic changed to what I considered a more pertinent-the weather.  Has been raining for weeks, flooding in fact.  Cold.  Winds today expected to reach 100 km/hr.  Tim and I exchanged sad yet falsely encouraging glances, “hey, we’re still going to have some fun.”  All I need is to curl up with a good book, right? After all, this vacation is about relaxation.  I just finished my intern year and just need to rest.  Another part of me was screaming, GO TO BALI! Get rid of the wheel-y suitcase, buy a real backpack, enjoy the last of your 20s…you need to be free!  I was so tired and hadn’t slept.  Tim refers to this state of mine as “getting my grump on.”  Usually completely reversible with sushi, some chocolate, and a nap.

We arrived at Wake Up! Hostel (already with my grump on, this name irritated me) and had to wait 4 hours to check in (grump is definitely on).  Still raining, still cold.  While Tim did something online (I assume it had to do with planning our vacation) I checked my email, wrote a few woeful words to friends and signed off.  We dumped our bags in the storage room and got some coffee at the hostel café. 

Australians do their coffee right.  We opened up a newspaper…this was the wettest and coldest June in 57 years.  Sounded like Salobrena (“I’ve been living in Southern Spain  since the 70s and have never seen it rain so much, the cactuses are dying.)  We realized we had a gift.  If doctoring and banking failed, we would become Drought Busters.  It would be an exciting life of travel and intense heat and sunshine relieved by soothing rains. 

My grump continued until the dim sum.  The Australians apparently eat dim sum, called yam cha, for brunch like we do eggs benedict.  Tim’s mom gave us a Travel & Leisure article on Sydney’s restaurants before we left which recommended a dim sum place near our hotel.  As advertised, it was a large ball-room type of room, seating up to 600 people, carpeted in red, and in served us the most amazing dim sum I had ever had…delicious ricecake outer shell with fresh seafood and veggie fillings, jasmine tea, and mango pancakes for desert.  It combined the efficiency of East (my go-to sushi rotating bar restaurant in NYC) with the deliciousness of Pacific Rim cuisine.  Grum is off.  

After breakfast, we checked into the hotel and went for what most people suffering from severe jetlag and 30 hours of travel do- a long exploratory run.  We put on our Brooks and headed off to explore the city in the only way that would fend off a likely narcoleptic coma on a bus.  Ran through a beautiful park, Hyde Park and to the Botanical Gardens.   More on the details of this another time.  The things we saw there are a topic all of their own and will be listed under a different column called, “Things that can kill you in Australia or look like they want to.”  Suffice it to say, this was no Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. 

The rest of the run took us to the Harbour and in view of the beautiful Opera House.  We ran through the Opera House, under the Harbour Bridge, on “The Rocks,” got some food, drank some coffee, and headed back home.   

As packed as this day was, we could not get over how slowly time was passing.  After all this, we had barely made it to 4pm.  It just wasn’t possible, as we felt we had been out all day, had toured through all of Sydney, exercised, read in cafes. 

We did dinner at the Dr. Seuss sounding, Spice I Am, again recommended by Travel and Leisure.  Spice it was. Damn.  I couldn’t eat more than the “little bit spicy,ok?” seafood soup or the “not spicy” papaya salad..my lips had never and for this long burned so badly.   But the beef dish was out of this world and overall, we were extremely impressed and happy.  We passed out at home at a pathetic 7pm at our hostel. 

Overall, it was an amazing first day of the vacation.